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Delta blues is one of the earliest-known styles of blues. It originated in the Mississippi Delta and is regarded as a regional variant of country blues. Guitar and harmonica are its dominant instruments; slide guitar is a hallmark of the style. Vocal styles in Delta blues range from introspective and soulful to passionate and fiery.
Charlie Patton recorded for Paramount in Grafton, in June 1929 and May 1930. He also traveled to New York City for recording sessions in January and February 1934.
Son House first recorded in Grafton, Wisconsin, in 1930 for Paramount Records.
Robert Johnson recorded his only sessions, in San Antonio in 1936 and in Dallas in 1937, for ARC. Many other artists were recorded during this period.
Subsequently, the early Delta blues (as well as other genres) were extensively recorded by John Lomax and his son Alan Lomax, who crisscrossed the southern U.S. recording music played and sung by ordinary people, helping establish the canon of genres known today as American folk music. Their recordings, numbering in the thousands, now reside in the Smithsonian Institution. According to Dixon and Godrich (1981) and Leadbitter and Slaven (1968), Alan Lomax and the Library of Congress researchers did not record any Delta bluesmen or blueswomen prior to 1941, when he recorded Son House and Willie Brown near Lake Cormorant, Mississippi, and Muddy Waters at Stovall, Mississippi. However, among others, John and Alan Lomax recorded Lead Belly in 1933, and Bukka White in 1939.
Geeshie Wiley was a blues singer and guitar player who recorded six songs for Paramount Records that were issued on three records in April 1930. According to the blues historian Don Kent, Wiley "may well have been the rural South's greatest female blues singer and musician".Kent, Don (1994). Liner notes to Mississippi Masters: Early American Blues Classics 1927–35. Reprinted at ParamountsHome.org. Retrieved 18 September 2016.
L.V. Thomas, better known as Elvie Thomas, was a blues singer and guitarist from Houston, Texas, who recorded with Geeshie Wiley.
Memphis Minnie was a blues guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter whose recording career lasted for more than three decades. She recorded approximately 200 songs, some of the best known being "Bumble Bee", "Nothing in Rambling", and "Chauffeur Blues".
Bertha Lee was a blues singer, active in the 1920s and 1930s. She recorded with, and was the common-law wife of, Charley Patton."Biography by Joslyn Layne". AllMusic. Retrieved September 21, 2011.
Rosa Lee Hill, daughter of Sid Hemphill, learned guitar from her father and by the time she was ten, was playing at dances with him. Liner notes, Lomax Collection, Culturalequity.org Several of her songs, such as "Rolled and Tumbled", were recorded by Alan Lomax between 1959 and 1960. In the late 1960s, Jo Ann Kelly (UK) started her recording career. In the 1970s, Bonnie Raitt and Phoebe Snow performed blues.
Bonnie Raitt, Susan Tedeschi and Rory Block are contemporary female blues artists, who were influenced by Delta blues and learned from some of the most notable of the original artists still living. Sue Foley and Shannon Curfman also performed blues music.
Delta blues was also an inspiration for the creation of British skiffle music, from which eventually came the British invasion bands, while simultaneously influencing British blues that led to the birth of early hard rock and heavy metal.
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