Good Ol' Classic Blues Songs

[uwe]

gary clarke jr. is the current media, critics mainstream darling. hell, he even played at the whitehouse but its nothing you haven't heard 100 times before. other than that...

I have his debut. It is as much RnB/soul (in an old-fashioned sense) and pop as it is blues. Plus a little Hendrix thrown in. No black guitarist - unless he's very traditionally bluesy and has short-cropped hair - will ever escape the Hendrix tag me thinks. Anyway, the album is by no means bad, but not the awe-inspiring piece of work it has been heralded as either. Not exactly hype, but over-excitement, ok?

[uwe]

they all turned into robert cray. same could be said for jazz players. nobody has popped up since the greats died off. and that has been a long time. fusion doesn't count.

I like Cray, but I guess he is too well-behaved for most blues enthusiasts, they probably miss the grime in his playing. To me he sometimes sounds as if he was a black guy from Northern England who grew up listening to Eric Clapton not the American blues greats. But I like his terse and clean style - "unblack" as it may be.

[4stringer77]

Maybe rap and hip hop are the new blues. Of course most of the older white guys here wouldn't want to concede to that.

[nofi]

the blues will remain the same, only the players will change. since the black community shows little or no interest in this music, i guess its up to old fat white guys to keep the blues alive. sad, really.

[uwe]

"since the black community shows little or no interest in this music ..."

True, but why is that I wonder? Is it that they feel that the blues was hijacked by white rock'n'roll? That Jimi Hendrix is no longer one of theirs? That the blues origins are too little urban, still too much Jim Crow and plantation, while soul and funk were the music of an emerging black middle class and that rap and hip hop is the confident modern music of an angry and demanding urban black youth? Eminem aside, rap and hip hop certainly havn't been adopted by white music culture to the extent that the twelve bar blues became a mold for white rock'n'roll and eventually white rock or even to the extent that black soul music shaped blue-eyed soul.

Tina Turner once said something that made me think. She was asked why - once she had her 80ies career sans Ike - her backing bands regularly featured no black players, why she had white players heavily influenced by black players (such as Laurie Wisefield who had played with Home, Al Stewart and Wishbone Ash and had a strong blues and funk infuence), but not "the real thing". And she said, rather defensively and not declaring it a coincidence at all, that whenever she hears a black player she hears the blues and that that was essentially the music of dejection and oppression to her and that she did not want that for her band, that white players didn't have that emotional baggage weighing them down.  

[Dave W]

Tina may feel that way but I'm sure B.B. King doesn't mind.

Blues stopped being an exclusively black music once radio and records became widespread. It influenced other forms and was influenced by other forms, just like every other genre. All music changes, some will keep playing the old stuff, others evolve it into something different.

The douchebags at Rolling Stone who claimed that white rock 'n' roll was nothing more than a ripoff of black blues were all idiots. The R & B music of that time was heavily influenced by white popular music, and rock 'n' roll was just as influenced by country as R & B. Just ask Chuck Berry about that.

[westen44]

I get the impression that Tina Turner's viewpoint is one which is widely held. 

[Highlander]

Ari may have something there... there are no great black "blues-men" as there is too much comfort to produce it, whereas disenchantment with life resulted in punk and rap. Blues is a statement; a feeling: I got the blues; I feel blue... it was all about an old Dobro, a bottle-neck off of an old jug, a dusty porch down some dirt track, an aging arthritic guy just about able to lay that Dobro across his lap and tease some notes out of it whilst proclaiming how life was hard, how unfair it was, how unfaithful he was, or his woman; kids running round in rags, but happy (mostly) with what they had... here, we had punk, albeit the "fascist regime" was men in suits disguised with zippers, but the true disenchantment nowadays probably is RAP... people not happy with their lot, proclaiming how unfair life is, how unfaithful the bitch has been, where the next fix comes from, dreaming of the quick road to wealth, guns and drugs...

Modern life... time to go...

Just had the word that by the time Jackie hits the next big-one we'll be looking at moving to an independent Scotland... once there, I'll find some old resonator and lay it across my lap and try and tease a note or two out of it with a piece of glass, remembering this lost place called the south...

[4stringer77]

Ha! Too funny Kenny. Let's keep the vids rolling here. Here's a couple that highlight the evolution of the music.

[gweimer]

Ari may have something there... there are no great black "blues-men" as there is too much comfort to produce it, whereas disenchantment with life resulted in punk and rap. Blues is a statement; a feeling: I got the blues; I feel blue... it was all about an old Dobro, a bottle-neck off of an old jug, a dusty porch down some dirt track, an aging arthritic guy just about able to lay that Dobro across his lap and tease some notes out of it whilst proclaiming how life was hard, how unfair it was, how unfaithful he was, or his woman; kids running round in rags, but happy (mostly) with what they had... here, we had punk, albeit the "fascist regime" was men in suits disguised with zippers, but the true disenchantment nowadays probably is RAP... people not happy with their lot, proclaiming how unfair life is, how unfaithful the bitch has been, where the next fix comes from, dreaming of the quick road to wealth, guns and drugs...

You could probably say all the same things about metal, which has become another area of disenchantment.  My daughter just posted something yesterday that gave me a chuckle.  "Metal is just fast hip hop with guitars. And screaming."

And like all musical styles, the blues have evolved.  New instruments, new society, new interests and focus.  The change hasn't always been easy to swallow.  I'm not a purist by any means.  I got into the blues by way of the '60s British contribution, and then worked back a ways.  I love the old Elmore James stuff.  Hated the Bo Diddley blues songs.  Paul Revere and the Raiders, believe it or not, started early sounding very much like a blues band.  Black Sabbath emerged from Earth, a blues-based band.

There are some newer blues that I like.  And the purists would probably balk at the five-string bass sound in this, but I like it.


The more I learn about older blues, I find myself liking piano blues far better than guitar blues

[Highlander]

Covered this in a pick-up band - really loved playing it... my preferred version is by a Brit player called Nigel Bagge but can't find a link to it at present...

www.youtube.com/watch?v=oF36qarU-k0

... and then there's the unexpected... the same... but different... Alan Jackson's my preferred...

www.youtube.com/watch?v=bonIfoN2NIg  www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJhMUmuczPY

www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5HsQdB6eGU  www.youtube.com/watch?v=kETbYPRJ9EU

This is another one I covered in the same pick-up band...

www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zAoICOqpEo

[Pilgrim]

Does this fit?  It's one that our band plays...it's about as up-temp blues as you can get! (And fun to play)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsmsuLT79Xo&list=PLEA61AB4ECE58FF92

[Granny Gremlin]

Eminem aside, rap and hip hop certainly havn't been adopted by white music culture to the extent that the twelve bar blues became a mold for white rock'n'roll and eventually white rock or even to the extent that black soul music shaped blue-eyed soul.

Most 15 year old white boys are trying to be gangsta and don't even wanna hear anything with a prominently featured guitar in it with the notable exception of the new Daft Punk.  There are exceptions obviously (there's still metalheads, punks,etc, but they're not in the mainstream).  Hip Hop sensibilities are easily dominating pop music now (production and backing music style, many pop songs have rapped lyrics over the bridge or break at least, many of of those by a guest star MC etc - if it isn't an outright Hip Hop track).  Blues is played out, as someone who very recently was in a very blues based band, the kids don't wanna hear it (hell, the young adults and those my own age don't want to hear it).

Today's top 40:

1 Miley Cyrus (current single is a ballad, but a) she 'twerks' and b) total hip hop style production usually)
2 Katey Perry ( total hip hop backing track, maybe less so the choruses - but whole note guitar is hardly blues)
3 Royals (never heard them before just now, but that's definately Hip Hop influence)
4 Awicci (OK you got one so far.... maybe - kinda folky)
5 Robin Thicke (total hip hop backing track and 2 guest rappers.... he's like a white Nate Dog but with nothing relevant to say and nicer clothes)
6 Drake (he's even black!  )

...

(and these are just the easy case ones on the rest of the first page of the list):

....Eminem is at 11, JayZ and Justin Timberlake at 14, another Robin Thicke w guest rapper at 18, Big Sean, Lil Wayne & Jhene Aiko at 22....

There isn't a solidly blues-based song in the bunch.

The only people left carrying the torch are Harde Blues Dades (bit of an in-joke from another board I am on but this guy pretty much summarises it):

[nofi]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=336dDZsU1Eghttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=336dDZsU1Eg

[gweimer]

Dig the shoes and socks...