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Albums...records....what the difference?
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Originally Posted by 3-LockBox
Nope. The article is "50 Albums That Changed Music"
Don't trust Swish
I'll prolly be sorry I asked! LOL!
Swish - not to be trusted
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How You All Doing??
Without this, I guess one of my favourite all time classics may not have been born: John Mayall & the Blues Breakers. I proudly display a framed copy of this album on my recroom wall with several others.
I see that not a lot has happened on this board since I left for holidays. Been gone for a month now and I'd like to say, "It's good to be back," but with the Greek Isles behind us, I already miss my daily ouzo & iced water by the sea.
How you all doing??
audiobill
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Originally Posted by nobody
It really is best just to not argue with people who don't feel the need to be tied to logic in their responses.
Point taken.
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Welcome back my friend.
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Originally Posted by audiobill
Without this, I guess one of my favourite all time classics may not have been born: John Mayall & the Blues Breakers. I proudly display a framed copy of this album on my recroom wall with several others.
I see that not a lot has happened on this board since I left for holidays. Been gone for a month now and I'd like to say, "It's good to be back," but with the Greek Isles behind us, I already miss my daily ouzo & iced water by the sea.
How you all doing??
audiobill
Glad to hear the trip went well. I was going to post about how one of my favorite "white" blues bands was the Allman Brothers, at least the older stuff like Eat a Peach and Live at the Fillmore East, but I would have been remiss if I didn't mention this one. Were they influenced very much by Robert Johnson? I don't think so.
Anyway, welcome back to the United States of Canada.
Swish
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Originally Posted by nobody
I also think the Blues gets way too much credit...I've heard a million times that the blues is the basis for ALL of rock, and I can see the point, but only in so much as you could say that banging on tree stumps is the basis for all rock considering that's where a lot of the rhythms started. I mean, the statement makes sense if you lean heavily toward the 70s style blues rock that has been so popular over the years, but if you branch away from that, sure you've got blues influences, but you've got tons of other stuff represented as well. I guess a lot depends on how broad your definition of rock is...and mine may well be a bit too inclusive.
Okay, back on topic, ablums vs. records be damned. I dig RJ alot. I even have the framed poster in my listening room (the photo booth one, not the one in the suit). RJ brings alot of swagger and mystique to the rock and roll image, regardless of the truth. And whats R&R without swagger.
But, Nobody makes and interesting point. I too think blues gets way too much credit. I think Steven Tyler is famous for saying "the blues had a baby and they called it rock and roll." Actually, I think rock and roll grew out of country music much more than anything else. Tyler should be saying "country music lost its twang and they called it rock and roll." That's why I liked the Johnny Cash movie so much. It is one of the few, if not only, major biopic to draw the straight line between country and rock.
Accordingly, I'm waiting with anticipation to see if any country albums show up on the list.
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Originally Posted by SlumpBuster
I'm waiting with anticipation to see if any country albums show up on the list.
I've seen the list and I won't say. But to be clear, I wouldn't expect any country artists on the list besides Hank Sr; since country has basically followed the same formula for 50 years, with no intent in changing, there hasn't been any real innovators in the genre I could think of, except maybe Cash (whom country music turned their back on a long time ago). We'll see...
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Swish
albums...records...what's the diff?
I'll prolly be sorry I asked! LOL!
Swish - not to be trusted
I wouldn't ask you that question when I know you already know the answer ;)
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I'm not sure you can easily argue hillbilly music vs. blues (or, country & western vs. rhythm & blues if you wish, or some variant thereof) & point to one or the other having had all that much more influence in rock'n'roll than the other. Especially given the obvious signs in the music of Hank Williams.
I don't think the blues is given 'too much,' or 'too little' credit. I don't have quite as much hillbilly music as I do 40s & 50s R&B, but there's a great collection that came out a year ago that's one of the few multi-disc sets that hits a dedicated heaping of both sides of the fence to give a much clearer picture, for anyone who's interested in this stuff. It's a worthwhile companion to Nick Tosches' Unsung Heroes Of Rock 'N' Roll, and that's no small compliment.
But, okay, if we dispense with the technicalities of what is & isn't a record album (that good enough for everyone here?), and we accept that the album as we know it just doesn't play that much of a role until the 1950s, then why not get into it a little more.
Someone mentioned that Waylon & Willie were looking to expand the album as an art form within country music? Well, Merle Haggard's in there somewhere as well, but let's not forget about Johnny Cash. If only because the others were, for varying reasons, simply not as prominent, which may be a weak point to argue, but it's the truth. And while he didn't really get going with the 'concept album' thing until a bit later...well, Songs Of Our Soil was 1959, for Pete's sake. That's almost a decade on the Beatles, but while I always tend to chime in when people say Sgt. Pepper was the first 'concept album' by reminding them about Sinatra, this wasn't that far off. Ride This Train was more of a real effort in this area, but, geez, this is still 1960.
The bottom line is that the British blues boom of the 1960s has to be acknowledged by the writers of this piece. Again, I do take issue with what Clapton said about RJ, because you just don't hear it that much in most of the prominent bands that grew out of that scene. And they don't sound like I think it would've had RJ used the instrumentation of beat groups. Strangely, that makes me think more of the likes of Hound Dog Taylor, but that's probably wishful thinking on my part. More like early Muddy Waters & some of the other Aristocrat Records stuff, I guess.
However, the Rolling Stones, their early stuff, sounds a HECK of a lot like Elmore James.
There was one guy in the British scene who has been credited for being the singular, most prominent, most important force in bringing this American music in & doing something with it. I've read quite a bit about Alexis Korner. But I've never seen the name Robert Johnson come up all that much, certainly not enough if you take this placement at face value. He was into Big Bill Broonzy, Tampa Red (the first two names that come to my mind when I see all this latter-day RJ worship), Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee...Muddy Waters, et al. I've never seen RJ given the sort of status in writings on Korner that you would expect given the prevailing view that RJ is the guy (sorta like the 'prevailing' view that Sgt. Pepper is the best rec ever, or some other Rolling Stone Magazine dogma).
But Tampa Red & Big Bill Broonzy weren't honored with lavish box sets within the past 15 years ago, giving all-knowing critics the opportunity to tell the rock audience that this is the sh*t, man. Unless Bear Family or some other smallfry did something I don't know about...but if that did happen, there was no publicity that I remember on the scale of having the RJ stuff shoved down the collective throat of the rock audience.
Ultimately, who cares? Well, I do happen to like Tampa Red better than RJ, but there are a few guys I like better than RJ. It doesn't really matter. Anyone who cares enough to seek out RJ based on this placement will either not like it & probably wouldn't have liked the blooz anyway, or they'll go & find other things on their own. RJ isn't a bad choice, certainly not a fraud of a pick here, but there are others that are at least arguably as good. They just didn't necessarily do it with one particular record, though, truth be told, it does seem just a bit dubious that this rec was the one. Whatever. I know a lot of people didn't dig the RJ box because they thought they were getting something that sounded like Eric Clapton.
They wouldn't like Tampa Red, either.
But Elmore James?
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Elmore James you say?
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Originally Posted by MindGoneHaywire
They wouldn't like Tampa Red, either.
But Elmore James?
I know he's been covered by many, like the aforementioned Allman Brothers with "Done Somebody Wrong" (from Fillmore East) and Stevie Ray Vaughn's "The Sky is Crying", and the Black Crowe's album "Shake Your Money Maker" was named after an EJ tune, so I suppose he had some influence on them as well. I'd say he was just as influential as Robert Johnson, if not more, at least to the bands I care about.
Of course, I consider you a blues "expert", so I defer to your superior wisdom on the subject.
Swish
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Aw, shucks. I'm a dilettante, really. But thanks.
Those are well-known examples, but for something that sums up what I'm getting at, take a look for a tune called "Stranger," or "Stranger Blues," by Elmore James. When Brian Jones said 'I heard Elmore James, and the earth shuddered on its axis,' or whatever the exact quote was, this tune should make anybody understand what he was referring to, relative to his influence on the Rolling Stones, which was clearly THE preeminent one, even taking into account Keith Richards' love of Chuck Berry. Keeping in mind, of course, that it the band was Brian Jones' vision, for the most part, for at least their first couple of years.
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Originally Posted by MindGoneHaywire
When Brian Jones said 'I heard Elmore James, and the earth shuddered on its axis,' or whatever the exact quote was, this tune should make anybody understand what he was referring to, relative to his influence on the Rolling Stones, which was clearly THE preeminent one, even taking into account Keith Richards' love of Chuck Berry. Keeping in mind, of course, that it the band was Brian Jones' vision, for the most part, for at least their first couple of years.
Funny though, Richards was in the liner notes of the Robert Johnson collection from ('89 or '90 I think) along side Eric Clapton giving glowing praise to RJ's music and listing it as a 'main influence'. The Stones did cover Love In Vain.
But maybe it just became fashionable to be quoted saying your main influence was Robert Johnson, even though its obvious to everyone else that it isn't entirely true.
As dubious as this list gets in a few weeks, Johnson's inclusion is just as valid as anything that's come before or after it. But it does remind of how little I know about the history of blues, beyond Johnson.
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Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to denigrate his influence on the Rolling Stones, and Love In Vain wasn't the only Robert Johnson song that they covered, either. I've never considered RJ to be a 'main' influence on the Stones, but what do I know? I do think it's a safe bet that the Johnson cover that put him more on the map, though, was Crossroads.
AMG says that Johnson is the most celebrated figure in blues. I say that doesn't necessarily make him the most significant, but, again, I'm not really arguing against the inclusion of this rec here. I do think, though, that there are factors that weigh in that add up to excluding some of the people I've always read were considered to be just as influential. Including some of the names I've mentioned, others I've seen in this thread, and probably others that aren't worth dragging in here since the point's already been made.
Personally, I think that MCA could've handled the marketing of the Chess catalog better than they have: some of their collections are outstanding. But none that I know of made the noise that the RJ releases did. Altogether not surprising, when you look at how they treated the Who catalog for years. I'm not saying that marketing issues outweigh music issues here. But I do think it's a factor. The Stones issued compliments towards Chess artists that arguably rival Clapton's homage to Johnson, but it wasn't picked up on & used the same way.
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Originally Posted by MindGoneHaywire
. I've never considered RJ to be a 'main' influence on the Stones, but what do I know?
Well, to be accurate, it wasn't a quote from The Stones, it was just Richards himself. Just cuz that particular RJ 'album' made him want to play the guitar, doesn't necessarily mean it was an influence on the band as a whole or that it was the direction they followed, because like you, I don't hear Robert Johnson in a lot of The Stones music at all, at least not in the latter years.
For a band that really whore its blues influences on their sleeves, you have to look at Led Zeppelin. The Stones were afficianodos of the blues, while LZ were practioners.
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Originally Posted by 3-LockBox
For a band that really whore its blues influences on their sleeves, you have to look at Led Zeppelin. The Stones were afficianodos of the blues, while LZ were practioners.
I would say the opposite. Rather, Page & Plant were afficianados more than actual practitioners. Jeff Beck was sort of the same way, always revving it up and, depending on one's viewpoint, dilluting it or making it more progressive. (Don't laugh. "Progressive Blues" used to be a commonly used term.) In fact, Beck invented the Zep style with the Yardbirds and watched with envy as Page made a fortune with it. But there's a reason Stevie Ray Vaughan thought of Page as some kind of futurist, at least according to Bowie. Although it's funny that SRV was such a Beck fan. Go figure. Anyway, the likes of SRV and Clapton practiced a more traditional style of blues guitars. (I can hear Jay grinding his teeth all the way from the Battery over that one.)
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Originally Posted by MindGoneHaywire
I'm not sure you can easily argue hillbilly music vs. blues (or, country & western vs. rhythm & blues if you wish, or some variant thereof) & point to one or the other having had all that much more influence in rock'n'roll than the other.
Easily argue I will hereby proceed to do.
Consider this: how many blues artists went around incorporating hillbilly songs into their act? None that I'm aware of although there may have been a few random examples. But blues songs were a regular staple with hillbilly music singers. Blues with a twang. Hillbilly Blues it's sometimes called. And it's all over Western Swing. And speaking of that, what is Western Swing if not Western jazz swing? Swing with a twang. Look at jazz swing itself. Can you imagine straight swing without the strong blues element? No matter where you look in the roots of early rock 'n' roll, the blues is everywhere. The counter argument is to say the early rock 'n' rollers listend to both the blues and c&w and were influenced by both. I'll grant that and go one further: they were influenced by everything they heard. But in the grand scheme of things, the blues is the source code for American popular music going all the way back to the days when Fletcher Henderson and Duke Ellington discovered it as the crucial ingredient that held their own music together. It influenced jazz, country, Western Swing, rockabilly, on and on straight up the line into the British Invasion. Hell, you can't even get to prog rock without going through the Yardbirds' rave ups which led to Cream and other free-form jammers breaking the rules.
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Yeah, but there's a clear aesthetic divide in the music, and when coupled with the racial divide, the nature of both society & the record business, then you have to look at it just a little differently, I think. Up North I don't think there was a ton of hillbilly music going on, but it was dominant on the radio & in the popular imagination in the South. And though there are probably plenty of exceptions, I think we mostly have to look at the form we think of when we think of Elvis as the genesis, as having come mostly from the South. The roots of which we don't need to get into. Now, if we look at things from the Tosches point of view, then it's a different story entirely, and I'd tend to agree with you. But the blues influencing Duke Ellington doesn't play that much into their effect on Eddie Cochran, I don't think.
The hillbilly music I'm thinking of of course incorporates blues structures, but the Carter Family wasn't singing about the same things Hank Williams was singing about. Mississippi John Hurt, maybe, at time, but definitely not Sonny Boy Williamson. We've had this discussion before, Bill Haley was Western Swing, but no matter how far you travel to link it with Robert Johnson, there's a mighty tall fence to scale there. It's a shame that race is the factor that it is here, but that's the way it was.
Johnny Winter had an album called the Progressive Blues Project.
I think the Stones were both aficionados and practitioners at the same time. Could be that being practitioners was what slowed them down in the competition of sorts that existed in the mid 60s between them, the Beatles, and the Beach Boys. Then again, it led to the recs they put together after the BBs fizzled commercially & the Beatles headed towards solo careers. I think of Zep more as Page's mad creation, incorporating quite a few things along with some of the best electric blues that came out of that movement, with Jones as his musical right-hand man. I'm sick to death of it, but they put together some interesting stuff. But I'm not sure I think of them as aficionados. Maybe Plant. But Page & Jones were far more universal & could've done a lot of different things, and Page already had. The drummer would've played polka if Page ordered it up so far as I can see. I think they kept him on a bit of a leash, something that you couldn't say about Keith Moon. But when they let him go, the results were...boring, in my book anyway. Moby Dick sounds like the biggest waste of time I've ever heard that came of throwing the guy a bone. ZZZZzzzzz.
I don't argue so much on SRV & Clapton being traditionalists. My main beefs with Clapton are glossy production values, a tone I rarely like, and a fondness for middle-of-the-road commercial rock that just sounds less than mediocre coming from the guy who played on that Mayall rec. I actually like quite a bit of what SRV did, I think the rap on him as a new/white/cheesy/rock-blues figure to be mocked for that is not entirely accurate. At least not for his first couple of albums. The tone, again, is not exactly my cup of tea, and the production is a little far into Robert Cray cleanness land for my taste, but the guy could play & had some taste. I guess he could be considered limited as far as his artistic vision, but let's not forget that he was making records already a couple of decades after Hendrix blazed trails that he might've been in the same ballpark with if he'd been younger. Trails that I've never heard in Clapton's playing. Hey, I don't want to make him seem like the 2nd coming, but I think the point is rarely made enough that people making pop and rock records after 1980 have one hell of a legacy of music that it's difficult to avoid in terms of originality, while still injecting some sincerity, inspiration, emotion, and melodies, riffs, & poetry. I think a lot of people could've done great things if they'd been born 20 years before they were who are derided for being part of a new crop of musical pablum that'll never live up to what came before. Ah, I hate to beat this drum, but I think it's something that needs to be said. Especially since there's a poster around here who doesn't seem willing to look at ideas like this. But nevermind that. Sorry.
How did you know I was grinding my teeth?
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Quote:
Originally Posted by BradH
Consider this: how many blues artists went around incorporating hillbilly songs into their act? None that I'm aware of although there may have been a few random examples. But blues songs were a regular staple with hillbilly music singers. Blues with a twang. Hillbilly Blues it's sometimes called. And it's all over Western Swing. And speaking of that, what is Western Swing if not Western jazz swing? Swing with a twang. Look at jazz swing itself. Can you imagine straight swing without the strong blues element? No matter where you look in the roots of early rock 'n' roll, the blues is everywhere.
I agree
Just as I said before, Hank Sr was greatly influenced by the blues. But so was the father of country music, (and another glaring omission) Jimmie Rodgers was around to see the birth of the blues, which he experienced in his travels as a railroad brakeman. Rodgers merged mountain folk with raw blues (maybe a little rag as well); his style of playing and lyrical content was definately blues. Country music would be a different critter without Rodgers, or the blues as an influence. Hank Sr took it a step further in the blues tradition, and Elvis Presley put a pop spin on it (or at least Sam Phillips did). So you can say Country Western had an influence on rock, as long as you realize country's foundation is rooted firmly in the blues.
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Does a double-take...
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Originally Posted by Stone
Point taken.
...looks askance, arches eyebrows and says "Look...over there...by the trees...it's a forest..."
jimHJJ(...followed by hails of derisive laughter...)
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I don't know...
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Originally Posted by 3-LockBox
...So you can say Country Western had an influence on rock, as long as you realize country's foundation is rooted firmly in the blues...
...I always thought of C&Ws roots as Celtic music...Certainly some of the idomatic underpinnings of the blues (microtonality and use of sevenths) is present, but so are those of hybridized Cajun (more specifically Acadian), which traces it's roots to certain European folk traditions...and heck, ain't yodeling Swiss? Or is it German?
This opens a whole 'nother can of Pandoras...like the origin and evolution of the guitar, the development of Western musical notation including melody and harmony within that framework...I believe the l-lV-V progression form predates the blues, CW, and certainly rock, by quite some time...
jimHJJ(...now if you'll excuse me...I'm helping transfer my wife's stamp collection to a more archival-quality album...)
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Here’s something I agree with...about the roots of country anyway...
When I saw Lyle Lovett he did a nice little segment where they stripped down to a small bluegrass unit, then started playing the songs in an Irish style, thanks to a guy from the Chieftains playin' with 'em. It was interesting how interrelated to old country music was with the Irish folk style.
Again, I do like the blues and think they were important to rock and a true American art form, but music in American has always had many, many roots. It didn't all come from the blues. The blues played a big role in creating rock, but so did country...which was influenced, but certainly not created by the blues.
My question remains for those who want to talk like the blues just arose out of nothing but the musical genius of African slaves...why did it take America to bring this music out of them? Don't you think the blues were taking influences from all of the new cultures of the new world?
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I have in my possession guitar/music magazine interviews (some older than me) of the following artists citing Johnson as a big influence:
Clapton
BB, Freddie, and Albert King
Muddy Waters
Howlin' Wolf
Hendrix
Zeppelin
SRV
Warren Hayes
The Allman Bros circa late 70's
Lynard Skynard (really? lmao)
T-Bone Walker (Texas Ranger)
Joe Satriani
Kirk Hammett
Look, that's just mags I still have...I only bought RJ after reading so many BB and Albert references (two of my favs). This list is impressive, and if you took it one step further to include artists influenced by these guys, it'd be huge.
RJ deserves his spot, and only an idiot **** disturber would deny him that (though I can understand arguments against his relative talents, luck, timing, etc)
Sometimes this business is all about the right place/right time formula.
(PS and even Kenny f'n G)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by nobody
My question remains for those who want to talk like the blues just arose out of nothing but the musical genius of African slaves...why did it take America to bring this music out of them? Don't you think the blues were taking influences from all of the new cultures of the new world?
Absolutely, there's no question about it. In fact, I think not enough emphasis has been put on that point. There's a cultural black & white dance that's been going on in North America for hundreds of years, influencing each other in ways that we've hardly begun to understand completely. But the preponderance of influence has been from the blues. It didn't just influence early jazz like ragtime and then go away. It wasn't a big bang that faded into background radiation that only musicologists and historians could detect. It's more like a DNA that kept recombining with new streams. That's why an Eddie Cochran didn't have to rely on an Ellington as a distant blues source, he relied on the blues as a blues source. So did Hank Sr.....so did Eric Clapton. Over and over it happened that way. That's how it influenced all those genres I mentioned. It was functional. It was reusable. Lennon described it as the chair everything sits on. Yes, you can point to the Celtic heritage of bluegrass and cowboy songs, those are legitimate points. And I agree, the blues didn't cross the Atlantic from North Africa. Musicologists have searched for the missing link and, technically, it's simply not there other than the social tradition of the griot. Four hundred years of influence from Arabic music in North Africa and European influence in North America have largely erased what was originally brought over. So, yes, the blues is an American invention. But when you get to British Invasion bands like the Beatles covering, say, Carl Perkins, it really stands out as distinctively country as opposed to a blues number that would've passed as straight up rock. So, I would say the blues ended up being the host with c&w as the guest. Think about it. If you inject the blues into late 60's rock you get more of the same. If you inject Celtic into late 60's rock you get Fairport Convention, far from the mainstream.
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I think how much you see that blues influence as the main feature of rock depends on what you are caling rock. It seems to me that sometimes it becomes a circular argument because people will define rock as necessarily having blues roots, then toss out anything that doesn't. But, to me, rock has gone on to things with litle to no blues influence.
What about some stark, cold new wave...some faint rythmic similarities that could have come from anywhere, structure and instrumentaion totally different, feeling not even in the same ball park. How about some industrail music, no blues there, a little more of a tribal influence than anything else...along with the European technological contributions in electronic music. I have trouble listening to rockabilly and not hearing much more country than blues.
I mean, if you wanna stick with 60/70s blues-based rock. Well, yeah, of course blues is by far the biggest influence. But, if you open the definition a little wider, it becomes one of many influences for a variety of styles.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MindGoneHaywire
I think the Stones were both aficionados and practitioners at the same time. Could be that being practitioners was what slowed them down in the competition of sorts that existed in the mid 60s between them, the Beatles, and the Beach Boys.
Yeah, I've wondered about that too. I think Aftermath arguably held its own in the 1966 Masterpiece Sweepstakes that seemed to be going on. A real difference between the Stones and the "Killer B's" was that the Stones had less folk influence in their chord changes and vocal approach. Maybe this held them back. After all, "progressive" was a term used even then. But their time was coming (1968)
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Originally Posted by MindGoneHaywire
I think of Zep more as Page's mad creation, incorporating quite a few things along with some of the best electric blues that came out of that movement, with Jones as his musical right-hand man.
Yeah, but it could be that Page was Jone's right hand man. In an interview last summer Chris Squire claimed the secret of Zep was that it was Jones's band! Jones had extensive experience as a producer in the 60's and Squire claims the other members of Zep had all worked for him on sessions before. I find that hard to believe about Bonham and Plant who were rocking it up with Band Of Joy in and around Birmingham but it's certainly true about Page. Maybe Squire was just championing another bass player or maybe he was drunk. (He said some fairly controversial things about the other Yes members in the same interveiw.) But I do think Jones's contribution is underrated.
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Originally Posted by MindGoneHaywire
I'm sick to death of it, but they put together some interesting stuff.
Mmmmm, Zep talk. It gets me hot.
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Originally Posted by MindGoneHaywire
But I'm not sure I think of them as aficionados. Maybe Plant. But Page & Jones were far more universal & could've done a lot of different things, and Page already had.
Page & Plant were the ones who were seriously into the blues. They all had a nice overlapping of influences with Page & Jones being into Indian and Arabic music, Plant into the West Coast hippie folk stuff (the Band Of Joy recorded a version of "For What It's Worth"), Jones & Bonham were into James Brown and funk. What's cool is you can hear all these influences in their catalog.
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Originally Posted by MindGoneHaywire
The drummer would've played polka if Page ordered it up so far as I can see. I think they kept him on a bit of a leash, something that you couldn't say about Keith Moon. But when they let him go, the results were...boring, in my book anyway. Moby Dick sounds like the biggest waste of time I've ever heard that came of throwing the guy a bone. ZZZZzzzzz.
Bonzo is one of my all time favorite drummers, a true original. But, as a collector of bootlegs, I'd rather be cast into a lake of writhing Janis Joplins than hear another live version of "Moby Dick". One of them goes on more than 30 minutes.
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Originally Posted by MindGoneHaywire
My main beefs with Clapton are glossy production values, a tone I rarely like, and a fondness for middle-of-the-road commercial rock that just sounds less than mediocre coming from the guy who played on that Mayall rec.
Well, yeah, that and morally equating his long solos with child molestation. Other than that he's not a bad guy.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MindGoneHaywire
I actually like quite a bit of what SRV did, I think the rap on him as a new/white/cheesy/rock-blues figure to be mocked for that is not entirely accurate.
Not entirely accurate? I would call it total bullsh!t. He was the real deal.
Hey, you're not turning into a hippie are you?
Just checking.
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Originally Posted by MindGoneHaywire
How did you know I was grinding my teeth?
There was a disturbance in the force.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by nobody
I think how much you see that blues influence as the main feature of rock depends on what you are caling rock. It seems to me that sometimes it becomes a circular argument because people will define rock as necessarily having blues roots, then toss out anything that doesn't. But, to me, rock has gone on to things with litle to no blues influence.
What about some stark, cold new wave...some faint rythmic similarities that could have come from anywhere, structure and instrumentaion totally different, feeling not even in the same ball park. How about some industrail music, no blues there, a little more of a tribal influence than anything else...along with the European technological contributions in electronic music. I have trouble listening to rockabilly and not hearing much more country than blues.
I mean, if you wanna stick with 60/70s blues-based rock. Well, yeah, of course blues is by far the biggest influence. But, if you open the definition a little wider, it becomes one of many influences for a variety of styles.
I agree with a lot of that. I remember seven years ago, one of my first posts here was describing how the chord structure of new wave owed more to folk than the blues. You'd have thought I just crapped on somebody's kitchen table by the reaction I got. Blashpemy!
I don't think rock necessarily has to have blues roots. (I mean, please, you wanna talk about prog rock with me for a day?) The question was whether blues had more influence than c&w. My point is about the pervasive influence. For example, punk or industrial is recognized as such when somebody hears it. But play a blues rock tune and the average listener will just call it rock. There's a reason for that.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by nobody
Here’s something I agree with...about the roots of country anyway...
When I saw Lyle Lovett he did a nice little segment where they stripped down to a small bluegrass unit, then started playing the songs in an Irish style, thanks to a guy from the Chieftains playin' with 'em. It was interesting how interrelated to old country music was with the Irish folk style.
Again, I do like the blues and think they were important to rock and a true American art form, but music in American has always had many, many roots. It didn't all come from the blues. The blues played a big role in creating rock, but so did country...which was influenced, but certainly not created by the blues.
My question remains for those who want to talk like the blues just arose out of nothing but the musical genius of African slaves...why did it take America to bring this music out of them? Don't you think the blues were taking influences from all of the new cultures of the new world?
Well, when I mentioned 'mountain folk', I prolly woulda been more accurate to call it Irish folk, especially when considering bluegrass, (btw: a very jazz-like genre, in approach anyway).
I guess another good argument would be to figure out the roots of gospel, since that is supposed to be the root of the blues.
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