Electric blues

Blues played on amplified instruments, in which the guitar's tone, sustain and overdrive become part of the idiom.

Amplification changed the blues not just in volume but in vocabulary: sustained notes, controlled feedback and the compressed, singing tone of a valve amplifier gave the guitar an expressive range the acoustic could not match. Players built entire styles around the way an amplifier responds to touch, and the transition between clean and distorted became one of the main expressive tools. It sits at the point where blues, rhythm and blues and early rock and roll meet.

Example: A slow minor blues solo in which the guitar tone is on the edge of breaking up is electric blues playing.

Electric blues

See also