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R.I.P. Ginger Baker.
- Thread starter fearceol
- Start date
The first? Completely? Hardly...The Rolling Stones, in spite of themselves, and while Brian was still around, was closer in authenticity of the genre; they could almost rival what came out of Chess Records(almost). What about Clapton’s former employer, John Mayall? His was total dedication to the genre, albeit with some variations. Cream was never a blues band, as some people tend to regard them. They may have covered some blues songs(in a manner totally different from what the original writers/artists had in mind), may have come up with some original material that had elements of the blues, and had a guitarist who borrowed stylistically from blues players(but turned that vocabulary into something completely different). They were a jazz rhythm section with a rock guitarist who knew a bunch of blues licks. Ever heard their first single? Sounds like English music hall or vaudeville...
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Speak for yourself. I always felt the Stones were a bad imitation of real blues. Cream took blues (like Crossroads) in another direction. Most of my compatriots were already deeply immersed in Muddy Waters, Leadbelly, Bessie Smith and the other "real" blues players and thought the Stones made bad copies of great songs. We also resented the idea that it took the "British Invasion" to popularize blues. It was already immensely popular with us.
Barely, certainly nothing like the Chicago/Mississippi style Cream was known to imitate. It's more of an old-timey jazzy soft-shoe workout. Here's somebody's opinion of it...
Ginger Baker agreed with the disappointed fans, “Wrapping Paper’ is the most appalling piece of sh-t I’ve ever heard in my life! I was totally against it, right from the start… Eric and I didn’t like it.”
(Chris Welch, "Cream: The Legendary Sixties Supergroup")
Well, which is it going to be? If the Stones were a bad imitation, it was an enthusiastic imitation, within the limitations of being half a world away from the culture that spawned it. I don't think they sat down in 1962 and plotted to take over the world and get rich by playing that sort of music. They played it because they were obsessed with it. On the other hand, Cream was taking the blues in another direction? Which direction was that? Even further away from the "real blues" of Chicago, Mississippi, Louisiana, etc., that the Stones were doing, to the point that it was a mutation. A mutation that some came to call "heavy metal". You resent that it took British musicians to expose and popularize the music with American kids? What American bands were doing that(aside from Butterfield, who wasn't a recording entity in 1964, and once he had a band, wasn't exactly Top-40 fodder)? What were you and your compatriots doing at that time to reach the audience that The Stones had when they covered "King Bee" and "Little Red Rooster"? They fought with TV show producers to make this happen...
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I think sometimes being in a different country from the original source of a style of music allows it to be reinterpreted, reimagined. There are, to this day, Chicago blues and other blues purists in the UK, but the Rolling Stones didn't stay that way, and nor did Cream. The Beatles took some similar influences in a different direction, then groups in the USA took that and folded in their own influences back in, and everyone benefitted.
If you look at some of the influences in the UK you have the likes of Jethro Tull merging blues, jazz and folk, Fairport Convention West Coast USA rock with folk, Led Zeppelin doing a very different merger of blues, rock and folk, Cream mixing rock, blues and pop, Deep Purple mixing rock, blues, pop and sometimes jazz. Hawkwind mixing blues, rock and roll with a lot of narcotics. Even Fleetwood Mac didn't stay blues purists for very long.
(And very often the same people crop up again and again, with Dave Pegg being in or associated with members of at least of the preceeding bands)
If you look at some of the influences in the UK you have the likes of Jethro Tull merging blues, jazz and folk, Fairport Convention West Coast USA rock with folk, Led Zeppelin doing a very different merger of blues, rock and folk, Cream mixing rock, blues and pop, Deep Purple mixing rock, blues, pop and sometimes jazz. Hawkwind mixing blues, rock and roll with a lot of narcotics. Even Fleetwood Mac didn't stay blues purists for very long.
(And very often the same people crop up again and again, with Dave Pegg being in or associated with members of at least of the preceeding bands)
What mass market appeal did blues have in the USA before the British Invasion? (This is a genuine question).
In terms of The Rolling Stones it was a purist blues band for a very short time, and that's assuming you even count things like Bo Diddley blues at all (he always seemed to plough his own furrow to me).
Wow, what vitriol. I'm glad you appreciated the Stones. I never much liked the way they covered other people's stuff. If you did, well swell. The early Cream was the first interesting power trio with a foot in the blues and a foot in rock (IMHO). The music scene in Minneapolis where I was playing was full of folk, folk blues and blues. Lazy Bill Lucas was a session piano player from the Chess Studios having previously given up on guitar (what he called a starvation box). He moved to Minneapolis and I was fortunate to play with him in the 60s. I would likely have stayed, but the draft got in the way.
I think the appeal of blues would have happened without the Stones or Brits. The fame of the Beatles gave all British bands a marketing advantage (so foreign!) and American recording companies were caught flat footed.
The Beatles had the "polish" in both sound and look to make them more palatable to Americans. That paved the way in the US market for whatever success the rest came to enjoy. Blues is a limited market. "Authentic Blues" is hard to define, as evidenced in this Forum. Arguing which bunch of invasion kids was "more authentic" when it comes to blues is kinda silly. None of them were. They were riding a wave and selling an image. The Stones were an interesting, young, cute (to-some) crew with the chops of a garage band that cashed in on being "more edgy" in a James Dean kinda way. Much the same for Cream. Fleetwood Mac? I don't think most Americans know who Peter Green is. I think this has been beaten here before. I'd argue that technical Virtuosity was not a big part of the equation with any of these bands back in the invasion days. Perhaps the Beatles did have a leg up on the rest of them creativity-wise, but in many minds, it seems when it comes to "authentic blues" the more creativity, the less "authenticity".
Clapton had, like Green, been through the Bluesbreakers. I'd put his skills well above garage.
My late uncle used to hang out with the Stones, Bluesbreakers, and shared bills and borrowed gear. Sadly, he's not around for me to ask, and I regret not sticking a tape recorder in front of him and getting all the gossip, i mean oral history. I don't think he was around for Cream, though, as he was in the RAF and IIRC he was in stationed in Hong Kong at that time so no Ginger stories, I expect.
He very nearly went professional as a musician. but that was more in a Merseybeat style as that was, in around 1965, where the money was, apparently. But whenever one of the blues originals made it to the UK for the first time and he was in the couhtry, he was there.
Ginger was the most musical drummer I've heard. His work with Bill Laswell on "Horses And Trees", and the sublimely beautiful trio with Charlie Hadden and Bill Frissell are eye-, er, I mean ear-opening music. Like Jack Bruce, his best music is NOT limited to those few years with Cream.
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Well, Baker was never really a "rock" drummer (but neither was Billy Cobham) even though his legacy from Cream and Blind Faith would suggest otherwise. Like Jack Bruce (and all my favorite music) his music lived on the borders of "genres" and crossed those borders without trepidation.
BTW, I've never heard any drummers talk about Barrie Barlow! Cool that you put him in there.
Elvis, Fats Domino, Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, Bill Haley, Roy Orbison...popular 50's rock and roll was steeped in blues, among other things. Which in turn propagated the British invasion.
