Yes, that's a provocative title, so I'll encourage you to let your heartbeat settle and do me the favor of putting on headphones and listening to the following recording, which will be very, very familiar to some of you and a brand-new thing to others.
The singer is southern-born and as good as they come in this particular bag. The guitar player is also southern-born and his sense of blues tonality and his ability to execute without ever machine-gunning his notes, leaving the human touch in what he does, is exquisite. The piano player is also right up there with the great blues pianists of days gone by--although he did spent many years with the Stones, later on......
And the rhythm section is spot-on.
This band had one thing going for it that very few other (white) blues bands had going for them: it took a hard hit from death and came back with this song and the album that it came from.
Forget what you've heard about the band. Just put on some headphones and take the five-minute recording for what it is: a classic.
I'm sure there are other artists, other original songs, other guitarists and singers who are in the running for the claim I make in the topic-line, so please: after giving me five uninterrupted minutes of your time, please offer other nominees. Original songs preferred. (John Hammond is wonderful, but 99% of his recordings are covers.)
I submit "Pony Boy" from the "Brothers and Sisters" album-the same album "Southbound" came from. Southbound was primarly released for radio play-which it garnered plenty of. Duane Allman had passed on by this point,as did Berry Oakley during the recording sessions. Guitar duties were left to Dickey Betts,and Chuck Leavell filled Duanes spot with keyboard work. Dickey was born in West Palm Beach-not really what I consider "the South"- I live about 1 hour North of West Palm-Dickey also spent a lot of time in the Midwest. As for Gregg Allman-raised in Daytona Beach,Florida. I get to play fairly frequently with Michael Allman,who lives about 15 minutes west of me.
Last Edited by on Jul 06, 2011 5:44 PM
I have this Allman Bros. album. I listened closely to the video Adam posted. The band is tight for sure, but as the greatest white blues recording, I respectfully disagree.
I hereby submit my choice of greatest white blues recording. This particular performance at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival... I get chills every time I hear it.
I'll give 5 bucks to anyone who can identify the guy wearing glasses sitting behind Mama Cass.
Here's my submission, 1922 by Charlie Parr. It has everything I look for in a blues song: skillful guitar playing, an infectious beat that makes you want to stomp your foot, and a great story. It also helps that he's from my home state of Minnesota. Take a listen, hopefully you agree!
The Sean Costello submission was very good. His guitar has great tone and you can tell he's really feeling the music. Adam, I've always thought Gregg Allman was one of the better vocalists out there. Of course there are too many Stevie Ray Vaughan songs to pick just one. Off the top of my head, I'd say it's a close race between Tin Pan Alley, Crossfire, Life Without You, and Lenny. I was this close to posting Buford Chapel Breakdown, but I didn't want to be accused of pandering!
I love these discussions...
Last Edited by on Jul 06, 2011 7:04 PM
Yeah Blues13 and Jaybird, I may be a biased Texan, but y'all's selections are among my favorite recordings of all time! Deeply moving! ---------- Shane,
Is it just me or does Johnny Winter look absolutely skeletal in that still from the Red House clip? Just sayin'
By the way, Red House is one of my all time favorite blues, but to me no one compares to Jimi playin' it. I know, I know, kudzu said white players.....just sayin'.
Also, I love the Allman Bros., so what exactly is it that I should forget that I heard about them that would cause me to disagree with Adam's opening declaration?
Memory lane this:at one time or another i have owned all of the above Albums........some got 'borrowed' and never seen again,some got drowned in beer etc some just ended up with more jumps and clicks than a 'roo with a pouchful of locusts..... Good times though. Gotta give Johnny Winters "Leland Mississippi" an honourable mention in this context
PS I don't think he's the best white Blues singer .but since Greg Allman and Johnny Winter ,Stevie Ray were mentioned I wanted to add one some may not know . I agree Doyall Bramhall is great ! Dr John is another favorite too KIm Wilson , Darell Nulisch , Duke Robillard , Sugar Ray etc etc
Last Edited by on Jul 07, 2011 2:29 AM
While not of the "classic" status (yet), I believe that Rick Estrin is one of the most under appreciated original blues artists - his songwriting is amazingly funny, yet reflects a stone cold blues lifestyle/viewpoint. "I'll never do that again (ain't that the same thing you said befo?)" "Feel like I'm dealing with my next ex-wife" ---------- The Iceman
Thanks to all who have contributed so far--and who have taken my provocative thread-title seriously. I can't wait to check out some of the performances posted here.
I should clarify a couple of my criteria, since they were unconscious/implicit in my original choice but might help future contributors:
1) instrumental prowess alone is great, but it's probably not enough; the vocals have got to be there
2) the performance should be idiomatic, which is to say it should say "This is BLUES, folks," but it should also be original, not imitative. Whatever stylistic influences the performance contains, they should be FULLY subsumed within the performer's own original approach. There should be absolutely no doubt that THIS performance, and THIS performer, have added an indelible voice to the blues tradition. Muddy Waters meets all these criteria; so does Howlin' Wolf.
When I listen to "Southbound," I hear to entirely original voices: Greg Allman on vocals, Dicky Betts on guitar. Hear five seconds of either of them, and you know who they are. They can't be anybody else but GA and DB. On closer listening I hear incredible power AND incredible finesse. When I listen to the lyrics, I hear the soul of the blues. I certainly don't hear white artists trying to sound black; in fact, the overall ensemble sound is entirely distinct. The ABB in that recording doesn't sound anything like the various extant black blues bands--or any other white blues band, really.
I also hear a kind of naturalness or effortlessness, in combination with soul and sweat, that makes the song a classic.
The live version of "Whipping Post" surely also should be up for consideration.
As for the other suggestions in this thread: I'm sure that SRV doing "Texas Flood" is in the running. I suspect that there's a Butterfield song, too. "Born in Chicago," since it's an original? (Of course the band was half black, half white....But then again, the Allman's had several black members, too.)
Finally, I can't help but post one of my favorite videos of all time. This is deeply bluesy, but at the time it was also NEW: a huge leap from the Freddie King stuff Clapton was doing with The Bluesbreakers.
PS: I consider Bonnie Raitt easily one of the top 5 white blues singers all time, and perhaps one of the top 3. Can anybody suggest a representative cut?
Actually, here's one. She's not paving new ground; she just knows pretty much everything there is to know about squeezing blues out of her voice. It's a Chris Smither song, I think. Bonnie's voice is so indelible that it has sucked several generations of white female blues-singing wannabes into its vortex:
Sorry. I'm sticking with Alan Wilson sitting behind Cass.
A) I've heard this for years B) The blue button up and collared shirt is what he was wearing on 17Jun67,Sat....same day for both Heat and Big Brother performances C) Wilson's glasses were taped up on the temple that day. D) Casady wore wire rimmed glasses that weekend, and had longer hair
But, I could be wrong. I'm notorious in this regard, just ask my wife.
I'm surprised no one has mentioned this...nudge nudge, wink wink, ;-)
How do we define a "white blues record"? Written & performed by a white man & white band, or irrespective of the backing band (at that time, or during the band's career)? What if most of the band are white and the singer is black? What if the singer is black, but not an African American...sure, he isn't white but he isn't from the community that spawned the music, he learned it from recordings & video just like anyone else from overseas? Are songs by Bacharach & David, Leiber & Stoller, Lennon & McCartney, Charles Dawes performed by Chuck Jackson, Mama Thornton, Phyllis Hymen, the Four Tops "white music" performed by black people? Or do we carry our perceptions with us to the table & express them simply from what we see & experience from our own surroundings?
Hence these categorisations make me somewhat uncomfortable...Bill Evans, Butterfield, Mitch Ryder, Steve Cropper, Duck Dunn, the guys at Muscle Shoals who backed Aretha & Etta James on their early hits...they just played the music they loved & contributed to seminal recordings in those genres...just like, say, Charlie Pride in country music.
There's seems to me to be something intrinsically distasteful in this day & age about categorising music & bands by ethnicity alone. But rather than just rant, I'll offer great blues recordings from outside of it's birthplace (skewing the rules a little)...Savoy Brown "Cold Blooded Woman" ...
Although Adam mentions it in his last post, one could argue that the Allman Brothers Band is ineligible for the title of "Greatest White Blues Recording" because they were/are NOT a white band. They didn't consider themselves a white band and, in fact, one of the great things about them is that they were one of the first southern based bands that was integrated.
That being said, however, I support the OP to some degree. My personal choice would be "It's Not My Cross To Bear". I'm at work so I can't add a youtube link.
---------- "I say stay long enough to repay all who cause strife."-L. Staley
Leave it to Adam to shake up the summer! As long as I have been listen to The Allman Brothers, this one had escaped me. Thanks Adam. (a good jam track as well)
I will enter a couple of more white blues masters. Make it three:
@5F6H: I agree, for the most part, with your comments. I'm nothing if not a fan of interracialism in the blues. Just, ah, think about the duo that I've been a part of for the past 25 years. Duh.
Still, if you know the history of the blues, you know that "white blues," as a kind of music, has been savaged from many directions and for a range of reasons, by folks--white and black--using terms like rip-off, inauthentic, copycat, wannabe, minstrelsy, and so forth. I've used the term minstrelsy myself, more than once, but I'm also on record, in JOURNEYMAN'S ROAD, as somebody who thinks that the white blues haters, as you might call them, aren't speaking nearly as much truth, especially these days, as they think they are.
For two examples of white blues haters, so to speak, please check out the following links:
http://www.bluesworld.com/WHITEBLUES.html
Actually, the second link would be Greg Tate's book EVERYTHING BUT THE BURDEN: WHAT WHITE PEOPLE ARE TAKING FROM BLACK CULTURE. You might also check out (if you can find it) Stephen Henderon's essay, "Blues, Soul, and the Forms of Things Unknown."
I'm interested in finding counterevidence with which to rebut the haters, even while acknowledging (or insisting) that some of their claims have some validity.
One eloquent form of rebuttal is the solid tradition of interracialism that has emerged in contemporary blues circles. By the same token, when a nationally distributed blues magazine contains an ad for a so-called "blues festival" in which each of the six acts is entirely made up of white musicians--this at a time when it's not really all THAT hard to find black blues players in California--then the white blues haters just MIGHT have a point. Is the contemporary blues scene really THAT white? Or is it possible that subtle sorts of discrimination, sometimes called "structural racism," are at work?
So yes: Butterfield and the Allmans are significant because they were interracialist to the core. Integration of that sort confounded and frustrated the Black Nationalist project, and that delights me. The Crusaders are a part of that interracialism, although they're not a blues act. But neither are they easily reduceable to "black music," and I like that. Greg Tate annoys me.
What interests me, to the extent that I'm interested at all in the subject, are white blues artists who are sufficiently soulful, forceful, subtle, and original that black blues artists are forced to sit up and pay attention. I'm interested in white artists, the few of them, who gain that level of respect.
Stevie Ray was that sort of artist. Hoagie Carmichael, as the composer of "Georgia," got something very right. Buddy Guy honored Clapton and Cream when he covered "Strange Brew," which was itself an adaptation of Albert King's stuff.
Anyway, those are my thoughts. I'm not sure where this thread goes, but hopefully it dislodges some good music that more of us should be familiar with.
Last Edited by on Jul 12, 2011 7:21 AM
@5F6H: Nah. There's absolutely nothing original about that Canned Heat performance at Monterrey. It's energetic, sure, but it's a classic example of derivative blues: music hoping to equal the original. Al Wilson, in particular, has much more to offer than this.
How could anyone forget The Grand Master of the Telecaster Roy Buchanan. Every great guitarist of the time would go see Roy playing in a small club in Baltimore so the story goes.The Rolling Stones wanted him to be their lead guitarist but he felt it conflicted with his Christian beliefs.
---------- Emile "Diggs" D'Amico a Legend In His Own Mind How you doin'
Last Edited by on Jul 07, 2011 10:15 AM
@ Kudzurunner - "@5F6H: Nah. There's absolutely nothing original about that Canned Heat performance at Monterrey. It's energetic, sure, but it's a classic example of derivative blues:" The clip was posted to end the Jaybird/Buzadero "who's behind Mama Cass" debate, I agree with your appraisal...apart from any insinuation that being derivative undermines any ethos or regular practice in the blues...many artists black & white, have had considerable success/notariety with covers.
"So are white people not supposed to be as good as black people at Blues, or the other way around? Sorry for the question, but racism is confusing to me sometimes. Tom Waits is a genius. Not sure what nationality he is."
I don't think it's a matter of being as good at or even racism. It's just that the blues is kind of a personal thing (IMO) more than just a music style. Anyone can learn a "style" but the blues is something that one needs to "understand." More than understand, it has to be felt and you can't copy that...or fake it. From the soul to the instrument.
It is sort of like a person who was born into a rich family and had everything all his life suddenly trying to sympathize and act like a poor person. He may wear ragged clothes, give up most of his money and try to live poorly but he will still never know what it was to be raised that way and the hardships one would suffer growing up or witnessing/experiencing in their families. The blues came out of a lifestyle. Something that was a black thing. Are there whites who have lived a kind of blues? Sure. Not the same blues though.
this one by little feat, an original.. lowell george, amazing vocalist who called his singing style white boy got the woo woo's... one of the best electric slide players of all time, a hell of a band, a song about cold desperation, stuck in a hotel room without heat, dumped by a woman.. needs a fix or another woman
in concert often followed by tripe face boogie.. with the guitar pyrotechs..
Last Edited by on Nov 22, 2011 11:35 AM