Author Topic: Might be heresy.... (Read 13396 times)

Eric · « **on:** July 20, 2006, 06:10:47 AM »

I've tried really I have. but I just can't get into the blues. It just does not move and or inspire me. I like some music that bluesy roots. But I just can not get into the blues per se. I am alone in the guitar player universe?

38thBeatle · « **Reply #1 on:** July 20, 2006, 07:25:48 AM »

Well you can't make yourself like something just because you think you ought and if you have explored the various avenues then that is fine. Blues , in it's original form, is a basic emotioanl and sometimes raw kind of music. I love blues but I wouldn't say I am and expert and that "if it is blues then I like it" but equally I am not a metal fan ( now that truly is a heresy) so "horses for courses".

Skybone · « **Reply #2 on:** July 20, 2006, 11:20:35 AM »

Like 38 says, you can't make yourself like something if you really don't. I can't say that I'm a huge blues fan either, but I am a huge rock & metal fan, but I realise the HUGE debt owed to modern popular music to the blues, especially rock & metal, as they wouldn't exist without it.

Listen to bands like Led Zep & Black Sabbath, their early albums were pure blues, just taken that step or two further. The Beatles and the Rolling Stones were huge rock'n'roll fans, which owes it's existance to the blues.

It's good to acknowledge lineage, but like many families, you don't have to like your relatives... ;)

Muso · « **Reply #3 on:** July 20, 2006, 03:58:40 PM »

Eric funny you should say this because I feel exactley the same way. I have never been into blues. However there is a fantastic guitar player who plays hyper blues with killer tone called Blues Saraceno, Ive got his first album which is stupidly good. This guy is disliked by the purists but what the hell do they know, if you want any mp3s I can chuck u some across via e-mail or MSN. listening to Blues play has given me a whole new perspective on blues and I've stole numerous licks off him which helps when i need to Jam out some blues.

gingataff · « **Reply #4 on:** July 20, 2006, 04:47:35 PM »

Jeez, he's still around is he?
I remember he was a 17 year old kid or something and all the guitar mags loved him, he had that tartan guitar, permed hair and a moody face. Apparantly Yamaha modelled their neck joint on the shape of his hand, and his dad designed the SeymourDuncan fuzz pedal he uses.
I'm gonna call my kid Fusion.

Searcher · « **Reply #5 on:** July 20, 2006, 05:34:28 PM »

It took me a few years to appreciate blues music and actually want to listen to it. I got there by way of Hendrix, Clapton, and other 60s guitarists who were into it. I don't listen to it much anymore, being more of a rock kinda guy, but I still like a fair bit of it. One plus it has for more is that I find more guitar tones I like on blues albums than with any other genre.

I don't think it's heresy to be a guitar player and dislike blues; I think it's heresy to be a guitar player and dislike Hendrix. ;)

Eric · « **Reply #6 on:** July 20, 2006, 10:30:02 PM »

Quote from: Searcher

I don't think it's heresy to be a guitar player and dislike blues; I think it's heresy to be a guitar player and dislike Hendrix. ;)

:lol:

I agree. :good:

Johnny Mac · « **Reply #7 on:** July 20, 2006, 11:14:56 PM »

^ Lot's of players don't like him and I can't understand it either.

Check out some of Howlin Wolf's music. That man had a seriously good voice! I sort of tried out going back through the time line with blues, over the different decades so to speak. Not all of it as there's a hell of a lot but when you get to Robert Johnson, it's just so raw and honest. I can't listen to it a lot though but it is good stuff, especially when you consider the political climate back then.

lulusg · « **Reply #8 on:** July 21, 2006, 01:35:42 AM »

There is no point in trying to educate ourselves to understand or like any music style. Either it just comes and catches you by surprise or not. The key to the highway may rely on listening. Greatings from the Birthplace of the Blues. :)

Elliot · « **Reply #9 on:** July 21, 2006, 11:08:11 AM »

Oddly I love acoustic blues guitar (Robert Johnson, Mississippi John Hurt, Lightning Hopkins, Big Bill Broonzy) but not so much the great electric players like BB King and Buddy Guy. I can listen to them and appreciate the blues they play but they don't have that sound that the acoustic players have.

Twisted Louie · « **Reply #10 on:** July 21, 2006, 05:14:50 PM »

Just my two cents, but the Blues is as diverse as R+R or any other genre. Around the turn of the last century African, Jazz, Country, Vaudeville all have their fingerprints in it, and vice-a-versa. You have pre-war, post-war, Texas, Memphis, Delta, LA, North Hill Country, Detroit, Chicago, etc., etc. So to say you don’t like Blues, you discard a great chunk of American music (and we haven’t even touched on the British and their re-introducing it to the US). But that’s all right, we’re all different. All I’m trying to say is that it’s a very wide scope, and I bet there is something out there that you would dig. What do you listen to now, what is it that you do like? Or, what is it about the Blues that you don’t?

deg0ey · « **Reply #11 on:** July 21, 2006, 06:19:48 PM »

Quote from: Searcher

I think it's heresy to be a guitar player and dislike Hendrix. ;)

Looks like I'm a heretic then :lol:

To be fair though, I've not heard huge amounts of his music (mainly because I chose not to after disliking the bits I have heard :P )...I can see the man had talent, and the songs are well constructed, but I was put off by the guitar tone, and his voice - neither of which I got on with.

Johnny Mac · « **Reply #12 on:** July 21, 2006, 07:04:56 PM »

^ Christ on a bike, you love the controversial, you! :lol:

deg0ey · « **Reply #13 on:** July 21, 2006, 07:11:58 PM »

Quote from: Johnny Mac

^ Christ on a bike, you love the controversial, you! :lol:

:lol: not exactly, I just don't see what all the fuss is about :P

Sifu Ben · « **Reply #14 on:** July 21, 2006, 10:01:37 PM »

You mean apart from the complete reworking of the rules of electric guitar as we know it, basically paving the way for pretty much everything we do now? Don't try to bring up Clapton in response, I like Cream, but honestly he wasn't in the same league as Jimi.
Anyway, there is to be honest a lot of blues I really don't like, but there's also a lot I really do. Some SRV stuff is pretty cool (I especially like his little wing) , Robben Ford is very good, and Joe Bonamassa kicks ass. If you get a chance to see a pub circuit band called Memo Gonzales and the Bluescasters, they put on a good show and the guitarist is super talented.
My big bugbear with the blues is guys like Clapton who seem to feel that the way to ensure the survival of the blues is to play it as it was 50 years ago, rather than letting it evolve as a living artform. The reason that the blues survives in as good health as it does is because of the new spin that Clapton, Richards, Hendrix, Green et al gave it in the sixties after all :roll: