«Today’s Lyrics Are Pathetically Bad» Rick Beato

@ghasley: By your use of the term "thumper" (short for Bible thumper of course), your view of Contemporary Christianity is clear.

T Bone's Southern California church is named The Vineyard, and in the 1970's and 80's it was a main church for musicians seeking to look into Christian spirituality. Lesley Phillips already had three albums out on the Myrrh Records (Phillips was the no. 2 best selling artist on the CC chart), the very well known CC label. T Bone produced her fourth---The Turning---a joint effort between Myrrh and Horizon Records, distributed by A & M.

Myrrh Records is as Contemporary Christian as you can get. From Christianity.com: "Burnett produced The Turning, Phillips' final album before leaving Contemporary Christian music to become an independent artist." Does that make T Bone a Bible thumper? No, but his new album is certainly a discussion of the topic we are speaking of.

Was Dylan's Slow Train Coming Bible thumping? Indeed it was! T Bone's involvement on The Rolling Thunder Review shortly preceded Dylan's "Christian period", and many believe it was T Bone who "led" Dylan to that exploration of Christianity. Burnett: "Probably about 15 people out of that Rolling Thunder Tour started going to church, or back to church." Doesn't seem like T Bone is adverse to being viewed as a Bible thumper.

Others so inclined are Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, and more recently Marty Stuart And His Fabulous Superlatives (on their Saturday Night/Sunday Morning album. Well, half of it at least ).

Based on my experience with young people who bother to listen to music at all, young boys and men these days generally listen to rap/hiphop stuff and they’re primarily interested in whether the songs have a good beat or a thumping bass.

Admittedly these are generalizations, but I don’t think the generalization is unfair. Many in this thread have noted how there are a lot of great songs being written by Americana artists. How many young people today are listening to that stuff, much less blues or jazz?

About that thumping bass thing, I’ve been a bass head from the time I heard Larry Graham of Sly and The family Stone and the acoustic intonations of Ray Brown on an upright bass. I don’t think the above statements are necessarily true about kids, or should I say young women and young men theses days.

For example this first link is from MonoNeon with Ghost-Note "Live at the Jamm Jam in Los Angeles" and if you notice, it’s packed with general admission standing room only young folks. Or what we would call back in the day a "jam Session". Kinda similar to what their grandparents did many years ago when going to a concert.

In fact I think young people all over the world listen to jazz and blues. This is Ghost Note featuring MonoNeon in Germany, tearing up the stage. Ghost-Note - Featuring MonoNeon live at the Jazz Club Unterfahrt in germany

And the idea that these same young folks don’t listen to blues is totally false as well. NAMM 2016: Eric Gales & Mono Neon Live At The Dunlop Booth

As you see here in this post, young folks not only listen to jazz and blues, but more importantly they play live jazz and blues quite well, if I don’t say so myself. Here’s one for the road. Check out MonoNeon on acoustic bass. MonoNeon with Ghost-Note: "Phat Bacc" | Sugarshack Sessions

@tyray 

That's good stuff and I intend to check out more of it, but....it doesn't really disprove what I said about the listening habits of young people in general. If I wanted to take the time, I'm quite sure I could find videos from dozens of jazz and blues clubs and concerts all over the country and you'll see very few young people in the crowd. My own experiences from attending a fair amount of concerts is consistent with that.

Note that I didn't say that no young people are into those genres; many are, but nowhere near the majority or even a significant minority, imo. It might be a little different in urban areas (this show was in L.A.) where the arts as a whole tend to thrive more than in suburbia. Maybe it's different in other countries around the world but I can't speak to that. I know that audiences in general have received jazz and blues very enthusiastically in places like Europe and Japan, although I have no idea what the demographics are.

I sincerely wish that I'm wrong and you're right about this, but I have to confess that I'm skeptical.

I sincerely wish that I'm wrong and you (@tyray) are right about this, but I have to confess that I'm skeptical.

Not to take sides here, but @tyray is right, definitely so in my experience.

You say you don't see many young people at concerts. Is it possible young people don't frequent the same venues you frequent?