Still Got The Blues…anyone?

[Magic Mountain]

I just finished listening to Muddy's Folk Singer, and it's a stone cold classic. The sound is fantastic
and it contains some of the finest blues singing and accompaniment from Willie Dixon and Buddy Guy.

[Zeuhlmate]

Great music from where the blues originated

Songhoy Blues - Soubour https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r42A...OKVw3KCjE7LaNL

[JJ88]

Rory Gallagher is someone I've always rated, for his commitment to writing new material- it means, to me, he has more of a definable legacy than similar artists who mostly did covers.

[Enid]

The British Blues movement during the 60's eventually transformed into complete Blues Rock, but there were in fact certain British Blues albums that were traditionally geared toward Blues in general. Sonny Boy Williamson & The Yardbirds live at The Crawdaddy Club is pretty good. The cover shows a photo of the band on stage with Jeff Beck..which was very misleading to a number of folks that bought the album. Eric Clapton is playing on this and not Jeff Beck. Eventually hundreds of Yardbirds fans were trying to make that clear to everybody.....Clapton plays very clean on this recording and disregarding distortion totally. I was never fond of the way Keith Relf sang the Blues. I thought he was much better at singing dark offbeat Psychedelic songs like "Over, Under, Sideways, Down" and "Think About It". John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers early material is decent. The debut with Eric Clapton, Hard Road with Peter Green and Crusade with Mick Taylor. All three very sincere Blues guitarists with outstanding conviction and melodic phrasing. I'm not particularly fond of John Mayall's vocals beyond when he sounds more haunting. John Lee Hooker with The Groundhogs is a good purchase. The London Howlin' Wolf Sessions is unique because it is a rarity hearing Eric Clapton play slide guitar during that time period. Take into account that when the British had an abundance of interest/appreciation/love for the American Blues Masters, these original Blues masters were having health problems. I have several rare recordings of Blues masters yelling at young British guitarists. "No...I told ya, I don't wanna do it that way" or "Don't be touchin' my guitar now". It's a fascinating part of Blues history. It's very sad because the British musicians wanted so badly to help these Blues innovators and they were falling apart physically. That is the Blues. I also recommend Savoy Brown's A Step Further. "Made Up My Mind", "Waiting In The Bamboo Grove", "Life's One Act Play", and "I'm Tired" are worth the price alone. I say that because it's just the 4 songs I love and not the rest of the album. The rest of the album is live and I don't hear Blues. Instead I hear Rock n' Roll, Boogie, and a small influence of Blues, but those 4 songs I mentioned..I play frequently because they have the most beautiful horn arrangements for Blues. Also check out Blue Matter and Getting To The Point. Chris Youlden has a unique voice , sings the Blues with feeling, and stylistically sounding a bit on the darkside. Another great Savoy Brown title is The Blues Keep Me Holding On..released in 2007. Great guitar work from Kim Simmonds. Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac and Mr. Wonderful are decent Blues albums. Fleetwood Mac-Boston has some great guitar playing from Peter Green. Peter Green was heavily influenced by B.B. King. Otis Spann recordings with Peter Green are solid. Additionally Peter Green's session work with Eddie Boyd. Many of the Mike Vernon Blue Horizon series releases are worthy.


Rory Gallagher "Live In Europe" is excellent! Long John Baldry.."It Ain't Easy" is decent. Muddy Waters-Fathers and Sons features Otis Spann, Michael Bloomfield, Paul Butterfield, Donald "Duck" Dunn, Sam Lay and Buddy Miles. This is a incredible Blues cd and you should try to find it. The bonus material is a concert and it rips! Muddy Waters-I'm Ready and Folk Singer are outstanding. Albert King-Born Under A Bad Sign, Willie Dixon-I Am The Blues, Howlin' Wolf-Moanin' In The Moonlight, The Real Folk Blues, More Real Folk Blues, and Wang Dang Doodle, Albert Collins-Cold Snap, Robert Johnson-Complete Collection are solid performances. Johnny Winter the debut, contains some of the most diverse Blues material I've ever heard. Also The Progressive Blues Experiment and Second Winter I would recommend. Canned Heat-Living The Blues is interesting. Hooker and Heat. Also Hooker and Heat Recorded At The Venice Theatre. Mississippi Delta Blues and Chicago Blues are universal. The lyricism revolves around the life of Hoodoo, Voodoo/majick and timeless to me. The lyrics are deep. Sometimes like a puzzle, and songs about an evil ole' engineer taking my woman away are haunting. That time period was haunting and those lyrics are real...unlike Rock lyrics that became too contrived. Contrived because Rock musicians were being forced to write about something of a general interest to people of the world and not through a cultural existence like slavery. Not so much through a real life experience as opposed to what may have been relevant to people when music became more increasingly valued in the "POP" genre. The Blues is scary and it is very real.

[mogrooves]

I was never fond of the way Keith Relf sang the Blues. I thought he was much better at singing dark offbeat Psychedelic songs like "Over, Under, Sideways, Down" and "Think About It".

Agreed, and don't forget "Happenings 10 Years Time Ago" and "Glimpses". Page's solo on "Think About it" kills.

John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers early material is decent.

"Beano" and A Hard Road are valid, but the two I reach for are Bare Wires and Blues From Laurel Canyon, followed by The Turning Point

Savoy Brown's A Step Further. "Made Up My Mind", "Waiting In The Bamboo Grove", "Life's One Act Play", and "I'm Tired" are worth the price alone

Yup. I can't listen to the boogie.

Another great Savoy Brown title is...

Raw Sienna, their crowning achievement, and a band I was lucky to see in '69. Check out Youlden's solo LP Nowhere Road

[Enid]

Agreed, and don't forget "Happenings 10 Years Time Ago" and "Glimpses". Page's solo on "Think About it" kills.



"Beano" and A Hard Road are valid, but the two I reach for are Bare Wires and Blues From Laurel Canyon, followed by The Turning Point



Yup. I can't listen to the boogie.



Raw Sienna, their crowning achievement, and a band I was lucky to see in '69. Check out Youlden's solo LP Nowhere Road

I need to check out Youlden's solo Lp. That's a chapter I left out! Raw Sienna is great! Bare Wires ..I definitely share the liking for that and you're a hundred percent on regarding Page's solo on "Think About It" Nice choices!

[Chain]

[The Dark Elf]

Start with early acoustic blues and work your way up:

Mississippi John Hurt
Skip James
Robert Johnson
Charley Patton
Leadbelly

[Jerjo]

Start with early acoustic blues and work your way up:

Mississippi John Hurt
Skip James
Robert Johnson
Charley Patton
Leadbelly

Been going back to some of that old stuff this week. I'm reading this book about collecting 78s and this rarity is mentioned.



It's a pity Youlden left Savoy Brown. His voice was the perfect match to Kim Simmonds guitar. Wish they had gotten back together.

[davis]

Start with the big guns: Muddy Waters, Howling Wolf, BB King and then the world expands from there.

I have a bunch of JL Hooker and Howlin' Wolf, and the complete Robert Johnson. also, the Muddy Waters Chess Box.

[100423]

Been going back to some of that old stuff this week. I'm reading this book about collecting 78s and this rarity is mentioned...

That Geeshie Wiley song was fantastic!

[mogrooves]

I'm reading this book about collecting 78s and this rarity is mentioned.

That Geeshie Wiley song was fantastic!

You guys will want to read this:

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2...ine/blues.html

[Trane]

I also recommend Savoy Brown's A Step Further. "Made Up My Mind", "Waiting In The Bamboo Grove", "Life's One Act Play", and "I'm Tired" are worth the price alone. I say that because it's just the 4 songs I love and not the rest of the album. The rest of the album is live and I don't hear Blues. Instead I hear Rock n' Roll, Boogie, and a small influence of Blues, but those 4 songs I mentioned..I play frequently because they have the most beautiful horn arrangements for Blues. Also check out Blue Matter and Getting To The Point. Chris Youlden has a unique voice , sings the Blues with feeling, and stylistically sounding a bit on the darkside. Another great Savoy Brown title is The Blues Keep Me Holding On..released in 2007. Great guitar work from Kim Simmonds.

the future Foghat line-up of Savoy Brown was always a fave of mine, from Getting To The Point all the way to Lookin' In. The ex-Chicken Shack line-up just can't rival to it, though there are moments in their first three album (SCT, HBT and LS), but overall, something's missing

For A Step Further, though I absolutely love the studio side, I find the big extended jam of the live side a bit expandable (though it seems so far that this is the only live recording available of that line-up). Actually I tend to even prefer that ASF studio side to the absolutely great Raw Sienna

[GuitarGeek]

I've been trying to get more into some of the blues legends I've overlooked in the past. I recently The Real Folk Blues and More Real Folk Blue by Muddy Waters, as well as a four CD set of Blind Willie McTell's work. I think I actually got the Blind Willie McTell set from Wayside Music.

I've got a couple different Howlin' Wolf things in my Amazon cart at the moment, waiting for the right time for me to pull the trigger (the right time basically being hopefully right after my trip to NYC this week).

Oh and someone pointed I only named guitarists in my first post in this thread. OK, so there's Pinetop Perkins the great pianist. I actually saw him jam with the Allman Brothers Band about 14 years ago. I think they did just one song, but it was a good one.

And then there's all the great vocalists like Koko Taylor, for instance. I saw Maria Muldaur do just about the most intense set of down home blues you can imagine. This was...I wanna say maybe about 10 years ago, she played at a jazz club down the street from my house. Man, does she ever have a powerful voice!

Maria had a lady guitarist, can't remember her name, playing with her, and Maria let her do a short set of a few songs, which included a really nice version of When The Levee Breaks. And speaking of that song, there's also Memphis Minnie, who of course recorded the original version of the song back in the 30's (before Page, Plant, JPJ or Bonzo were even born!).

And if you care to extend the discussion into "R&B", you've also gotta mention Otis Redding.

I've got a bootleg VHS of Rory Gallagher on Rockpalast from about 78 or 79, it's the one where Frankie Miller comes on and does a few songs with Rory and his band during the encore. Anyway, about 2/3's of the way through the show, Rory breaks out an acoustic guitar and does a couple very convincing rural blues things. Then he grabs a mandolin and plays a song on that too, again very traditional sounding. Definitely another guy who "got it".

About the 80's: I remember someone writing this lengthy guest editorial in Guitar Player circa 85 or 86, essentially bellyaching about how the blues had been hijacked by white folk. In particular, he complained about how "big" SRV and The Fabulous Thunderbirds were, and how they had the nerve to put people like Buddy Guy and John Lee Hooker on as their opening acts, etc. This naturally set off a dren storm in the letters to the editor pages for several months afterward. As far as someone like Hooker or Buddy opening for someone like SRV, I'm sure the elder musician was probably just happy to have a good paying gig, and besides, I'm betting dollars to donuts SRV and others like him were using the same logic Bill Graham was, ie the "Let's turn the kids onto some of the guys who inspired us!" strategy.

And talking about Robert Cray, I don't know his records too well, just the stuff that got played on MTV, VH-1, etc, which strike me as being just a bit too smooth/watered down for my tastes (by "smooth", I mean in the "smooth jazz" sense). I think he was more of an R&B performer, and more of a vocalist/frontman who happened to be a pretty good guitarist, as opposed to being a really hot guitarist who sang. He was closer to the Otis Redding model than say the Albert King or Albert Collins model.

[NogbadTheBad]

Cray is a little 'clean', you have any John Lee Hooker? He's great.

[Yodelgoat]

Huh, a great thread. I just got back from Vegas visiting my son, and he turned me on to Rockabilly. Not blues per se, but the Red Elvis' and The Reverend Horton Heat are super fun to listen and laugh to. I'd start a thread if I thought there would be any interest in it. Its just a nice break from Prog. Now, get some Prog Rockabilly, and I'd be all over it.

[JJ88]

^Old rockabilly, definitely. Some of us here are big Elvis fans!

[ronmac]

Any blues discussion that doesn't spend considerable time on Johnny Winter is woefully incomplete. I'd put his body of work up against anyone's.

[SteveSly]

About the 80's: I remember someone writing this lengthy guest editorial in Guitar Player circa 85 or 86, essentially bellyaching about how the blues had been hijacked by white folk. In particular, he complained about how "big" SRV and The Fabulous Thunderbirds were, and how they had the nerve to put people like Buddy Guy and John Lee Hooker on as their opening acts, etc. This naturally set off a dren storm in the letters to the editor pages for several months afterward. As far as someone like Hooker or Buddy opening for someone like SRV, I'm sure the elder musician was probably just happy to have a good paying gig, and besides, I'm betting dollars to donuts SRV and others like him were using the same logic Bill Graham was, ie the "Let's turn the kids onto some of the guys who inspired us!" strategy.

.

I have heard these arguments too, but in some cases it worked. Buddy Guy is as popular as ever these days and I think that artists like Stevie Ray Vaughn and The Thunderbirds brought a lot of people of a certain age to the blues. I am a prime example. I have become a big blues fan over the past two decades or so, but for me Vaughn was my gateway to a lot of older artists.

[SteveSly]

Huh, a great thread. I just got back from Vegas visiting my son, and he turned me on to Rockabilly. Not blues per se, but the Red Elvis' and The Reverend Horton Heat are super fun to listen and laugh to. I'd start a thread if I thought there would be any interest in it. Its just a nice break from Prog. Now, get some Prog Rockabilly, and I'd be all over it.

Not a huge fan of the genre, but agree Horton Heat are a lot of fun. I have never actually seen them live, but was streaming Cochella on my computer last summer and ended up watching their whole set. I have always liked a lot of what Brian Setzer has done as well. There was a band here in the Midwest called The Wild Woody's who I used to go see on a regular basis and they were always a blast to see live. They were a live staple in my neck of the woods, but don't know how well they ever got known outside of the Midwest.

[Zeuhlmate]

Any blues discussion that doesn't spend considerable time on Johnny Winter is woefully incomplete. I'd put his body of work up against anyone's.

[Jerjo]

Got my turntable back from repair the other day. Now playing: Johnny Winter - Nothin' But the Blues. I forgot about Muddy and Cotton sitting in for the last number. Damn that was awesome.

[ronmac]

Got my turntable back from repair the other day. Now playing: Johnny Winter - Nothin' But the Blues. I forgot about Muddy and Cotton sitting in for the last number. Damn that was awesome.

My favorite track on that album is "TV Mama." It's a clinic in slide steel guitar playing.

[Zeuhlmate]

Another blond

[headcrash]

James effin' Cotton