There's quite a lot of it, actually. I just got a copy of the ballot for the 2011 Blues Critic Awards, which is basically the best of contemporary blues made by black people for black people, largely in the south. "Southern Soul / R&B / Soul Blues" is the description.
Here are the nominees in three categories; I'm pasting them here because the song titles struck me as especially bluesy--and quite typical of the genre:
Best Down Home Blues Song:
MAKE THAT MONKEY TALK Grady Champion CIALIS BEFORE I SEE ALICE Travis Haddix HUNGRY WOMAN Pat Cooley AIN'T GONNA RAISE NO GROWN ASS MAN Nellie Tiger Travis SNIFFERS Bobby Rush I'M YOUR MAINTENANCE MAN Omar Cunningham HEY BABY Roy Roberts LOVE MONKEY Donnie Ray JAMMIN' ON THE BLUES Chuck Roberson STEPCHILD T.J. Hooker-Taylor CHERONE BROWN Ex-Wife Blues
Best Vocal Performance (FEMALE):
STEPHANIE PICKETT Only Time I Get Lonely MS. JODY Ms. When Your Give A Damn Just Don't Give A Damn No More PAT COOLEY Hungry Woman NELLIE 'TIGER' TRAVIS Ain't Gonna Raise No Grown Ass Man LACEE' Can't Say No DIEDRA Rent Man BOBBYE DOLL JOHNSON Cheaters Never Win SHEBA POTTS-WRIGHT I've Done All I Can UVEE HAYES Steal Away To The Hideaway MONRO BROWN I'm In Love With A Man
Best Vocal Performance (Male):
WILLIE CLAYTON Be With Me CARL SIMS Hell On My Hands AL LINDSEY Keep On Gettin' It On PATRICK GREEN I Got A Woman Who Loves Me MISTER ZAY If You Only Let Me Kick It Witchu FLOYD TAYLOR (Time Out) Cut To The Chase J. BLACKFOOT More Than A Woman VICK ALLEN I Need Some Attention TRE WILLIAMS I Gotta Have It AVAIL HOLLYWOOD Drinking Again TK SOUL Greatest Emotion
I'm always amused by white people who fret publicly about how "black people just don't listen to the blues anymore." Not true! The truth is that 99% of white blues fans, even some pretty hard core aficionados, simply don't know about the contemporary black blues scene. They think Marquise Knox and Shemekia Copeland are the real deal. And they are, in a sense. In another sense they're not at all. They're just two of the best known younger black blues performers who make their careers primarily by playing for white folks at festivals and on cruises.
Anyway, if you didn't know about this world of contemporary black blues, be enlightened. It's raunchy, funny, vital, sometimes juvenile, often tasteless, party-focused, song-focused, mostly unconcerned with instrumental virtuosity. There isn't a single award, in fact, tied to a particular instrument (guitar, harmonica, drums, etc.).
I was curious about Nellie "Tiger" Travis, since she shows up in two of the three lists I've just posted. I googled her and found the song on Amazon. You should listen to it. I'm mystified by why she got nominated. Her singing is terrible. To call her "pitchy" is an understatement. I just don't hear any blues going on.
Travis Haddix plays Honolulu often. i've opened for him. he'll be here next month,..i think? uses a pickup band. friends of mine called the Shuffle Kings.
a lot of his material ( the stuff i see live) is like black novelty tunes from decades ago. ----------
MP doctor of semiotics and reed replacement.
"making the world a better place, one harmonica at a time"
I like Nellie Travis. She has some good blues tunes. If you've seen her live, you'll know one reason why she was nominated. She's a fine entertainer.
Anyway, if you didn't know about this world of contemporary black blues, be enlightened. It's raunchy, funny, vital, sometimes juvenile, often tasteless, party-focused, song-focused, mostly unconcerned with instrumental virtuosity. There isn't a single award, in fact, tied to a particular instrument (guitar, harmonica, drums, etc.).
I like that kind of stuff. Black music doesn't seem too focused on instrumental wanking. The focus is more on the groove and the vocal performance. Historically, Blues is a vocal art form.
Black people haven't abandoned Blues. As a person that lives near Oakland, Black people turn out to blues show when it's music performed by artists they dig.
I like Grady Champion a lot. Met him a couple years ago at a festival. He won the IBC. I think he has a strong future with his brand of driving blues. Good harp player, too.
Thanks for those posts. I actually went to the amazon link that Adam posted, gave a listen, and thought to myself, I kinda like her. Normally, I would have thought, well, hey different strokes for different folks and that would be that. But given that adam's critique involved the assessment that calling her pitchy would be an understatement, I began to think, if my ears are THAT bad, I have no business playing a kazoo let alone a harp.
Nothing is being mislabeled. The one song I initially linked is a 12-bar blues, and I just don't think it compares very favorably to the work of a dozen black female blues singers whose names I could provide--Carol Fran, DiAnne Price, Denise Lasalle, Francine Reed, Ernestine Anderson (more of a jazz singer), you name it.
But the album attychogo mentions is pretty good contemporary soul singing.
I view Travis, in other words--at least on the basis of this evidence--as a soul singer who feels she can capitalize on a market that has blues tastes as well. And she can. But I don't hear blues singing in the cut I link above. I DO hear good soul singing in the video posted above--WANNA BE WITH YOU. That's fine stuff.
Last Edited by on Dec 01, 2011 1:07 PM
I agree Adam, the link you posted is some nasty ass blues singing. I would have to listen to the others to comment on them.
There is a female singer in Chicago / Northwest Indiana who is very reminiscent of Koko Taylor's style, her name is Nora Jean Bruso. She was on the Legendary Rhythm & Blues Cruise with Billy Branch and the SOB's this past October. She has a huge gospel-influenced voice and sings traditional as well as contemporary blues. I will post on this string a little later today.
Adam - the times that I've seen Nellie Travis, she sang nothing but the Blues.
Carol Fran used to come out to California quite a bit. She had a stroke a number of years ago. Shortly afterward, we held a benefit for her and raised some cash for her. She was still singing, but wasn't playing the piano anymore. It was really too bad. She was a fine piano player. She made some fantastic recordings. I haven't heard anything about her in a year or so. She's a sweet lady.
Her husband, Clarence Hollimon, was a helluva guitar player. ---------- The Blues Photo Gallery
Here's the whole song on a video. Her singing isn't bad in the course of the whole video, but if I were her producer--and I've produced four albums in the past year and a half, so I'm thinking about this stuff--I wouldn't have issued this recording. There are at least five or six major clams in it. It's a fine song, as a composition; it's just not a great vocal performance. Listen to the whole thing. She goes off pitch at least once or twice in every single verse in a way that bespeaks--well, not exactly a lack of talent, but a lack of discipline, a lack of real grooved competence in singing this kind of blues. She's OK. She's not masterful--at least here. The four ladies above are masterful. DiAnne Price is the Goddess. Then again, so is Denise Lasalle. Listen to that cut; then listen to this one. There's no comparison.
I live under a rock. This is the first I've heard of the "real black blues" before. This is a blues sub genre, or what?
Last Edited by on Dec 01, 2011 2:20 PM
I entitled the thread way to be provocative. The term "real black blues" is one you commonly found in the German and other European blues commentary in the 1960s. Actually, it's unfair to blame the Euros. Google the phrase. You'll find THIS VERY THREAD on p. 1, but you'll also find stuff like this:
Tony is a black banjo player, an extremely smart and learned commentator on every genre of American roots music. He talks about the "real black blues" in the last paragraph of his comment.
But I was also making an important point about the existence of a relatively segregated contemporary blues scene. Black blues folk have a whole world of music that many white blues lovers don't know about. It's blues made 100% for a black audience. Many people--even, and importantly, people who call themselves blues fans--don't have any idea that such a world exists.
Last Edited by on Dec 01, 2011 2:28 PM
WOW Wolf that was deep! Like you said I wouldn't agree with all of it. I think SRV was great in his era. We're all products of our invirement. Most of this has nothing to do with "black blues today" You see I don't believe you could find 1% of the black population in this country that gives a shit about blues music. OK now on the other side of that. Man I loved going out into the country and going to places most white poelple wouldn't when I lived in Nashville. I've been in bars where I was the only white person there! I fuckin lived to play blues and felt like I had the right to play for black people because black people that are into blues feel like white people are up tight and play blues in a frantic loud uncool manner. For the most part this is true! Its who we are. We are a product of our environment. For the most part if you go out and play good soulful sweet 50's blues. Nobody will give shit! So we play in a manner in which people will say WOW! He is good! "Ocky Milkman" Thats the whole thing he was trying to say! Was he right? Is the shit I said right? I don't know. Don't really care to be honest! I had some real fun playing at "black" clubs in the south. These were not nice bars. Most were pretty shady and there were people there that did not like the fact that I was there. The thing I always tried to do was play along with them and play like I belonged there. Thats not always easy and its different from place to place. Anyway I have seen black blues alive. It was weak and without identity, but alive. I personally enjoyed the shit out it. Perserving a corpse? I didn't see anyone there that gave a shit! People were just trying to have fun. I've had black people not happy with me being in there sanctuary and (more often) white people wonder why I play and/or have to play the way I do! WTF! Don't try to make sense of it! There isn't any. That is "Modern Blues Harmonica".
>The truth is that 99% of white blues fans, even some pretty hard core aficionados, simply don't know about the contemporary black blues scene. They think Marquise Knox and Shemekia Copeland are the real deal. And they are, in a sense. In another sense they're not at all. They're just two of the best known younger black blues performers who make their careers primarily by playing for white folks at festivals and on cruises<
How many white blues fans have even heard of artists like Robert "Bilbo" Walker? Bill "Howlin Mad" Perry? Robert"Wolfman" Belfour? Jimmy “Duck” Holmes? These guys are out there playing in packed out juke joints most white folks would never walk into. This is the raw real deal in-your-face never-nominated-for-jacksquat kind of black blues. There’s a whole world of blues music out there that most white folks don’t even know exists.
Nothin like witnessing live, up close and personal, BLUES music > that gives you that CHILL (goose bump) feeling where you think to yourself "holyfuck" this shit is REAL - I'm in CHURCH!!!
Last Edited by on Dec 02, 2011 5:09 AM
Saw Mr Balfour in Red's Blues Club, Clarksdale last summer. he was playing for tips for a 14 person 'crowd'. Amazing..... here in The Netherlands he'd be a blues superstar..... ---------- Skinny Dog
No doubt the black blues is powerful stuff, it's my favorite sho nuff. But, lately I'm see'n some very fine yellow blues coming out of Asia. It's not real, but it is youtube.
We also have to remember that many of the so-called black blues artists in the South are isolated to a certain extent from the northern cities due to distance, economics and other factors. I am sure that with the proper exposure they would have their day in the sun and their music would have a wider and appreciative audience. So that "99%" would diminish greatly.
It is not the fault of the fans, but personal preference being what it is, I have noticed some white blues fans gravitate toward the white artists more. Some of them just can't relate to the black artist performed music for racial or other reasons. I have seen it with my own eyes.
Last Edited by on Dec 02, 2011 10:00 AM
That's the sad truth ATTY1. I see it where I am with most of the fan base and promoters in MY area. But like I, Billy and Diedra and the folks say, "there's something totally wrong with that picture".
Last Edited by on Sep 26, 2012 1:36 PM
This seemed like an old topic.. though I figured Shemekia needed to be recognized. Real stuff here.. I was lucky enough to see her with Dr. John and Charlie Musslewhite.
