Anyone hear like blues?

A classic tune, later covered by many, from Huey "Piano" Smith from the mid to late 50's--the early rock era, in other words:

Another Nawlins legend, the fat boy:

I thought The Black Keys were "Bluesy", but is it Blues? I guess I don't know enough about music to say. It feels like Blues. Maybe that's enough.

Traditionally blues has certain identifiable earmarks, such as a 12-bar structure using three (the I, IV, and V) chords and a pentatonic (5 note) scale in place of the 7 note scale used in European music.

In that sense, those songs are not blues. But, I guess people can start calling different things by the same name. They did it with Rock and Roll, based on blues, which started, and basically ended, in the 50's. But since that time virtually every form of music to hit the charts has been called "Rock."

If you don't know what I mean by a 12-bar progression, listen to that live JB Hutto tune again. Kinda tune out the lead slide guitar JB plays, and just focus on the rhythm section. The pattern keeps repeating itself throughout the song.

A couple of other "features" of blues is a "call and response" method where the singer puts the lyrics over a couple of bars (the "call"), then the musical instruments (usually guitar in simple blues tunes) "responds" in the next two bars.

Again, in traditional form, the blues always repeats the first line of lyrics a second time, and after that comes the "punchline."

You'll begin to notice these things more and more if you listen to a lot of blues recordings.

The "penatonic" scale I mentioned includes "flattened" 3rd and 7th notes. If you listen to Little Walter in this tune, he is just running down the blues scale when he sings "Blues with a feel ling." By traditonal standards, the flat notes give blues tunes kinda of a "somber" or "sad" character.

Most African music, from that era, anyway, has a 5 note scale. When slaves tried to imitate the European songs they heard, it was unfamiliar to them, and they kinda "compromised" the notes they sang.

Another common feature is the time signature, which is usually 12/8. It's not a "straight ahead" time form. The notes comes out as kinda "staggered." Often it's called a "shuffle rhythm." Again, something you would come to expect with exposure to the blues.

You can hear all of these element in the following tune.

Jimmy Reed is one of the all-time great Mississippi bluesmen. The Rolling Stones have covered many of his songs, but, like, who hasn't, ya know?

Jimmy was illiterate. His record producer once asked him if he had ever written any songs. He said: "No, sir."

But then he added: "But I've made some up." His lyrics were generally first rate, but so was his playing (Guitar and harmonica). Nothing flashy, just solid.

Years ago I decided to learn a musical instrument. I bought some books on reading music and started poking at my guitar until sounds came out. After a couple of years of miserable failure, I stopped torturing that instrument (and my family). One thing I noticed, though. I couldn't play any chords, but the basic blues rhythm came pretty naturally and easy. I would sit and just repeat that rhythm over and over. Never got any further than that. There's something very deep and soothing in those rhythms. It speaks to the primitive portion of the brain, maybe...
I like a lot of the blues covers better than the originals (not all). I hope the blues evolves and doesn't become the "Latin" of musical genre.
I never realized that about rock n' roll. It was born and died in the fifties! Most of pop music that came after couldn't be classified as the original form of rock n' roll. They just called everything rock n' roll and popular music evolved.

The search for new blues continues!

Tell me, Baby....
Who can your lover be?
Well, the reason I ask you....
Ya sure look good to me.

Big Joe Turner was the first to record this classic in 1954. It was later covered by, among others, Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly, Fats Domino, Jerry Lee Lewis, Sam Cooke, and the Beatles.

But the cover that had the most impact was that done by Bill Haley and the Comets, later that same year (1954,) who cleaned up the lyrics and recorded it as a rock and roll tune.

Stephen Foster, who wrote such tunes as Camptown Races and Old Kentucky Home back in the early-mid 1800's has been called "the father of American music." Here, over a hundred years later (1953), Fats Domino shows that his memorable melodies still have appeal. This is "old folks at home" (aka Swanee River). Of course Fats plays it in a boogie-woogie format and revs up the pace a bit, but, still...

More than 50 years after that, ya still got white boys trying to do it just the way Fats done done it, eh? Good music just don't never die, I figure.

Give me some Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson!

Somebody's Got to Go

I just saw Joe Bonamassa and love the blues. Cream and the John Mayall Blues band got me started. Im going to see Beth Hart next month
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLR_bSzPTiY

I started there too — and the Paul Butterfield Blues Band. I went to see John Mayall in '67 in some little place in NYC. Opening act was a guy called "Steve Miller"!

Good clip you linked to there — smokin'!

Albert Lee and The Refreshments, doin an old Chuck Berry tune, eh?

Now and then you run across a white boy who really can sing the blues, eh?

This classic slow blues tune, first done in 1924, has been covered by everybody and his brother from Sister Rosetta Tharpe to Led Zeppelin and from Lightnin Hopkins to Janis Joplin.

Here's The Killer himself, Jerry Lee Lewis, with British musicians like Albert Lee and Rory Gallagher, doing it 50 years after it was first recorded, and over 40 years ago (1973).

Tommy Johnson, 1928

Bonnie Raitt, 1971

John Lee Hooker, 1960