Blues  •  Electric Blues

Urban Blues

Overview Artists Albums Songs

The descriptive phrase Urban Blues was first used in the early part of the 20th century to differentiate between the more uptown sentiments pervasive to the style and the cruder, more rural stylings of country-blues artists. This term was later used in the 1940s to describe a type of sophisticated blues written about the vagaries of city life, its lyrics alternately dealing with romantic strife and the innumerable good times to be easily obtained in an urban area. Always city-derived, the music is earmarked by a pronounced uptown emphasis, embracing everything from jump blues to jazz-influenced stylings to smooth, supper-club-style vocals.