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

["Chris Michalek" <chris@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I happen to agree with Winslow, no disrespect to Paul but your view on the blues is incredibly ethocentric.

Blues evolved from JuJu and Hilife music in western african. In fact the evolution is very slight as even the older forms of JuJu sound like contemporary blues and funk.  The blues was not born in the rural southern US it was brought here and forced to be perfomed on primitve and otherwise makeshift instruments that were given to the slaves to keep them happy.



>-----Original Message-----
>From: Paul LaBrier [mailto:paul@xxxxxxxxxxx]
>Sent: Friday, July 21, 2006 08:32 PM
>To: harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx
>Subject: Re: [Harp-L] Did The Blues invent the Light buld
>
>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.
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