when i watch something like that it reminds me.... can a white man play the blues? no not really. it's just a natural fact. but hey.... we can always pretend.
Man, I've read some bull in my time, but - with all due respect - you guys take the biscuit :P
Can white guys sing/play the blues like black guys? No... but why would they? There are, when all's said and done, physiological differences that make us NOT all the same, like it or not.
Can white guys sing/play the blues? When I hear Gary Moore, Peter Greene, hell, even Eric Clapton, I just HAVE to say yes. It just doesn't sound like some black guys playing/singing the blues, but IMHO that doesn't make it any less real or valid.
first of all i love eric clapton. he got the ball rolling for me with born under a bad sign. however: blues is about self expression. i would bet money he never had a black cat bone, or for that matter a mojo hand. although i would have to agree... he was born for good luck, i'll give him that much.
Good track, 1847, even if it's not as bluesy as some of his stuff. Wonder why the vid is 9:29 long, but the song finishes at the 4:40 mark.
TBH I wouldn't be surprised if Clapton had gotten himself a black cat bone from somewhere earlier in his career. The state his head was in back then, I wouldn't have put anything past him, but I suppose he can consider himself lucky to have survived those times at all. Can't say I'm in any way jealous of some of the bad luck which has come his way either, though. OK, I may never have experienced QUITE the same highs as he has (people don't offer you merck in my line of business ;) ), but I've also never experienced the utter heartbreak of losing your own child. I can live quite happily without that one, thank you very much.
@ Goldbrick - great stuff from the Bonzos there. Thanks for posting, sooooooooo long since I heard that one :)
Course it's all a matter of preference, Killa, but keep your hair on. I put a ":P" after my initial comment to indicate it was a bit tongue-in-cheek, but maybe you missed it. There are a load of white "blues" artists who don't do it for me either, but I just don't think that should be used as an excuse to tar all white blues artists with the same brush. I'm maybe just a bit sensitive on the issue of stereotyping, but not without reason...
"Anything worth sharing? Maybe you ll change my world view. Lol."
Not really anything that's likely to change anybody's Weltansicht, buddy. More an accumulation of circumstances - some endured by me, others perpetrated by me - that have brought me to the conclusion that stereotyping leads, more often than not, to negative outcomes ;). A bit like if you were to say that Erdogan isn't the only Turk who likes goats, or that all Scots wear wellie boots cos of the sheep...
It should go without saying, but this video foregrounds a particular kind of 70+-year-old black blues elder, playing (with the arguable exception of Bobby Rush) a particular kind of long-outmoded, non-commercial blues that appeals to a particular kind of white guy. From the perspective of younger black Mississippians, this is grandpa's music--or great-grandpa's music.
But there are a lot of other kinds of blues being made in the world--including, it should be noted, by younger black and white Mississippians, native and naturalized. Some of it has an older sound; some of it is more contemporary. Anybody who says that white guys can't sing blues is grossly overgeneralizing. Some can't; some can. These guys can:
This last video is typical of what non-superannuated Deep South black southerners call "blues" these days:
Here's a longer playlist:
Last Edited by kudzurunner on Apr 21, 2016 4:55 AM
Personally I Just find alot of white singers voices to be .... a little stiff? ... maybe is a good description. Idk. Surely not ALL. And it depends on the music. If they make it their own it seems to sound better than if they force it to try to be something it isn't. It has nothing to do with the quality of their voices. But to me its almost like listening to a white guy rap.(not that i listen to rap, but you know what I mean.) Surely there are some great white rappers, but as a whole......
Having said that ... It's not exclusive to White guys. Im just picky about singers in general. I have a hard time listening to Slim Harpo, for example, because his voice gets on my nerves. I know I'll probably catch hell for that one too. But it is what it is. ----------
Last Edited by Killa_Hertz on Apr 21, 2016 9:08 AM
I'm sorry but the title, "I Am The Blues" was taken long ago in both autobiography and album. Willie Dixon was his name and if anyone lays true rights to the title, it is he.
In my opinion the phrase, "I am The Blues" is unassailably, and forever owned by Willie Dixon. It is hallowed ground that should not be tread upon.
Especially by a commercial product!
Michelle
---------- SilverWing Leather - Custom leather creations for musicians and other eccentrics.
Last Edited by mlefree on Apr 21, 2016 10:58 AM
"Personally I Just find alot of white singers voices to be .... a little stiff? ... maybe is a good description. Idk."
Killa, I agree with you. When I listen to Bluesville these days, I spend half my time growling like Clint Eastwood in GRAN TORINO. Grrrrr! I can't stand it when guys and gals with my pale skin reduce the blues to karaoke, a minstrel show, or just not-very-good stuff. The music deserves better. And I'm as hard on myself as I am on others. I keep trying to up my game as a singer, one small step at a time.
By the same token, there ARE some really good blues singers who happen to be white. They've struggled to find their own voices, they've somehow managed to steer clear of the pitfalls of a) minstrelsy--trying to sound "black" in a stagey way; b) derivitiveness (having only one major influence that is hugely audible, and c) lack of talent, which is often lack of the ability to hear and hit microtonal pitches combined with lack of the ability to move naturally, idiomatically, BETWEEN such pitches. This last point is probably what you're hearing as stiffness.
When I hear a guy like Lightnin' Malcolm in the video I posted above, I hear a guy who has moved far, far beyond me in his ability to sound real, natural, and in the tradition. He makes me feel that the music is in good hands. But he's moved deeply into black culture in every respect, a total immersion experience.
Magic Dick isn't a great blues singer. I'm not a great blues singer. Carlos del Junco, I think, is quite a bit better than both of us. And guys like Kim Wilson and Mitch Kashmar are way beyond us. But to my ears, Lightnin' Malcolm and Gabe Carter and definitely Tab Benoit have moved way beyond ALL of the aforementioned singers. They're really got it, whatever "it" means.
This doesn't mean that they're the equal of a master like Johnny Taylor or even Bobby Rush. There's something else going on there, an element of black cultural centrality, that you get--occupying a certain social role and working it hard--that does indeed seem forced when white performers try to go there.
My point is simply that there are many kinds of good blues these days, and white performers--white American performers--are contributing to some of them. As for white NON-American singers: hmmmmm. No comment. :)
"lack of the ability to hear and hit microtonal pitches combined with lack of the ability to move naturally, idiomatically, BETWEEN such pitches. This last point is probably what you're hearing as stiffness."
This is such a good description for what I refer to, in my private idiom, as the 'lilt.' I find that when I relax into notes, it comes, but when I tense up, my throat tightens and it becomes a struggle not only to hit them but to also to hit the tonic of a vocal line nicely. Is there a method for nailing this stuff down? I'm tired of having to do 10, 15 vocal takes on my songs before my voice warms into that phrasing and those little microtonal changes that make the delivery feel right.
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