plastic penguin said:
davedotco said:
plastic penguin said:
davedotco said:
plastic penguin said:
Orthodox blues, with the old boy sitting in a rocking chair, blowing the harmonica or plucking an acoustic guitar, doesn't appeal. Much prefer the British faux-blues, such as Dr. Feelgood, Andrew Rochford, Oasis, Clapton (to a point) and so on and suchlike is more in keeping with what I associate with blues.
Although there is some suggestion, a few years ago, that the blues started not in the southern States, but Russia.
If you go back to the 60s there are tons of british bands playing 'blues', try Alexis Korner, John Mayall, early Yardbirds among many others. There are parallels between the britsh blues scene and the rise of american 'urban' blues in the late sixties, check out The Butterfield Blues Band of the mid/late 60s. In fact check out Butterfield some more, particularly his first lead guitarist, the finest white blues guitarist in history, the late, great Mike Bloomfield.
American urban and 'white' blues was not that popular, they quickly moved on to 'heavy' music, much more mainstream. If you have never heard it, try 'Cheap Thrills' by Big Brother and the Holding Company. The ultimate repackaging of blues music for the white audience and, despite that, a really fine album.
Wasn't keen of John Mayall or much of that 60's blues movement. The groups that had an crdibility (IMHO) were Cream, Spencer Davis Group, The Who... otherwise, most of the others were okay to hear on the radio. That's it really.
The only proper US blues artist I ever gravitated to was Hendrix: He was off the scale.
I am going to be a bit pedantic here, apologies in advance, but the bands that you are commenting on were not, in any shape of form, blues bands, not even white blues.
British 'pop' music in the 60s, from the Beatles to Spencer Davis was heavily influence by american R&B but it wasn't blues, that was something else. Hendrix may have started as a blues player but his recorded work is far too experimental and varied to be put into any category. Cream of course were primarily a Jazz band as Baker and Bruce have said many times, they just didn't tell Eric.
If you want to take a look at blues music in a british context the famed 'Beano' album, officially just 'John Mayall's Bluesbreakers' is a good example. The band have moved on from straight copies of the american originals and are putting there own character into the music. Eric has never played better blues than he did on that album. (if you can find the '40th Anniverary' edition there are a load of extra tracks that show Mayall's early work, the 'authenticity' of this material stands in stark contrast to the more developed rock stylings of the 'Bluesbreakers' tracks.)
Contrast that if you will with Paul Butterfields eponymous first album, again the defining moment in 'Chicago' urban blues and very different to the britsh style which was arguably more 'authentic'. Butterfield's band, like Mayall's, continued long after there most famous members had left, try 'Born under a Bad Sign', featuring Elvin Bishop, it's on 'The Resurection of Pigboy Crabshaw', the best version I have heard.
Both bands had great guitarists and both progressed rapidly onto other styles, Clapton to Cream and beyond, Bloomfield to the experimental, blues/jazz/rock of Electric Flag.
Educate me, Dave. What is R&B if it isn't a derivative of Blues? Early artists like Robert Johnson have influenced artists such as Little Richard, Chuck Berry, and even contempory acts like the Beatles, The Kinks.
Most of music history can be traced in one form or another from the early blues artists.
Robert Johnson even inspired films, the most obvious being 'Crossroads', starring Ralph Macchio. No doubt that duel was inspired by the track 'Dueling Banjos', from the film 'Deliverance'.
It's quite difficult PP, I do not want to get into semantic arguments over what is or isn't blues, or R&B or where being 'influenced' by a style or a band slides into plagiarism.
Pop/rock music started, really in the 50s, music largely made by and for young people. Sure there was popular music before then, but it was different and really not aimed at the young. In the uk the dominant music was the dance band, largely classical and jazz influencies but formal, staid and a bit tired. In those impoverished times, young people looking to make their own music had to use improvised instruments, they called it 'skiffle', essentially punk rock 20 years too early.
Skiffle was fairly short lived, blown away by a phenomena from across the atlantic, 'rock and roll'. Whilst it is reasonable to say that Presley repackaged black music for white people, other artists, Johny Cash for example, came from a different tradition, in this case country and western.
The Beatles repackaged yet again and sold it back to the americans who in turn turned it into the more intense often political rock music of the late sixties. Bands like the Doors, Jefferson Airplane, the Byrds and a host of others plundered all musical genres, blues, gospel, bluegrass, jazz and especially country and western, throw in some regional variations and you had everything from the Beach Boys via Little Feet or Dr John to The Mothers of Invention.
The uk really did not have those traditions to fall back on so rock developed largely from the 'white' blues bands of the sixtys which in turn produced the 'heavy' rock of the 70s. The variations came mostly from classical, producing 'Prog' Rock and folk music bringing us Fairport and Steeleye Span among others.
Origonally R&B was a quite specific style of black music, fusing blues, gospel and jazz in a style that was both 'eartier' and less 'poppy' than say, Tamla Motown or the work of Phil Specktor. It hit it's peak in the mid to late 60s, when a quite fabulous group of artists came together on the Atlantic/Stax/Volt, we are talking Otis Reading, Wlson Pickett, Aretha Franklin, Sam and Dave amd many others, all backed by the labels 'house' band, the Memphis Group.
They all had big hit records and were so popular that they toured together as the Atlantic/Stax/Volt Revue, all playing in front of the Memphis Group as backing band. They even had some success in their own rebranding excersise, they called it 'Soul' music. They were, for a time so successful that the backing band even had it's own hit records, under the name Booker T and the MGs.
After this time R&B became a generic term for pretty much any form of black music, it was occasionally applied to white pop/rock bands but that was never really appropriate. The term is pretty meaningless today.
Sorry to go on, but you did ask.
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