Blues Strings

[Akeo]

I didn't look all over the site for this question, but what is a good string for blues? I'm using now, D'Addario EXL160 round wounds. They sound pretty good, but i'm just wondering if flats or rounds are better for that great blues sound.

[Winemule]

I've just come off a year of steady work with a blues band. If you are playing straight Chicago style, then flats are it. Otherwise, go for the roundwounds. The guy I played for got into New Orleans funk (he needed uptempo dance stuff), and if you are going into the George Porter book, then you'll be doing some funky popping, and roundwounds make life much easier. If you're not sure, the DR Fatbeams provide the happy medium.

[4Mal]

TI Jazz Flats. none better. unless you want the occaisional thumb 'n pop in which case D'Addario Half Rounds.

TIJF's are fairly low tension and the half's are mdeium tension. depending on your current string some setup work (1/8th to 1/4 truss rod adjust and a re-intonate) may be in order. That's pretty much true when changing guages anyway though...

[The Craw]

Originally Posted by Ole Man Blues

I'm old school.

I remember when Blues was 1st introduced to white audiences....

You do? That was over 90 years ago! Just how old are you?

[The Craw]

Originally Posted by Akeo

I didn't look all over the site for this question, but what is a good string for blues? I'm using now, D'Addario EXL160 round wounds. They sound pretty good, but i'm just wondering if flats or rounds are better for that great blues sound.

All a matter of taste, but I think the EXL160s are great for blues. They have a very good balance of roundness and presence.

[brianrost]

If you look around at the basses and strings used by blues bassists you'll find that just about anything gets used. I don't even know what strings are on a couple of my basses

[BadMonk]

I used to use flatwounds (mostly Chromes or Rotosound) but they are a little too 'sticky' for my right hand, left/fret hand loves 'em. Anyway, I compromised by switching to the groundwound (D'Ads and/or SIT Silencers) and pressurewound (GHS). You won't get the flatwound thump, but you don't get the zing of rounds...altho SITs are a little brite out of the box and break in after a week or two. I doubt that I'll ever go back to rounds or flats. YMMV

[The Craw]

Originally Posted by Ole Man Blues

I'm 56 and Blues was 1st instroduced to white audiences in the early sixties by BB King, not 90 years ago.

Get your facts straight before you try to make someone look bad. I know what I'm talking about............

OMB

No, you need to get your facts straight.

Blues was introduced to white audiences by W. C. Handy before World War I. Blues singers like Mamie Smith and Bessie Smith were widely popular with white audiences in the 1920s. I could go further but this is the strings forum. You might want to read a good blues history.

I'm 59 and white, and I was exposed to blues long before the 60s. My parents had a lot of blues records in their collection, most of them from the 40s.

[Lorenzini]

I just got Half-Rounds yesterday. They are great!
Pretty thumpy, nice high tension... They sound good when slapped, unlike flats.

And I think in a few weeks they'll lose some high-end zing and get real nice.

[lonote]

I play Chicago style, West Coast and Jump and I use flats, Fender 9050's on my P-Basses, and D'Addario Chromes on my Jazz Basses. My semi-hollow Ibanez Artcore has GHS Precision Flats now but will probably be sporting Chromes before too long.

[lonote]

Blind Lemon Jefferson sold lots of records to white folks in the 20's. Big Bill Broonzy, Tampa Red (with and without Georgia Tom), Huddie Ledbetter ("Leadbelly") and Lonnie Johnson did well with white folks in the 30's and 40's. In the 40's and 50's T-Bone Walker, Louis Jordan, Wynonnie Harris, Big Joe Turner, Amos Milburn and B.B. King did well with white audiences. In the 50's and 60's B. B. King continued as did T-Bone and also Ray Charles and the Chess artists like Muddy, Howlin' Wolf and Little Walter sold lots of stuff to white people. The jump blues artists (Jordan, Harris, et al) were enormously popular and sold TONS of records in the 40's and 50's.

[The Craw]

Originally Posted by Ole Man Blues

I really can't believe that because your parents having a blues record collection from the 40's makes you an authority on Blues History, but if you think it does, well........

Oh, brother! Talk about deliberately misrepresenting what I said.

I'm no authority on blues history and I've never claimed to be. But if you insist that blues wasn't introduced to white audiences until the early 60s, I obviously know more about it than you do.

[The Craw]

Originally Posted by lonote

Blind Lemon Jefferson sold lots of records to white folks in the 20's. Big Bill Broonzy, Tampa Red (with and without Georgia Tom), Huddie Ledbetter ("Leadbelly") and Lonnie Johnson did well with white folks in the 30's and 40's. In the 40's and 50's T-Bone Walker, Louis Jordan, Wynonnie Harris, Big Joe Turner, Amos Milburn and B.B. King did well with white audiences. In the 50's and 60's B. B. King continued as did T-Bone and also Ray Charles and the Chess artists like Muddy, Howlin' Wolf and Little Walter sold lots of stuff to white people. The jump blues artists (Jordan, Harris, et al) were enormously popular and sold TONS of records in the 40's and 50's.

Thank you very much, lonote.

Let's not forget the British blues scene that started right after WWII. Artists like Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf and many others couldn't break out of the R & B charts here but they had a big -- and almost all white --following in the UK. They toured and played to good sized crowds in some famous blues clubs like Alexis Corner's. Many of the British Invasion artists had been listening to them since childhood.

There was also the folk music revival that started in the UK in the early 50s and then spread to the US. Some rural blues artists like Mississippi John Hurt and Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee were part of that scene, and again, the audiences were overwhelmingly white.

[Kenny Allyn]

Strings ... this was about strings right ... GHS pressurewounds





... WC Handy ... I think they have a statue of him in a park somewhere downtown.

[GlennW]

The Rolling Stones probably made more white people aware of the blues than anyone else. They certainly exposed many to Muddy Waters. Elvis was singing blues songs in the 50s.

[tplyons]

Flats for sure. I go for the Jazz strung with Chromes for my blues work.