Blues Music

Subject: RE: Blues Music
From: GUEST,Mad Jock
Date: 25 Jun 08 - 07:03 AM

Rory Gallagher
Eric Clapton
Johnny Winter
Kevin Brown wwww.thekevinbrown.co.uk
John Lee Hooker.
John McGlaughlin and the Mahavishnu Orchestra
They all must be up there .Wonder why not mentioned earlier?

Subject: RE: Blues Music
From: Neil D
Date: 24 Jun 08 - 08:03 PM

Speaking of "country blues", I've always felt that if you took the yodeling out of some of Jimmy Rodgers (the Blue Yodeler NOT the 50's pop singer) songs they were similar to Delta blues. He was from the same era and region and is perported to have jammed with black blues players. Hank Williams also sang many songs that I would classify as country blues.

Subject: RE: Blues Music
From: GUEST,Dave MacKenzie
Date: 24 Jun 08 - 07:31 PM

Ooops!

What I meant to say was

Eric Burdon - made me realise a white boy from this side of the pond can sing the blues (listen to "For Miss Caulker" and

Sammy Mitchell (RIP) - the only guy I've ever heard who could get Blind Lemon Jefferson's rhythms.

Subject: RE: Blues Music
From: Stringsinger
Date: 24 Jun 08 - 07:30 PM

Bobert, don't forget Son House.

I would not classify many of the Piedmont fingerpicking stylists as blues players.
They were more ragtime or Twenties jazz based.

The blues maintains its form from 12 or 16 bar (even 24) although it extends to
the cabaret blues shouters such as Bessie Smith, Trixie Hill, Ma Rainey but these ladies are more jazz oriented and less traditional (simpler chords).

It is interesting that Lightning Hopkins was principally an electric player with Thunder Smith on Central Avenue in Los Angeles. He had a manager that told him if he wanted to reach the folk crowd, go acoustic. (Mac someone from Texas).

Muddy Waters (McKinley Morganfield) had a reversal in his career being recorded before his Chicago days by the Library of Congress as an acoustic player. "I'se Be Troubled" and the "Country Blues" are folk classics.

Josh White played his own style of blues which was considered by some as being too "smooth" and "show bizzy" but his musicianship was impeccable. There is no one who
can play like him today. He had a great "trick". He could change a broken string while playing a song and not drop a beat. He played the guitar with bare fingers and nails with such force that his fingers would often bleed after a performance.

It's interesting to note that Big Bill Broonzy started his musical career as a fiddler.
When he moved to Chicago, he became the artist that we know today.

Arvella Gray from Chicago played the slide guitar and is known for his bottle-top style. He once demonstrated to me how he made a slide from a broken whiskey bottle, and sanded the shards down on the sidewalk.

Big Joe Williams was a traditional ten-string guitar blues player. (Not the Count Basie singer).

At one time in the Fifties, Maxwell Street on Sunday morning was the blues scene for many traditional Chi-town blues artists. Lots of Nationals glistening in the sun.

Many of the trad players would often play a 13 bar blues or even an 11 bar one. They all seemed to know when to come in and change together.

Snooks Eaglin was a great fingerstylist. (I don't know if you could call him a blues player though).

Wade White from Tennessee was an unknown slide player we met while trooping through
a Black section of town in the Fifties, a dangerous thing to do then for white boys. Not because of the Black people who welcomed us but this was pre-Civil Rights and we would have been punished by the white townspeople if they found out.

Sister Rosetta Thorpe borrowed from blues techniques to accompany her gospel music.

You have to mention Louis Armstrong's "West End Blues" though this is in the jazz vernacular but maintains its connections to trad blues.

Sam Charters has written an interesting book on the "Country Blues".

Charlie Parker revolutionized the blues by creating a whole new harmonic palette.
"Confirmation" and "Billie's Bounce" are based on blues changes.

The blues is used as an instructional vehicle by the Berklee School of Music in Boston.

The earliest reference of the term may or may not be Shakespeare's. "The Blue Devils"
is in one of his plays.

Then there's Lonnie Johnson and Eddie Lang (who referenced the blues in their styles of playing though they were jazz-oriented).

Doc Boggs of the Ol' Timey banjo school had a unique approach to the blues.
He had a "country blues".

Frank Hamilton

Subject: RE: Blues Music
From: GUEST,Dave MacKenzie
Date: 24 Jun 08 - 07:27 PM

Subject: RE: Blues Music
From: The Sandman
Date: 24 Jun 08 - 05:34 PM

Missippi john hurt, and Etta Baker,played in the piedmont blues style of finger picking,that is how I am playing in, Got the blues cant be satisfied,.
Mance Lipscomb,didnt he melody pick too?

Subject: RE: Blues Music
From: PoppaGator
Date: 24 Jun 08 - 02:38 PM

Fingerpicking styles that incorporate that steady thumbstroke on the bass along with a relatively independent treble part have become fairly widespread in a number of non-blues genres, "Folk" and otherwise.

However, back in the '20s, such techniques were pretty much unknown to the outside world, and there are numerous stories about early blues solo artists being mistakenly heard as "duets." One story I've heard (probably an urban legend) has Segovia assuming that a recording of Johnson or Hurt or one of those guys "had to" have included two guitars.

This style/technique was not new or unique to the Mississippi Delta. The older "tidewater" tradition of coastal Virginia and North Carolina is pretty similar (very similar to John Hurt's work), and is probably the source of further development in Mississippi (which was settled by slaveowners and slaves originally from points further east).

There's a very similar white/country/backwoods tradition of "thumbpicking" native to Kentucky; I have no idea whether it developed independently or if its first practitioners had either been exposed to Tidewater players, or perhaps had been listening to 1920s blues records out of Mississippi and environs.

But in the urban/intellectual/academic/"civilized" world, this intrumental approach seems to have been completely unknown before musicologists and commercial recording interests began bringing tapes back from the isolated folk cultures of the South and West.

Subject: RE: Blues Music
From: GUEST,Neil D
Date: 24 Jun 08 - 02:09 PM

Exactly right PoppaGator. After my last post I went over to You-tube to watch some Lockwood videos and I was noticing the very thing you talk about, how he was strumming with his thumb while picking out the melody with his 1st and 2nd finger.

Subject: RE: Blues Music
From: PoppaGator
Date: 24 Jun 08 - 01:45 PM

Not to take anything away from the great, and deservedly legendary, Robert Johnson, but... he is by no means the only blues artists whose recordings were mistakenly presumed to feature two guitars.

I've heard that the same comment had been made about Mississippi John Hurt, and it would make perfect sense for the same misperception to have occurred when first listening to the recordings of any of that first generation of blues players to have cur records.

When we think about "defining" the blues, the first features that come to mind are the flatted third, the 12-bar streucture, and the emotional lyrical content. But, from the standpoint of guitar technique, the blues convention of playing a steady pulsating rhythm with the thumb while playing a relatively independent melody line with the fingers ~ that's something unique to this musical form, or at least it was unique and pretty much unknown elsewhere until a later generation of enthusiasts learned to play like the blues masters, and later eventually applied similar techniques to a wider variety of music.

Subject: RE: Blues Music
From: GUEST,Neil D
Date: 24 Jun 08 - 01:26 PM

Robert Johnson hadn't recorded a large body of work before his untimely death, but every song was a classic. His guitar work was superb. Keith richards said it's like listening to two guitar players.
I believe he had the biggest influence on modern blues players of all the old delta bluesmen. He also left the most interesting legend: the whole crossroads/hellhounds thing.
   The greatest blues player I've seen with my own eyes was Robert Lockwood Jr. He was taught to play as a teenage boy by Robet Johnson, who was living with his mom at the time. He was often called Robert Johnson's stepson although there wasn't an official marriage. They would go into Clarksville, Mi. to play for tips each taking one side of the Sunflower river. The people of Clarksville would be milling about on the bridge unable to tell which was the real Robert
Johnson. He later started the original King Biscuit radio show along with Sonny Boy Williamson II. In the fifties he worked with Chess artists Muddy Waters, Otis Spahn and Little Walter.
   The last time I saw him I stood for hours in the rain along with my long-suffering wife and a friend because I knew it was going to be one of the last chances I'd get. He died a few months later at the age of 91, gigging right to the end, the last of the original generation of delta bluesmen.

Subject: RE: Blues Music
From: GUEST,Dave MacKenzie
Date: 23 Jun 08 - 09:12 PM

You've got most of my favourites - Hopkins, Patton, Waters etc, but how about Casey Bill Weldon, John Coltrane, Oli Browne (heard him supporting Robben Ford, and was glad he was on first as I had to leave early to catch a train)

Subject: RE: Blues Music
From: The Sandman
Date: 23 Jun 08 - 05:36 PM

http://www.soundlantern.com/UpdatedSoundPage.do?ToId=3828&Path=gotthebluescantbesatisfied2.mp3

Subject: RE: Blues Music
From: GUEST,bloozeboy
Date: 02 Dec 02 - 05:23 AM

Try a whole collection of original online sound recordings of acoustic blues at

Blues sounds online

Subject: RE: Blues Music
From: black walnut
Date: 01 Dec 02 - 08:53 AM

Excellent!!!! Nice warm way to wake up on the first of December with snow on the ground.

~b.w.

Subject: RE: Blues Music
From: Tweed
Date: 30 Nov 02 - 10:41 AM

Well, the subjeckt of Blues Fiddle hasn't been brooched for a while so I'll name my favorite blues fiddler and Mz.Sorchy's right here on the Mudcat place. She'll claim thet she ain't a blues fiddler but hear this and tell me different. I believe she musta been reincarnated from one of them New Orleans Funerary Street Marching Musicians....or mebbe Henry Simms or even a member of the old Mississippi Sheiks. (the band, not the brand of .....nevermind...)

And now, wiffout futher adew, Mz. Sorchy and the band doin' thar rendition of

THE FLORIDA BLUES

Hey, I like this a lot. It sounds real!

Yerz,
Tweed

Subject: RE: Blues Music
From: Tweed
Date: 30 Nov 02 - 03:31 AM

Here's a neat story and a pic that was sent in a while ago about Bukka White. He'd signed the photo for the writer (as Booker T. White) but the computo-transmogrification process has unfortunately blurred it pretty bad. I like his style a lot too. There's a piece on a video of him playing several songs on guitar and on piano too. His hands seemed to dwarf even the piano. I don't know how he squeezed his finger between the keys.
The Bukka White Story, as told by Tom (Pogo) Helfrich
Tweed

Subject: RE: Blues Music
From: Chris C
Date: 29 Nov 02 - 09:39 PM

Oops: My quotation marks printed as question marks. Kinda strange!
Please excuse the distraction.
-CC

Subject: RE: Blues Music
From: Chris C
Date: 29 Nov 02 - 09:17 PM

Yes, Mr. White was ?Booker?, but I did not know that was his preference. I certainly meant no disrespect to his memory. (BTW, ?Change My Clothes? is a heavy favorite of mine as well).
However, I can't specifically remember seeing any records, etc that said ?Booker?. (Not to say they're not out there). I understand he recorded as ?Washington White?, and "Washington Barrelhouse White". Also, there?s his 1940 song titled ?Bukka?s Jitterbug Swing?. (I'm sure artisits often didn't pick their own titles).
I remember reading that Skip James was never called ?Skip?, but always ?Skippy? until his records came out as ?Skip James? (perhaps from an oversight?), so that?s how he?s remembered.
I wonder what Jefferson & McTell thought about the word ?Blind? in their billing...

(Not to change the subject here; It?s kind of interesting to see which blues artists people favor).

-CC

Subject: RE: Blues Music
From: CraigS
Date: 29 Nov 02 - 08:11 PM

Can we please be kind about something? Mr Booker T Washington White was renamed Bukka White when he was "rediscovered" in the 60s but I understand from good sources that it was not his idea and he did not like being referred to as Bukka. Booker is a nice name, and a nice place unless you're German (HQ of allied bomber command during WWII). Mr White preferred to be called Booker, and will always be remembered for his brilliant spontaneous compositions, which he called "sky songs" (eg. When Can I Change My Clothes).

Subject: RE: Blues Music
From: Chris C
Date: 29 Nov 02 - 01:59 PM

Michael Bloomfield is without doubt my favorite electric guitar player. He was just so expressive...
Among currently active players I like Ronnie Earl alot, and of course the great BB King.
Beyond that, I hesitate to single anyone out, because I just love the whole style. I tend to especially like whatever I'm listening to at the time. All the electric stuff from Chicago in the 50's & 60's is terrific. Junior Wells was one of my first "favorites".
Stevie Ray was a breath of fresh air in the 80's. Seeing him when he first came to the Northeastern US blew me away.
For acoustic blues, some guys are special to me. Skip James, Blind Lemon, Willie McTell, Bukka White...
I'm sure I'm forgetting some HUGE ones, but if I don't stop I'll list every notable blues artist I've ever heard. If anyone is just getting into the blues, this stuff on this thread is highly recommended.
-Chris

Subject: RE: Blues Music
From: GUEST,Zorro
Date: 29 Nov 02 - 09:22 AM

For my money Lightin' Hopkins is the best that's ever been. I happen to like country blues and that's mostly what he played in and around Houston for most of his life. I met him in the 60's and he invited me down to where he would be playing, at a local black juke joint. That was about the time of the big civil rights movement. I remember saying to him: "Man I can't walk into that place.." He said: "Just tell them you're a musician and they won't bother you..." He was right. I guess they felt I was there out of respect. They were right!.

Subject: RE: Blues Music
From: van lingle
Date: 29 Nov 02 - 06:31 AM

I tend to just like particular recordings by whoever but if you put my feet to the fire I'd say Charley Patton for country blues and Otis Rush and BB on electric are the ones I listen to the most. I've heard a bit of RL Burnside and he's pretty good. vl

Subject: RE: Blues Music
From: ddw
Date: 28 Nov 02 - 11:05 PM

Oops! Sorry Stewie. It was Steve who put BWJ in the delta. My faith is restored and your record remains unblemished....

david

Subject: RE: Blues Music
From: ddw
Date: 28 Nov 02 - 10:52 PM

Hey Stewie -- Blind Willie Johnson was from Texas, wasn't he? I know he had a lot of the Charley Patton-gravely sound and that mesmerizing guitar work like the Delta guys, but he wasn't Delta.

I was just amazed at what as far as I know is the first time I've ever seen you put a foot wrong in blues facts.

Cheers,

david

Subject: RE: Blues Music
From: Steve Latimer
Date: 28 Nov 02 - 04:55 PM

Craig S, I'm surprised I forgot to mention Taj. He really is something.

Subject: RE: Blues Music
From: CraigS
Date: 28 Nov 02 - 04:47 PM

Memphis Minnie, Skip James, Freddie King, Blind Blake, Roosevelt Sykes, Scrapper Blackwell, Sonny Boy Williamson I, Walter Horton, Jimmy Rogers, Muddy Waters, Robert Nighthawk, Taj Mahal,Johnny Jones, Otis Spann, Johnny Winter, Pat Hare, Dick Justice, Bo Carter, Little Walter, Billy Boy Arnold, Carey Bell, Lurrie Bell, Paul Butterfield, Sugar Blue, Luther Allison, Fenton Robinson, JoAnne Kelly.

Subject: RE: Blues Music
From: GUEST,fat B****rd
Date: 28 Nov 02 - 03:20 PM

All the wonderful people in the line from Charley Patton to Howlin' Wolf

Subject: RE: Blues Music
From: Richie
Date: 28 Nov 02 - 12:09 PM

I like Rev. Gary Davis, he had the voice and was one of the best blues guitarists. Try playing his songs note for note, whew!

-Richie

Subject: RE: Blues Music
From: alanabit
Date: 28 Nov 02 - 05:27 AM

I attempt to play Scrapper Blackwell's "Blue Day Blues" in my live set. The cliche´ ridden lyric (even by blues standards) shouldn't really work - but it somehow does the business. Baffles me really - but I love it. I tend to come back to Mississippi John Hurt. The guitar playing is simply out of my reach of course. What I most like about the man is that he could sing about the most appalling disasters yet you can always suss out a smile behind it all. Nobody else quite gives me that feeling on record.

Subject: RE: Blues Music
From: greg stephens
Date: 28 Nov 02 - 05:15 AM

Well I like all the usual suspects, Robert johnson et al. But what I always come back to and listen to a lot is Leroy Carr and Scrapper Blackwell, fantastic lyrical duets and very melodic, a totally different approach to the mainstream blues players of the time.
   And I have a special soft spot for Ma Rainey, especially when Tampa Red is in the backing band.

Subject: RE: Blues Music
From: Bluesmike
Date: 28 Nov 02 - 03:18 AM

little Walter, Muddy,BB, Mississippi John Hurt, Blind Blake, Robert Johnson- sheesh, what an impossible task.
Michael

Subject: RE: Blues Music
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull
Date: 28 Nov 02 - 02:38 AM

Subject: RE: Blues Music
From: Tinker
Date: 26 Nov 02 - 08:40 AM

A few more ladies....

Lil Johnson
Victoria Spivey
Lucille Bogan
Bernice Edwards
Barrel House Annie
Memphis Minnie
Ruby Glazer


And maybe in 20 years I'll be able to sing and play at the same time....

Tinker

Subject: RE: Blues Music
From: Steve Latimer
Date: 26 Nov 02 - 07:13 AM

Most of my favourites have been mentioned. I didn't see Bukka White or Blind Willie Johnson, two of my favourite Delta guys.

Electric? Johnny Winter and Roy Buchanan.

Then there was Joanne Kelly.

Subject: RE: Blues Music
From: songs2play
Date: 26 Nov 02 - 07:11 AM

I forgot to say why.

Because I've listened to them for 30years+ and it just gets better.

Subject: RE: Blues Music
From: songs2play
Date: 26 Nov 02 - 07:09 AM

Missippi John Hurt
Blind Blake
Blind Boy Fuller
Robert Johnson
Blind Willie Mctell
Leadbelly
Tweed
Dai Thomas
etc
etc
etc

Subject: RE: Blues Music
From: Roger the Skiffler
Date: 26 Nov 02 - 06:00 AM

I'm a great Fred McDowell fan as well, but love all the other guys: Leadbelly, Broonzy,Johnson, Sonny & Brownie, Wolf, Elmore, Jesse Fuller,the list is endless...(and not forgetting the women:Bessie, Mamie,Victoria,Ma,Big Mama, Odetta,Sippie...)
RtS
(so little time, so many records...)

Subject: RE: Blues Music
From: khandu
Date: 25 Nov 02 - 10:24 PM

Mississippi Fred, Mississippi John, Muddy Waters, Big Mama Thornton, Robert Cray and...uh,...Tweed!

khanduh

Subject: RE: Blues Music
From: Tweed
Date: 25 Nov 02 - 10:14 PM

O LORD, please forgive pore addled Boberdz and the khandu as they are not in thar right minds...ever.
Thanks fer enny help you kin turn loose of in advance.
Yerz,
Tweed

Subject: RE: Blues Music
From: Bobert
Date: 25 Nov 02 - 08:47 PM

DANGED RIGHT, Khan! Waht happened to my thinking? Yes, yes, yes. The GREAT Tweezer, hisself. The Mayor of Blues! Sorry, Tweezer. Can ya firgive my sorry Wse Ginny butt? "PLEASE, Depot agent, please let me ride them blinds...."

Also forget Richard Johnston? Sorry, Rich.....

Worst thing about this little confessional post is that with my leaky mind, I know I'll be back doing the "Dance of the Dieing Duck" later after it has been brought to my attention that I have indeed left someone else out..... or worse than that... a full half a dozen...

Bobert

Subject: RE: Blues Music
From: khandu
Date: 25 Nov 02 - 08:00 PM

Bobert! You left out a great Bluesman, the mayor of Tweedsburg...Tweed! I mean, man, how didja fergit the Badly Recorded Blues!

indignant khandu

Subject: RE: Blues Music
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Nov 02 - 12:04 PM

Jimmy Reed for simple but effective harp work... Memphis Slim for piano work ... Lightnin' Hopkins for accoustic work ... Stevie Ray for killer electric guitar, although there are many out there playing today who are absolutely awesome. (Kenny Wayne Shepherd et al)

Robert Cray for 'elegant, polished' blues ...

Subject: RE: Blues Music
From: GUEST,Ordinary Average Guy
Date: 25 Nov 02 - 11:45 AM

Perhaps someone here can solve the mystery as to why the blues of the 30s, 40s and 50s is a musical form best interpreted by british homosexuals. :)

Subject: RE: Blues Music
From: Mark Clark
Date: 25 Nov 02 - 11:37 AM

Blues is such a huge category, it's hard to make comparisons across the many styles. When discussing a single performer playing guitar and singing, we're often talking about the country blues. I love country blues but it's hard to pick out a single favorite performer. Some are wonderful for their energy and emotion, some are wonderful for their instrumental expression. It depends on my mood, which performer I'd prefer at any given time.

Sometimes I really like Brownie McGhee; I'm thinking now of that little Folkways 10 in. record he released as a solo album. His playing is so mellow. Other times I prefer Broonzy. I tend to listen to those with more jazz influence but I also like the less polished shouters too.

Of course I love big band blues too; singers like Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith are just wonderful. Modern blues is more like rock and roll but I enjoy that too but it's pretty hard to say I prefer SRV over Fury Lewis or Mance Lipscomb.

When I undertake the learning of a new (for me) piece, it's invariably an old number by a long dead performer. I guess that's where my heart is… or did I leave it in San Francisco?

      - Mark

Subject: RE: Blues Music
From: Bobert
Date: 25 Nov 02 - 11:10 AM

Without a doubt, Mississippi Fred McDowell is my favorite. That hard, distinctive bass work is so steady while he works the higher strings with machine gun efficiency. Not easy to pull off especially playing a full slide (as opposed to a stubby slide or combinations of two slides) but he consistently amazes me in pulling it off. Now mix in that wonderful Delta voice and an ability to blend it so exactly with what he doing on guitar, and you have a guy that most Delta style players hear and go, "Wow!"

As for second favorites one can pick from anyone of the following who I also consider great: Son House, Robert Johnson, Elmore James, Muddy Waters, Lightnin' Hpokins, Willie Brown, Blind Boy Fuller, Blind Willie McTell, Rev, Gary Davis, Jimmy Reed, Little Walter Jacobs and fir contemporaries; Corey Harris, Kelly Joe Phelps, Keb Mo and my main man, the Colonial hisself, James "Sparky" Rucker and his lovely wife Rhonda in harp.

Bobert

Subject: RE: Blues Music
From: C-flat
Date: 25 Nov 02 - 09:34 AM

I find it too difficult to pick one over another. It depends on what I'm listening to at the time. That said, I probably lean more towards blues guitarists than just singers.
My favourites are probably much the same as most peoples, Buddy Guy, B.B. King, Albert King, Albert Collins,etc,.
I think Stevie Ray Vaughan had the best Rock/Blues sound and Robben Ford plays the most amazing Jazz/Blues licks.
In terms of jamming with other musicians, the blues is a great vehicle because it's usually a simple structure that any level of player can join in with and is great, knock-about fun wether you can spring dazzling solos or just a couple of B.B.Kings well chosen notes.

Subject: RE: Blues Music
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull
Date: 25 Nov 02 - 09:06 AM

When you see a sign, saying Hull City Council, you will know that strange things are about to happen.

Subject: RE: Blues Music
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull
Date: 25 Nov 02 - 09:03 AM

Hull City Council.

Subject: RE: Blues Music
From: Pied Piper
Date: 25 Nov 02 - 08:59 AM

What type of sign Master?

Subject: RE: Blues Music
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull
Date: 25 Nov 02 - 08:47 AM

there will be a sign.