Blues rock is a mix of rock and blues music. It uses the chords and scales from blues and includes improvisation with instruments. It is mostly electric music, with instruments like electric guitar, bass, drums, and sometimes keyboards or harmonica. Starting in the early 1960s, blues rock changed over time and influenced hard rock, Southern rock, and early heavy metal.
Blues rock began with rock musicians in the United Kingdom and the United States playing American blues songs. These musicians often performed electric Chicago blues songs, such as those by Willie Dixon, Muddy Waters, and Jimmy Reed, but played them faster and with a more powerful sound. In the UK, bands like the Rolling Stones, the Yardbirds, and the Animals helped popularize the style by making blues songs popular in the pop charts. In the US, Lonnie Mack, the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, and Canned Heat were among the first to perform blues rock. Some of these bands also played long, complex improvisations, similar to those found in jazz. By the late 1960s and early 1970s, blues rock became more similar to hard rock. In the US, artists like Johnny Winter, the early Allman Brothers Band, and ZZ Top played hard rock styles. In the UK, bands like Led Zeppelin, Ten Years After, Chicken Shack, and Foghat also played hard rock.
Blues rock songs became a major part of album-oriented rock radio in the United States. Later, during the 1980s, blues rock was a key part of the classic rock radio format.
Characteristics
The blues provided rock music with strong support and care, helping it grow through difficult times and always offering a place to return, no matter how far it went.
Blues rock music often includes elements like improvisation, long instrumental sections focused on electric guitar solos, and a heavier, more rhythm-driven sound compared to traditional Chicago-style blues. Blues rock bands took ideas from rock & roll, such as using a group of instruments and loud amplifiers. This style of music is often played at a fast pace, which sets it apart from traditional blues.
Blues rock songs usually follow common blues structures, such as the twelve-bar or sixteen-bar formats. They often use the I-IV-V chord progression, though some songs include a different section labeled "B," while others stay on the I chord. For example, The Allman Brothers Band's version of "Stormy Monday" uses chord changes from Bobby "Blue" Bland's 1961 recording and includes a solo section where the rhythm shifts to a faster, jazz-like feel. The music is typically in a major key, but sometimes uses a minor key, as in "Black Magic Woman."
A key difference is the use of a steady eighth-note rhythm or rock beat, rather than the triplet rhythms common in traditional blues. An example is Cream's "Crossroads," which was based on Robert Johnson's "Cross Road Blues." In this song, the bass and drums work together to create a consistent, driving rhythm.
1960s–1970s
Rock music uses strong rhythms and electric guitar techniques like distortion and power chords, which were already used by 1950s electric blues guitarists, especially Memphis blues musicians such as Joe Hill Louis, Willie Johnson, and Pat Hare. Blues rock borrowed features from electric blues, including its thick sound, basic blues band instruments, rough vocal style, heavy guitar riffs, string-bending guitar solos, strong beat, and energetic performances. Earlier influences for blues rock included Chicago blues musicians like Elmore James, Albert King, and Freddie King, who began adding rock and roll elements to their blues music in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
In 1963, American rock guitarist Lonnie Mack appeared. His unique, fast-paced electric blues style became linked to the start of blues rock as a separate genre. His songs from that time sounded like blues or rhythm and blues, but he used fast guitar techniques from traditional country and bluegrass music. His most famous songs, "Memphis" and "Wham!," were hits on the Billboard charts in 1963. Around the same time, the Paul Butterfield Blues Band was formed. Led by blues harmonica player and singer Paul Butterfield, the band included members from Howlin' Wolf’s touring group, such as bassist Jerome Arnold and drummer Sam Lay. Later, the band added electric guitarists Mike Bloomfield and Elvin Bishop. In 1965, the band released its first album, The Paul Butterfield Blues Band. AllMusic’s Michael Erlewine noted that the album had a big impact on young rock musicians, especially White ones, who were used to hearing blues covered by groups like the Rolling Stones. The band’s second album, East West (1966), included long guitar solos with influences from jazz and Indian music, setting an example for psychedelic and acid rock. In 1965, blues fans Bob Hite and Alan Wilson formed Canned Heat. Their early music focused on electric versions of Delta blues songs, but they later created long improvisations based on John Lee Hooker’s songs. Other popular 1960s groups, like the Doors and Big Brother and the Holding Company with Janis Joplin, also adapted blues songs to include rock elements. Butterfield, Canned Heat, and Joplin performed at the Monterey (1967) and Woodstock (1969) festivals.
In the UK, some musicians practiced in British blues bands, especially those led by Cyril Davies and Alexis Korner. Early British rhythm and blues groups, such as the Rolling Stones, the Yardbirds, and the Animals, included American R&B, rock and roll, and pop music. John Mayall took a more focused approach on electric blues. In 1966, he released Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton, one of several influential blues rock albums. When Eric Clapton left Mayall to form Cream, the band blended blues, rock, and jazz improvisation, creating a new and innovative style. The British band Fleetwood Mac originally played traditional electric blues but later evolved. Their guitarist, Peter Green, who replaced Clapton in Mayall’s band, brought new ideas to their music. Chicken Shack, early Jethro Tull, Keef Hartley Band, and Climax Blues Band also recorded blues rock songs.
The electric guitar playing of Jimi Hendrix, who had experience in American rhythm and blues and soul groups in the early to mid-1960s, and his power trios, the Jimi Hendrix Experience and Band of Gypsys, greatly influenced blues rock, especially for guitarists. Clapton continued exploring different musical styles and helped bring blues rock into the mainstream. In the late 1960s, Jeff Beck, with his band the Jeff Beck Group, developed blues rock into a form of heavy rock. Jimmy Page, who joined the Yardbirds after Beck, later formed Led Zeppelin and became a major figure in the 1970s heavy metal scene. Other blues rock musicians in the 1970s included Pat Travers, Rory Gallagher, Robin Trower, and Roy Buchanan.
Starting in the early 1970s, American bands like Aerosmith combined blues with a hard rock sound. Blues rock also included Southern rock groups, such as the Allman Brothers Band, ZZ Top, and Lynyrd Skynyrd. Meanwhile, the British blues rock scene, except for groups like Status Quo and Foghat, focused more on heavy metal innovation.
1980s–present
In the early 1970s, blues rock and hard rock had many things in common. However, by the 1980s, more traditional blues styles began to influence blues rock. During this time, bands and artists such as The Fabulous Thunderbirds, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Georgia Satellites, and Robert Cray recorded their most famous songs. In the 1990s, guitarists Gary Moore, Jeff Healey, and Kenny Wayne Shepherd became popular performers at concerts. Female blues singers like Bonnie Raitt, Susan Tedeschi, Joanne Shaw Taylor, Beth Hart, Shannon Curfman, and Sue Foley also released blues rock albums.
Other musicians, such as the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion and Ben Harper, created alternative blues rock songs. Gary Clark Jr., who combines blues, rock, and soul in his music, is considered a blues rock artist. A music magazine called Rolling Stone described his albums Blak and Blu (2012) and The Story of Sonny Boy Slim (2015) as having a modern blues-rock sound.
In 2017, a Hungarian band named Bulls of Prey was formed and became successful in the blues rock genre. In 2020, Joe Bonamassa, a well-known blues rock performer, started a record label called Keeping the Blues Alive Records. Other artists, including Larry McCray, Robert Jon & the Wreck, and Joanna Connor, released music on this label. The artist Dion also had several top-selling albums through KTBA.