Re: [Harp-L] Totally bored with the blues genre

[Michael Rubin <michaelrubinharmonica@xxxxxxxxx>]

Blues songwriters you should check out:
Paul Delay, Rick Estrin, Gary Primich, James Harman

Blues harp players who didn't just regurgitate the Mount Rushmore of Blues
harp aka Walter, Walter, Sonny, Sonny, Sonny, George and Jimmy:

Sugar Blue,  Rick Estrin, Carlos Del Junco, Dennis Gruenling, Paul Delay,
Jason Ricci, Charlie Musselwhite, Paul Butterfield, James Cotton, Junior
Wells, Roly Platt, Gary Primich, Phil Wiggins, Charlie Sayles, Big Bones,
Andy J. Forest, Billy Branch, William Clarke, Rod Piazza, Gary Smith,
Madcat Ruth etc.

There are more.  Then there are regurgitators who did it really well and
with deep feeling that I love just as much.

But overall, Randy you are correct.  It is a boring wasteland.  Like you (I
assume) I listen to jazz most of the time.  Then I get off my high horse,
put on a GOOD blues harp album and get really excited, because I had
forgotten how much I love the stuff.

Here's what I really think though.  Put up or shut up.  When did you last
put out an album arguing your point through your music?  I know there is at
least one Randy Singer album.  Did it come out within the last three
years?  IS there a recent album, be it under your name or your band's?  Put
out a CD, dude.

Otherwise you're just talking.
Michael Rubin
michaelrubinharmonica.com

On Thu, Apr 30, 2015 at 12:11 PM, Randy Singer <randy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

> I'm going to come out of the closet and state emphatically that I cannot
> stand 80% of all the blues music that I hear.
>
> With the exception of Little Walter, Paul Butterfield, keb mo, derek
> trucks, William Clark, mitch Kashmir, howard levy, Robert Cray, The Allman
> Brothers, thiago, dennis gruenling, muddy Waters, rob Paparozzi, sebastian
> charlier, eric Clapton and other progressives, I find the state of the
> blues is a useless circle jerk of mind numbingly repetitive musical clichÃs
> and nursery rhyme chord changes. (please pardon the misspellings I'm doing
> this on my iPhone)
>
> JOKE
> How many blues musicians does it take to screw in a lightbulb in?
> 145145145145
>
> In other words how many times can I keep hearing a I-4-5
>  or progression with basically only diatonic notes? Imagine telling that
> to a professional musician of any other instrument that they can only play
> pentatonic and scales, they would look at you like you were absolutely
> crazy out of your mind and they would be correct. Imagine telling a piano
> player he could only use the white keys!!!! LOL. You would be laughed out
> of the room. Yet seems like almost all the harmonica players only use those
> scales with a couple colorful over blows as if that would be sufficient
>
> Most harmonica players have stopped growing and we deserve the gimp
> reputation that we have.
>
> Where is the Maceo Parker of our harmonica age? very few harmonica players
> could go head-to-head note to note with a player like him or Gerald
> Albright another great blues jazz player. Playing precise blues/chromatic
> lines is a extremely rare breed in our community yet in the horn community
> it's the easiest thing to do.
>
> If you keep recycling the same thing over and over again a copy of a copy
> of a copy becomes faded and ludicrous
>
> Also having performed and lived extensively in Brazil, Paris New York
> Nashville and now Miami I have come to revere the art of songwriting using
> predictable yet unpredictable changes and I see none of that in the
> harmonica community.
>
> The Beatles set the standard for creative and inventive songwriting and
> that seems to have TOTALLY escaped the blues and harmonica community.
>
> The elephant in the room is the so-called blues Nazis and I am sure that
> when the blues musicians and songwriters attempt to create a song which
> sets the songwriting bar higher, they would be shut down by the blues
> natzis!! I believe when Robert Cray put out his strong persuader album
> which features some of the best blue songwriting I have ever heard, he was
> shut down as not being a blues artist any longer ---that's a bunch of BS!
>
> I believe that there is a absolute necessity to keep the tradition alive
> and I applaud and appreciate what the traditionalists are doing but as far
> as the general state of the blues and harmonica players it's a big ho hum.
>
> I fully expect to get a lot of hate mail so feel free to vent your anger
> or better yet do something about it and learn to play your next evolution
> of music while retaining your blues roots. Also if there are any other
> progressives that I have missed please list them.
>
> I will consider leaving the country or getting a bodyguard once I hit the
> send button on this.
>
> I love the harmonica more than anything else that's why I wrote this.
>
> If I have hurt anyone's feelings I apologize.
>
> With love, RANDY SINGER
>
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>