You've Got to be Joking! - greatest blues singers

Subject: RE: You've Got to be Joking! - greatest blues singers
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 04 Oct 18 - 01:05 PM

Tunesmith - you seem to be locked in not listening but repeating yourself mode...

Look.. you will not find any mudcatter in this thread or the other,
who takes that list, as you describe it, seriously...

So far all of us are in agreement and scoffing at it...

Magazines, the internet, are full of free-lance arsoles trying to make a few quid
from best of / bucket list / things to do before you die / etc.. lists...

They are inescapable.. they are mostly vacuous bollox...

Subject: RE: You've Got to be Joking! - greatest blues singers
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 04 Oct 18 - 12:49 PM

Points on capitalism and popular media:

The purpose of the list is to attract, entertain and amuse magazine readers. It's working.

A professional recording artist/entertainer does not have a blues "on-off" switch in their head or heart. It's a performance. Aretha Franklin was a trouper and a true professional artist at what she did.

Being an American isn't the point. That's not Bruce Springstein's real voice. He's from the Jersey shore.

Klein, Cray, Kaufman and the first Mrs. Guthrie all agree, Woody Guthrie was faking the hillbilly schtick. But you damn right he had the blues.

Subject: RE: You've Got to be Joking! - greatest blues singers
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 04 Oct 18 - 12:47 PM

Again, we are talking "greatness" here.
When, some idiot claims that Robert bloody Plant is a greater blues singer than Aretha and Robert Johnson and Bobby Bland...and so on EVERYONE on this site shoud be killing themselves laughing!

Again, Robert Plant and Steve Marriott are merely acting out the roles of American blues singers. That's all they can do. Act!

Son House doesn't act out the role of the blues singer. He is the real deal.

To elevate Plant and Marriott in this way is an insult to the great black artists who created the music.

And, yes, white men/women can sing the blues but foregive me if I find UK singers performing in a phoney, pseudo American accents a huge joke.

Indeed, this whole period of UK artists "singing American" will be one day be seen as a weird abberation, and placed in the same box as the blacked-up Al Jolson.

Subject: RE: You've Got to be Joking! - greatest blues singers
From: Long Firm Freddie
Date: 04 Oct 18 - 12:44 PM

Black Coffee

Subject: RE: You've Got to be Joking! - greatest blues singers
From: Nick
Date: 04 Oct 18 - 12:33 PM

Surely the 'great blues singers' who are the 'real thing' owed a huge debt to what came before them? Wouldn't that similarly disqualify them from being great because what they were doing was based on something earlier which was the real 'real thing'?

I am purposely being a little tongue in cheek but...

Things do not pop out from nowhere. They are part of a continuum that has a reliance on what precedes them. I think that neither precludes something that comes later which is based on something from the past being great, nor necessarily makes something great because of its age and/or authenticity.

Subject: RE: You've Got to be Joking! - greatest blues singers
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 04 Oct 18 - 12:13 PM

Have to Agree with Will Fly. If you like a song and enjoy singing it in whatever fashion you chose then do so. That in my belief is the way folk music works, there are no rules.

As for the accents in the Southern states I believe they developed from a much wider range of people than just us working class Brits. However regarding PFR's mention of Somerset accents,there was an excellent series on television some years back about language which included fisherman from the Georgia Sea Islands who definitely had strong traces of West Country.

Re the OP it's obvious the listing in the magazine is crap. Music isn't (or shouldn't be) a contest.
And just for the record I firmly believe Blue men can't sing the Whites unless you believe that the blues is just a chord sequence.

Subject: RE: You've Got to be Joking! - greatest blues singers
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 04 Oct 18 - 11:47 AM

btw..."Just don't try to tell me that a Brit singing in a pseudo-American accent is greater than the real thing. That is just plain silly!"


No one has... you might have convinced yourself someone here said that..

but that's for you to reflect on when you eventually chill out...

Subject: RE: You've Got to be Joking! - greatest blues singers
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 04 Oct 18 - 11:44 AM

Tunesmith - maybe we could even extend the logic of your concerns to the much debated hot topic

"Can white men sing the Blues...???"

You should know, that my daytime around the house music soundtrack is almost entirely pre 1960s,
and almost completely Black American...

The quality ranges from sublime to dire - frequently that applies to single individual artists...

Subject: RE: You've Got to be Joking! - greatest blues singers
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 04 Oct 18 - 11:20 AM

People can sing in any accent they want!
Just don't try to tell me that a Brit singing in a pseudo-American accent is greater than the real thing. That is just plain silly!

If we changed it to another genre...it might help.
Can you imagine any British country artist singing - performing in pseudo-U.S. accent would be rated as a greater country music singer than say Merle Haggard or George Jones?
No, that would be daft!

Subject: RE: You've Got to be Joking! - greatest blues singers
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 04 Oct 18 - 11:10 AM

As a South West Scrumpyshire born and raised Englishman,
I am fairly certain I read an academic article decades ago,
positing that American accents were heavily founded in the accents of settlers
from Bristol, Somerset, Cornwall and Ireland.. an interesting concoction...

[Maybe why Cary Grant so easily/convincingly became a great American movie star...???]

Subject: RE: You've Got to be Joking! - greatest blues singers
From: leeneia
Date: 04 Oct 18 - 11:03 AM

Well said, Will Fly.

I wonder how many people posting here actually sing. I sing a lot. And I'm here to tell you that when you sing a lot, when your voice gets strong and practiced, that your brain can decide that it's time to sing a certain song, but your voice then takes over and decides what accent and timbre to sing that song in.

If you are British, then by age 30 or 60 you have heard at least a decade's worth of American, and your brain and your voice have an American accent stored in your system. It's your own.

With the blues it is relevant that the American southern accent (not that there is only one American southern accent) is descended from English working-class accents.

Subject: RE: You've Got to be Joking! - greatest blues singers
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 04 Oct 18 - 10:56 AM

I am completely baffled why you are so confused and hot under the collar with my opinion...???

In my very first post in this thread, I made it very obvious that I agree the magazine listing seems dubious and is not to be taken seriously...

My issue, is that you are blaming and sneering at two well respected singers for silly claims made about them
by a hack magazine writer...

Subject: RE: You've Got to be Joking! - greatest blues singers
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 04 Oct 18 - 10:24 AM

Look punkfolkrocker!
In that 100 Greatest Blues Singer List ( The Blues Magazine, April 2016 ), only B B King and Etta james rank higher than Robert Plant! Please tell me you think that that is ridiculous!
And, Steve Marriott is rated higher than - wait for it - Aretha, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Buddy Guy, Otis Rush, Leadbelly, Magic Sam. Mavis Staples, Otis Redding...
Now, you are entitled to like who you like, but I would be flabbergasted if I thought that you really believed that Stevie - and Robert - were greater blues singers than the legends listed above.
   Now, I know the list is a joke. For example, Son House and Skip James don't even appear in the top 100.
But, again, I will state that no Brit who sings in a phoney, pseudo-American accent should even be considered as a great blues singer. It wouldn't make sense!
   Now, it's fine for anyone getting up at their local folk club - like Will Fry said - and singing in any accent they like, but don't try to tell me that they are amongst the best singers in the world. That would be crazy.

Subject: RE: You've Got to be Joking! - greatest blues singers
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 04 Oct 18 - 09:32 AM

"they were by popular accepted standards bloody good singers"

errrmm.. one still is...

Subject: RE: You've Got to be Joking! - greatest blues singers
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 03 Oct 18 - 09:29 PM

oops... safeguarding...

though sageguarding deserves to be a word...

maybe in cookery or dungeons and dragons...???

Subject: RE: You've Got to be Joking! - greatest blues singers
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 03 Oct 18 - 09:25 PM

Yes you have a bee in your bonnet about this...

Now how about identifying the magazine and it's date of publication,
so we can have some context on when this list held such significance
for UK readers...

I still ask you to consider how extremist/daft you are making yourself appear
by being so perversly negative about two highly respected singers...

Whatever style or genre you might be obsessed with sageguarding the purity of,
they were by popular accepted standards bloody good singers...

Subject: RE: You've Got to be Joking! - greatest blues singers
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 03 Oct 18 - 07:22 PM

History will not record that Robert Plant was one of the greatest blues singers!

Subject: RE: You've Got to be Joking! - greatest blues singers
From: GUEST,keberoxu
Date: 03 Oct 18 - 06:27 PM

Another point is,
one of you sounds like Canute facing the ocean waves.
I mean, history is history.
Whether or not you approve of it, history has happened. You can't un-happen it.

Subject: RE: You've Got to be Joking! - greatest blues singers
From: Will Fly
Date: 03 Oct 18 - 06:21 PM

Accent - pronunciation - here we again in yet another thread touching on the subject. I'll repeat my view, which I've droned on about in several previous threads over the years - but I'll attempt to put a different spin on it...

1. Are we allowed to sing what we like and what appeals to us as individuals, regardless of the origin of the song - or is there some law, rule or convention that says we can't?

2. If we're driven by sheer love of a song to sing a particular song which isn't from our own country, say a blues, or a French song, or a Scottish song (simply because it appeals to us) in the accent of the country of origin, is there a law, rule or convention that says we can't?

There isn't? I thought not, otherwise our choice of songs to sing would be very restricted indeed. Would I sing a French song without trying to sing it with a decent French accent? I'd sound bloody silly if I didn't attempt a French accent when singing "La Mer", for example. Or should I not be allowed to sing a French song?

Whether the audience likes it or not is quite beside the point - the principle is: sing what you like, how you like and when you like.

Subject: RE: You've Got to be Joking! - greatest blues singers
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 03 Oct 18 - 04:54 PM

sorry - had to take time out for pie and chips [proper British grub...]

I meant to ask what year the magazine was published, and the journalist;
whoever it was made that stupid claim...


My interest in Marriot ends with the Small Faces... one of the greatest bands - and a great singer..

If in later life he became yet another crap white blues belter.. oh dear...

Hard to tell what accent that was in the clip..
or even if it was a recognizable human language from the few seconds I scanned...

Subject: RE: You've Got to be Joking! - greatest blues singers
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 03 Oct 18 - 03:25 PM

A genuine Cockey Blues singer.Not!

Subject: RE: You've Got to be Joking! - greatest blues singers
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 03 Oct 18 - 03:23 PM

Ah yes, but this s the voice that got him placed ahead of Aretha etc.

Subject: RE: You've Got to be Joking! - greatest blues singers
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 03 Oct 18 - 03:13 PM

btw.. "Their decision to sing in a phoney, pseudo-American accent disqualifies them for being considered great in any way"

may I politely suggest that is grossly over opinionated bollox...

still.. each to their own corner to paint themselves into...

Subject: RE: You've Got to be Joking! - greatest blues singers
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 03 Oct 18 - 03:10 PM

Spot the Yank accent...?????

Subject: RE: You've Got to be Joking! - greatest blues singers
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 03 Oct 18 - 02:37 PM

punkfolkrocker wrote:
"and Mariott's career was founded to a large extent on being a cheeky cockney chappie..."

Exatctly! He is a " cheeky cockney chappie" until he starts singing. That's when the phoney, pseudo-American persona takes over!

Subject: RE: You've Got to be Joking! - greatest blues singers
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 03 Oct 18 - 02:34 PM

Going in circles here!
Their decision to sing in a phoney, pseudo-American accent disqualifies them for being considered great in any way.
Let's try something else.
Imagine there was a painter who had a very good technique, and he created a piece of art in the style of, let's say, Van Gogh.
Now, this painting could be so well executed that, unless you were an art expert, you would be fooled into believing that it was a genuine painting by Van Gogh.
Would that mean that the artist, who painted the "fake" Van Gogh, should, in anyway, be considered the equal to, or indeed greater than, Vincent?

Subject: RE: You've Got to be Joking! - greatest blues singers
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 03 Oct 18 - 02:26 PM

..and Mariott's career was founded to a large extent on being a cheeky cockney chappie...

Subject: RE: You've Got to be Joking! - greatest blues singers
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 03 Oct 18 - 02:25 PM

Yeah.. I gathered all that.. I understand what you are getting at..

But I think you are over amplifying in your own mind
what you consider to be a problem and a reason to disregard two very popular great singers...

Subject: RE: You've Got to be Joking! - greatest blues singers
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 03 Oct 18 - 02:23 PM

Apply the above to Plant and Marriott! When you hear them, you are simply hearing the persona that they created.
A persona that uses a foreign accent!

Subject: RE: You've Got to be Joking! - greatest blues singers
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 03 Oct 18 - 02:20 PM

Let's try different tack.
When Son House sang, he wasn't acting the role of blues singer: He was a blues singer.
UK blues singers - the majority - create a persona, and hide behind it.
They are not the real deal. They are acting out the role of a blues singer.
Big difference.

Subject: RE: You've Got to be Joking! - greatest blues singers
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 03 Oct 18 - 02:17 PM

did you actually read my first reply...???

"Plant and Marriot are great singers - simple as that...!!!

Is it their fault some hack magazine journalists wrote such tripe...???"..

Your point now seems to be very much what I said...???

Subject: RE: You've Got to be Joking! - greatest blues singers
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 03 Oct 18 - 02:11 PM

Because some idiot thinks Robert Plant is a greater blues singer than Otis Rush, or Bobby Bland, or Robert Johnson, or Son House, or Junior Wells, or Skip James, or Freddy King or...
I hope you get my point!
It is so ridiculous that the person who complied the top 100 should be arrested and incarcerated in Parchment Farm.

Subject: RE: You've Got to be Joking! - greatest blues singers
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 03 Oct 18 - 02:07 PM

btw... "Lazy Sunday Afternoon" - what part of America do Cockneys come from...???

Subject: RE: You've Got to be Joking! - greatest blues singers
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 03 Oct 18 - 02:03 PM

Why does it matter so much to you...???

Subject: RE: You've Got to be Joking! - greatest blues singers
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 03 Oct 18 - 01:52 PM

punkfolrocker:
Two things here.
1) You can't hear their phoney accents OR
2) You don't mind their phoney accents

Which is it?

Subject: RE: You've Got to be Joking!
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 03 Oct 18 - 01:41 PM

No - I [and millions of other music lovers] think they are great singers...

and you might just have a perverse over-sensitive OCD aversion to perceived accents...???

Subject: RE: You've Got to be Joking!
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 03 Oct 18 - 01:34 PM

Plant and Marriott are great singers?
If you do think that, then you are indulging in a form of "suspension of disbelief"!
Because, surely, to enjoy them, you've got to forget that are singing in phoney, pseudo-American accents.

Subject: RE: You've Got to be Joking!
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 03 Oct 18 - 01:24 PM

Plant and Marriot are great singers - simple as that...!!!

Is it their fault some hack magazine journalists wrote such tripe...???

If it was a reader's poll.. well that says a lot about democratic voting in the UK then [whenever it was..]...

and [cough... brexit..] now...

Subject: You've Got to be Joking!
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 03 Oct 18 - 01:18 PM

I bought some old UK blues magazine recently and one of them had a list of - what they said - were the 100 greatest blues singers of all time...and the great Otis Rush - who died the other day - came in at position 33..but wait! Robert Plant came in at position 3 ( Steve Marriott also beat Otis. In fact Steve and Robert both beat Aretha )
    Now, I can’t really take UK blues singers seriously because, almost to a man/woman , they sing in a pseudo-American phoney accent which I would suggest disqualifies them as great singers. They are in fact acting out the role of blues/rock singers.
    Imagine Robert De Niro coming in at number 3 in a poll of the greatest boxers of all-time because he did a convincing job of acting the role of a boxer in “Raging Bull”. Or, try this: Imagine a British Elvis impersonator - and there are some really good ones - coming in at number 3 in a poll of the greatest rock’n’ roll singers of all-time!