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What is call-and-response?
A back-and-forth pattern: one voice (the 'call') is answered by another voice or instrument (the 'response'). It's a core organizing principle from West African music through work songs, spirituals, and the blues.
In call-and-response, a leader sings or plays a phrase and a group — or a second instrument — answers it. The structure is a conversation, and it organizes music at every : a preacher and congregation, a work-gang leader and the crew, a blues singer's line and the guitar's reply between vocal phrases. It came to American music through West African performance practice and runs through the field hollers, ring shouts, and spirituals that fed the blues, and onward into gospel, jazz, and rock.
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