What brought you to the blues?

Subject: RE: What brought you to the blues?
From: Will Fly
Date: 14 Feb 10 - 10:58 AM

As I said on the other blues thread:

"When I was, I think, about 14, an uncle took me to a venue in Bristol - don't know if it was the Old Market or the Colston Hall - to see a black man playing the guitar and singing.

When I was 20, I went with some friends to the Free Trades Hall in Manchester to see a black man playing the guitar and singing.

The first one was Bill Broonzy, the second one was Gary Davis. I have to admit that details of the Bristol concert are very hazy because I didn't really know anything about him or the music. But it got me interested in the music. By the time I saw the Rev., I was very interested indeed, and I can recall his concert very vividly. At around the same time (mid-60s') I bought my first two blues albums. One was Leadbelly, accompanied on some tracks by dulceola player Paul Mason Howard, and Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee's "Back Country Blues". I also remember borrowing a 10" LP of Sonny Terry playing solo harmonica. Of course, I just had to buy one and learn "Fox Chase" and "Whooping and Hollering" and the train blues.

All this was 45-50 years ago, but sometimes it feels like yesterday. To me, Broonzy, Davis, Terry, McGhee - their light remains undimmed."

Subject: RE: What brought you to the blues?
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 14 Feb 10 - 10:02 AM

"I was born to sing the blues". Well, maybe not, but it's so long ago it seems like it. Initially Dylan and the Stones, so I wanted to hear the originals.

Subject: RE: What brought you to the blues?
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 14 Feb 10 - 09:55 AM

I am a very recent convert. I mean I have enjoyed listening for near a decade, when I happened on to it. Never actively sought it out.

Then discovering Odetta just over a year ago and tracing back some of her songs to originals, I got really interested.

Now trying to learn to sing. Can only dream of playing on guitar. It is hard though. Very hard.   I don't have the right feeling for it.

Subject: RE: What brought you to the blues?
From: olddude
Date: 14 Feb 10 - 09:49 AM

The guitar work, I always found it to be wonderful with variations that I don't see in folk music. although folk is my genre, I love the blues guitar

Subject: What brought you to the blues?
From: Mavis Enderby
Date: 14 Feb 10 - 09:46 AM

Given the recent interest in blues on Mudcat at the moment, I thought I'd ask folks what introduced them to the blues, and what developed that interest.

For me, it was a couple of films that did it, all of which I saw for the first time in my mid-late teens. The Blues Brothers was probably the most obvious influence, and although I think it was a great film it wasn't particularly the music of the Blues Brothers Band that most appealed, it was some of the background music - this was the first time I heard anything as mesmerising as John Lee Hooker's Boogie Chillen for example. Another influential film was Crossroads, which introduced legend of Robert Johnson, and also introduced Ry Cooder's playing.

Once I got started, I started listening to artists such as Hooker and Cooder, and Robert Johnson. I also bought a CD called The Roots of Robert Johnson, which contains the songs which influenced his own, and introduced a whole raft of other artists from the 20s-30s. I'd also started seeking out live performances too - had a particular liking for a couple of Lincoln bands - the Bamboo Beat Band and the Walter Harpman band - anyone remember those?

Nowadays I'm interested in listening and playing all sorts of music, but there's always a blues influence in there somewhere.

I'm sure my experience isn't that different to many other blues lovers - so what's your experience?