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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
 
I think there is truth to the "misery loves company" assertion, but that alone does not tell the whole story.

And I agree with Chashmal's observations regarding modern culture and corporate politics.

Just look at the names of our sports stadiums and you can see what this country has come to in recent years. Its a disgrace and an embarassment!
chashmal
605 posts
 
It might even be valid to say that the synthesis of african rhythmic patterns (which became field hollers) with european melodies (evident in early negro spirituals) was in a sense 'anti corporate' . It certainly was a reaction against the status quo of the plantation system and the society that preserved that way of life. Blues was in direct defiance to that system, and allowed soulwrenching human creativity to flourish in the face of that brutal and oppressive degradation.

Today no such oppression exists. The thread from Africa to the plantation, and in the post-war period to northern cities, is broken. The blues was not a luxury; it was a NECESSITY. It preserved the dignity and vibrancy of a people who had no other outlet. No such equivalent exists today. Just as the traditions of Celtic and Italian music died with assimilation, so black culture has been 'mainstreamed' to the point that it is now part of the system it once reacted against. Don't believe me? Ask the president!
grimace
624 posts
 
We're re-colonizing ourselves with a watered down version of our own cultural history.
chashmal
605 posts
 
That, Grimace, is something we CAN resist and reject! I am not saying that the corporate media is another plantation system (much), but I am saying that we can be vocal and annoying about what we will and will not support. Will it change the world? No. Will it create an underground shift in taste? Maybe. What else can we do?
jaybo
4,478 posts
 
its my nature to compare new blues artists to my personal favorites, who were considered'students' of the masters in the 1960's. paul butterfield, mike bloomfield, and many others tried like hell to move the music forward...a mixture of new and old, but as with lots of jazz, its become an area where there are countless musicans and composers of average talent making records that do indeed just play by the numbers. as a friend of mine said...'there are just way too many piano trios today'. still dig the blues bars in NOLA though....
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