Favorite style of Blues

[FirstMeasure]

Amped up blues is not blues. It's blues made easier for white people to digest. Bar band music. The Harley crowd.

This is blues........

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGLmZCZ1sXY&feature=channel_page

 

as good as it gets

Buddy Guy's Not the Blues? Now, I'm sure you just meant that You don't prefer Amped Up rock Blues, since the Blues is an Ever-Evolving form of American Folk music that builds upon the foundations of it's forefathers and adds to the Fabric woven by your peers and predissesors.

 

And, Freddie King is Amped Up Blues, in my book.

[Rocky4]

Buddy Guy's Not the Blues? Now' date=' I'm sure you just meant that You don't prefer Amped Up rock Blues, since the Blues is an Ever-Evolving form of American Folk music that builds upon the foundations of it's forefathers and adds to the Fabric woven by your peers and predissesors.

 

And, Freddie King is Amped Up Blues, in my book.[/quote']

 

I might have jumped the gun. I guess opinions vary, but I have heard music referred to as blues where the guitar had more of a hard rock or heavy metal sound. On a blues station! I went to blues festival a few years ago and saw a guy playing Shake Your Moneymaker with a telecaster that sounded more like Megagdeth.

[FirstMeasure]

 

I might have jumped the gun. I guess opinions vary' date=' but I have heard music referred to as blues where the guitar had more of a hard rock or heavy metal sound. On a blues station! I went to blues festival a few years ago and saw a guy playing Shake Your Moneymaker with a telecaster that sounded more like Megagdeth. [/quote']

Yeah, that's for sure. Sometime they'll call rock-n-roll or metal Blues cause it has Three chords. That doesn't do Blues or Rock and favors.

[Howlin4Hubert]

This is blues........

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGLmZCZ1sXY&feature=channel_page

Thanks for the link Rocky4' date=' awesome blues there.

 

Buddy Guy's Not the Blues? ... And' date=' Freddie King is Amped Up Blues, in my book.[/quote']

Thanks for clarifying what is being referred to by 'Amped Up Blues'. Just love Buddy Guy, especially his 'Sweat Tea' album. His latest album, Skin Deep, is awesome as well.

 

I hate having to choose between the different blues, almost doesn't seem right so I'm going with

Blues from anywhere is a friend of mine.

.

 

Awesome poll and great discussion, Thanks James Allen!

[Rocky4]

Amped up blues is not blues. It's blues made easier for white people to digest. Bar band music. The Harley crowd.

This is blues........

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGLmZCZ1sXY&feature=channel_page

 

as good as it gets

 

I just got back from a Wednesday blues night thing we have around here. Definitely amped up blues (white crowd) and I thought, why do we hear Stevie Ray Vaughn and Johnny Lang on Classic rock stations but not Buddy Guy or BB King?

[dem00n]

I like Amped up but delta has a nice sound overall.

[Gitfidl]

Rocky4: Amped up blues is not blues. It's blues made easier for white people to digest. Bar band music. The Harley crowd.

 

Here are some really great white-folks blues - all styles of blues .. all forms of blues -- from jazz, to rock, to country-western, to exy singers ... most of it is 12 bar blues

 

Basie's Blues by Barney Kessel/Gibson -- incredible blues (you try it)

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

 

Katie Melua - Blues in the night (vampish blues -- sexy)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Th1iIqJ2X9Q

 

Peter Erskine - Diana Krall - Anthony Wilson - Robert Hurst (terrific)

 

Jerry Lee Lewis & Carl Perkins - Mean Woman Blues/Blue Suede

12 bar blues and .. rock 'n roll style .. Killer

 

 

Blue Suede Shoes -- 12 bar blues -- pure blues!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=is4lWYGM6rM

 

Peggy Lee - You was right Baby

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eg8JPZW78Sc

 

40 cups of coffee Ella Mae Morse 1953

 

Move it on over -- written by Hank Williams Sr.done by Hank Jr. 12 bar blues

http://noolmusic.com/myspace_videos/hank_williams_jr-_move_it_on_over__short_.php

 

You DO them and then tell me they are not blues. They are ALL blues and all different. ALl terrific ... also look up BobbyTroup -- Route 66 (12 bar blues) and Night Train .. most of Bill Haley's hits, many of Elvis hits, lots of 12 bar blues.

[NeoConMan]

I voted Texas Blues, though I would have to say amped up Blues is along a similar vein.

All subjective I guess...

 

I got into blues by the back door.

True story.

 

I was a big Kiss fan as a kid, great riffs, big Les Paul/Marshall jams.

When they were recording the four solo albums (I was 12) I saw an interview in a guitar magazine where Ace Frehley was asked what his album was gonna be like.

He said it was gonna be straight up rock n roll and blues, real fundamental stuff for him.

We had no FM radio where I lived in Kansas, and only three TV stations. My folks listened to Country music.

 

All I knew about blues was it was 'colored' music from a bunch of dead old men.

 

Got the Frehley album when it came out and didn't understand the 'blues' reference.

Read articles on Led Zep, Bad Company, Foghat, Steve Miller, AC/DC in the guitar magazines because I LOVED the music, but STILL did not understand the 'blues' influence.

 

Stray Cats came out in 1982, Stevie Ray in 1983, and I started to put it all together when I moved to where I had FM rock stations to hear all the stuff I had been missing.

Moved to Texas in 1988, and started hitting the blues clubs. I finally GOT IT.

 

So, take the blues and crank it up.

I love all the Southern Rock/Blues flavored stuff like Skynyrd, Molly Hatchet, Blackfoot, Outlaws, 38 Special, and later Brother Cane, Cry Of Love.

 

To paraphrase Dire Straits, I don't give a damn about any trumpet-playing band - it ain't what I call rock and roll.

Harmonica, yeah I'm cool with a little of that.

 

LOVE a dobro!

[milod]

Well.... I voted "jazz blues," but I started Delta. Still kinda sound that way no matter what "style" I do.

 

The problem with chopping "blues" up into categories, though, is that I'm not sure what fits where. Had Mississippi John Hurt played an LP, what would we call it? How about if somebody gave him a Telecaster and a Twin Reverb?

 

What did Roy Buchanan play when he played "Misty" on the Tele? Whatta you call some of the stuff Chet Atkins did with guys from rock backgrounds?

 

Whatta yah call Lightning Hopkins electrified? John Lee Hooker with one-chord loud electric stuff?

 

I dunno. Was Leadbelly doing "blues?"

 

I dunno. How 'bout W.C. Handy? Or... some Dixieland stuff? Is "Basin Street Blues" really "Blues?"

 

I dunno. Nearly everybody plays "Stormy Monday" with 9ths. Is that "Blues?"

 

I dunno. How about "Mood Indigo" with all kinds of fancy chords? Jazz blues?

 

I dunno. How about Fred Neil and "Blues on my Ceiling?" Is it okay - as some electric blues guys also did - to toss in "G" and "C" chords when you're doing a piece in what otherwise appears to be in "E?"

 

Hmmm.

[hbomb76]

I'm a fan of REAL blues, but not copycats and poseurs playing "Bluesy" music. Got subjected to far too many long rides in the back of frat-boy Dave's Nissan being forced to listen to SRV, too many guys named Eric trying to BE SRV and seen too many yuppies at open-mic-nights that just made me envision Eric at 50-something to be able to like most of what people often refer to as "blues".

 

I do loves me some Lightnin' Hopkins and Hound Dog Taylor, John Lee and 'Wolf, The 3 Kings and Winter...there's some good ol' stuff out there, but it's more rare than it used to be. On this list though, I'm torn between a couple so I'm gonna' have to flip a coin.

 

H-Bomb

[Rocky4]

I'm a fan of REAL blues' date=' but not copycats and poseurs playing "Bluesy" music. Got subjected to far too many long rides in the back of frat-boy Dave's Nissan being forced to listen to SRV, too many guys named Eric trying to BE SRV and seen too many yuppies at open-mic-nights that just made me envision Eric at 50-something to be able to like most of what people often refer to as "blues".

 

I do loves me some Lightnin' Hopkins and Hound Dog Taylor, John Lee and 'Wolf, The 3 Kings and Winter...there's some good ol' stuff out there, but it's more rare than it used to be. On this list though, I'm torn between a couple so I'm gonna' have to flip a coin.

 

H-Bomb[/quote']

Exactly, I went to a blues festival a few years back. I saw a guy wearing a SRV hat, Playing a SRV strat. The first 4 songs were SRV. Out of time, out of tune, missing notes, (which works beautifully if your name is Jimmy Page). He then strapped on a Tele and played Shake Your Moneymaker with deathmetal fuzz. I left during that.

[milod]

Okay... Now one note got a grouchy old man goin'.

 

Why don't they play such as BB on even "classic" radio stations?

 

'Cuz he's "old." Period.

 

That's the prejudice of the young in our majority and most subcultures nowadays. A few of the young kinda like the older musicians but often then try to emulate and "speed up" what the older pickers did.

 

It's also why Clapton played "unplugged" as a guy in, shall we say, "advanced middle age" and not in his youth. Youth wanted the loud, the fast... not necessarily the most expressive. (I say that with a big grin since EC is a cupla months older than I am.)

 

It's also why the really good young rockers and honkers end up better with age - but appreciated less by the younger set. For example, vocalist Frank Sinatra was the "OMH FRANKIE!!!!!" of his era, but if you listen to his younger stuff, that high voice had good timing and I'm guessing that obviously he was "cute" to the girls. But listen to him at 70 or so and wow, what phrasing that guitarists should listen to for their own work.

 

Ditto BB and other older Blues guys. It's not the speed, it's the phrasing. Kids like speed, though, regardless of style of music, and grownups seem increasingly to appreciate phrasing.

 

I remember watching Carlos Montoya when I was just turning 20. There were other Flamenco guitarists one might listen to at the time who had even greater speed but... At the time I didn't quite "get" what made him just sound better.

 

The "folk thing" in the 60s was good for a lot of us now-old guys because there was a search for a lotta blues and folkie folks from the 20s and 30s era - and respect for their stuff. I think we're missing some of that now.

 

On the other hand, whether bluegrass or blues, it seems "we" young guys wanted to take what the old guys had done and speed it up so it would be "better." Sheesh. It seems to me that the outlook is "Oh, X is so good because just listen to that speed," whether it's rock, country or rap.

 

Okay... I'll shut up now as a grouchy old man. But mark my words, youngsters, both you and your guitar heroes, if you mutually survive to 60, will mellow out and even they guys who still might do 90 notes a second will back off to do the phrasing that simply doesn't need it and you'll be convinced they're better than ever at 20 percent of the notes.

 

Then, instead of wondering about BB, you'll be wondering why the "new" stuff from your fellow "old guys" aren't out on mass media and the "latest and greatest" is...