"The blues ain't nothing but a good man feelin' bad."

Oddly, this line was probably first recorded by a white minstrel performer, Lee Roy "Lasses" White, and it's been used over and over and over by bluesmen and blueswomen ever since: Ida Cox, Kenny Neal, Sammy Price, Georgia White...

And, who can't relate to that?

When we think of blues, it's a lot of love songs. The girl doesn't love the boy back, there's an unfaithful lover in the mix, or a breakup's just gone down.

But in the 1890s, the blues had emerged as a distinct African-American art form, rooted in the southern U.S. and drawing on work songs and hollers, folk tradition, Black spirituals, and popular music. Though many first blues recordings are credited to whites and their minstrel groups, it was largely because of their privilege and access to record, not because of the genre's origins. 

So, looking back from 1890, history tells us the African influence in the musical structure of the blues is undeniable, as it grew from slave culture and the memory of slavery.

Now, that's a different kind of heartache.

Looking forward from 1890, a time of transition in America and of dashed hopes for Blacks in the resurgent Jim Crow South, one can see the blues as a powerful force both shaping and shaped by the evolution of American popular culture.

From the "race records" craze of the 1920s—Billboard finally replaced the genre with "rhythm-and-blues" in 1949—through the blues-fueled rock revolution of the post-war years, American history and the history of Black and white race relations in the century ahead is cataloged by its music history.

And in true resilient fashion, the blues truly isn't just about the blues, or unrequited love, or man's best friend dying. The blues is about crying it out to feel better, capturing the spectrum of emotions, and can even integrate comedy.

Musician Willie Dixon said, "You can have the blues one day because your woman went away. Then you can have the blues the next day because she came back."

Crackin' us up, Willie. 

Oh, that was the point. Thanks, blues.

A clever blueswoman once crooned that a prescription for the blues was the cure for her blues.

Sounds crazy, but let's think about it. If you've ever had the blues, then heard the blues on the radio, then felt just a little bit better...that's when the blues is the best medicine.

Not convinced?

What about when your parents went crazy for Elvis?

That was the blues.

When your brother bangs his head to Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath?

Those guys are blues.

Dance to James Brown?

You know he had the blues.

Enjoy the White Stripes?

Yep, Jack White plays the blues, too.

If you're starting to wonder if the blues just about defined popular music in the twentieth century, you're on the right track. Amazingly spectacular success for a style from the rural ghetto (that's right), where the most famous master was an obscure Mississippian who may have made a deal with the Devil in the middle of the road one night in the 1930s.

Whoa is right.

The history of the blues is a strange story with deep roots and a lot to say about the shape—and shaping—of American culture.