The state governor, Haley Barbour, flanked by local bigwigs commemorated the first giant of the blues, Charley Patton, in Holly Ridge on the Mississippi Blues Trail leaving an inaugural marker.

THE BLUES AND AFRICAN ROOTS
By: Lynn Griffith, March 20.2007
While no one disputes that the blues is rooted in Africa and came from African Americans, the direct connection to African music is not immediately obvious. There is, after all, not one style of African music, but many, varying by region and village. While the human race itself began in Africa, it has been said that a lack of navigable rivers reduced travel and interaction between African tribes, leading to the diversity of language, culture and music on the continent. Slaves were not kidnapped from all of Africa, but generally from coastal West Africa. Here, there is a long history of Griots, or solo musicians that would entertain in the community.
Slaves were imported for approximately 300 years into the new world. Upon arrival, they were often promptly separated from their families and tribe members. Much of their African culture was taken away from them. Slave owners were afraid things such as drumming could contain secret messages, which could lead to revolt, so they forbade it. Hence, the forced residents of the new world lost much of their culture over time. Additionally, several generations passed between the time of the abolition of slavery and of development of what we know as blues. I have played and recorded several slave songs, and I wouldn’t call them bluesy at all. There are no flatted thirds or sevenths, and the chord changes and timing are a little bit counterintuitive to my white, western ears. At the same time, the music is fascinating, though rather haunting to play.
The rhymed couplets that make up the lyrics of what we know as blues music today originated in the field hollers and work songs, often on southern plantations. Call and response songs were used to lift the spirits of the workers, to communicate instructions and feelings and to help the workers get through their days of hard physical labor. While you can hear echoes of blues rhythms in the music of sub-Saharan Africa, many blues rhythms likely developed from slaves digging, pounding, chopping and hammering to build railroads, etc.
In addition to drums, stringed musical instruments in many cases have their origins in Africa, including the banjo, which was initially made from animal skins stretched over a dried gourd, with sticks for a neck and gut strings. The banjo was a primary instrument of the slaves, and similar instruments are still handmade in Africa today. Some African music uses a pentatonic scale, which has a few notes in common with the also pentatonic blues scale, though there are differences. Most modern African music has little in common with American blues, though you can hear hints now and then.
The blues music of the early twentieth century also contains references to African beliefs and superstitions, including the devil and witchcraft. When the early bluesmen sang about how badly their women treated them, it was often a veiled reference to bad treatment by their bosses. The African Americans couldn’t openly complain about such things, but they could encode it in song.
Another interesting reference is the oft-used blues line about how when a woman walks, she shakes like a wattle tree. This is often morphed into willow or wild oak trees in some versions, but neither willows nor wild oak trees shake appreciably. The wattle trees are species of acacia, native to Africa and Australia. Their seedpods are flat, and they shake and rattle on the windy plains of the Africa Savannah. The links to African roots in the blues is subtle, but they are there and for me that makes it even more fascinating.