New Artists

[the Leones <leone@xxxxxxxx>]

  Jeez, I just love you guys. I can sit here and get entertainment for
FREE. Watching the recent posts about players who deserve more recognition
has gotten me to thinking.

  Let's go back about 43 yrs. If one were to travel throughout the south
and hit all the road houses and juke joints, one would have heard a large
number of people whom you had never heard of. In fact, people NO-ONE ever
heard of.

  Oh, maybe, possibly another harmonica player may have heard of a few of
them, but by and large, most of these people were (relatively) unknown. It
wasn't until a couple professors from (Northwestern? in Evanston Ill)
decided to "dig" up all these players, that SUDDENLY we had all these
"Idols" to worship.

  Wellll, that's EXACTLY what's still going on today. There are players out
there that will blow your socks off. It's only because WE are starting to
talk about them that they get any recognition at all. It's a far better
deal than the old timers had. Most of whom died in oblivion. Most were NOT
idolized (in THEIR day), and considered just "Players"

  Some of them died SUDDENLY & BROKE, to which I say "Wow, what terrific
timing AND they got it to co-incide with their budget". Though many of them
did recordings, sales would have been "abysmal". 1,000,000 copies (for
instance) in the POP world is a gold record and 1,000,000 albums is
platinum.

  Blues (I thought we WERE talking blues here), was such a small niche,
(sort of like Polka music) that you would almost have to consider 100,000
as gold/plat. I don't think we had those kinds of sales back then. I STILL
don't see big sales. I also think blues is basically a "Live performance"
attraction. It didn't get much air time until high heel sneakers, fanny
mae, mule to ride.

  Those "old Masters" didn't know what scales were, they had no idea about
structure or progressions. They didn't know anything about music (all these
items from an EDUCATED point of view). They used whatever junk microphone
they could find and IF they had an amp, it was crap (& smaller than 35
watts). Their equipment looked as if it had been run over. Most of the
time, so did THEY.

  Every time I go to a function I hear someone who stands out. Abt every 2
yrs, I'm really impressed by someone I never heard before. Such was the
case at last 2 SPAHS. In 2001 it was Michael Polesky. In 2002 it was Damien
Masterson. These were on chromatic. BUT, over the yrs, I have heard a TON
of great diatonic players,(too many to remember). If you mention one, it
might jog my feeble brain. YES, they ARE out there, and I for one try to
support them in my own small way.

  One thing I NEVER did was ponder as to "Who was better than who" or like
that. I always felt that there WAS NO "better", there was only "Different".

..smokey-joe formerly with Kiss my Brass