The Blues Argument

Okay, it’s most often laughable when music fans want to discuss the validity or genuineness or “real” quality of any given blues artist – particularly in respect to watching and subsequently commenting on a YouTube video.

It’s often just downright pathetic the arguments people have on YouTube about nearly any given artist. “This guy is okay, but he ain’t no SRV” or “BB King isn’t real blues compared to…” etc. etc. It’s just stupid, really. The verbal assaults begin, and rightly so in some cases (consider the latter quote), and someone inevitably gets told to go fuck themselves.

In my opinion, here’s the deal: If you think BB King isn’t worthy of being recognized, after six decades of touring and recording, as a genuine master and torch bearer for the blues – then you are an idiot. If all you can do is play the SRV card (and I love Stevie) every time another blues guitarist is mentioned - be it Collins, Cray, Benoit, or even Stevie’s big brother Jimmie - then you’re not listening to the blues with very big ears. Likewise, if you think the blues ended in 1965 with that last blast of the “folk blues revival”, then you’re denying yourself a world of music recorded by deeply talented, modern blues musicians. If you don’t think Clapton can play the blues “for real”, then you’re – well, then we ain’t talking any further about the blues, me and you.

Now, with that said, I’ve heard the arguments about how the white Brit kids of the 60’s all began to cling to the blues and how so few of them actually did anything but mimic the basics of the form. But I would argue that the blues is not about being a poor black man in 1940 anymore than it is about being part of the folk-blues revival of the 60’s or buying a vintage Strat from a pawn shop or being the next King of The Blues at Guitar Center. It is, however, about playing (and singing) with respect for the tradition, the form itself, and the plethora of ways it has informed us as musicians today. Blues and jazz are the fathers of American music. Without doubt, a beautiful gift – the fundamentals of the music itself - brought to America, albeit by brutal force, via the slave trade from Africa.

It’s reinventions, starting with Robert Johnson (at least as legend tells it), mutating through Jimi Hendrix and arriving at variations on the form as it’s carried on today are staggering to think about. Yet, many will argue the value of this or that artist’s contribution to the blues. They’ll employ well worn factoids about when Muddy Waters reluctantly recorded Electric Mud to satisfy the “new generation” of rock music fans, or split hairs with diversions about how Robert Cray is a “Pop-Blues” artist, etc., etc.

It all reminds me of a story that a bass player friend of mine told me about a particular modern blues song called “Please, Don’t Tell Me About the Blues”. He apparently knew the songwriter who wrote the tune in response to his anger about BB King’s success as a “commercial” bluesman. Now, what’s funny is that the song was recorded by a very popular blues artist enjoying a huge resurgence at the time (and still), thanks in no small part to the revitalization of “contemporary blues” beginning with the popularity of SRV. The artist to record that song was none other than Buddy Guy.

Subsequently, that recording did very well commercially, no doubt benefiting the songwriter responsible for the tune. I wonder if he was bitching about the commercial viability of a “successful” blues artist after that. I guess BB King did tell him about the blues, whether he wanted to hear it or not. Because – as my friend tells it – King’s commercial appeal was the catalyst for what is a great song, in my opinion, recorded by an extraordinary and very successful blues artist. You can bet the songwriter in question cashed those checks without hesitation. Being envious of BB King’s “big blues gig” - to quote myself from a previous blog - certainly paid dividends in this case.

My point: writing a “genuine” blues song does not require anything but honesty and a love for the form itself. So, whether one feels that BB King is the “real deal” or not is a pointless and, quite frankly, ignorant point of view. I mean really, how can one honestly question the validity of BB King?

Some viewers on YouTube do. And the argument begins.  

The music itself changes and morphs into different fusions as guitarists, primarily (not to preclude other musicians), reach farther out while retaining the fundamentals of the form itself. Concerning BB King, at 84, he still tours more than most rock acts. A much younger Tab Benoit seemingly never leaves the road. Blues jams percolate with “undiscovered” talent, young and old; some notably remarkable talent here in Austin.

YouTube is full of wankers – guitarists probably – who like to argue about who is more “blues” than the other. Friends and neighbors like to talk it up, too. But, the bottom line in my opinion is this: blues music isn’t a train that only a few got to ride long ago. Nor is it a traditional form that is musically dead. Yes, the earliest bluesmen and women are nearly all gone. There may not be large numbers of new country blues artists, fresh Chicago blues acts or budding Texas blues slingers surfacing and creating a big splash on the music buying public. But, lucky for me, the blues is alive in clubs in my hometown. Blues festivals around the country every summer help to perpetuate the human need for this meaningful musical form to continue to grow.

So if you want to argue the blues on YouTube, go ahead and paint yourself into a corner. I get a laugh out of it, all the internet bravado. Then I’ll pick up my guitar and continue to work on “my blues” at gigs, jam sessions and in the studio; just as I imagine was the job of working musicians in the 30’s, 40’s and still is in 2009. Nonetheless, for reasons I can’t deny; it’s good to know that a passion still exists for pitting one blues player against another. Even, if it’s anonymously, often angrily, voiced on comments pages everywhere.