To quote the legendary Muddy Waters, "The blues ain't nothin', but feelin' good, bout feelin' bad!" We have all heard things about how music sets the mood, lifts you up, makes you cry, and so on! Everyone has their own personal experiences with how music has affected their emotions, and lives. I'm still amazed at how when you mention "Blues" how it garners such negative responses like "I don't want to listen to that old depressing stuff!" Yet those same people will grab someone, and snuggle up on the dance floor when they hear a slow sad country song.
Blues is the only true American music we have, born right in the plantation fields of this country. A caller would sing out to the workers, and they would answer back as they worked along. It certainly wasn't something depressing, but rather lifted their spirits to make a hard task more bearable. These chants, some often very humorous, would be sang at gatherings with whatever musical accompaniment they could find. They found release, and were partying to these same things they sang in the fields as they labored.
Blues was a mother, giving birth to Jazz, and Rock & Roll, and had a great impact on country music then, and now! I had the great fortune to meet Willie Dixon some years back, and he was chiding me about calling the music I was doing blues. He went on to say that when he, and many of the other legendary blues artist, began to electrify blues music, they were met with a lot of resistance of people telling them "That ain't no blues!" After a good laugh he said that now if you aren't playing the same things we were back then, people will tell you that ain't no blues either! lol As he told me, music has to grow, and evolve, if the music isn't growing, then it's dyeing!
So now we have Rock & Roll, Heavy Metal, Classic Rock, Fusion, Pop, R & B, Funk, Soul, Hip Hop, Jump, Much of our Country Music, and many other genres, all birthed from the blues! So if you say that you don't listen to blues, you must not listen to music!
If you would like to get a face full of progressive red hot blues check out my band "Tin Feet" Tin Feet
Thanks! Slim
Some have said they are having trouble with the original link I posted to Reverb Nation, so here is a link to Sound Click, all the same tunes are there!
TF @ Soundclick Click the "Music Page" link , and options are there for downloading.
Copy & paste to friend: (Click inside box; Ctrl + C to copy; Ctrl + V to paste)
|
|
read more blogs!
|
willy3411
|
Mar 9 @ 4:47PM
|
|
|
I met Willie Dixon at the Soup Kitchen Saloon in Detroit in the late 70's. I used to follow a blues band there called the Progressive Blues band and their sax player Don Hankins introduced him to me. What a thrill.The blues had a baby and they named it Rock and Roll
|
|
Hooks
|
Mar 9 @ 4:58PM
|
|
|
|
JimNastics
|
Mar 9 @ 9:10PM
|
|
To jazz & blues - America's living art forms    
|
|
mordru
|
Mar 10 @ 5:30PM
|
|
|
Mississippi Fred Mcdowell and his delta blues slide guitar.
|
|
Hooks
|
Mar 11 @ 1:20AM
|
|
|
Somwhere back in the 60's I bought a Capitol Records compilation album that had mostly artist that no one had yet heard of. Bands like The Seger Systen, Pink Floyd, Linda Ronstant, David Axlerod, Grand Funk Railroad, and somewhere on there was none other than Mississippi Fred McDowell doing "Red Cross Store." to this day I can still remember his opening lines. "Now, my name is Mississippi Fred McDowell, my home is in Rossville Tennessee, but folks likes to call me Mississippi, and I like it in Mississippi too! I plays the straight natural blues with a bottle neck, and a hambone pick I made myself. Fred don't do no rockin', ifin you wants to rock me put me in a cradle or a rockin chair!"
|
|
|