Re: [Harp-L] Did The Blues invent the Light buld

["Paul LaBrier" <paul@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

I agree with a lot of what you said but think you might be taking it a
bit too far.  SAying that the Blues is only a "microscopic" piece of
the big picture is a bit extreme.

Look at it historically.  Go back to the origins of it.  You had
primative roots music being played both by those of african and
european decent.  It was primarily from the rural south in america.
The early roots music of european decent morphed into Country and
Bluegrass and has nearly been lost.  The early roots music of african
decent mutated into many other things too.  The acoustic music
commonly reffered to as Delta and Piedmont Blues migrated from the
rural south to urban areas like Memphis, St. Louis and Chicago and
took on a whole new dimension. It was also the genesis for Jazz,
ragtime, R&B.  It merged with music of european origin when folks like
Elvis and Johnny Cash took pieces of it in new directions.  This was
still in the deep south.  But that was about to change.  As they say,
" The blues had a baby and they named it rock-n-roll."    The
popularity of Rock-n-Roll spread around the globe taking with it an
interest in it parent.  That has impacted music on almost every
continent, not sure about antartica ;)

Oddly, the early roots music of african decent has survived and is
still popular today.  Blues in the Delta and Piedmont tradition is
still around.

Is this saying that the Blues is the best or most important form of
music, by no means.  But I think that saying it is only a microscopic
part of music history is understating its importance.

Paul



On 7/21/06, Winslow Yerxa <winslowyerxa@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> The world is a huge place.
>
> It's full of amazing things.
>
> it's full of deep feelings.
>
> Blues is only one teensy, tiny piece of that. Deep as the blues is,
> it's only a microscopic piece.
>
> Think about how huge the world must really be if the blues can be that
> deep and still only a tiny piece of what's out there.