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Topic: Two Musicians Who Love The Blues |
Fred Shannon
From:
Rocking "S" Ranch, Comancheria, Texas, R.I.P.
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Posted 10 Feb 2009 4:50 am |
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Here's a couple of guys who really love the blues. Enjoy:
http://www.jazzonthetube.com/page/10.html
phred
edited to change "real" to "the" Now keep going. love it. phred
_________________
There are only two defining forces that have offered to die for you; Jesus Christ and the American GI!!
Think about it!!
Last edited by Fred Shannon on 15 Feb 2009 6:19 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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David Doggett
From:
Bawl'mer, MD (formerly of MS, Nawluns, Gnashville, Knocksville, Lost Angeles, Bahsten. and Philly)
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Posted 10 Feb 2009 11:53 am The real real blues
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Fred, nothing against that great stuff (and thanks for posting it), but to me that is not the real blues. It’s bluesy jazz (and very good bluesy jazz). This is in no way a criticism (I love that stuff too), just a friendly discussion among blues lovers. But I have often been struck by the jazzy stuff many steelers call blues. Here’s what the real blues are to me:
You Can’t Loose What You Never Had
Champagne & Reefer
Hobo Blues
The Sky is Crying
How Blue Can You Get
Maybe I’m too much of a purist, but it’s no accident all these came from Mississippi, like me. 
Edited to say: In response to the semantic discussion that followed, Fred changed the title from "the real blues" to "the blues." So now my response seems more purist than I am. Peterson and Basie are certainly playing "the blues" and it is "real blues." My point was merely to contrast their laid-back jazzy blues to the intense, simpler and rawer blues of the Delta/Chicago archetype tradition. I didn't mean to imply that other blues styles are "not" blues, or are not authentic. And all of this is just semantics and has nothing to do with the virtuosity of Peterson and Basie and our enjoyment of their blues.
Last edited by David Doggett on 18 Feb 2009 10:16 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Fred Shannon
From:
Rocking "S" Ranch, Comancheria, Texas, R.I.P.
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Posted 10 Feb 2009 12:02 pm
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Real Blues??? Kinda' like describing Country music, huh? I guess it just depends on the locale. 
phred
_________________
There are only two defining forces that have offered to die for you; Jesus Christ and the American GI!!
Think about it!! |
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Bo Borland
From:
South Jersey -
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Posted 10 Feb 2009 4:27 pm
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| Sounds like 3 chord blues to me, with a few extras from the bass player. |
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Dave Mudgett
From:
Central Pennsylvania and Gallatin, Tennessee
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Posted 10 Feb 2009 5:13 pm
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If that ain't blues, you can come out to State College to watch me eat my hat.
I love raw delta blues too, but it ain't the only kind. Frankly, BB's band kicks the butt out of swingin' jazzy blues. 1-6-2-5 moves are definitely allowed.  |
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David Doggett
From:
Bawl'mer, MD (formerly of MS, Nawluns, Gnashville, Knocksville, Lost Angeles, Bahsten. and Philly)
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Posted 10 Feb 2009 6:43 pm
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| Bo Borland wrote: |
| Sounds like 3 chord blues to me, with a few extras from the bass player. |
Well, yeah, Peterson and Basie are playing over a three chord progression, but they are throwing jazz chords and scales and timing all over the place, and the drums and bass are definitely jazz. And yeah, BB's backup players in that clip are throwing in some jazz stuff (maybe a little more than usual for him). But all that stuff I posted mostly sticks with the pure pentatonic notes, and equally important has that gutbucket drive and intensity, even with slow blues. By comparison Peterson and Basie sound like coctail music.
Now, overall, blues is a huge category. The "classic blues" like St. Louis Blues goes way beyond three chords and pentatonic scales. And even some raw Delta blues, such as Mississippi John Hurt and Skip James, can be very soft and gentle. And then there's all that bluesy jazz. I wouldn't say any of that is "not" blues. It all is. Nor am I placing a value judgment that any of that stuff is in any way "worse" that what I consider the real blues. But if somebody asked me to just play some blues, I wouldn't give them any of that stuff. I'd go straight to the Delta and Chicago (or Detroit in John Lee Hooker's case). To me that's the real blues, and everything else is a variation of that.
And the only reason I bring this up (besides another excuse to waste time here on the Forum) is because I have seen so many instances of "blues" licks in steeler instructional material that are more the bluesy jazz variety than the real blues. I'm always a little surprised at that. And the converse happens too. Somebody (usually older) will ask me to play some blues; and what I play is not the slow, jazzy, loungey stuff they expected.
To some extent it is a generational thing. To the extent that younger people have any exposure to blues, it is more likely to be retro electric blues that is close to the real Delta/Chicago blues. Many college radio stations have blues hours and blues nights, and it tends to be more the Delta/Chicago thing and the modern retro blues "extenders" from Clapton to Robbin Ford. Peterson and Basie, or the bluesy stuff of Miles and Coltrane would more likely be found in the jazz slots and jazz stations.
Again, just an observation, no real value judgment implied, honest. |
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Donny Hinson
From:
Glen Burnie, Md. U.S.A.
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Posted 10 Feb 2009 7:16 pm
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| Kinda hard to sound like Charlie Patton on a concert-grand Steinway, eh? |
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Dave Mudgett
From:
Central Pennsylvania and Gallatin, Tennessee
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Posted 10 Feb 2009 8:55 pm
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There's that word again - loungey. I've heard that term applied to Peterson, and I disagree. But to mention that term on the same page as Basie strikes me as very odd - Basie was the king of swingin' blues to me. Big, swaggering, cool blues.
Are we talking about the same blues? You can reconcile the concept of Clapton, Gary Moore and Ford (who cut his teeth with Jimmy Witherspoon, btw) as "real blues", but Basie, Peterson, Grant Green, Kenny Burrell and the other masters of jazz-blues "not real blues"? How about T-Bone, Pee Wee Crayton and the whole Texas/West-Coast school?  |
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David Doggett
From:
Bawl'mer, MD (formerly of MS, Nawluns, Gnashville, Knocksville, Lost Angeles, Bahsten. and Philly)
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Posted 10 Feb 2009 10:21 pm
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Well the performance posted was very loungey, but Peterson and Basie did other stuff not so loungey, but none that I am aware of would I call "the real blues." The other jazzers you mention maybe play some fine bluesy jazz, but nope, not what I would call real blues - whole different approach and feel. T-Bone, Crayton, etc.? Well, it's a continuous spectrum. Much of what they play is a type of blues. But to me they've moved down the spectrum a little away from the hardcore Mississippi/Chicago blues - and there's nothing wrong with that. How far? Well, maybe not so far, but far enough to recognize the difference. If someone asked me for some examples of real blues, they wouldn't come to my mind.
Maybe you are misinterpreting my use of the term "real." I don't mean it literally in the sense that other stuff is not "really" blues. Obviously people call lots of loosely related stuff blues, and they are not entirely wrong. I just mean the most hardcore, purist form of blues. The stuff that is completely, unmistakeably blues, and nothing else.
And yes, you can get technical and point out that even the purest blues is influenced by European music. And it seems to be true that, like jazz, blues is an American invention from multiple previous sources, and grew in multiple places. But to me it solidified in its purest form in that Mississippi/Chicago strain. |
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David Doggett
From:
Bawl'mer, MD (formerly of MS, Nawluns, Gnashville, Knocksville, Lost Angeles, Bahsten. and Philly)
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Posted 10 Feb 2009 10:32 pm
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| Dave Mudgett wrote: |
| There's that word again - loungey. I've heard that term applied to Peterson, and I disagree. But to mention that term on the same page as Basie strikes me as very odd... |
I'm applying the term to that song and that style they were playing there. If that's not lounge or coctail style jazz, what the heck do you consider loungey?  |
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John Steele
From:
Renfrew, Ontario, Canada
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Posted 10 Feb 2009 11:20 pm
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Guys, I think the term "blues" in this case refers to the form.
It's twelve bars long, and it follows one of the handful of standard blues chord progressions... so it's a blues.
I don't think anyone is representing it as the Hallmark Cards version of the delta blues.
This reminds me of the "If you aren't Fixin' To Die, then it ain't the blues" or "Nobody can wear a tuxedo and play the blues, no matter how many men you shoot in Memphis" jokes.
-John |
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CrowBear Schmitt
From:
Ariege, - PairO'knees, - France
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Jeff Evans
From:
Cowtown and The Bill Cox Outfit
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Posted 11 Feb 2009 7:54 am
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| Quote: |
1. Most Blues begin, “Woke up this morning.”
2. “I got a good woman,” is a bad way to begin the Blues, ‘less you stick something n asty 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. Got teeth like Margaret Thatcher - and she weigh 500 pound.”
4. The Blues are not about choice. You stuck in a ditch: You stuck in a ditch, ain’t no way out.
5. Blues cars: Chevys and 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 St. Paul or Tucson is just depression. Chicago, St.Louis, and Kansas City 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 cuz you skiing is not the blues.
9. Breaking your leg cuz a alligator be chomping on it is.
10. You can’t have no Blues in an office or a shopping mall. The lighting is wrong. Go outside to the parking lot or sit by the dumpster.
11. Good places for the Blues: a) highway b) jailhouse c) empty bed
Bad places: a) Nordstrom’s b) gallery openings c) Ivy League institutions d) golf courses.
12. No one will believe it’s the Blues if you wear a suit, ‘less you happen to be a old black man, and you slept in it.
13. Do you have the right to sing the Blues? Yes, if: a) you’re older than dirt b) you’re 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 retirement plan or trust fund.
14. Blues is not a matter of color. It’s a matter of bad luck. Tiger Woods cannot sing the blues. Gary Coleman could. Ugly white people also got a leg up on the blues.
15. If you ask for water and Baby give you gasoline, it’s the Blues. Other acceptable Blues beverages are: a) bad wine b) bad whiskey or bad bourbon c) muddy water d) black coffee. The following are NOT Blues beverages: a) mixed drinks b) kosher wine c) Snapple d) sparkling water.
16. If it 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 is 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 getting liposuction.
17. Some Blues names for women: a) Sadie b) Big Mama c) Bessie d) Fat River Dumpling.
Some Blues names for men: a) Joe b) Willie c) Little Willie d) Big Willie.
Persons with names like Sierra, Sequoia, and Rainbow can’t sing the Blues no matter how many men they shoot in Memphis.
18. Make yer own Blues name (starter kit): name of physical infirmity (Blind, Cripple, Lame, etc.) first name (see above) plus name of fruit (Lemon, Lime, Kiwi, etc.) last name of President (Jefferson, Johnson, Fillmore, etc.) For example, Blind Lime Jefferson, or Cripple Kiwi Fillmore, etc.
19. I don’t care how tragic your life: you own a computer, you cannot sing the blues. You best destroy it - with fire, a spilled bottle of Mad Dog, or get out a shotgun. Maybe your big woman just done sat on it. I don’t care. — http://sweasel.com/archives/974 |
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Andy Greatrix
From:
Edmonton Alberta
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Posted 11 Feb 2009 10:00 am color-coded music
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The reason they call it the blues, is because all the other colors were taken!
The bottom line is that it's just music and it feels good.
PS -and it swings like crazy! |
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Dave Mudgett
From:
Central Pennsylvania and Gallatin, Tennessee
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Posted 11 Feb 2009 10:54 am
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| If that's not lounge or coctail style jazz, what the heck do you consider loungey? |
Girl from Ipanema. Feelings. I could go on, but I won't.
They're playing a blues, pure and simple, from any angle I look at it. OK - it's "uptown blues", but it's a blues form, there are blue notes all over the place (to the extent allowed by the tyranny of the 12-tone scale that the piano is shackled to), by two people who deeply understand the blues. What more do you want?
Do you consider Ray Price "real country"? His prime stuff from the early to mid 60s is just as far away from Jimmy Rodgers and Uncle Jimmy Thompson as these guys are away from people like Charlie Patton and Muddy - especially the early delta Muddy.
Those 19 points are funny as a joke, but total stereotypical drivel if taken seriously. Anybody can have the blues, and anybody can play the blues - if they just want to get inside the blues. IMHO.
In the end, we're all dust, and that's where the blues really starts. Blues is just a way to express the human condition, and you just have to be human to do that. |
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David Doggett
From:
Bawl'mer, MD (formerly of MS, Nawluns, Gnashville, Knocksville, Lost Angeles, Bahsten. and Philly)
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Posted 11 Feb 2009 12:07 pm
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Dave, your lounge examples are Bossa Nova and pop, so they don't help me. What would be your examples of loungey blues or jazz or blues-jazz?
Ray Price is a good example from country. If someone unfamiliar with country asked me for an example, or if a rocker or jazzer asked me for some country licks, I would go to Ray Price in the '50s, not his loungey stuff starting with Nightlife. I would show them something from the main line of country, say George and Tammy, not Kid Rock and Sheryl Crow. And not Parsons or Rhonstadt, which is rockers doing country influenced rock, just like to me Peterson and Basie are jazz musicians doing that blues-based jazz number in cocktail jazz style (regardless of what they might have done elsewhere). And for jazz sax examples, I would present Parker or Coltrane, not Kenny G. No I'm not equating Peterson and Basie's musicianship with Kenny G. I'm just talking about the style. And I'm not trying to exclude anything as "not" blues. I'm just trying to identify the core players and repertoire and style of the genre. |
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Stephen Silver
From:
Asheville, NC
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Posted 11 Feb 2009 12:30 pm
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| 1. Most Blues begin, “Woke up this morning.” |
Funny, the first thing I thought of reading this line was Bucks "Hello Trouble".
I guess it's a blues song, in a Bakersfield sort of way.
SS
Life is mostly Attitude and Timing |
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Glenn Suchan
From:
Austin, Texas
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Posted 13 Feb 2009 10:37 pm
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To David Doggett:
There's a possibilty that I'm wrong, but I think what Dave Mudgett and Fred Shannon were trying to convey in reference to the "blues" is "The Blue Note". As you most likely know, blue notes are the flatted 3rd, 5th, and 7th intervals of the diatonic scale. Not the blues, as in the genre. These so-called "blue notes" are most definately a part of jazz (lounge or otherwise), as well as all variants of blues music (folk, delta, urban, etc.), rock 'n' roll, and country music. For that reason, to claim Fred's music link to Oscar Peterson and Count Basie isn't blues, wouldn't be completely correct. Only that it isn't the genres of Delta, Folk, or Urban Blues.
Most scholars of the American music forms, dating from the early-mid 19th century through the 20th century, will concur: The blues' (blue notes) found in jazz (all types), blues (all types), rock 'n' roll, and country (swing era through the present) can be traced back to American slave folk/work songs. These folk/work songs in turn, morphed from tribal African folk music. Interestingly, the same blue note structures can be found in old timey (Appalachian), folk, bluegrass, and early Country music. However, those genres trace their "blue note" heritage to English and Irish folk music.
Keep on pickin', amigos! 
Glenn
PS: David D: I've just re-listened to Fred's excellent link, and honestly, I hear a lot of similarities to Jimmy Yancey the late, great Chicago blues pianist of the 30's through early 50's. See if you don't agree:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8o5nL4lPNg |
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Richard Sevigny
From:
Salmon Arm, BC, Canada
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Posted 14 Feb 2009 8:27 am
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Man, Oscar and the Count are so seamless... they complement each other and never step on each other's toes. Great musicianship.
And definitely the blues in my book. 
_________________
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If at first the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it.
-Albert Einstein |
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David Mason
From:
Cambridge, MD, USA
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Posted 14 Feb 2009 8:30 am
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| My blues are realer than yours. |
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David Doggett
From:
Bawl'mer, MD (formerly of MS, Nawluns, Gnashville, Knocksville, Lost Angeles, Bahsten. and Philly)
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Posted 14 Feb 2009 8:54 am
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| Glenn Suchan wrote: |
| There's a possibilty that I'm wrong, but I think what Dave Mudgett and Fred Shannon were trying to convey in reference to the "blues" is "The Blue Note". |
Well, yes, maybe that's another way to make my point. I suppose you can call anything with blue notes in it "blues." And for some people, any slow sad song is blues, with or without blue notes. Again, I'm not saying any of that is "not blues." It's just that when someone asks to hear blues, or says they are going to play some blues (especially if they say "real blues"), I expect something of the Delta/Chicago core or a close derivative, not jazz musicians playing a blues form with jazz chords, scales, phrasing and timing.
| Quote: |
| For that reason, to claim Fred's music link to Oscar Peterson and Count Basie isn't blues, wouldn't be completely correct. |
Which is why I never said that, and why I have repeatedly said I'm not declaring that or anything else "not blues." I'm not going out to the mixed genres on the periphery and drawing a hard line to divide what "is" blues and what is "not." I'm doing the opposite. I'm looking to the center and identifying the purest, unmixed style as "typical" or "real" blues.
Look, yes this is all semantics (and beginning to smell a little like Seabiscuit must smell now), but still an interesting discussion. To some extent this is a generational thing. Years ago the term "blue" was used in everything from Ma Rainey to Jimmy Rogers' yodeling country to Copeland's modern classical music. It sort of came to mean any slow sad song of any form or style with blue notes in it. But then in the '60s, prodded by the folk movement and the British invasion, the core Delta/Chicago strain of pure blues was rediscovered, and spawned a genre rebirth and conservation movement that is still strong. There are regular blues radio programs, blues cable/satellite channels, blues festivals, blues publications, blues record labels, etc., not to mention tons of "blues bands" and "blues artists." The vast majority of all this material is the core Delta/Chicago style and its close R&B and rock-blues derivatives. You would be very unlikely to hear anything like that Peterson-Basie jazz number. You WOULD hear that number on a jazz station, possibly even introduced as blues, as it certainly is.
So, when I see a "blues" example in typical steeler instruction material, or a "blues" topic on the Forum, I have to wonder, "Now is this going to be that old-fashioned popular vague idea of blues, or will it be from the true Delta/Chicago tradition that is more the modern music writer's idea of "the real blues?" It's not a hard dividing line, it's a spectrum, and there's no point in obsessing about exactly where the line is. It's more a "I'll know it when I hear it" type of distinction. I just have run across this distinction enough now to be struck by it and to think it was worth commenting about it with examples.
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| Interestingly, the same blue note structures can be found in old timey (Appalachian), folk, bluegrass, and early Country music. |
Exactly my point. Those are all blues influenced genres, but here I will put a dividing line. Those are not blues genres, I don't care how many blue notes they use. Even when Bill Monroe covers the Mississippi Sheiks' song "Sittin' on Top of the World," it ain't blues, anymore than folk themes make Tchaikovsky's and Dvorak's classical symphonies folk music. Come on, you gotta draw the line somewhere.
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| However, those genres trace their "blue note" heritage to English and Irish folk music. |
Um, I would disagree on that. Those blue notes in these Anglo-American genres mostly came from association with black music in America. Of course, those notes are also just part of the chromatic scale, and so could already be found in that context in any chromatic music from the Old World. That would be convergent evolution.
P.S., I would say Jimmy Yancey has way more in common with Otis Spann (Muddy's piano player) than the jazz phrasings of Peterson and Basie.
Last edited by David Doggett on 14 Feb 2009 8:59 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Mike Shefrin
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Posted 14 Feb 2009 8:57 am Can a White Man Play The Blues?
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| Can a green man play the reds? |
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Fred Shannon
From:
Rocking "S" Ranch, Comancheria, Texas, R.I.P.
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Posted 14 Feb 2009 9:52 am
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You know Glenn, what I was really trying to do was share what I thought was some real good music. After blowing horns for 15 years along the Gulf coast I thought I recognized a blues pattern. The music sounded really good to me even though on super grands. I knew the players were creditable and were recognized and besides all that the song had the word
"Blues" in the title. I realize that it was "analyzed" pretty well and I learned a great deal about blues patterns and recalled memories of some players I hadn't thought of in some time, so I guess all in all it was a pretty good go at how a forum should run.
I've enjoyed it, very civil and educational to me at least. But Glenn every word in your post is correct as far as I'm concerned. In short, call it what you want, it's damned good music, played by two experts at their craft and I liked it. All you folks have a nice Valentine's day. 
phred
_________________
There are only two defining forces that have offered to die for you; Jesus Christ and the American GI!!
Think about it!! |
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Cass Broadview
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Posted 14 Feb 2009 5:26 pm
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Lets not forget the songs with "Blues" in the title, that are in no way a "Blues" song. Just to mention a couple:
Blues For Dixie
St Louis Blues
Milk Cow Blues
Blues Stay Away From Me
And a million more. I think the blues are a lifestyle type music like the old Hank Williams songs were to country. Back in the black south, with a flat top, and harmonica {Harp}. Maybe thats the only way true blues will ever sound like blues? I know we can copy any style of music, blues included. But to call it actual "Blues" music, is maybe a bit too much. But great music it is. |
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David Doggett
From:
Bawl'mer, MD (formerly of MS, Nawluns, Gnashville, Knocksville, Lost Angeles, Bahsten. and Philly)
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Posted 14 Feb 2009 5:39 pm
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| Fred Shannon wrote: |
| ...call it what you want, it's damned good music, played by two experts at their craft and I liked it. |
Absolutely. Thanks for the post. Didn't mean to detract from that in any way. Just thought it was a good jumping off point for a discussion of different blues styles. |
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