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

["Tom Watson" <fountain@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Brilliantly and eloquently expressed, Joe!

Tom Watson


-----Original Message-----
From: harp-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxx [mailto:harp-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf
Of James D Hoskins
Sent: Monday, May 04, 2015 1:59 PM
To: Joseph Leone; Randy Singer
Cc: harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [Harp-L] Re: Totally bored with the blues genre

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
>
>
>