I’ve been playing for a good many years
with many different bands, playing a
variety of music styles.

With every style, but one, it has been necessary
to try and play what is currently being
fostered on the public over the radio.

With R&R and country, what is current
works best by playing to your peers….
younger crowds aren’t all that impressed
by a bunch of old dudes playing “THEIR”
songs. Older crowds are more appreciative
and enjoy the old classic music but the younger
people that are there seems to not get it.

The one type of music that appears to be
accepted by folks of ALL ages and can be
played by us at ANY age without people
looking at us being “OLD FOOLS” trying
to be relevant is ..THE BLUES.

It is what it is, and folks aren’t surprised
to see this old boy rockin’ out with some
good old blues tunes. It seems as though
every body gets into those good old tunes,
and you don’t have to listen to the radio
and learn what the “NEXT” big deal is out
there pushing. In every band that I ever played
in we looked at new material to see if 2 years
from now it would still be relevant, most of
today’s songs won’t have that longevity.

I have turned many Psalms and passages from the Prophets into blues songs. Their laments are not at all unlike the laments of today's blues and for good reason. The blues has and always will be the cry of humanity, the longing for deliverance from pain and heartache.

The near-primal nature of the blues progression touches our soul like little else can do. Today, there is instruction available that can make almost anyhone a great jazzer, bluegrasser, rocker or country picker. But, a good blues player can only earn that title from wrestling with life itself.

On Clapton's first concert DVD for the Rehab Project, he did a version of Old Love and his guitar solo makes the tears run down my face every time I listen to it. Every pain--the loss of his son, his broken heart, every disapointment in Eric's life flows off of his fingers in that solo and puts me in touch with the struggles of my own hardships and losses.

That is the real blues and why it is so universal. I could sit down and figure out that solo and play it note for note, but because it wouldn't be an extention of my own soul, it wouldn't be the blues.

"Emphasize what you ain't got, then you can play blues"

[This message was edited by Donny Hinson on 03 September 2005 at 05:12 AM.]

I take a bit of issue with ideas like " blues is simple", "Good sound isn't important", "it's more feeling and emotion than substance", "You don't have to be in perfect tune", or the implication that, more or less, "anybody can play the blues". Often, "a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing", and if that applies to any field of music, that is blues. I probably hear more 'bad' blues playing than any other style - my opinion.

People like Duke Ellington, Charlie Christian, Charlie Parker, and Wes Montgomery took blues to a high form - OK, we also label them "jazz" - but a lot of it was simply very sophisticated blues.

In music, feeling and emotion are the essence of substance, but I'd go further - I think it is hard to play blues well, and good blues intonation is extremely hard. Of course, some styles of blues playing are intended to be a bit sloppy, but there's nothing haphazard about the pitch of masters like B.B. & Albert King, Muddy Waters, Gatemouth Brown, and many, many others. Blues pitch shouldn't be evaluated in terms of Western scale pitch. Intervals, but especially thirds, fifths, and sevenths are varied heavily, and a good player doesn't do this randomly. The context and feeling one is trying to create set the selection. Listen to many players slavishly copy licks, but never have a clue what's going on pitchwise or feelwise - I hear this all the time.

Really, I don't see how blues is any simpler than country music. In their simplest forms, they are simple 3-chord tunes with a lot of sparseness, but also lots of feeling. This is what most of "the public" relate to in either style. But both have huge jazz- and rock-based extensions where true virtuosos practice their craft.

Finally, I view these two styles as parallel developments in American music that each fed off each other. I don't believe that the styles most of us consider 'blues' or 'country' would have occurred without the other.

I agree with David D. that the steel is a very expressive instrument for blues. We've discussed this, as well as the relationship to the "sacred steel" style, in other threads recently.

And you're right about the age factor. It's not age nearly as much as it is what's happened in the years you've lived. My sons have been through this mess with me and they are both very emotive players in their own right. Not really country or blues players in a traditional sense, but they definitely have that same raw emotional vibe as found in blues or pure country.

My youngest, Abe, is attending Penn State, so maybe you'll hear him sometime. He's more of a singer/songwriter type. Technically not the musician that his brother is, but a lot of emotional depth.

I think when we start stereotyping too much, we miss the real essence of the blues and country more than we preserve same by adhering to strict traditional standards.

In a certain sense, I think the equipment issue is a red herring. I've heard lots of different kinds of music made on all kinds of equipment. I do agree that if one is going for a particular vintage feel, the appropriate period equipment usually does this most easily. This is fine if the goal is to present a "museum performance" of a style of music.

I've played in old-school units - had to have the right look, instruments, and play everything with the old-school feel. For a while, this was cool and educational, but I think it's posible to do this too slavishly and stay too locked in the past. When a musical style ceases to develop, it dies and, even worse, can become a parody of itself.

I think modern blues has been able to morph with with the times, and still maintain a clear identity as "blues". I think part of the reason is that the authentic artists didn't necessarily think they even could cross over to mainstream pop. That difference is cultural. Ironically, people hear that authenticity, and have been joining the bandwagon for decades now. "Real blues" may not be the "flavor of the month", but is more alive than ever now, IMO.

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... you can't be a perfectionist and know what the blues is about.

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Yup, we'll have to disagree on that, premise 1, Donny.

Even if one accepts premise 2 that the "only true blues" is people like Leadbelly, Robert Johnson, and Charley Patton, I think that premise 1 ignores the precision of some of this style of playing. In particular, Robert Johnson's material is exceeedingly difficult and precisely executed.

Of course, I obviously don't accept premise 2 either. I far from argue that SRV and Clapton are the "Blues Messiahs". But the likes of B.B. and Muddy have argued the negation of your statement forcefully.

On premise 1, I think it's possible to put away the technical things and channel into a simpler, more primitive approach. Any limitations are in the mind. A good blues example is Duke Robillard, who is a leading exponent of extreme-jazz-oriented blues, starting with T-Bone and moving up through the decades. But listen to him rip into a greasy shuffle - he'll tear your head off. Lots of guys like that out there. Technical knowledge does not have to suck the "soul", and grease, out of a player.

Of course, as alway, my opinions.

[This message was edited by Dave Mudgett on 03 September 2005 at 12:15 PM.]

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You can sing a happy song if you're glad;

A protest song if you're sad.

But if you want to play The Blues;

Then son, you gotta learn how to Lose

-David Bromberg-

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Winnie'd get a kick out of that..

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What were those 3 notes?

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I was soaked, tired and more fulfilled from playing than I've been in a long time. There really is something about the raw emotion of the blues that does something to my soul that no other genre of music can do. Not that I don't love other music, but sometimes a man's music has to meet him where his heart is and last night, I had the blues. I was the artist and the audience all in one, and it was a great show.

[This message was edited by Webb Kline on 10 September 2005 at 05:55 AM.]

I have played along with those cats for years and gotten so much out of it.

One of my dearest friends would come over to my house and just sit and play for hours....his name is John Garcia, we lived in Gilroy CA, he went on to play lead guitar for John Lee Hooker,,,Years later I had a band that b0b, (Our illustrious leader here on the Forum played in) I had John come up to play with us at "2 Rock Coast Guard Base".

Example from 'Woke Up This Morning':
19. Persons with names like Michelle, Amber, Jennifer, Debbie, and Heather can't sing the blues no matter how many men they shoot in Memphis.

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I have worked with some great musicians who simply could not do it, and some hacks who had it in spades.

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Yes!