The Big Ole' Blues Appreciation Thread - You Got 'Em?

* puts on flame-proof overalls *

As much as I genuinely love the guitar skills of vintage blues artists, I really wish they'd stop singing. I had to stop all the above clips about 1 minute in despite enjoying the playing, because the voices just spoiled it. I think that's the main reason I've never been able to get into the genre. That, and my blues-loving friends playing compilation cds where half the songs sound exactly the same :?

Sorry, didn't mean to sound quite so negative there :oops: and I do appreciate how influential they were/are on a lot of the artists that I do like.
 
Hell of a lot of the 'old' blues stuff is yawn inducing.

The problem is that blues was a live thing. The moment record collectors started to influence 'taste' it lost its flavour.

What begun as toe tapping, ass slapping disco beats became 'meaningful' dirges about how shit it all is, witnessed by po faced young whiteys lapping it all up.

I remember the first time I visited a girl I had just started going out with, taking a long a Jamaican co worker. Within half a minute of arriving her flatmate put on some Bessie Smith, and started asking my pal if she liked it, professing her deep love of the blues and ever so sorry about slavery and all that.

Some people are just out of touch to such a degree they are trying to find something in other cultures they have not identified or appreciated in their own.

Others actually love the music of course. Fair play.

I would rather listen to the source, and the bit I really love is where the river meets the sea.

Stones. Zep. All good.

Even Jack White.

:)
 
Yup like any music genre there's a lot of 'durge' or 'boring' blues out there.....but when it's good it's good and makes you realise how much of our modern music has been influenced by it.

kurt weill said ''there are only2 types of music''...good.... and...bad.....(in any genre)

When I hear big mama thornton I can't help but think the lead singer out of led zep was influenced by her style........quite often bands like sabbath etc admit to liking and being influenced by music their fans would find 'not cool'...........i say ''remember and respect where it came from''. :cool:
 
Koupe":k446hikf said:
That, and my blues-loving friends playing compilation cds where half the songs sound exactly the same :?
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There is a definite thread of recycling that runs deep in the blues, that is for certain. The origins of many blues 'standards' are virtually untraceable because of this. Artists of the era often picked up riffs/licks (from their peers/local buskers - many of them being blues artists in their own right) and applied their own lyrics/style to them, the same can be said for lyrics also. I find it's less 'cover versions' and more songs by osmosis, if you will.

For example; Shake 'Em on Down is a song that is most associated with Hill Country Blues, originating from North Mississippi. A lot of artists hailing from this region have played with/been taught by one another and have thusly created a style that is unique to the region and it's practitioners. A style where the artists bare similar guitar technique or voice inflection.

Shake 'Em On Down was originally written by Booker 'Bukka' White and recorded in 1937. In later years it was performed by Mississippi Fred McDowell (considered the originator of the North Mississippi Hill Country Style) --> Who taught R.L. Burnside how to play --> R.L. Burnside includes this song in his cannon for years to come and proceeds to introduce it to a new generation.

Blues, as previously mentioned, was a live thing - performed spontaneously and often imitated by those lucky enough to view the performance.
 
highlandsflyer":39qp5oy8 said:
The problem is that blues was a live thing. The moment record collectors started to influence 'taste' it lost its flavour
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I must say, I agree with this whole heartedly. The Blues should be filled with raucous spontaneity and encapsulate the moment within which it was formed.

highlandsflyer":39qp5oy8 said:
What begun as toe tapping, ass slapping disco beats became 'meaningful' dirges about how shit it all is, witnessed by po faced young whiteys lapping it all up.
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Agreed, to an extent. This has been the general progression of the Blues as a genre but lest we forget that if the white audience had not embraced the blues (in all it's ass slappin' glory :D) then a great many of the blues 'revival' artists would cease to have been (re)recorded. This would mean that a great many bands wouldn't have been influenced in the same way by those original artists (and their discovery or re-birth, so to speak).

Hence, in theory, many of the Blues Rock bands, who would have been those original white admirers, wouldn't have had the opportunity to be influenced in the way they were, bands/artist such as: Led Zeppelin, Blue Cheer, Black Sabbath, Cream, Mike Bloomfield, John Mayall, Etc...
 
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