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Dirty-South Blues Harp forum: wail on! >
What is Blues? (in respects to harmonica)
What is Blues? (in respects to harmonica)
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Afro Blue
80 posts
Dec 19, 2012
7:19 AM
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@MrV - I'm not trying to say all that, honestly. I'm not even trying to exhaust this debate. My point is, why do you call it blues, there must be something in common for us all to use that word. If your example about the music stores is the only reason you see that music as a blues, because someone else said it was, then so be it. I was just wondering.
@kudzurunner - I was sure if you ever chimed in again on this lot that you'd surely disagree with me, but I stand slightly corrected. Personally, I am not looking to ultimately define anything, that is not my place to do that. We all must do that as a community if that was to be achieved. I simply believe that it has to have some kind of shape to be different from some other music. I know that some of the makers had to have thought it a shape or else they wouldn't know what they were playing. There'd be no way to say "Hey, now that I finished this up, let's play some blues," ...what? I thought what you just did was blues. Oh well.
I look* forward to your series. But I've exhausted myself defending my question rather than my answer to that question. It's simply heartbreaking. I shall be retiring from this question, only slightly answering it here and now with my own playing since that seems to be something people agree cannot be contested. Agree to disagree.
Peace, Afro
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Hunger is the best spice.
Last Edited by on Dec 19, 2012 7:52 AM
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Greg Heumann
1899 posts
Dec 19, 2012
7:38 AM
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@Afro - I don't think there is ANYTHING wrong with asking the question! It is valid and well intentioned. But it is an age old question which has proven to be answer-less. Kind of like "what is pornography" - "I don't know, but I know it when I see it". I can't say what Blues is or isn't either, but I know what is Blues to me. And I know and respect its roots. I have learned after hearing this debate over and over (you are certainly not the first to pose the question) that that might have to be good enough.
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/Greg
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timeistight
985 posts
Dec 19, 2012
8:16 AM
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I don't think there's anything wrong your with your question, either, Afro Blue. I just disagree with your answer, if I understand your position.
You seem to want to put blues in a box. You only accept it being blues if it's in a traditional form, played by certified blues musicians on blues-approved instruments. You leave out way too much.
Last Edited by on Jan 01, 2013 9:06 AM
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kudzurunner
3729 posts
Dec 19, 2012
11:22 AM
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"I am not one to claim that Muddy Waters is the only example of a blues, but damn it, S.R.V. although the epitome of a guitar player, should [not] necessarily be one's paradigm of blues."
@AfroBlue: I've just finished Buddy Guy's brand-new autobiography. He considers Muddy to be the godfather of the blues--he loves him to death--but he also loves Stevie Ray to death. He talks about how broken up he was when SRV's plane went down. Buddy Guy is merely one great bluesman, not the only legitimate definer of the blues, but as far as he was concerned, both Muddy and SRV were blues greats. He says nothing about SRV being "rock blues." He does, however, make clear that he, Buddy, was held back by the Chess brothers and their narrow, limited definitions of what the blues was. They thought that his playing was too loud, too "wild," and not therefore in the main line of Chicago blues playing. They would not let Buddy record the stuff that he was playing in the clubs. After that breakthrough happened, we know what happened: Buddy Guy went on to be acknowledged as one of the great geniuses of the blues.
This story suggests that being a fundamentalist about the blues in any respect--insisting on a firm definition of what is and isn't blues--incurs a real downside risk.
All our judgments of taste--which is what we're talking about in this thread--are conditioned by a range of factors. I personally think that it's great to explore ideas about the blues, working in many different directions, but to avoid being too doctrinaire.
To the extent that I have core principles, sacred definitional aspects, such as the idea that blues performance is about discovering and giving play to an original voice, I'm still sometimes forced through dialogue here to walk my claims back and/or acknowledge legitimate exceptions and counter-claims.
My own playing and the pleasure I take in the learning-and-growth process is one of my best guides. What sort of music excites me to listen to, and to make? Where's the most satisfying pleasure? What sort of music are dead for me, or dying? (Answer: note-for-note recreations of fifty-year-old blues performances. Yuck. And yet as a teacher, that is PRECISELY what I'm peddling off this website, and what I fervently believe students should be doing--but not, and never, to the exclusion of trying to discover their own voices. And professionals, I believe, should except in the rarest occasions NOT engage in such note-for-note recreations.) I rarely worry about whether I'm purveying "authentic" blues--although I simultaneously draw on my embodied memories of playing by Sterling Magee's side and feeling that crazy energy-flow. Whatever gets THAT feeling flowing is a good thing! Sterling just played music and it was his music when he played it. It was funky, syncopated, bluesy (but without bent strings, since he didn't bend strings), deep, original, raucous, driving--and that tends to remain my prevailing aesthetic model.
Since I grew up on Cream, loved the hell out of their live performances, that remains a touchstone for me. But so does a certain kind of mind-freeing, heart-opening saxophone solo. I sat in my car the other morning listening to a long Dexter Gordon solo, and "listening" isn't the right word: I was deep inside it, feeling it, hearing how many of the licks would fall in second position on the harp, appreciating the melodic logic through which his solo unfolded. That kind of music, too--bluesy straight-ahead jazz--is part of what I'm made of as a musician. I don't spend one second wondering whether it's jazz or blues. It's sorta both of those things. Blues is the cry that animates the sort of jazz I love. I'm just a harmonica player who thinks of himself as a horn player. I've got funky NYC reflexes, Brit blues power-hunger, and a love of the downhome harp sound.
Last Edited by on Dec 19, 2012 11:26 AM
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Hobostubs Ashlock
1983 posts
Dec 19, 2012
11:44 AM
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S.R.V yes every white boys blues guitar hero;-)although I love his music,Im glad in a way that I never tried to be a clone of S.R.V,Like so many have.
I say that But theres some stuff I wish i could do,Im not lying there;-)
But in regards to what I said on a earlier post on this thread About Muddy,I have 1 cd just one and its one I burned of Muddy's greatest hits and its in the truck and anytime Im driving thats the ONLY CD listen to , I Have listened to it about 1000 times now.
And to tell the truth I think I prefere Muddy to S.R.V
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Hobostubs
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dougharps
307 posts
Dec 19, 2012
11:44 AM
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This thread has gone much the same way that previous threads related to this topic have gone. There is contention during the process of trying to arrive at a common definition and set of boundaries for "blues".
However, it is worthwhile (in my opinion) to revisit the topic of "what is blues music" every so often to hash it out and rediscover that you can't capture and confine music in words, and different people of different backgrounds have different viewpoints on this. The process of trying to come to grips with this is productive because it makes us think and reconsider our views.
I really enjoy listening to the music embedded in this forum, as it surpasses discussion.
I stand by my earlier statement:
"I still don't know the definitive answer. Maybe blues is an evolving verb, and not a definable noun. I like the approach of evaluating to what extent any given song is the blues rather than an either/or evaluation."
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Doug S.
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Frank
1650 posts
Dec 19, 2012
6:07 PM
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I always come back to Jimmy Reed or lightning Hopkins when if I'm ever confused about the blues :)
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CarlA
203 posts
Dec 19, 2012
7:05 PM
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Yo listen up here's a story
About a little guy that lives in a blue world
And all day and all night and everything he sees
Is just blue like him inside and outside
Blue is his house with a blue little window
And a blue corvette
And everything is blue for him and himself
And everybody around
'cause he ain't got nobody to listen to
I'm blue da ba dee da ba die...
I have a blue house with a blue window.
Blue is the colour of all that I wear.
Blue are the streets and all the trees are too.
I have a girlfriend and she is so blue.
Blue are the people here that walk around,
Blue like my corvette, it's standing outside.
Blue are the words I say and what I think.
Blue are the feelings that live inside me.
I'm blue da ba dee da ba die...
I have a blue house with a blue window.
Blue is the colour of all that I wear.
Blue are the streets and all the trees are too.
I have a girlfriend and she is so blue.
Blue are the people here that walk around,
Blue like my corvette, it's standing outside.
Blue are the words I say and what I think.
Blue are the feelings that live inside me.
I'm blue da ba dee da ba die...
Inside and outside blue his house
With the blue little window
And a blue corvette
And everything is blue for him and himself
And everybody around
'cause he ain't got nobody to listen to
I'm blue da ba dee da ba die...
I'm blue (da ba dee da ba die)
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Jehosaphat
382 posts
Dec 19, 2012
8:35 PM
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One thing i feel is that over 'intellectualising'it, Is Not blues.
(with all due respect to the posters who to do it so well, their eruditon amazes me))
Above all, Blues to me is Rythym,not words not Chords,or lack of them,If Rythym and groove are right i am listening to a Blues.
Opera has sad words.
Classical has sad melodies.
Ragas' have intrinsic sadness within their structure.
Hip hop has aggression ,sex talk
Pop has all the above and so does Country plus tunes for Saturday night dancin'
But none of them have the right groove.
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mojojojo
110 posts
Dec 25, 2012
6:10 AM
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BLUES TALK sounds like a great idea. I've watched your university lecture on blues and the half hour on Social Function of Harp.
Looking forward for more from harp guru Adam.
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I suck at harmonica!
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