Re: [Harp-L] Views on Blues

[Nicholas Lovett <lovett.nicholas@xxxxxxxxx>]

How do you update/improve Muddy Waters...you can't!



________________________________
From: Michael Easton <diachrome@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Saturday, October 8, 2011 10:20 AM
Subject: [Harp-L] Views on Blues


I have to laugh when I read discussions about updating blues.

You can't update the music.  Blues is a musical element.  It is unto itself.
Any changes makes it a compound with blues as it's root element.

They tried educating the  blues in the early part of the last century and ended up calling it jazz.
They tried it again in the 50's making it peppier.  They ended up calling it Rock and Roll.
They tried to make it Urban and ended up creating R&B, Soul, Funk.

Why add beatbox and samples to blues and try to justify it's still blues.  Why not just use blues as a base element in the music and
call it whatever it becomes.  Too many tried to dilute blues to make it palatable for the masses or try to justify that it needs to be
updated for the times.

All early forms of jazz, R&B, rock sounded pretty much like blues until it started to form it's own identity. Even country and blues was difficult to tell apart in the early days.  I think that's where we are now with the new generation trying to take it somewhere.

Blues is blues. If you want to take it elsewhere that is fine but don't dis those that like it in a purer form. I personally have a foot in both the
past and present but not so much that I feel a need to make it something else.

Michael Easton
www.harmonicarepair.com