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Erich K - 2006-04-25 12:35:19
I was deep into the rural blues when it was on record albums and I was a depressed pot-smoking college student. It was my version of the Cure and the Smiths as far as being in love with your own sadness, but in a much more whiskey-saturated way.
Now that I dont drink or smoke and it's all on cleaned up CDs, the music's lost a bit of its appeal for me, it doesn't sink deep into my bones and sweeten the heartbreak of life by amping the misery the way it used to.
An interview I read with Beck raised similar issues. Like me, Beck discovered the blues via library of congress recordings at his local library. He talked of the big difference between finding this old album with a big sweaty face of Mississippi John Hurt on it, and like 5 or 6 genius songs on one scratchy record, vs. buying "The Complete Son House" in a big boxed set.
Of course I aint as miserable as I used to be either... and the blues tastes best when you're in misery.
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Paula - 2006-04-25 12:58:24
And of course, the best context for any of this kinda music is live. To me, pop music is all about songcraft and recordings, and blues/folk/world/reggae and the like is about performance. Makes you wonder what it must have been like to hear Robt Johnson, et al, in the flesh.
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Erich K - 2006-04-25 13:43:10
I got to hear John Lee Hooker at this rowdy roadhouse bar in Syracuse back in 88. He was amazing, especially since he was using as a backing band some square bunch of white boys, you know the types, with the fedoras and all that. John Lee had to sit down most of the time, and let the guitar player in the band have most of the solos, but every once in awhile John Lee would rip a solo out and it was sooo amazing because it was completely raw and real, then he would get up and strut around for some songs without the guitar (he couldn't stand up with the guitar) and the sheer "presence" and cool he radiated was astronomical.
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iwombat - 2006-04-25 14:07:05
I think one of the amazing things about the blues is that it not entirely in the sadness, it's often about bad tidings and hard times, but it's generally from a point of view of some wisdom, or knowingness, strength. I've been walking around singing "search my heart" which is really the most positive thing...
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Paula - 2006-04-25 16:01:53
wisdom, or knowingness, strength
Yes, yes--and that's also something you can get more out of live than on record, IMO. To see and feel the strength in person gives it a different flavor.
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2fs - 2006-04-25 22:46:43
The thing about sadness, etc., in the blues is this: no matter how bad whatever the singer's singing about, the singer's still alive to sing about it. Ipso facto optimistic. In a really depressing, fatalistic way, of course.
My problem with "the blues" generically is it's so very easy to play them so very badly. Plus a lot of blues fans are really obnoxious in presuming the superiority of their musical and cultural taste over us lowlife rock'n'rollers. They want an auxiliary Nobel Peace Prize for *appreciating* what (say) Robert Johnson went through, ma-aa-an. The blues just isn't my cup of meat - although I certainly can appreciate some of it (generally, the older stuff). Sure as hell no damned Clearasil'd 17-year-old guitar player who's practiced 9 hours a day in his suburban rec room, that's for sure.
And the live thing? Yes. I think some music works best live, some works best recorded (breaking down into: on the radio, in the house, on headphones), some on the dancefloor, etc. And some really works only if you're playing it (or can semi-plausibly imagine yourself doing so).
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Greg - 2006-04-26 07:17:47
2FS-Have to agree-Sometimes it comes down to sheer triumph of spirit. And re: Blues purists--just annoying--spiritually and intellectually constipated--but that's the "the trouble with the classicists" in any genre of music or artistic medium. That said, I see "blues" as a catch-all phrase for a lot of sounds and feelings--John Lee Hooker isn't really like Lightnin' Hopkins who isn't like say.. Wynonie Harris who is just way too much fun.
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Greg - 2006-04-26 07:31:28
Question: How many classicists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
Answer: HAH! None you poseur!!! EVERYBODY knows that in the beginning there was ONLY darkness.
um... er... sorry
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