I often wonder why the Blues music is so loved and appreciated by so many all over the world, even by me, in India, so far away physically and culturally from where the blues originated in the work songs, spirituals, field chants and hollers of the African-American communities that toiled and slaved in cotton fields of the American South at the turn of the twentieth century.
As a result of conversations with Sudheer Gaikwad, a friend from our college days in Pune, who has a true ‘feel-for-the-blues’, we concluded that we love blues music so much simply because, it’s simple music. And, because, it expresses honest emotions!
But, we love the blues most of all because it is moving and uplifting, and because it is music that expresses ‘life’ with all its ups and downs!
Here’s what some of the great blues musicians say - Blues guitarist and singer, Albert Collins: “Simple music is the hardest music to play and blues is simple music”. And in an apparent contradiction, but not really so, Jimi Hendrix said: “Blues is easy to play but hard to feel”.
Simple and straightforward in form - Though Blues music is typically a sequence of three chords arranged within a framework of 12 bars, this simple structure gives rise to a great deal of lyrical, emotional and musical improvisation.
Sudheer says, “sometimes 12 bar jams just seem to flow, the joy of stringing together the familiar blue notes in its various permutations, against the clockwork chord rotation, especially in slow 6/8 time - it's this magic, this thrill, that makes blues so individual and infinite. The notes are the same, it's the individuals’ penchant and affinity that makes it one-of-a-kind.”
Blues music is all about ‘feel’, ‘feeling’. The fundamental element of the blues is… feeling. Whatever the subject, the blues is sung and played with heartfelt feeling.
Only blues musicians with true-blue artistic integrity can convey the feeling /emotion of the song to a listener, and it is this ‘feeling’ relayed to the listener that makes the blues, bluesy. That’s what Jimi Hendrix meant in that cryptic quote, “Blues is easy to play but hard to feel”. Playing the blues is purely a personal empathy for the music (a feeling? talent? ability?). But to play simple music well and with feeling is not as easy at it seems. One has got to love the blues. The other thing is that because blues is simple music. The more one sticks to basics in the blues, the better it sounds.
The blues is always emotional - Blues has an emotional honesty of spirit, and this makes it so
uplifting, beautiful and glorious! Largely a vocal medium, the singer expresses the feeling of the blues through simple down-to-earth lyrics which usually deal with basic human problems of life - love, sex, elation, poverty, hardships and death.
Willie Dixon, the writer of some of the blues classics, explains, “Blues players will often tell you the blues is about life – the good parts and the bad parts. The Blues are the true facts of life expressed in words and song, inspiration, feeling, and understanding.”
Strangely, despite the connotations of the word ‘blue’ associated with downward mood swings, the sound of the blues is seldom sad. And though the tempo may vary, and the mood range from misery to sarcasm and satire, the blues more often expresses joy… upbeat, rambunctious and rollicking, and less often, it is low spirited, plumbing the depths of despair and sometimes achingly sad… sometimes heart-wrenchingly so. But in the Blues, the undercurrent of sadness is balanced by a sort of exuberance.
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| Taj Mahal - Henry St. Clair Fredericks |
The great blues singer/musician, Henry St Clair Fredericks, who uses the stage name Taj Mahal, whose music I love, believes that some people may think the blues is about wallowing in negativity and despair, a position he disagrees with. According to him, "You can listen to my music from front to back, and you don't ever hear me moaning and crying about how bad you done treated me. I think that style of blues and that type of tone was something that happened as a result of many white people feeling very, very guilty about what went down."
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| B.B. King - Riley B. King |
Personal sorrow or hardship does not stuff a musician with the blues - Most blues music anyway, is not about sorrow or about dealing with sorrow and hardship. Listening to B.B. King is such a happy experience. He had such a great sense of humour, which comes out in his playing and singing, which is often so funny, droll and mischievous; who else could sing a song called “I have a good mind to give up living and go shopping instead” with such tongue-in-cheek fervour.
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| Muddy Waters - McKinley Morganfield |
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| John Lee Hooker |
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| Lightnin' Hokins - Samuel John Hopkins |
Blues is in the soul - My friend Sudheer says: “it's almost like one must be 'chosen' to play the blues - Sorrow is a completely unused, non-relevant word today and I say this without a shred of elitism or looking-down-on-lesser-mortals kind of way - in today's splash-n-splurge, have-it-flaunt-it times, it's a crime to be out in the cold, on skid row, on the have-not side of life - be it anything; love, money, power, good looks, influence. Yet, there is no need to be completely down and out, and ruin one's life to ‘feel’. Doom and gloom are certainly not what B.B. King steers me towards. On the other hand, B.B. King's ‘The Thrill is Gone’ came after years out in the wilderness, of being unknown. And then…, the spartan, haunting simplicity of this song, still gives me the cold chills down the spine, even now, years and many thousands of listenings' after.”
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| Ry Cooder - Ryland Cooder |
No need to be black to be blue - Even the great white English Bluesmen like John Mayall, or Peter Green; or others - Billy Ray Vaughan and Johnny Winter and Ry Cooder,
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| Mike Bloomfield / Al Kooper |
they just loved the blues, and they had the ‘blues’ in them, so whatever they played had a feeling of the blues. Sudheer says, "Johnny Winter is surely one of the most authentic, hardcore, blue-blooded blues-man ever, as is the irrepressible Stevie Ray Vaughan, and their music has all the exuberance of rock (though they may never have gone through what are perceived as hardships)”.
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| John Mayall / Eric Clapton |
An opinion I had was that Eric Clapton’s playing is too pretty, neat and clean, and when he plays with black musicians, he sounds like a person from a rich, white neighbourhood playing with them. His playing is so well dressed and perfect. So, Sudheer reminded me, “Some music magazine called Clapton's 'Layla', 'rock's most anguished masterpiece’”. He went on to say, “I'd like to hear one Indian blues band play close to Allman Bros 'Ain't my cross to bear', or Clapton's 'Have you ever loved a woman', that scour the inner layer of one's soul, so to say”.
But since I am writing this I will get in another opinion sideways – there is
an Indian Blues band that has all the elements of a great blues band, and that is ‘Soulmate’ of Shillong, who exude emotional honesty and integrity in their performance, and are true-to-the-blues in every way.
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| Johnny Winter |
Sudheer wisely says this about blues, “A musician must focus on heart-to-heart link rather than aiming to blow the listener's mind with sheer speed or skill. Hendrix said some words to the effect that ‘a musician must be a messenger’, which when he is, is what makes music so 'heavy'. It connects, with the heart or mind or both - so communication is what it's all about. Every musician, or even every one of us, is not born endowed with the gifts of being a messenger. In our inequality lies perhaps the equality, the democracy of humankind - 'cause if we were all supremely gifted, artistic, articulate, good-looking, wise, virtuous et al, it'd probably be a very boring world.”
The sound of the Harmonica in blues: The harmonica is usually called a harp in the Blues, and it is this distinctive sounding instrument the ‘Blues Harp’ which gives a unique sound to the blues as it slides, bends, and plays the “blue notes”. Again I’ll quote my friend Sudheer, “Guitar music aside, there are the blues harp players who really are most amazing, and I never cease to be struck dumb by the torrents and wails of heart-wrenching sound they blow from an instrument that fits in the palm of their hands.”  |
| Keb Mo - Kevin Moore |
All Jazz is the Blues, but all Blues is not Jazz – Blues is Jazz’s greatest influence. Jazz and the Blues have a common heritage, both originated around the end of the 19th century from the sounds of the Mississippi Delta, as a result of slavery in the deep south of USA, and resonated with sad melancholy - a longing for freedom!
The difference between blues and Jazz is that “blues is both a musical form and a music genre, while jazz is defined as a musical art form.” The blues is a type of music. Blues is a feeling, an attitude. Jazz is a more technical form of music. It has many more than three chords, and uses sophisticated harmonies and progressions. Jazz is a journey of inventiveness and discovery of newer ways of using harmonies. Yet, blues and Jazz have a lot in common and the influence of blues on Jazz has to be heard to be understood. This is what Carmen McCrae, the great jazz singer and pianist says, “Blues is to jazz what yeast is to bread - without it, it's flat.”
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| B.B. King - King of the Blues |
Sudheer says “the higher the caliber of music, like jazz, the more it demands from the performer, to conjure up the ‘feeling’; besides getting all the notes and chords right is not simple - Stevie Ray Vaughan and Jimi Hendrix are so fiery and combustible, they light you up instantly, while B. B. King twangs and sings straight to the heart. But among guitar players, Robben Ford and Larry Carlton bring in a jazz sensibility of tone and technique and harmony”.
So we could say that the Blues is strictly based on 'feeling', and the focuses on a establishing a heart-to-heart link. Whereas Jazz Blues is more intellectual while being at the same time visceral and emotional.
And to end, we will quote the witty, and down-to-earth King of the Blues, whom we admire so much, B.B. King. “Jazz is the big brother of the blues. If a guys’ playing the blues like we are playing, he is in high school. When he starts playing jazz, it’s like going to college; a school of higher learning". B.B. King.
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