<Li> West Coast blues </Li> <Li> New Orleans blues </Li> <P> Electric blues refers to any type of blues music distinguished by the use of electric amplification for musical instruments . The guitar was the first instrument to be popularly amplified and used by early pioneers T - Bone Walker in the late 1930s and John Lee Hooker and Muddy Waters in the 1940s . Their styles developed into West Coast blues, Detroit blues, and post-World War II Chicago blues, which differed from earlier, predominantly acoustic - style blues . By the early 1950s, Little Walter was a featured soloist on blues harmonica or blues harp using a small hand - held microphone fed into a guitar amplifier . Although it took a little longer, the electric bass guitar gradually replaced the stand - up bass by the early 1960s . Electric organs and especially keyboards later became widely used in electric blues . </P> <P> The blues, like jazz, probably began to be amplified in the late 1930s . The first star of the electric blues is generally recognized as being T - Bone Walker; born in Texas but moving to Los Angeles in the mid-1930s, he combined blues with elements of swing music and jazz in a long and prolific career . After World War II, amplified blues music became popular in American cities that had seen widespread African American migration, such as Chicago, Memphis, Detroit, St. Louis, and the West Coast . The initial impulse was to be heard above the noise of lively rent parties . Playing in small venues, electric blues bands tended to remain modest in size compared with larger jazz bands . In its early stages electric blues typically used amplified electric guitars, double bass (which was progressively replaced by bass guitar), and harmonica played through a microphone and a PA system or a guitar amplifier . </P>

First blues artist to play the electric guitar