WE HAVE THE BLUES...

We are proud to be the official sponsor of BLUES HIGHWAY.IT: a musical organization that’s aim is to support “The Blues” in Italy and around the world. Thanks to BLUESHIGHWAY.IT thousands of new blues bands have visibility and that extra support that is needed to get noticed within the music
industry online, on air and live!

Most companies sponsor the sporting industry but us at WIBA, being very individual and having a specific passion for the “Blues” have decided to support the blues industry.  

An industry that deserves the right kind of attention and support to expand everywhere in the world.

BLUESHIGHWAY.IT was created by Robert James in 2019, an English-Italian Blues musician that made it his aim to help promote the Blues throughout Italy, creating ways to give visibility to all bands, big and small.

This all started on a Facebook group (BLUESHIGHWAY) that now has over 2700 members, where Robert James has given a chance for all Blues bands to be noticed.

In 2021, BLUES HIGHWAY decided to go that extra step by opening it’s doors to Blues bands around the world and getting the world to know the Italian Blues bands. We are now promoting the bands in other countries and helping them to have their albums played on the radios abroad.

In 2020 BLUES HIGHWAY presented its first festival at Arena Del Mare Di Salerno in the south of Italy giving space to the Italian bands.

2021 RELEASES AND EVENTS

BLUES HISTORY

Blues is a music genre and musical form which was originated in the deep south of the United States around the 1860s by African-Americans from roots in African.American work songs and spirituals.

Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants and rhymed simple narrative ballads.

Blues as a genre is also characterized by its lyrics, bass lines, and instrumentation. Early traditional blues verses consisted of a single line repeated four times. It was only in the first decades of the 20th century that the most common current structure became standard: the AAB pattern, consisting of a line sung over the four first bars, its repetition over the next four, and then a longer concluding line over the last bars. Early blues frequently took the form of a loose narrative, often relating the racial discrimination and other challenges experienced by African-Americans.

Many elements, such as the call-and-response format and the use of blue notes, can be traced back to the music of Africa.

 The origins of the blues are also closely related to the religious music of the Afro-American community, the spirituals. The first appearance of the blues is often dated to after the ending of slavery, and, later, the development of juke joints. It is associated with the newly acquired freedom of the former slaves. Chroniclers began to report about blues music at the dawn of the 20th century. The first publication of blues sheet music was in 1908. Blues has since evolved from unaccompanied vocal music and oral traditions of slaves into a wide variety of styles and subgenres. Blues subgenres include country blues, such as Delta blues and Piedmont blues, as well as urban blues styles such as Chicago blues and West Coast blues. World War II marked the transition from acoustic to electric blues and the progressive opening of blues music to a wider audience, especially white listeners. In the 1960s and 1970s, a hybrid form called blues rock developed, which blended blues styles with rock music.


British blues is a form of music derived from American blues that originated in the late 1950s, and reached its height of mainstream popularity in the 1960s. In Britain, it developed a distinctive and influential style dominated by electric guitar and made international stars of several proponents of the genre including The ROlling Stones, The Animals, Eric Clapton, Fleetwood Mac and Led Zeppelin.