Who listens to old acoustic blues & "proto blues"?

[Alec]

I was going to respond to the best blues player thread, but then got too far away. So this is what I want to know:

SO, what is blues?

Robert Johnson is blues, right?, and very influential, but I find him a little boring. I wish Charlie Patton's recordings were better -- probably should get a copy of them again. Leadbelly sold himself as blues, but probably wasn't? Ma Rainey -- is that blues? If she is, wow, how can she be in the same Genre as Stevie Ray Vaughan?

What about Henry Thomas, or Lonnie Johnson?

Blind Willie McTell ("Ain't it grand to be a Christian" -- is that blues?), Lemon Jefferson (HE could play -- and keep a tempo that would STOP folks from dancing yet still be music), Tommy Johnson . . .

And what about Etta Baker, Elizabeth Cotton, Mississippi John Hurt: Folk? Blues?

And I haven't even mentioned anyone who plugged a guitar in (except in contrast) -- Though I could bring up Memphis Minnie.



If you are in to the early American stuff, where do you think the early influences come from, how do you see/distinguish the genres, do you try to play it, and what do you strive for if you do?

 

[AlohaJoe]

It's all the Blues, man. But the Blues is a big bag. Urban Blues, Country Blues, vintage and modern, Chicago style, Piedmont style, electric and so on. Everybody you mentioned comes from one form or another of the blues. Because the blues is a living breathing thing, it has evolved and changed over the years, but it's good to know where you came from. Stevie Ray is musically a descendant of Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey, very different at first glance but more closely related than one might think. Over the years different people took what was there and added their own experiences, stories and musicality, although the 12 bar form has endured. It is no longer the only form you can find, as Jazz evolved (and continues to evolve) from the Blues. Rock n Roll evolved from the Blues. Your question is huge, but it's a good one!

Anyway, it seems to me that he main thing all Blues players strive for is the same... to tell the story. The Blues is about the stories of real people, struggling to get by and speaking in a common verbal and musical language that is readily understood.

Author/musician Elijah Wald has written extensively on Blues history, some of his books are here:
http://www.elijahwald.com/

If you get a hankering to come out west this summer the Centrum Foundation in Port Townsend Washington does an incredible week-long Country Blues workshop (and a Spring intensive as well), info here:
http://www.centrum.org/blues/

You'd love it!

 

[taabru45]

+1
That sounded pretty decisive to me ....Blues also is a therapy and a bridge from the blues to feeling,better. Not an issue of race, or circumstance. Here are a coupler of obscure vids I found of Jesse Fuller, the one man band, who wrote San Francisco Blues....note the get up and dance rhythm and tune, but with the heartbreaking words. Enjoy....In the second video he is using either a pocket knife or a spoon, as a slide,,,,he played with his whole body, and sung too :shock: Steffan
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKumuirtwbo&NR=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hq_nx-9G ... re=related
Now here is a guy singing the 'authentic' blues...Sam Chatmon (who I just discovered)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKpE_R0pW9A&NR=1

 

[kitniyatran]

The OP cites much the sort of music I listen at a lot, though I find Robert Johnson fascinating, & Mississippi John Hurt kind of boring(too slick); too much of the Vanguard/Newport stuff in my teens & early twenties I think. Charlie McCoy & his brother,Joe, Sleepy John Estes with Yank Rachell, Martin Bogan & Armstrong, Blind Willie Johnson, Skip James, the incredible Bessie Smith....
I do tend more toward Delta vs. Piedmont, but REALLY like the early string bands that played it all, regardless of genre(as Martin Bogan & Armstrong or the McCoy brothers).

 

[AlohaJoe]

And it's still alive today...

John Cephas and Phil Wiggins
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFs0fm_Btyk

Bob Brozman
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuzfgagmrBk&feature=related

Terry Bean leads a jam in PT
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3swqb2W4uaQ&feature=PlayList&p=0DEC8A8D4A5B9C9F&index=1

 

[Jeff]

It's all the Blues, man........ If you get a hankering to come out west this summer the Centrum Foundation in Port Townsend Washington does an incredible week-long Country Blues workshop (and a Spring intensive as well), info here:
http://www.centrum.org/blues/

You'd love it!

Joe,

I lived here most all my life & somehow haven't picked up on the Port Townsend blues scene. Thanks for posting it up, I marked my calendar.

 

[Alec]

It would be cool to visit Port Townsend, but not in the dollar or time budget I'm afraid.

Thank you for Cephas & Wiggins link. Reminds me I have to see him play while he's still around!

I am really curious about how the string band/medicine show music fed into what became the blues. Anyone know of good histories about the southern string band music?


Any of you all play this stuff?

Alec

 

[kitniyatran]

Rich DelGrosso has a book, Mandolin Blues, I think is the name, that gives some of that info, I think, in the context of a how to play it book. I'm sure there are others. There's a biography of Yank Rachell that may have bibliography info, but I haven't seen it to know.