St. Louis Blues

St. Louis blues is the pre-war urban blues of St. Louis and East St. Louis, a piano-centred style that bridged country blues, ragtime and the vaudeville stage. Its classic records pair rolling barrelhouse piano — the city bred pianists as Memphis bred guitarists — with singers of the classic blues era and, increasingly, small horn-backed combos. *Peetie Wheatstraw*, the 'Devil's Son-in-Law', was its biggest recording star of the 1930s, and figures such as *Henry Brown*, *Roosevelt Sykes* and *Walter Davis* made St. Louis, for a decade, one of the most recorded blues cities in America.