Saw this kid open for Buddy Guy last summer. When this vid was taken he was only 14. He is 16 now:
How could I forget....Joe Bonamassa:
Of course Gov't Mule:
Saw this kid open for Buddy Guy last summer. When this vid was taken he was only 14. He is 16 now:
How could I forget....Joe Bonamassa:
Of course Gov't Mule:
From the King trio, I tend to prefer BB (who amongst blues purist was probably the least appreciated of the three. Persanally from your list, I'd say that Albert King and Buddy Guy are the ones I have a tad more difficulties get in their music...Originally Posted by GuitarGeek
Given your GG username, I'd had expected that you'd only name guitarists, but then again, someone like Jimmy Rushing or Memphis Slim were great blues pianists.
Yeah, it's funny, because I has watched about one half-hour's worth of the Montreal concert given in YT link above... and indeed, he seems he enjoys giving a hard time to his back-up band, by stopping and shifting unnaturaly tempos. Apparently Miles Davis was also doing that to whiteys and his electric periods. He was "kinder" in his first two quintets.
This is further accentuated by the fact that the man is playing firmly and deeply seated (it's not high stool he's sitting on) and being very static, so his signs are not exactly or immeditely visble unless you really got your eyes constantly on him. Someone standing up can twist, move about or turn slightly to give more visible or obvious signs
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I had a huge blues period in the later 70's (during my HR/HM days) , and Blues and Blues-rock (especially the british blues boom) were one of my entry gates for jazz (along with Santana's Caravanserai).... Though I was rather happy see/witness SRV's rise, I didn't appreciate much the 80's blues stars like Robert Cray and the rest of that generation...
but nowadays (and for the better part of the last three decades), I can only take so much blues before saturating and get totally bored. Depending on who's playing (and my mood of the evening), it can be 10 minutes to a full two hours show...
The last time I lasted so long was when I saw Stan Webb's Chicken Shack two summer ago in a festival that was more or less blues-oriented... But even then it's not a sure fire thing... I've seen him seven times and this was my second-best experience after a an early 90's blues festival... In between that, the four concerts I'd seen of him hadn't done much for me...
my music collection increased tenfolds when I switched from drug-addicts to complete nutcases.
If you want to hear where it all began, this is the best place to go:
http://www.loudcity.com/stations/weenie-juke-radio
Another vote for the great Johnny Winter. IMO, he's the greatest blues guitarist ever, although he would surely disagree. Anything pre-1993 is highly recommended. The previously referenced Second Winter is regarded by many as his best. But, in all honesty, there are so many others, that just picking one is not fair to this living legend's legacy. Great contemporary blues
The recommended starting list, in no particular order would be:
The Progressive Blues Experiment
Johnny Winter (his debut)
Second Winter
Third Degree
Let Me In
Guitarslinger
Hey, Where's Your Brother?
And Live
Captured Live
White, Hot and Blue
There are also several blues rock albums that he made, like "And," "Still Alive and Well," "John Dawson Winter III" and "Saints and Sinners."
"The White Zone is for loading and unloading only. If you got to load or unload go to the White Zone!"
For Chicago blues, electric guitar style,Earl Hooker was( is )'the juice'.On wah-wah there were none better,imo.Check this stuff out,from his album "Two Bugs And A Roach".
"please do not understand me too quickly"-andre gide
Buddy's been doing that protege thing for years. Young guitar prodigy opens or plays in his band.
Guy has been working with Sulivan since he was around 8 years old. I picked up his album "Getting There" and think it is quite good.
Steve Sly
Just a taste:
The Very Best Of Freddie King Vol 1
Freddie King - Burglar
BB King - My Kind Of Blues
Albert Collins - Ice Pickin'
Muddy Waters - Chess Box
Howlin' Wolf - Chess Box
Butterfield Blues Band-East West
Buddy Guy/Junior Wells - Play The Blues
Fred MacDowell - I Don't Play No Rock N Roll
Jimmy Johnson - Bar Room Preacher
Fenton Robinson - Somebody Loan Me A Dime
T-Bone Walker- T-Bone Blues
Son House - Original Delta Blues
Clarence Gatemouth Brown-Texas Swing
Lonnie Johnson & Elmer Snowden - Blues & Ballads
Find a good weekly blues show where you can hear a lot of stuff. I recommend Blacks & Blues on Rochester, NY's WRUR-FM. Host Doug Curry is black, and he knows the blues. He's been doing this show for 30 years, and he has a huge collection. He also has a good radio voice.
http://wrur.org/programs/blacks-and-blues
Just about anything Paul Butterfield did is great, IMO. Great Chicago blues and man could he play that harmonica and sing like nobody else. In fact, the Paul Butterfield Blues Band pretty much introduced Chicago Blues to the white college kids in the mid-60s.
"The White Zone is for loading and unloading only. If you got to load or unload go to the White Zone!"
Oh, and the next time Adventures In Babysitting is on, keep an eye opening for Albert Collins, in a cameo as a band leader whose bar gig is interrupted by the movie's protagonists. "Nobody gets out of here without singing the blues!".
I saw a Buddy Guy concert on PBS last night. I didn't know he could shred. The guy really shreds. Then he brought this young kid out who shredded too, so that must be the kid you guys are talking about. I was really impressed by Buddy though. I've only owned one of his albums (Damn Right I Got The Blues). He has a distinctive guitar tone, sorta like Albert Collins. Not that Collin's tone sounds like Buddy's tone but the uniqueness of the guitar tones is what makes them special.Originally Posted by SteveSly
Saw this kid open for Buddy Guy last summer. When this vid was taken he was only 14. He is 16 now:
You might want to look into a guy named Stevie Ray Vaughan. He's probably been the most imitated blues/rock, Stratocastor player of the last 30 years.Any suggestions? Who should I investigate in?
NEVER UNDERESTIMATE THE POWER OF STUPID PEOPLE IN LARGE GROUPS!
Buddy Guy is fanstastic. I have seen him in concert several times and he is a great showman. I just saw him again last summer and even at his advanced age he has not lost anything. He is coming to a casino near me in June and I will probably be seeing him again. For albums I would recomend one of his live ones. "Live At Legends" from last year is a little short, but the material is really good. "Last Time Around" is an acoustic live album with Junior Wells which is also very good. It is supposedly the last live performance from Wells before he passed away. For studio albums "Living Proof", "Skin Deep", "Hoodo Man Blues (with Junior Wells) are all great. He also has a 3 CD / 1 DVD box set that is a nice overview. Bottom line though, you have to see the guy live to really appreciated him. He is one of the last of his era to still be around.
For Quinn Sullivan the only album I have is "Getting There" It is a bit formulatic, but overall a good album.
Steve Sly
Thumbs up for Robben Ford, another good one.
Steve Sly
Not looking for a debate, but if one wants to hear some originality, that is not the place to go. Imitator fits him pretty well, IMO.
"The White Zone is for loading and unloading only. If you got to load or unload go to the White Zone!"
Always dug this dude, acoustically speaking. Met him after a show once. Genuinely nice and humble guy. Love that National resonator...
Well, we disagree. If people are gonna recommend other blues/rock icons like Johnny Winter then SRV belongs in there too. The OP didn't specifically say he was only interested in hearing the legacy artists. He even mentioned Eric Clapton. Yeah, great guitarist and pioneer of hard/rock/metal guitar. Eric was a huge influence on every guitar hero of the late 60s and 70s (along with Jimi of course). So if he likes Eric I'd recommend Stevie. Yeah SRV emulated his hero (Jimi) but he was playing a style that was pretty much deadin mainstream rock at the time. During an era when rock groups (even blues based groups) were playing day-glo, pointy guitars with whammy bars, SRV played a beat up Stratocaster and had a really sick, down tuned tone. He was the Eddie Van Halen of the blues. And like Eddie he spawned a lot of imitators.that is not the place to go.
Not looking for a debate, but if SRV is an imitator, then Joe Bonamassa is the king of all imitators.
Well, he's one of them, but I wouldn't quite say the king. He does show a much broader variety of influences, including prog. But, I'm not looking to derail this thread.Not looking for a debate, but if SRV is an imitator, then Joe Bonamassa is the king of all imitators.
"The White Zone is for loading and unloading only. If you got to load or unload go to the White Zone!"
Well, there was a little more substance to SRV than met the eye, although he was certainly steeped in the blues. I think the Hendrix comparisons hurt his legacy. He definitely had his own sound. Given a little more time on this earth, we might've seen some further exploration.
The only blues I like is blues rock:
Whitesnake, Gary Moore, Thin Lizzy, Led Zep, Geordie etc.
Never really thought of TL as "blues rock". Always felt they had more of a celtic-folk thing happening.
Isn't everyone an imitator at this point? I mean, what is there in blues that has not already been done 50 years ago. To me blues is more about legacy than originality at this point. There are a ton of great blues players out there today, but I would not say that any of them are really breaking new ground.Not looking for a debate, but if SRV is an imitator, then Joe Bonamassa is the king of all imitators.
Steve Sly
What I am about to say may offend somebody if they dont understand the history or have played clubs as long as I have, but this is a personal first-hand observation from someone that has been in the music business for a long time:
During the great guitar-collecting boom of the 90s, the Blues has morphed into some kind of "rich guy's" hobby. In the 80s, when I hosted a blues jam, people would come out of the woodwork with whatever gear they had and we played for the music. If someone felt like doing a Kool & The Gang song, we did it and "bluesed it up" and just had fun to break up the montony of all the I-IV-V shuffles going on through the night.
After the 90s, that all changed: Nowadays, guys would show up in BB King T-Shirts, boutique amps, and high dollar "Reliced" guitars (or PRSs) and they would chastise anything that wasnt traditional blues. These guys would form "Blues Alliances" and "Blues Societies". For us working players that had hosted these things before the "Blues Society" guys showed up with their high dollar guitars and boutique amps, we (and I say "WE" as there is a bunch of us) started calling these folks "Blues Nazis" (this phrase is actually a nation-wide phrase these days for veteran working players say to each other and we know exactly what we are referring about in the context).
This also affects the marketing: Guitar companies like Fender USA and Gibson USA have most of their high-end models geared toward the rich-guy collectors instead of working players (and why not? Most working musicians can barely pay rent, let alone buy a new guitar for thousands of dollars, so its a smart business move by guitar manufacturers).
...but this also affects the new music being put out - and this is the point:
What the Blues Nazis do not get is the music itself. A lot of these societies are trying to "Preserve the Blues" and will often support bands and artists that are trying to mimic the electric blues greats of the 50s+ or SRV (as overplayed as SRV is, Stevie did indeed get it ). Even being admant about the gear (point to point wired tube heads, vintage gear, or guitars without pointy headstocks, or no amp simulators). The point that they miss is that BB King, Albert King, John Lee Hooker, etc werent interested in sounding like anything but themselves. They chose what they played and how they played because they liked it and for no other reason. They weren't trying to sound "vintage" (as a matter of fact, a '56 Deluxe in 1956 was NEW technology). Albert played a Flying V ( a guitar doesnt get any more pointier than that) and, in the late 60s/early 70s, played through solid-state Ampeg amps.
The blues is about the tear, not the gear.
...and they played what they felt. They often never played the same song the same way twice ( I remember a blues jam I was hosting about ten years ago and a person I was talking to - a Blues Nazi - had said that he was watching an SRV video and that Stevie played his solo wrong...I just blinked at the guy in disbelief). They locked into what they played as to how they felt it for that moment - an audio representation of their soul at that moment in time. It wasn't about playing songs note-for-note and making sure every "i" was dotted and "t" crossed in the performance of the song.
Its hard for me to find new releases by new artists that "get it"
Last edited by klothos; 12-22-2013 at 02:34 PM.
Excellent point. I suppose that makes SRV just as much an innovator as Johnny Winter.
Another one I forgot. The guy that first got me into the blues. The late great Luther Allison:
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