The Great Depression that occurred in the United States in the‘30s changed the distribution of the population in the country: the unemployment that spread everywhere, but in particular in the South, caused the emigration of black communities to the big cities like Chicago, Detroit, New York, Memphis. Here, were built the first ghettos for black people, South Side in Chicago, Harlem in New York and so on. These economic-social changes influenced the development of music as well: musicians moved out to those cities where it was possible to work, that’s to say where there were people who had money to spend in the nightclubs. Bright lights, clubs where it was possible to have fun until early in the morning, the exciting life of the big city were only part of the whole story, in fact being black meant segregated in quarters where criminality, alcohol, drugs, prostitution and unemployment were something which you had to do everyday with. The emigrated black community didn’t make any step up, but it left the poor racist South to live in places where surviving was not so easy. In the ‘40s the times were getting better and better from a economic point of view and many labels started recording new talents again. Chicago became the center of this new blues Renaissance and this new context, from rural life of Mississipi to urban social background of the big cities, was the right one to develop a new sound, new topics for the lyrics, a different mentality. Instead of the one-man-band or the acoustic duo, now it was time for a modern sound full of plugged instruments: bass, electric guitars, harmonica as lead instruments, powerful drums. What came out was a more incisive, stronger style that represented a sort of revolution in the musical world: it was in this period that new kind of musical genres were born, just like soul music, rhythm & blues and rock and roll….it was time to have fun in downtown! The band must make have fun to the people of the club with its music, with its rhythm, they wanted to dance all night along. Therefore, the songs didn’t talk only about discriminations, sorrow, poverty, unemployment, painful love stories and so on, but fun, thoughless easy life, joys as well trying to forget the frustration of the ghetto’s living. Th blues, moving to the big cities, changed its topics, its sound and how the musician looked at himself as artist: the bluesman is more professional, sometimes he has got his own band which he plays in front of hundreds persons in clubs and festivals with, sometimes he is a serious professional member of a band or orchestra. The figure of the “on the road” bluesman as a gambler, a lonely roamer was progressively disappearing lost in the pages of another era. This didn’t mean that the quality of the music of the new generation’s musicians was worst than before, in fact it has only changed in a new style, maybe more commercial, but surely it lost nothing in comparison with. Chicago, Detroit, Memphis had their own eroes who gave their contribution night after night to make blues part of the american coscience and known in all the world. These legendary urban blues paladins are artist like Lonnie Johnson, Leroy Carr, Tampa Red, Big Bill Broonzy, T-Bone Walker, Muddy Waters, B.B. King, Howling Wolf, Sonny Boy Williamson, Albert King, Freddy King, Elmore James, Buddy Guy, Lowell Fulson, John Lee Hooker and many others. Amongs them sometimes there was a genuine rivality which made grow the skill of the musicians so quickly that it has never seen before. New patterns and riffs, new styles, new ideas, every name was a  quality trademark that could be recognized at the first note played by the band, every night meant a new page in the blues story!!! 

Eric Clapton: “When I played with Muddy Waters for the first time I felt really stupid, because I was a child who wanted play with a man. And what a man!"

Buddy Guy: “When I arrived at Chicago in the ‘50s, Muddy Waters, B.B.King and the others were already famous, but you should see the unknown ones! Just arrived at the city I went into a club and there was a guy who was playing the guitar, wow! After few minutes I was thinking of coming back to Mississipi to work as farmer! Now I’m a celebrated musician and who knows that guy what he is doing, only because I was more lucky, maybe I had more chances than him." 

B.B.King: “To listen  playing T-Bone Walker, Django Reinhardt, Louis Jordan means to me a sort of dream, something more than a guitar or sax solo. Muddy Waters was and is a landmark for me. Sonny Boy was a close friend of mine; he loved drinking, it wasn’t easy to agree with him, but what a jam-sessions together!!”.