Bluesmen influenced by rock and

[Big Beat Steve]

O.K., if this is what you were getting at, then yes - I think there were indeed a few parallel developments at work. But again - most of those "blues" artists who later turned out soul (or more or less soul-influenced) recordings leaned very heavily towards R&B in the 50s (as far as I can see it). Which - again - does not have to be a contradiction as I still feel that there was no insurmountable or clear-cut stylistic boundary between 50s blues and 50s R&B. After all, isn't R&B just ONE (major) genre within the OVERALL field of "da blooz"?

[robertoart]

Regarding Rock music, I think Stevie Ray Vaughan had a big influence in the transition of the way record companies and Blues musicians presented the music. I actually think of Vaughan as a Rock musician. Even though he played Blues tunes, he was very much about merging Albert King and Jimi Hendrix. And he was part of Rock music mainstream, in the fact that it was David Bowie who introduced his playing to a mainstream Rock audience (when it was still possible to connect Blues Rock to Popular music tastes). Johnny Winter was similar in the late sixties/seventies. But certainly Buddy Guy's (and maybe even Albert Collins) presentation of his music on record and live - seemed to change after the emergence and popularity of Vaughan. Perhaps because the first wave of Blues into Rock had run its course by the end of the Seventies. So the connection between Psychedelic Rock and Blues - late 60's early Seventies - and the harder edged Texas Blues and Rock of the 60's and 70's ie Johnny Winter, was re-invogorated commercially by SRV. Initially though, in that first wave of post-60's Rock influence on Blues, Jimi Hendrix probably changed virtually every Blues player who could exploit any of Hendrix's style commercially as well. Perhaps Black Blues musicians who were conscious of Black audiences, fluidly moved between R&B and Soul, while those that wanted to reach mainstream Whiter audiences, incorporated the 'harder edge' Blues Rock influences - or if not totally, at least made LP's with that in mind - ie. Muddy/Johnny Winter, Freddie King/ Leon Russell or even earlier the Howlin Wolf Album, Electric Mud or Hooker and Heat. The times when Blues musicians incorporated other Black Urban influences like Soul, seem to be actual influences at the core of the music. Whereas when Blues musicians incorporated Rock music (back then anyway), it seems more about marketing and audience growth, and doesn't seem to be a change from within. The younger musicians, like Gary Clarke Jr., the Blues and Rock influences seem totally at one.

here is something I was listening to the other day;

in the words Lou Donaldson used to use (probably still does) the Syreeta one 'upsets' me.

Edited June 20, 2012 by freelancer

[robertoart]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TK8-Gb8osOQ&feature=related

[cih]

Magic Sam!

Magic Sam and Earl Hooker, and Hound Dog too for that matter, all had country music influences too.. (+ Ike Turner)

In the Earl Hooker biog (Danchin?) theres a description from Dick Shurman of a typical Hooker gig - late sixties - how it goes from R&B at the start of the night through to straight blues when the audience are 'ready'. He made tapes & some extended swinging guitar workouts are on a CD (can't remember title at the moment) - very nice jazzy renditions of Dust My Broom and others

[robertoart]

Magic Sam!

Magic Sam and Earl Hooker, and Hound Dog too for that matter, all had country music influences too.. (+ Ike Turner)

In the Earl Hooker biog (Danchin?) theres a description from Dick Shurman of a typical Hooker gig - late sixties - how it goes from R&B at the start of the night through to straight blues when the audience are 'ready'. He made tapes & some extended swinging guitar workouts are on a CD (can't remember title at the moment) - very nice jazzy renditions of Dust My Broom and others

How would you define the country influences. I find it hard to hear that in Hound Dog Taylor at least. From what I know of Hound Dog Taylor's music , there was no difference to what the band played at first in the bars, to what they played to the larger audiences once their popularity grew. I also read that Hound Dog slighted his own talent a bit. I can definitely hear the Country or Hillbilly in Gatemouth Brown, but he was a bit of what would now be known as a roots music polymath. And I believe he attributed some of this to contact with Pee Wee Crayton, who also could play in that early Charlie Christian style a bit.

Edited June 20, 2012 by freelancer

[cih]

well I'm always incapable of really separating one genre from another to be honest (it's all marketing anyway of course) but I was just going from repertoire really - eg Magic Sam - 21 Days in Jail, Earl Hooker - erm, several things I can't remember (not hard to find though) and Hound Dog Taylor - Coming Round The Mountain...

I was just trying to find the book 'Urban Blues' by Keil(?) but I've mislaid it - he performs a kind of split in black music iirc between what the black audience want and what the white audience what (needless to say the suits and smoother sound for him is the real blues as it had, at the time of writing, the black audience).

BB King, Bland and others, I think, are often labelled simply as 'Modern Blues'

Just thinking, you could almost as easily (and artificially) separate one sub-genre of blues from another by using the performers' clothing as the criteria. All the way through, from Ma Rainey to RL Burnside..

Edited June 20, 2012 by cih

[Big Beat Steve]

How would you define the country influences.

Well, in the case of Earl Hooker one single but obvious example would be that it takes at least SOME awareness of country music if you went and recorded a smoking straight-ahead version of Leon McAuliffe's Western Swing classic "Steel Guitar Rag" (under the name "Guitar Rag") in 1953.

(Yes I know this doesn't say anyting yet about lasting influences on one's playing, and the origins of "Steel Guitar Rag" go back beyond Leon McAuliffe's composition, and yet it is obvious where Earl Hooker got his inspiration from, right down to the way he transfers steel guitar licks to his guitar ... )

[robertoart]

Yes Ok. Is there a difference in this context between the terminology 'country' music and 'hillbilly' music. Most of the archival interviews I've read by Blues and R&B musicians often refer to these influences in reference to what they heard on radio. I wonder if in those days whether actual terms like Western Swing or Country music were active in Black musicians language. It also seems like a lot of the musicians with this influence come from Texas. You can also hear this in Herb Ellis too, on the jazz side.

Edited June 20, 2012 by freelancer

[Big Beat Steve]

Yes Ok. Is there a difference in this context between the terminology 'country' music and 'hillbilly' music.

The way I see it, there are some who insist on political correctness, particularly with the benefit of hindsight, and frown upon the use of the term "hillbilly music" thoughout ANY discussion of this music today. While it is true that at some point in the early post-war years the term "hillbilly" had acquired negative connotations (particularly since many facets of country music - such as Western Swing - were far more urban than the term "hillbilly" would imply and many did not want to be associated with the "hicks in the sticks" image whereas on the other hand the "good old homely healthy small-town" image - vs that of the "city slickers" or "dude cowboys" - was exploited to the full for obvious marketing purposes of the music), I am far less sure that this would fit the bill or advance the debate when discussing this music today.

Many diehard fans and collectors of the music (i.e. true insiders of the music of those times) TODAY do not see "hillbilly" as anything negative but rather as the "real thing" (correctly or incorrectly but certainly overly romanticised ) and this term is intended to set "grassroots" country/hillbilly music apart from mainstreamed/watered-down "Nashville country" music as it came along later in the 50s.

It's all a matter of perspective. In short, "hillbilly" or "country", basically it's the same thing, and "Honky Tonk", "Western Swing" (our Country Jazz, Country Swing ,Hillbilly Swing, whatever ...), "Hillbilly Bop" all were variations of the same (Country) tune.

As for Black musicians' awareness, the term itself probably mattered little to them in the early post-war years. Cross-fertilization worked in many ways between blues and country (to use the broadest possible denominators) musicians, sometimes to the point of making the results almost undistinguishable (e.g. Harmonica Frank Floyd who was long thought to be black).

Edited June 20, 2012 by Big Beat Steve

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Regarding Rock music, I think Stevie Ray Vaughan had a big influence in the transition of the way record companies and Blues musicians presented the music. I actually think of Vaughan as a Rock musician. Even though he played Blues tunes, he was very much about merging Albert King and Jimi Hendrix. And he was part of Rock music mainstream, in the fact that it was David Bowie who introduced his playing to a mainstream Rock audience (when it was still possible to connect Blues Rock to Popular music tastes). Johnny Winter was similar in the late sixties/seventies. But certainly Buddy Guy's (and maybe even Albert Collins) presentation of his music on record and live - seemed to change after the emergence and popularity of Vaughan. Perhaps because the first wave of Blues into Rock had run its course by the end of the Seventies. So the connection between Psychedelic Rock and Blues - late 60's early Seventies - and the harder edged Texas Blues and Rock of the 60's and 70's ie Johnny Winter, was re-invogorated commercially by SRV. Initially though, in that first wave of post-60's Rock influence on Blues, Jimi Hendrix probably changed virtually every Blues player who could exploit any of Hendrix's style commercially as well. Perhaps Black Blues musicians who were conscious of Black audiences, fluidly moved between R&B and Soul, while those that wanted to reach mainstream Whiter audiences, incorporated the 'harder edge' Blues Rock influences - or if not totally, at least made LP's with that in mind - ie. Muddy/Johnny Winter, Freddie King/ Leon Russell or even earlier the Howlin Wolf Album, Electric Mud or Hooker and Heat. The times when Blues musicians incorporated other Black Urban influences like Soul, seem to be actual influences at the core of the music. Whereas when Blues musicians incorporated Rock music (back then anyway), it seems more about marketing and audience growth, and doesn't seem to be a change from within. The younger musicians, like Gary Clarke Jr., the Blues and Rock influences seem totally at one.

You're talking to the ignorant, don't forget (that's me, in case you don't recognise me). WHen did Stevie Ray Vaughn become an influence? I know zilch about him, other than his name. I can't pinpoint a change in COllins' presentation, except that his first 2 LPs for Imperial had short tracks, which was understandable; even Sonny Criss Imperial LPs had short tracks Is that what you mean? I hardly think so.

I think I nearly get what you mean by 'harder edge' - it's what I said about the Muddy record my daughter bought produced by Johnny WInter. Now, was the guitar playing in that by Muddy or by Winter? I suspect Winter, but really don't know. But, if it was WInter, what changed in Muddy, apart from stepping back and letting someone else do the work? Is that what happened to Freddie King with Leon Russell?

MG

[John L]

Stevie Ray Vaughan became an inspiration for a whole generation of blues/rock guitar players, for better or worse, in the 90s and beyond. How many of those qualify for the title "bluesman" can be debated.

Muddy Waters already began "stepping back" in the mid-1950s when Willie Dixon began producing him and providing him material. It was at that time that more modern R&B influences entered the music as well. In fact, ironically, Muddy plays more on the albums with Johnny Winter in the 1970s than he did on the last recordings he made directed to the black American market in the late 50s and early 60s. On those recordings, Muddy often put his guitar down altogether.

[cih]

It's not my era of blues at all, but as I've read it (Sandra Tooze) the breakthrough album with Winter - Hard Again - was Winter's attempt to take Muddy back to the 'gritty' sound he had 25 years earlier, and away from what he saw as marketing-led excursions into things like folkiness and psychedelia. Apparently Muddy was very happy with the results (Winter plays guitar) and said it made his 'pee pee hard again', hence the name

Edited June 22, 2012 by cih

[robertoart]

This whole area of debate is a vexing one. Maybe I'm wrong or overestimating the Stevie Ray Vaughan thing. But it seemed that at some point someone flicked a switch and you just couldn;t find any major surviving bluesman having any musical visibility whatsoever unless it was in the company or spotlight of higher profile Rock or Blue/Rock stars. Buddy Guy was subsumed to a certain extant into this and so was John Lee Hooker. I remember going to see Buddy Guy around this time (after discovering his Vanguard albums from the late 60's early 70's ), after starting promisingly enough, the concert just did a u-turn for the rest of the night, while Buddy did a vaudeville act based around impersonations of famous guitarists. Apparently, live, he is still like this. The marketing seemed to overtake the art in Blues. I liked to think somewhere in the US, there were still mythical bars and clubs where something beautiful and fun was happening like Hound Dog Taylor. The closest I got to this, was seeing Bobby Rush on the Scorsese documentaries. Robert Cray was also someone I remember getting heavily promoted around the SRV time, and there was an album with Johnny Copeland and Albert Collins I think. Anyway I think you could argue, that the Rock players from the Blues side of the ledger had some influence on the Blues legends at least in terms of how these great artists chose to (or were encouraged too) present themselves on records for better or worse. At least in these later years.I do think the harder edge of the Texas based Blues Rock tradition, had some influence on the Blues - while probably less was the case with the influence (if any) of the Butterfield/Bloomfield Harvey Mandel scene. I suppose the real interest of your question though, is the more formative years of Rock n Roll and Blues, of which more interesting and fluid influences probably exist - if at least through the amount of musicians that possibly played in bands of both genres (and more). About Hound Dog Taylor, well, I think I remember you (MG) writing something about you most appreciating music that was a genuine representation of the social/cultural life of it's people (apologies if I have wrongly interpreted that). Well there could be no more authentic example of that than the Hound Dog Taylor band I think. Sadly there seems to be little Hound Dog footage surviving, but here is an idea of what the band must have been like 'on home ground'.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Hm. Can't say as I like Hound DOg Taylor much. Not keen on Elmore James, anyway. But I can definitely hear mucho rock influence there.

Many thanks.

MG

[robertoart]

Hm. Can't say as I like Hound DOg Taylor much. Not keen on Elmore James, anyway. But I can definitely hear mucho rock influence there.

Many thanks.

MG

Your a hard man to please if you don't like Hound Dog Taylor MG. More than just an Elmore James stylist. You're not missing much by overlooking the post-Rock Blues/Rock era - especially with your encyclopaedic knowledge of so much music - but not liking Elmore James surprises me.

I'm not really sure that the Rock influence was that great on HDT, I think of him as being at the joyous and raucous end of the Blues. I was trying to find the incredible piece of footage showing Robert Nighthawk playing on Maxwell Street - but it appears to have been removed from youtube. That footage is raw and intense and probably is a good counterpoint to the HDT clip. Similar sounds just different emphasis on the 'groove'.

Edited June 22, 2012 by freelancer

[John L]

It's not my era of blues at all, but as I've read it (Sandra Tooze) the breakthrough album with Winter - Hard Again - was Winter's attempt to take Muddy back to the 'gritty' sound he had 25 years earlier, and away from what he saw as marketing-led excursions into things like folkiness and psychedelia. Apparently Muddy was very happy with the results (Winter plays guitar) and said it made his 'pee pee hard again', hence the name

I would say "yes" and "no." If you listen to tapes of live concerts that Muddy made in the 60s and 70s before he hooked up with Winter, you will hear that the gritty sound was still there in full. The problem was that producers were no longer allowing Muddy to record that music in the studio until Blue Sky and Johnny Winter came along.

[cih]

I was trying to find the incredible piece of footage showing Robert Nighthawk playing on Maxwell Street - but it appears to have been removed from youtube. That footage is raw and intense and probably is a good counterpoint to the HDT clip. Similar sounds just different emphasis on the 'groove'.

There's still some audio on there from the Maxwell Street recordings - some people believe the lead guitarist on this and on Peter Gunn Jam to be Mike Bloomfield - though most evidence, as I read it, points to Robert

[robertoart]

I was trying to find the incredible piece of footage showing Robert Nighthawk playing on Maxwell Street - but it appears to have been removed from youtube. That footage is raw and intense and probably is a good counterpoint to the HDT clip. Similar sounds just different emphasis on the 'groove'.

There's still some audio on there from the Maxwell Street recordings - some people believe the lead guitarist on this and on Peter Gunn Jam to be Mike Bloomfield - though most evidence, as I read it, points to Robert

Wow. That wasn't on the vinyl. I've never heard that. Thanks cih.

Can we got a thumbs up off you on this one MG

Still sounds like the notes and phrasing of Nighthawk on this to me. Just a bit more sprightlier than the other tracks. There is also the Red Top with the Ornithology quote. That was a mind-bender when I first heard that - many years ago. I see it's been attributed as 'Red Top/Ornithology - Little Arthur King'. Can't find any online audio though.

It's a pity the video has been taken down for copyright reasons. Bit of a cheek for a White-fella to claim copyright on that film footage.

[robertoart]

Here is the Hound Dog Band with Brewer Phillips playing lead.

Brewer is on fire on this one.

It sounds like someone is firing bullets over his head.

I think this song encourages drinking

MG you won't like this one

Edited June 23, 2012 by freelancer

[cih]

"honestly, you've got to be able to play a little of all of it, little rock, little roll, little blues"

"what would you rather play?"

"blues.. I'm a blues man"

[Jim R]

Hm. Can't say as I like Hound DOg Taylor much. Not keen on Elmore James, anyway. But I can definitely hear mucho rock influence there.

Many thanks.

MG

I'm not really sure that the Rock influence was that great on HDT, I think of him as being at the joyous and raucous end of the Blues.

Not sure what you're hearing there, MG. I don't hear much of any, let alone mucho. The opening line on the Brewer Phillips feature is probably the closest thing, but even that is probably debatable.

[robertoart]

I also remember reading a quote from Jack Bruce (if memory serves) almost 'bragging' that when Cream got to America all the Blues players they had 'emulated' were now using the Cream arrangements for their own tunes. I suppose that's an influence Or Jack was trippin.