What Blues Needs…

[telemnemonics]

But didn't you just say that the Blues supports every single individual who picks up the guitar? And if so, at what level of playing proficiency does said support end, and is there a (preferably toll-free) helpdesk number one can call to extend it?

PS. And no, monster chops are NOT key to playin' the blooze.

Supports as a foundation and supports players wanting to express their feelings.

Blues is not really a foundation of pop or a foundation of chops, so if you accept the foundation of Blues then build some other house on it, thats fine but its no longer Blues and all this talk of other styles being Blues because there is some Blues in the foundation, is pedantic scholarship.
Its an old language, traces run through many newer languages, none of which are Blues.

If yer blues requires a DNA test to identify?
Distant cousin!

At the same time these pedantic dissections are not good for music or musicians either. Younger players may play Blues that sounds different from the old days, but arguing over branding us more about arguing than music.

Near as i can tell we are arguing over SRV saving Blues or pop saving Blues or Blues needing to be pop to be Blues?
Why?

 

[telemnemonics]

*AHEM* The Beatles?

Well the Beatles didnt "play pop music or write pop music".

Pop music is mass produced derivative music following the latest trend.
Innovators who forge new styles that others follow and becomes pop, can be called pop musicians.
But thats like calling a bulldozer a lawn chair because its outdoors and you can sit on it.

Beatles music forged new styles that became pop.
British invasion AKA Blues Rock became pop and all the Blues Rock followers followed, some being stronger than the innovators who started the trendy trend.
British Invasion later became broader.

Michael Jackson forged new styles that became pop.
Grandmaster Flash forged new styles that became pop.
SRV didnt really forge and new style or further the Blues style, but he did mark a high point in Popular Blues Rock, aling with numerous other greats in that immensely popular genre.
Blues Rock after the 70s remained popular but was not really pop music after the '60s & '70s Blues Rock based Pop Rock.
Again though, the foundation can still be found in DNA tests...

...wasting time...

 

[tomasz]

I'd like to chime in from a different angle and consider, what changed in the world of technology, information and perception in the last 40 years. If you try to look back, at the 70's, 80's.. in many places, there was usually a radio, a tv with a few channels, a record/cassette player in most households. Most people where hearing music there, or making music with friends, going to bars and to concerts to enjoy music. Music was a form of art and artists gave it effort to be good and desirable. Songs were written to form albums, a more complex art form, that could be enjoyed as a whole. You were selecting those art pieces, experiencing huge emotions getting a new album of your favourite group or making a new discovery for yourself.

But look at now, internet everywhere makes anything available in a click. Not just music, anything: films, funny youtube videos, chats, messengers, spying on peoples life in social media, reading forums. You can listen to anything you want anywhere - it does not have to be your home stereo anymore. The younger the generation, the less they listen, information is just going through our heads as a constant flow of mixed data. Our attention span got dramatically shorter:

"In the mid-1980s, the average time that passed before you would hear the vocals on any radio song was 23 seconds.

Today, that number has dropped to just 5 seconds."
full podcast here: https://www.wirebuzz.com/blog/attention-spans-music

But we are still doing one thing as human beings, we are looking for emotions to feed the brain. In that 5 seconds, the youngest generations is trying to find emotions, before they hop on to another funny tik tok video, or something else. The 1 minute format, so popular now on instagram, or youtube videos of younger guitarists, is just the right thing people can focus on.

Now coming back to the point, I wanted to make: if blues comes back, it will come back evolved to suit the younger audience need and the risk is, you may not like it anymore. Can you imagine a blues format, that kicks in with a vocal on the 5th second, leaves all the solo guitar crap behind and wraps up in under 1 minute? That is how it may come back. Just some food for thoughts

 

[Jackroadkill]

I would agree with you if we were talking about fifteen or twenty minutes in the 80s where rap/hip-hop was roots-based street music. What it has become isn't what it started out as.

I should have perhaps qualified my statement with a disclaimer meaning "proper" rap, not just mumbling over a synthetic beat about how much money you have and how misogynistic you are - nobody needs to hear that, after all.

 

[clayville]

Folks didn't delve into his influences and run out and buy Albert King records at anywhere near the rate we did in the 60's and 70's. But it happened a little because those guys were still around and Stevie boosted them.
Few were frantically searching out the identity of the songwriters on the record...O. Rush, R. King, W. Dixon, C. Burnette, M. Morganfield...

I'm sure you're right that only a few will seek the sources of the music that sparks their interest, but the few that do become the ones that keep the flame alive - whether fans of the genre or the players.

When I was a kid, noticing that someone named Willie Dixon wrote the Stones cover of "Little Red Rooster" opened up a fifty year journey into the Blues for me. Things like the Allman Brothers shouting out Elmore James and Bobby Blue Bland on Fillmore East helped too.

It might be a smaller and smaller 'club' these days in terms of cultural influence, but with the internet and streaming it's easier and easier for those that catch the spark to trace this stuff back and listen to it, and - through places like this - to share what they've learned and to learn more. There are dozens of players/writers mentioned in this thread, and I'm guessing that at least a few of "us" will seek out the ones they aren't familiar with... and move the ball forward that little bit more until the next Blues Savior comes along.

 

[msalama]

wasting time...

Yours or ours?

 

[wangdaning]

It comes down to companies creating music fads for sales, then marketing them, getting all the air/tv time, paying people now to promote them on social media, and what you get is people only really remember what was promoted. The same goes for other arts. In the painting world things have become very mediocre, but the only people who are promoted are mediocre, so it is seen as the best of today. Same is true in literature, drama (including movies and tv), you name it and it is the same everywhere. That is not even to consider the nepotism that goes into these industries. Most famous people are the children and relatives of people in the industry or other positions of power. True artists are not respected at all, other than being ripped off.

People like to fit in with others, and if the media is telling you this is the hot thing and bombarding you with it from all sides, many will just go along without thinking about it.

 

[teletail]

It comes down to companies creating music fads for sales, then marketing them, getting all the air/tv time, paying people now to promote them on social media, and what you get is people only really remember what was promoted. The same goes for other arts. In the painting world things have become very mediocre, but the only people who are promoted are mediocre, so it is seen as the best of today. Same is true in literature, drama (including movies and tv), you name it and it is the same everywhere. That is not even to consider the nepotism that goes into these industries. Most famous people are the children and relatives of people in the industry or other positions of power. True artists are not respected at all, other than being ripped off.

People like to fit in with others, and if the media is telling you this is the hot thing and bombarding you with it from all sides, many will just go along without thinking about it.

+1

Plenty of people jumped on the SRV bandwagon when he was hot and haven’t listened to him since he died.

 

[2HBStrat]

Well the Beatles didnt "play pop music or write pop music".

Pop music is mass produced derivative music following the latest trend....

I doubt that this would be a consensus definition of "pop."

Maybe a discussion of what "pop" means would be helpful.

 

[msalama]

No need to doubt, because it isn't.

 

[Peter Graham]

Pop music is mass produced derivative music following the latest trend.

I have read your posts with interest, but would respectfully disagree with your characterisation of pop. Pop, as the name suggests, is simply 'popular' music. It is pretty much any music that could make no claim to be high art. At its core is simplicity - simple structures, simple formats and simple themes. We have had pop music since Neanderthals were banging rocks on trees.

If that definition of pop is valid, then blues is simply one manifestation of pop. Although much modern music undoubtedly does owe a debt to blues, blues also owes a debt to what came before. It's a continuum. Blues is simply one step along the road. What unites (say) Muddy Waters and Ed Sheeran is, in reality, far more than what divides them. This isn't to say that nothing divides them - to those of us who like pop music, the differences are abundantly clear. But it is to say that they have far more in common with each other than they do with a Brahms symphony. Both derive from a long and vibrant history of music made by ordinary people for ordinary people. The differences we think of as so obvious may seem much less obvious to someone who doesn't like either Muddy Waters or Ed Sheeran. Just another three or four chord verse chorus verse chorus song about girls...

Pop often is derivative, but need not be. But imitation isn't just a feature of pop in any event. Someone has to set the trends for everyone else to follow, after all. Every successful artist in every field of artistic endeavour will spawn imitators. That is as true of serious musicians (like Led Zeppelin) or deliberately much more throwaway musicians (like Kylie) just as it is for successful painters, writers, poets, architects and designers do.

Pop often is mass produced, but it doesn't have to be. Pop machines exist in those areas of popular music where there are stacks of cash to be made. But we've had an industry - and mass production - for as long as we have had factories and canals. How many of us would even have heard of Muddy Waters or Stevie Ray Vaughan were it not for mass production, still less own anything by them?

I think of pop more like traditional Italian cooking - a small number of ingredients typically cooked simply, but capable of endless re-invention and re-imagining. The fact that you can buy mass produced jars of revolting faux-Italian pasta sauce doesn't mean that you can't have whole-earth, authentic Italian cooking too. But it's still all Italian food at the end of the day and all of it is different from French haut cuisine.

 

[telemnemonics]

Yours or ours?

Well a combo, more wasting my own time arguing on the internet.

But also the nature of arguing on the internet leads to friends challenging each others opinions over and over andreactiing to being told our opinions are wrong over and over, while also being forced by our sense that internet arguments can lead to some agreeable outcome that all us friends who love music and in this case presumably love Blues; these arguments seldom make us collectively feel like better friends and instead divide us.

My opinion is not that important, my opinion cannot change the course of popular music and guitar band music, and supporting my opinion by arguing is not worth losing friends over!

Bonus waste if time:
I love lots of Pop Music and end up sounding like I look down on Pop.
Just for the sake of saying its fine with me that Blues was never Pop.

 

[telemnemonics]

I doubt that this would be a consensus definition of "pop."

Maybe a discussion of what "pop" means would be helpful.

Well of course my selected phrase in a gear chat context responding to an individual is not a professorial definition of a word that defines many different things.

I use pop to mean got lots of airplay.
But if kids want to start a band and choose what tunes to play, their choice to be "a Pop band" playing Pop covers does not get them airplay. And isnt a definition of style, just says they play stuff on the radio at the time.

Some bands like LZ (and The Stones etc) chose to be a Blues band, but they couldnt keep perfect renditions of Blues and they lacked the very different culture of both upbringing and band reality where nobody was trying to lynch them and instead they had to fight off attacking teen girls.

The result was LZ became pop.
But not by choosing to play pop music.

Take some otjer bands and im not sure who is perfect for this point but maybe Boy George and Nickelback?
They chose to be Pop bands and crafted Pop music.

Am I getting my point across?
Copying pop to become pop is pop music.
Copying blues and becoming pop is pop music.
But the two are not the same.

Right?

 

[telemnemonics]

I have read your posts with interest, but would respectfully disagree with your characterisation of pop. Pop, as the name suggests, is simply 'popular' music. It is pretty much any music that could make no claim to be high art. At its core is simplicity - simple structures, simple formats and simple themes. We have had pop music since Neanderthals were banging rocks on trees.

If that definition of pop is valid, then blues is simply one manifestation of pop. Although much modern music undoubtedly does owe a debt to blues, blues also owes a debt to what came before. It's a continuum. Blues is simply one step along the road. What unites (say) Muddy Waters and Ed Sheeran is, in reality, far more than what divides them. This isn't to say that nothing divides them - to those of us who like pop music, the differences are abundantly clear. But it is to say that they have far more in common with each other than they do with a Brahms symphony. Both derive from a long and vibrant history of music made by ordinary people for ordinary people. The differences we think of as so obvious may seem much less obvious to someone who doesn't like either Muddy Waters or Ed Sheeran. Just another three or four chord verse chorus verse chorus song about girls...

Pop often is derivative, but need not be. But imitation isn't just a feature of pop in any event. Someone has to set the trends for everyone else to follow, after all. Every successful artist in every field of artistic endeavour will spawn imitators. That is as true of serious musicians (like Led Zeppelin) or deliberately much more throwaway musicians (like Kylie) just as it is for successful painters, writers, poets, architects and designers do.

Pop often is mass produced, but it doesn't have to be. Pop machines exist in those areas of popular music where there are stacks of cash to be made. But we've had an industry - and mass production - for as long as we have had factories and canals. How many of us would even have heard of Muddy Waters or Stevie Ray Vaughan were it not for mass production, still less own anything by them?

I think of pop more like traditional Italian cooking - a small number of ingredients typically cooked simply, but capable of endless re-invention and re-imagining. The fact that you can buy mass produced jars of revolting faux-Italian pasta sauce doesn't mean that you can't have whole-earth, authentic Italian cooking too. But it's still all Italian food at the end of the day and all of it is different from French haut cuisine.

I think i agree with most of this except the pop being simple proposal.
When Classical was pop in wealthy areas of the EU, kids learning piano were groomed to play complex pop music, and really smart kids were groomed to write pop music.

Then jump ahead a century or two and various American music styles became pop without being simple.

But where I agree with your suggestion is that when kids just want to statt a band and copy the most simple pop tunes a kid can nail in a few weeks, well enough to play at a school dance and eventually play simple radio hits in bars, THEN they chose your simple based definition of pop.

Maybe it would help to let go of the single word definition of music style?
Pop Rock
Pop Funk
Pop Prog Rock
Pop Soul

How about Disco?
A terrific nebulous style name that dont mean a thing!

 

[Wooly Fox]

Individualism will always rise to the surface if there is enough momentum behind them.

It's all Tiktok and Instagram now with new musical trends and it's mostly electronic synth based as it's easy to do on a tablet in your bedroom on headphones.

Blues will continue, as it always has, and hopefully adopted by the next generation of musicians and one day one will breakthrough to the mainstream like SRV did.

John Mayer is the only blues based guitarist that I can think of that if you asked people on the street who he was, someone will know who he is.

Of the current blues artists, the only one I know who got radio play is the Black Keys, I'll hopefully see them live in Vancouver in October if restrictions don't return.

 

[pbenn]

Pop: more than 3 chords?

 

[uriah1]

Add a new avengers dude. Bluesman . It will get popular again.

 

[bgmacaw]

 

[Peter Graham]

Pop: more than 3 chords?

Punk: two chords

Blues: three chords

Rock: chuck in a relative minor and make it four chords

Metal: five or six chords but all just played with two fingers so they don't really count

Prog rock: a tidal wave of chords, most of them impossible to play on anything other than an authentic fourteenth century Moldovan fruit zither unless you have eight fingers or can manage a ten fret stretch

Jazz: no discernible chords. Spend two hours tuning up, accept polite applause and then head backstage with a bottle of thirty year old single malt and some reefer

 

[msalama]

Right?

Well if I understood you correctly, playing blues guitar with chops somehow degrades the music. Does that qualify as pop?