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Is blues a dying art?
- Thread starter zeppfan90
- Start date
I miss his insight, as well. He had a way of pointing out the "everyday obvious", that most of us completely overlook.
I do remember the piece you posted here, too. "It's not enough to know which notes to play, you gotta know WHY they need to be played." was something I always adhered to, but was never able to express with such simplicity, so succinctly.
Thanks for the good memory.
On the whole, far too many bands look at blues as a vehicle to show off their guitarists. Some do a good job of it, most don't. Personally, I like blues played in it's original form, not the electrified 3 cord progressions in A or C that so many bands think is blues.
In many cases I prefer to switch to a double bass when playing some really smokey blues. My best personal experience playing blues was with a small group, guitar, bass, drums, piano, and sax/flute, and a female vocalist. A mixed bag of black and white musicians. I played electric and double basses in that group, we did jazz, pop, and blues numbers, and I simply loved the hell out of that arrangement. Unfortunately, three of the members were killed in a traffic accident and the rest of us just went out separate ways after that.
I love George Carlin but that clip is just stupid and only marginally funny due to the shock value of a white guy making those statements.
Standing up and saying who is allowed to play what kind of music is complete nonsense. It ain't nobody's place to dictate who gets to play what.
What kind of crappy, boring world would it be if we listened to these stodgy asswipes?
Nothing would ever move forward and the blues WOULD be dead.
Standing up and saying who is allowed to play what kind of music is complete nonsense. It ain't nobody's place to dictate who gets to play what.
What kind of crappy, boring world would it be if we listened to these stodgy asswipes?
Nothing would ever move forward and the blues WOULD be dead.
Vintagefiend
I don't care for 410 cabinets at all.
I play simple things that sound good in the context of whatever song I'm playing.
I don't care if I impress other bassists - hell, I'm not even really a bass player; I'm a musician who happens to play bass. So there ya go.
technically, I'm a terrible bass player. But my band is awesome, and we make money, and I have fun. And I truly enjoy playing music.
I'll never be as good as Les Claypool or Victor Wooten, nor do I have any desire to be. I like grooves and being in the pocket. And hate drummers who play fills on every turnaround or crash on every downbeat. Some call that boring...I call it 'being a pro.' So there ya go.
Blues is a very wide genre. I would say yes. Listen to the difference between Cab Calloway's "Minnie the Moocher" and any SRV tune and realize they are both blues.
That was Jack White with The White Stripes about 15 years ago. So yeah, time for someone to come along and reinvent it....again.
I wish it was Gary Clark, Jr. I really wanted to like the guy, but I tuned into something on Palladia or VH1 (In the Studio or something, don't remember), and I was simply........bored.
I will now run for cover, for both of those statements.
Ugh - Those guys all bore the piss out of me. And I cover songs by Sheherd and Bonamassa in my middle aged white guy blues band, OY!
Although, the KWS tune we do has a very New Orleans vibe, and the JB tune is actually a Warren Haynes tune, maybe that's why I can get through them. The rest of their stuff, meh.
+1
Most 'blues' bands are mediocre musicians who think it's easy to play a bunch of I, IV, V songs all with the same rhythm, tempo, changes, intros and endings. They have no concept of the blues, they've just heard some of these songs a few times, but they are easy, so what the hell. Then some poor slob comes to hear the band and decides they don't like blues; not knowing that they've never heard the blues.
The blues are just as interesting or uninspiring as the people playing them. If you think it's easy putting together a night of blues, then you don't know the blues.
With minor changes you could say that about any genre really ... I listened to a metal band (no clue what sub-genre
) not too long ago whose songs all sounded pretty much the same to me. So I could have decided I don't like metal.We play mostly blues, bluesy rock and even some blues with a funky touch, and for sure not twelve bar blues a whole night. Regardless of music genre you have to have some variety to keep an audience (and the musicians too for that matter) interested and entertained.
The other day I searched youtube for Lonesome Day Blues by Dylan, and found this.
Maybe the blues is more of a misunderstood art than a dying art. It sounds fine, but I think the guitar player is trying too hard to look like he's feeling it.
Edit: this sounds nothing like Dylan's version
Maybe the blues is more of a misunderstood art than a dying art. It sounds fine, but I think the guitar player is trying too hard to look like he's feeling it.
Edit: this sounds nothing like Dylan's version
Last edited:
Absolutely true. Most musicians are too lazy to bother learning a song let alone a genre.With minor changes you could say that about any genre really ... I listened to a metal band (no clue what sub-genre
In a word: No.
Whether big-name acts are borrowing from the style (or outright playing it) less in recent years may be worth discussing, but that doesn't have any bearing on the blues itself. PLENTY o' cats are going at it. Find them on your local college/community radio station or at the bar with the dirtiest PBR taps in town.
I saw a cat named Tab Benoit last fall at the Rock 'n' Bowl in New Orleans. He was a riot and his bassist had mean-ass blues coming out of his eyeballs. He's far from the only one, too.
Whether big-name acts are borrowing from the style (or outright playing it) less in recent years may be worth discussing, but that doesn't have any bearing on the blues itself. PLENTY o' cats are going at it. Find them on your local college/community radio station or at the bar with the dirtiest PBR taps in town.
I saw a cat named Tab Benoit last fall at the Rock 'n' Bowl in New Orleans. He was a riot and his bassist had mean-ass blues coming out of his eyeballs. He's far from the only one, too.
This is the problem exactly. I've seen excellent blues performances, at least on video, but blues bands in bars seem safe and inoffensive most of the time. Electric blues used to be electrifying! The really old blues guys played acoustic but their phrasing was interested and they were not so... boxy (and not limited to 12-bar forms). The 'hackneyed lyrics' thing is a HUGE problem. Old-school blues was like rap was 20 years ago with hip lingo being utilized all the time. Now if you use similar phrases you're in danger of edging close to sounding quaint. The biggest cringer is when a technically great singer happily belts "They call it Stormy Monday" while looking happy and soulless. The blues without authenticity of feeling has squandered its greatest attribute.
Don't know if its been said yet, but Cage the Elephant's first album had some heavy blues influence. Even though its considered punk blues.
Blues has been around this long...it ain't going anywhere.
More to the point, blues is what it is. It is not being innovated. 1-4-5 will be 1-4-5 for the remainder of our existence. At this point, no one's going to make a billion dollars playing blues in arenas. When the current crop of bluesmen die off, there will be a few more, but not on a grand scale. Blues has been relegated to local acts playing in dive bars. Cover bands, originals, etc., but very small and unknown. I see a lot of styles described as "bluesy rock" or "blues-influenced country", etc. That seems to be the direction in which the blues are headed that will claim the limelight.
More to the point, blues is what it is. It is not being innovated. 1-4-5 will be 1-4-5 for the remainder of our existence. At this point, no one's going to make a billion dollars playing blues in arenas. When the current crop of bluesmen die off, there will be a few more, but not on a grand scale. Blues has been relegated to local acts playing in dive bars. Cover bands, originals, etc., but very small and unknown. I see a lot of styles described as "bluesy rock" or "blues-influenced country", etc. That seems to be the direction in which the blues are headed that will claim the limelight.
Everything is relative ... I'd say those genres will not really get any limelight either; airtime and big tours are reserved for the mass produced music industry pop stuff, the Biebers and One Directions and such.
