Blues Fusions

Blues fusions are hybrid styles that join the core grammar of the blues — twelve-bar progressions, blue notes, call-and-response and lyrics of hardship and desire — to the instruments, rhythms and production of another genre. The balance varies: blues rock keeps the blues dominant inside a rock format, punk blues strips it to garage minimalism, and soul, jazz, funk and electronic fusions can subordinate it to a groove or a texture. *Cream* and *The Allman Brothers Band* defined the rock wing in the late 1960s, *The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion* the punk wing in the 1990s, and the current continues through *Gary Clark Jr.* and *Tedeschi Trucks Band*.