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Why the Blues Really Hit The Spot


After a tough week at the office, I found myself headed to New Orleans for a short business trip.

As any of you who have visited Bourbon street know, there are plenty of live bands to choose from: Dixieland jazz, R&B, pop/rock cover bands and simple, down home, guitar driven blues.

I had a great time listening to every single band I could find, enjoying a wide variety of music last week.

But whenever I really settle in with a good, live blues band, I wonder what it is that makes the blues so timeless and appealing -- especially late at night with a good local beer!

So for fans of the blues, can anyone explain?

Do the blues more perceptively touch some aspect of human nature? During times of stress or loss, do the blues give you a sense of empathy and understanding? Or is there some counterintuitive explanation that the blues can somehow cheer you up in a mysterious way like Ritalin somehow calms hyperactive kids?

I guess I am asking the musically equivalent question of when and why people seek out movies like Love Story, Platoon or Terms of Endearment?

What are your thoughts and experiences and when do you most enjoy listening to the blues?
cwlondon
mapman's avatar
mapman
22,341 posts
 
Its true perhaps that there was never much money to be made in just singing the blues and money talks (and sings).

But, a lot of acts did just that by taking elements of the blues and applying them to new forms of music that broadened the appeal of the blues. Led Zeppelin comes to mind as perhaps one of the best examples of this.

Also...on the bright side the influence of the blues is felt perhaps in more diverse areas of music today than ever before, so its overall impact is greater than ever I would say, even if true that there are also many other fish in the sea out there as well in terms of other forms of music.
grimace
624 posts
 
Chasmal makes a good point. Robert Cray, Keb Mo and other contemporaries are just rehashing stuff the originals did forty, fifty, sixty plus years ago. Jazz has the same problem. After you've listened to Miles Davis, Bird and Trane everyone else is just copying in some way or another until you wind up with a largly nostalgia music form.

This isn't to say there aren't people playing good music today - there are, but its true creative spirit is long gone. Fortunately there are lots of great old recordings.
cwlondon OP
1,210 posts
 

At at glance, Keb Mo seems only slighter closer to the "blues" than Kenny G is to "jazz".

Has anyone listened to Jimi Hendrix "Blues" - it's great and also a surprisingly decent recording.

Chasmal, I am not perturbed by any of these comments, but glad to see my post has encouraged discussion.

To me, good blues music really hits the spots like few other genres of music.

My philosophical question was just a curious one - is it true as Schipo suggests that misery likes company and blues only helps us to wallow in our own sadness? Or is there something paradoxial in the ability of blues to lift our spirits?

There is no correct answer, but look forward to this continued conversation.

For those of you who also like late night blues,here is a hot tip in the spirit of Audiogon:

http://www.aintnothinbut.co.uk/home.htm

if you are ever in London....

A great spot which totally lacks the bad dinner and/or annoyingly flagrant commercialism of many big city jazz/blues music venues.

Just don't pass the link around too much - we wouldnt want it to get discovered!
chashmal
605 posts
 
Grimace: unfortunately, the same applies to visual art, architecture, and other aspects of high western culture. My wife says I am a pessimist, but I cannot help but conclude that our culture has been degenerating for quite some time.

Possible reasons: the corporate media, corporate control of every aspect of life, multiculturalism, the political structure as a vehicle for yet MORE corporate control of life.
chashmal
605 posts
 
Cwlondon: I could not agree more. The examples you gave really make the point hit home. Comparing Keb Mo to Robert Johnson is like comparing Shakespeare to the Smurfs.
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