What is Blues?

Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: Whistle Stop
Date: 27 Mar 00 - 01:11 PM

All true, I suppose, but if you're looking for a definition of blues, it helps to give some thought to the history and form as well as the content. We seem to be putting the blues on a pedestal here, and using its exalted status as an argument against examining its roots and structure. Admittedly, like a lot of music, it doesn't lend itself to being fully explained in just a few sentences. But I will confess that all this talk about "if you have to ask, you don't know" or the "zen-like" aspect of the blues really doesn't explain anything to me.

You can't sum up a Monet painting by analyzing the brush strokes, or a Shakespeare play by counting the words. But while I would acknowledge that these were inspired works by true masters, I don't think it is inappropriate to look at the forms and structures that were employed in their creation. Shouldn't we do the same with the blues?

Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: Fortunato
Date: 27 Mar 00 - 10:57 AM

The blues is/are like zen. Words alone cannot capture it. Yet we have only words here on the mudcat. We have inference: "Have you ever been mistreated?" "My door key don't fit no more.", etc. We have diagrams: "12 bars,..", etc. We have John Lennon's "chair".

I have seen a dredlocked, technically adequate, young man play a National guitar and sing in the Taj Mahal manner. Yet his voice did not convince me that he had lived the emotionality he portrayed. He may in time.

Some are actors when they sing the blues. In all art there is the artist and the audience. Both must know and feel the blues for the transmission to reach. Arbitration is not possible. IMHO fortunato

Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: GUEST
Date: 27 Mar 00 - 10:57 AM

There is no simple, pure 'truth' about the origins or meaning of the blues. It is impossible to precisely define the blues, just as it is impossible to precisely define folk, because there are too many blurred boundaries between genres, styles and understandings of the music. The 'roots' of the music are important, but cannot be traced back along a single pathway to a single 'authentic' or 'pure' point of origin. Although I believe a knowledge of the history of the music, and the material conditions under which it was developed, are useful in aiding our understanding of the music.

We should also be careful not to reduce the form to some single characteristic. A number of people seem to believe that the 'essence' of the music is in its emotional qualities (which are clearly important). Here, however, we should be particularly careful; it is all too common to describe (originally) 'black' cultural forms in terms of emotion, spontaneity, rhythm, purity, etc. in (an implied) opposition to 'white' musical forms which are, therfore, rational, composed, melodic, etc. There are obvious racist implications to this. Although I hasten to add that I'm not suggesting that any of the above contributors is being in any way racist. Hang on whilst I try and get the lid back on this can of worms . . .

Brian

Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: Whistle Stop
Date: 27 Mar 00 - 10:27 AM

Most of these answers seem to be defining the blues by the type and quality of emotion it conveys. However, I have to agree with McGrath, that these emotions are more universal than that, and appear in musics of all kinds that otherwise have nothing to do with the blues. To be meaningful, I think you need to define the blues historically and musically, rather than just emotionally. The historical part of the definition involves where the music came from -- black slaves, ex-slaves and descendants of slaves combining African elements from their cultural past with the musics they encountered and assimilated after their arrival in America. A lot has been written about this, and rightly so -- the "roots of blues" is a fascinating topic for the musicologists among us.

For me, the musical part hinges on the amibiguity of the third step of the scale -- where other western musics had increasingly moved in the direction of a definitive major or minor tonality (pick one -- can't have both), the blues mixed major elements with minor, playing a flatted third against a major chord progression, etc. This is more significant than it sounds, because it very effectively conveys a complexity of emotion that often is not present in other musics that are based on a more definitive major/minor choice. Where a simplistic view would consider major scales/chords to be "happy" and minor to be "sad," the mixing of the two allows both emotions to be present in varying degrees -- which allows joy to triumph over anguish, or sadness to exist in the midst of happy circumstances, etc. I believe that this is the essence of the blues, and some of us might argue that it more truly reflects "real life" than the more stark choice offered by defined major and minor tonalities in some other musics.

I may not have expressed this very well, but I hope it makes sense to other Mudcatters. I'd be interested in people's reactions.

Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: Mbo
Date: 27 Mar 00 - 01:01 AM

I'll tell all you arguers what my ethnomusicology teachers said:

Blues is not a style, but a state of mind

And that's all I'm gonna say, cause I believe, to me very heart.

--Mbo

Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: catspaw49
Date: 27 Mar 00 - 12:09 AM

Hi Mark....I think he picked that line up from Mississippi John Hurt who he had played with a lot.

Spaw

Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: MarkS
Date: 26 Mar 00 - 11:49 PM

"If you want to know the blues, I can help you understand"
"Its a ten dollar woman, with a two dollar man"
Patrick Sky

Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: The Beanster
Date: 26 Mar 00 - 11:41 PM

I'm sure it was merely an oversight, lads, but the way that definition goes is also "blues ain't nothin' but a good woman feelin' bad" and "blues is just a good man on your mind." Just keeping you on the straight & narrow...

Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: Mooh
Date: 26 Mar 00 - 06:12 PM

The Shambles,

Hmmm...

What is blues? The answers depend on the parameters of the moment. I usually think of all music as somewhat derivative so at least I can trace their roots to a more common form. Maybe the blues in its most recognizable form of today comes from the U.S. but I've heard forms of it being championed as African, which is (I think) a little more honest. However it is defined, it's the difference in definitions that make it so much more than we often expect. So long as every definition of it is legitimatized by honest practitioners, the definition can evolve.

Just thinking about defining it is giving me the blues.

Mooh.

Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: ddw
Date: 26 Mar 00 - 05:59 PM

I think one of the reasons blues has a little better definition than "folk" is that it is a musical form (usually eight bars of lyric over 12 bars of instrumental, tho' that can vary considerably and there is a 16-bar form) that is as identifiable as certain other forms — jigs, reels, etc. spring to mind; my understanding of those is that they're defined by the rhythm patterns.

But then things start to get muddy. John Hurt is generally tho't of as a blues man, but he played a lot of other things too. So did Mance Lipscombe, Leadbelly, Blind Boy Fuller, Bo Carter and just about every other blues great you could name.

But then you could bring in the "feeling" argument — that it's not the song or the form, but the emotion it conveys. Trouble with that is that there are songs in blues form that run the entire range of conditions/emotions.

As for the rock/blues and jazz/blues cutoff lines, it's every man for himself on where you draw the line. Personally, as soon as they start adding synthasizers, screaming electric guitars, screaming vocals and too much drum, it's crossed the line in to rock. Jazz is a little harder to pin down, so I don't have any real clear line of demarcation on that.

And all that said, I usually come full circle and agree with definitions like "blues ain't nothin' but a good man feelin' bad" and "blues is just a good woman on your mind."

Besides, I have to go to work now.

cheers,

david

Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: bseed(charleskratz)
Date: 26 Mar 00 - 01:50 AM

Actually, Jimmie Rodgers put it in one of his blue yodels in the late twenties. I don't know if he originated it or heard it from someone else.

--seed

Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: The Beanster
Date: 26 Mar 00 - 01:38 AM

The blues to me, are songs that tell such a sad tale, no matter what your own problems are, they're not THAT bad, in comparison.

Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: rangeroger
Date: 25 Mar 00 - 10:57 PM

Big Bill Broonsy made the quote about a good man feeling bad.
rr

Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: catspaw49
Date: 25 Mar 00 - 05:13 PM

Whoever said it, its a great quote! Makes total sense, which is probably why someone will want to argue about it!

It would be nice if it applied to folk. I don't want to get that discussion going here either, but I think that's a good explanation as well for a lot of the "folk-style" songs we talk about. Ashoken Farewell doesn't meet the purist definition, but it sure as hell 'sounds' like folk.

Spaw

Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 25 Mar 00 - 05:06 PM

Sounds like old John being Platonic again. Of couse, he's right.

Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: Gary T
Date: 25 Mar 00 - 04:56 PM

I don't have his exact words in front of me, but John Lennon said something like "The blues is a chair. It's not a design for a chair, or a blueprint of a chair, it's the chair itself." I gathered he was saying the blues is (are?) what it is and has to be played/sung/heard, rather than defined.

Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: catspaw49
Date: 25 Mar 00 - 04:25 PM

I thought that was just being horny.

Spaw

Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: ZzJjzZ
Date: 25 Mar 00 - 04:11 PM

I like what John Hurt says in CC Rider about what the blues is.

"The blues ain't nothin but a good woman on your mind."

Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: Clinton Hammond2
Date: 25 Mar 00 - 03:59 PM

Blues??
The opposite end of the visible spectrum from the reds...
{~`

Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: Biskit
Date: 25 Mar 00 - 03:23 PM

I don't know who originally said it,..more than likely someone with'em But the Blues ain't nothin' but a good man feelin' bad.-Biskit-

Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: Amos
Date: 25 Mar 00 - 01:03 PM

I think you did real well, Bluejay. Maybe the difference is in who gets to do the suffering -- in blues, its the singer! :>)

Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 25 Mar 00 - 01:00 PM

There's always been happy blues as well as sad blues. But maybe there's an element of "if you don't laugh, you'll cry".

You can find the emotional attitudes that characterise blues in other types of music - they are to do with being beaten down but not defeated, and you can find it everywhere it's needed. But that doesn't make the music blues. Blues is to do with a particular set of musical conventions combined with and expressing that attitude.

Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: BlueJay
Date: 25 Mar 00 - 11:55 AM

Amos- I agree, but it was the best I could do off the top of my head. I'm not used to playing on the air.

Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: Amos
Date: 25 Mar 00 - 11:52 AM

THere's a lot more grass in Blues than in Bluegrass, I would guess - traditionally, anyway.

Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: BlueJay
Date: 25 Mar 00 - 11:46 AM

Oh yeah, once when a friend and I played a blues set on live radio, we threw in a bluegrass song. The DJ asked, "What's the difference between Blues and Bluegrass"? Like an idiot, I responded, "I don't know, it must be the grass"! Pretty tame stuff in a big city I know, but down here? No proven cause/effect, but so far we haven't been asked back.

Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: BlueJay
Date: 25 Mar 00 - 11:29 AM

As David Bromberg said: "You've got to suffer if you wanna sing the blues". I'm no expert on the blues, but I think it's expanded from the "suffering" aspect; not entirely "cry in your beer music", (which is my definition of commercial country/western, but that's another thread). What about "talking blues"? Some of those are hilarious, e.g. "Talking Candy Bar Blues", "Dying Cub Fan's Last Request" and the "Vietnam Potluck Blues". The crossovers to jazz and rock are plentiful, hmmmm... I think you just know it when you hear it. I don't think I can exactly define it, but as I said, I'm no expert. Click here for a perfect definition. (;

Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: Amos
Date: 25 Mar 00 - 10:40 AM

This is the question to which one constant answer is "If you need to ask, you wouldn't understand", which is not addressed to the music of the blues but the condition. It helps to keep in sight that in its roots blues was music generated by an condition -- having the blues. The condition is similar but I would argue different from classic depression. But the blues instead of generating analytical polysyllables and pharmacutical fortunes, generated music. I genuinely think it might be best left not further analyzed (the condition).

The roots of the music are that it was the music generated by that condition.

Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: Caitrin
Date: 25 Mar 00 - 10:29 AM

Hmmm...interesting question.
There are places where The Blues crosses over with jazz and rock, as well as with folk. For instance, there are Led Zeppelin and Cream songs that could be considered blues by some. Covers spark still more questions...Is Cream's cover of "Crossroads" still blues, or is it rock?
I have a hard time trying to define the blues. For me, it seems to have more to do with the feeling that inspired the music, and the feeling it leaves the listener with than with any specifics.

Subject: RE: What is Blues?
From: GUEST,McGrath of Harlow
Date: 25 Mar 00 - 08:11 AM

The thing about blues is that there is a common identifiable tradition here - there could be arguments about the boundaries and whether something can properly be classified as blues, and about White Blues, and Country Blues and where it shades into Jazz and so forth but I think there'd be a general agreement that all blues had to have their roots in a particular tradition.

And you can't do that with folk really, for the roots of what gets called folk are all over the place, in all minds of unrelated traditions. Chinese music, Irish music, Indian music, Romanian music, English Music Hall.The list goes on for ever...

I suppose the next logical move in the discussion would be "Are all blues folk?" And if some blues aren't folk would that mean they aren't really blues? (My answer to both questions would be No, for wehat it's worth.)

Subject: What is Blues?
From: The Shambles
Date: 25 Mar 00 - 06:48 AM

I have seen many 'What is folk' threads on The Mudcat but I cannot remember seeing too many 'What is blues' ones. Maybe on other sites, a furious debate goes on about this subject but I think not to the extent that we seem to here, about folk. Why might that be?

You look at a music that had its beginnings in a US, black culture and is now championed by just about everyone, except, possibly now the black culture that spawned it. It produced a strange effect where the originators or the music in America, were to influence performers in Europe (the UK especially), who in turn influenced a whole new generation of (mainly white) American ones. I am thinking of people like Stevie Ray Vaughan, who in turn went on the inspire even more.

The music has gone through a lot of changes but still can be pretty easily recognised and appears to be in a pretty healthy condition?

Do the disputes and definitions that divide folk music not exist with the blues?

If they do not, could it be that blues music in firmly in the hands of those that just get on, make and listen to it, rather than at the mercy of collectors, scholars and experts, who feel they have to categorise, and to constantly defend and preserve some idea of purity?

And yes, this could be seen as another means of starting yet another 'What is folk' thread, but do not most of our discussions tend to end up as that anyway?