Modern Blues Players, your thoughts.

Subject: RE: Modern Blues Players, your thoughts.
From: Rory B
Date: 08 Jan 05 - 12:17 AM

I didn't have the address before I was at work....if you want to listen to dw a bit here is the site
dw's cd site

Subject: RE: Modern Blues Players, your thoughts.
From: Bobert
Date: 07 Jan 05 - 10:11 PM

Yeah, Ted Hawkins is real good but din't he like die? Yeah, I'm sure he died....

As fir dwdiddy, I'z heared DW and and DW got the stuff....

Bobert

Subject: RE: Modern Blues Players, your thoughts.
From: GUEST,guest
Date: 07 Jan 05 - 08:41 PM

Hiya all

Yep   just Ted Hawkins and that old Huyton (Liverpool) baddie Lee Mavers...

Ddw 'nothing but the best is good enough' and your list surely is...
\

bye

Subject: RE: Modern Blues Players, your thoughts.
From: Rory B
Date: 07 Jan 05 - 07:28 PM

My favorite Blues artist is dwditty. You should give him a listen if you love acoustic blues.

Subject: RE: Modern Blues Players, your thoughts.
From: Big Jim from Jackson
Date: 07 Jan 05 - 07:25 PM

Where does Dave van Ronk fit in all this? And what about Catfish Keith?

Subject: RE: Modern Blues Players, your thoughts.
From: Bobert
Date: 07 Jan 05 - 06:40 PM

Sniff....

Man, Tweezer, ya' really know how to hurt a guy... I jus' deciderated that I couldn't make it down fir the IBC, even though my homies at Archie Edwards Barber Shop is gettin' the KBA award and then you gotta go and stick that movie up there with Daniel...

Sniff....

Maybe the Handy's?

As fir other contemporary blues folks there are plenty good 'un's out there....

Corey Harris
Rory Block
John Hammond
Guy Davis
Me 'n Tweed *
Kelly Joe Phelps
etc...

Bobert

*Yeah, me and Tweed were 'sposed to play at the Super Bowl a couple years ago but we had to cancell out at the last minute 'cause we couldn't get tickets...

Subject: RE: Modern Blues Players, your thoughts.
From: GLoux
Date: 07 Jan 05 - 04:43 PM

Likewise, thanks for reviving this thread...

With regard to Mississippi John Hurt, I would say he's "country blues".

Also, no one has mentioned Rev. Gary Davis.

There's an interesting article in the January Acoustic Guitar magazine on Guy Davis. I've not yet heard him, but they say he's "old-fashioned country blues"...

-Greg

Subject: RE: Modern Blues Players, your thoughts.
From: PoppaGator
Date: 07 Jan 05 - 03:56 PM

Thanks to the last two posters for reviving this old thread, which I missed first time around.

Speaking for myself, I like some of the old acoustic stuff and some of the newer electric stuff, too. My position on Jimi Hendrix is that he understood and performed the blues as well as anyone ever, which should not be negated by the fact that he explored other musical styles, too.

I *really* love Mississippi John Hurt, but I'm not sure his music (or Leadbelly's, or Josh White's) truly qualifies as "blues." My personal definition of The Blues rules out stuff that is "too folk" as well as the other extreme, "too rock." Doesn't mean I don't *like* music that's not the blues ~ just my personal filing system.

My single favorite blues recording of all time is Buddy Guy's "A Man and the Blues," really a set of duets with pianist Otis Spann backed with a rhythm section and, on some cuts, a horn section too. Most of the album (maybe half of the cuts, but the longest cuts) consists of the most excruciating s-l-o-o-o-o-w blues ever. The uptempo stuff is great, too, notably "Mary Had a Little Lamb."

I's like to add Chris Thomas King to the short list of contemporary young black acoustic blues players, along with Taj, Keb Mo, and Corey Harris. He's broadened his pop appeal now that he's a film actor ("Brother Where Art Thou" and one of the installments of the PBS "Blues" series), but his blues pedigree and personal qualifications can't be seriously challenged. His father, Tabby Thomas, has long been a mainstay of the Baton Rouge blues scene, both as a performer and as a club owner (Tabby's Blues Box).

I noticed that T-Bone Walker's name crept into the conversation without anyone first "listing" him as a fave. He was certainly a great one, and widely influential. Let me toss in the name of his protege Guitar Slim, notable at least for his one great signature tune, "The Things That I Used to Do."

And then there's Slim's protege, the recently deceased Earl King, a great songwriter and really more of an R&B/rock guy than a bluesman. Early in his career, Earl was sent out on the road under Slim's name ~ audiences on the chitlin circuit never know that he wasn't the "real" Guitar Slim (who preferred to stay home in New Orleans).

Subject: RE: Modern Blues Players, your thoughts.
From: Tweed
Date: 07 Jan 05 - 02:30 PM

Here's a Modern Day Blues singer for you.

Slick Ballinger (short TweedMovie

Subject: RE: Modern Blues Players, your thoughts.
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 07 Jan 05 - 01:28 PM

69

Subject: RE: Modern Blues Players, your thoughts.
From: s6k
Date: 07 Jan 05 - 01:10 PM

nothing will ever "replace" blues, blues will be around forever.

Music is transcendant, it cannot be replaced by other genres etc

Subject: RE: Modern Blues Players, your thoughts.
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Jan 05 - 12:57 PM

Jonny Lang

Subject: RE: Modern Blues Players, your thoughts.
From: Rustic Rebel
Date: 15 Feb 02 - 12:44 AM

Jimmy Vaughan-He does that kind of roadhouse blues. He has a laid back but clean style. He can put out some sharp licks too. John Mooney and Jimmy Thackery playing together is delta groove. Coco Montoya- he played with John Mayall for years, went out on his own and he does some hot licks. Then there's Dave Hole. I think he comes from Australia. He can smoke up a guitar. Canned Heat,and another young person Shawn Pittman, I liked what I saw in him also. Rustic

Subject: RE: Modern Blues Players, your thoughts.
From: ddw
Date: 14 Feb 02 - 06:16 PM

M.Ted —— a couple of points....

I can't agree with you on the milieu being gone. Don't know if you picked up on the thread I posted a while back with a link to the photography of Bill Steber, who spends a lot of his time in the Mississippi Delta photographing the people of that area and their way of life. I'll refresh the thread for you to have a look. Double click on the photos to enlare them enough to see them well.

As for rap/hip-hop being today's blues...

Thematically, maybe. But musically, today's noise is just signifying set to disco music, but without a lot of signifying's playfulness. Most rap is just angry/nasty/in-your-face assholeism, IMO. It may have replaced blues, but I think it's a real stretch to call it today's form of blues.

cheers,

david

Subject: RE: Modern Blues Players, your thoughts.
From: M.Ted
Date: 14 Feb 02 - 05:25 PM

I actually like the arguement that someone put up on a recent thread that rap/hip-hop was today's blues--so perhaps the 12-bar structure has already gone by the wayside--

Subject: RE: Modern Blues Players, your thoughts.
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Feb 02 - 02:52 PM

I disagree.

Historically, the Blues (at least in this country) arose from field hollers and gospel meetings, and served to relieve the dejectedness of slavery.

Universally speaking, however, the Blues deals with troubles, pain, heartbreak, whiskey, wimmins cheatin' on their mans, mans cheatin' on their wimmins, and other things...the stuff of everyday life. In that sense the milieu never changes, and probably never will.

What changes is the way these things are manifested, through advances in technology (the electric guitar), and what's deemed socially, culturally, and politically acceptable. For example, in Hendrix's 'Hey Joe' (not stictly a blues tune, admittedly, but the lyric is suggestive of a blues theme and serves as a convenient example), the protagonist shoots his woman when he finds out that she's been cheating on him. Today, that kind of violence toward women is socially and politically unacceptable, so I'd venture that not many modern blues tunes being written these days (at least the ones I've been listening to lately) - except by 'hardliners' like T-Model Ford, who seems to be from the 'old school' and whose style hearkens back to an earlier, John-Lee-Hooker era - by the likes of Robert Cray or Keb' Mo' are so blatantly direct in dealing with the problem of infidelity. That territory has been usurped by Rap, it seems.

The experimental '60's, in which the lines that defined the various styles of music were intentionally blurred, are no longer with us, agreed. But problems that bring on a case of the blues will be with us always. And artists will continue to sing about them, utilizing whatever tools technology or culture comes up with. In that sense the Blues will continue to be expansive.

What seems to be most enduring and tireless about the Blues genre is the I-IV-V pattern. That pattern, coupled with a slower tempo than rock, in most cases, seems the most definite way to recognize a song as belonging in the Blues category. Other chord patterns that deviate markedly from I-IV-V are used occasionally and these songs can qualify as Blues, but the Blues' signature style is I-IV-V, no matter how expansive the genre becomes. Perhaps, that, too, will someday change.

Subject: RE: Modern Blues Players, your thoughts.
From: M.Ted
Date: 14 Feb 02 - 11:18 AM

I don't think the milieu that created blues is there anymore, and neither is that milieu that Hendrix, Clapton, and Page were part of, let alone the Jazz scene that Miles came up in--things change so fast today that by the time people are aware that something is out there, "there" isn't there anymore--

Subject: RE: Modern Blues Players, your thoughts.
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Feb 02 - 10:23 AM

The Blues, like other musical genres, is flexible. It expands and contracts with the passage of time, and changes with the milieu in which it evolves. Mozart was considered revolutionary in his day (he put 'too many notes' into his music); jazz expands to cover hybrids like 'fusion' in which jazz greats like Miles Davis were instrumental. Country music absorbs the influences of Hank Williams and Chet Atkins, to become something else markedly different from what it started out to be, yet it can still be classified as 'country.'

The Blues is expansive enough to include guys like Hendrix, Clapton, and Page when they're paying tribute to the influences that spawned their styles. It all boils down to how narrow one wants to define his/her parameters.

Subject: RE: Modern Blues Players, your thoughts.
From: M.Ted
Date: 13 Feb 02 - 11:34 PM

ddw--I like a lot of electric guitar players, as well, but the music and the musicians I like the best all end up being pretty old--even the jazz and classical music I like ends up being older--

As for you Iceboy, different people hear different things I guess--

Subject: RE: Modern Blues Players, your thoughts.
From: ddw
Date: 13 Feb 02 - 06:28 PM

Rolfy —— I don't exactly reject all electric players out of hand, I just don't think they're as complex or interesting as the old guys. As I said above, there are some post-war players I like to listen to, but I have to admit there are more bass and harp players there than guitarists. Sorry, the scream vocals that came up after the '60s (KoKo Taylor, Buddy Guy, Janice Joplin, Big Mama Thornton, etc) and one-note-at-a-time guitarists just don't turn my crank. I can still listen to Howlin' Wolf, Muddy, T-Bone and some others, but given a choice I'd rather listen to the old Piedmont guys.

M.Ted. -- You're welcome. And thank you for such a succinct way of putting what I've been trying to say.

I have to admit Dr. Ross is a gap in my education. I'm aware of him, but have never heard more than the odd cut on a compilation. He's on a long list of people I'm trying to get around to.

cheers,

david

Subject: RE: Modern Blues Players, your thoughts.
From: GUEST,Iceboy
Date: 13 Feb 02 - 06:11 PM

Listen to L. Johnson's Bedbug Blues. I think you'll hear more post-'62' B.B in there than you will in any T-Bone recordings. T-Bone and L. Johnson were similar only in the sense that they were both hugely influential. I don't recall what song or songs T-Bone may have used the B.B. signature lick on, if any. He sort of hints at it in the head to "Two Bones and a Pick." I still think his influence was wider with the Texas and West Coast guys like Pee-Wee Crayton, Gatemouth, Collins, Pete Lewis, etc. than with any of the modern Mississippi and Chicago guys. Mississippi was listening to what was happening in Memphis, and to Louis Jordan, while the Southwest and West Coast seemed more focused on Kansas City and Count Basie. By the way, I think that Chuck Berry lick you mentioned came to him from T-Bone via T-Bone's efforts to imitate Lester Young's tenor.

Subject: RE: Modern Blues Players, your thoughts.
From: M.Ted
Date: 13 Feb 02 - 01:41 PM

I believe that Dr. Ross has passed, but I don't know any details--sorry if I created a wrong impression. As per BB King--my recollection is that his signature lick was first used by T-Bone--the Chuck Berry lick was earlier used by T-Bone as well--Walker was a lot like Lonnie Johnson in that he was an inventive, progressive player, and his records were widely listened and drawn on by other musicians, many of whom built their styles around what they picked up--

Subject: RE: Modern Blues Players, your thoughts.
From: C-flat
Date: 13 Feb 02 - 10:01 AM

I don't think anyone's mentioned Robben Ford yet! A great nodern blues player with some original licks.

Subject: RE: Modern Blues Players, your thoughts.
From: Tweed
Date: 13 Feb 02 - 07:27 AM

Dr. Ross still lives, MTed? More info on that please!

Subject: RE: Modern Blues Players, your thoughts.
From: GUEST,Iceboy
Date: 13 Feb 02 - 05:55 AM

Does anyone here agree that Lonnie Johnson is the missing link between country blues and late-sixties B.B.? His brilliance in D/C position and his focus on that position box based around the g-b-e strings with root on the b is something you never hear B.B. talk about, but Lonnie Johnson mapped it out and used it like he owned it! The late sixies to present are not my favorite era of B.B., but I think his style in that period owes Lonnie Johnson a huge debt that's never beeen acknowledged. Re: Bloomfield; he got a lot from the Westsiders, yes, maybe from Otis Rush more than anyone, but he was so damn busy most of the time! He lacked impact and focus for this reason. Duke Roillard's an outstanding guitarist, no doubt. Seems to balance technical proficiency with passion, imagination, taste, and an encyclopedic stylistic knowledge as well as anyone I know of. B.B. influenced hugely by T-Bone? Hard to buy. I'm sure he was a great admirer of T-Bone's, but his sound and phrasing don't sound similar. I'd put him closer to Joe Willie Wilkins, Pete Lewis, and Willie Johnson.

Subject: RE: Modern Blues Players, your thoughts.
From: M.Ted
Date: 13 Feb 02 - 01:03 AM

Thanks for quoting me, ddw--my head is spinning! I think I said that BB King had 4 licks, taken from 8 licks from T-Bone Walker, taken from from Blind Lemon Jefferson, who used 16 licks in the same song--in the Blind Lemon thread--and, though it isn't exactly true, it is close to the point--

I don't listen much to the latter day blues boys, though I respect them for carrying on the music, I think that the book is pretty much closed on Blues guitar--especially the kind ddw likes--the world that created the music has disappeared, and won't be back, neither will the music--

How about Dr. Ross, ddw? He's right up your alley, a one man band, loaded with the real blues--used to hear him years ago when the post war blues world still lived in Detroit--

Subject: RE: Modern Blues Players, your thoughts.
From: Rolfyboy6
Date: 13 Feb 02 - 01:00 AM

Iceboy, I concur with your observation. Most Mudcatters have only a passing exposure to blues roots and style families. An exception is ddw, yet he has rejected all electric blues unlike the blues people themselves. As Mark notes Bloomfield was good, I wonder if his many fans are aware of how much he owed to Magic Sam.

Subject: RE: Modern Blues Players, your thoughts.
From: Mark Clark
Date: 12 Feb 02 - 10:34 PM

Lonesome EJ mentioned Mike Bloomfield but I think his name bears repeating. He wasn't just an accomplished guitarist, he got inside the blues and brought it back out, just the way it was supposed to sound.

Duke Robillard is another of my farorites. I catch his show whenever he's in the area.

      - Mark

Subject: RE: Modern Blues Players, your thoughts.
From: iceboy
Date: 12 Feb 02 - 09:09 PM

I realize this thread lived and died many months ago but I'll throw my two cents worth anyway. I just found this web-site. It's pretty clear from the names being referenced on this thread that MOST of the posters relay on rockers for their blues exposure. Jimi Hendrix was a brilliant R&B, soul, and rock guitarist in a similar vein to Curtis Mayfield, Cornell Dupree, and Don Covay. He was masterful and imaginative, but not a bluesman, although he did borrow heavily from John Lee Hooker and Lightnin' Hopkins, among others. Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page, Roy Buchanan, and Johnny Winter (Johnny and his brother put out some amazing R&B vocal demos in the early 60's) are rockers who cover blues songs, but not with a valid blues sensibility or dynamic range. Eric Clapton WISHES he could sound like B.B., Freddie, and Otis Rush sounded in the fifties. Buddy Guy proved in the early sixties that electric blues guitar could have a dynamic range from a whisper to a scream. Earl Hooker was a master of phrasing and time. If you want to compare pre-war to post-war blues, that's fair enough. Let's just make sure we're talking about blues masters, not pop mimics.

Iceboy

Subject: RE: Modern Blues Players, your thoughts.
From: ddw
Date: 12 Feb 02 - 08:59 PM

Iceboy,

I haven't heard any of Josh Jr's stuff recently, so I can't judge on anything later than about 10 years, but his earlier stuff was following pretty well in Dad's footsteps. I'm disappointed with Keb Mo's latest album and suspect you might be referring to the direction he's headed in.

As for Muddy's stuff... I've heard it and —— sorry —— I'm just not that impressed. I like him a lot better than B.B. King and a lot of JL Hooker's work, but he doesn't speak to me the way Sonny Boy Williamson II (Rice Miller) or Willie Dixon or James Cotton does.

Maybe we're just listening for different things and there's nothing we can do about that, but I've said before and I'll say again that the plugged-in players who treat the guitar like a trumpet just don't do the same thing for me as the one-man, one-guitar masters who could carry a whole dance or keep an audience in thrall with little or no backup.

Somebody came up with a great quote in a recent thread. It was something to the effect that one of the old bluesmen (can't recall which, but it might have been Blind Blake had 16 licks. Another venerated player learned eight of them and passed four on the next, who passed two to other bluesmen. Now most "blues" players learn one lick and think they're accomplished bluesmen.

I'll try to find that quote and pass it along when I have time, but right now I have to get back to work.

cheers,

david

Subject: RE: Modern Blues Players, your thoughts.
From: iceboy
Date: 12 Feb 02 - 08:10 PM

David;

Don't know what you're listening to when bashing Muddy, but some of the newer traditional players you site couldn't hold a candle to either Muddy or the outstanding pre-war masters you site. I'll let you figure out which ones I'm referring to. At least one is little more than a thinly veiled pop artist meticulously cultivating a classic bluesman image. If you don't hear the soul and mastery in Louisiana Blues and Muddy's version of Kindhearted Woman, while simultaneously touting some of the newer artists who are just beginning to scratch the surface of the work the pre-war masters created, then I think you need to seriously go back and take another listen to all of it.

Lotsa luck,

Iceboy

Subject: RE: Modern Blues Players, your thoughts.
From: Rich(bodhránai gan ciall)
Date: 03 Mar 01 - 12:18 AM

John Cephas and Phil Wiggins, absolutely floored me when I saw them. I really don't know the genre well, but I have some friends here in Pittsburgh that recommend stuff and I almost invariably like what I hear.

Pat Donahue, The self-proclaimed "Two Hand Band" is entirely too modest. He's makes that guitar sound like an orchestra.

Paul Rishell and Annie Raines, I've seen them twice as a duet as well as with John Sebastian's "J-Band" Paul does some nice work with a Strat, but he really shines on a National Steel guitar. Annie makes her harmonica talk. As a pair they're incredible!


And one I'll probably get an argument about: Carole King, She's classified as a singer-songwriter and certainly that title applies, but I've caught myself listening to a couple songs off of "Tapestry" and thing they could easily fit into either an electric or country blues format. Particularly "Way Over Yonder". And she sings with more soul than one normally would expect from a "Pop Artist of the Year"


Just my $.02

Rich

Subject: RE: Modern Blues Players, your thoughts.
From: Steve Latimer
Date: 02 Mar 01 - 04:13 PM

Lonesome EJ,

The piece that you refer to is one of my favourite Hendrix pieces. Too bad it was so short.

Steve

Subject: RE: Modern Blues Players, your thoughts.
From: Peter T.
Date: 02 Mar 01 - 04:04 PM

I think Janis Joplin is in a Mount Everest category of her own, all by herself: JANIS JOPLIN.
yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: Modern Blues Players, your thoughts.
From: Justa Picker
Date: 02 Mar 01 - 03:09 PM

I've always thought of Jimi as being all about blues, and thoroughly grounded in it. He just took it to a whole new level, and thousands of electric players world wide do, and have done, everything they can to emulate his style. He plays electric blues with more emotion (with the arguable exception of maybe Roy Buchanan) than anyone I've ever heard before or since. He was truly one of a kind.

Subject: RE: Modern Blues Players, your thoughts.
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 02 Mar 01 - 02:35 PM

Those familiar with Hendrix's Star Spangled Banner should listen to the track that follows it on the Woodstock soundtrack album...a very moody, near-acoustic rendering that features the beautiful runs and fills that Hendrix was so adept at, and which often put his music in the category of Jazz more accurately than in the rock or blues area.

I believe that Hendrix's playing had an impact on how guitar is played in nearly every genre, including rock,country,jazz and blues. Whether you like the change he wrought or not is another question.

Subject: RE: Modern Blues Players, your thoughts.
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Mar 01 - 12:55 PM

ddw..."I still also have some trouble with categorizing JH as a "blues" guitarist based on a few cuts. It might prove he COULD HAVE BEEN a bluesman, but his body of work still says to me he wasn't."

Exactly. "There's a distinction between rock musicians who acknowledge their blues influences occasionally, and those musicians who strictly play blues, however one cares to define the genre." Hendrix obviously falls in the former category. He wasn't a bluesman, he was a psychedelic hard rockin' electric guitar player...he knew which side his bread was buttered on. Maybe he'd heard too many stories about Robert Johnson et al dying penniless and unknown. But he knew blues and could play electric blues with the best of 'em. (all caveat emptors from a Hendrix fan apply)

Subject: RE: Modern Blues Players, your thoughts.
From: ddw
Date: 01 Mar 01 - 10:51 PM

GUEST,

I guess we'll just have to leave it at "it's arguable" on the holler/scream question, but I still have to come down saying Leadbelly's hollers were a lot closer to music than JJ's screaming — a pretty good imitation of which you can get by poking a pig in the ass with a hatpin.

I still also have some trouble with categorizing JH as a "blues" guitarist based on a few cuts. It might prove he COULD HAVE BEEN a bluesman, but his body of work still says to me he wasn't.

Steve,

You're spot on on the age difference — I'm a few months short of 58.

And you're right about my taste forming before Hendrix changed the way guitar was played. I was in university when Hendrix was big (I'd spent six years between high school and Univ.) and a lot of my friends thought he was wonderful. I didn't agree then and I don't agree now. I'm not even sure I can concede that the electric guitar is any more a guitar than an organ is a piano — I consider them different instruments.

I also have some trouble relating to the argument that volume and sustain convey the same emotional range as subtlely played, well-placed notes. They might both be able to make you happy or sad or angry, but to me there is a QUALITATIVE difference in the feelings the two can evoke. Maybe I'm a fossile and don't understand the "language" of the electric guitar, but I find its emotional range limited more to angry, angrier and ready to kill something.

But then, I like Beethoven and hate Bartok and I won't allow an artificial Christmas tree in the house.

David — dug in and flak jacket on.....

Subject: RE: Modern Blues Players, your thoughts.
From: Steve Latimer
Date: 01 Mar 01 - 09:48 AM

ddw,

Ah, "The Star Spangled Banner" maybe the most excessive of Jimi's Live performance excesses. Unfortunately for many people this is one of the few tracks that they've heard by Jimi and it is easy to discount him based on this.

Hear My Train A Comin' is one of only a few acoustic tunes I've ever heard Jimi do. I first heard it years ago, it was on the soundtrack of "A Film About Jimi Hendrix". It was a rare moment indeed and has since been re-released on the CD "Blues" that Guest refers to.

Given the dates that you mention I am guessing that you are at least 15 years older than me (I'll be 42 this month). Your musical tastes were formed before Jimi changed the way the guitar was played, mine after. I can see how he might have been hard to take for a purist. For me, he was one of the people who made me realize that I loved the Blues and had to find out more about it, yet I sure liked a lot of what he gave us. And let there be no bones about, a lot of the stuff, especially live performances that were released after his death was crap. Jimi had his demons.

Music is nothing more than sounds and lyrics. A lot of the electric blues sounds were essentially the same as those that the guys from the twenties and thirties were striving for with the slide, the modern guys did with volume and sustain. Despair and angst. I've often wondered what sounds Robert Johnson would have created had the Stratocaster and a Marshall stack been around in his day.

Subject: RE: Modern Blues Players, your thoughts.
From: GUEST
Date: 01 Mar 01 - 08:07 AM

ddw...

Essentially I am in agreement with you about Leadbelly being able to get at the emotion without resorting to voice box suicide. I was merely pointing out my belief that there are some similarities between Leadbelly's "field hollers" and the primal screams of Janis Joplin, for example. I realize this is arguable.

It boils down to the old saw about "diff'rent strokes...."

Accoustic Hendrix is somewhat rare. Obviously he wasn't known for being unplugged. The track Latimer refers to shows up on a posthumous compilation of blues imaginatively titled, "Blues,", and is the only accoustic track on the recording, if memory serves.

Subject: RE: Modern Blues Players, your thoughts.
From: ddw
Date: 01 Mar 01 - 12:21 AM

OK, Steve and GUEST, I'm willing to be convinced. I've never even heard of Hendrix playing acoustic, but I'm certainly going to look up some of it. I've never heard him do anything be what I consider flat-out rock and The Star Spangled Banner.

Guest, am I missing your point about Leadbelly, or are you agreeing with me that he was able to get at the emotion without resorting to primal scream? I've got no problem with rough, raucous voices SINGING, but I lose interest when it goes into the scream range. Any four-year-old can have a tantrum and be about as musical as some of the modern purveyors of what's passing for blues these days.

david

Subject: RE: Modern Blues Players, your thoughts.
From: black walnut
Date: 28 Feb 01 - 01:39 PM

They've been already mentioned:

Kelly Joe Phelps

Martin Simpson

~b.w.

Subject: RE: Modern Blues Players, your thoughts.
From: GUEST
Date: 28 Feb 01 - 12:47 PM

Spot on, Steve Latimer.

Subject: RE: Modern Blues Players, your thoughts.
From: Steve Latimer
Date: 28 Feb 01 - 11:29 AM

Guest,

You beat me to it and said it more eloquently than I could have.

Jimi's acoustic "Hear My Train A Comin'" could easily slipped onto a compilation CD of Bukka, RJ, MJH, Son House etc and would fit right in.

Subject: RE: Modern Blues Players, your thoughts.
From: GUEST
Date: 28 Feb 01 - 09:09 AM

There's a distinction between rock musicians who acknowledge their blues influences occasionally, and those musicians who strictly play blues, however one cares to define the genre.

Regardless, just because Leadbelly sang "Bluetail Fly" doesn't diminish his stature as a bluesman, no more than Hendrix singing "Purple Haze" diminishes his stellar reindition of "Red House." One listen to Hendrix's version of that song should be enough to convince anyone that he knew blues inside out and upside down (literally). Perhaps the high decibel trend of those early so-called "psychedelic" times stems less from the desire to do sonic damage and more from the fact that those '60's Marshall heads had to be cranked to get the siren-esque tone of mournful urgency those guys loved so much. And while Leadbelly's "field hollers" are somewhat more subdued than an out-and-out primal scream, they both serve to reflect the same feeling of frustration born of despair.

Even Clapton describes himself, when all is said and done, as a blues guitarist, notwithstanding his success with the 'unplugged' ballads. And he, of all people, should be the foremost authority on his playing. Those rare occasions when he is caught on video noodling around on his Strat seem to confirm this. It's those same five notes of the pentatonic scale, done to death but never losing their ability to evoke the feelings we associate with the blues.

Subject: RE: Modern Blues Players, your thoughts.
From: Bluesman and kde
Date: 28 Feb 01 - 07:22 AM

I forgot to mention Ry Cooder in my previous posting. He has lots of CD's out, which I have all but a couple, but I think the best one is "Crossroads", which is from the movie of the same name. Another obscure bluesman is Terry Evans who did back-up vocals on several Ry Cooder CD's. Cooder has finally produced a couple of albums for Terry and he is one of the most soulful singers I've ever heard. He plays acoustic guitar on them with Ry playing that awesome slide that he plays. Know most of you will love his work. Recently deceased Pop Staples is another favorite of mine. Ry plays on several cuts on the two CD's I have of him. Another bit of info is that all 3 have recorded "Down in Mississippi" and though Ry plays on all 3 versions, they are so different, but all 3 versions are great. Give them a listen...........Jim

Subject: RE: Modern Blues Players, your thoughts.
From: ddw
Date: 28 Feb 01 - 12:39 AM

Steve

I agree that there are post-Muddy players who are doing the blues. I mentioned a few of them. But so much of what is called blues these days — as evidenced by some of your choices in the first post on this thread — doesn't qualify in my view. Just like there is a dividing line between country and rock'n'roll, there is a cutoff between blues and the post-R'n'R rock that has its roots in blues. I definitely think there is a point of "innovation" around a style of playing and singing that makes it something else and it would take a helluva lot of convincing to get me to think Jimi Hendrix played blues.

There was a magic in one man with one guitar being able to carry a whole dance or put an audience through an emotional wringer that just gets lost when you get a whole bunch of musicians playing together to do the same thing.

Sure, some of these guys can play guitar and — if they would — sing. But screaming, either vocally or instrumentally, doesn't make me feel THEIR anger as much as it makes me feel mine at having to listen to it. To me blues is about emotion expressed through finesse, not primal scream.

Maybe I'm just coming at this from a little different perspective. I used to listen to WLAC, a Nashville, TN station, back in the '50s when they sold "race records" to the black population of the southern U.S. They played Muddy Waters, Bobby "Blue" Bland, B.B. King, John Lee Hooker and lots of others who were recording in Chicago and New York at the time. I liked that music better than the country and early rocka'n'roll that were standard fare around where I lived, but in about 1958 somebody introduced me to Josh White, Leadbelly and Big Bill Broonzy and I realized that the guys I'd been listening to were not a patch on the old masters — and that was before I heard Blind Blake, Blind Boy Fuller, Willie McTell, John Hurt and Mance Lipscomb. In my estimation Hendrix and King couldn't carry most of the old guys' guitar cases.

Oddly enough, most of the better blues players since the old masters have been white, middle-class boys. I just hope some of them are still alive when young black men rediscover the music so the techniques can be passed back to the people who started it all. But I guess we have to wait for rap to run its course and for young blacks to rediscover MUSIC as a way to convey their angst and joy.

cheers,

david

Subject: RE: Modern Blues Players, your thoughts.
From: Steve Latimer
Date: 27 Feb 01 - 03:59 PM

Lonesome EJ,

You're welcome. It was also inspired by the thread last week about Blues links. In that one Max stated that he started Mudcat as a site dedicated to Blues & Folk music and that blues is his first love.

Just listening to Taj Mahal doing Elizabeth Cotten's "Freight Train".

Steve

Subject: RE: Modern Blues Players, your thoughts.
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 27 Feb 01 - 03:53 PM

Thanks for starting the thread Steve - good way to find out how many of us Blues Fans are knocking around on the Forum.

Subject: RE: Modern Blues Players, your thoughts.
From: Steve Latimer
Date: 27 Feb 01 - 03:46 PM

ddw,

Don't get me wrong. I love the originators, I very rarely find myself listening to the modern guys these days. But I found Robert Johnson, Son House, Blind Willie McTell, Blind Willie Johnson, Lightnin' Hopkins, Mississippi through having heard the modern guys. When I first heard Johnny Winter doing Broke Down Engine on a National steel I realized that I had to find out where that came from. It's been a long road and from the looks of this thread one that I will never finish exploring. This thread started because a colleague of my Girlfriend's heard that I loved the blues and loaned her a few CD's for me to listen to. It is primarily modern stuff and it just got me thinking about some of the guys I've listened to before.

I think that both Pre-Muddy Waters electric and Post Muddy Waters electric are valid forms of the blues.