(I posted this in Blindman's Blues Forum in 2009. It's still real to me. Read, and if you're moved to reply, do.)
So-- where is blues at today? White people loving a black music from another time. I'm one of those white people. Why don't black people love it? Put your hands up, if you're reading this, and still find something of value in the blues. There's gotta be one or two of you!
Years ago (no kids, no mortgage), I played in a working blues band. Our black bass player, originally from Washington D.C., told me black people don't like the blues because it came from the time of slavery, racism, all that ugly stuff. They have moved on. I understand that.
But... there's something about blues.... it speaks of life, like no other music. Life as experienced by every human, black, white, green or purple. I'm in my sixth decade of life, fourth decade of playing music on stage, and am still profoundly moved by blues. It speaks to me like no other music, and no other poetry. The best blues lyrics ARE poetry; they proudly sit beside the works of e.e. cummings, Robert Frost, Ezra Pound and any other poet you might put on a pedestal.
What happened? A vital black music, for black people, has become a music preserved by white Blues Societies.... "Keeping the Blues Alive", etc.
I still need to get my blues out. I still need to wail. I look around, and don't see many like me.
Don't be so sensitive. White people don't listen to Woody Herman, Glen Miller or Stan Kenton much now, either. Every generation has to have their "own" music in order to piss off their parents. Maybe we're stuck in a time warp, more apt to sing Walkin' Blues in the shower than we are Chattanooga Choo-Choo or Cat Scratch Fever. Still, the influence of the blues is apparent in later music (call me Captain Obvious). Personally, I like to have a cocktail or six and trace the origins of rock songs, even an obscure one-hit wonder song like Black Betty by Ram Jam. This was originally recorded by Leadbelly and can still be heard performed by me...my version being somewhere between Leadbelly and the rock band. The message? The messages in blues songs can be found in other genres as well as all great lyrics reflect the human condition. Every country song tells a story, dontcha know. Maybe we just like the way it sounds. Besides, if it weren't for the blues, what the hell would we do with all these harmonica.
Buddy Guy, Denise Lasalle, Bobby Rush, Brandon Bailey, Deitra Farr, Billy Branch, Blind Boy Paxton, Keb' Mo', Dorothy Moore, Mel Waiters, Otis Taylor, LaMorris Williams, Chick Willis, Zora Young, Sugar Blue, Phil Wiggins, Terry Bean, Marquise Knox, Taj Mahal, Shine Turner, Thirsty Hurston, the various younger Kimbroughs and Burnsides, Sharde Thomas and her brothers, dozens more artists, and the thousands of people who purchase and listen to the albums on the southern soul blues charts......
I think you've erased a whole bunch of black blues artists and fans as a way of clearing space for your complaint. Why?
Last Edited by on Oct 27, 2012 5:43 AM
For alot of the blues musicians out there in the dog eat dog world - it's not about having fun, It's about making money... so to answer your ? "What Happened to the Blues"? They turned green!
the most important thing to keep blues alive is to get the young guys and gals interested...as long as blues is still being played it will never die...
@kudzrunner - Thanks for that link. That's another source of who I need to be watching to go see live.
If the blues have been disappearing or changed color, I must have missed it. But, I guess it's possible that I did miss it. There is such a vast library of existing material that I have yet to discover, if the new stuff stopped coming I might not notice for a dozen years.
Last Edited by on Oct 27, 2012 7:49 AM
Lots of people passed away. There are many still alive and doing it, but nowhere near as many people as their used to be. There aren't as many venues for young people to play either. The number of bars have shrunk dramatically in the past 25 years. The two drink DUI have also helped to kill off live music.
I think younger people have many more ways of entertaining themselves than people had 50 or 100 years ago. Everyone had multiple TVs. They have XBox's and Playstations. Music as a way to pass time has diminished. I think all live music, not just Blues has suffered.
I still see Black people at Blues shows. Black people go to different Blues shows than white people. The music that Black people consider Blues is more influenced by Soul or R&B than Rock. It's interesting when you go to show patronized by Black people. The vibe is different. The music is different.
One thing that you don't see at most Black artists gigs. A harmonica player on stage, nor in the audience. I've noticed that few harmonica players go to shows that don't have white harmonica players on stage.
It's been a long time since I have seen harmonica players show up for gigs featuring a Black harp player, unless its a Hummel Blowout. Even then, many of the harp players go to see Carlos DelJunco wank away on a self indulgant solo piece than to see Sugar Blue or Billy Branch blow through town.
If Sugar Blue or Billy Branch swing through town with their band, you won't see a harp player in a ten mile radius of the place. Same deal at a Kenny Neal show. Why? I couldn't tell you. When Rod Piazza or Rick Estrin comes by, you'll see harmonica players that you never knew existed attend.
When I go to see a black artist in Oakland, harmonica players are more rare than unicorns or dodo birds.
When Adam Gussow and Ronnie Shellist did their harmonica symposium in San Jose, I saw harp players in the audience that I never knew existed. Of course, they don't attend white or Black blues shows.
One other observation and this isnt a slam on Wolf, white harp players are usually the people bringing up the "state of the blues" things. Why is that?
I think it's because many of the band members who were known for being legendary at backing up harp players are gone and there are few people to replace that generation of people. Guys like the Myers brothers, Robert Jr, Luther Tucker and Fred Below are gone. There are few guys that play like that left.
JoeL: I think the lack of white harp players at a predominately black club is because they don't frequent such places. Back in my day we lived in those joints, sat at those guys feet, got to know them, and eventually got in their bands. You had to be dedicated to go to those places. They were dangerous and often one was not treated too kindly if they didn't navigate into the scene the right way.
Today lots of amatuer players like to do it in nice set ups that are void of the black culture unless it is trucked in for festivals, seminars, and such. I have seen this increase since I started finding out about the internet and blues forums. Also the old time blues guys are all just about dead. They were a unique culture that I guess hit things at the right time. Times have surely changed. I don't know where we are heading but I sure do miss days like this.... Walter
I dug AC Reeds mic set up and this is the way I remember Albert when he stepped out of the sound he was mostly known for. I got to jam with this band line up a few times too!
---------- walter tore's spontobeat - a real one man band and over 1 million spontaneously created songs and growing. I record about 300 full length cds a year. " life is a daring adventure or nothing at all" - helen keller
What can be said about Albert Collins that hasn't already been said? I love that version of The Things That I Used To Do. What a great tune? I used to see AC Reed in Chicago when he wasn't on tour with those guys. He was a monster talent, too. He had a cool vibe about him.
When Albert Collins recorded that first album for Alligator and toured with those guys, they were amazingly tight.
The weird thing about being in Chicago during those days was picking where to go at night. There were easily a dozen venues with cool music. There is still cool stuff to get out and see, but the number of great artists has diminished.
Once, I got into a club, I never felt like I was in danger. Being on the street was a different story. Back in those days, we sought out stuff like that. Now, fewer people seem willing to go looking for the cool stuff.
From looking at one of those Albert Collins liner notes, I came across a guy that I almost forgot about, Jerry Wilson. He played with some friends in a dive bar in a south west suburb of Chicago. He was a seriously bad ass sax player. I heard that he froze to death in the early 90's.
I remember being able to see this kind of stuff seven nights a week.
I hear you on not knowing where to go do to too many choices. Austin, SF, and NYC use to be that way too. I think the biggest thing I see lacking in todays players is a natural groove. I don't consider myself stuck in the past. I also don't see myself as a traditional player either. I do feel a natural groove and that is what is akin to the old guys playing. I tend to listen to the old stuff because it has that natural groove. Todays players tend to be so busy, stiff, and predictable- that is what I mean by lacking groove. They are technically perfect but don't hold my interest. There is nothing really new out there. What makes stuff sound fresh is that natural groove that becomes ones individual piece of sound that people groove to and what most people are identifying as groove today don't groove to me. Walter ---------- walter tore's spontobeat - a real one man band and over 1 million spontaneously created songs and growing. I record about 300 full length cds a year. " life is a daring adventure or nothing at all" - helen keller
I'm going to Sugar Blue's gig tonight at Rosa's....I'll report back... This is an interesting topic that has been brought up before. Sugar has some interesting views on it as well... ---------- JB http://www.facebook.com/jbharmonica jbustillos@gmail.com
JoeL: in the last year or so, i've gone to see both billy branch and sugar blue here in northern nj. both times the house was packed with harp players.
When people discuss Black Blues artists, they always seem to leave Carl Weathersby off their list. He's as bad as they come. He's one of the most soulful guys around.
Then there is this guy, the son of the Chicago legend LV Banks, Tre'. One name, one game. Blues.
Then there's Carlos Johnson...
Let's not leave out Lurrie...
Closer to home for me. Nat Bolden at Everett & Jones Barbeque in Oakland. The audience for these shows is predominantly Black. This is probably the longest running weekly Blues gig in Oakland. It's been going on here with Nat Bolden or Birdlegg for well over 20 years.
Speaking of Birdlegg... He's now in Austin, but he's still alive...
Country Pete is one soulful cat and very well versed in traditional Blues. Here he's playing with a pickup band.
Shad Harris, who I believe is living in Stockton, CA.
Then there is this guy. Alvon Johnson is one of the baddest entertainers on the Blues circuit.
Then there is Little Junior Crudup...
There are many, many more... These were the first people that sprung to mind. If a person doesn't go looking, they will never find these people. Most of them don't frequent harmonica forums.
My post has been misunderstood. I wasn't saying there aren't any blacks making good music, including good blues. I wasn't saying blacks make better blues than whites. What I was wondering about, not really complaining, but puzzled about, is why that beautiful music (blues), even when it's made by blacks, now seems to attract a predominantly white audience when its core audience was originally black. I don't think anyone can seriously deny there's been a shift in audience makeup.
I acknowledge what kudzurunner and Joe L. have pointed out, that even now there are plenty of black clubs, and black musicians, catering to a predominantly black crowd. I think a lot of the stuff that's attracting black audiences, however, isn't the hard core blues or deep blues. It's soul and other categories of black music that I'm content to label "black pop music." (Some blues, to be sure.). I've got nothing against any kind of music-- blues, rhythm and blues, jazz, jazzy blues, bluesy jazz, funk, soul, black gospel, I love it all. (yeah, I know I left out country, rock and pop).
This old man has seen and enjoyed tons of non-blues acts-- Count Basie, Charlie Mingus, James Brown, Tina Turner, Ike and Tina, Ray Charles and more. I've been away from the big city for two decades, so I admit I'm not up on the current music scene.
I haven't looked at all the videos people have posted in this thread. But Walter, you posted two early-- both by Albert Collins with a predominantly black band. In both, the cameras scan the audience, and, guess what? it's 100 percent white. That's what I'm wondering about. Why don't black people come to hear this beautiful music?
I'll shamelessly name-drop again-- I played harp with Albert Collins for a couple of weeks in the mid '70s. Our audience was white. Only once was there a black person in the audience-- John Lee Hooker. He was Vancouver for a gig across town, but dropped into the club to hear Albert because, in his words, "I'm an Albert Collins freak!"
Muddy Waters was interviewed by Robert Palmer for Palmer's great 1981 book, "Deep Blues". Here's what Muddy had to say about his shift in audience (at page 259):
"Before the Rolling Stones, people over here didn't know nothing and didn't want to know nothing about me. I was making race records, and I'm gonna tell it to you the way older people told it to the kids. If they'd buy my records, their parents would say, 'What the hell is this? Get this nigger music out of my house!' But then the Rolling Stones and those other groups come over here from England, playing this music, and now, today, the kids buy a record of mine, and they listen to it. Fifteen years ago, after Newport, at some of my gigs, I might have a few kids from the university, but if it wasn't some school date I was playing, if it was just in a club in Chicago, it would be maybe one percent, two percent white. I play in places now don't have no black faces in there but our black faces."
The next three paragraphs are from a 2007 doctoral dissertation by Ulrich Adelt of the University of Iowa entitled "Black, white and blue: racial politics of blues music in the 1960s":
B.B. King himself has repeatedly voiced both his disappointment in and his understanding of "blacks" turning from blues to soul music in the 1960s. As King puts it in his autobiography, "makes no difference that the blues is an expression of anger against shame or humiliation. In the minds of many young blacks, the blues stood for a time and place they'd outgrown." For his "Uncle Tom" attitude, King was even repeatedly booed by young "black" audiences, an experience he described as "like being black twice."
When they were not booing, black audiences simply stayed away. Bobby Schiffman, manager of the Apollo Theater in the 1960s, explains why a blues show with B.B. King, Bobby Bland, T-Bone Walker and others did not draw the crowd they expected:
“Blues represented, at that time, misery. Misery and blues were a throwback to slavery, to a time when the black man, intellectually, was at the lowest point of his history. And black folks from the street didn’t want to hear that shit. They came to the theater to be uplifted, to see the glamour of four hundred-dollar-mohair suits. To see the glamour of the gorgeous gowns, and the hairdos, and the beautiful makeup, and the magnificent sets. The glamour of it all took them away from their own troubles. They didn’t want to reminisce or reflect on the troubles that were proposed by the blues. For that reason the blues were never a significantly popular attraction at the Apollo."
If you type the dissertation title into google, a PDF version of the entire dissertation pops up. Have a look; it makes for interesting reading.
Black people do come out. There are a couple of Blues festivals in the area where they audience is 80% Black. Black people show up to hear the Blues. Blues that moves Black people is different. It usually features a great vocalist and not guitar wankers with Tube Screamers or harp players.
At most shows that I attend, the only people without gray hair are the people that have no hair. White or Black. Baldness and gray hair does not discriminate.
That being said, I can think of a couple of venues where kids (of all racial and ethnic groups) turn out and Blues is played. They pay a $5 cover to get in, so they obviously don't hate the music. The girls dance. A couple times, cute girls have flashed the band. It was a happy night.
One night, I was asked by a Black girl in the audience who was having a really good time, if the band knew any Marvin Sease tunes. Not many white bands know the Candy Licker. The music is different.
Wolf i recall that post but not my response, on Blindman's. today, let me relate a couple of things. Jolene and i play on the street in Little Rock several times a year. guess who some of our most enthusiastic audience members are? you guessed it. among the tourists, the yuppie types going from bar a to bar b, the homeless, the joggers and bicyclists, there is a good percentage of black brown red and yellow people, and a lot of age difference as well, who stop to listen and sometimes even join in.
was blues ever a big commercial success? for a time i'd say yes. but pop and country, disco and punk, all took the place of blues in the public eye. in this country the hit mill has been churning for decades now, and if it's not 2 minutes and capable of grabbing the teen segent of spenders it won't last. usually hits don't last anyway, they are destined to be replaced by the next "unique" hit.
the point from where i sit- and play- is that i don't CARE "what happened to the blues". blues has always been in my heart regardless of its popularity. i have played blues since i first began to play some 40 years ago, although it took me 20 years or so to really begin the journey. a decade ago i made a substantial [art of my income playing out several nights a week, but times and places change. i still break even more or less but more importantly i get my soul food a few times a month. ---------- http://www.reverbnation.com/jawboneandjolene
You do not listen to the same music as your parents did. We white people be introduced for the blues decades after black people... Look at the clip with stones and John Lee Hooker. It is some difference in age!
Last Edited by on Oct 28, 2012 6:15 AM
The whole thing is one big rolling fertility rite, from chanting to drums to baroque to romantic to blues to jazz to rock to rap. The king will always be killed and the the golden bough cut. ---------- Sun, sun, sun Burn, burn, burn Soon, soon, soon Moon, moon, moon
Billy wasn't there, but Sugar did play a bunch of tunes that were written in the last couple of months! ---------- JB http://www.facebook.com/jbharmonica jbustillos@gmail.com
