The Bull City Has The Blues
One of the South's great musical traditions, the Blues, found a special home in Durham in the 1930s. Since then, the Bull City has become the center for Piedmont Blues, a sensitive and delicate form of the blues played and recorded by the likes of Blind Boy Fuller, Bull City Red, Sonny Terry, Brownie McGhee and legendary guitarist Reverend Gary Davis. These and other artists, living and performing in Durham, playing on the streets and at the tobacco auctions, as well as in the clubs, gave rise to the term "Bull City Blues" and "Homesick and Lonesome."
Like the other Blues styles, those played in Memphis, the Mississippi Delta and post-war Chicago, Bull City Blues helped define its community as it contributed to our musical heritage.
Durham has several Note-A-Bull African-American heritage places and landmarks as well as the Bull Durham Blues Festival.
Today, the Piedmont Blues is enjoyed at Festival for the Eno performances in July, the Bull Durham Blues Festival in September and various other times and venues around the community, played by contemporary artists such as John Dee Holeman, Fris Holloway and Scott Ainslie. Also check out Durham's Blues Historical Highway Marker on Fayetteville Street, near the Stanford L. Warren Library (midway between the Hayti Heritage Center and North Carolina Central University).
Last updated 2004
