The Blues™ Road Trip traces the migration of the blues throughout the USA from its origins in slave communities on plantations in the Deep South. The blues, a mix of African and New World musical influences, spread from its birthplace in the Mississippi Delta through Louisiana and Texas, northward to Memphis, St. Louis, Chicago, Detroit, and beyond as freed slaves and their descendants left the South in search of better lives in northern cities in "The Great Migration" of African Americans in the early to mid 1900s.

As the new musical form spread across the country, countless styles of the blues emerged. Each region imparted its own flavor and culture as jazz, gospel, country, and ragtime all fused with the blues in various combinations to create an endless variety of blues styles.

By the 1950s and '60s, the blues had crossed the Atlantic and young audiences and musicians in Great Britain launched a blues revival with their reverent admiration of American blues music. The blues blended into rock, and as rock and roll took center stage on the global popular music scene, the blues faded into the background for decades for many listeners and record buyers.

But in the early 1990s, a renewed interest in American roots music spurred a resurgence of the blues and the art form that once inspired Willie Dixon's remark "The blues is the roots: everything else is the fruits."

Take your own Blues Road Trip across the interactive map to trace the blues migration and learn more about blues history, musicians, songs, styles, and cultural influences of the geographic regions featured in The Blues film series.