Re: What constitutes "blues"?

[wmharps@xxxxxxxxx]

Gatorman wrote:
> what constitutes country, jazz, r&b, and rock&roll might also be
> interesting...this is, after all, a harp list, not a blues list...

I have often wondered what constitutes country, particularly after seeing a
Shania Twain video, like where she morphs into a video game character riding a
motorcycle in a computer generated city.  You certainly can't tell from the
music.  I guess within some boundaries the musical genre of a piece is whatever
you choose to call it.  Obviously, there are some stylistic constraints that
define these genres, but at the fringes some of the subclasses sound very
similar, like popular country and mainstream pop music.  But I don't think
anyone's going to confuse smooth jazz with hiphop with speed metal.

I think it gets even more interesting when you start using things other than
genre or style to aggregate music.  I have a shelf of harmonica music CDs at
home and they run the gammut from Howard Levy's "Stranger's Hand", which is sort
of fusion, to some pure blues, to Blues Traveler, which I think most would agree
is NOT blues (though I will confess to liking it!), to Richard Hunter, who
rather defies catagorization, in my opinion.  Of course, like most instruments,
harp makes appearances in nearly all musical genres.

- -tim