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

"James D Hoskins" <jameshoskinz@xxxxxxxxxxxx> · Mon, 4 May 2015 10:58:49 -0700

Thank you for this most insightful post. You are a man of great wit and 
wisdom Joseph Leone.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Joseph Leone" <3N037@xxxxxxxxxxx>

To: "Randy Singer" <randy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

Cc: <harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx>

Sent: Monday, May 04, 2015 10:39 AM

Subject: [Harp-L] Re: Totally bored with the blues genre
Hmmm, the way I see it, blues are generally a fairly simple music written 
by and for (at the time) fairly simple hard working people.  Not everyone 
can be a Bach, Beethoven, or Mozart, but they still need to express 
themselves. Blues fills the bill. When I think of genuine blues, I picture 
a beat up Montgomery Wards mail order guitar with missing pick guard and a 
hole in the birch face, probably mismatched strings, and a dented10 cent 
harmonica from a box at the general store (at $1.oo per dozen), held in a 
bent coat hanger rack. If there were any amp at all, it would probably be 
a beat up Silvertone that looked like it had been dropped off the truck a 
dozen or more times.
The mic is held together with twine and looks like it had been used as a 
hockey puck. The singer/artist has a voice that no one could exactly call 
pleasant and everything was out of tune. The drums were patched with 
pieces of canvas glues on and the bass was a wash tub with a stick and 
some wire. BUT Oooooh, what magic would come out of this junk.
Then, over the years, people started to try and improve blues. I have to 
give a lot of credit to some of these people for they really really 
studied the genre very hard and dissected it to the ength degree, but they 
also turned it into a mathematical thesis. I (personally) don't think that 
the early masters gave much thought to theory. Nor did they care. They 
just wanted to play in their own gut bucket style. Playing from the gut. 
Sitting on a bucket.
Now, over the years there are some whom have used all sorts of musics as a 
means to their own ends. I consider that how, during the depression and 
the dust bowl eras, there were people who would sweep up a stable or do 
yard work for a few nickels so they could buy a can of beans .Then there 
were others who would sit and watch them work, write songs about it, 
perform them at hobo jungles, in the hopes that someone would 'share' 
their beans with them. Sometimes even becoming famous song writers. Like 
people who photographed the despair and later wound up as famous 
photographers, whose photos now go for thousands of dollars. I consider 
these people as users.
No, I think blues are honest down to earth musics and if done in a caring 
manner and not 'phoned in' (as I hear so much of these days), it is a 
wonderful outlet for those who are willing to emote. To completely open 
their hearts and exude their innermost feelings. So I'm not so sure that 
blues have to evolve. I saw that with jazz. Hot music to swing to 
progressive to bee-bop to re-bop to hard-bop to fusion. Just my opinion 
but that killed jazz.
In conclusion I have known Randolph for 20-25 years and never found him to 
be negative. Not at heart. He has always been a positive influence and 
ambassador of harmonica and while he rarely posts, the posts are usually 
links to wonderful things. He wants us all to start thinking. Because when 
you stop thinking, you're probably stinking. You're probably dead. There 
have been some seriously great posts on this subject. Well done 'W.C. 
Handy Randy'. lol

smokey joe

On Apr 30, 2015, at 1:11 PM, Randy Singer 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 clichés 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