Introduction The history of blues as a genre of music in America can be traced back to the time when the first African slaves were brought to the United States in 1619 to when the last slaves were brought in 1807. It is believed that some of the captains who were on-board the ships that were used for transporting the slaves to America used to force new slaves to sing on the deck as they considered this to be a way of prolonging their lives. Tied with chains on their hands and legs, the slaves had to sing and dance and those who did not dance were whipped. Since these slaves were not allowed to bring musical instruments from Africa, the kind of music they sung was purely vocal. During the slave trade period, playing of drums by slaves was not allowed by their masters. However, there are instances when slaves played the banjo and the fiddle in the 18 th century. As research findings show, slaves actually played the banjo as early as 1690, a norm that became more pronounced in the 18 th century (Weissman 6-10 and Oring 224-233). Although all these is known, sometimes attempting to pinpoint the exact time when blues as a genre of music was started in the world is a difficult task, because there are chances that this kind of music was enjoyed in other communities before the slave trade period. Therefore, from research all that is clearly known is that, whenever new slaves were brought to America, they always had an influence on the already existing slaves who had developed a kind of musical fusion. History of Blues During the slave trade period, slaves were encouraged to attend church; whereby, the experiences they went through, which included the prospects of leaving bondage and being free was always in their minds, leading to the creation of a kind of music that was commonly referred to as African-American spiritual. This kind of music was the first to be accepted in the United States by African-Americans (Weissman 10). As a result of the fame that this kind of music received with time, in 1867, the first set of the slaves’ songs was published. Although most of the songs that were published had religious themes, majority of them had hidden meanings; hence, in most cases, they were interpreted wrongly by people who were not slaves. Some of these songs incorporated the plight of slavery and others went as far as informing slaves how they could escape from the plantations. As time went by, other forms of songs emerged in plantations where the slaves worked. For example, slaves started singing secular songs like the holler, work groups, and the ring’s shouts (Weissman 11). As research studies show, the first true recording of blues was done in the 1920s, and it is thought to have originated from the period slightly after the Civil War of between 1890 and1920. This period was referred as the repressive period since after the civil war, slave trade was abolished and some African-Americans were given the opportunity of owning land under certain conditions. In most cases, it is believed that, blues played a role in enlightening slaves about their rights and the kind of suffering and life experiences that they had to endure for them to succeed. Slaves who chose the travelling minstrel got a chance of dancing the whole night, and singing various blues, which were melodic (W