need answers 'bout blues

Subject: need answers 'bout blues
From:
Date: 27 Apr 98 - 10:39 PM

Greetings. I'm a graduate student at Columbia University in New York city writing a paper on the appropriation of blues songs/styles by guitar bands of the '60s (Stones, Doors, Zep). I'd like to know if anyone would like to engage in a discussion germane to this topic. The theme of my thesis: how technology has affected our perception and appreciation of blues songs; and why some people prefer The Door's "Back Door Man" to the Wolf's.

If interested, please contact me by Wednesday, April 29, by 8 a.m. If more expedient to talk by phone, please include your number in initial e-response. Thank you for your time.

-Anthony

Subject: RE: need answers 'bout blues
From: Gene E
Date: 27 Apr 98 - 11:09 PM

Say there Anthony,

I'll give it a go. I grew up in the '60s listening to the the groups you mentioned.

I think your theme is interesting because It took me a long time to understand that the old blues masters who created the music I liked were actually better at playing the stuff than I first thought.

The records and radio technology I grew up with conditioned me that the way the British rock groups sang blues songs was right. At that time I didn't even like to hear other rock bands play each other's stuff because it didn't sound exactly right.

I guess it's possible to argue that modern guitarists and singers are more technically capable at performing than a share cropper who played on his porch as his only form of entertainment but I now know that he had "it" right because the blues came from him, from the way he felt. No matter how good the Brit Brats got / get they haven't paid the dues Muddy Watters, Howlin Wolf, Son House and Fred McDowell paid. No way they could but technology provided a glimps of a way of life and a music they never would have.

Those old guys had to borrow each other's guitars to play at local parties but they got recorded and the Brit Brats we love grew up listening to them like I did listening to them in the '60s.

I think technology helped create the blues with steel strings for guitars and trains to inspire rythms and electricity to provide amplification and recording technology. Now technology is keeping the blues alive by allowing us to listen to the roots of rock on CD players.

With all that said, today all three of the males in my family got the new Page / Plant CD. I'm over 40, my sons are 15 and 18. We all listen to music from the '30s to today, all of it linked to the Delta Blues, if not actually Delta Blues. Now it all sounds right!

Hope this helps

Gene E

Subject: RE: need answers 'bout blues
From: dwditty
Date: 28 Apr 98 - 06:19 AM

While a few years older than Gene, I, too, grew up in the sixties. While most of my friends gravitated from top 40 to the "blues", I found that I was never quite comfortable with the Stones, Zep, Doors - Mayall, on the other hand, had a certain appeal, along with Siegel-Schwall; Koerner, Glover, and Ray, etc. In thinking about it, I agree with Gene's point that technology had a lot to do with making the blues "accessible" to the 60's listener. The clear, loud sounds, sustain, feedback, etc. was a nice mix with the sensory experience of pot, lsd, etc. At the same time, Blind Willie Johnson, Willie McTell, Blind Blake, Charlie Patton, Lemon Jefferson, on up through Robert Johnson, Big Bill Broonzy, Fred McDowell, Petie Wheatstraw, Tampa Red, Robert Wilkins, Furry Lewis, John Hurt, Bessie Smith...and on, and on, and on...were only available on scratchy, noisy, recordings from a time before the technology became sophisticated. It takes a certain amount of work to learn to listen through the noise to reach the soul and emotion of the earlier blues artists. Well woth the effort, by the way.

A second point is, I think, related to the timing of the "Blues revival" (rock n roll, really). The great blues players, as a generalization, represent a societal "fringe" group. The "typical" blues musician was, at least from the standpoint of a sixties rock band, a hard living, itinerate, romantic. The life style fit well with the drug culture of the sixties. The attraction that took place was the same as the reaction to books like On the Road, etc. A certain rogue-mystique was taken from these players and transformed into the general feeling of "anti-establishment" that provided the impetus for the blues rockers to embrace the genre.

Why don't you make your paper avaliable to us as a link from this thread. There are still a few blues cats hanging out here, and I, for one, would love to see the results.

Subject: RE: need answers 'bout blues
From: Jon W.
Date: 28 Apr 98 - 12:53 PM

I grew up in the 60's and 70's. I first heard about the blues during my first lessons on bass guitar. I began to be able to recognize blues progressions, boogie beat, and other elements of the blues that were present in those days in much of the popular music. From there I went to buying records of the bands that featured blues elements such as Led Zeppelin, Eric Clapton, Allman Bros, and Lynyrd Skynrd (note: both British and American). At this point I was still unaware that blues had originated in African-American tradition. The only African-American music I had been exposed to was the Motown sound my older brother listened to and which I (at that time) detested. As I reached my early twenties in the mid-late 70's I grew disillusioned with the rock/pop music available and turned increasingly to the blues for my entertainment, naturally discovering Chicago blues, then acoustic blues through blues revivalists such as John Hammond, and eventually the old recordings (re-issued) by Blind Willie McTell and Robert Johnson, etc. So I guess you could say that technology brought about my appreciation of the blues because 1) I listened to rock bands playing electric guitars; 2) some rock bands played blues (including rythm & blues) on electric guitars; 3) some blues performers played electric guitars, and didn't sound all that different from rock bands; 4) listening to rock bands was socially acceptable in my peer group; 5) since rock bands played the blues, the blues was also socially acceptable as long as it sounded like rock; 6) the increasing use of high technology such as synthesizers in rock/pop music engendered changes (techno-bop, cyber-punk, new wave) in the music scene which began to disagree with my aesthetic sensibilities, causing me to seek elsewhere for my main listening pleasures and to arrive at a conscious decision to focus on the blues, starting with that closest to the already familiar rock I had listened to, followed by excursions into acoustic blues driven by curiosity; 7) Reissues of old blues became available; 8) I got married, graduated college, gave up ever playing bass in a rock band, and switched to teaching myself acoustic guitar because I could play it solo; which 9) increased greatly my interest in acoustic blues almost to the exclusion of rock, electric blues (and indeed all other music for a few years). Also, computer technology has been a great help starting with using a music program to play some of the selections from my guitar books to help me learn them. I have recently discovered a method, using sound software available on any Windows machine with a soundcard and CD-ROM drive, of recording snippets of music from CD into memory and playing them at half speed in order to help hear fast or tricky instrumental passages. And of course, modern technology can be used to clean up the old 78's when reissued on CD, to make them more enjoyable for us all. As to why some people prefer the Doors to Howlin' Wolf, as I implied above, I think that conditioning and peer pressure are major factors.

Subject: RE: need answers 'bout blues
From: Earl
Date: 28 Apr 98 - 05:36 PM

I think part of the reason the Doors' "Backdoor Man" is preferred over Howlin' Wolf's version is marketting. Although I think the Doors had a certain amount of integrity as a band, they were produced, packaged, and sold to a primarily white, primarily adolescent, popular audience. When Howlin' Wolf was recording, blues was still "race" music not accessible to a popular audience. A lot of people did go back and listen to the original but I think there are still a lot of Doors fans that don't know it was recorded by Howlin' Wolf and written by Willie Dixon.