Thanks to this fortunate circumstance, we are now reasonably certain that the country
blues originated from the Mississippi Delta (an area in the state of Mississippi which
must not be confused with the Delta of the Mississippi river in Louisiana). Blacks
here once made up over 90% of the population, and were heavily exploited and
oppressed. Typically in this original form of blues, a black sharecropper would sing
about his hardships, while accompanying himself on the guitar. The rural blues also
developed in the cotton-growing region of East Texas, and through much of the South
Eastern part of the USA.