Right I have been promising to set a music blog for a while and with a bit of downtime on my hands I have decided to give it a go. After wracking my brains (and my music library) for a couple of weeks about where to start, I have taken the easy route and have decided to start with, the primal Ur-substance, the great grand-pappy of modern music: the blues.
The blues to me marks the beginning of all (certainly western influenced) modern recorded music, as the first time in which a subversive and most importantly individual narrative is available to the listener. Far from the concert halls of classical music, some of the most creative, poverty-stricken and downright nasty men forged the first pathways towards 20th century music.
As a genre the blues tends to be the refuge of music geeks and guitarists the world over, bickering over bluesmen and arguments abound over the importance of each branch of the old gnarly blues family tree. As such I will be avoiding trying to write a post exalting one artist over another or a historical blues timeline, instead I will explain a little about a few musicians that I really engage with most of whom belong to a genre known as Mississippi hill country blues.
What distinguishes hill country blues from its more famous delta blues cousin is an emphasis on the deceptively simple, rhythmic sound of the guitar and an emphasis on rocking one or two chords in place of the 12 bar blues that pervades the delta. For me this translates into the dirty, hypnotic danceable sound of the hill country. Right enough waffling for now lets move onto the music...
The most famous of all hill country artists was Cedric (R.L) Burnside 1926-2005. Like most hill country artists Burnside was only 'discovered' in later life, which meant he was well into his 70s before his talent was finally properly recorded and brought to an audience other than hardcore Mississippi bar crowds. Although worldwide acclaim brought with it a number of dodgy electronica style albums the man's talent was never in question. Check out these two recordings from the early 80s (the 2nd includes a harmonica jam with Johnny Woods, hill country's sole notable harp player).
The blues to me marks the beginning of all (certainly western influenced) modern recorded music, as the first time in which a subversive and most importantly individual narrative is available to the listener. Far from the concert halls of classical music, some of the most creative, poverty-stricken and downright nasty men forged the first pathways towards 20th century music.
As a genre the blues tends to be the refuge of music geeks and guitarists the world over, bickering over bluesmen and arguments abound over the importance of each branch of the old gnarly blues family tree. As such I will be avoiding trying to write a post exalting one artist over another or a historical blues timeline, instead I will explain a little about a few musicians that I really engage with most of whom belong to a genre known as Mississippi hill country blues.
What distinguishes hill country blues from its more famous delta blues cousin is an emphasis on the deceptively simple, rhythmic sound of the guitar and an emphasis on rocking one or two chords in place of the 12 bar blues that pervades the delta. For me this translates into the dirty, hypnotic danceable sound of the hill country. Right enough waffling for now lets move onto the music...
The most famous of all hill country artists was Cedric (R.L) Burnside 1926-2005. Like most hill country artists Burnside was only 'discovered' in later life, which meant he was well into his 70s before his talent was finally properly recorded and brought to an audience other than hardcore Mississippi bar crowds. Although worldwide acclaim brought with it a number of dodgy electronica style albums the man's talent was never in question. Check out these two recordings from the early 80s (the 2nd includes a harmonica jam with Johnny Woods, hill country's sole notable harp player).
Although seemingly a cuddly old man in his 1990's performances, like most blues musicians R.L had a hell of a hard background, and like some fellow artists he was a convicted murder and (added as a bit of folklore porn) was famous for this later quote "I didn't mean to kill nobody ... I just meant to shoot the sonofabitch in the head. Him dying was between him and the Lord."
However hill country blues' craziest award arguably goes to a man who is still performing at the ripe old age of 90 (or 91 or 85 like most disenfranchised african-americans of his time he was not privy to his own birthdate, or he simply has just forgotten). T-Model Ford was rumoured not to even have picked up a guitar until in his 50s as a way to pick up women after his 5th divorce. His style of blues is possibly the most uncompromising of the entire genre, often sounding more like primeval punk than the crafted guitar of his contemporaries as demonstrated on the aptly-titled 'Im Insane' and the heavy 'To the left'.
T-Model is a difficult musician to listen to at times but to me his rawness embodies the spirit of the blues, much more than the softly-softly approach of modern blues musicians seeking to memorialise the blues as a nice friendly folk narrative. Although not all blues is about fighting, drinking and womanising it kinda should be, as a reflection of the life of most men of the blues T-Model living the dream... hell yeah.
Anyway that is it from my first post if you enjoyed it please stayed tuned for blues part two...
Much love Mr U .
