tmf714
2668 posts
Aug 03, 2014
12:38 PM
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Kingley
3660 posts
Aug 03, 2014
12:46 PM
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Hell yeah!!! Now that really is taking your time and laying it down. Simply wonderful music and blues music how it should played.
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kudzurunner
4838 posts
Aug 03, 2014
2:01 PM
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Beautiful retro sound on the guitar and harp.
The singing is straight-up white blues minstrelsy. Even black people in Chicago haven't pronounced the word dollar as "doll-low" since 1956. Chuck is a fine piano player but he needs to update his singing.
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The Iceman
1888 posts
Aug 03, 2014
2:12 PM
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all you gigging in a club blues players, listen to this. No need for volume and you drummers should be playing with brushes more often.
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The Iceman
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Frank
5016 posts
Aug 03, 2014
2:23 PM
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Howsboutdat...they actually live up to the seriously abused title "BLUES ALLSTARS" :)
What a welcoming relief!
Last Edited by Frank on Aug 03, 2014 2:24 PM
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wolfkristiansen
306 posts
Aug 03, 2014
2:32 PM
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Listen to Kim here to get an idea of how interesting and "bluesy" first position harp can be.
Cheers,
wolf kristiansen
Last Edited by wolfkristiansen on Aug 03, 2014 2:32 PM
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Joe_L
2496 posts
Aug 03, 2014
3:02 PM
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I would rather hear Chuck than about 95% of the acts out there. He isn't Floyd Jones, but there has only been one. Chuck has payed a lot of dues. He's a throwback to a time that is almost forgotten. He plays the old stuff and he plays it the right way. I'm a huge fan of Blues piano, I can't think of anyone alive that is in his league.
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The Blues Photo Gallery
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Joe_L
2497 posts
Aug 03, 2014
3:02 PM
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I would rather hear Chuck than about 95% of the acts out there. He isn't Floyd Jones, but there has only been one. Chuck has payed a lot of dues. He's a throwback to a time that is almost forgotten. He plays the old stuff and he plays it the right way. I'm a huge fan of Blues piano, I can't think of anyone alive that is in his league.
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The Blues Photo Gallery
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Rhartt1234
134 posts
Aug 04, 2014
2:17 AM
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I disagree with the term "Minstrelsy" used to describe this, and most, white blues performers. While affectations are prevalent among many white performers they are coming from a VERY different place than the minstrels. Minstrelsy mocked and belittled black culture, while white blues musicians come from a place of love and celebration of black culture. As misguided as it can be for some, it is imitation as flattery.
A guy like Chuck, who was shoulder to shoulder with Sunnyland Slim and Little Brother Montgomery at the piano and played with many of the greats of Chicago Blues, has absorbed the music, including the language, so deeply that it is bound to come out a little differently than most suburban, white musicians. To me, the gravelly voice approach adopted by Johnny Winter and so many others in an attempt to sound black is far more offensive than a dropped consonant.
I'll take Barrelhouse Chuck saying "dol-low" over 90% of the sh!t that passes for Blues these days.
Several years ago I was getting a drink before a gig and a gentlemen in his 60s sitting at the bar asked about the band. He mentioned some prominent Blues names and I said if he like those guys he would probably like us. After the first set I asked him what he thought of the band, he said "You sound white." He mentioned his background in Ethnomusicology in an attempt to validate his opinion.
At the beginning of the next set I said, "Ladies and gentlemen, I just received the best compliment I've ever gotten in my career playing music. A gentlemen told me I sounded white." I fanned my hand up and down my body like a Price Is Right girl on a dishwasher and said, "No shit."
I think I am a slightly above average Blues singer that is devoid of any vocal affectation. I am myself and realize I can't be anything but, no matter how much I want to sing like Muddy Waters. Two of my favorite singers are Sugar Ray Norcia and Lynwood Slim, both of whom are great Blues singers that surrounded themselves with the Blues greats, but would not sing dol-low. I think for some it's a conscious choice, for Barrelhouse Chuck I think it is completely unconscious.
Having said all that...
What's the difference between linguistic and musical dialect? Why is one more offensive than the other? Should white Blues musicians not play Blue notes because they are not part of our European musical heritage? I agree with you Adam, that there should be a line, and we have ours in different spots based on different criteria.
Last Edited by Rhartt1234 on Aug 04, 2014 6:47 AM
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Frank
5025 posts
Aug 04, 2014
3:47 AM
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"I think for some it's a conscious choice, for Barrelhouse Chuck I think it is completely unconscious."
I feel the same way...He sings those lines in a very convincing way that to my ears appears natural in every way -
it sounds and comes across as authentic.
He seems completely at home the way he vocally delivers the song... like that is the way he feels it and hears it clearly in his head and heart.
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This one here is a tough one to pull off vocally...
Last Edited by Frank on Aug 04, 2014 4:33 AM
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kudzurunner
4839 posts
Aug 04, 2014
4:56 AM
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Good blues singing isn't about "sounding white" or "sounding black." It's about finding your own voice rather than consciously or unconsciously imitating somebody else and/or burlesquing what you're imitating. No, Chuck isn't consciously mocking anybody. He's just imitating the way in which a certain kind of deep-country-born black Chicagoan would have sung certain kinds of words sixty or seventy years ago. This is the epitome of misguided "traditionalism." There is no living black Chicago blues singer of Chuck's age--he's 56, my age--who would sing the word "dollar" as "doll-low," as Chuck does. That's because the Great Migration has come and gone and that sort of pronunciation is very, very country, and thus embarrassing to the contemporary (black) urban ear. A living tradition, and the people who participate in it, knows this. Chuck apparently doesn't, or doesn't care.
There are dozens and dozens of white blues singers, living and dead, who have found a way of making the blues their own and who have found their way into powerful, authentic blues voices, from Bonnie Raitt and Rory Block to Tab Benoit and Joe Bonamassa. They don't have vocal affectations. They aren't trying to present antiquated pronunciations as though presenting the music in a reliquary, under glass. They're trying to sing to US. They're trying to make the music live and do the music credit.
Chuck does that instrumentally, but as a vocalist, in that way, he's lost in a time warp. Sorry, but that's how I hear it. Vocally, he's created a great museum piece, but I want the music to be much more than that. Blues singers need to struggle to find their own voices. He hasn't found his--at least on that song.
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Frank
5027 posts
Aug 04, 2014
5:14 AM
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This is an extremely tough call "for me anyway" on mind reading what Chuck was thinking on the tune vocally...Is there any member here who can verify from Chuck his vocal delivery style at least on this song? Not saying that an answer from him will satisfy anyone's dissatisfaction - but it will be thoroughly enlightening just the same :)
If one would listen to the song never knowing it was Chuck singing - I wonder if there would be a question mark on the delivery?
Last Edited by Frank on Aug 04, 2014 5:17 AM
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The Iceman
1891 posts
Aug 04, 2014
5:29 AM
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Bill Kinnear (RIP) was another white blues singer that had a great sound. Most thought he was black from listening.
speaking of Carlos, here's some innovative 1st position playing. Check out the "worked out lines" at the end of this groovin' groove.
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The Iceman
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tmf714
2671 posts
Aug 04, 2014
11:27 AM
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tmf714
2672 posts
Aug 04, 2014
11:28 AM
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tmf714
2673 posts
Aug 04, 2014
11:31 AM
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Kingley
3666 posts
Aug 05, 2014
12:52 AM
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Kudzu - Adam have you considered that Chuck may pronounce "dollar" as "doll-low "simply because he is paying homage to the music and to his mentors? Some of them probably sang that song the same way and Chuck learning at their feet may simply see that kind of vocal inflection as part of the culture of blues.
Having done things that way for so long, it has probably just become natural to him to pronounce it that way in that particular song.
Or that Chuck feels that vocally it flows better in that particular song than using the pronunciation "dollar"? Chuck like many other singers may in fact use different pronunciations of the same word in many different songs, simply because to his ear it feels more natural to the service of the song. Either way I don't think Chuck is insulting anyone or embarrassing a culture that he is so closely entwined with. I think he is merely providing good music to the people that wish to hear and appreciate it and enjoying himself in the process.
Not everything in this world has to move with the times and become modernised. If it did you wouldn't own a bunch of old amps, play through a vintage mic or own an old pick up truck would you? You probably do so because they are most likely of interest to you, you appreciate the workmanship involved and feel that generally they are better for the purpose than most modern stuff. I think that's the case with Chuck's vocals and I suspect you may be judging Chuck with your own set of preconceptions of how things should be. Instead of looking at things with a more objective open mind.
Last Edited by Kingley on Aug 05, 2014 12:54 AM
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