Not a fan of the gatekeeping aspects of this conversation. The older I get, the more I see it doesn’t do any good. Plus the Blues Brothers were great, if not real blues singers, and they probably added 20 years to its popularity.
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The blues, and where to begin?
- Thread starter Bright Midnight
- Start date
I’m not an EC evangelist but the story illustrates a point. Not about playing, but about understanding that blues is more than the generic ‘blues in A’ approach that is so common. Some may see Clapton as a dilettante - I won’t argue that but I believe he is sincere in his love for the music.
Nice show .. nice people gathering for the music and a relaxed atmosphere .. ah the ‘70s
Sure there are many forms you can play in A, or any key, but I think most of us know that if you call it that way it's going to be 1-4-5 with some decipherable rhythm that the guitarist calling it will demonstrate during the intro. Then maybe it's a shuffle or maybe it's swung, or whatever, but that's generally all the information I need in order to successfully play something at a blues jam. The person calling the song might also say "there's a long 1" or "a short 4" as they're playing the intro or during the first four measures just after. Blues isn't rocket science but it is very much about everyone listening and responding to everyone else - these are skills you learn on the fly and surely players of this caliber didn't need to be told whether they're going into a shuffle or not.
I don't view it as gatekeeping to comment that the Blues Brothers are probably not the best option for learning about blues music. They're not, for reasons described. I enjoyed their movie, but beyond that ... eh, they were sort of ok, great band, campy blues singers. I guess we have different feelings about their music, I wouldn't call it great myself. Their popularity did bring more attention to the genre, as I noted, so that's a positive aspect.
That's why I said people should jump in anywhere, but they'd be well advised to know which part of the pool they're jumping into when they do.
It's not gatekeeping to acknowledge all the cracks and crevices that exist in the history of this particular genre, and believe me, it's going to come up.
About the only place I will stand firm is to reiterate the improvisational nature of blues as an art form. If you're just copying other people's stuff - regardless of who they are or which era they hail from - you're not getting the full experience available to you as a blues player, and you're probably very bored, too.
Dang Bear, that's just some classic stuff.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.
I wish I could take credit, but I'm just copying it from a Music Humour page on Facebook.
I guess we can all agree that it’s a massive pool of music and as with any music it just depends on how deep you want to go. Personally I’d suggest to someone to start somewhere in the early middle, perhaps the late 50’s and then work back to the very earliest recordings. After a few years of that move into the 60’s and beyond. Blues players are often encyclopedic in their knowledge, not unlike jazz players, you have to know all the important source recordings like the back of your hand. You’ll gain respect in a blues scene after you’ve proven you’ve done the homework and all the players recognize you’re in for the right reasons. I don’t really know how you do that in regular America or in another country. I went to New Orleans because the smaller towns I lived in had weird old Stevie Ray Vaughan wannabes with Ray Bans on, copping some made up blues character lifestyle. I wasn’t having it. I went to New Orleans and started playing blues in the streets. Those were some of the roughest players and people I ever encountered. It took a long time to gain their respect, hours and hours a day in any weather playing for the people. Later worked up to the clubs. Ended up playing with Gatemouth, Irma Thomas, Eddie Bo Clifton Chenier Jr and many other legends. I don’t know how people apprentice these days. It takes real commitment to learn a music deeply. Still, I feel I was just scratching the surface.
I wonder what young people think when they hear stuff like this? The blues and jazz are oral traditions and need to be received first hand from the most authentic sources available. There is no substitute for going into the world and facing the music live. You'll never meet someone who has a firm handle on a particular music who wasn't profoundly changed by doing that. The essence of the music lives on the street and in joints. It can't be had from recordings alone.
I guess someone like the OP living in Europe starts with the recordings and history and at some point decides if the commitment warrants a pilgrimage. Keeping track of who local clubs and blues societies are bringing in will give the possibility to hear some real deal players. This is a good reason to learn who the real deal players currently out there gigging are not just the dead guys. ie Curtis Salgado is going to be in Belgium, The Netherlands and France next March. Go check him out. The implicit advice to avoid "weird old Stevie Ray Vaughan wannabes with Ray Bans on, copping some made up blues character lifestyle" is gold.
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The little pond I swim in had a monthly get together called band jam. We had almost forty of these before the whole COVID mess put an end to it. Most of the people there were musicians and you formed a band in order to play two or three songs on stage. The twelve bar in A was king in these improvised demonstrations. I got proficient at being able to jam the various forms of the blues as a bass player at these events.
During COVID, I was invited to jam regularly with two of the organizers of band jam and we started putting a couple sets together of blues standards by listening to the old recordings and then playing them our way. This is when I discovered the blues, how intentional you had to be playing bass and how subtle notes could make the feel stronger or disappear, fiddling with the blue notes, the rhythms. I have a deep love and respect for this genre and I want to keep learning, I had no idea and have only scratched the surface. If you think playing blues is easy or boring on bass, sorry, you just don’t get it. I use to not get it, I’m very sorry, I repent, please forgive me.
We play out now and are building a fan base in the little pond. Our goal is to educate and expose people to a more true blues experience. But we are probably more “weird old wannabes copping some made up blues character lifestyle” than we are blues musicians.
During COVID, I was invited to jam regularly with two of the organizers of band jam and we started putting a couple sets together of blues standards by listening to the old recordings and then playing them our way. This is when I discovered the blues, how intentional you had to be playing bass and how subtle notes could make the feel stronger or disappear, fiddling with the blue notes, the rhythms. I have a deep love and respect for this genre and I want to keep learning, I had no idea and have only scratched the surface. If you think playing blues is easy or boring on bass, sorry, you just don’t get it. I use to not get it, I’m very sorry, I repent, please forgive me.
We play out now and are building a fan base in the little pond. Our goal is to educate and expose people to a more true blues experience. But we are probably more “weird old wannabes copping some made up blues character lifestyle” than we are blues musicians.
However we can get the music we need is the right way to get it. I was extreme by moving to New Orleans because, at 27 years of age with no music schooling background I felt the need to go directly to the source and throw myself into the pond in order to make myself swim. It has been my method but it certainly isn’t for everyone. When I moved to New Orleans I was already playing jazz in San Francisco and doing pretty well I thought. But I was surrounded by musicians who basically STARTED at Coltrane, everything before Coltrane was old and not interesting. But I felt dissatisfied and empty, particularly after a GOOD gig. Why? Because I felt like a total phony. I wanted to know where Coltrane got his music? Where did Parker get his music? Where did Blanton get his? I wanted to know the whole history of the bass. I thought I was moving to New Orleans to play jazz but when I got there I ran directly into the blues and knew that in order to understand jazz I would have to understand blues. A regular Ken Burns special I was…and this was ‘91. I discovered the relationship of folk music to the blues, Cajun, zydeco, gospel, slave songs and Congo square. I just didn’t think a single note I played would matter unless I knew how to make a single note contain the whole music. A serious young man I was. Now I don’t think that is necessary for people today but I wouldn’t trade a second of it and believe it made me what I am. I’ll never forget busking in Jackson square in the sweltering heat. Playing that music on those historic stones day after day with the very special musicians around me: the melange of brass band music, traditional jazz, Cajun waltzes wafting around us, our struggles, our arguments, loves made and lost, turf wars, rich tourists, racial strife, day to day struggles to survive, the joy of playing incredible music in the late afternoon sun, standing for and behind every note I played was, for me, the blues. Didn’t matter what you wore, where you were from, nothing mattered but the life and the music.
For the sake of argument lets say moving to New Orleans was extreme. Can you think of a better way to have learned what you did by going there? Can you think of any other way you could have learned it?
Surely there are strong blues scenes in other cities but New Orleans is unique in its comprehensive overlapping traditions and history.
Thank you for calling this out...
For me this has been the single most useful guide (Blues) - and I find myself going back to it, mostly because I skipped over things I should have spent more time on.
