Well alright everybody hello and welcome to the first post on this blog. I'm not entirely too sure how it all works so give me time. The main upshot of this blog is to try to educate the wider world of the Blues, what I see to be Blues and things like that. You may not agree with me and if so, cool - you don't have to read this.
With that said, let's get into it.
I started listening to the Blues actively in late 2014 through Fats Domino and from him I worked backwards, as many modern Blues fans do, to the roots. I soon discovered Blind Lemon Jefferson, Robert Johnson and other Delta Blues heroes like Howlin Wolf and Muddy Waters. Something in this music made me feel something like I had never felt before - indescribable feeling were suddenly being put into words and song. I was elated!
Since then, Blues is the only music I listen to. Why, you may ask. Well despite it being a seemingly repetitive music (something I love about it - no room for deviation, and everyone can understand it), there are so many styles, so many sub-genres of Blues, so many artists, so many bands, so many combinations of it which make it such an endless pool of music and talent. You can listen to any Blues song and it will touch you. You can find out new artists and know what they're all about. I still can't really believe it, that there's so many songs out there to listen to.
I've been using a capital letter to describe this fantastic genre of music. Blues. Because I have a bone to pick with the modern (certainly UK - based) Blues scene. There are countless Blues (blues? Blues?) bands in the UK performing regularly. I have seen some and yes, they play Blues as a large proportion of their material. However, sometimes there will be instances where the band say they perform Blues and to me it's more of a rock - based music. Do I mind? Not particularly, I listened to AC/DC as a younger lad. But it's when they market themselves as a Blues band that gets my goat. At what point does it deviate from a Blues sound to blues-rock to rock? To me, it's when the songs lose the typical 8, 12, 16, 24 (there are, I am sure, others) bar format that this happens. Therefore, I respect the musicianship, but if I want to hear the Blues, I don't listen to that.
But why the capital letter? I think I use it as a sign of respect. Pure, unadulterated Blues deserves this respect because when I listen to Robert Johnson, Guitar Slim, Junior Wells, Lonnie Johnson, Victoria Spivey and many, many others, I listen to the pure stuff. And that's the way I see the Blues should be played. It's a personal thing and I'm glad that in America there are young players like Quon Willis, Cameron Smith and Creighton Wodarski playing the Blues as it should be (there are others, forgive me - time is short!).
I think I've gone on enough for a first entry into this new blog thing. If you enjoyed it, don't forget to check back every now and again - uploads and entries will be sporadic to begin with as I have important exams in the coming months, but rest assured there will be entries that (hopefully) will spread the word of the Blues. Thanks for reading!
I play the harmonica and I have a Youtube channel. If you want to see what I do, then head on over there and subscribe, it helps the channel out and share the videos, if that's what you like to see.
My channel - click here.
That's all for this week - sorry for rambling, but that's going to be the nature of this blog. Hope you enjoyed! :)
