The blues, and where to begin?

[REV]

For me the Holy Trinity of the Blues would be Muddy Waters, Howlin Wolf and Willie Dixon in no particular order. There are certainly others who are very fine players but those three really get to me. Some people will blow off blues as being simple and repeticious. For me the blues has been a life long journey of exploration. Honestly, I had been listening to the blues for many years before I really started to understand.

 

[Jack Butler]

Tons of great suggestions here. He didn’t invent it, but the SRV el mocambo show is a pretty all encompassing case study.
https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDsFO1NXFTILIRUejs41uLv7q1VjZEs-E

 

[Ric5]

here's a good video to start with

 

[Bright Midnight]

Wow guys, I wasn't expecting this amount of response, but thanks!!!!
I've got some homework to do I guess....love it

Now, does blues go down even better with a triple Belgian beer? (asking for a friend)

 

[bassfuser]

Here's a book by Ed Friedland that's great for learning to play blues on the bass:

Blues Bass – A Guide to the Essential Styles and Techniques - Hal Leonard Bass Method Stylistic Supplement - Bass Method | Hal Leonard Online

 

[Jimmy Howe]

Where to start? I believe there's a crossroads somewhere in the Deep South. Be there at midnight...

Also, this guide might be of help...

'How to Sing the Blues - A Primer'
1. Most Blues songs begin with: “Woke up this morning…”
2. “I got a good woman” is a bad way to begin the Blues, unless you stick something nasty in the next line like, “I got a good woman, with the meanest face in town.”
3. The Blues is simple. After you get the first line right, repeat it. Then find something that rhymes… sort of: “Got a good woman with the meanest face in town. Yes, I got a good woman with the meanest face in town. Got teeth like Margaret Thatcher, and she weigh 500 pounds"
4. The Blues is not about choice. You stuck in a ditch, you stuck in a ditch… ain’t no way out.
5. Blues cars: Chevys, Fords, Cadillacs, and broken-down trucks. Blues don’t travel in Volvos, BMWs, or Sport Utility Vehicles. Most Blues transportation is a Greyhound bus or a southbound train. Jet aircraft and state-sponsored motor pools ain’t even in the running. Walkin’ plays a major part in the blues lifestyle. So does fixin’ to die.
6. Teenagers can’t sing the Blues. They ain’t fixin’ to die yet. Adults sing the Blues. In Blues, “adulthood” means being old enough to get the electric chair if you shoot a man in Memphis.
7. Blues can take place in New York City but not in Hawaii or any place in Canada. Hard times in Minneapolis or Seattle is probably just clinical depression. Chicago, St. Louis, and Kansas City are still the best places to have the Blues. You cannot have the blues in any place that don’t get rain.
8. A man with male pattern baldness ain’t the blues. A woman with male pattern baldness is. Breaking your leg ‘cause you were skiing is not the blues. Breaking your leg ‘cause a alligator be chomping on it is.
9. You can’t have no Blues in a office or a shopping mall. The lighting is wrong. Go outside to the parking lot or sit by the dumpster.
10. Good places for the Blues: a. highway b. jailhouse c. empty bed d. bottom of a whiskey glass. Bad places for the Blues: a. Nordstrom’s b. gallery openings c. Ivy League institutions
d. golf courses
11. No one will believe it’s the Blues if you wear a suit, ‘less you happen to be an old ethnic person, and you slept in it. 12. Do you have the right to sing the Blues? Yes, if: a. you older than dirt b. you blind c. you shot a man in Memphis. d. you can’t be satisfied. No, if: a. you have all your teeth b. you were once blind but now can see c. the man in Memphis lived d. you have a 401K or trust fund.
13. Blues is not a matter of color. It’s a matter of bad luck. Tiger Woods cannot sing the blues. Sonny Liston could. Ugly white people also got a leg up on the blues.
14. If you ask for water and your darlin’ give you gasoline, it’s the Blues. Other acceptable Blues beverages are:a. cheap wine b. whiskey or bourbon c. muddy water d. nasty black coffee. The following are NOT Blues beverages: a. Perrier b. Chardonnay c. Snapple d. Slim Fast
15. If death occurs in a cheap motel or a shotgun shack, it’s a Blues death. Stabbed in the back by a jealous lover is another Blues way to die. So are the electric chair, substance abuse, and dying lonely on a broken-down cot. You can’t have a Blues death if you die during a tennis match or while getting liposuction.
16. Some Blues names for women:a. Sadie b. Big Mama c. Bessie d. Fat River Dumpling.
17. Some Blues names for men: a. Joe b. Willie c. Little Willie d. Big Willie
18. Persons with names like Michelle, Amber, Jennifer, Debbie, and Heather can’t sing the Blues no matter how many men they shoot in Memphis.
19. Make your own Blues name Starter Kit: a. name of physical infirmity (Blind, Cripple, Lame, etc.) b. first name (see above) plus name of fruit (Lemon, Lime, Kiwi, etc.) c. last name of President (Jefferson, Johnson, Fillmore, etc.)For example: Blind Lime Jefferson, Jakeleg Lemon Johnson, or Cripple Kiwi Fillmore, etc. (Well, maybe not “Kiwi.”) Or, as Martin Mull coined, Blind Lemon Pledge.
20. I don’t care how tragic your life: if you own a computer, you cannot play the Blues.

This is a riot! I guess I can’t play the blues no matter how hard I mixolydian. Although I’m an adult, I have all my hair, all of my teeth and a 401k!
Nice work!!

 

[AGCurry]

Wow guys, I wasn't expecting this amount of response, but thanks!!!!
I've got some homework to do I guess....love it

Now, does blues go down even better with a triple Belgian beer? (asking for a friend)

It might, but for blues? Falstaff, Busch, Schlitz, or if you're in Texas, Pearl.

 

[TyBo]

Structure may be simple, but as with so many things, it's all about the execution. Gotta play it, and sing it, and feel it. Albert King knew. And dig that g.d. sax solo! Goose bumps ...

 

[DaveB in VA]

Wow guys, I wasn't expecting this amount of response, but thanks!!!!
I've got some homework to do I guess....love it

Now, does blues go down even better with a triple Belgian beer? (asking for a friend)

I highly recommend that you check out the European Blues Union based in Brussels. They are affiliated with the International Blues Foundation in Memphis, Tennessee. They seem to be active all over Europe. The best way to LEARN the Blues is to PLAY the Blues with other musicians that LOVE the Blues.

Link Removed

 

[Paul New]

I spent a lot of my youth smoking weed and playing along with John Lee Hooker cassette tapes.

I did steal lots of cool licks from Johnny B Gayden. He played with Albert Collins, Johnny Winter…. He’s all over the Alligator records stuff.

He was on EVERYTHING from Alligator in the 80s. Some great stuff. He was able to create lines that were both original, and grooved as hard as the Chess and King, etc...players of the 50s and 60s.

For me, I was already digging blues and jazz, but after a show in 1968 at Filmore West, with BB King headlining, and Albert Collins and Elvin bishop on the bill too, my life was changed. I'm been soaking up as much blues as possible for more than 50 years.

Some good recommendations in prior post, but also many omissions.

Check out how hard Little Walter and band, I think the Aces, swing on this cut.



Slim Harpo and other Louisiana bluesmen were recorded by Excello. Fabulous Thunderbirds owe a lot to Excello and West Coasters like T Bone Walker and Pee Wee Crayton.

Johnny Winter was as real as anyone, and dispenses good advice on this cut. This is not a shuffle, blues musicians call it a rumba. Pretty common blues rhythm.



A lot of the younger guys are going to have a heavy guitar hero lean. Some do it well, most are not to my taste. Ingram most definitely is.

 

[Lo-E]

Where to begin?
“Well, my baby left me…” is a pretty good place to begin.

You may also have pretty good luck with “Woke up this morning…” or “Went down to the crossroads…”.

Seriously, though, ‘blues’ is as broad a category as ‘pop’ and covers a huge amount of ground. It’s a foundational part of American music and if you’ve been playing rock & roll for any amount of time you’ve already been playing - not blues, exactly - but something strongly influenced by the blues.

If rock is where you’re already comfortable, maybe it would be worthwhile for you to work backwards from blues rock, which would seem the most familiar to you (John Mayal, early Fleetwood Mac, the Vaughn brothers, early ZZ Top, etc…) to jump blues like T-Bone Walker and Dave Bartholomew to Chicago blues like Muddy Waters and Howlin Wolf and keep working backwards… Jimmy Reed, Charlie Patton, Blind Lemon Jefferson…

This is just one approach that might work. There are so many sub-categories and side roads you can take. The many, many suggestions already made on this thread only scratch the surface and demonstrate what a deep subject ‘blues’ really is.

Or skip everything I just said and start with Muddy Waters!

 

[svlilioukalani]

As others have said, on the last page. Watch the Blues Brothers movie.

Then learn to play all the songs. Learn the well.

This worked for me. I learned these songs as a teen.
Then I audition for a touring blues band when I was 22. The next thing you know I am touring through the south in some really scary clubs. Those songs gave me all the tools I needed to get going in a working blues band.

 

[J Wilson]

I'd suggest starting with modern yet faithful blues players and bands. Sometimes the original recordings can be sketchy and easy to take out of context, but far easier to grasp if you've gone back through newer practitioners first.

I'd also suggest that like the best religious music, blues needs to have deep feeling and powerful conviction to be played well. I've often gone to see this or that Blooz Band, only to find a lazy crew sleepwalking through the usual song forms as a way to finance their drinking.

For me the blues needs to be vibrant, a powerful and sorrowful transcendence of the heartbreaks of life. Don't be one of those Blooz Myoozishins that use it as a lazy place to hang out.

 

[Ben Esparza]

Lots of blues out there. Study the originators, not the 60's and 70's white groups that resurrected it.
BTW, "Ice Cream Man" by Van Halen is NOT blues.

 

[coy garcia]

I play fretless in 2 different blues groups and I LOVE IT!! I've played all kinds of hard rock my whole life. Blues is free form, start with the root and walk up and down the chord tones, then add scale tones, then the minor and major 6, minor 7ths and walk past a few chromatic notes.....SO MUCH FUN!!! As a rock player I've always been in a supporting roll for the guitar players to show off. In blues I get to be a lead player. It's addicting.

 

[KRJax]

Someone told me to check out Howlin Wolf.

Only song I’ve heard of is Smokestack Lightning.

Check out “Killin’ Floor”and “Down in the Bottom” - also by Howlin’ Wolf.

 

[gumbynotpokey]

Blind Willie Johnson
Muddy Waters
Albert King

 

[BarfanyShart]

First, your old lady has to treat you bad, and then you gotta become a back door man, then her old man's gotta pull out his shotgun, Yada Yada Yada, you're running from the law ... I don't know, seems like more trouble than it's worth. Stick to jazz, you can just go to school for that.

 

[TyBo]

BB King has said that blues isn't really about feeling bad, it's about singing and playing those things to NOT feel bad. Like, cathartic, y'know. Sounds right, BB's music feels good!

 

[Steven Ayres]

Check Howlin' Wolf's "Killing Floor" in my post above. Not blues? How about this one?

Listen for it, it's there.