[Harp-L] re: the difference between funk and blues

[Jonathan Ross <jross38@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Chris, you seem to mistake my intent.  I don't particularly care  
about the labels, but if you really want to know why that Freddie  
King tune could be seen as being between blues and funk I would  
actually give two responses.  First, technically the bassist is not  
putting the beat on the 2 and 4 as is traditional with most blues,  
but the drummer is, therefore the polyrhythmic mix between the bass  
and the drums is creating an effect somewhere between a funk groove  
and a blues one.  It's not on-the-one, but it's also not the blues  
shuffle.  Second, it just has that feel as being heavily influenced  
in sonic texture and mood by the funk of the sixties and seventies.   
That's the way I hear it, which leads back to my last point: these  
genres do exist, but they are hard to really define, they tend to  
blend considerably and in the end it comes down once again to "I know  
it when I hear it".

Thanks for the links, they were nice.   Though I think Miller's bass- 
line is more fusion/jazz-funk (he doesn't really lay it down quite as  
much as a pure funk band would).  What I'd think of as a pure funk  
groove would be more like these:

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X26GN6D1YOY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMfFpmJGCr4&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oC5QFSfBCQw&feature=related

As for Clapton, again, I don't particularly care about what genre  
anyone calls him, but I really don't think it's a stretch to say that  
most of his career and his greatest successes came in a more rock/pop  
vein than in a blues vein.  And indeed, I don't see it as all that  
far fetched to point out that someone like Guy was part of the  
culture where the blues formed and was created whereas Clapton was  
not inherently a part of that culture.  He may have immersed himself  
in it and became a part of it, but that's different from being of it  
to begin with.




 ()()    JR "Bulldogge" Ross
()  ()
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