Steve Bransford, Blues in the Lower Chattachoochee Valley

The Lower Chattahoochee River Valley region has one of the richest traditions of blues music in America; but, apart from long-time residents of the region and a handful of blues afficianados, the blues legacy of the Lower Chattahoochee Valley is largely ignored. The region — defined here as the eighteen counties that hug the Chattahoochee River along the Georgia/Alabama border, along with three additional counties in Georgia that have traditionally been a hotbed for blues music — doesn't have a revered blues reputation like the Mississippi Delta. That's probably due to the fact that virtually no 78's of country blues emerged from the Lower Chattahoochee Valley from the twenties through the forties and only a small number of Lower Chattahoochee blues 45's, LP's, and CD's have been issued since the fifties. The material that has been released mostly consists of field recordings and live performances put out by small record labels and various historical societies.

One person has been largely responsible for documenting the rich blues tradition of the Lower Chattahoochee Valley: George Mitchell. From the late sixties through the eighties, Mitchell recorded dozens of nonprofessional blues artists, many of whom were old enough to have recorded before World War II. More than just an amazing portrait of talent and creativity, Mitchell's recordings demonstrate that the region has developed a unique blues sound. Of course, a wide range of external influences can be heard in Lower Chattahoochee blues including Delta blues, Piedmont blues, Chicago blues, rock 'n' roll, and various threads of pop music; but Lower Chattahoochee blues artists, through their original songwriting and adaptations of blues standards, have collectively created a blues sound that is all their own.

This site has been designed to be modular, dynamic and media-rich. Rather than develop a linear narrative about the history of Lower Chattahoochee blues, I will present a series of interconnected fragments that will allow the user to piece together their own narrative of the region's blues legacy. The web-based approach also allows for content to be continually added and edited, and I invite users to contact me if they have material that they feel might be useful for the site or if they have any comments about what's already up. Images and sounds are as important as text within this site, and I will do my best to continually add more audio, video, maps, and photographs to round out this portrait of Lower Chattahoochee blues.