Are blues "poser" bands prevailang in your area?

[tclardy]

I have been thinking of this for a while but it really came to light to me when I sang with a friends band last Sunday. A friend is in a project doing blues stuff, all the members of the band are between 45 and 52 years old. They complimented me on my singing but said I did not sing enough "like a black man". Being that I am pretty much lilly white, lol, it got me to thinking. What is the deal with this pre-occupation of all the boomer bands playing blues and "posing" as black blues players?
It seems to me that 80% of the bands in the DFW area are in this mold, I guess because SRV was from here and is worshipped. You go into a bar in DFW and it is pretty likely you are going to be hearing Freddie King, BB King, Muddy waters and and assortment of old blues with some SRV thrown in.
I am a fan of this type of music but listening to two or three hours of it gets old, I IV V's do get repetitive. Most friends I have who are NOT guitar players and musicians say they are getting mighty bored by bands only playing this kind of music. I guess my reference to posing has to do with the fact that none of these folks are black nor do they truly sound like black blues players. Is this just a Herd mentality or a Fad?
Another odd thing is that if you look at the setlists of most bands around here there is hardly anything by bands from across the pond, England, Ireland or anything UK. I find it ironic because it was mainly the bands across the pond that started doing a new version of the blues and brought this to the white audience. It is also a fact that almost half the great music put out over the last 40 years is from across the pond. I am referring to bands such as the Bluesbreakers, Zeppelin, Clapton stuff and such. Do bands in your area play stuff from across the pond?
Not trying to create controversy just wanting a sampling of opinions from around the country?
Tim

[8Painting]

I think its pretty much like that in any area you go, bunch of weekend warriors pretty much. I myself love playing the blues, for about....10 minutes or so out of a 4 hour block, its fun, but youre totally correct in saying that it does get incredibly boring. I think a lot of it is, these people were fans, now are able to afford the gear theyve always wanted and picked a genre they can grab ahold of without too many problems to make up for all of the not practicing they did while they were out chasing skirt in college to be white collar business men.

Ive got some relatives in wisconsin that fall into this category, I don't talk to them much, but I keep an eye on them from afar and just snicker at the fools that theyre making of themselves. but I guess ignorance is bliss, right?

Dont get me wrong I'm a huge blues head, but theres so much more than the 20 stereotypical songs that 50 year old white guys are dishing out these days. Blech.

[TieDyedDevil]

Is this just a Herd mentality or a Fad?


What's the difference? :cool:

[Strat]

Call me jaded but It's just awful. 12 bar has been done to death, and then re-done a couple times more. I can't tell you the last time I was even mildly interested in what the next "guy" on the scene does. I can't bear anymore of that "Robben" or "Larry" tone stuff ! JAZZ BLUES WANKING ? OOWWW. Please, no more "Buddy W'' stuff. no more creamy this or that...whatever. Hasn't anyone got something new to say ? i can't even go out to a club anymore with getting either "bLUES" or EVH stuff. My ears have just had enough over 40 years I guess.

On the other hand , since i am involved with singer/songwriters all the time. I happened to check out the latest Jeff Tweedy/WILCO CD for what am I not going to like about him this time and almost cried when I heard what Nels Cline was adding. Finally ! someone with something to say worth hearing - and not blues lick in the mix. There's hope once all the boomer wankers go to the home...and what is that gonna do to the collectible market that has prevented me from buying a beat up old Paul to just plain play ? I'm gonna be laffin I tink

rant over...have a nice day

[pickaguitar]

You're in Texas? Then its Texas Blues for you my friend.
Poseurs? Nah. Just good taste IMO.

[Dave Orban]

"Posers" know no musical boundaries... there are plenty of them pummeling their way through ALL musical genres... and doing "originals" doesn't necessarily mean you're "immune" from the disease. ;)

[HHB]

not directed @ the OP but next time someone does something NEW in the blues genre dont bitch or pick it apart

[SFW]

lol! Yeah, here in Houston there are about a zillion bad blues bands.

[rhinocaster]

People will play what they want to play, and when there isn't an audience for that they'll stop playing out. It's very difficult to listen to a bunch of guys playing blues that they lifted note for note from an album. You can even hear the singer quote all of the spontaneous vocal asides on the album. Tough to stomach.

The problem is that most people that play music are not artists or performers. They find something that they can copy (Most often poorly), stand stone still on stage and try to relive something from their youth. Doesn't lead to an exciting evening. These are the same people that run blues societies around the country (World). If you play something new, it's not the blues. They want the same old thing. This doesn't work too well when you have "Blues Pile" singing about, "Plowin' the cotton," or a middle aged white guy singing "Strange fruit." One of the best blues songs of ALL TIME is Jimi's "Machine Gun". It followed the blues format and expressed the human condition that made sense for its era. Try to play that song for a blues crowd.

As far as the vintage market softening enough to afford that vintage Les Paul or Fender. I wouldn't hold my breath.

[CocoTone]

You want something new to blues??
http://www.popachubby.com/
http://www.booboodavis.com/


Hers a couple, with a new direction, and sound. You guys aren't looking/listening hard enough.

CT.:cool:

[Mike T]

People will play what they want to play, and when there isn't an audience for that they'll stop playing out. It's very difficult to listen to a bunch of guys playing blues that they lifted note for note from an album. You can even hear the singer quote all of the spontaneous vocal asides on the album. Tough to stomach.

The problem is that most people that play music are not artists or performers. They find something that they can copy (Most often poorly), stand stone still on stage and try to relive something from their youth. Doesn't lead to an exciting evening. These are the same people that run blues societies around the country (World). If you play something new, it's not the blues. They want the same old thing. This doesn't work too well when you have "Blues Pile" singing about, "Plowin' the cotton," or a middle aged white guy singing "Strange fruit." One of the best blues songs of ALL TIME is Jimi's "Machine Gun". It followed the blues format and expressed the human condition that made sense for its era. Try to play that song for a blues crowd.

As far as the vintage market softening enough to afford that vintage Les Paul or Fender. I wouldn't hold my breath.

I hear ya bro, but I ain't gonna touch this one.....................:nono

[rhinocaster]

I hear ya bro, but I ain't gonna touch this one.....................:nono

I wasn't aware that I said anything :).

[frank62]

You want something new to blues??
http://www.popachubby.com/
http://www.booboodavis.com/


Hers a copule, with a new direction, and sound. You guys aren't looking/listening hard enough.

CT.:cool:
Hell yeah!!! My buddy Jim Davis from East Saint Louis. He is really a true old time bluesman.

[daddyo]

Bad blues. Boring I IV V. Can't wait a few years for all the drop D metal guys to hit mid-life and then we'll have a plethora of really bad metal bands growling into their microphones.

[Zero]

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c22/umafloresta/FX/teh-blooze-i-has-them-low-down-1.jpg

This fits.

[rhinocaster]

I loved it when George Carlin said, "You can't get the blues if you're white. If you're white, it's your job to give the blues to other people!"

[KRosser]

I have been thinking of this for a while but it really came to light to me when I sang with a friends band last Sunday. A friend is in a project doing blues stuff, all the members of the band are between 45 and 52 years old. They complimented me on my singing but said I did not sing enough "like a black man". Being that I am pretty much lilly white, lol, it got me to thinking. What is the deal with this pre-occupation of all the boomer bands playing blues and "posing" as black blues players?

Hmmm...let's see..."45-52"....mid-life crisis? The morbid fear of fading "masculinity"....the co-opting of the figurative mythical "black man's sexual energy"?

Nah...couldn't be...

Now that I'm 45 I guess I need to start making plans for my own mid-life crisis. I'm pretty sure it's not going to involve sports cars (couldn't be less interested) or retro-blues bands

Whatever form it takes, I can promise you this - it won't be pretty.....

[frank62]

^No more. I do not know any young to middle aged black folks who are even remotely intrested in the blues. In today's world it is the common middle aged white man who has every reason to play the blues.

[kush06]

I live in Austin TX so there will *always* be blues bands here, both good & bad. Right now we're overrun with poser pop-punk bands. I don't see a problem with "poser" bands, if people didn't enjoy them, they wouldn't be getting gigs. If you don't like it, don't go see them play (or gig with them).

As far as bands with a new twist on blues, you just gotta look, there are plenty.

Clutch: http://youtube.com/watch?v=Ab6lr2b66Ig
http://youtube.com/watch?v=FsNtT-fi36M&mode=related&search=

The Black Keys: http://youtube.com/watch?v=y-CukK3eYt0

Grady: http://youtube.com/watch?v=oeeXQ_iqBE4
http://youtube.com/watch?v=kdLXWM2_k_Q

Some of the late greats did some awesome, newer styled blues in their later years.

RL Burnside (RIP): http://youtube.com/watch?v=SbLYVnP3sjY

[Bluesbuff]

Being a weekend warrior "musician" myself with a professional day job I'll throw in my $0.02 worth. Over the 35 or so years I've been playing I've done everything from acoustic coffeehouse covers, mostly original acoustic music, classic rock, fusion and now blues. I play it because it is the music that speaks to me the most. In upstate New York there are lots of blues bands and not enough gigs, like everywhere else. Yes it can be a trial to keep it fresh and interesting for myself, so I can imagine audiences get bored as well. But I find that to be true for most genres of music unless the players are stellar.

[pickaguitar]

I do not know any young to middle aged black folks who are even remotely intrested in the blues. In today's world it is the common middle aged white man who has every reason to play the blues.
I think there is a lot of truth in that! (and I'm not middle aged :))

[bjjp2]

Why do threads like this always have to include sweeping stereotypes, socioeconomic resentment and insults: "boomer wankers", "white collar businessmen," "45--52 year olds." Yes, I'm defensive because I fit the profile. But I know plenty of poor young guys who can't play well and/or do anything original. And by the way, my favorite music tends toward punk and post-punk.

[stratovarius]

Now that I'm 45 I guess I need to start making plans for my own mid-life crisis. I'm pretty sure it's not going to involve sports cars (couldn't be less interested) or retro-blues bands

Whatever form it takes, I can promise you this - it won't be pretty.....

The only sure bet is that it will involve women half your age! :D

[davess23]

Anyone can have the blues. Anyone can play the blues. If they've got something to say worth hearing, it'll come out.

Even a poser can get the blues. (BTW, this is freakin' weird. Does anyone accuse classical players of wanting to be JS Bach? I'm a middle aged white guy who isn't interested in changing his ethnicity, but I love playing music that was invented by black people. Want to call me a poser? Fine. From now on, you'd better play only stuff written by people who were just like you. Good luck.)

The blues is mostly three chords. Music is mostly twelve tones. Tennis is two people with rackets, a ball and a net. Haiku is seventeen syllables. It's what you do within the restrictions of the game that matters.

[Buddy Boy]

55 and guilty of playing mostly blues for the last 40 years. I don't enter local blues contests 'cause I'm too busy gigging. Yeah,I'm white,but don't say I ain't got no right! You don't know me or where I've been,or what I'm going thru. Mike Bloomfield said"If You Love These Blues,Play 'em As You Please." That said,the blues is a great format for expressing yourself. 90+% of what I play is off the top of my head and the tips of my fingers. If I feel like throwing in a little Jimi or Jeff or Benny Goodman or Billy G I do it.:cool:kj

[Leucadian]

Why do threads like this always have to include sweeping stereotypes, socioeconomic resentment and insults: "boomer wankers", "white collar businessmen," "45--52 year olds." Yes, I'm defensive because I fit the profile. But I know plenty of poor young guys who can't play well and/or do anything original. And by the way, my favorite music tends toward punk and post-punk.

...it's definitely more entertaining for me as I sit here and drink coffee out of a cereal bowl:crazyguy:crazyguy...:D

[Leucadian]

Anyone can have the blues. Anyone can play the blues. If they've got something to say worth hearing, it'll come out.

Even a poser can get the blues. (BTW, this is freakin' weird. Does anyone accuse classical players of wanting to be JS Bach? I'm a middle aged white guy who isn't interested in changing his ethnicity, but I love playing music that was invented by black people. Want to call me a poser? Fine. From now on, you'd better play only stuff written by people who were just like you. Good luck.)

The blues is mostly three chords. Music is mostly twelve tones. Tennis is two people with rackets, a ball and a net. Haiku is seventeen syllables. It's what you do within the restrictions of the game that matters.

...I live my life in such a way as to not have any man (or woman), white or black, red or brown, green or yellow...GIVETH ME-TH the bluezth...

...live it, be it, smell it!

...just don't deny it!

[Buddy Boy]

:rotflmao:rotflmao:rotflmao:rotflmao:rotflmao:rotf lmao:drool:BEERThe only sure bet is that it will involve women half your age! :D

[dbx]

Anyone can have the blues. Anyone can play the blues. If they've got something to say worth hearing, it'll come out...
The blues is mostly three chords. Music is mostly twelve tones. Tennis is two people with rackets, a ball and a net. Haiku is seventeen syllables. It's what you do within the restrictions of the game that matters..


3 months unemployed...wife's now giving me s*** about it, holidaze, birthdays just around the corner...DAMN RIGHT I GOT THE BLUES!!! (but my kids love me and I still got my guitar...;) )

[stratzrus]

55 and guilty of playing mostly blues for the last 40 years. I don't enter local blues contests 'cause I'm too busy gigging.

Yeah,I'm white,but don't say I ain't got no right! You don't know me or where I've been,or what I'm going thru.

Mike Bloomfield said"If You Love These Blues,Play 'em As You Please." That said,the blues is a great format for expressing yourself.

90+% of what I play is off the top of my head and the tips of my fingers.

If I feel like throwing in a little Jimi or Jeff or Benny Goodman or Billy G I do it.:cool:kj

Well said.

[Leucadian]

3 months unemployed...wife's now giving me s*** about it, holidaze, birthdays just around the corner...DAMN RIGHT I GOT THE BLUES!!!

...just get out the gee-tar and tell the 'ol lady to shut the f*ck up...:RoCkIn

[Buddy Boy]

+1 You were posting this as I was composing the one that followed.:BEERAnyone can have the blues. Anyone can play the blues. If they've got something to say worth hearing, it'll come out.

Even a poser can get the blues. (BTW, this is freakin' weird. Does anyone accuse classical players of wanting to be JS Bach? I'm a middle aged white guy who isn't interested in changing his ethnicity, but I love playing music that was invented by black people. Want to call me a poser? Fine. From now on, you'd better play only stuff written by people who were just like you. Good luck.)

The blues is mostly three chords. Music is mostly twelve tones. Tennis is two people with rackets, a ball and a net. Haiku is seventeen syllables. It's what you do within the restrictions of the game that matters.

[ocripes]

There's a difference between Blues and Blooze.

[hasserl]

Why do threads like this always have to include sweeping stereotypes, socioeconomic resentment and insults: "boomer wankers", "white collar businessmen," "45--52 year olds." Yes, I'm defensive because I fit the profile. But I know plenty of poor young guys who can't play well and/or do anything original. And by the way, my favorite music tends toward punk and post-punk.

I agree, lot's of stereotyping going on. and a lot of exhibition of ignorance. I am not a blues guy, maybe a bit of a blues guy wanabe. I say that mostly because I realize I'm just a wanker, hopelessly hooked on "classic rock" as it's called now, or dinosaur rock, or whatever pejorative you prefer. But as I get involved playing the blues at different places the more I learn about playing the blues the more I realize how little I know and how much depth there is to the field. Same old I, VI, V doesn't begin to cover it. Statements like " I IV V's do get repetitive" & "12 bar has been done to death, and then re-done a couple times more" illustrate how ignorant you are of the genre.

It's kind of funny actually, you first say how you're a fan of it, then you lambaste it as being simplistic and repetitive. Only goes to show your own shallowness.

Then there was this comment "but I keep an eye on them from afar and just snicker at the fools that theyre making of themselves". Well, plenty of fools to snicker at around here. Join the effin club.

[dbx]

...just get out the gee-tar and tell the 'ol lady to shut the f*ck up...:RoCkIn

It's hard Bro...but that's the thing about the Blues, even when you're flat tore down and "almost level with the ground..." the lyrics speak to hope for a better day...

"You say you're gonna leave me? Well baby, I'll help you pack..." :cool:

[Buddy Boy]

No black,no white,just the blues.:BEER...I live my life in such a way as to not have any man (or woman), white or black, red or brown, green or yellow...GIVETH ME-TH the bluezth...

...live it, be it, smell it!

...just don't deny it!

[Dave Orban]

http://www.oydesign.com/images/palpatine.jpg

.....

[Mike T]

I wasn't aware that I said anything :).

Not you, just the idea of this whole thread.... :rolleyes:

[rhinocaster]

The objectionable part for me is the sameness of so much of what I hear. It's something that is copied and pasted on the stage. If you're going to play ANY type of music, BRING SOMETHING. I want to hear YOUR ideas and who YOU are. You can play "Sweet Home Chicago", but what are you bringing with you? It's very safe to play something that doesn't expose who you are. If you're just playing by the numbers and somebody says, "You suck," you can just practise more. If you're sharing a part of yourself and somebody says, "You suck", they're rejecting a deep part of you. That's scary stuff, but that's why I play and why I listen.

[8Painting]

I live in Austin TX so there will *always* be blues bands here, both good & bad. Right now we're overrun with poser pop-punk bands. I don't see a problem with "poser" bands, if people didn't enjoy them, they wouldn't be getting gigs. If you don't like it, don't go see them play (or gig with them).

RL Burnside (RIP): http://youtube.com/watch?v=SbLYVnP3sjY


Bringing RL up in a gripe about mid life crisis poseurs shouldnt even happen. You cant tell someone to look him up when hes complaining about something polar opposite.

If I hear any of these mid lifers laying down some Mississippi hill country blues I'll take back what I say, but I doubt I'm going to be wrong any time soon.

What I think the OP was trying to say was he wasnt digging the whole I-IV-V white guys playing cheesy renditions of other dudes tunes.

[stephenT]

I NEVER say I play the blues, I'm a guitar player, music lover and a life long fan of Blues musicians (and country musicians, and R&R, R&B, musicians, etc., on and on...), although I do play my share (and some of you'all's) of Robert Johnson, John Hurt, Frank Stokes, Muddy, Rabbit Brown,.. et all on a weekly basis.

[openbar]

If it weren't for all these middle-aged blooze guys, all these boutique guitar, amp & effect guys would have no customers. Heck, this board might not exist! :lol

[Dave Orban]

If it weren't for all these middle-aged blooze guys, all these boutique guitar, amp & effect guys would have no customers. Heck, this board might not exist! :lol
Too true! LOL!

[KRosser]

I'm not sure they're 'prevailing' in my area. Out here there's so many interesting and exotic varieties of posers they kinda get lost in the shuffle.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have a mid-life crisis to plan....

[pfflam]

this is the reason that they want you to sound like an old black man:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TyzAAwJnIw&mode=related&search=
or
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsMpHHSLSlc&mode=related&search=
or
maybe they wouldn't mind an old black woman
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXirNblcteg

The funny thing is how the original Delta players managed to make it seem like anything except the kind of 12 bar l lV V and etc blues that you hear at you basic BBQ-Harley-leather-vested-bourgeois-weekend-warrior-Franchise joint

just sayin

[Bluzeboy]

What I think the OP was trying to say was he wasnt digging the whole I-IV-V white guys playing cheesy renditions of other dudes tunes.


Oh, You mean like what Butter did or Musslewhite, or SRV or <insert name here>..

I gotta tell ya.. I see a LOT more 20 somethings butchering blues tunes than 50 Somethings.

[bluesmain]

I've never tried to play another man's blues and do it note for note. If I feel drawn to a song and I think we can do it justice, we'll try it live and see what happens with the response. So many times we play a paying gig and its not a blues crowd and they offer token applause and I can tell they were not connected very deep to the music. Then we sometimes get some blues fans in the crowd and it's a better gig for all. No one owns the Blues, as it is a emotional / spiritual type music. As for posers, at least they are sharing our love of the art form. I think SRV said something about people being real opposed to playing without emotional content.

[8Painting]

Oh, You mean like what Butter did or Musslewhite, or SRV or <insert name here>..

I gotta tell ya.. I see a LOT more 20 somethings butchering blues tunes than 50 Somethings.




They werent 50 with 4 kids and a desk job when they decided to play music.

I agree with you about the 20 somethings too, but, 50 year olds seem to be more prevalent in my neck of the woods

[loudboy]

In today's world it is the common middle aged white man who has every reason to play the blues.

The white, middle-aged American male is at the very top of the food chain in every conceivable way - socially, economically, educationally, etc. They run the world.

To even make comparisons to what the original creators of the blues had to go through, just to put a roof over their heads and food on the table is beyond ludicrous...

Loudboy

[KeithC]

Of course this topic comes up regularly on all the music boards.
Believe me I hear some pretty bad blues around here and we have a really small market for live music.
But, I also hear some really good stuff.

At 49 and still in a band I guess I fit the offending demographic.

Our song list is populated with different stuff though.
But we are guilty of playing a couple SRV songs too.

I played in a "classic rock" band up until the day our "blues band" started.
Frankly I was much more embarrassed playing heavy rock covers than I am playing some nice Little Charlie or Bob Cray tunes.

Our drummer in the classic rock outfit was all about heavy classic rock. I cringed every time I had to play Smoke on the Water or Flirtin with Disaster at my age.
Maybe it is just me. Well, me and my other buddy that left to do the "blues" gig.

We don't do most of stuff that most of the yuppie blues bands I hear play.
But, I sure won't knock them if they like doing it. Hopefully they will do it with some feeling. But if not then since this is America I can move on.

[Buddy Boy]

Seems like I remember something about imitation being the most sincere form of flattery.:drool

[Leucadian]

The white, middle-aged American male is at the very top of the food chain in every conceivable way - socially, economically, educationally, etc. They run the world.

To even make comparisons to what the original creators of the blues had to go through, just to put a roof over their heads and food on the table is beyond ludicrous...

Loudboy

...damn those white, middle-aged American males...the most useless group of humans ever...:rolleyes:

[stratovarius]

The white, middle-aged American male is at the very top of the food chain in every conceivable way - socially, economically, educationally, etc. They run the world.



We do? Now I've really got the blues. :(

[Buddy Boy]

The white,UPPER class American male be at the top of the food chain,but the MIDDLE class American male is an endangered species.:eek:The white, middle-aged American male is at the very top of the food chain in every conceivable way - socially, economically, educationally, etc. They run the world.

To even make comparisons to what the original creators of the blues had to go through, just to put a roof over their heads and food on the table is beyond ludicrous...

Loudboy

[frank62]

The white, middle-aged American male is at the very top of the food chain in every conceivable way - socially, economically, educationally, etc. They run the world.

To even make comparisons to what the original creators of the blues had to go through, just to put a roof over their heads and food on the table is beyond ludicrous...

Loudboy
BS. Not in my hood. I knew many of the old time blues guys in Chicago and they lived like rock stars before there were rock stars. This romantic notion of guys living in shacks and picking cotton is a fairy tale designed for guys like you to believe. In today's society a middle aged white man is at the BOTTOM for damm near everything. Everybody else gets first shots at jobs, social benifets, etc.

[stratzrus]

This is 90% of the blues bands around here.

Same old stuff...


But don't 90% of rock bands or rap groups suck too...aren't there also black blues players that suck? Hell...aren't there even classical musicians that suck?

Ragging on musicians who are sincerely trying to play, no matter what genre or race, diminishes us all.

If I were tired of the boomer blues scene I'd just wish them well and hit another club.

stratzrus

[CocoTone]

This is 90% of the blues bands around here.

Same old stuff...

Key to the Highway

Sweet Home Chicago

Reconsider baby

Crossroads

Going Down

Born Under A Bad sign

All the stuff we have all heard for the last 40 years ad nauseum.

They wouldn't dare play a T-Model Ford song, too risky. Just play the Top 40 Adult Contemporary Blues-Like tunes everyone knows based on the late 50s to mid 60s versions. Wear a hat, sunglasses and a pair of farmer Johns and you're as authentic as it gets.

http://www.boneknuckleandskin.com/files/charlie/sat1.jpg


Don't forget the soul patch!!! (sic) Pretty sad scene isn't it.

CT.

[wstsidela]

[duh, duuuh, duh, duh] Eyes got the 401k blooze
[duh, duuuh, duh, duh] Eyes got holes in my shooze
[duh, duuuh, duh, duh] It's tough being white guy
[duh, duuuh, duh, duh] when youse gots dem caucasion blooze
[lawdy, lawdy, mercy, mercy]

[aeolian]

The white, middle-aged American male is at the very top of the food chain in every conceivable way - socially, economically, educationally, etc. They run the world.
Without getting overly political or racially oriented, bullshit. A very few white middle aged American males are at the top of the food chain. The rest of us are paying their dues and are easy targets for such statements. Easy pickins for anyone with a social agenda. Everyone else has advocates and organizations to help them out when they're oppressed by "the man". Except white, middle-aged American males. Dad's rights (anything to do with family law), at will employment, the social stigma of never being cool no matter what you do (you're a posur if you try), caught in the middle between the immoral alphas of your generation and the younger breed with the sense of entitlement to push you out.

Damm right I've got the blues

And if I want to play them, I'll play them.

Bad playing is bad playing, no matter what the genre. Agreed that bad blues is much easier than bad jazz or classical, or even bad rock. Maybe that's why there's so much of it. And the costume is so much easier to pull together than learning how to play. But the same applies to punk. Easy to just play lamely and put on the costume, much harder to do something real with it.

[bluesmain]

Lmao good one! :roll


[duh, duuuh, duh, duh] Eyes got the 401k blooze
[duh, duuuh, duh, duh] Eyes got holes in my shooze
[duh, duuuh, duh, duh] It's tough being white guy
[duh, duuuh, duh, duh] when youse gots dem caucasion blooze
[lawdy, lawdy, mercy, mercy]

[loudboy]

In today's society a middle aged white man is at the BOTTOM for damm near everything. Everybody else gets first shots at jobs, social benifets, etc.

Please post some stats that back that up.

Compare education level, wages, unemployment rate, and health care coverage vs. women and minority males. Just in the US for starters. Forget the fact that the average American is better of than 90% of everyone else in the world.

It's nice to think that we're put upon, but just the fact that we're all arguing about this while at work, on computers, as opposed to staring at the ass of a mule, w/6 more hours of plowing to do and nothing to eat when we get done proves my point...

Loudboy

[deluxemeat]

"you'll love blues hammer... they're authentic blues!"

[loudboy]

"you'll love blues hammer... they're authentic blues!"

That scene is classic...

Loudboy

[pfflam]

Ok . . . maybe a mid-ish white guy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUh9C2oVQBs&mode=related&search=

Gotta watch the whole thing

[MarkL8]

The white, middle-aged American male is at the very top of the food chain in every conceivable way - socially, economically, educationally, etc. They run the world.

To even make comparisons to what the original creators of the blues had to go through, just to put a roof over their heads and food on the table is beyond ludicrous...

Loudboy

Talk about a racist comment, but its cool cause you referring to the evil white man! Personally I started life in the Bronx poor as hell along side Blacks and Puerto ricans some of us of all races chose to work our asses off to get out many chose not to, key words work and chose. So you know squat about "everybody" and might want to trade that brush your painting with for one that doesnt have such a broad stroke to it.

[bjjp2]

Let's tell all those tuxedo-wearing, American classical musicians to stop playing that note for note Beethoven while we're at it. They don't know what it was like to grow up in late 18th Century Germany.

[MightyGuru]

About 5 years ago that was all that was around. Not so these days. Around here original music (mostly folky and 70s type stuff) has made a slight comeback after there not being any original music on a club stage for years.

[loudboy]

Talk about a racist comment, but its cool cause you referring to the evil white man! Personally I started life in the Bronx poor as hell along side Blacks and Puerto ricans some of us of all races chose to work our asses off to get out many chose not to, key words work and chose. So you know squat about "everybody" and might want to trade that brush your painting with for one that doesnt have such a broad stroke to it.

Please state where I said we were evil. And then post some statistics that disprove anything I said.

It was more directed at those who don't have a clue how good they have it, due to drinking certain media elements' Koolaid.

Loudboy

[bluesmain]

Spiritual music done with soul..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZE5bjCNrPuw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXryWEQHbq0&mode=related&search=

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lvbo07brzx0&mode=related&search=

[bjjp2]

Please state where I said we were evil. And then post some statistics that disprove anything I said.

It was more directed at those who don't have a clue how good they have it, due to drinking certain media elements' Koolaid.

Loudboy

But are you arguing that in order to play music in the "blues" genre your life has to be equivalent to that of a slave in the old South? 'Cause it sounds like that's what you're arguing.

[pfflam]

T

http://www.boneknuckleandskin.com/files/charlie/sat1.jpg
I know you just want to insult the man . . . (I don't know who it is) but something tells me that he isn't faking anything and that that is simply the way that he is even if lots of other peepes are like that now. Is the music second hand? I don't know . . . maybe so . . .

most contemporary blues bores me cept some post-Delta stuff: NMA (White/black band), Jon Spencers and The Black Keys . . .

. . None of which are old Black Guys and none of which sound like that Franchise Blues guitar jamming, post Buddy Guy dreck

[Buddy Boy]

Now that's funny and I do care who you are.:rotflmao:rotflmao:rotflmaoLet's tell all those tuxedo-wearing, American classical musicians to stop playing that note for note Beethoven while we're at it. They don't know what it was like to grow up in late 18th Century Germany.

[bluesmain]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4aGAN1Ajb8

[Buddy Boy]

+1 BTW I've been to Brandon. Y'all sho gots some pretty women's down the'ah.:BluesBroshttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4aGAN1Ajb8

[fazendeiro]

'Round here we ain't got no more middle age white guys playing blues. They've been supplanted by late-teenage/early 20s white middle class gangstas driving in from the suburb hood in their pimped SUVs doing karaoke hip hop gigs.

Really.

If you think you're just innovating and not emulating you may be in for a surprise.

[Buddy Boy]

Like my buddy always says,"you did the best you could".:crazyguy'Round here we ain't got no more middle age white guys playing blues. They've been supplanted by late-teenage/early 20s white middle class gangstas driving in from the suburb hood in their pimped SUVs doing karaoke hip hop gigs.

Really.

If you think you're just innovating and not emulating you may be in for a surprise.

[fazendeiro]

Like my buddy always says,"you did the best you could".:crazyguy
I don't play blues, and fortunately for me, there's always a market for my Hoagy Carmichael tribute band.

[bluesmain]

;) Thanks Buddy! Good lord sure knew what he was doing when he made women...:rolleyes:


+1 BTW I've been to Brandon. Y'all sho gots some pretty women's down the'ah.:BluesBros

[TommyMambo]

I think you're on a slippery slop once you start talking "blues poseurs"...heck, for all we know, Robert Johnson could've considered Muddy a "blues poseur" since he wasn't first generation.

At the end of the day, as with any type of music, there are bad, good and great musicians and bands.

[Shiny McShine]

I think that that the idiom's misinterpreted simplicity makes it appear that anyone can do it. Few should try.

[frank62]

Please post some stats that back that up.

Compare education level, wages, unemployment rate, and health care coverage vs. women and minority males. Just in the US for starters. Forget the fact that the average American is better of than 90% of everyone else in the world.

It's nice to think that we're put upon, but just the fact that we're all arguing about this while at work, on computers, as opposed to staring at the ass of a mule, w/6 more hours of plowing to do and nothing to eat when we get done proves my point...

Loudboy
When and where exactly did you do any plowing with a mule and then go to bed hungry? This is a myth concering old time bluesman. Most were con artists, gamblers, and moonshiners. No matter that was a long, long time ago and many white folks did plow with mules. Just so you know, i am disabled, live on 532/mo SSD and 90/mo in food stamps in the projects. I applied for one of the brand new homes built here for the poor and was flat out told that since i am not a "minority" i could not be considered.

[bjjp2]

I think that that the idiom's misinterpreted simplicity makes it appear that anyone can do it. Few should try.

Does anyone else think it's a little ironic that a music created by poor black slaves and farmers has now been interpreted, in 2007, to be . . . elitist!

[hasserl]

I think that that the idiom's misinterpreted simplicity makes it appear that anyone can do it. Few should try.

I agree that some misinterpret simplicity of the genre, and that it is anything but. But I say anyone that has an urge to try it should go for it.

[bjjp2]

Even assuming that to play music in the blues genre one is required to "have the blues" (which I don't accept), I got bad news for some of you guys. Even people who have money, even lots of money, and have no problem putting food on the table and a roof over their head get the blues. They still watch friends and love ones die. They get sick. They get divorced. They struggle with addiction, abuse and clinical depression. It's called "being human" and while having money beats not having it, no amount of money in the world is going to get you off the hook for being human.

[6L6Blues]

I think its pretty much like that in any area you go, bunch of weekend warriors pretty much. I myself love playing the blues, for about....10 minutes or so out of a 4 hour block, its fun, but youre totally correct in saying that it does get incredibly boring. I think a lot of it is, these people were fans, now are able to afford the gear theyve always wanted and picked a genre they can grab ahold of without too many problems to make up for all of the not practicing they did while they were out chasing skirt in college to be white collar business men.

Ive got some relatives in wisconsin that fall into this category, I don't talk to them much, but I keep an eye on them from afar and just snicker at the fools that theyre making of themselves. but I guess ignorance is bliss, right?

Dont get me wrong I'm a huge blues head, but theres so much more than the 20 stereotypical songs that 50 year old white guys are dishing out these days. Blech.

:rolleyes: You just made a fool of yourself if you ask me. I find it funny that you are calling other people ignorant after a post like that. I'm sure you're just cutting edge, man. Go get 'em.

[Dave Orban]

:rolleyes: You just made a fool of yourself if you ask me. I find it funny that you are calling other people ignorant after a post like that.Welcome to the Gear Page. ;)

[stratzrus]

Does anyone else think it's a little ironic that a music created by poor black slaves and farmers has now been interpreted, in 2007, to be . . . elitist!

+1

I have never heard black blues players dumping on the boomers...most that I know have great appreciation for anyone who genuinely wants to play.

stratzrus

[musicofanatic5]

I've been a professional, full-time blues musician for more years than I care to think about (which I guess puts me solidly in the condemmed age bracket; and, yes, I'm white), and have had the pleasure of playing with quite a few of the greats. I can see why people slag on "the blooze", with the majority of the purveyers of this form not even considering doing something creative with the music or considering the value of presentation. I freelance and find myself at local gigs onstage with folks wearing gravy stained t-shirts and white kmart sneakers, calling tunes one after the other with the same feel and progression (the other night: the band I was filling-in with had just finished a interminable fifteen minute slow blues. The gtrist called the next tune and proceded to count out the exact same tempo as the preceding tune. I had to stop him and kindly suggest he do something different). Behavior such as this is not doing the music form any good. I see a lotta folks on this forum slagging the "fat guy in a bowling/hawaiian shirt" syndrome, but dammit, if you're onstage, consider trying to outdress the majority of the audience (wear some f*ckin shoes, f'crissake!). And it doesn't take much rocket surgery to think of varying your program a little in terms of tempo, groove, progression (ever heard of a rhumba beat, a fast blues, an eight-bar progression, fer instance?!). Considerations such as the preceding will go a long way in elevating "blooze music" back to the great art form/tradition that is the blues. Oh, yeah, all you pentatonic wankers: how 'bout take some lessons maybe?! Expand your universe!

[loudboy]

But are you arguing that in order to play music in the "blues" genre your life has to be equivalent to that of a slave in the old South? 'Cause it sounds like that's what you're arguing.

Nope, just refuting an oft-repeated statement that is patently untrue.

Loudboy

[Leucadian]

...I was raised in a loving, middle-class white family by white people in white suburbia...I desperately wanted to be "put upon," but I wasn't...and so I have the blues because I never had the blues...
...I went to college instead of a gambling or plowing career (not that kind of plowing:eek:) and instead of chasing skirt, I practiced the guitar...I still didn't get laid...and so I have the blues...these types of blues are intense!
...I have a D'Pergo and a Two-Rock...yet no eating utensils or toilet paper...and so I have the blues...

...and so I have the blues...

[bluesmain]

ROFLMAO.. now that was funny!:BEER


...I was raised in a loving, middle-class white family by white people in white suburbia...I desperately wanted to be "put upon," but I wasn't...and so I have the blues because I never had the blues...
...I went to college instead of a gambling or plowing career (not that kind of plowing:eek:) and instead of chasing skirt, I practiced the guitar...I still didn't get laid...and so I have the blues...these types of blues are intense!
...I have a D'Pergo and a Two-Rock...yet no eating utensils or toilet paper...and so I have the blues...

...and so I have the blues...

[Dave Orban]

FWIW, we banned Hawaiian shirts years ago.

But we're still middle aged and white. LOL!

http://www.oydesign.com/gypsies/pictures/IMG_2460_sm.jpg

[fazendeiro]

... I practiced the guitar...I still didn't get laid...
NOW you tell me!

[bluesmain]

Amen bro...

I've been a professional, full-time blues musician for more years than I care to think about (which I guess puts me solidly in the condemmed age bracket; and, yes, I'm white), and have had the pleasure of playing with quite a few of the greats. I can see why people slag on "the blooze", with the majority of the purveyers of this form not even considering doing something creative with the music or considering the value of presentation. I freelance and find myself at local gigs onstage with folks wearing gravy stained t-shirts and white kmart sneakers, calling tunes one after the other with the same feel and progression (the other night: the band I was filling-in with had just finished a interminable fifteen minute slow blues. The gtrist called the next tune and proceded to count out the exact same tempo as the preceding tune. I had to stop him and kindly suggest he do something different). Behavior such as this is not doing the music form any good. I see a lotta folks on this forum slagging the "fat guy in a bowling/hawaiian shirt" syndrome, but dammit, if you're onstage, consider trying to outdress the majority of the audience (wear some f*ckin shoes, f'crissake!). And it doesn't take much rocket surgery to think of varying your program a little in terms of tempo, groove, progression (ever heard of a rhumba beat, a fast blues, an eight-bar progression, fer instance?!). Considerations such as the preceding will go a long way in elevating "blooze music" back to the great art form/tradition that is the blues. Oh, yeah, all you pentatonic wankers: how 'bout take some lessons maybe?! Expand your universe!

[Thwap]

http://www.oydesign.com/gypsies/pictures/IMG_2460_sm.jpg

You guys realize you have a beer guzzling ghost following you around?

[kludge]

Finally ! someone with something to say worth hearing - and not blues lick in the mix.

Heh. If you're not yet a Richard Thompson fan yet, you should be. One of the greatest guitarists in the world, and you'll NEVER hear him do a cheesy blues lick.

[Dave Orban]

You guys realize you have a beer guzzling ghost following you around?
It's only the harp player. Early-stage Alzheimer's, we think...

[kludge]

The objectionable part for me is the sameness of so much of what I hear. It's something that is copied and pasted on the stage. If you're going to play ANY type of music, BRING SOMETHING. I want to hear YOUR ideas and who YOU are. You can play "Sweet Home Chicago", but what are you bringing with you? It's very safe to play something that doesn't expose who you are. If you're just playing by the numbers and somebody says, "You suck," you can just practise more. If you're sharing a part of yourself and somebody says, "You suck", they're rejecting a deep part of you. That's scary stuff, but that's why I play and why I listen.

Amen.

And I'll add that the blues-jam environment can be a cold, uncomfortable place for those who DO try to bring their own style, and not just slavishly imitate SRV or Clapton or some guy named King.

Whatever you play, don't play it safe.

[kludge]

The thing that gets me about blues is that it's basically preservationist music now. With a very few exceptions, it is NOT what young kids (especially black kids) come up playing. They're playing with rap and hip-hop and electronica, genres that would be met with sneering condescension by your average blues nostalgia geek.

Relevance and youthful energy matter, and there's darn little of that in the blues scene. It's all off somewhere else. And the attitudes of the middle-aged white men (and yes, I'm a middle-aged white man) who love the blues today look as silly to me as the late 1960s, when parents sneered and shuddered at that loud, crazy hippie music and praised the virtues of "real" music like Benny Goodman and Bing Crosby (speaking of guys who recycled the work of black artists...)

Going only slightly afield to jazz, a piano trio called The Bad Plus stirred up "controversy" in the jazz world, successfully crossing over with witty covers of modern pop material like Nirvana and Aphex Twin, plus their own excellent compositions. But the jazz critics' vanguard, led by Stanley Crouch, closed ranks... "They're too loud", "They're only successful because they're white", etc. But the reason they were successful wasn't because they're taking it easy on the audience! No, it's because they were doing something culturally relevant to an audience that didn't consist of middle-aged white men and stuffy old jazz critics.

The Bad Plus has a sort of sister band, Happy Apple (they share the same drummer). Happy Apple is a sax/bass/drums trio, doing 100% original music with a HARD improvisational bent - out harmonies, free time, etc. They also rock like Gen X, because they ARE Gen X. I went to an album release concert a couple of years ago, and they packed HUNDREDS of twenty- and thirty-something hipsters into the room. Why? Because despite the fact that they are a pure and rarified JAZZ band, they sound like the 21st century.

There's where the middle-aged white guy blues goes wrong. There's more than a whiff of necrophilia to it. It's about clinging to the past, not forging the future.

[jumpnblues]

"And it doesn't take much rocket surgery to think of varying your program a little in terms of tempo, groove, progression (ever heard of a rhumba beat, a fast blues, an eight-bar progression, fer instance?!)."


Yep. Anyone who says they "can't stand to listen to another I, IV, V, blues" has an extremely narrow/shallow understanding of blues. There's soooooooo much more to blues than a I, IV, V, slow blues. OTOH, a lot of guys don't want to understand blues. They're much more content to sit and spout racist slurs about whites playing blues. And it's almost always white guys spoutin' the slurs. Go figure.

[bluesbreaker59]

I hate the stigma, that because you're a young, stocky, white male THAT GENUINELY LIKES Bowling shirts, and Fedoras that you are trying to copy off of someone, or that you can ONLY play "blooze". I wear my influences on my sleeve and everyone that comes and hears my band knows that. Granted we are primarily a blues band, and we play some songs that I never care to repeat, "Sweet Home Chicago", "Mannish Boy" and "Kansas City" all come to mind. But I genuinely love playing Freddy King, BB King, T-Bone Walker and John Lee Hooker songs. I love listening to this music and these men are my blues heroes. It gets people dancing, and then drinking more, then we get booked more.

However, when I get booked to play alt country or roots music, I still wear my black fedora, and a bowling shirt or maybe a retro western shirt. I mean do you want me to wear a Ramones shirt and tight black leather pants when I play blues? (Nick Curran gets away with this, because he is the shit) Maybe throw on a tux for playing country? Then wear some sort of loincloth for playing rock? It really shouldn't matter as long as the music is good.

Everyone has influences. Its really bothersome to me that because you are a certain demographic that you obviously are a "poser". I PREFER most black singers to white singers. And many of my blues heroes are black, but I will listen to anyone that tries their very best to pay homage to the music, without it turning into a "wanking fest", and when it cuts a good groove.

[Buddy Boy]

:roll:roll:roll:roll:roll:roll:roll:BluesBros...I was raised in a loving, middle-class white family by white people in white suburbia...I desperately wanted to be "put upon," but I wasn't...and so I have the blues because I never had the blues...
...I went to college instead of a gambling or plowing career (not that kind of plowing:eek:) and instead of chasing skirt, I practiced the guitar...I still didn't get laid...and so I have the blues...these types of blues are intense!
...I have a D'Pergo and a Two-Rock...yet no eating utensils or toilet paper...and so I have the blues...

...and so I have the blues...

[6L6Blues]

...stuff and a mention of Happy Apple.

I really have no clue what your point was there, but just commenting that Happy Apple is a damn great band!

[Buddy Boy]

+1 "always look better than they do,Jane." ---Jonas NightingaleI've been a professional, full-time blues musician for more years than I care to think about (which I guess puts me solidly in the condemmed age bracket; and, yes, I'm white), and have had the pleasure of playing with quite a few of the greats. I can see why people slag on "the blooze", with the majority of the purveyers of this form not even considering doing something creative with the music or considering the value of presentation. I freelance and find myself at local gigs onstage with folks wearing gravy stained t-shirts and white kmart sneakers, calling tunes one after the other with the same feel and progression (the other night: the band I was filling-in with had just finished a interminable fifteen minute slow blues. The gtrist called the next tune and proceded to count out the exact same tempo as the preceding tune. I had to stop him and kindly suggest he do something different). Behavior such as this is not doing the music form any good. I see a lotta folks on this forum slagging the "fat guy in a bowling/hawaiian shirt" syndrome, but dammit, if you're onstage, consider trying to outdress the majority of the audience (wear some f*ckin shoes, f'crissake!). And it doesn't take much rocket surgery to think of varying your program a little in terms of tempo, groove, progression (ever heard of a rhumba beat, a fast blues, an eight-bar progression, fer instance?!). Considerations such as the preceding will go a long way in elevating "blooze music" back to the great art form/tradition that is the blues. Oh, yeah, all you pentatonic wankers: how 'bout take some lessons maybe?! Expand your universe!

[hudpucker]

I'm not a "blues guy" but I enjoy many blues artists' playing and work and the simplicity of the idiom allows it be a sort of 'common language' that transcends many other variables. Most open jams become 'blues jams' by default because the structure is simple and unchanging.

Blues doesn't bother me at all; however, blues NAZIs (most of whom are quite vociferous and intolerant of anything other than what they like or prefer) can get bent. :moon

[Solomon]

The thing that gets me about blues is that it's basically preservationist music now. With a very few exceptions, it is NOT what young kids (especially black kids) come up playing. They're playing with rap and hip-hop and electronica, genres that would be met with sneering condescension by your average blues nostalgia geek.

Relevance and youthful energy matter, and there's darn little of that in the blues scene. It's all off somewhere else. And the attitudes of the middle-aged white men (and yes, I'm a middle-aged white man) who love the blues today look as silly to me as the late 1960s, when parents sneered and shuddered at that loud, crazy hippie music and praised the virtues of "real" music like Benny Goodman and Bing Crosby (speaking of guys who recycled the work of black artists...)

Going only slightly afield to jazz, a piano trio called The Bad Plus stirred up "controversy" in the jazz world, successfully crossing over with witty covers of modern pop material like Nirvana and Aphex Twin, plus their own excellent compositions. But the jazz critics' vanguard, led by Stanley Crouch, closed ranks... "They're too loud", "They're only successful because they're white", etc. But the reason they were successful wasn't because they're taking it easy on the audience! No, it's because they were doing something culturally relevant to an audience that didn't consist of middle-aged white men and stuffy old jazz critics.

The Bad Plus has a sort of sister band, Happy Apple (they share the same drummer). Happy Apple is a sax/bass/drums trio, doing 100% original music with a HARD improvisational bent - out harmonies, free time, etc. They also rock like Gen X, because they ARE Gen X. I went to an album release concert a couple of years ago, and they packed HUNDREDS of twenty- and thirty-something hipsters into the room. Why? Because despite the fact that they are a pure and rarified JAZZ band, they sound like the 21st century.

There's where the middle-aged white guy blues goes wrong. There's more than a whiff of necrophilia to it. It's about clinging to the past, not forging the future.

I agree with you 100%. What the blooze nazis fail to grasp with all their labels, rules & definitions is they are little more than a more modern version of the barbershop quartet. I hate to break it to some of you, but they no longer plow with mules in the Mississippi Delta. Heck, they even have a little contraption called televsion now. And cars are common. Can you believe that?

There is plenty of contemporary and relevant "blues" being created and played today. The folks hung up on "Stormy Monday" will never hear it however.

[stratovarius]

There's where the middle-aged white guy blues goes wrong. There's more than a whiff of necrophilia to it. It's about clinging to the past, not forging the future.

First of all that's creepy, but true. ;)

Blues fundamentalism has pretty much killed the spirit of the thing.

R.I.P. :(

[6L6Blues]

There is plenty of contemporary and relevant "blues" being created and played today. The folks hung up on "Stormy Monday" will never hear it however.

You're always going to have people playing what THEY like, not what YOU like. You'll have to get over that. There is plenty of music to find live that you enjoy. So, you don't have to sit and listen to what you don't enjoy.

[billm408]

I'm inspired. I got this song in my head now. Can't wait to get home, fire up Plexi RI, plug in my R9 and throw this mutha' down!

Working title "Middle class overweight good job fat wife mortgage payin' white man's blues".

[Roark]

"Blues doesn't bother me at all; however, blues NAZIs (most of whom are quite vociferous and intolerant of anything other than what they like or prefer) can get bent. :moon"

I agree wholeheartedly with this statement, the bottom line to me is, there are good bands and bad bands.

If you're connecting with people, making them dance and smile, then it IS authentic and your doing your job, whether your a MCW guy playing blues or any other genre.

p.s. I don't own any R9, plexi, or any other boutique and I'm poor as shit....but if you can make me believe.......

[Dave Orban]

...there are good bands and bad bands.

If you're connecting with people, making them dance and smile, then it IS authentic and your doing your job...
That IS the bottom line, IMO...

[MuseCafeChris]

The thing that gets me about blues is that it's basically preservationist music now. With a very few exceptions, it is NOT what young kids (especially black kids) come up playing. They're playing with rap and hip-hop and electronica, genres that would be met with sneering condescension by your average blues nostalgia geek.

Relevance and youthful energy matter, and there's darn little of that in the blues scene. It's all off somewhere else. And the attitudes of the middle-aged white men (and yes, I'm a middle-aged white man) who love the blues today look as silly to me as the late 1960s, when parents sneered and shuddered at that loud, crazy hippie music and praised the virtues of "real" music like Benny Goodman and Bing Crosby (speaking of guys who recycled the work of black artists...)

Going only slightly afield to jazz, a piano trio called The Bad Plus stirred up "controversy" in the jazz world, successfully crossing over with witty covers of modern pop material like Nirvana and Aphex Twin, plus their own excellent compositions. But the jazz critics' vanguard, led by Stanley Crouch, closed ranks... "They're too loud", "They're only successful because they're white", etc. But the reason they were successful wasn't because they're taking it easy on the audience! No, it's because they were doing something culturally relevant to an audience that didn't consist of middle-aged white men and stuffy old jazz critics.

The Bad Plus has a sort of sister band, Happy Apple (they share the same drummer). Happy Apple is a sax/bass/drums trio, doing 100% original music with a HARD improvisational bent - out harmonies, free time, etc. They also rock like Gen X, because they ARE Gen X. I went to an album release concert a couple of years ago, and they packed HUNDREDS of twenty- and thirty-something hipsters into the room. Why? Because despite the fact that they are a pure and rarified JAZZ band, they sound like the 21st century.

There's where the middle-aged white guy blues goes wrong. There's more than a whiff of necrophilia to it. It's about clinging to the past, not forging the future.

Excellent post.

I was going to suggest the jam scene to those bored with what's going on these days in blues music (or music in general) but that would bring out a whole littany of other misguided criticisms (pointless noodling, the Dead sucked so therefore the whole scene does, the crowd smells like patchouli, etc.).

Some people just aren't happy with anything, and damn near zero people are adventurous in the slightest. They bitch about how lame blues or pop music is, but they don't make the effort to find something that may actually be stimulating to them. They're happier just to bitch about things.

[SnidelyWhiplash]

I'm inspired. I got this song in my head now. Can't wait to get home, fire up Plexi RI, plug in my R9 and throw this mutha' down!

Working title "Middle class overweight good job fat wife mortgage payin' white man's blues".


Funny and politically incorrect. I love it!

[Scott Miller]

As a member of the Blues Police, I feel compelled to point out that part of the blues tradition is innovation. We love new stuff. We also like any type of guitar, any type of amp, any chord progression you want to play, any song you want to play, any way you want to sing, any licks you might invent or immitate.

However, we have a problem when the blues is played with the wrong feel, for example, if you were to play "Hoochie Coochie Man" as a Mozart sonata. That would sound wrong to us, and if we happened to be on the bandstand with you, we might say "Woah, that doesn't sound like blues!" We might also feel the same if you played blues with a klezmer feel, or an Okinawa pop feel, or a rock feel. Actually, the Okinawa pop feel might work.

But anyway, to pound the point home: Innovation is not a problem for the Blues Police. Far from it; innovation is part of blues.

And really, we aren't trying to police anything. We just like to play blues. It might seem like "policing," but let's imagine a case where you found a bunch of folk playing football, and you joined them with your bat, ball, and mitt, and said "Let's play!" It would be understandable for them to not be very enthusiastic about your participation, wouldn't it?

[JoeB63]

Deep thoughts:

I'm white.

I'm 44 -- and according to this thread I'm still OK to play the blues, but next year, at 45, I'll be one of those guys.

Ken Rosser - If you're 45, you've missed your mid-life crisis. You were supposed to have that at 40 (unless you're damn sure you're going to make it 90 before you croak).

One of my bands is a jump blues band. So yes, we do a lot of 12-bar blues, but they're not the same old stale stuff that everyone plays. Try that.

A few months ago I had to put together a band for a more traditional blues gig. They were paying big bucks for 1 hour of blues at a corporate party. I put together a set list that only had three I/IV/V 12-bar tunes in it. It can be done.

[bjjp2]

As a member of the Blues Police, I feel compelled to point out that part of the blues tradition is innovation. We love new stuff. We also like any type of guitar, any type of amp, any chord progression you want to play, any song you want to play, any way you want to sing, any licks you might invent or immitate.

However, we have a problem when the blues is played with the wrong feel, for example, if you were to play "Hoochie Coochie Man" as a Mozart sonata. That would sound wrong to us, and if we happened to be on the bandstand with you, we might say "Woah, that doesn't sound like blues!" We might also feel the same if you played blues with a klezmer feel, or an Okinawa pop feel, or a rock feel. Actually, the Okinawa pop feel might work.

But anyway, to pound the point home: Innovation is not a problem for the Blues Police. Far from it; innovation is part of blues.

And really, we aren't trying to police anything. We just like to play blues. It might seem like "policing," but let's imagine a case where you found a bunch of folk playing football, and you joined them with your bat, ball, and mitt, and said "Let's play!" It would be understandable for them to not be very enthusiastic about your participation, wouldn't it?

But throw in a 6th or a 2nd here and there otherwise you'll be a "pentatonic wanker."

[KRosser]

Deep thoughts:

I'm white.


Oh man...I'm so sorry...I feel your pain. I used to be white - trust me, in time you will learn to face the courage to make the changes you need.

Just remember - one day at a time. I'm there for you, man.


I'm 44 -- and according to this thread I'm still OK to play the blues, but next year, at 45, I'll be one of those guys.



If you're looking to this thread for validation, you're already one of those guys.


Ken Rosser - If you're 45, you've missed your mid-life crisis. You were supposed to have that at 40 (unless you're damn sure you're going to make it 90 before you croak).


I'm planning on making it to 105. I started playing guitar when I was 5 years old - I want to be able to say I've been playing guitar for 100 years.

Wish me luck, my young white friend.

[Roark]

For the Blues police: for the longest time these folks ignored Jimi, Johnny Winter, SRV and the likes of anyone who with played with more distortion than they felt the blues needed, and some still do and that is why I won't go to a blues jam...hey, it's not your job to judge anyone, that job has already been taken. I'm sure they liked to play the blues too. No offense mind you.

Who is to say, football might be pretty cool if the QB had a baseball bat.:munch

[kludge]

I really have no clue what your point was there, but just commenting that Happy Apple is a damn great band!

Ain't they just? And so is The Bad Plus. I think Dave King is the hippest drummer around today. If you ever get a chance to see either band live, don't miss it! Lucky me, I live in Minneapolis and get to see Happy Apple pretty regularly.

[6L6Blues]

Ain't they just? And so is The Bad Plus. I think Dave King is the hippest drummer around today. If you ever get a chance to see either band live, don't miss it! Lucky me, I live in Minneapolis and get to see Happy Apple pretty regularly.

I'm in Minneapolis too. I have seen Happy Apple a few times. They had a killer show at the Artist's Quarter a few years ago (a lot better than the show at the Cedar a week later). They are an extremely intriguing band.

[kludge]

Excellent post.

I was going to suggest the jam scene to those bored with what's going on these days in blues music (or music in general) but that would bring out a whole littany of other misguided criticisms (pointless noodling, the Dead sucked so therefore the whole scene does, the crowd smells like patchouli, etc.).


I love the jam scene. I play a lot on the really folky, amateur side at "hootenanies". Feels like I'm helping preserve a living strain of pure American folk music. The difference between that and the blues scene is that jam music feels like a living tradition, not something carefully pickled in formaldehyde by well-meaning but misguided preservationists.

And part of it, too, is that the people playing and listening to hippie jam music are actually HIPPIES, or at least on the fringes of hippie culture. But the audience for preservationist blues (and jazz too) has virtually nothing in common culturally with the original creators of the music. Most of them wouldn't know what a cotton sack looks like, much less ever faced a lynching threat for looking a white woman in the eye.

For a more insightful take than mine on all this, read White Bicycles, by Joe Boyd. He was EVERYWHERE in the music scene in the 1960s - among other things, he organized the first tour of black American blues musicians in England, back in 1964. And he has some really choice things to say about music preservationists.

(And the Dead didn't suck in general. Sometimes they sucked, but that's because they were really daring and took risks all the time onstage.)

[davess23]

Well, I don't want to be overly argumentative, but hell...just what do 25 year old "hippies" really know about a cultural phenomenon that for all practical intents and purposes ended before they were born? They can recreate the music, which is just fine, or better yet, add to that musical tradition and help it grow and evolve: that's what being a performing musician is all about, I think. But hippies c.2007 (unless they were into it back in the day) are no more "real" than modern day blues players who don't happen to be from the black culture that gave rise to the blues. No less real, either.

In an earlier post I defended the right of us geezers (or anyone else) to play blues, however badly, and I sure have no problem with people wanting to be modern day hippies, but if any of them believe that it's still 1968 here on Planet Earth, they'd best think again.

[sundaypunch]

The thing that always gets me with threads like this is the assumption that everyone thinks they are an amazing player. Many of the hacks you are talking about just want to play the damn guitar somewhere. If their band is good enough people might pay to see them. If not then they may end up at the local open mic. every Wednesday night.

If you like playing blues cliche's who gives a rip what others think? You don't quit playing golf if you are a hack or quit the bowling league if you suck. You also don't hear all the "good" golfers & bowlers going on and on about the hacks that are trying to participate in their hobby.

Maybe I'm missing something. I just don't get the issue with amateurs that are trying to do something they enjoy.

[8Painting]

\]

(And the Dead didn't suck in general. Sometimes they sucked, but that's because they were really daring and took risks all the time onstage.)

Wait, was he seriously knocking the dead?


Wow.

[6L6Blues]

... not something carefully pickled in formaldehyde by well-meaning but misguided preservationists.

And part of it, too, is that the people playing and listening to hippie jam music are actually HIPPIES, or at least on the fringes of hippie culture. But the audience for preservationist blues (and jazz too) has virtually nothing in common culturally with the original creators of the music. Most of them wouldn't know what a cotton sack looks like, much less ever faced a lynching threat for looking a white woman in the eye.



What a ridiculous argument. Life experience of blues musicians and jazz musicians of old has nothing to do with people enjoying to play the music today. I can't believe you have the audacity to basically say your folk music jam scene is on the "right track" versus these supposed "well meaning but misguided preservationists." What a closed-minded ingnorant statement.

[bjjp2]

The thing that always gets me with threads like this is the assumption that everyone thinks they are an amazing player. Many of the hacks you are talking about just want to play the damn guitar somewhere. If their band is good enough people might pay to see them. If not then they may end up at the local open mic. every Wednesday night.

If you like playing blues cliche's who gives a rip what others think? You don't quit playing golf if you are a hack or quit the bowling league if you suck. You also don't hear all the "good" golfers & bowlers going on and on about the hacks that are trying to participate in their hobby.

Maybe I'm missing something. I just don't get the issue with amateurs that are trying to do something they enjoy.

+1000

[6L6Blues]

The thing that always gets me with threads like this is the assumption that everyone thinks they are an amazing player. Many of the hacks you are talking about just want to play the damn guitar somewhere. If their band is good enough people might pay to see them. If not then they may end up at the local open mic. every Wednesday night.

If you like playing blues cliche's who gives a rip what others think? You don't quit playing golf if you are a hack or quit the bowling league if you suck. You also don't hear all the "good" golfers & bowlers going on and on about the hacks that are trying to participate in their hobby.

Maybe I'm missing something. I just don't get the issue with amateurs that are trying to do something they enjoy.

:AOK Well said!

[Bluzeboy]

But the audience for preservationist blues (and jazz too) has virtually nothing in common culturally with the original creators of the music. Most of them wouldn't know what a cotton sack looks like, much less ever faced a lynching threat for looking a white woman in the eye.


Huh?? What does that have to do with ANYTHING.. ? So, according to your logic, I have nothing in common and by extension no right to play or listen to the blues?? Very funny.

Most self proclaimed "hippies" these daze have NO clue about what that culture was either. No matter how many books you've read on the subject.

[kludge]

Well, I don't want to be overly argumentative, but hell...just what do 25 year old "hippies" really know about a cultural phenomenon that for all practical intents and purposes ended before they were born? They can recreate the music, which is just fine, or better yet, add to that musical tradition and help it grow and evolve: that's what being a performing musician is all about, I think. But hippies c.2007 (unless they were into it back in the day) are no more "real" than modern day blues players who don't happen to be from the black culture that gave rise to the blues. No less real, either.

In an earlier post I defended the right of us geezers (or anyone else) to play blues, however badly, and I sure have no problem with people wanting to be modern day hippies, but if any of them believe that it's still 1968 here on Planet Earth, they'd best think again.

I don't think hippie culture is dead at all. It's alive and well and lots of people, both old and young, are living it. I go to jams, and I see twenty-year-old kids and sixty-year-old boomers who share pretty much the same cultural touchstones, attitudes, language, etc. There's not a whole lot of generation gap. And they don't think they're frozen in 1968, either... it's a living, breathing culture. You don't see it because it's a fairly closed subculture (counterculture), and it's not "there" in your life. That continuity from the elder generation to the youth... that's what makes it a living thing.

That sort of continuity isn't there in blues. You don't see young black kids playing the blues, or going to blues concerts by the thousands, or forming hot young blues bands. But there are plenty of young kids preserving AND adding to the traditions handed down from Woodie Guthrie to Bob Dylan to the Grateful Dead to Phish to literally thousands of jam bands.

This isn't to say that blues is COMPLETELY dead, but it's certainly not as lively as jam band music is today.

[zombywoof]

I have been lucky. I lived in Mississippi when ya could still go up to Junior's Place and hear R.L. Burnside and Jessie Mae.

It is hard not to notice that the vast majority of songs played at a blues jam are those covered by white rock bands.

I am 57 and have been playing my version of pre-War blues for over 40 years ever since I heard a friend of my father's 78 rpm of Lonnie Johnson and Victoria Spivey doing "Toothache Blues." Lonnie just blew me away (still does).

Not sure if I am a poser or not. Although I prefer an acoustic with a DeArmond pickup slapped across the soundhole, I have been known to play Son House, Charlie Patton, Tampa Red, Tommy Johnson, Curley Weaver and others on a Tele. Try launching into an electric version of "My Black Mama Pt I" at a jam and see the response you get.

When plugged in, however, I am more comfortable playing a streamlined Chuck Berry-esque style - basically bluesy sounding rock.

[greggorypeccary]

Man, I'm really confused now. I played in a Dead cover band in the early 90's, and I've always dug the blues and love hitting the open jams. But I just joined a funky party band to get my groove on and have some fun playing out again.

Does that make me a poser cubed?

Since I grew up in the 'burbs in the 70's - 80's is "my music" corporate rock and hair metal and is that what I should be playing? Sorry I didn't feel it then and I'm not about to start now.

Eh, forget it, I'm just going to play what I want! :dude

[imonabuss]

I guess everyone is a poseur except the author of this thread and his hangers on. This has to be the worst of music, jerks who sit back and critique because whatever esoteric sh** they are playing is the only cool stuff. Real musicians play whatever the f*** the feel like. I have friends who are at the top of the music scene in their chops and do original stuff. Every one of them loves getting together and playing blues covers or whatever. Music is about joy and love, not criticism.

[michael.e]

I have been thinking of this for a while but it really came to light to me when I sang with a friends band last Sunday. A friend is in a project doing blues stuff, all the members of the band are between 45 and 52 years old. They complimented me on my singing but said I did not sing enough "like a black man". Being that I am pretty much lilly white, lol, it got me to thinking. What is the deal with this pre-occupation of all the boomer bands playing blues and "posing" as black blues players?
It seems to me that 80% of the bands in the DFW area are in this mold, I guess because SRV was from here and is worshipped. You go into a bar in DFW and it is pretty likely you are going to be hearing Freddie King, BB King, Muddy waters and and assortment of old blues with some SRV thrown in.
I am a fan of this type of music but listening to two or three hours of it gets old, I IV V's do get repetitive. Most friends I have who are NOT guitar players and musicians say they are getting mighty bored by bands only playing this kind of music. I guess my reference to posing has to do with the fact that none of these folks are black nor do they truly sound like black blues players. Is this just a Herd mentality or a Fad?
Another odd thing is that if you look at the setlists of most bands around here there is hardly anything by bands from across the pond, England, Ireland or anything UK. I find it ironic because it was mainly the bands across the pond that started doing a new version of the blues and brought this to the white audience. It is also a fact that almost half the great music put out over the last 40 years is from across the pond. I am referring to bands such as the Bluesbreakers, Zeppelin, Clapton stuff and such. Do bands in your area play stuff from across the pond?
Not trying to create controversy just wanting a sampling of opinions from around the country?
Tim

Ha ha~! This is funnier than you can imagine!

Emee

[jumpnblues]

Regarding the comments about making music "original". Sorry to disappoint but there is no such animal. It's a myth. It's ALL been done before...blues, jazz, country, rock, pop, rap, alternative, punk, heavy rock, metal, death metal, after death metal, on life support metal, grunge, "progressive" this or that, fusion, even classical, etc., etc., etc. The best anyone can hope to do is add their spin on it. So anyone beating their chest about doing something "original"...ain't no such thing. ALL of us are just putting a different spin on something that's already been done and done and done and done and done ad infinitum. It's only the different spin that leaves a little bit of you with the song. And I still feel one of the most difficult and challenging things to do in music is add a different spin yet stay within the framework of a style of music such as straight blues or jazz. But people do it all the time. Rock music by its very nature is much easier to add a different spin to although it is getting harder even in that genre.
You don't have to be black to do it. You don't have to be white to do it. You don't have to be 25, 35, 45, 55, 65 years of age etc. to do it. You just have to be creative enough to do it. That's it. Period.

[woof*]

The thing that always gets me with threads like this is the assumption that everyone thinks they are an amazing player. Many of the hacks you are talking about just want to play the damn guitar somewhere. If their band is good enough people might pay to see them. If not then they may end up at the local open mic. every Wednesday night.

If you like playing blues cliche's who gives a rip what others think? You don't quit playing golf if you are a hack or quit the bowling league if you suck. You also don't hear all the "good" golfers & bowlers going on and on about the hacks that are trying to participate in their hobby.

Maybe I'm missing something. I just don't get the issue with amateurs that are trying to do something they enjoy.
+1000!
plus...these threads always remind me of the relic hater threads.

[stratovarius]

... I sure have no problem with people wanting to be modern day hippies, but if any of them believe that it's still 1968 here on Planet Earth, they'd best think again.

But, but ...

Stupid forum rules! :FM

[kludge]

What a ridiculous argument. Life experience of blues musicians and jazz musicians of old has nothing to do with people enjoying to play the music today. I can't believe you have the audacity to basically say your folk music jam scene is on the "right track" versus these supposed "well meaning but misguided preservationists." What a closed-minded ingnorant statement.

In a way, you're right. I think what I object to is purist attitudes - the "Blooz Nazis" who don't want any modern or outside influences to contaminate their music. Jazz Nazis and Punk Nazis and Country Nazis and Folk Nazis and Classical Nazis are all just as bad. I want traditional musics to be played with respect and care for certain, but NOT exclusiveness! (Richard Thompson is my hero in that regard)

There are preservationists among the hippies too, but they don't dominate the music. There are bands that specialize in note-for-note recreations of Grateful Dead concerts - a practice that I consider somewhere between surreal and sacreligious. But overall, hippie music is played with a much more open ear than other traditions, except for maybe metal.

And speaking of posers... one of the bands I'm in is a bunch of white Minnesotans playing middle eastern music. Heck, we even play what real middle eastern musicians call "piano maqam", a derogatory name for equal-tempered scales lacking the quarter tones of the real thing. But I prefer to think of us as part of a living tradition, preserving the rhythms and organization but moving it into our own culture. But to any serious middle eastern musician, we're total posers. :D

And lord knows that whatever music I play (folk, rock, jazz, middle eastern, etc), I'm dragging ALL SORTS of other influences into it - even the blues! But I'm no traditionalist.

[kludge]

I guess everyone is a poseur except the author of this thread and his hangers on. This has to be the worst of music, jerks who sit back and critique because whatever esoteric sh** they are playing is the only cool stuff. Real musicians play whatever the f*** the feel like. I have friends who are at the top of the music scene in their chops and do original stuff. Every one of them loves getting together and playing blues covers or whatever. Music is about joy and love, not criticism.

d00d, I said I'm a "poser", not a "poseur". That's SO pretentious. :roll

But yeah, you're absolutely right. And I LOVE playing the blues sometimes. And I love mixing the blues up with other stuff, too.

[bluesmain]

Ok.. I'll fess up.. I'm a posing hack... or would that be a hacking poser? Oh.. and a lil hippy wanna be in there some where. ;)

:munch

[billm408]

I want traditional musics to be played with respect and care for certain, but NOT exclusiveness! (Richard Thompson is my hero in that regard)

Great innovation has come from taking influence from musical styles and breaking beyond the framework of what would be considered traditional music. I'd hate to live in a world where everyone played music that stayed true to it's origins.

[zombywoof]

Great innovation has come from taking influence from musical styles and breaking beyond the framework of what would be considered traditional music. I'd hate to live in a world where everyone played music that stayed true to it's origins.

I always remember what David Bromberg once said when asked what style of blues he played - something to the effect of the Jewish kid from New York style.

Speaking of innovation, many of the pre-War blues players also played other styles of popular music - ballads, gospel, instrel tunes - whatever it took to get folks to gather on your corner. Others were showmen. Tommy Johnson reportedly played guitar bewteen his legs and behind his back. They may have been the greatest generation of blues players but they also knew music was a business and to survive you had to give the people what they wanted.

[Eskimo_Joe]

^No more. I do not know any young to middle aged black folks who are even remotely intrested in the blues. In today's world it is the common middle aged white man who has every reason to play the blues.

Kirk Fletcher

[Martian]

Well, I'm 52 and I've been playing primarily Blues music since 1967. Yes, the British Invasion variety too. I do play rock as well because as was alluded to, straight Blues can get quite repetitive.

Notwithstanding, I wholeheartedly agree with your observations. It seems that the wanna-be rock stars of yesterday finally realized they are never going to be rock stars and all of a sudden, they fall into the Blues. I presume its because not only can't they do the rock star thing any longer but now, they can't look like it any more either and just refuse to fade away.

The word, "pathetic" comes to mind.

So, they jump into Blues because there are many superior guitar players within the genre. In other words, they still haven't given up, rather, they've found (or think they've found) a new medium to show off and hope to excel in where there isn't as much visual as there is audio. And yes, I further agree that they sound like and are for the most part, posers and hacks. I guess they still fantasize about having some creative 'edge' which will resurrect their career which never was.

[jumpnblues]

"[Quote:
Originally Posted by frank62 http://www.thegearpage.net/board/images/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://www.thegearpage.net/board/showthread.php?p=3098463#post3098463)
^No more. I do not know any young to middle aged black folks who are even remotely intrested in the blues. In today's world it is the common middle aged white man who has every reason to play the blues.

Kirk Fletcher]"



Kenny Neal, Chris Thomas King, Keb Mo', Alvin Youngblood Hart, Larry Garner, Larry McCray, Lucky Peterson, Michael Burks, Bernard Allison, and many more.

Tom

[pfflam]

I guess everyone is a poseur except the author of this thread and his hangers on. This has to be the worst of music, jerks who sit back and critique because whatever esoteric sh** they are playing is the only cool stuff. Real musicians play whatever the f*** the feel like. I have friends who are at the top of the music scene in their chops and do original stuff. Every one of them loves getting together and playing blues covers or whatever. Music is about joy and love, not criticism.
Good point . . and most jam players are far better at jam-playing than I am . . . but I still feel the need to delineate the contours of a certain kind of phenomena

BTW: I think its funny that someone made a positive link between the kind of blooz playing being eluded to in this thread and RELICS . . . that equation speaks volumes

[CocoTone]

"[Quote:
Originally Posted by frank62 http://www.thegearpage.net/board/images/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://www.thegearpage.net/board/showthread.php?p=3098463#post3098463)
^No more. I do not know any young to middle aged black folks who are even remotely intrested in the blues. In today's world it is the common middle aged white man who has every reason to play the blues.

Kirk Fletcher]"



Kenny Neal, Chris Thomas King, Keb Mo', Alvin Youngblood Hart, Larry Garner, Larry McCray, Lucky Peterson, Michael Burks, Bernard Allison, and many more.

Tom

And me!!

CT.

[bjjp2]

Well, I'm 52 and I've been playing primarily Blues music since 1967. Yes, the British Invasion variety too. I do play rock as well because as was alluded to, straight Blues can get quite repetitive.

Notwithstanding, I wholeheartedly agree with your observations. It seems that the wanna-be rock stars of yesterday finally realized they are never going to be rock stars and all of a sudden, they fall into the Blues. I presume its because not only can't they do the rock star thing any longer but now, they can't look like it any more either and just refuse to fade away.

The word, "pathetic" comes to mind.

So, they jump into Blues because there are many superior guitar players within the genre. In other words, they still haven't given up, rather, they've found (or think they've found) a new medium to show off and hope to excel in where there isn't as much visual as there is audio. And yes, I further agree that they sound like and are for the most part, posers and hacks. I guess they still fantasize about having some creative 'edge' which will resurrect their career which never was.

Angry?

[DrSax]

This is 90% of the blues bands around here.

Same old stuff...

Key to the Highway

Sweet Home Chicago

Reconsider baby

Crossroads

Going Down

Born Under A Bad sign

All the stuff we have all heard for the last 40 years ad nauseum.

They wouldn't dare play a T-Model Ford song, too risky. Just play the Top 40 Adult Contemporary Blues-Like tunes everyone knows based on the late 50s to mid 60s versions. Wear a hat, sunglasses and a pair of farmer Johns and you're as authentic as it gets.

http://www.boneknuckleandskin.com/files/charlie/sat1.jpg

I know we're talkin' about music, so this may be a silly question...but....

how does it sound?

[ChrisP]

I know we're talkin' about music, so this may be a silly question...but....

how does it sound?

well purple! duh?

[DrSax]

Heh. If you're not yet a Richard Thompson fan yet, you should be. One of the greatest guitarists in the world, and you'll NEVER hear him do a cheesy blues lick.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hep7FNNWyqo

i heard one in there. :eek: Poser!!!!!

[serhart]

Every genre has its classics. I got tired of "Amazing Grace" when I went to church. Maybe that's why I quit doing to church. I don't know. But if you don't like it, then get away from it. Find some new people to hang out with. Find something else to do. Go for a walk or something. Go find a hip hop club. They're everywhere now, they must have one in the DFW area. Not sure about Austin, though. :messedup

[Seegs]

any music done badly gets boring real quick...lets not dis the entire genré because of a few...

lots claim to play Blues few do...and fewer stil do it well enough to make it interesting for an entire evening let alone a whole song...it has nothing to do with one's heritage or race...

Chow,
Seegs

[Neill]

nothing pathetic about morgan davis or dutchie mason (rip) or garett mason or roger howse etc... and these guys are all local players (i live in halifax n.s). not to mention the amazing players ive played with/seen at grossmans in toronto. i definitely dont consider myself a blues player or even fan (though for a time i was an enthusiast), but still i dont necessarily notice an influx of 'posers' in my area(s). and guys like blood, and ay etc. keep the genre interesting (amidst an endless sea of others).

[Strung Up]

S.F. Bay Area: there's a quintillion guitarists and a dozen or fewer blues rooms. The blues bands that get the gigs may be in the age and race demographic mentioned, but they're serious as the proverbial heart attack, and have been living, breathing, and sleeping the stuff to where, for nearly all who I know or have seen, they got deep roots and their own thing going.

[musicofanatic5]

The difference between that and the blues scene is that jam music feels like a living tradition, not something carefully pickled in formaldehyde by well-meaning but misguided preservationists.

But the audience for preservationist blues (and jazz too) has virtually nothing in common culturally with the original creators of the music. Most of them wouldn't know what a cotton sack looks like, much less ever faced a lynching threat for looking a white woman in the eye.


Why are you so f*cking mad about this?!? The level of anger and hatred in this post and others preceding leads me only to believe that your town was raped and piliaged by a marauding white, preservationist blues band, resulting in some personal life-long vendetta. I can't see how anything less would stimulate one to spit such poisonous bile?!? Sheesh! I mean, I hate all that commercial rap, Britney Spears, Janet Jackson crap, but not to the extent that I defame the characture of those who defend it's virtue, over and over, on-line. Have you ever "faced a lynching threat for looking a white woman in the eye"? And what does that have to do with any sort of "blues credibility" anyway? Please be assured: none of us Blues Police hate you, or wish you any harm. We're just tryin' to keep the guy with the bat off the football field, so now maybe you can relax a little bit...?

[jimfog]

....and so it goes.

A few years back, when my wife and I were making a serious go of it as an acoustic folk duo, we were suddenly over-run by marauding bands of ex-rockers who had........accckkkk...."unplugged". It was a horror show out there....any acoustic venue was awash with the suddenly sensitive, whiny, neo-Fogelbergs who bared their pathetic, uninteresting souls, diluted the gene pool, made audiences hate the music and generally just spent their time clogging up the stages.

It sucked......the venues mostly closed......and the hardcore folks kept with it.

I see the same with the blues scene.........it's bad out there right now, but it will pass......and maybe a few more folks will learn to appreciate the real deal, and the dilettantes will join the friggin' polka craze, or whatever.

The only awful part is all the weasels who will take gigs for beer money, just so they can get their jollies in front of an audience. Sometimes I want to tell them "Entertaining is serious, important, dangerous business, Sparky............best leave it to a professional, ok?"

Right now, I'm in a real fine jump blues band that's been around for @12 years. We play very few hard core "blues" venues.......but by being creative and entertaining, we work our asses off.

A pox on all the musical Civil War Reenactors! (thanks, jeff)

- Jim

[getbent]

To the OP: What would be okay in your estimation for middle aged white guys to play? or should they just stay home and watch tv?

This whole thread is just a version of how many guitar players does it take to put in a light bulb (or play gigs in blues bars)? like 5 million. 1 to play the gig, put in the bulb, and the rest to talk about how goofy he looked, or poorly dressed or lame song choices or whatever.... very girly and certainly not rock'n'roll.

I am not a blues player and I don't dig phonies... but jeezus... it is just music and just guys having fun... cut them some slack... a lot of these guys have jobs wrecking the planet.. they need a little redemption at the end of the day by exploiting (ha, they call it honoring) people who they would have turned fire hoses on 50 years ago.

My point. I sneer at fake blues players and those who make fun of them... but I love everybody. and anybody who hates Janet Jackson.... well, I hear stall #3 at the Minneapolis airport is available.

Without fake white guys giving him street cred... tom waits would be the king of poseurs.

[re-animator]

I'm not a weekend warrior. I'm not in my 40s. I didn't pick up guitar because of SRV or even Clapton or Freddy King.

I'm 18 years old... my first real gig was at 15 in a punk band, but blues was my first love and it will always be that way.


The first time I saw live music was when I was 4 or 5 years old, living in the deep south (jacksonville), where blues is as much a part of the psyche as hospitality and lemonade on a hot day. I saw a "black blues player" with what I now know as an es-335 an some small amplifier, unaccompanied on stage. That day changed absolutely everything for me. I KNEW that I would become a guitar player from that moment on.


Now I'm 18... now more than ever I AM that blues guitarist. I know that with blues, unique to all other music, its NOT the notes you play, but entirely how you play them. Some people will never understand that listening to stormy monday for the 100th time.


but what I can't stand is how trite and uninventive blues music has become in recent times. There are only a few types of blues guitarists left it seems:

the stevie ray vaughnabbie, the john lee hook-alike, and the clapton copy cat.



I've never ever been one to criticize people for what kind of music they play... and I never will be. But to me it seems like the hobbyists are hurting their own style of music... they've got blues in a chokehold right now, and everybody that comes off trying to do something different gets lost in the heaps of R9 players.



I still consider myself a blues guitarist, and I always will be, no matter what. I play many different styles of music, but that's just what comes out of my fingers. Blues flows through my veins.

None of my recordings are blues.

To me, blues IS about the live experience, moreso even than jazz. Blues IS about the atmosphere, blues is about the goddamn soul!

I am in a blues band right now... a power trio. I'd lie if I was saying I wasn't influenced by Hendrix, Page, BB King, or any of the other greats, but when I'm up there playing the blues I'm telling MY story, not theirs. This is in addition to all the solo stuff I play which is without a trace of any blues at all.

I'm not playing blues clubs for other musicians. I'm not playing with weekend warriors. I'm playing with guys who are trying to make a name for themselves - just like me. I'm playing for people just like me: young people who love music - the sounds and the experience. Will I "make it" as a blues legend? the odds say almost certainly not. But if I can make one person "get it" about blues, then I will be more than happy. If I can pass the torch of blues guitar down to just one person, then I can't really ask for more.

[stevieboy]

To the OP: What would be okay in your estimation for middle aged white guys to play?




Key to the Pool House

Sweet Home Encino

Refinance Baby

Born Under the Hollywood Sign

Boom Boom Out Goes My Back

Gucci Pucci Man

She's Nineteen Years Old (Hey some things are the same for everybody!)

Sorry I don't have a more serious answer, but the thread subject doesn't really warrant one.

[Jimmy James]

I've made some good dough playing blues but I'd rather see Scott Henderson or Steve Vai than some tired shuffle king wearing flip-flops and shorts proclaim he's keeping the blues alive. If he feels the need to announce that it's probably already dead.

[getbent]

Key to the Pool House

Sweet Home Encino

Refinance Baby

Born Under the Hollywood Sign

Boom Boom Out Goes My Back

Gucci Pucci Man

She's Nineteen Years Old (Hey some things are the same for everybody!)

Sorry I don't have a more serious answer, but the thread subject doesn't really warrant one.

Stevieboy you forgot that virility classic....

"Little blue pill got me seein' pink"
"3 am and I'm peein' again"
"My prostate's bigger than my wallet"
"Bald and I won't be ballin' again"
"I'm almost as low as my neck"
"I'm so old my wife has hair on her back (and it ain't no ponytail)"
"6 hour wood ain't no damn good"
"Bidness is good in Thailand"
"Soul Patch (get that maalox out!)"
"Leveraged Buyout (Fat Hooker's Blues)"
"Hot Mama in Manila (that girl might be a boy but I ain't gay if I she don't say)"
"Little League Mama (get the mud offa my cleats)"
"Soccer Mom (Mark up and get on down)"

[musicofanatic5]

How should this be taken:

"but I love everybody. and anybody who hates Janet Jackson.... well, I hear stall #3 at the Minneapolis airport is available." ?

That anyone who hates Janet Jackson('s music. Don't personally know her well enough to impune her character) is involved with predatory gay sex? But you "love everybody"? Wow! I'm always ready for these "you guys who like real blues suck" threads to take a bad turn, but this is a new low. Very low.

[getbent]

Hey, I didn't characterize Larry's actions as predatory! He was humming the Stone's "Waiting on a friend" when he waved at that cop...

is this thread a 'guys who like real blues?' I thought it was more of a 'I hate middle aged white guys with more money than talent taking all the blues gigs away from true suffering artists and then they play lame-o covers of songs that are played too much" thread.

"I guess it is about the duality of man sir" "Duality of man?" "Yes, Sir, the Jungian thing"

I was referencing the relative physical attractiveness of Janet Jackson... nothing else. And if you are gonna use complicated words... spell them correctly it is 'impugn'.

Blues is supposed to be fun and joyful and celebratory... as you ask in your earlier post "why... so mad"... exactly... Nobody is impugning you or your sexuality...

this thread is a online forum free for all with no point... it is just a bunch of words, some funny, some meant in jest and some people will think some of it is about them... didn't mean to hurt feelings... I was totally making a joke about JJ's being hot and anyone who didn't find her hot... well instead of impugning their taste in women... maybe their taste is really good good just not for women... I have no idea of your gender or anything... again... not about you specifically....

to quote you: "sheesh"

[Seegs]

Key to the Pool House

Sweet Home Encino

Refinance Baby

Born Under the Hollywood Sign

Boom Boom Out Goes My Back

Gucci Pucci Man

She's Nineteen Years Old (Hey some things are the same for everybody!)

Sorry I don't have a more serious answer, but the thread subject doesn't really warrant one.

:rotflmaono appologies necessary!

Chow,
Seegs

[Drowned Rabbit]

I understand a lot of you guys are frustrated with the state of live music in your areas. But what do you expect? Most people don't want to be challenged when they're out on a Saturday night, they just want to have a good time. Usually, that means comfortable blues standards.

People tend to think of music as a soundtrack or background to their fun, not as the focus of their evening. When YOU are feeling down, or happy, or pissed off, or whatever and you're knocking back shots at the bar, what songs do you play on the jukebox? I'll bet you spend that dollar on a few old favorites, and not something unfamiliar. Same goes with a live band. Those guys are giving people in the bars what they want to hear.

If you really want to play something other than by-the-numbers blues/rock, and you want people to sit up and take notice, your best bet is to work out some cool originals in the style that you love and find a different bars to play in.

I don't know what neighborhood you are specifically talking about, but I'm from Dallas and if your in the WestEnd or someplace similar, you're probably out of luck hoping things will change. it's been like that there for 30 years or more.

[S.W.Erdnase]

Meh. What a bunch of haters. Shouldn't you ladies be practicing your finger tapping or rock ballads, ya whiners?

[GDking]

Meh. What a bunch of haters. Shouldn't you ladies be practicing your finger tapping or rock ballads, ya whiners?

I really love the Jazz guys that I talk to dissing the blues guys. The Jazz guys play a slightly more complicated but not much more hours long solo. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but I mean I dunno. All the complaints they bring up could be applied to them too. At least the blues guys break up the wank fest with a little singing.

I like pretty much all kinds of music. At least guys like me who like progressive rock and traditional rock tunes can be talked down by both purist camps. I am glad to give something they can bond over LOL :)

[kludge]

Why are you so f*cking mad about this?!? The level of anger and hatred in this post and others preceding leads me only to believe that your town was raped and piliaged by a marauding white, preservationist blues band, resulting in some personal life-long vendetta. I can't see how anything less would stimulate one to spit such poisonous bile?!? Sheesh! I mean, I hate all that commercial rap, Britney Spears, Janet Jackson crap, but not to the extent that I defame the characture of those who defend it's virtue, over and over, on-line. Have you ever "faced a lynching threat for looking a white woman in the eye"? And what does that have to do with any sort of "blues credibility" anyway? Please be assured: none of us Blues Police hate you, or wish you any harm. We're just tryin' to keep the guy with the bat off the football field, so now maybe you can relax a little bit...?

If you think THAT is poisonous bile, you have pretty low standards. Dang blues police have awfully thin skins.

I was just stating the actual, real difference between a living tradition and a preservationist tradition. But if it makes you feel better, I'll take back the part where I said the blues police were "well meaning".

[Dave Orban]

It's like a little Gear Page "Poser B*tch Fight"


LOL!

[bluesmain]

LMAO.. nearly spit out my coffee on that one Dave..;)

It's like a little Gear Page "Poser B*tch Fight"


LOL!

[Thwap]

It's like a little Gear Page "Poser B*tch Fight"


LOL!

Yeah, I hate to admit it, but this thread is entertaining as hell.

So many ruffled feathers.

How does that shakespeare quote go...the lady doth protest too much, methinks.

[kludge]

I'm not a weekend warrior. I'm not in my 40s. I didn't pick up guitar because of SRV or even Clapton or Freddy King.

I'm 18 years old... my first real gig was at 15 in a punk band, but blues was my first love and it will always be that way.


The first time I saw live music was when I was 4 or 5 years old, living in the deep south (jacksonville), where blues is as much a part of the psyche as hospitality and lemonade on a hot day. I saw a "black blues player" with what I now know as an es-335 an some small amplifier, unaccompanied on stage. That day changed absolutely everything for me. I KNEW that I would become a guitar player from that moment on.


Now I'm 18... now more than ever I AM that blues guitarist. I know that with blues, unique to all other music, its NOT the notes you play, but entirely how you play them. Some people will never understand that listening to stormy monday for the 100th time.


but what I can't stand is how trite and uninventive blues music has become in recent times. There are only a few types of blues guitarists left it seems:

the stevie ray vaughnabbie, the john lee hook-alike, and the clapton copy cat.



I've never ever been one to criticize people for what kind of music they play... and I never will be. But to me it seems like the hobbyists are hurting their own style of music... they've got blues in a chokehold right now, and everybody that comes off trying to do something different gets lost in the heaps of R9 players.



I still consider myself a blues guitarist, and I always will be, no matter what. I play many different styles of music, but that's just what comes out of my fingers. Blues flows through my veins.

None of my recordings are blues.

To me, blues IS about the live experience, moreso even than jazz. Blues IS about the atmosphere, blues is about the goddamn soul!

I am in a blues band right now... a power trio. I'd lie if I was saying I wasn't influenced by Hendrix, Page, BB King, or any of the other greats, but when I'm up there playing the blues I'm telling MY story, not theirs. This is in addition to all the solo stuff I play which is without a trace of any blues at all.

I'm not playing blues clubs for other musicians. I'm not playing with weekend warriors. I'm playing with guys who are trying to make a name for themselves - just like me. I'm playing for people just like me: young people who love music - the sounds and the experience. Will I "make it" as a blues legend? the odds say almost certainly not. But if I can make one person "get it" about blues, then I will be more than happy. If I can pass the torch of blues guitar down to just one person, then I can't really ask for more.

Man, that's just BEAUTIFUL. Thank you. :BEER You said exactly what I'd like to say, but can't because I'm either not involved enough with the blues, or too dang cranky about purists (not just blues purists... I have to put up with folk purists and punk purists too).

It's guys like you who will keep the blues alive, if anyone does.

In the meantime, I suggest you put on your asbestos suit, because the blooz police will be COMING for you to beat you to death with boutique TS9 clones and Fender Custom Shop relic'd Strats.

[8Painting]

Meh. What a bunch of haters. Shouldn't you ladies be practicing your finger tapping or rock ballads, ya whiners?


I don't fingertap.

I like the blues, I just don't like middle aged white guys playing it.

Or playing it myself for that matter.

[CocoTone]

What we need here, is a good old fashioned head-cuttin' session!

CT.

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y260/CocoTone/Buckwheat-Poster-Card-C10230417copy.jpg

[SGNick]

Hello my name is Nick, I'm 18 years old, white, and I live with my parents while going to university and courting my beautiful 18 year old girlfriend.

I have nothing to be blue about... I guess I'm a poser.

http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c146/Tennis_Nick/Guitars/Playing%20Guitar/montereynick.jpg

[MuseCafeChris]

my beautiful 18 year old girlfriend

Pics or she doesn't exist. :p

[SGNick]

Pics or she doesn't exist. :p



Pics and I'm dead...!!:rotflmao

[Dave Orban]

...I like the blues, I just don't like middle aged white guys playing it.

I'll have to remember to not leave a guest pass for you at the front door. ;)

[lespauldude]

I can't believe I read 12 pages of this crap. Why does anyone care about what someone else is playing, or why the're playing it? Who said you had you had to listen? Don't go to those clubs that have "fake blues" guys. Open your own place where you can determine if a player is authentic enough to play "real blues". I'm glad that there are players more qualified than I, to tell the club owners and all of the people on the dance floor, that they shouldn't be having a good time.:messedup :rolleyes: :NUTS

If you don't want to hear it, don't go there.
If you don't want to play it, don't play it.

[Roark]

Finally some sanity....

[GDking]

http://www.mandypatinkin.net/PB/inigo1.jpeg

My name is Jazz/Shred Puristio. You wanked a pentatonic scale. Prepare to die.

[Roark]

baw hahahahaha!

[Brian D]

Around here? Not really.

[imonabuss]

GD, That is funny!

[Dave Orban]

Inconceivable!

[GDking]

Inconceivable!

Play what you like!?!? OMG!


http://home.ec.rr.com/bigjon/public/image/Princess_bride1.jpg

[musicofanatic5]

Hey, I didn't characterize Larry's actions as predatory! He was humming the Stone's "Waiting on a friend" when he waved at that cop...

is this thread a 'guys who like real blues?' I thought it was more of a 'I hate middle aged white guys with more money than talent taking all the blues gigs away from true suffering artists and then they play lame-o covers of songs that are played too much" thread.

"I guess it is about the duality of man sir" "Duality of man?" "Yes, Sir, the Jungian thing"

I was referencing the relative physical attractiveness of Janet Jackson... nothing else. And if you are gonna use complicated words... spell them correctly it is 'impugn'.


Blues is supposed to be fun and joyful and celebratory... as you ask in your earlier post "why... so mad"... exactly... Nobody is impugning you or your sexuality...

this thread is a online forum free for all with no point... it is just a bunch of words, some funny, some meant in jest and some people will think some of it is about them... didn't mean to hurt feelings... I was totally making a joke about JJ's being hot and anyone who didn't find her hot... well instead of impugning their taste in women... maybe their taste is really good good just not for women... I have no idea of your gender or anything... again... not about you specifically....

to quote you: "sheesh"
Thanks for clearing that up. Oh, and the spelling lesson, too. And I certainly don't mind looking at Janet, just hit the mute button.
I was referring to how more than half the threads about blues here do eventually turn into "guys who like real blues suck" threads.
I don't believe one could accurately read anger into any of my posts here (okay, I reckon I did attack guys who wear gravy-stained t-shirts and white kmart sneakers on stage). But the fella who was vehemently (sp?) attacking "blues preservationists" was going way beyond a simple statement of his opinion, unless his basic opinion is I and my ilk ("B.P.") are unfit to have our opinions.
I like words that are funny, and do enjoy jest, as I do enjoy the healthy exchange of opinions. But, the mean-spirited attack upon one who enjoys a traditional american music form in it's relatively unadulterated state is certainly way outside of the boundries of funny jest.

[bluesmain]

still laughing here...

[musicofanatic5]

If you think THAT is poisonous bile, you have pretty low standards. Dang blues police have awfully thin skins.

I was just stating the actual, real difference between a living tradition and a preservationist tradition. But if it makes you feel better, I'll take back the part where I said the blues police were "well meaning".

Wow, you really do seem to have a cactus up your sphincter about this one! I came into this discussion responding to the original post, simply stating how I think blues acts could do more to further the cause by getting a little more creative with their programming and clean up their visual presentation. I have heard time and again folks who hear a "real blues act" (Little Charlie, James Cotton, Kim Wilson, Duke R., etc) for the first time exclaim, "Wow, I hate blues. but this is good!". That is generally because their only other exposure was to bands as described by the original poster. What exactly are you contributing here other than vicious condemnation?

[Dave Orban]

Usually, encouragement is a good thing. However, making a weekend hobby out of certain things is a mistake and the blues is one of them. Here's some others...

Dentistry
Nuclear Fission
Bomb Disposal
Liquid Fuel Rockets
Crane Operation
Psychotherapy
Bridge Building
House Moving
Brain Surgery'nuff saidThis is just plain retarded. LOL!

[Thwap]

This is just plain retarded. LOL!

I was hoping someone else would say what I was thinking...thanks Dave.

[geetarboy]

Boy, this thread has sure brought out the ninnies. People can play whatever the hell they want to. If you don't like it, form a band and play louder than them or don't listen at all. Who the hell is anyone else to tell me what I have a right to play or what is authentic? Pseudo-intellectualism at its finest.

[stevieboy]

Hello my name is Nick, I'm 18 years old, white, and I live with my parents while going to university and courting my beautiful 18 year old girlfriend.

I have nothing to be blue about... I guess I'm a poser.

http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c146/Tennis_Nick/Guitars/Playing%20Guitar/montereynick.jpg

No, you have to be middle aged for that, you're good for the time being. Now you're introducing a generation to the blues, which is sticking it to the middle aged blues posers for the time being. You'll all be posers when you get older.

[stevieboy]

I like the blues, I just don't like middle aged white guys playing it.



Same here! I find these guys particularly offensive--

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBWq6FO9eHQ&mode=related&search=

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4mKC7AJyj8&mode=related&search=

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDUuxZ6jNaQ&mode=related&search=

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oihfwxw1aho

White people don't have the right to play the blues! For some reason, though, they do have the right to decide who can.

[Dave Orban]

Same here! I find these guys particularly offensive--

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBWq6FO9eHQ&mode=related&search=

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4mKC7AJyj8&mode=related&search=

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDUuxZ6jNaQ&mode=related&search=

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oihfwxw1aho

White people don't have the right to play the blues! For some reason, though, they do have the right to decide who can.This, too, is retarded. ;)

[stevieboy]

Behind the beat retarded!

[re-animator]

Man, that's just BEAUTIFUL. Thank you. :BEER You said exactly what I'd like to say, but can't because I'm either not involved enough with the blues, or too dang cranky about purists (not just blues purists... I have to put up with folk purists and punk purists too).

It's guys like you who will keep the blues alive, if anyone does.

In the meantime, I suggest you put on your asbestos suit, because the blooz police will be COMING for you to beat you to death with boutique TS9 clones and Fender Custom Shop relic'd Strats.

haha thanks. the music world is always a curious thing... the last club I played at was called "hot monkey love"... i'm not sure if blues was ever played there before... and definitely not to the fellow college students I was playing it too.

There's always something about blues that real blues cats will say "that's it. that's the blues." even when my audience of frat guys, transient street punks, music majors and party girls don't realize that they're getting the blues sprayed at them. My band bills ourselves as an original rhythm and blues band... the whole point to our music is mostly just to have a great time and get music out there that people normally just don't get a chance to hear. We inject the blues into our music in a way that's not as overt or cliche as Jack White and his "if you sing the same line twice in a row and follow it with a pentatonic lick, it makes it more bluesy!!" The point is, if you look for it, you'll find it.


Does Leadbelly's music sound similar to Chuck Berry? or BB King to SRV? or Robert Johnson to Jimmy Page? Not a chance. but I guarantee you they will recognize the blues in eachother's playing. Its been too damn long that blues has been a stagnant genre with no invention, no willingness to change, and a following that is marked only with contentment in re-hashing old standards with a feigning sense of tradition.



Blues music itself is at a crossroads. OUR blues music. Every American guitarist can pretty much trace his roots back to blues. If we let it fade out of memory, or worse yet allow it to become an archaic and dated form of forgotten song, then the end of our culture as guitarists will be on our heads.

[Glass Onion]

I grew up in Pinola MS living with my Father and grandmother as well as my 90 year old great aunt. The annual house income was well below poverty level.They all died within about 3 years of one another. I came home one evening to find my father in the living room passed away of a heart attack at 56 years of age. I drank like a fish for about 6 years. Do I have a right to play the blues.

After I got my self back straight I went back to school and became an elementary ed teacher(do not attack for spelling errors:cool:) I am now married to a woman I love who happens to be a family medicine doctor....... we have a nice houose and i drive a Jeep that is only a few years old (first new car ever). Have I given up the right to play the blues since I have bettered myself.

I am fighting the urge to spew vitriolic disgust towards those who judge others for what they are playing. If you do not want to listen then don't. If you can do better then do so. I stilll play the blues and it comes from places inside me only the Good Lord has ever seen. I hope no one ever gets to see the real part of me that it sometimes comes from. But the playing gets the hurting out.


Who the hell do you think you are (all of you who judge others for the music they make). I learned a long time ago that those who are talking about what another is making must be stuck at trying to make their own.

Rant OFF.....

[Thwap]

I grew up in Pinola MS living with my Father and grandmother as well as my 90 year old great aunt. The annual house income was well below poverty level.They all died within about 3 years of one another. I came home one evening to find my father in the living room passed away of a heart attack at 56 years of age. I drank like a fish for about 6 years. Do I have a right to play the blues.

After I got my self back straight I went back to school and became an elementary ed teacher(do not attack for spelling errors:cool:) I am now married to a woman I love who happens to be a family medicine doctor....... we have a nice houose and i drive a Jeep that is only a few years old (first new car ever). Have I given up the right to play the blues since I have bettered myself.

I am fighting the urge to spew vitriolic disgust towards those who judge others for what they are playing. If you do not want to listen then don't. If you can do better then do so. I stilll play the blues and it comes from places inside me only the Good Lord has ever seen. I hope no one ever gets to see the real part of me that it sometimes comes from. But the playing gets the hurting out.


Who the hell do you think you are (all of you who judge others for the music they make). I learned a long time ago that those who are talking about what another is making must be stuck at trying to make their own.

Rant OFF.....

Dude...back slowly away from the computer.

Take a deep breath.

Now repeat after me....

okididdlydokee neighborino

Feels better don't it.

[daddyo]

Same here! I find these guys particularly offensive--

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBWq6FO9eHQ&mode=related&search=

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4mKC7AJyj8&mode=related&search=

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDUuxZ6jNaQ&mode=related&search=

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oihfwxw1aho

White people don't have the right to play the blues! For some reason, though, they do have the right to decide who can.
So that means black people can't perform classical music because they're not European? Yo, Marsalis, get out of the symphony and get back down to Bourbon St. Asian people, too? Yo Yo Mas, sell the cello. Rock and roll started out as black music. Bye bye ACDC and Van Halen. And 3 of the examples of especially detestable artists, Anson, Ronnie, and Duke, are killer players well respected by musicians of all races.

[kludge]

Wow, you really do seem to have a cactus up your sphincter about this one! I came into this discussion responding to the original post, simply stating how I think blues acts could do more to further the cause by getting a little more creative with their programming and clean up their visual presentation. I have heard time and again folks who hear a "real blues act" (Little Charlie, James Cotton, Kim Wilson, Duke R., etc) for the first time exclaim, "Wow, I hate blues. but this is good!". That is generally because their only other exposure was to bands as described by the original poster. What exactly are you contributing here other than vicious condemnation?

What I have a cactus up my sphincter about is being called "ignorant", "hater" (that was you, I believe), etc. Not to mention being told I "have a cactus up [my] sphincter".

I said "blues preservationists", which I don't think is (or should be) an insulting term. I did say I don't like purists and consider them "well meaning but misguided" (and I spread that love to folk, jazz, classical, country, and punk purists as well as blues purists). And for that, I'm getting flamed right and left? I'm PERSONALLY insulted with terms like "ignorant" and "hater"?

That, sir, is EXACTLY the problem I have with the purists. :mad: And why I'm starting to question the "well meaning" side.

As for what I've contributed... well, there's praise for the lively jam band scene (which got knocked by people either mocking hippies or claiming there were none left, but you don't seem to have a problem with that), praise for an 18 year old who's keeping a real blues tradition alive (and has exactly the same problem with purists that I do), acknowledgement that maybe I WAS too harsh (which you didn't seem to notice)... but hey, I'll add some more.

First, I LOVE the blues. I listen to old blues all the time, and count a lot of great blues players as major influences on my own playing. And I'm all for your list of "real blues acts", and I'm glad those folks are still around, playing in the old way.

And second, I think much of my problem with the blues scene came from attitudes toward the best guitarist I've ever heard. He was a Turkish guy who played a homebrew fretless guitar, and was living in America to study the blues. His tone, technique, pitch, and sheer grace just amazed me. But more than once, I heard local players (behind his back) grumbling about how he didn't belong, that he didn't play the blues right, that his guitar was wrong, etc. It was painful to watch a guy so COMMITTED to learning the blues that he went to another country to learn, who could play rings around any of his detractors, the subject of sneering purist attitudes, and frankly, jealousy.

I could go on from here, but I'd be back to being negative, and I don't want to be. Like I said, I love the blues, and I love playing the blues (and I'm a white guy in my 40s who can afford nice equipment!). But I also want the blues to be a living, vigorous tradition, with new ideas and young people carrying the torch. And honestly, I don't see much of that compared to other styles.

[Greggy]

I'm not sure they're 'prevailing' in my area. Out here there's so many interesting and exotic varieties of posers they kinda get lost in the shuffle.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have a mid-life crisis to plan....

You do not plan a mid-life crisis, it plans you.

[davess23]

Okay, okay, goddamn it. Enough. Don't hit me any more. I'll admit it: I'm a poser. A bogus, fake, useless poser without a genuine bone in my entire phoney white, middle aged male body.

I play the blues, and I try to sing like a black guy, but you know what I'm thinking about, the entire time? While I'm banging away in open G and moanin' "Play dem blooze, bwah...tell it like it izz" real down and dirty, you know what's really going through my mind?

Well, I'll tell you. I'm really thinking about my 401K's performance. That's right. I'm pondering the finer points of lawn care-- hey, winter's coming, ya know. Golf. Oh, yeah, golf...I love golf. And whether I should turn in my Infiniti when the lease is up and try a Lexus instead. Next week's sales meeting. And of course how to cope with the wife's recent nagging about the need to remodel our kitchen.

And all the while I'm thinking these white middle aged male thoughts, I'm fooling those poor bastards in the audience into believing I'm really a 25 year old black guy who works as a sharecropper because he can't read or write. I get such a bang out of putting one over on those geeks. And I'm using over four thousand dollars' worth of gear to do it, too. What a giggle. Man, some people will believe anything, won't they?

[Glass Onion]

"Dude...back slowly away from the computer.

Take a deep breath.

Now repeat after me....

okididdlydokee neighborino

Feels better don't it."


Yeah OK I do feel a little better.:BEER

I agree with everyone on this thread. And all of the rest of you can just go..........

[Greggy]

Okay, okay, goddamn it. Enough. Don't hit me any more. I'll admit it: I'm a poser. A bogus, fake, useless poser without a genuine bone in my entire phoney white, middle aged male body.

I play the blues, and I try to sing like a black guy, but you know what I'm thinking about, the entire time? While I'm banging away in open G and moanin' "Play dem blooze, bwah...tell it like it izz" real down and dirty, you know what's really going through my mind?

Well, I'll tell you. I'm really thinking about my 401K's performance. That's right. I'm pondering the finer points of lawn care-- hey, winter's coming, ya know. Golf. Oh, yeah, golf...I love golf. And whether I should turn in my Infiniti when the lease is up and try a Lexus instead. Next week's sales meeting. And of course how to cope with the wife's recent nagging about the need to remodel our kitchen.

And all the while I'm thinking these white middle aged male thoughts, I'm fooling those poor bastards in the audience into believing I'm really a 25 year old black guy who works as a sharecropper because he can't read or write. I get such a bang out of putting one over on those geeks. And I'm using over four thousand dollars' worth of gear to do it, too. What a giggle. Man, some people will believe anything, won't they?

You, sir, sit atop the pinnacle of poser mountain.

[stevieboy]

So that means black people can't perform classical music because they're not European? Yo, Marsalis, get out of the symphony and get back down to Bourbon St. Asian people, too? Yo Yo Mas, sell the cello. Rock and roll started out as black music. Bye bye ACDC and Van Halen. And 3 of the examples of especially detestable artists, Anson, Ronnie, and Duke, are killer players well respected by musicians of all races.

I do hope you realize that I was being facetious and that I love those guys???

BTW, William Clarke (RIP) and John Marx are killer players too.

[rhinocaster]

It's odd. Why do people get defensive with a thread like this? Even if you fit the "Profile", the original poster is not talking about you. He's never even seen you play right? He's talking about those other guys.

Like most white blues players, I kind of fit the profile. He's not talking about me. If he saw me play I bet he'd have a great time.

Why do you think he's talking about you?

[GDking]

This is just plain retarded. LOL!

ROTFL.


THIS JUST IN

AP NEWS WIRE 10/17/07

Several internet blues purists are meeting with grief councilors after listening to a non traditional blues act.

There will be a candlelight vigil held at "Shmeckle's Bar and Grill", where there will be an authentic team of blues specialists flown in to respond to this emergency situation.

The U.S. Congress is planning to address the issue of the lack of blues specialists in America. Like Brain Surgeons and Rocket Scientists, Blues Specialists are in incredible demand, especially on internet message forums.

Most Blues Specialists are currently fighting on the front lines of Jazzganistan where the death tolls have been high on both sides with no signs of peace in sight.

BACK TO YOU DAVE

[kludge]

There's always something about blues that real blues cats will say "that's it. that's the blues." even when my audience of frat guys, transient street punks, music majors and party girls don't realize that they're getting the blues sprayed at them. My band bills ourselves as an original rhythm and blues band... the whole point to our music is mostly just to have a great time and get music out there that people normally just don't get a chance to hear. We inject the blues into our music in a way that's not as overt or cliche as Jack White and his "if you sing the same line twice in a row and follow it with a pentatonic lick, it makes it more bluesy!!" The point is, if you look for it, you'll find it.


Y'know, I really dig Jack White! I think he's doing a lot to keep blues (especially dirty blues) alive and advance the tradition some.


Does Leadbelly's music sound similar to Chuck Berry? or BB King to SRV? or Robert Johnson to Jimmy Page? Not a chance. but I guarantee you they will recognize the blues in eachother's playing. Its been too damn long that blues has been a stagnant genre with no invention, no willingness to change, and a following that is marked only with contentment in re-hashing old standards with a feigning sense of tradition.


You should really read "White Bicycles", by Joe Boyd. He organized the first tour of African-American blues musicians in England, back in 1964... names like Muddy Waters and Rev. Gary Davis. His story of how that meeting of great original blues players went from mutual contempt to love and respect is really amazing, and insightful for all us cultural outsiders who see a unity where the original players saw only division.

And while you're at it, check out Steve Smith's DVD on the history of drums in American music. It's a similar story arc to guitarists, AND it'll teach you some really groovy old-style beats.


Blues music itself is at a crossroads. OUR blues music. Every American guitarist can pretty much trace his roots back to blues. If we let it fade out of memory, or worse yet allow it to become an archaic and dated form of forgotten song, then the end of our culture as guitarists will be on our heads.

Hear, hear! It's still alive for now, but... there are fewer young blues players today than there were a generation ago, and if it isn't made more relevant, there'll be fewer still in another generation. Consider ragtime music... you can still find people who play it here and there, even young people, but it just sounds corny to most people these days. And if blues doesn't grow and adapt, in another 50 years it'll sound as corny as ragtime does to us.

And part of that means that the middle-aged white guy blues players need to respect and support young guys who are modernizing the tradition - Jack White, Ben Harper, etc.

[MuseCafeChris]

And second, I think much of my problem with the blues scene came from attitudes toward the best guitarist I've ever heard. He was a Turkish guy who played a homebrew fretless guitar, and was living in America to study the blues. His tone, technique, pitch, and sheer grace just amazed me. But more than once, I heard local players (behind his back) grumbling about how he didn't belong, that he didn't play the blues right, that his guitar was wrong, etc. It was painful to watch a guy so COMMITTED to learning the blues that he went to another country to learn, who could play rings around any of his detractors, the subject of sneering purist attitudes, and frankly, jealousy.

Are you talking about Borat? :p

[Dave Orban]

I do hope you realize that I was being facetious and that I love those guys???

BTW, William Clarke (RIP) and John Marx are killer players too.I really don't know why Markowski isn't better know. He's quite a good player, and has a great voice, too!

[daddyo]

I do hope you realize that I was being facetious and that I love those guys???

BTW, William Clarke (RIP) and John Marx are killer players too.

Oh . . . well, now I do.

Anson, Ronnie, and Duke are killer, fo shure. I'm not familiar with Clarke and Marx so now I have two new guys to discover.

[mcknigs]

My principal gripe with many local blues bands I've seen is the apparent widespread belief that the only blues-oriented music worth listening to, or playing, is SRV. It's gotten so you can't get away from SRV tunes played note for note on Strats. Last time I joined a blues band I made a semi-decision to play an LP just to buck the trend.

-Scott

[re-animator]

Y'know, I really dig Jack White! I think he's doing a lot to keep blues (especially dirty blues) alive and advance the tradition some.



You should really read "White Bicycles", by Joe Boyd. He organized the first tour of African-American blues musicians in England, back in 1964... names like Muddy Waters and Rev. Gary Davis. His story of how that meeting of great original blues players went from mutual contempt to love and respect is really amazing, and insightful for all us cultural outsiders who see a unity where the original players saw only division.

And while you're at it, check out Steve Smith's DVD on the history of drums in American music. It's a similar story arc to guitarists, AND it'll teach you some really groovy old-style beats.



Hear, hear! It's still alive for now, but... there are fewer young blues players today than there were a generation ago, and if it isn't made more relevant, there'll be fewer still in another generation. Consider ragtime music... you can still find people who play it here and there, even young people, but it just sounds corny to most people these days. And if blues doesn't grow and adapt, in another 50 years it'll sound as corny as ragtime does to us.

And part of that means that the middle-aged white guy blues players need to respect and support young guys who are modernizing the tradition - Jack White, Ben Harper, etc.


actually i really like ragtime music... but you're right that is the direction blues music is headed in... and I don't really dislike jack white at all... but as far as most people are concerned these days jack white and blues are synonymous. If its not jack white then its not blues, and if its not blues then its not jack white (at least among relatively new music). I'm not speaking only of the guitar playing community though... but a lick from "ball and biscuit" as well as one from srv's "texas flood" or "pride and joy" is about 900billion times more likely to be identified as blues by the random person on the street than something from one of those inconsequential blues tracks like "the thrill is gone" or robert johnson's version of "crossroads." blues has been set in stone in order to sell harleys and beer rather than allowing blues music to change with the times and the musicians that play it. If you don't agree with me, listen to any of Clapton's music post 1980.... before then he was an ever changing artist, but his stuff has become more and more hackneyed since then.

what's different about blues and ragtime are too numerous to share, but lets just consider this: ragtime was a very contemporary music that never really did change... its more analogous to something like vaudeville music or big band swing music. Its instantaneously identifiable with a time period. Blues music did undergo lots and lots of changes and branches... chicago blues, british blues (even moreso in the whole birmingham vs. liverpool etc.), delta blues, texas blues, even new york blues. All of a sudden it seemed that blues music just kind of stopped in the early 80s. it enjoyed a short popular revival with SRV, but after his tragic death it shifted into what we know today: an esoteric and hopelessly dated form of music that is played by most blues players almost entirely out of tradition, and occasionally enjoyed by non musicians almost solely for its novelty.

I will however give credit to guys like jack white and ben harper... and especially -- yes: john mayer. I feel that white and harper are just a little too on-the-surface right now (moreso white), and they kind of just play into blues cliches to give a little "personality" to their records. I see white mostly as a rock guitarist (specifically garage rock - which i also enjoy) with blues flair. Nothing wrong with that... but I don't think blues can really travel too far on jack white's shoulders. I dig mayer more because:

a.) he's not playing solely to the blues crowd
b.) his arrangements are very very different from what we've been seeing from blues over the last several years.


i don't know if john mayer has "enough" to revive blues singlehandedly (after all look at the polarization on TGP!)... but when I hear "gravity" I hear the sound of hope that blues music won't die in the hands of musicians like myself.

[Guitar Dave T]

I have been thinking of this for a while but it really came to light to me when I sang with a friends band last Sunday. A friend is in a project doing blues stuff, all the members of the band are between 45 and 52 years old. They complimented me on my singing but said I did not sing enough "like a black man". Being that I am pretty much lilly white, lol, it got me to thinking. What is the deal with this pre-occupation of all the boomer bands playing blues and "posing" as black blues players?
It seems to me that 80% of the bands in the DFW area are in this mold, I guess because SRV was from here and is worshipped.

Actually, there are 80 bands rehearsing at Universal Rehearsal in NE Dallas, the vast majority of which are metal bands. But be that as it may...


You go into a bar in DFW and it is pretty likely you are going to be hearing Freddie King, BB King, Muddy waters and and assortment of old blues with some SRV thrown in.
I am a fan of this type of music but listening to two or three hours of it gets old, I IV V's do get repetitive. Most friends I have who are NOT guitar players and musicians say they are getting mighty bored by bands only playing this kind of music. I guess my reference to posing has to do with the fact that none of these folks are black nor do they truly sound like black blues players. Is this just a Herd mentality or a Fad?

Ahh, you have hit on one of the main reasons why the local blues scene is having trouble maintaining forward traction, attracting new (drink buying) crowds.

You know what's really a shame? Blues, when done with real soul, phrasing that tells a compelling story and real dynamics, can be exciting. It's just not done that way too often here in DFW.

IMHO, the problem lies not with the genre per se, but with the lazy attitude of many white guy blues players who secretly believe it is an easy style to fake their way through and look cool doing it. Doing it right is not easy, in fact, it is quite hard.



Another odd thing is that if you look at the setlists of most bands around here there is hardly anything by bands from across the pond, England, Ireland or anything UK. I find it ironic because it was mainly the bands across the pond that started doing a new version of the blues and brought this to the white audience. It is also a fact that almost half the great music put out over the last 40 years is from across the pond. I am referring to bands such as the Bluesbreakers, Zeppelin, Clapton stuff and such. Do bands in your area play stuff from across the pond?
Not trying to create controversy just wanting a sampling of opinions from around the country?
Tim

Come out to see my band tomorrow (Thursday) night at Nate's Seafood in Addison, downbeat 6:30. We play stuff from both sides of the pond, including Clapton, Fleetwood Mac, Allmans, Little Feet and Jeff Beck.

[Guitar Dave T]

I think its pretty much like that in any area you go, bunch of weekend warriors pretty much. I myself love playing the blues, for about....10 minutes or so out of a 4 hour block, its fun, but youre totally correct in saying that it does get incredibly boring. I think a lot of it is, these people were fans, now are able to afford the gear theyve always wanted and picked a genre they can grab ahold of without too many problems to make up for all of the not practicing they did while they were out chasing skirt in college to be white collar business men.

Ive got some relatives in wisconsin that fall into this category, I don't talk to them much, but I keep an eye on them from afar and just snicker at the fools that theyre making of themselves. but I guess ignorance is bliss, right?

Dont get me wrong I'm a huge blues head, but theres so much more than the 20 stereotypical songs that 50 year old white guys are dishing out these days. Blech.

Joke:

Q: How many guitar players does it take to play "Pride and Joy"?

A: Apparently, all of them. <g>

[Guitar Dave T]

My principal gripe with many local blues bands I've seen is the apparent widespread belief that the only blues-oriented music worth listening to, or playing, is SRV. It's gotten so you can't get away from SRV tunes played note for note on Strats. Last time I joined a blues band I made a semi-decision to play an LP just to buck the trend.

-Scott

Yep, there is definitely an anti-Strat backlash going on. Lately, I've been going back to picking up a Strat from time to time, and deliberately NOT using it for SRV style and tone.

[dbx]

Come out to see my band tomorrow (Thursday) night at Nate's Seafood in Addison, downbeat 6:30. We play stuff from both sides of the pond, including Clapton, Fleetwood Mac, Allmans, Little Feet and Jeff Beck.

I like Nate's...a dozen sliders, couple Shiners and all is right with the world...can't make the commute but hope it's a fun time...

[Mike T]

Same here! I find these guys particularly offensive--

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBWq6FO9eHQ&mode=related&search=

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4mKC7AJyj8&mode=related&search=

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDUuxZ6jNaQ&mode=related&search=

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oihfwxw1aho



Offensive...the absolute nerve of these "posers"!!!!

[kludge]

IMHO, the problem lies not with the genre per se, but with the lazy attitude of many white guy blues players who secretly believe it is an easy style to fake their way through and look cool doing it. Doing it right is not easy, in fact, it is quite hard.


Y'know, I think you hit the nail on the head there! Probably more than anyone else (including me) in this thread so far.

The problem, more than anything else, is that so many middle-aged white guy blues players really suck. More than anything else, it's the lazy, bad, unimaginative musicianship that grates the nerves. Playing the blues isn't easy, even if it sounds easy! The blues is about YOUR pain, not Stevie Ray Vaughn's pain.

I think part of the problem is that blues is overtly emotional music... it sounds like pain. But if it's just playing licks, then it isn't really heartfelt. Then it becomes a mask to hide our feelings, not a way to share them. The poseur part, the inauthentic part, isn't about being imitative or traditional. It's about not being sincere. And I suspect that's the part that makes one side so irritated, and the other so defensive. When some 50 year old lawyer shows up with a $4000 guitar, you have to wonder what in his life hurts so bad. And HE has to drop the day-to-day emotional shields we all have and really SHOW how he feels, not just show us that he's studied those Eric Clapton licks from Guitar Player magazine.

And here's the thing... y'know, life hurts, whether you're a Mississippi sharecropper or a Boston lawyer. We ALL have the RIGHT to play the blues, and the reason (and that's something I totally blew when talking about the cultural side earlier). The question is, do we have the COURAGE to play the blues?

[hasserl]

Dude, you're taking it all way too seriously. It's supposed to be fun. You've spent way too much time thinking about all this, and building up your hatred. Like so many others have tried to tell you, these guys your hating so much, they're probably just regular guys trying to have a bit of fun. So they're not as good as you'd like them to be, so what? Give them a break, maybe if they keep at it they'll get better. If not, so what? It's no skin off you nose. QUit your belly aching & sniveling already.

[jumpnblues]

Originally Posted by kludge http://www.thegearpage.net/board/images/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://www.thegearpage.net/board/showthread.php?p=3104001#post3104001)
And second, I think much of my problem with the blues scene came from attitudes toward the best guitarist I've ever heard. He was a Turkish guy who played a homebrew fretless guitar, and was living in America to study the blues. His tone, technique, pitch, and sheer grace just amazed me. But more than once, I heard local players (behind his back) grumbling about how he didn't belong, that he didn't play the blues right, that his guitar was wrong, etc. It was painful to watch a guy so COMMITTED to learning the blues that he went to another country to learn, who could play rings around any of his detractors, the subject of sneering purist attitudes, and frankly, jealousy.


kludge,

You'll NEVER see me do that. I have a profound respect for people like that and would do anything I could to encourage them. I also like people like Jack White and their music. Although I prefer straight blues and jazz, I like and respect many of today's rockers and blues rockers (Derek Trucks, Allman Bros., Gov't Mule, are all killer artists). The only thing I take exception with is someone playing something that's nowhere near the "traditional blues parameters" and trying to pass it off as "real blues". That's all. Although I can't define traditional/straight blues, I've put 30+ years of pretty intense study into it and I know it when I hear it. As I stated, I may actually really like what I hear, but I just can't consider what Jack White plays as traditional or straight blues. That's the extent of my "blues policing". Now for the guys that say it ain't "real blues" if you don't have a stand up bass, or dress a certain way, or similar nit picking, sorry...I can't go along with that.
And as far as a middle aged white guy playing jazz and blues...I started out playing stuff by Buddy Holly, Link Wray, the Ventures, Duane Eddy, Eddie Cochran, and covered other stuff of the early to mid 60's. From there I progressed to the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Animals, and other artists of the mid to late 60's and jazz (Johnny Smith, Wes Montgomery, Barney Kessell, Herb Ellis, Tal Farlow, etc.). Then came Jimi Hendrix, Cream, Led Zepplin, Moby Grape, the Doors, and other of the "hippie bands". Then the "hair/arena" bands. I played it all. Then I started wanting to play music that was, to me, simpler, less pretentious, music where tone, phrasing and feel mattered much more...and the natural progression for me was traditional blues and jazz. Blues for the tone, phrasing, and feel aspects and jazz to develop my technique and comping skills. I actually started playing blues in the mid to late 60's but didn't get serious about it until I started playing a lot of stuff by the "3 Kings" and listening to the first Fabulous Thunderbirds album. Jimmie Vaughan's very simple, understated playing and phrasing just knocked me out. Also his tone. I'm a gear freak and pursuit of the holy grail tone is another thing that draws me to blues and jazz. Tone REALLY matters in blues and jazz, at least to me. And it's fun chasing that holy grail tone because a lot of the time it means new toys...some refer to it as G.A.S. And there's the challenge of adding something new to something traditional, while at the same time staying within the tradtional boundries of straight blues or classic jazz. And combining the two...that's the real sweet spot for me.
My interest in jazz and blues came about as a very natural, logical, progression and musical growth. It had absolutely nothing to do with getting chicks or being pretty (although I still am), or dressing a certain way. I'd like to think it had to do with maturing musically. Although I don't necessarily think a person is musically immature if they play rock at middle age. As we all know some kinds of rock can be very challenging to play, especially when combined with jazz, classical, or other types of music. It can also be very challenging to create and write good original stuff, be it rock, blues or jazz.
No, kludge, I won't make fun or diss anyone that works as hard or is as dedicated as the guy you referred to. And I won't seriously diss anyone that's serious about and dedicated to their music. Their music's just as valid as mine and I respect that. I'm not beyond having "friendly" fun with someone else, usually (but not always) people I know but I won't make it personal or intentionally try to hurt someone. My 2 cents. Anyway, sorry this was so long.

Tom

[kludge]

Dude, you're taking it all way too seriously. It's supposed to be fun. You've spent way too much time thinking about all this, and building up your hatred. Like so many others have tried to tell you, these guys your hating so much, they're probably just regular guys trying to have a bit of fun. So they're not as good as you'd like them to be, so what? Give them a break, maybe if they keep at it they'll get better. If not, so what? It's no skin off you nose. QUit your belly aching & sniveling already.

And I keep telling you guys, it's not hate. I'm trying to understand what's going on here, in my heart and the hearts of other musicians, and THAT is serious business to me. So when I'm arguing this stuff out, I'm trying to figure out a: what it is about certain other musicians that aggravates me, and b: how much of it applies to me, and what should I do about it? What can I learn from this to make myself a better musician, and a better, more understanding, more sympathetic person?

I've already had to rethink and throw out my original premise... that the lack of cultural integrity is what bothers me about today's blues scene. And it's certainly not that I don't like the music, because I do. So now I'm thinking about sincerity, and insecurity, and how we express (or hide) our feelings through music. That matters to ME, because I really want to be a better musician tomorrow than I am today. And from where I'm thinking right now, that means I need to be a better and braver person.

And this sincerity stuff is REALLY important. We all want to be better musicians, right? Well, it's easy to talk about getting better gear. And it's easy to talk about broadening our influences. It's harder, but still doable, to talk about improving our technique. But when we get down to our FEELINGS... man, that's some scary stuff there. Devil at the crossroads. But that's what the blues is all about. It's not about Strats versus Les Pauls, or who makes the best Tube Screamer clone, or how to execute double-stop bends. It's about taking our pain and grief and anger and fear and pushing it all out through our guitars and our voices. Well, that, and seeing if we can get enough energy flowing to get that blonde in the front to lift her top for the band...

[Dave Orban]

For the record, not ALL traditional blues was about moanin' and sufferin'...

A large portion of it was specifically intended to be good-time music for house parties, the barrel house, or the dance hall.

If all you know of the blues is songs about misery, you need to dig a little deeper.

[frank62]

^Right on Dave. I like that happy blues stuff myself. Pain and suffering? Hell that can be found in any kind of music. Hey maybe folks would stop the bitching about the "blues posers" if they all played happy stuff about successful middle aged white guys, you know stuff like Hootchi Gucci Man.

[MartinC]

I'm in Sydney. Reading this thread, I think you guys in the US are spoilt with access to live blues music. It's thin on the ground here to say the least, partly because it doesn't pull audiences in. There's a guy here by the name of Ray Beadle who is an outstanding jump blues player ... think little charlie ... and 99.99% of Sydney would probably never have heard of him. He took to driving a truck not so long ago. Still plays a bit I think. Point is, if audiences don't support blues, then it stops being played ... "you don't know what you've got til it's gone".

Sure some blues is just regurgitated and can be a little tiring. But I'd be taking my hat off to the guys who are up there doing it still and keeping things going ... even if it's not the creme de la creme every time. As for some of the artist names I've picked up off this forum who are playing festivals in the US (eg Chris Cain) ... well I just wish stuff of that quality was happening on a more regular basis down under.

[aeolian]

Maybe, instead of "posers", it comes down to weak, poorly played, shallow, bad music. As has been said many times, the blues appears to be a simple form. From an intelectual standpoint it is. It can be reduced to three chords and five notes. And for some gifted folks aflicted with the muse, that may be all that is necessary. But just regurgitating those three chords and five notes may be a blues form, but it is not the blues. Nor is regurgitating any particular bluesman's style or playing.

The blues that captures people's souls and hearts knows no boundaries. When people are open to a musical experience and communication with the performer, they will feel the blues no matter what notes are played over what chords. The last several Coco Montoya shows I've been to, usually only had two or three 12 bar I/IV/V songs per set. But the entire night was drenched in blues.

Because it's easy to play the form, there is a lot of mediocre playing of it going around that gives the genre a bad reputation. "The blues ain't nothing but one more white kid playing Stormy Monday", and the opposite minded preservationists who can't come up with an original thought or musical thing to say, so they hide behind "respect" for the forefathers. Play old clunky guitars and amps because that's the way it was done in the 50's and when they muff notes and get bad tone, they point to the old records and claim that it was intentional.

Both camps are shortchanging themselves and the audience. Get just about anyone to agree on a "real" blues recording from the last 50 years and you can show how that style went though several evolutions to get there. Whether it was T-Bone or Muddy, or anything more recent.

It's been pointed out that the originators were entertainers and streetcorner jesters. Doing what they had learned how to do in order to get a rise out of people. This isn't about some poor guy sitting on a log pouring his heart out to the empty woods. It's about music as entertainment. Being better than the next cat. Having a bit more lightning in your fingers, selling your soul to the devil to play better than the guy in the next town. Getting some money and getting laid.

Channel that fire and musical desire, and make good musical use of it (learn the instrument and how to get your point across with it), and it doesn't matter what demographic you belong to. You'll have my ear. And many more.

[CocoTone]

Maybe, instead of "posers", it comes down to weak, poorly played, shallow, bad music. As has been said many times, the blues appears to be a simple form.


That sums it up nicely.

CT.

[daddyo]

Blues a simple art
Too simple for our big world
Just like Haiku, no?

[Bluzeboy]

When some 50 year old lawyer shows up with a $4000 guitar, you have to wonder what in his life hurts so bad.

Okay.. I see that you are re-thinking things and that's good.. However; what does the above statement have to do with anything?
Gear is gear. 4k guitar or 4$ guitar it's what you do with it. So why even that statement? I have a 4K guitar too, at least it is now.. When I bought it it was "used" and $500.00 (1963 Es 345, and I had to borrow the money from Freddy King). Does this make me any less "authentic"?

[hasserl]

and the opposite minded preservationists who can't come up with an original thought or musical thing to say, so they hide behind "respect" for the forefathers. Play old clunky guitars and amps because that's the way it was done in the 50's and when they muff notes and get bad tone, they point to the old records and claim that it was intentional.

Well, you were making some sense but lost it here.

Re Junior Watson, Harmony guitar and Silvertone amp.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=3SBntGgWrdE
http://youtube.com/watch?v=SL00F8eH2xQ
Damn clunky old things... :rolleyes:

[Guitar Dave T]

Maybe, instead of "posers", it comes down to weak, poorly played, shallow, bad music. As has been said many times, the blues appears to be a simple form. From an intelectual standpoint it is. It can be reduced to three chords and five notes. And for some gifted folks aflicted with the muse, that may be all that is necessary. But just regurgitating those three chords and five notes may be a blues form, but it is not the blues. Nor is regurgitating any particular bluesman's style or playing.

The blues that captures people's souls and hearts knows no boundaries. When people are open to a musical experience and communication with the performer, they will feel the blues no matter what notes are played over what chords. The last several Coco Montoya shows I've been to, usually only had two or three 12 bar I/IV/V songs per set. But the entire night was drenched in blues.

Because it's easy to play the form, there is a lot of mediocre playing of it going around that gives the genre a bad reputation. "The blues ain't nothing but one more white kid playing Stormy Monday", and the opposite minded preservationists who can't come up with an original thought or musical thing to say, so they hide behind "respect" for the forefathers. Play old clunky guitars and amps because that's the way it was done in the 50's and when they muff notes and get bad tone, they point to the old records and claim that it was intentional.

Both camps are shortchanging themselves and the audience. Get just about anyone to agree on a "real" blues recording from the last 50 years and you can show how that style went though several evolutions to get there. Whether it was T-Bone or Muddy, or anything more recent.

It's been pointed out that the originators were entertainers and streetcorner jesters. Doing what they had learned how to do in order to get a rise out of people. This isn't about some poor guy sitting on a log pouring his heart out to the empty woods. It's about music as entertainment. Being better than the next cat. Having a bit more lightning in your fingers, selling your soul to the devil to play better than the guy in the next town. Getting some money and getting laid.

Channel that fire and musical desire, and make good musical use of it (learn the instrument and how to get your point across with it), and it doesn't matter what demographic you belong to. You'll have my ear. And many more.

Sums it up nicely.

I add: The blues is also about living your life, because if you're not living life, pursuing those things you have passion for, be it women, motorcycles or religion, you're not going to have as much to say with how you play the blues as the next guy.

[SGNick]

I don't play the Blues, I play colors.








Blue just happens to show up a lot more often.

[kludge]

Okay.. I see that you are re-thinking things and that's good.. However; what does the above statement have to do with anything?

Gear is gear. 4k guitar or 4$ guitar it's what you do with it. So why even that statement? I have a 4K guitar too, at least it is now.. When I bought it it was "used" and $500.00 (1963 Es 345, and I had to borrow the money from Freddy King). Does this make me any less "authentic"?

Because in our society, money is equated with comfort and ease. If a non-professional musician can afford to spend thousands on a boutique/vintage guitar (and no, something you bought decades ago that has since appreciated doesn't count, nor do inherited guitars), then they're obviously doing pretty well. So why the blues? That's where some of the broad resentment is coming from for many other players.

And I believe I answered that question in the same post, by pointing out that everyone has the right and the reason to play the blues! The feelings are universal, whether or not the gear budget is. So my question was clearly rhetorical. I don't have a problem with someone owning a $4000 guitar! I didn't pick that number out of thin air, either... I own a $4000 custom guitar myself (never mind that it's worth twice all my other guitars put together - at least I could afford ONE, once). Did I mentioned I'm a middle-aged white male professional?

Yes, I'm rethinking a lot of my own attitude about the whole blues-poseur question. I sure wish that the people bound and determined to take offense and beat me up over it would rethink their own attitudes, too.

[kludge]

I don't play the Blues, I play colors.


I used to do that too. Then I stopped taking drugs. :crazy

[musicofanatic5]

I sure wish that the people bound and determined to take offense and beat me up over it would rethink their own attitudes, too.

Sir (or Dude, or whatever): Yes, this is a lengthy thread, but go back and read some of your initial postings. I hope you would be able to easily see what is being taken offensively and what you are being beaten for. While you're at it, read all of my posts and show me where I called you "ignorant" or called you a "hater". I did characterize the tone and energy of your commentary as sounding hateful, but nowhere did I assign any negative terms to you as a person (at least not in print).
My attitude is my own, and it comes from a nearly forty-year career as a full-time, professional musician, at least as concerns bad blues bands and their relentless work toward convincing the general public that blues "sucks".
Additionally, try to get your facts straight: us blues polices don't use no TS-9's. They get that accentuated midrange, poser-tone.

[Dave Orban]

...additionally, try to get your facts straight: us blues polices don't use no TS-9's. They get that accentuated midrange, poser-tone.LOL!

[Zero]

I learned a long time ago that those who are talking about what another is making must be stuck at trying to make their own.

deep, man:rolleyes:

[kludge]

Sir (or Dude, or whatever): Yes, this is a lengthy thread, but go back and read some of your initial postings. I hope you would be able to easily see what is being taken offensively and what you are being beaten for. While you're at it, read all of my posts and show me where I called you "ignorant" or called you a "hater". I did characterize the tone and energy of your commentary as sounding hateful, but nowhere did I assign any negative terms to you as a person (at least not in print).
My attitude is my own, and it comes from a nearly forty-year career as a full-time, professional musician, at least as concerns bad blues bands and their relentless work toward convincing the general public that blues "sucks".
Additionally, try to get your facts straight: us blues polices don't use no TS-9's. They get that accentuated midrange, poser-tone.

So I'm not a hater, just hateful. Thanks for splitting that hair for me. I'll give you a call next time I need to say "I did not have sex with that woman" or "we do not torture", 'k?

And hey, I don't even OWN a TS9 or clone. Can I join the blues police?

[louderock]

When I read the original post, a lot of the local music scene (if you want to call it that) came to mind. I didn't really take it as hating on the blues. I would assume the majority of us love the blues and understand that most of the music we love wouldn't be anywhere without it.

I go to some of the local spots to hear the bar bands and I'm often very disappointed. Often, there are 40-50 somethings playing Pride and Joy along with 20 other blues shuffles in E. It seems like the Blues thing gets brought up here because it's the easiest music to go out and play with a minimum amount of rehearsing or ability. "12 bar in E.... 1 2 3 4...." What I mean is, it's the easiest to ATTEMPT to play. It has been well pointed out here that to really play the blues is a whole different thing. Once you see the real thing, you really can understand the difference. It's the same for any type of music, though. You can find a crappy band playing rock or country. I get extremely bored hearing these bands. If people in the crowd are enjoying them, then more power to them and I'm glad they're having fun. I'll usually just head to the next spot.

The bar band is what it is. Often it is a bunch of guys who are taking a break from their weekly grind to go out and have fun. I can certainly appreciate that. Maybe they have limited abilities but that's not to say that they don't love it just as much as you or I. Nobody forces us to stay if we don't dig it. My only concern, and this is related to some of the other recent threads regarding live music, is that these guys may be hired over more talented or slightly more expensive bands. Sure, everybody has a right to play, but people aren't going to support live music as much if there's nothing good out there to go see. 'Good' is of course the opinion of each individual person. Ours may differ slightly since we are musicians. This is just my opinion.

[Thwap]

So I'm not a hater, just hateful. Thanks for splitting that hair for me. I'll give you a call next time I need to say "I did not have sex with that woman" or "we do not torture", 'k?

And hey, I don't even OWN a TS9 or clone. Can I join the blues police?

I think your outlook hit a little close to home for some.

As an interested observer, I for one, did not find any "hate" in your theory.

But hey, it's a forum, full of opinions...whatever.

[jumpnblues]

I think maybe we should define "blues police". It seems to be the convenient "go to" term when people either dislikes blues or anyone who plays it. As I stated before, I like many other types of music and have respect for those who play it, even though it may not be my favorite music which includes straight/traditional blues, jazz, and especially anything that's a combination of the two.
So, if someone says they like or play blues and in reality what they are referring to is, for example, is blues influenced rock and roll, am I the "blues police" for thinking what they're playing is not straight blues? I see this very frequently on forums where a thread will ask what are your favorite blues artists and someone will list Joe Bonnamassa, Kenny Wayne Shepard, Gary Moore, or even Robin Trower. To me these guys play blues influenced rock and roll and not blues. Now, there's nothing wrong with their music at all. All I'm saying is it's not straight blues. Is there blues in the music? Yes. And sometimes the music is good music and is well done. But does that make it blues? Am I the "blues police" for thinking or saying it's not blues? Am I wrong in my thinking? If I am, someone set me straight. My intention is certainly not to diss anyone. It's just to be accurate. Does that make me the "blues police"?
So, I'd like to get a definition of "blues police". Anyone care to take a stab? Who are they and how do you describe them?

[6L6Blues]

I gave up on this thread the other day and am now coming back to it.

Kludge, I listen to all sorts of music, but blues mostly comes through my hands because that's what I grew up listening to.

The reason I took offense to your post is not because it was directed at me, but because you are/were holding a definition to who should play the blues and who plays it right/wrong. That's what I think is ridiculous.

If the person playing an instrument feels the music emotionally, which I think is why we play music, then that person is picking up the instrument for the same reason that people picked it up years ago.

Music expresses emotion, and while someone might want to stand up and feel appreciated/awed by the crowd, they are still playing because they feel emotions when striking notes...even the 40 year old rich white lawyer.

And also, Blues and sadness do not have to be synonymous. Sometimes I play a blues lead when I'm happy as can be and the emotion I get makes the hair on my neck stand and I get choked up, but that has nothing to do with sadness.

If anything, your premise isn't very credible as you claim not liking purists (genre nazis), but yet you mention needing to be sad and poor to play the blues. If anything that requirement makes you hold the same purist values as someone who has to have a TS9 clone.

[Bluzeboy]

I'd like to get a definition of "blues police". Anyone care to take a stab? Who are they and how do you describe them?

I think they are the same type that secretly like the homeowners associations.

[Strat-O]

I don't quite understand the "poser" name you've given to white people who are in love with classic blues. Think about what you're saying. WTF?

What you are apparently trying to say is that you're tired of seeing lame bands peform on stage. Obviously, it doesn't matter what color or age the performer is, or what kind of music they are playing. A lame country, funk, pop, rock, british blues, or jazz band is just lame. Doesn't matter what kind of music they're playing.

It doesn't matter what kind of music a band or performer is playing, what keeps and audiences attention and interest is how its performed.

A spectacular performance is what makes music great, not the performers color, age, income, instrument choice, or style of music.

[Thwap]

"?
So, I'd like to get a definition of "blues police". Anyone care to take a stab? Who are they and how do you describe them?

When I think of blues police, I think of my teenage son telling me who was metal, who was death metal, who was black metal, who was melodic death metal, who was thrash metal. It's f'in metal dude.

It's this kinda vibe that...no that's not real.

Whatever, it's music, and if you want to compartmentize it, quantify it, judge it, hold it up and say this is, and this isn't, I guess that's fine.

It just seems a little goofy, like some clandestine club that knows the real truth, and anyone that doesn't...isn't real blues.

[Shiny McShine]

This is just plain retarded. LOL!

Thanks man! It's been one of those weeks.

[6L6Blues]

When I think of blues police, I think of my teenage son telling me who was metal, who was death metal, who was black metal, who was melodic death metal, who was thrash metal. It's f'in metal dude.

It's this kinda vibe that...no that's not real.

Whatever, it's music, and if you want to compartmentize it, quantify it, judge it, hold it up and say this is, and this isn't, I guess that's fine.

It just seems a little goofy, like some clandestine club that knows the real truth, and anyone that doesn't...isn't real blues.

Well said!

[randuro]

I don't quite understand the "poser" name you've given to white people who are in love with classic blues. Think about what you're saying. WTF?

What you are apparently trying to say is that you're tired of seeing lame bands peform on stage. Obviously, it doesn't matter what color or age the performer is, or what kind of music they are playing. A lame country, funk, pop, rock, british blues, or jazz band is just lame. Doesn't matter what kind of music they're playing.

It doesn't matter what kind of music a band or performer is playing, what keeps and audiences attention and interest is how its performed.

A spectacular performance is what makes music great, not the performers color, age, income, instrument choice, or style of music.

A big +1 Strat-O. I've been following this post the last few days trying desparately to stay out. But, i have to give props to this poster.

I also thinks that the "music police" live at 500 strong on the TGP. It's always the "professional" musicians that have issues with the "weekend warriors". Well get over it....it's not going away. Maybe, the "professionals" hate seeing guys having more fun....you know the guys who aren't so worried about the hitting the next chord/note spot on. Funny thing, the audience doesn't care.....well, unless your a "professional" in the audience;)

[fazendeiro]

I don't like middle aged men. Or women. Or young or old men or women. Of any race. From any country, any time, any place.
They're all posers.

Whew, that's been building up for a while, I feel better.