1.
Tunica, Mississippi
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Tunica is a town in and the county seat of Tunica County, Mississippi, near the Mississippi River. Until the early 1990s, the town was one of the most impoverished places in the United States. Tunica is the community to serve as county seat of Tunica County, succeeding earlier county seats at Commerce, Peyton. Tunica gained national attention for its deprived neighborhood known as Sugar Ditch Alley and its fortunes have improved since development of a gambling resort area nearby. While population growth has occurred mostly outside Tunica, the major casinos employ numerous locals and they attract visitors from nearby Memphis, Tennessee, West Memphis, Arkansas and all over the Southeastern United States. Tunica is located approximately 20 miles south of Downtown Memphis, Tennessee, according to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 0.7 square miles, all land. As of the census of 2000, there were 1,132 people,537 households, the population density was 1,588.4 people per square mile. There were 592 housing units at a density of 830.7 per square mile. The racial makeup of the town was 67. 84% White,29. 42% African American,0. 27% Native American,1. 06% Asian,0. 88% from other races, hispanic or Latino of any race were 2. 30% of the population. Of all households,48. 0% were made up of individuals and 26. 4% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older, the average household size was 2.01 and the average family size was 2.94. In the town, the population was out with 18. 9% under the age of 18,6. 1% from 18 to 24,23. 4% from 25 to 44,28. 3% from 45 to 64. The median age was 46 years, for every 100 females there were 87.7 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 80.0 males, the median income for a household in the town was $26,607, and the median income for a family was $54,583. Males had an income of $30,208 versus $22,250 for females. The per capita income for the town was $20,114, about 17. 1% of families and 25. 5% of the population were below the poverty line, including 33. 3% of those under age 18 and 21. 3% of those age 65 or over. Casino gamblings effect on the economy has spurred population growth in unincorporated parts of the county outside Tunica proper. Since 1990, the name has been popularly associated with several casinos located near the Mississippi River. However, the current group of casinos is located from the community of Tunica Resorts,10 miles north of the town of Tunica, and extending to the DeSoto County line
2.
Mississippi
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Mississippi /ˌmɪsᵻˈsɪpi/ is a state in the southern region of the United States, with part of its southern border formed by the Gulf of Mexico. Its western border is formed by the Mississippi River, the state has a population of approximately 3 million. It is the 32nd most extensive and the 32nd most populous of the 50 United States, located in the center of the state, Jackson is the state capital and largest city, with a population of approximately 175,000 people. The state is heavily forested outside of the Mississippi Delta area, before the American Civil War, most development in the state was along riverfronts, where slaves worked on cotton plantations. After the war, the bottomlands to the interior were cleared, by the end of the 19th century, African Americans made up two-thirds of the Deltas property owners, but timber and railroad companies acquired much of the land after a financial crisis. Clearing altered the Deltas ecology, increasing the severity of flooding along the Mississippi, much land is now held by agribusinesses. The states catfish aquaculture farms produce the majority of farm-raised catfish consumed in the United States, since the 1930s and the Great Migration, Mississippi has been majority white, albeit with the highest percentage of black residents of any U. S. state. From the early 19th century to the 1930s, its residents were mostly black, whites retained political power through Jim Crow laws. In 2010, 37% of Mississippians were African Americans, the highest percentage of African Americans in any U. S. state, since gaining enforcement of their voting franchise in the late 1960s, most African Americans support Democratic candidates in local, state and national elections. Conservative whites have shifted to the Republican Party, African Americans are a majority in many counties of the Mississippi-Yazoo Delta, an area of historic settlement during the plantation era. Since 2011 Mississippi has been ranked as the most religious state in the country, the states name is derived from the Mississippi River, which flows along its western boundary. Settlers named it after the Ojibwe word misi-ziibi, in addition to its namesake, major rivers in Mississippi include the Big Black River, the Pearl River, the Yazoo River, the Pascagoula River, and the Tombigbee River. Major lakes include Ross Barnett Reservoir, Arkabutla Lake, Sardis Lake, Mississippi is entirely composed of lowlands, the highest point being Woodall Mountain, in the foothills of the Cumberland Mountains,807 feet above sea level. The lowest point is sea level at the Gulf coast, the states mean elevation is 300 feet above sea level. Most of Mississippi is part of the East Gulf Coastal Plain, the coastal plain is generally composed of low hills, such as the Pine Hills in the south and the North Central Hills. The Pontotoc Ridge and the Fall Line Hills in the northeast have somewhat higher elevations, yellow-brown loess soil is found in the western parts of the state. The northeast is a region of black earth that extends into the Alabama Black Belt. The coastline includes large bays at Bay St. Louis, Biloxi, the northwest remainder of the state consists of the Mississippi Delta, a section of the Mississippi Alluvial Plain
3.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
4.
Austin, Texas
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Austin is the capital of the U. S. state of Texas and the seat of Travis County. It is the 11th-most populous city in the U. S. and it is the fastest growing large city in the United States and the second most populous capital city after Phoenix, Arizona. As of the U. S. Census Bureaus July 1,2015 estimate and it is the cultural and economic center of the Austin–Round Rock metropolitan area, which had an estimated population of 2,056,405 as of July 1,2016. In the 1830s, pioneers began to settle the area in central Austin along the Colorado River, in 1839, the site was officially chosen to replace Houston as the new capital of the Republic of Texas and was incorporated under the name Waterloo. Shortly thereafter, the name was changed to Austin in honor of Stephen F. Austin, the Father of Texas and the republics first secretary of state. The city subsequently grew throughout the 19th century and became a center for government and education with the construction of the Texas State Capitol and the University of Texas at Austin. After a lull in growth from the Great Depression, Austin resumed its development into a city and, by the 1980s, it emerged as a center for technology. A number of Fortune 500 companies have headquarters or regional offices in Austin, including Amazon. com, cisco, eBay, Google, IBM, Intel, Oracle Corporation, Texas Instruments, 3M, and Whole Foods Market. Dells worldwide headquarters is located in nearby Round Rock, a suburb of Austin, residents of Austin are known as Austinites. They include a mix of government employees, college students, musicians, high-tech workers, blue-collar workers. The city also adopted Silicon Hills as a nickname in the 1990s due to an influx of technology. In the late 1800s, Austin was known as the City of the Violet Crown because of the glow of light across the hills just after sunset. Even today, many Austin businesses use the term Violet Crown in their name, Austin is known as a clean-air city for its stringent no-smoking ordinances that apply to all public places and buildings, including restaurants and bars. The FBI ranked Austin as the second-safest major city in the U. S. for the year 2012, U. S. News & World Report named Austin the best place to live in the U. S. in 2017. Austin, Travis County and Williamson County have been the site of habitation since at least 9200 BC. When settlers arrived from Europe, the Tonkawa tribe inhabited the area, the Comanches and Lipan Apaches were also known to travel through the area. Spanish colonists, including the Espinosa-Olivares-Aguirre expedition, traveled through the area for centuries, in 1730, three missions from East Texas were combined and reestablished as one mission on the south side of the Colorado River, in what is now Zilker Park, in Austin. The mission was in area for only about seven months
5.
Texas
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Texas is the second largest state in the United States by both area and population. Other major cities include Austin, the second most populous state capital in the U. S. Texas is nicknamed the Lone Star State to signify its former status as an independent republic, and as a reminder of the states struggle for independence from Mexico. The Lone Star can be found on the Texan state flag, the origin of Texass name is from the word Tejas, which means friends in the Caddo language. Due to its size and geologic features such as the Balcones Fault, although Texas is popularly associated with the U. S. southwestern deserts, less than 10 percent of Texas land area is desert. Most of the centers are located in areas of former prairies, grasslands, forests. Traveling from east to west, one can observe terrain that ranges from coastal swamps and piney woods, to rolling plains and rugged hills, the term six flags over Texas refers to several nations that have ruled over the territory. Spain was the first European country to claim the area of Texas, Mexico controlled the territory until 1836 when Texas won its independence, becoming an independent Republic. In 1845, Texas joined the United States as the 28th state, the states annexation set off a chain of events that caused the Mexican–American War in 1846. A slave state before the American Civil War, Texas declared its secession from the U. S. in early 1861, after the Civil War and the restoration of its representation in the federal government, Texas entered a long period of economic stagnation. One Texan industry that thrived after the Civil War was cattle, due to its long history as a center of the industry, Texas is associated with the image of the cowboy. The states economic fortunes changed in the early 20th century, when oil discoveries initiated a boom in the state. With strong investments in universities, Texas developed a diversified economy, as of 2010 it shares the top of the list of the most Fortune 500 companies with California at 57. With a growing base of industry, the leads in many industries, including agriculture, petrochemicals, energy, computers and electronics, aerospace. Texas has led the nation in export revenue since 2002 and has the second-highest gross state product. The name Texas, based on the Caddo word tejas meaning friends or allies, was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves, during Spanish colonial rule, the area was officially known as the Nuevo Reino de Filipinas, La Provincia de Texas. Texas is the second largest U. S. state, behind Alaska, though 10 percent larger than France and almost twice as large as Germany or Japan, it ranks only 27th worldwide amongst country subdivisions by size. If it were an independent country, Texas would be the 40th largest behind Chile, Texas is in the south central part of the United States of America. Three of its borders are defined by rivers, the Rio Grande forms a natural border with the Mexican states of Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo León, and Tamaulipas to the south
6.
Blues
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Blues is a genre and musical form originated by African Americans in the Deep South of the United States around the end of the 19th century. The genre developed from roots in African musical traditions, African-American work songs, spirituals, Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads. Blue notes, usually thirds or fifths flattened in pitch, are also a part of the sound. Blues shuffles or walking bass reinforce the trance-like rhythm and form a repetitive effect known as the groove, Blues as a genre is also characterized by its lyrics, bass lines, and instrumentation. Early traditional blues verses consisted of a single line repeated four times, Early blues frequently took the form of a loose narrative, often relating the troubles experienced in African-American society. Many elements, such as the format and the use of blue notes. The origins of the blues are closely related to the religious music of the Afro-American community. The first appearance of the blues is often dated to after the ending of slavery and, later and it is associated with the newly acquired freedom of the former slaves. Chroniclers began to report about blues music at the dawn of the 20th century, the first publication of blues sheet music was in 1908. Blues has since evolved from unaccompanied vocal music and oral traditions of slaves into a variety of styles and subgenres. Blues subgenres include country blues, such as Delta blues and Piedmont blues, as well as urban blues styles such as Chicago blues, World War II marked the transition from acoustic to electric blues and the progressive opening of blues music to a wider audience, especially white listeners. In the 1960s and 1970s, a form called blues rock evolved. The term blues may have come from blue devils, meaning melancholy and sadness, the phrase blue devils may also have been derived from Britain in the 1600s, when the term referred to the intense visual hallucinations that can accompany severe alcohol withdrawal. As time went on, the phrase lost the reference to devils, by the 1800s in the United States, the term blues was associated with drinking alcohol, a meaning which survives in the phrase blue law, which prohibits the sale of alcohol on Sunday. Though the use of the phrase in African-American music may be older, it has been attested to in print since 1912, in lyrics the phrase is often used to describe a depressed mood. The lyrics of traditional blues verses probably often consisted of a single line repeated four times. Two of the first published songs, Dallas Blues and Saint Louis Blues, were 12-bar blues with the AAB lyric structure. Handy wrote that he adopted this convention to avoid the monotony of lines repeated three times, the lines are often sung following a pattern closer to rhythmic talk than to a melody
7.
Chicago blues
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The Chicago blues is a form of blues music indigenous to Chicago, Illinois. Chicago blues is a type of urban blues, Muddy Waters directly joined that migration, like many others, such as in Florida, avoiding the more harshly southern Jim Crow laws. Bruce Iglauer, founder of Alligator Records stated that, Chicago blues is the music of the industrial city and you cant keep talking about mules, workin on the levee. Chicago blues was influenced by Mississippi bluesman who traveled to Chicago in the early 1940s. The development of blues, up to Chicago blues, is arguably as follows, Country blues, to city blues, Chicago blues is based around the sound of the electric guitar and the harmonica, with the harmonica played through a PA system or guitar amplifier. Urban blues started in Chicago and St. Louis, as created by part-time musicians playing as street musicians, at rent parties. For example, bottleneck guitarist Kokomo Arnold was a steelworker and had a business that was far more profitable than his music. One of the most important early incubators for Chicago blues was the market on Maxwell Street. Residents of the community would frequent it to buy and sell just about anything. It was a location for blues musicians to perform, earn tips. The standard path for blues musicians was to start out as musicians and at house parties. The first blues clubs in Chicago were mostly in black neighborhoods on the South Side. New trends in technology, chaotic streets and bars adding drums to an electric mix, one of the most famous was Ruby Lee Gatewoods Tavern, known by patrons as The Gates. During the 1930s virtually every big-name artist played there, what drove the blues to international influence was the promotion of record companies such as Paramount Records, RCA Victor, and Columbia Records. Through such record companies Chicago blues became a commercial enterprise, the new style of music eventually reached Europe and the United Kingdom. In the 1960s, young British musicians were influenced by Chicago blues resulting in the British blues movement. Bo Diddley, Mike Bloomfield, Mike Wheeler, Homesick James, Johnny Shines, Johnny Young, Floyd Jones, Eddy Clearwater, Mighty Joe Young, Phil Guy, Lil Ed Williams, J. B. Many blues artists recorded for Bluebird, if briefly, while Arthur Crudup, Lil Green
8.
Delta blues
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The Delta blues style of blues music is one of the earliest. The Mississippi Delta is famous for its fertile soil and for its poverty, Delta blues is regarded as a regional variant of country blues. Guitar and harmonica are its dominant instruments, slide guitar is a hallmark of the style, vocal styles in Delta blues range from introspective and soulful to passionate and fiery. The major labels produced the earliest recordings, consisting mostly of one person singing and playing an instrument, live performances, however, more commonly involved a group of musicians. Current belief is that Freddie Spruell is the first Delta blues artist to have been recorded, record company talent scouts made some of the early recordings on field trips to the South, and some performers were invited to travel to northern cities to record. According to Dixon and Godrich, Tommy Johnson and Ishmon Bracey were recorded by Victor on that companys second field trip to Memphis, in 1928. Robert Wilkins was first recorded by Victor in Memphis in 1928, son House first recorded in Grafton, Wisconsin, in 1930 for Paramount Records. Charley Patton also recorded for Paramount in Grafton, in June 1929 and he also traveled to New York City for recording sessions in January and February 1934. Robert Johnson recorded his only sessions, for ARC, in San Antonio in 1936 and their recordings, numbering in the thousands, now reside in the Smithsonian Institution. However, this claim has been disputed, as John and Alan Lomax had recorded Bukka White in 1939, Lead Belly in 1933 and most likely others. Scholars disagree as to whether there is a substantial difference between blues that originated in the Mississippi Delta and blues from other parts of the country. Delta blues is a style as much as a form, Skip James and Elmore James. Performers traveled throughout the Mississippi Delta, Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas, eventually, Delta blues spread out across the country, giving rise to a host of regional variations, including Chicago blues and Detroit blues. Delta blues songs are typically expressed in the first person and often concern love, sex, in big-city blues, women singers such as Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith and Mamie Smith dominated the recordings of the 1920s. However, women rarely recorded Delta blues and other rural or folk-style blues and it was not until late in the 1960s that women began to be heard in recorded performances at the level they had previously enjoyed. Other women influenced by Delta blues, who learned some of the most notable of the original artists still living, include Bonnie Raitt, Rory Block. Many Delta blues artists, such as Big Joe Williams, moved to Detroit and Chicago, traveling the Blues Highway, National Geographic Magazine, April 1999, vol. Dixon, R. M. W. and Godrich, J. Blues and Gospel Records, Ferris, William R. Blues from the Delta
9.
Electric blues
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Electric blues refers to any type of blues music distinguished by the use of electric amplification for musical instruments. The guitar was the first instrument to be amplified and used by early pioneers T-Bone Walker in the late 1930s and John Lee Hooker. Their styles developed into West Coast blues, Detroit blues, and post-World War II Chicago blues, by the early 1950s, Little Walter was a featured soloist on blues harmonica or blues harp using a small hand-held microphone fed into a guitar amplifier. Although it took a longer, the electric bass guitar gradually replaced the stand-up bass by the early 1960s. Electric organs and especially keyboards later became used in electric blues. The blues, like jazz, probably began to be amplified in the late 1930s. After World War II, amplified blues music popular in American cities that had seen widespread African American migration, such as Chicago, Memphis, Detroit, St. Louis. The initial impulse was to be heard above the noise of lively rent parties, playing in small venues, electric blues bands tended to remain modest in size compared with larger jazz bands. In its early electric blues typically used amplified electric guitars, double bass, and harmonica played through a microphone. By the late 1940s several Chicago-based blues artists had begun to use amplification, including John Lee Williamson, early recordings in the new style were made in 1947 and 1948 by musicians such as Johnny Young, Floyd Jones, and Snooky Pryor. The format was perfected by Muddy Waters, who utilized various small groups that provided a strong rhythm section and his I Cant Be Satisfied was followed by a series of ground-breaking recordings. Chicago blues is influenced to an extent by the Mississippi blues style. Howlin Wolf, Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon and Jimmy Reed were all born in Mississippi and moved to Chicago during the Great Migration. In addition to guitar, harmonica, and a rhythm section of bass and drums. Lenoirs also used saxophones, largely as a supporting instrument, Muddy Waters and Elmore James were known for their innovative use of slide electric guitar. Howlin Wolf and Muddy Waters were for their deep, gravelly voices, bassist and composer Willie Dixon played a major role on the Chicago blues scene. He composed and wrote many standard blues songs of the period, such as Hoochie Coochie Man, I Just Want to Make Love to You and, Wang Dang Doodle, Spoonful and Back Door Man for Howlin Wolf. Most artists of the Chicago blues style recorded for the Chicago-based Chess Records and Checker Records labels, there were also smaller blues labels in this era including Vee-Jay Records and J. O. B
