Blues. Anyone?

Having recently bought a Stevie Ray Vaughn CD and downloading a track from the Joe Bonamassa website (tnx lefty) I have decidied now is the time for a real Blues section to my CD collection.

Where to start?

Ive always known that Ive liked the blues sound (Led Zep made sure of that 'Since Ive been loving you' off zep3 is my fave zep track)

Any suggestions/help will be greatefuly received.

tnx //lamboy

 

Hey lamboy,

Glad you liked the Joe Bonamassa stuff - bloody good isn't it

I'm a HUGE fan of the blues, which is something I originally got into through playing the guitar. Below is a link for everyone's amusement, me trying to play Catfish Blues! (Hendrix version)

Lefty attempting "Catfish Blues"

If you like this type of thing, you should check out Rory Gallagher. It's a bit of a mix between pub rock and blues - Pub Blues if you will Unfortunately he is no longer with us, but there was a recent best of release that came out - which woud be the ideal place to start. As a bonus, it's a hybrid SACD, and if you have a compatible, player, there's a definate improvement with SACD.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos...133028/sr=8-2/ref=pd_ka_2/202-1342591-6858261

He's not as polished as Bonamassa, but there's a hell of a lot of passion in his raw style of music, and after all, the blues is all about feel isn't it?

Obviously, there's also Clapton and Peter Green of Fleetwood Mac (who in my mind is seriously underated, and was possibly even the better of the 2 guitarists before he went cuckoo )

If you are feeling a little bit more adventurous, you could always check out the original blues artists that started the whole thing. My favourites are Skip James, Elmore James, and BB King.

Hope this helps,

Lefty

 

the black keys do some nice 'modern' blues stuff

 

blues - where to start?

its just so huge, and it so often is used in other forms (like rock and pop) that its hard to know where to even begin..

yeah rory gallagher is good. Also a very under-rated bluesman is gary moore. He is a fantastic guitarist. Early eric clapton is good for a look (great to listen to, but too tame for some), and jimi hendrix's blues work is often missed (by me mostly also until Lefty pointed it out to me , then for blues slide you've got ry cooder, for one note sustain the likes of buddy guy, the list just goes on and on and on )

In terms of guitar playing, theres a big difference to my mind between the hendrix influenced blues of someone like stevie ray vaughn, and the traditional blus of someone like robert johnson. The good news about the early stuff (like lightin hopkins, robert johnson etc) is that there work is so far out of copyright that its available for £2 all over the place!. Worth a look.

It sounds like you may prefer more recent blues guitarists..(SRV/Zep)?

For me, blues guitar is one thing, but for real, true, gutsy blues you've got to have a wrinkly old black guy giving it some soul on the microphone. Its black music, and it needs the right voice... and that voice is tortured, hurt, and beaten and battered in the american south.

One thing about people like john lee hooker (who just had an awesome blues voice, the real deal) is that his modern contempories flocked to him like kittens following a cat. An album like this..

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000000WJ8/ref=pd_sim_pm_dp_2/202-4242310-0636602

... will not only let you get to hear john lee's fantastic voice, but hear a lot of blues guitarists playing with him, so you can get an idea of their style.

I guess what Im trying to say is that when picking which blues to listen to, I/we often go for this or that blues guitarist, but the essence of blues is the soul and voice of the singer, his life and history, and the life and history of the song and its roots.


too many white guys do to the blues what kenny G did to jazz...

 

Cool

 

Lightnin' Hopkins is my all-time favourite bluesman (another Texan like SRV!), both with his acoustic and electric stuff. Muddy Waters is another great electric bluesman. If you fancy listening to what many consider to be the greatest blues harmonica player ever, try some Sonny Boy Williamson, he is simply awesome. Buddy Guy is one of the most renowned electric bluesmen ever. For some great modern blues, try the late Jimmie Lee Robinson (who sadly took his own life a few years back). R.L. Burnside is worth checking out, or just check out the Fat Possum record label. And of course the early greats such as Robert Johnson, Mississippi John Hurt and Son House should be the cornerstones of any blues collection.

 

Lefty

 

Get Clapton unplugged. Acoustic Layla is Real Blues

 

Im not a big clapton fan - although i havent heard that particular unplugged.
I just find him to be a bit 'going through the motions' kinda performer, but then I also havent delved into any of his earlier stuff.

 

I was joking of course since his earlier stuff is much better. I like this very much:

"Live at the Fillmore" is worse.

I know it isn't authentic blues, but I don't care, I prefer EC

 

Devil's Music

For real electric blues, not just the pale poseurs mentioned above, I would start with some CD remasters:

Volume 1 of the Muddy Waters Chess Remasters eeerily quiet remasters of some of McKinley's Chicago electro/acoustic sides from the late 40s on.

Howlin' Wolf from the same series 300lbs of heavenly joy. The Wolf's comin' for ya.

Sonny Boy Williamson - The Real Folk Blues / More Real Folk Blues A nice summation, and a good place to start. The best rock 'n' roll band - King Biscuit Time - was also the first. These are much later cuts from his Chicago years with, on many tracks, what has to rate as the greatest pickup band in the history of blues (Otis Spann, Jimmy Rogers, Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon, Fred Below). Awesome. Play LOUD.

John Lee Hooker vee-jay sides is the only JLH album anyone *really* needs. BB King is fond of saying that blues is not 12 or 8-bar, it's as many bars as you need to tell the story. JLH's surreal stories usually require an equally surreal count, one only really known to himself. Sidemen beware. He often suffered from less than sympathetic pickup bands, especially from the 60s onwards. These vee-jay sides are so good becuase they capture him at his peak and with a really good band who don't try and impose, but follow the leader, simply.

Some acoustic albums:

Alvin Youngblood Hart is a modern guitarist who effectively recreates the feeling and atmosphere of some of the greats (Charley Patton and Skip James to name but two) on this. A good place to start a journey to the Delta...

Skip James is probably my favourite bluesman. Skip was a deeply creative, troubled man whose total recorded output amounted to little more than a couple of CDs worth of material over his "career", and whose final sides were cut for Vanguard in the mid-sixties, a couple of years before he died of cancer. His voice has lost a little of it's incredible ethereal edge here, but the essential is still in place and his piano and guitar chops are in fine working order.
Skip James Vanguard Sessions

Devil got my Woman is a profoundly amazing song. 22-20 blues, a dark, violent piece of barely restrained hate, would get one of those "parental warning" stickers if the lyrics featured on a modern rap album; 22-20 being the calibre of Skip the pimp's gun. Robert Johnson would later up the calibre to 32-20.

By contrast, Texan trance-blues master Lightnin' Hopkins (there were, unarguably, much greater Texas bluesmen than Lightnin': Blind Lemon Jefferson, T-Bone Walker, Freddie King and Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown spring immdiately to mind, but for this quick list, Lightnin' fits) was prolifically recorded in the sixties following his "rediscovery" . I do think Lightnin' is superb, and as was discovered in the 60's, his long-form "desert" blues is perfect for, ah, chilling.

Lightnin' Hopkins

He also provides a link back to the source: Africa. Here's Ali Farka Toure's latest album, which really is the Devil's Music
In the Heart of the Moon

Finally, and only after the above have been digested, some excellent, modern urban blues

Of course this does not even begin to scratch the surface, but hopfully should give a taste of what the real thing was all about.

 

Joel

So Clapton didn't invent The Blues?

Goddamn!

Cheers

Rich

 

Possibly not, Rich. He did his best to kill it, though

 

Clapton's "Just one night" is also very good...
"The very best of Cream" has many Cream's finest recorded moments on one CD, such as their excellent version of Skip James's I'm so glad.
If it must be the "real" thing, how about Freddie King.

 

Skip James, quite rightly, disowned this dreadful abortion. Crapton couldn't play the blues if you put a gun to his head.
I'd obviously put T-bone before Freddie. Hubert Sumlin was a far superior guitarist to either in any case, and the man whose licks Peter Green "borrowed" wholesale.

 

Superb - thanks Joel

Ive just actually popped out to HMV and bought some Howlin Wolf stuff - Im also going to borrow my old mans muddy waters CDs.

Blues-tastic!

 

My pleasure Howlin' Wolf is fantastic, and with Hubert Sumlin, his (underrated) guitarist, the Wolf formed one of the great combos. Often imitated, never equalled.

 

Agreed, his playing might suffer from nervousness in the studio arrangement you suggest

 

Howlin' Wolf's The London Sessions is available as a double CD Deluxe Edition. Don't have it to hand but IIRC it has the likes of Eric Clapton and Keith Richard on it.

Cream - Disraeli Gears is available in the Deluxe Edition format for a tenner at HMV at the moment, you can't go wrong!

 

For something a bit more refined and modern how about Robert Cray? I recently bought 'Strong Persuader' on Vinyl and am enjoying it...