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Dirty-South Blues Harp forum: wail on! >
Learning to play the blues
Learning to play the blues
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Rgsccr
314 posts
Feb 19, 2015
3:35 PM
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I know there was a recent thread on how people got started on playing the blues, but I am thinking about this from a different angle which relates to struggles my band has with the drummer (he thinks songs like Crossroads go back to the
Cream and no farther). I saw a great blues guitar player/singer the other night, John Stephan, who has played since the sixties, and learned from guys like Albert Collins and Isaac Scott. He had a great, bluesy delivery - so laid back. yet driving when appropriate. He played a number of covers - Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, etc. - as well as some of his own songs. While everything he played was done in a Chicago blues style or more modern, the delta came through in each song. It made me think that that is what is missing from so many musicians/bands who say they are trying to play Chicago blues. What they forget, I think, is the guys who created that sound (for the most part), came out of the Delta or a similar area and had the background of the early blues. And the guys who followed them either came from the same places, or learned from the first guys. So while they played the songs of the delta differently using amps, etc., the feel and groove were there. Not an earth-shattering idea, but what it means to me is that guys who want to play the blues (like me) need to start with the early stuff - Skip James, Robert Johnson, Tommy Johnson, John Lee Williamson and so on. I'm not sure you have to play that music, or at least, that you don't have to perform it, but I do think you need to know it. If you've got that music inside you then what comes out will be more authentic even if it's different. What do you think?
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The Iceman
2298 posts
Feb 19, 2015
4:01 PM
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It's one thing to have the music inside your head. It's another to feel it.
If your talking Delta, remember the landscape in which this music sprang...flat land as far as the eye can see, river cutting through it, meandering. Music is also a reflection of the land in which it was born.
What kind of music would fill this landscape? Certainly not the up and down style of Piedmont (more suited to the hills in which it was born).
Also, mournful. Happy tunes don't fill a Delta landscape.
So, for authenticity, examine more than just the music. Relate it to its surroundings.
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The Iceman
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timeistight
1694 posts
Feb 19, 2015
4:05 PM
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Many players lack depth. They may be able to play what their heroes played, but they don't know what their heroes knew. In fact, it seems to me that many "blues players" today don't really like blues!
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Rgsccr
315 posts
Feb 19, 2015
4:58 PM
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Good points Iceman. I was speaking more generally, and, while I am aware of other blues like Piedmont, I am not claiming to be that knowledgeable. I think what I really aiming at is what Timesight said - that not only do some "blues" players not understand the origin(s) of the blues, but they don't really like the music. When I mention exploring a new (to us) song for our band to learn, say like "Messin With the Kid," the drummer will say that he likes the Trucks version (and doesn't know that that it's a Jr. Wells song). And he's been with us for over a year. Not only does he not listen to the older versions or originals of songs like My Babe, Crosscut Saw, All You Lovin, I Miss Lovin, he doesn't like them. I probably go overboard in the other direction - of the eleven hundred blues songs I have on Itunes, the only recent album I have is Clapton's "Me and Mr. Johnson (and some albums from friends of mine like Brian Lee and Steve Bailey who play great blues). Everything else is seventies at the latest on back to Charlie Patton and others of that era. I am sure I limit myself, but, really, no other music moves me. In the late sixties and early seventies when I first started playing harp, I listened to some Dylan a bit, but once I heard Sonny Terry, SBII and George Smith albums nothing else has felt right. Right now I am listening to Sleepy John Estes' "Drop Down Mama," after songs by Lucille Bogan, William Clark and Skip James.
Last Edited by Rgsccr on Feb 19, 2015 5:01 PM
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The Iceman
2299 posts
Feb 20, 2015
4:19 AM
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Probably best to work with musicians who are more in line with your vision rather than try to bend the will of one who is on another path.
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The Iceman
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mastercaster
117 posts
Feb 20, 2015
4:49 AM
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@ Rgsccr
Are you doing the vocals & leading the band ? Allot rides on the band leader ..
Heck if the drummer or any other member doesn't like the repertoire or won't learn 'new' material .. time to give an ultimatum or look for a replacement .. ..
during the mid-late 80's .. I played in a country swing + older r&r covers band for a # of years .. the band leader/vocalist loved the old country ballads .. took me a while to come around, I always play my best though, even on material I'm not fond of .. now they've been in my blood for almost 30 years .... adapted and in the end .. enjoy the ballads in moderation ..
Hope your drummer will find the heart to do the same ..
Last Edited by mastercaster on Feb 20, 2015 4:54 AM
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Rgsccr
317 posts
Feb 20, 2015
8:36 AM
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Mastercaster - No, I don't sing (that would clear the room faster than a fire alarm), or lead the band. The other two guys in the band beside the drummer (bass/vocals and guitar)are into the blues, and we have given him an ultimatum. I think he's trying, so we'll see what happens. I definitely agree with you and Iceman about playing with like-minded musicians. I do think it goes to the point I started with - to play the blues you, at the very least, need to listen to blues, and, better, to love it.
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mastercaster
118 posts
Feb 20, 2015
4:44 PM
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Rgsccr - imo going back to your original question , the first song that pops in my head this morning .. Robert Johnson's .. Hot Tamales and the Red Hot's .. .. a heck of a lot of modern riff's came from RJ's and other's of that era ...
That music is the foundation of all that followed , so most definitely imo a Big Yes to your question .. a blues musician should know , listen to and enjoy that material ... to some extent...'knowing the original blues' is the foundation of our modern day rhythm's and phrasing ..
For me, some 'feel good' music came from that location and era, as well as the sad mournful 'crying in your beer' stuff ... though of course ..this music is called 'the blues' for good reasons ..
Of course , if we go forward in time a bit into the beginning of the era of electric .. LW , Howling Wolf , Muddy etc.. there's allot of upbeat feel good rhythms used in their material ..
Hope your drummer opens up his thinking and get's onboard .. finding a Good drummer is not an easy challenge ...
Last Edited by mastercaster on Feb 20, 2015 5:18 PM
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The Iceman
2302 posts
Feb 20, 2015
5:11 PM
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Never really said "only mournful", but rather "mournful".
Don't know all the songs that came from the Delta, but do know that the black artists at that time were poor, overworked, underpaid, and definitely looked down upon. Would guess that the feel at the time was more sad than happy, which would come out in the music.
I'm sure you know the basics - these are the guys that traveled up to Chicago/Detroit where they could find work in the factories, carrying their music with them and becoming electrified in the process.
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The Iceman
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mastercaster
119 posts
Feb 20, 2015
5:20 PM
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@ Iceman , man you are fast , yup edited my post while you was writing yours ..
Last Edited by mastercaster on Feb 20, 2015 5:21 PM
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jbone
1890 posts
Feb 20, 2015
8:57 PM
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You guys all make good points. Speaking as yet another white guy who grew up far from the delta and Chicago, I can say this at least: I came up fairly poor and hard and was exposed to the founders and early masters of both delta and urban blues at an early age, and it changed me. For the better I like to think! When I truly began adulthood I also became a better student of the music I was passionate about.
Knowing some history in a general way, spending some time in the delta, working through a lot of the blues rock sort of false mythos of what blues is and what it can be perceived as depending on who you talk to, finding my way to the early artists like Skip James, RJ, and others has really given me much more of a foundation. I used to read every word on a cd jacket or lp cover because I wanted to know where these people were coming from. As I began trying to play like them I realized that they were the founders and masters because of the lives they lived through and because they prevailed where many did not.
My playing reflects a lot of sub-genres of blues like West Coast Swing, swamp blues, a bit of Piedmont, etc etc. along with some of the delta and Chicago and Texas as well. One MUST have an open mind and seek the wisdom of those who originated the music, and those who helped it morph as decades passed. I hate to admit that Led Zep, the Stones, Yardbirds, even early Rod Stewart were partly responsible for informing my view of blues music. They all spurred me to dig back farther and deeper to find where that "sound" came from. As a young child I was exposed to harmonica by my emigre grandfather who had come from England in the late 1800's. A bit later I discovered the total other world that used to be on a m radio, the Race Radio shows that aired on Sunday nights when a child should be asleep bu8t I was hijacking my brother's little radio and listening in under the covers and hearing all the greats of the late 50's and early 60's. THAT was where my real education began.
It took me DECAdes to begin to really develop an honest feel for playing like those guys I heard back then. Both Sonnyboys, the Walters, Snooky Pryor, etc etc. Cotton, Bell Foster, they were the ones who caught me early and who I sought to emulate from an early age. Nobody's fault but my own that I strayed over to the blue3s rock side for a few years! I found my way back where I really wanted to be some years ago and it's reflected in not only my playing but in the partners I have bonded with in recent years. We do have the same vision, of a valid style that really reflects the early greats, from Memphis Minnie and Raful Neal to RJ, Son House, and others.
Any music must evolve some to stay viable in a fickle public's eye. What we call authentic blues these days may make some of those originators spin in their graves. Blues itself came from someplace else depending on what history you look at, from North Africa, England, Scotland, from Native Americans even. Slide guitar? Hawaii. So we can debate for ever after about the roots of the thing, but somewhere aside from the discussion we can also find our way to making very soul satisfying music that resonates with ourselves, our partners, and our audience. Who needs more than that?
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Thievin' Heathen
493 posts
Feb 21, 2015
12:36 PM
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It has been my experience that the pro musicians know just about everything about all genres of music. They certainly had to be eager to learn everything to acquire the depth of what they know. Your drummer might be focused elsewhere at the moment. But if he likes the Derek Trucks Band arrangements, maybe you should remind him that they have 2 drummers.
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