It was famously said that, “The Blues ain’t nothin’ but a good man feelin’ bad.” While Blues music has certainly taken a backseat to other, more popular forms of music, having “The Blues” has not disappeared. In fact, it can be argued that there are more blues NOW – in THIS age – then there has even been. So I ask: who will revitalize The Blues? What will it take?
The looks of a playboy centerfold and the throat of Etta James? The face of Brad Pitt and the voice of Charlie Patton?
Why is it that blues music - which should be so relevant - is forever relegated to the back-back burner?
I think it's dead as we know it. Keb Mo and Anthony Gomes are both doing OK. They are perfect examples of tweaking the Blues for today's audience. If anyone thinks there is going to be a Sonny Boy 3 to come and save us all. I'm afraid it's not going to happen! Jason Ricci was gaining a head of steam to possibly break into the main stream. It's not easy and seems even harder for harmonica players now than ever before! Is it just me or do other people notice this also?
Its niche music like real country, r and B, rockabilly, folk, roots reggae, big band, gypsy jazz and countless others. Just dig it for what it is. Last gasp was probably Stevie Ray The blues is alive and doesnt need or want revitalization
My brother is close friends with one of the top blues harp players in the country and I know he had only 1 gig over the holiday weekend. Times is hard for the blues and real live music in general But both survive due to the dedication and love of the participants
Last Edited by Goldbrick on May 29, 2014 10:27 AM
I think the blues is going downhill because there are so many artists not taking it seriously enough! I'm sick and tired of people calling this and that blues, when it's nothing else than rock. Artists who can't get rock-gigs, and then they call it blues. Standing there with their Marshall-racks, making funny faces as they play 10-minute solo's. Fuck that shit! We need more people who study the blues, and really learn what the blues is about! People are so busy developing the blues they forget to learn where the blues comes from.. But then again, I'm a bluesfundamentalist ;)
If I could put my money on anyone capable of revitalizing the blues (with great covers and originals) it would be the duo Beth Hart and Joe Bonamassa. I think they have a lot of potential.
What are we discussing here? Popularity? Commercial success? Or something else, say, a comfort in the soul for the select few who pay attention? If playing music was my career I'd have given up long ago. It's not an easy thing as we've seen countless times even in the "popular" genres.
I have always had a day job and I've always played to please myself first. Other folks seem to relate and I've had some great times and made a few bucks here and there, been in lots of bands and duos, been in studios a few times, self-produced a couple of cd's. Unlike skiing or motocross or football, I don't have to spend a fortune and risk life and limb to be fulfilled. All I really need is a few harps.
People the world over play and listen to blues. A percentage of commercials use blues tracks to sell stuff. The genre may never reach its heyday levels again, like it was in the 40's and 50's. The relevance and relating factor will always be with us as humans and will always be expressed with simple instruments and simple progressions. Is it the "popular" form? Do I care? I am happy playing to 500, 50, 5, or no audience. Nice to get gas $$ or better but not necessary all the time.
My hat is off to career musicians and when I can I support them. ---------- http://www.reverbnation.com/jawboneandjolene
I don't think the blues as traditionalists think of it will ever be front and center in the music world as we move forward, no matter what artist arrives on the scene. But so what (see jbone's well written take above)?
The blues is alive and well, it's just resting until the masses discover it. That black and white clip put up by isaacullah literally had me in tears. That's what people are missing nowadays.
Here's the thing about "blues". Even "traditional" blues is not what some would call pure. Blues began as field hollers, gospel refrains, and mutated at the juke joint after a good soaking in whiskey and blood and snuff juice.
What we do today and call blues would likely have folks 50 years ago trying to stone us, at least some of it. I like to do a little Hank Sr., some Cash, a bit of Dylan. Right behind that is Jimmy Reed, a Walter or two, some Nawlins blues, and off to Chicago or Oakland. Variety and tasty crowd pleasing- and US pleasing mix-ups. Memphis Minnie followed by an old TBirds. Originals inspired by Skip James and by Elmore, but with a distinct different tang because our experiences are different than the folks 50 and 75 years ago. BUT what is the SAME is, our feelings and our responses to what life throws at us.
The elemental thing of having a couple of instruments and a voice or two, and a lifetime of hard times that shaped us, that's what resonates to me. ---------- http://www.reverbnation.com/jawboneandjolene
I completely agree with Goldbrick in that the Blues will always survive, but it will do so on the fringe, in a niche, and only to real music fans. I don't feel that Blues in the way that most of us define it, will ever be anything close to mainstream again. Hell, most young people aren't even attracted to rock anymore. I get such a thrill anymore when I hear someone under the age of 30 cranking something from their car stereo besides hip hop! I've had several twenty-somethings tell me at the local jam that they've never heard a harmonica played the way I do, and I'm doing nothing new. It will be interesting to see, down the road, how music progresses and no matter what path it takes, there will always be some blues influence on a section of new music being produced. Thank you Isaac for those videos. That's some good stuff.
Who will revitalize rock? They just don't make it like they used to. That's what people were saying in 1963. Then they, ah, Beatles and Stones came along.
Who will revitalize jazz? They just don't make it like they used to. (Like Louis....like Bird....like Trane....)
Who will revitalize country? They just don't make it like they used to (like Hank...like Merle....like Kitty Wells and Loretta.....)
Who will revitalize hip hop? They just don't make it like they used to.
Who will revitalize the American songbook? They just don't craft songs like they used to. It all ended with Cole Porter. I mean Stephen Sondheim. I mean Billy Joel.
The problem isn't the music. In 1960--fifty-four years ago--Paul Oliver wrote in BLUES FELL THIS MORNING that "the blues are dying." B. B. King had barely gotten off the ground by that point! James Cotton hadn't yet played his solo with Muddy on "Mojo" at Newport. Albert Collins and Gatemouth Brown and Paul Butterfield hadn't made 95% of their great recordings.
The problem isn't the music. The music is doing just fine. The problem is the questions, and the conscious and unconscious expectations that the questions reveal.
Think young. Encourage innovation, not slavish imitation. Enlarge the circle that is your musical tastes, don't harden it or contract it. Persist in that orientation and you end up snarling "The new stuff all sucks!" At that point, there's really only one thing left to do, and it's not something I'm interested in doing quite yet. This is precisely why we need young people, actually. Encourage them--and not just to play and talk like old people, but to make some fresh new blues.
Last Edited by kudzurunner on May 30, 2014 9:47 PM
Blues seems to breathing pretty easy. ---------- For every moment of triumph, every instance of beauty, many souls must be trampled. HST
Last Edited by Blowhead9 on May 30, 2014 11:05 PM
Blues was part of the pop music spectrum in the 1930s, 40s, 50s and 60s.
These songs, all blues, were radio hits in the 50s and 60s-- Hideaway, Freddie King; My Babe, Little Walter; Jailhouse Rock, Elvis Presley; Candy Man, Roy Orbison. They were million selling recordings bought by the general public, not just by "blues lovers". These are examples; there were many more blues hits in those decades.
You don't hear blues songs on the radio, or any other popular medium, today.
About the current crop of blues players, including those of us on MBH: "The Zeitgeist that produced the greats is gone; we of this era will do our best but will not recapture it."
I was talking about the golden age of blues when I wrote this in MBH in 2011. In that golden age, a convergence of musical, racial, economical and societal factors produced great blues musicians and (just as important) AUDIENCES that wanted to hear what they offered. That age has gone.
Who will revitalize the blues? No one.
The blues, as a medium of expression for the deepest of human feelings, is eternal and forever vital. The blues, as a popular form of music (pop music) has lost its vitality and will not regain it. I'm not saying I like this.
Cheers?
wolf kristiansen
Last Edited by wolfkristiansen on May 31, 2014 12:35 AM
Wolf: Some people might argue, and have argued, that we are living right now in a golden age for the blues. Ask Jay Seilman about whether the blues are doing OK, or are "pop music." The International Blues Challenge has never been bigger or healthier. Each successive year, more bands come from more different countries around the world. In the early 80s, of course--long after the period you're talking about--Stevie Ray Vaughan helped precipitate a boom for the blues AS POP MUSIC. I remember that moment well. SRV's music was huge; blues was a significant pop music. (ROADHOUSE was a major studio release in the early 80s, followed by CROSSROADS in 1986.) In 1990, when Robert Johnson's COMPLETE RECORDINGS CD was released, it went platinum in a year or two--making him the best-selling pre-war blues artists of all time. Those weren't "blues fans" buying him; they were pop music fans. A few years later, Junior Kimbrough and RL Burnside were all the rage--and not just among blues fans, but among a larger roots music audience. Blues music is used in every sort of ad campaign, to sell stuff to Boomers and their children. Blues Revue did a story about 15 years ago on the way that blues was being used in ads and printed a list of 100 major corporations, in every single field, whose ad campaigns used blues. Viagra, diabetes paraphernalia, cars, soda, fast food. Everything.
The number of blues festivals across America has exploded in the past 20 years. In Mississippi alone, in the past 10 years, the increase is staggering, in part because the Blues Commission and the Blues Trail have convinced lots of towns around here that there are tourist dollars to be made. But such festivals have grown hugely in popularity across the country.
Anybody who thinks that the blues are a minority taste needs to get out more. The blues are everywhere. "Blues clubs" aren't everywhere, to be sure. Nor is there a large African American audience for blues--although there IS a significant black audience for blues in the contemporary deep South. But the music is here, it is a vital cultural force.
It doesn't need to be "saved," or revitalized. It just needs to be allowed to be what it is, right now. And the extent of its pan-cultural visibility and vitality shouldn't be minimized, as some posters here are doing.
Last Edited by kudzurunner on May 31, 2014 3:48 AM
70 yr old Charlie Musslewhite is reaching audiences that very few other players are and showing just how cool the harp is :)
Last Edited by Frank on May 31, 2014 5:40 AM
iTunes radio has six blues channels. When i was a kid in the fifties, there was one AM station, the local black station, where i could hear blues on Sunday afternoon. ---------- For every moment of triumph, every instance of beauty, many souls must be trampled. HST
A famous musician who's complete non-blues career has stalled & then puts out a "Blues album" because they always felt blues was their roots and they want to show how deep their music really is!
The roots music scene is big here, and blues music is a big part of it. Blues is featured in our local Folk & Roots Festival. There is also an annual blues festival cross town in Champaign, IL.
This radio station, placed nearby between several central Illinois cities, features the Blue Monday show. Blues all day on Mondays:
We also have a community radio station that plays blues every weekday at 11:30AM, WEFT. I played some harp live with Bill "Howl-N-Madd" Perry and Shy Perry when they were in town a couple times recently. The station helps promote blues musicians. Here is the station link:
Much of the current music is quite distinguishable from the blues that I love to listen to (SB, LW, etc). The new stuff is well done, entertaining and even athletic but I think 'modern blues' is a misnomer. It may be somewhat derived from the blues of old but I don't get the 'blues' vibe from a lot of it.
I'll take care of it, first thing in the morning. :-) what kudzu said.
I was just writing to orphan about all the clubs across America w/ live music and blues too.. He is going to play a festival on the 6th. It ain't broke. No, Muddy ain't comin back. I saw him only 6 times.
The golden age is an archetypal myth created by a bunch of guys sittin round remembering the good old days. it was something a bunch of people agreed upon. (You think Sonny boy thought he lived a romantic life?) they decided to crown certain people king and so it was. SBWII is a perfect archetype for the romantic myth of THE BLUES. oh well. ---------- Affordable Reed Replacement Marks Harmonica Tune-up
Click user name MP for contact info
Last Edited by MP on May 31, 2014 11:46 AM
in my perception/definition of the 'blues' , there are fairly simple musical features/structure that define this music .. chord changes and the type of beat being the 2 major factors ..
Tap your feet and/or clap your hands ..... might? define 'the blues' .. easy to do ... even to delta blues ..
@gamblershand - the 'Son Little' tune posted .. definitely not blues imo .. nice modern music, great voice, don't know what genre that falls into
.. isachulla's vid's also do not fit the 'feeling' that a blues tune delivers to my heart and soul , the second one , ya sort of but not really .... nice to listen to but not blues ..
whereas the John Mayers tune .. definitely does deliver ...
Almost all modern music we know rock , country , pop , r&b etc, - roots, influence - are in the blues .. do having those roots in 'the blues' , make them 'blues music' .. of course not ..
It does frustrate me, that allot of music today is being promo'd as .. 'the blues' , when it's not ...
Here's my stop .. time to get off this train .. Cheers ya'll
Son Little's track isn't my definition of blues either, but definitely blues and gospel-influenced. And if someone defined it as modern or post-modern blues I could see where they're coming from. I certainly hear I-IV-V changes, pretty much 12 bar with a repeated V-IV.
Is the expectation that when a genre is reinvigorated that it will stay unchanged? I don't see how that's possible. For example Hoodoo Man Blues is a great mid-60s blues record - but it's obviously indebted to the latin/boogaloo rhythms and James Brown's proto-funk at the time
Also I think - as sonny3 has mentioned - that a genre I used to totally despise- "blues-rock" has been reinvigorated by bands like the Black Keys, North Mississippi Allstars etc. The Black Keys might be close to the biggest contemporary guitar-based band at the moment - and they have previously released an album of Junior Kimbrough covers.
I like some of what these guys do - here a nice mix of old and new.
Of course Screamin Jay wasn't strictly blues either
I may be in a minority here, but I think that over the last few years there has been a welcome shift back to organic and bluesy sounds in some popular music, which I hope will encourage people to check out the source.
Also that there's a lot a good music being made by those that colour outside the lines a little.
Last Edited by GamblersHand on Jun 01, 2014 3:26 AM
Whaa , rain , sleet , no taxi .. getting back on the train till .. ... the turnaround ...
@ Frank - Thumbs up .. got to get past SBW II
@ GamblersHand - had to go look up postmodern as it applies to music & blues of course ...
The Heavy - Sixteen , is real good, nice to listen to .. cat can sing .. but it ain't what I call blues ... makes my feet confused ...
Wiki defines : Postmodern music does not primarily define itself in opposition to modernist music; this label is applied instead by critics and theorists. The terms "postmodern", "postmodernism", "postmodernist", and "postmodernity" .... are exasperating terms
Blues Masters, Vol. 9: Postmodern Blues is a wonderful compendium of artists and styles illustrating the coming of blues into the mainstream. This volume features representative tracks by:
B.B. King, Albert Collins, Albert King, George Thorogood, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Johnny Winter, and the Fabulous Thunderbirds. The modern sound at its best, and most diverse.
This definition I get ! There should be a groove ... imo .. Hoodoo Man definitely has a groove .. whatever influence .. that might be a good example of 'revitalized' from that era ..
@mastercaster: I can see your argument for Possessed By Paul James, and for Shakey Graves (second two kids), but for Bror Gunnar Jansson? Man, if that guy's not playing the Blues, then I don't know what Blues is. His music goes straight back to the Delta, even if he's never been there himself... Listen to his song "Blues for Belton" and tell me that's not the blues...
Also, i think you are forgeting just how many types of Blues there are: Delta, Hill country, Piedmont, Classic, Chicago, Kansas City, Texas, etc... For PBPJ and Shakey, I,d argue that they are playing a sort of modernized Piedmont style...
EDIT: Here's a Shakey Graves tune that I think better exemplifies his connection with the Piedmont style Blues...
Bror's definitely got it going on ! .. don't recall mentioning anything one way or another about his music .. I will now though .. good stuff !
It's possible I've forgotten some types of blues (57 yrs young), and trying to play em since 14 .. so .. I doubt it ..
Modern & Postmodern .. that's where it just doesn't make (musical) sense to me... crossover genre's , ok if you want to call them blues .. up to those who feel the need ...
Well aside from the list of Postmodern pickers I already posted ; ) !
I enjoy Bror but he is not going to revitalize the blues - zz topp via Mr. Hooker and a Seasick Steve kinda style. I dig the sound but other than being exceptionally coordinated he is pretty average-I am sure he would be a super busker
I vote for Bob Log 111 myself or Hank 111 for that matter
"I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description ["The Blues"]; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I hear it."
I listen to and enjoy many genres of music. In fact, I like most of what has been posted on this thread. I simply think you had to have lived in a certain era and environment to have earned the official "Blues" badge. Just my own opinion.
EDIT: I removed one irrelevant video post because they sure do slow down page loading.
I have opened for Possesed by Paul James and he keeps asking my band to do a record with him, hopefully it'll happen. Shakey is one of my best friend's son.
@mastercaster: I was responding to this quote - ".. isachulla's vid's also do not fit the 'feeling' that a blues tune delivers to my heart and soul , the second one , ya sort of but not really .... nice to listen to but not blues .. "
But I'm glad you dug the Bror! :) I fully know that there's many interpretations of just what the "Blues" is - I'm simply making a case for a wider definition than yours, but we certainly don't all have to agree on this! :] To me, it's actually totally cool that the Blues means such different things to different folks - that's what makes it interesting, and what keeps me into it!
@Goldbrick: I dunno... I think I have to disagree with ya on this one... I think Bror's digging much deeper than ZZ Top, Seasick Steve, or even John Lee Hooker. If you listen to his whole catalog, it becomes clear that he's in it deep. Real deep.
@Michael Rubin: So cool to hear of your personal connections to PBPJ and Shakey! I'm really looking forward to seeing Shakey when he gets here to Pittsburgh at the end of the month. Should be a killer show. If you do end up recording with PBPJ, let me know! i'd LOVE to hear what that sounds like!
@amenym and JustFyua: Great vids, guys! I'd "heard" of Sister Sparrow, but hadn't gotten around to listening to them much. What a great Alt-Country/Americana sound they've got! Love it! And that Lisa Lystem stuff was pretty darn cool! I hadn't heard of her yet! Cool little doco on her too... ----------
