Black Blues? Not sure. african maybe id unno?

[MrSaturn]

Summary: What are the chords for a black blues in F or something...

Today I was at rehersal for a new gig I got playing at a church, the music was easy, but at the begining when they are giving offerings or wahtever the guy said they were going to play a 12 bar blues. Simple? Right. Well I played the way I knew how to play and then he said "Ohh no no no, we are playing a black blues it has some special turn around or something" Anyway he said he would write out the progression for me... and never did.

I have never heard of this style of blues? Whats the deal with it? Anyway if someone could write out the chord progression for 'black' blues. I figure it might be an african blues, but I still don't know what that is. The google isn't putting up any decent replies.

Thanks

[anonymous0726]

You sure he didn't say 'Black and Blue'?

Anyhow -- tell us what you played. And fill out your profile so that we can get a little idea of who you are and where you're coming from.

[MrSaturn]

It wasnt black and blue. It was a slike a 12 bar blues, except jazzed up apparently, with a fancy turn around at the end. He told me he would write it out for me, and then we started to play the music and that was it.

[Damon Rondeau]

There are lots of particular ways to change around 12 bar blues.

A common step away from I-IV-V is yer basic "jazz blues", wherein you get yer VI chord and II chord going in the last half of the form. So, in the key of F, the chords you may have been missing are D7 (the VI chord) and Gm7 (the II chord.)

So, on bar 8, instead of hanging in for a second bar of the I chord, go to the VI (play a dominant 7th instead of the diatonically-indicated minor 7th; that's jazz, man).

Then a bar each of the IIm7 and the V7.

That leaves you the last two bars to turn around the same way you just came (two beats each): I - VI7 - IIm7 - V7.

[Blues Basser]

Believe me when I tell you that there is no such thing as "a black blues" chord progression. I have been a part of the blues community for a long time and have never heard this term before. My wife has been nominated for two Handy Awards this year (the blues world's equivalent of a grammy) and is one of five nominees for Living Blues Magazine's Female Blues Artist of the Year for 2004. My wife also grew up on a plantation in Mississippi, the daughter of a blues singer. And yes she is black. A chord progression in blues (usually I-IV-V) in a given key is just that. There ain't no color to it, black, white or otherwise.

[Damon Rondeau]

Are you sure he said "black"?

[Ed Fuqua]

Maybe he said "back dues" and was looking for some money and when it wasn't forthcoming he laid some alternate changes on you so that you would stomp Johnson big time?

Or maybe he's just some no-ear bigot mother****er...

[Confucius]

Whatever he was calling it I am sure the turnaround wasnt so complicated that you couldnt find your way through it if you had the time to really listen. Ask him to write it out or just record him playing it and figure it out later.

[godoze]

I'm very interested to know what this mystical turn around is...

Are you sure he wasn't giving you a history of the Blues ? After all it does have its beginnings in work songs of the 19th century.

[lowphatbass]

Been there and done exactly that, get the name, or names of the songs you'll be playing for "offering" and I can probably help you out....either way, you are going to get a chance to work on your ears....hang in there......