What is it with all this keeping the Blues alive BS!!! - Bman's Rant

First off I have to ask what is this all about? Why does this question even exist? It is my understanding that Blues Music started in America around 1900 and that it was a derivative of native African culture. Due to the racial conditions present at the time, field hollers, spiritual music and the like was the basis for the black culture and it's music. Blues music evolved from actual feelings inside of a person rather than catchy melodies and lyrics contrived to get airplay on the radio or to sell records. It was conceived to give comfort to those that sang, played and enjoyed it. At this time it was not at all accepted as a form of entertainment outside of the group of people who had been involved with it.... mostly slaves and workmen. It wasn't until WWI that white audiences began to become exposed to this music through the likes of W.C. Handy and Bessie Smith among others.

As free blacks started to immigrate north to the larger cities in search of work, more and more white audiences were becoming exposed to this terrific music but it was still not broadly accepted. Ok. Now lets look back. It has been around a minimum of 40 years to this point with basically no audience and it survives just fine... this is where my question of "Is The Blues Dying" comes in. It's hogwash!!

It took the likes of John Mayall, Peter Green (Fleetwood Mac), the Yardbirds, the Rolling Stones and other British rockers to tell America to wake up and smell the coffee. They produced an updated version of the traditional black blues and audiences were listening. It was this introduction that was the beginning of rock music as we know it. Sure there
was Elvis copying Big Mama and JLL but rock music came out of a real love for the blues. Musical sessions with Howlin Wolf, Muddy Waters, Otis Spann and others caused an awakening of consciousness of this great music.

It didn't hurt that the introduction of the new Blues Music, being a deep rooted feeling music, coincided with the "album rock" explosion that occurred in the early mid sixties. Guitar players went from making 3 minute songs to expanded 8 minutes songs to play longer

I'll Never Get Out of These Blues Alive - John Lee Hooker

In my mind one of the big five bluesmen of all times!
John Lee Hooker (August 22, 1917 – June 21, 2001) was an American blues singer-songwriter and guitarist.

Hooker began his life as the son of a sharecropper, William Hooker, and rose to prominence performing his own unique style of what was originally closest to Delta blues. He developed a 'talking blues' style that was his trademark. Though similar to the early Delta blues, his music was metrically free. John Lee Hooker could be said to embody his own unique genre of the blues, often incorporating the boogie-woogie piano style and a driving rhythm into his masterful and idiosyncratic blues guitar and singing. His best known songs include "Boogie Chillen'" (1948), "I'm in the Mood" (1951) and "Boom Boom" (1962), the first two reaching R&B #1 in the Billboard charts.
“Like” Bman’s Facebook page. I use Facebook to spread the word about my blog (Now with translation in over 50 languages). I will not hit you with 50 posts a day. I will not relay senseless nonsense. I use it only to draw attention to some of the key posts on my blog each day. In this way I can get out the word on new talent, venues and blues happenings! - click Here

Tupelo - John Lee Hooker

John Lee Hooker (August 22, 1917 – June 21, 2001) was an American blues singer-songwriter and guitarist, born near Clarksdale, Mississippi. Hooker began his life as the son of a sharecropper, William Hooker, and rose to prominence performing his own unique style of what was originally closest to Delta blues. He developed a 'talking blues' style that was his trademark. Though similar to the early Delta blues, his music was metrically free. John Lee Hooker could be said to embody his own unique genre of the blues, often incorporating the boogie-woogie piano style and a driving rhythm into his masterful and idiosyncratic blues guitar and singing. His best known songs include "Boogie Chillen'" (1948), "I'm in the Mood" (1951) and "Boom Boom" (1962), the first two reaching R&B #1 in the Billboard charts.
Get Facebook support for your favorite band or venue - click HERE

Down Home Shakedown - Big Mama Thornton, John Lee Hooker, Big Walter Horton & Dr Ross

Big Mama Thornton, John Lee Hooker, Shakey Horton & Dr Ross each playing the harmonica
Get Facebook support for your favorite band or venue - click HERE

Hobo Blues - John Lee Hooker - Ry Cooder

First let me say (if yuo already haven't figured it out) am not at all into super matchups and 15 great guitars and every celebrity all playing at once. In fact, I hate it! This is a real nice opportunity to see John Lee playing in his own pure form without someone stepping all over him. I love the work of Ry Cooder and he just stays out of JLH's way and lets him perform.

Serves Me Right To Suffer - John Lee Hooker

The real deal... not a modern cut...you gotta watch this!! This is the real Hooker!!

John Lee Hooker (August 22, 1917 – June 21, 2001) was an American blues singer-songwriter and guitarist, born near Clarksdale, Mississippi. Hooker began his life as the son of a sharecropper, William Hooker, and rose to prominence performing his own unique style of what was originally closest to Delta blues. He developed a 'talking blues' style that was his trademark. Though similar to the early Delta blues, his music was metrically free. John Lee Hooker could be said to embody his own unique genre of the blues, often incorporating the boogie-woogie piano style and a driving rhythm into his masterful and idiosyncratic blues guitar and singing. His best known songs include "Boogie Chillen'" (1948), "I'm in the Mood" (1951) and "Boom Boom" (1962), the first two reaching R&B #1 in the Billboard charts.

Hooker's life experiences were chronicled by several scholars and often read like a classic case study in the racism of the music industry, although he eventually rose to prominence with memorable songs and influence on a generation of musicians.
Get Facebook support for your favorite band or venue - click HERE

Tupelo - The Real Deal!!

I just love the early JL Hooker stuff. Few were close.

It't My Own Falut

This is the real deal... Such a great artist!

Born near Clarksdale, Mississippi in 1917 to a sharecropper family, John Lee Hooker was one of the last links to the blues of the deep South. He moved to Detroit in the early 1940's and by 1948 had scored his first number-one jukebox hit and million-seller, "Boogie Chillun." Other hits soon followed, "I'm In The Mood," "Crawling Kingsnake," and "Boom Boom" among the biggest. During the 1950s and '60s, Vee Jay Records released a remarkable string of more than 100 of John Lee's songs.
Get Facebook support for your favorite band or venue - click HERE

Boom Boom

John Lee Hooker... a blues players blues player.
Get Facebook support for your favorite band or venue - click HERE

Hobo Blues Updated

This is one of the few updated versions of John Lee Hooker that pays respect to his real person. It is performed with Ry Cooder. Must I say more!

Hobo Blues - John Lee Hooker

This is the great John Lee Hooker. Hooker has always been one of my favorite blues singers and guitar players. The main reason is because he sings it with no polish and no pretense. If you watch him try to play with a band, they try to squeeze him into 8 bars or 12 bars. John Lee plays to his own time. The band always has to adapt to his shortening of the "traditional" phasing. His voice is humble and cutting and honest. It's refreshing. It's a shame that he had to be put with so many current day blues players to get his due. I'm glad that he did. But people who saw only that or heard only that style of Hooker, never understood where he was coming from. This is the real deal.

Enjoy

Oh yeah..by the way... don't have to have a fancy guitar to play the blues...looks like a Kay copy he's got there just adding to his persona. He's posing with a Les Paul in the photo... but I really only saw him with thin hollow body guitars.
Get Facebook support for your favorite band or venue - click HERE