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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
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.
mapman's avatar
mapman
22,308 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!
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