Early Influences, and Poor Recordings

[mellowsoon]

Hey all,
I'd really like to stat getting into some of the artist that influenced my favorite players. Men like Robert Johnson, and Leadbelly. However the quality of their recorded music is just god awful by today's standards. I can hardly bring myself to listen to it.

So what should I do? Are there modern artists doing covers of Robert Johnson and Leadbelly that I can listen to, and learn from?

[Fergie Fulton]

Originally Posted by mellowsoon

Hey all,
I'd really like to stat getting into some of the artist that influenced my favorite players. Men like Robert Johnson, and Leadbelly. However the quality of their recorded music is just god awful by today's standards. I can hardly bring myself to listen to it.

So what should I do? Are there modern artists doing covers of Robert Johnson and Leadbelly that I can listen to, and learn from?

You need to listen to the recordings, interprete what you hear, listen again, re-interprete, listen and re-interprete and so on. You need to make the decisions on what you think is going on in these recordings to learn. If you listen to someone elses interpretation you are in effect learning what they thought was going on.....whether it is right or wrong, so in the end you learn nothing but somebody elses opinions.

Listen to the originals and then play, rather than play along.

[becker4567]

The poor quality of the recordings, for me at least, really make the music stand out. No auto-tune (may god curse that invention), no sound boards, no recording tricks. Just self taught bluesmen in some gin joint bar, playing into a cheap wire recorder. Listen and learn!

[mellowsoon]

I hear ya.. It's just most of it sounds like it was played through a megaphone, which is essentially what they did (Given my understanding of early vinyl recordings). So the highs are very high, and the lows are non-existent. It's all a little ear piercing to me. I suppose I haven't given it a chance.. If I listen more the poor recording quality will fade away, and the music will come through.

[Fergie Fulton]

Originally Posted by mellowsoon

I hear ya.. It's just most of it sounds like it was played through a megaphone, which is essentially what they did (Given my understanding of early vinyl recordings). So the highs are very high, and the lows are non-existent. It's all a little ear piercing to me. I suppose I haven't given it a chance.. If I listen more the poor recording quality will fade away, and the music will come through.

The were cut straight to disc in the room where the perormance was being made. Try this, play the song and go to another room, or upstairs/downstairs and listen, you'll hear a different side of the recording from resonate frequencies.

[onlyclave]

Originally Posted by mellowsoon

I hear ya.. It's just most of it sounds like it was played through a megaphone, which is essentially what they did (Given my understanding of early vinyl recordings). So the highs are very high, and the lows are non-existent. It's all a little ear piercing to me. I suppose I haven't given it a chance.. If I listen more the poor recording quality will fade away, and the music will come through.

It can't sound worse than a mp3 file.

[billjr]

Go to iTunes, and put the name of the song in the search area. That should pull up a lot of covers as well as originals. I was going to name a few bands that did covers of old tunes, but I don't think you can name a rock band that didn't do blues covers in the 60s and 70s. I don't like listening to early recordings because they are such poor quality, but I would have loved to here that stuff live.

My dad had a set of Benny Goodman LPs that were cut from a wax recording of a live show. The wax recordings were found decades after being made, and they decided to record them as they first listened to them. Good thing, as the wax disintegrated shortly after one playing. It was an awsome concert/dance, but the recording quality was what you got at the time.

I even hate listening to 50s recordings. Really makes the saying "Live music is best" ring home.