Why modern blues artists get on my nerves....

[teletail]

I don't mind a blues band in a bar when I'm there drinking. But I find straight blues very tedious to listen to any other time.

Too many blues bands just play shuffles all night. When I was in a blues band we really mixed it up. Lots of tunes with stops, different beats, threw in some classic country, old R&B, rock and roll; just enough to keep things moving and interesting.

 

[CCK1]

The problem I have with a lot of the modern blues artists is that they're just too slick. Part of what I like about blues is the raw and primitive style of so many old school players.

Exactly!! As the old Carter Family song says, “It takes a worried man to sing a worried song”.
The artists you describe lack authenticity and soul.

 

[Fiesta Red]

I listened to him a lot, but that is folk music, isn't it ?

“All music is folk music. I never heard no horse singing a song!”

-possibly misquoted Louis Armstrong​

Blues is at the core of everything I play…too many people think blues is solely Jimmie Reed 12-bar rhythms or SRV burning licks—both of which I like, but there’s so much more to the genre.

The problem is traditionalists who want it to “stay” a specific thing/era—they think nothing is good outside of Robert Johnson or Son House, or Muddy and Wolf, or Freddie and Albert, or…you get the point.

I no longer call our band a blues band—even though that’s the core of what we play—because it pigeonholes us into whatever the potential listener thinks blues is…plus, we have elements/songs of outlaw country, classic rock and jazz in our setlist, so we’d be selling ourselves short.

I love blues.
It’s not dead.
It has just moved around a bit.

 

[Buell]

Defining Blues as strictly 1-4-5 is just wrong. There is still room in the world for another great blues guitarist to break thru into the mainstream. In fact, there are a few out there. You just have to find them. Good is good, no matter if it's Blues or any other "genre".

 

[BlueShadows]

The best blues song of all time (in my opinion of course) is just I…no IVs or Vs necessary. Blues is less about what you play and so much more about how you play it. Blues can’t die as long as we are living.

 

[charlie chitlin]

I'm a Blues guy and have about the same attitude as the OP.
My band got a little successful...a small label, some good press, spins on 100 or so radio stations, still getting a nice handful of plays on streaming platforms....but we did it by having original SONGS.
Nobody in the band was a virtuoso player...or even that great, actually...I'm sure not.
We were one of a very small handful of Blues bands to play the Philly Folk Festival, and we got that gig from having strong original songs...
I'm nod saying this stuff to brag (much), but because I feel it's something often lacking in the Blues.
Rick Estrin and L'il Ed are writing good stuff...I'm sure there are others...and it's great when there is virtuosity AND strong songs, of course...but so much emphasis seems to be on the guitar player's chops.
SRV had great chops and great songs (or great interpretations) and a unique delivery...so much so that he took radio by storm long after Blues was off AOR radio.
George Thorogood brought Blues to radio because of his unique songs and delivery. He didn't have textbook monster chops, but he had a THING...like Muddy or Hooker.
I don't want to rag on Joe B. because I think he's a great player and has carved out an incredible niche for himself, but he's missing THAT THING that would elevate him to a pop star like SRV or George.
Hopefully someone will come along who is just so damn good that the Blues will be back in the mainstream.

 

[4pickupguy]

I listen to, play and write whatever intrigues me. I gave up on trying to figure out why it does a long time ago. Its every from catchy little earwormy guilty pleasures to artistic masterpieces. Conversely, if I don’t like something, I can tell you exactly why.
Being intrigued is far better than being annoyed.

 

[BlueShadows]

I'm a Blues guy and have about the same attitude as the OP.
My band got a little successful...a small label, some good press, spins on 100 or so radio stations, still getting a nice handful of plays on streaming platforms....but we did it by having original SONGS.
Nobody in the band was a virtuoso player...or even that great, actually...I'm sure not.
We were one of a very small handful of Blues bands to play the Philly Folk Festival, and we got that gig from having strong original songs...
I'm nod saying this stuff to brag (much), but because I feel it's something often lacking in the Blues.
Rick Estrin and L'il Ed are writing good stuff...I'm sure there are others...and it's great when there is virtuosity AND strong songs, of course...but so much emphasis seems to be on the guitar player's chops.
SRV had great chops and great songs (or great interpretations) and a unique delivery...so much so that he took radio by storm long after Blues was off AOR radio.
George Thorogood brought Blues to radio because of his unique songs and delivery. He didn't have textbook monster chops, but he had a THING...like Muddy or Hooker.
I don't want to rag on Joe B. because I think he's a great player and has carved out an incredible niche for himself, but he's missing THAT THING that would elevate him to a pop star like SRV or George.
Hopefully someone will come along who is just so damn good that the Blues will be back in the mainstream.

I feel like we wrote a pretty similar sentiment at the same time...for me it is less about the chord progressions or even the chops... but the non-measurable feel of the music and it has been a while since modern blues has had a player occupy that space, in my opinion. But I say don't blame the chord progression, blame those not bringing it to life...it's like just throwing seeds in the dirt and then being mad you don't get a beautiful garden, don't blame the seeds, blame the gardener.

 

[scottser]

yeah, you think most modern blues is redundant, then you hear the likes of larkin poe or the heritage blues orchestra and they make you think again.
blues is like reggae, you have to wade through some awful muck to get to the good stuff and you need to be authentic to pull it off properly.

 

[stnmtthw]

I like how half of this thread is people complaining about modern artists using the I-IV-V structure too much, and the other half is "traditionalists" who complain that they aren't using the I-IV-V as good as whoever their favorite artist is (most of those guys base what they consider tradition off what they like the best).

Gatekeepers gonna gatekeep, I guess. If someone has fun strapping on a Strat and cosplaying SRV, more power to them. Just have a beer and enjoy.

 

[Flaneur]

The Blues is a narrative form. Too many guitarists forget that.

 

[Tricone]

Blues music is too broad and diverse to pigeonhole into I IV V, major/minor pentatonics. Blues are about testifying. Lowest of the lows to the highest of highs. A person's triumphs and defeats.

It is more than 12 bars and a shuffle. More than beer joints and Carnegie Hall. It's the story of humanity. Blues permeates in all music as well as all people. Blue notes are felt and played throughout the whole world.
The delta and Chicago are just a small part of the whole.

 

[Whatizitman]

I like to play blues more than hear it. Not sure what that means. Just thought I'd add that little tidbit of useless info. Thank you for your time.

 

[telemaster03]

I’ve come to appreciate more modern blues in recent years. I was at the Dallas show this past weekend and there were a lot of Texas style blues and players. The problem I had is that 90% of what they all played was so bathed in roto-vibe they all begin sounding the same after the first couple songs. I was so stinkin’ sick of roto-vibe by the time the weekend was over.

 

[Killing Floor]

Maybe part of the problem is the expectation of the listener.

If I drove around my neighborhood wearing a helmet nobody would mistake me for an F1 driver.

But if I’m pulling a slide outta my pocket at a gig at least someone is going to call me a blues player.

There hasn’t been a chitlin circuit in my lifetime. There’s no hardscrabble cotton picking, boxcar tramping blues players coming out of the Finger Lakes region. But most of us are more than willing to crown upper middle class electric soloists as the next thing in blues.

That’s the real problem. It ain’t blues.

 

[bottlenecker]

A lot of them are darn good players and singers don't get me wrong.... The problem I have is that all of them act like modern audiences should be super impressed they can play fast mid-tempo 1-4-5 stuff and expect me to start jumping up and down when I literally can just pick up my bass and play to it without even knowing the structure. I think it's cool that we're getting back to a lot of the roots stuff but don't expect me to be impressed by playing a blues song from the 50's and passing it off as new material. Listen to what some of these blues guys in the mid 80's had to do to stay relevant; all the snappy pop-jazz changes George Benson had to add on this. If he played some traditional 1-4-5 blues thing in the studio in the mid 80's expecting a hit the producers would laugh at him.

I'm not impressed by music. Being impressed by music isn't the same as genuinely liking it, being impressed or not impressed is just a phase music students go through when they're at the point where they really don't understand music, but they think they do. Most casual music listeners probably understand music better than students in this phase, because they at least remember what it's for.


I-IV-V progressions allow for major/minor ambiguity, which is the basis for american microtonalism. I don't think much of most modern "blues", but I don't think it's missing western pop chord progressions, I think it's missing grit because it's been dumbed down with rock.

 

[bottlenecker]

But The best blues song of all time (in my opinion of course) is just I…no IVs or Vs necessary. Blues is less about what you play and so much more about how you play it. Blues can’t die as long as we are living.

Hey, that's still one more chord than indian or turkish classical musics use. That "how you play it" thing, in my opinion, is what you play. Blues is not western harmony music, it is microtonal melody music, like eastern classical styles. But with chords!
That's a pretty novel thing in the world. It is never studied academically, so we just get folksy coloquialisms to cover a lot of complex melodic stuff that happens. That is not fair to the music and the real history of it. It is less complex when it is mixed with rock, but it is especially not fair that the people simplifying it are the same people calling it simple.

 

[Dismalhead]

Personally I find blues scales to be limiting and can only take a few songs at a time before I'm like "OK, let's do something else". But then there are lots of jazz and prog guys who'd find what I do to be pretty limiting too. To each their own.

 

[Lou Tencodpees]

I played in a "blues band" back in the day. Yeah, we played some traditional shuffles, but also played some Little Charlie and the Nightcats, Les McCann, J. Geils and wove in some originals. It was fun and I learned a lot.

I always liked SRV but truthfully didn't pay too much attention. Recently I revisted a bunch of his performances on Y/T. Say what you want about him and that which he spawned, but that guy was all in.

Fresh eyes and ears on the overdone can reveal new insights.

 

[Mjark]

I've never thought of George Benson as a Blues artist. Anyway, there's way more to what you appear to think the Blues is than I IV V. I think it's one the harder kinds of music to play convincingly. The form may appear simple but even in I IV V you have to cover 3 different keys. Tell me what key has 3 Dominant 7ths.