Spirituals, The Blues Connection ... Spirituals are the work, and plantation
songs that evolved into the blues and gospel songs for worship. In the 19th
century, the word ‘Spirituals’ referred to essentially folksongs. Although they
were often rooted in biblical stories, they also showed us the hardships of
people who were the slaves from the17th century onwards. Many new music
genres including what we now call the blues emerged from spirituals but, as
we shall see, the genre we now call the blues existed even before the
spirituals, and in fact were an element of the Spirituals, only the format we’re
familiar with was different.
Initially, we found the wonderful lady, Mammy Prater. Mammy, her real name
was Annie, but she preferred Mammy. She was born a slave in 1805. She was
our inspiration to research and to discover the spirituals and their connection
with the blues.

Follow the Drinking Gourd - pdf

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When exploring where the 'Blues' originated, we generally  look to the spirituals of the 19/early 20th Century. ​​The Spirituals, the Blues connection – Myths and Legends, so often the two merge and become vague, but like so many of these stories the truth is in their somewhere and is usually based on some kind of reality. 

It is known that the spirituals had many uses, as a form of
worship, to express misery and pain, and to cry out for deliverance
from persecution, this song and possibly to a greater extent ‘Steal
away’, was a means of conveying coded messages of clandestine
meetings, or gatherings.