Blues Is Disappearing From Popular Music. Should We Be Concerned?
Вставка
- Опубліковано 2 чер 2019
- During the last century, blues has exerted a powerful impact on almost every major style of popular music, including jazz, R&B, rock, funk, soul, and country. But blues is finally losing its mojo, and is disappearing from commercial music. In this video talk, music historian Ted Gioia asks why is this happening, and whether we should be concerned.
This is the latest installment in a series of informal, unscripted videos in which Ted Gioia addresses key issues related to music and culture. For more information on Ted Gioia, visit his website at www.tedgioia.com or follow him on Twitter at / tedgioia .
"Losing the blues in music is like losing the color blue in painting" .... Very provocative thought. Fortunately there are many younger musicians (Like Jacob Collier) who are very much aware of their music roots. Hopefully the importance of blues and jazz in our musical landscape will be kept alive with music education and events like the Jazz Festival in New Orleans every year.
The Blues will, thank heaven, always be with us, and extremely well received in intimate social gatherings either private or Ticket holding. Gregg Allman used to say that when you really got the blues you can't even play your instrument. But on the upswing coming off your troubles the music starts cooking. The Blues is a musical language like the spoken language that is invariably well received when delivered honesty and interestingly. Thanks for keeping the Blues alive and mentioning Buddy Guy - thankfully I got to met him too in Munich, Germany.
Stevie Duster Music
Music is like language. It's alive and continues to change and always will.
And like language, change doesn’t mean evolution. Humanity has created a beautiful way to communicate things, built an amazing vocabulary and ways to describe abstract things like feelings, moods and etc… but now some people believe that making some noises and swearing is just an updated way to achieve the same level of communication. I believe music follows the same path, and that’s why I don’t buy all the changes.
Mr. Gioia is a wise, wise man, and a scholar we should listen to.
I was first effected by the tritone in the intro to " Purple Haze " by Jimi Hendrix. It had an visceral effect on me. A few years later, when I began exploring 20th century music, I was drawn to composers like Bartok and Stravinsky etc. The emotional effect of music based on the use of this interval opened my ears and feelings to unsettled emotions that mixed both light and dark. Later, after sustained listening to Boulez's " Pli Salon Pli," I broke wide open.
My introduction to the blues: A November night in 1984.
A very small club in Ottawa Canada.
The artist: Son Seals
the result: I was shaken right down to my socks.
The emotional power and the gut wrenching intensity of this real hard core blues master was something out of this world. Thank you Mr. Son Seals for showing that this level of brutal honest humanity could be expressed in such a powerful way trough music.
That's the real blues . That's true blues power. And unfortunately, you are right Mr. Gioia,the artists that had what it took, the masters that could really perform this music authentically are pretty much all gone. So we seem to be losing one of the most powerful music genre to comme out of the southern United States. Very Sad.
I saw Son Seals in Chicago in 1994. He was a great player. I own most of his recordings and enjoy them immensely.
@@HeathWatts Yeah, if ever you can, try and get your hands on the bootleg recording of him: "live at the bottom line" in 1978. It's a killer !
@@jeandejazz6426 I’ll look for it. Thanks!
@@HeathWatts , listen to Tab Benoit. You will like; and live, he'll knock your socks off!
@@goodun2974 Yes, I’ve heard him. Thanks!
great video, thanks Ted for sharing your perspective on the blues and how it helps to expand the palate of our musical culture.
Thank you for this. I think the trouble with Blues musicians today is they are focused more on impressing each other than the audience. There is no EXPRESSION, only IMPRESSION. Conformity of style is expected to be accepted as authentic. Most Blues musicians seem more like historical reenactors than passionate artists with something to say. Every major city has a "blues society" were you are expected to pay your dues. The Blues used to be wild and fun and free and rebellious and mystical. Now, the ritual has devolved into form.
Blues is very much about personality over form. You can get people who know all the licks and are versed in various styles but they just don't have the personality to put it across. I give you Joe Bonamassa as Exhibit A. Yuck!
@@goodun2974 Personality is not allowed in the Blues. Anytime a new artist tries to be different with it, they get delegitamized by the gatekeeper traditionalists.
@@arcanemuses , You must be referring to folk music purists. Or perhaps heavy metal bands! 🤣
@@goodun2974 them, too! Dang the lot of them! Musical purity is absurd!
@@arcanemuses I listen to a number of musicians who came out of the folk tradition; yes, they learned the tradition and then *they came out of it*. Ry Cooder, David Lindley., Richard Thompson, Martin Simpson, all well schooled in the tradition but they don't stick strictly to it. I remember an old interview with Taj Mahal where he played a song and then commented "I could have played that exactly like Robert Johnson in 1930, but what would be the point of that?"
I don't think we should be concerned about the blues disappearing because it's just something that happens all the time: styles come, become very influential for a while and then go. It was the same with renaissance and baroque era counterpoint which gave way to the ligne claire from the classical era, which then became obsolete when the romantics started reintroducing dissonance. The blues is just the next in line to give way to a new language of music. Maybe it's because I'm only 29 but when I see the current musical landscape it fills me with excitement because there are so many cool things happening, blues influence or not. The existence of hyperpop for example, or new styles of rap, or cool modern classical, or K-pop, I could name a few more but you get my point. Music is evolving all the time and trying your best to keep genres that have ran their course will ultimately stagnate that evolution, turning a great artform into a trite, washed out shell of its former glory. Also, remember that there is more to music than just harmony. It's great seeing how something like a rhytmical language can get to the forefront like what happened with the modern trap beat, or recent experimentation with pitch and orchestration and the likes. In summary, music is great and it will remain great for centuries to come with or without the blues.
This man is one of the great thinkers regarding music. His book on the subversive history of music is a masterpiece. I learned of this channel by hearing Gioia's interview with Rick Beato and immediately subscribed.
Wow that was heavy! I can’t believe this video hasn’t gotten more views. This is probably one of the most important videos on popular music on UA-cam.
Hi Ted…I your book The History Of Jazz…forensic and fascinating and thank you for increasing my education of jazz music. I just started putting my jazz list together based on your appendix list of great jazz recordings…Your book is one of the best music books I’ve ever read..Thank you🎼🎶
Let me complicate the issue just a touch. Overall, Mr. G and I are on the same page. But if you look at when the blues and specifically the tritone and blues scale over dominant chords, and even "functional harmony" more generally faded from jazz, it happened when modal music and harmony in fourths came in, around 1960 or a little before. That period opened up a number of alternative visions of jazz which were not principally blues based. Obviously Mr. G knows this.
Fantastic Video Sir...thank you for posting this Music Edu!
I'm glad I found this channel, it's so good.
Sam Ryder's "Spaceman" uses a blues harmony and lick in the chorus; Billie Eilish and Adele both do bluesy stuff; then there's John Batiste, Celeste, Beverly Knight etc. Paolo Nutini's "Pencil full of Lead" is literally a 12 bar blues. While mainstream pop might have moved away from blues for the moment it is still very much alive in new music I think. Plus fashions can turn on the head of a pin. I don't think blues is disappearing any time soon.
This is a great dive into a subject close to my heart. But was the blues really the first dip into African voicings and rhythmical structures that we saw in western music? Perhaps. Certainly the most recognizable and I don’t suggest for one moment Ted is wrong. But, albeit a more local phenomenon, there were the marching bands of New Orleans in the late C19th and their development of polyrhythm, which led to Dee Dee Chandler developing his bass drum pedal in the late 1890’s, and so giving birth to the kit drum (still to my mind America’s greatest contribution to the evolution of music). Drummer Stewart Copeland has a lovely half hour film on UA-cam about drums that shines the light on little known Dee Dee Chandler, for the first time in my case. The kit drum didn’t give birth to the blues but it did give birth to jazz. And it was the polyrhythmic potential of jazz meeting the soulful tensions of blues that really lit the fire under the music of C20th music, from Ledbelly to Gershwin.
Why do fewer musicians American instinctively feel this fire today? Digital instruments and too much emphasis on slick production over dynamic tension, would be my best guess. Thank you The Voice/X factor and the like, the (de facto) reality television formats designed to make music competitive when it is always at its best as a cooperative exercise.
Excellent. Thank you
Billie Eilish “Bad Guy” one of the biggest pop hits is very bluesy under the hood. Tritone in the lead synth melody in the chorus, and 1/4/5 chord progression the whole song.
Billie recorded after this video. When this video was recorded, it was very accurate. Maybe she and others are trying to either revive or carry on the blues tradition
I will say as another UA-cam here said: very insightful and compelling. Thank you.
Always excelent insights
Absolutely agree. Blues is how I started to try to improvise, before anything else. A jazz cradle language. That was in about 1970, maybe late '69. Today I teach jazz to one class, and I believe everything you said and perhaps even more than what you've said. It does open the mind to extended techniques. We also look at emotional expression and what I think of as psychological improvising. We discuss garage bands, too. I just think I am a little bit alone in emphasizing these ideas. There is also a pushback against European hegemony or, dare I say it, mild sort of auto-- genocidal tendencies. There is a hidden race discussion that feel awkward to even bring up. Blues represents diversity, and equal footing to Black, wWhite, Native American, and certainly all others. Women, too. It directs back to what the heart feels, rather than sheer virtuosity, which is how classical music can come across. Moreover, there is a way of thinking the Blues. Which is validating nsfw expressing deeper feelings of humility and having a means to express them... Blues also speaks to the tragedy of America in how it is still trying to grow up out of a perverse early-hood with slavery and Native genocide. The Blues reaches for emotional response. There's a humility and vulnerability there that America lacks. Those are some of my thoughts.
ps, though I really don't think I have any talent at writing ideas out in words, this topic is not small matter.
One of the ideas I talk with students about is to overlay Blues on what we do. We seek to identify characteristics of Blues and spot them outside of actual Blues. Of course, it's jazz more or less that the course is about but I did a Russian hymn, once; Salsa, Bossa, and Pop Ballads. One can, again going back to this, think-Blues. Like learning a mindset, I can even sneak tiny bits of Blues into classical playing. Deadening harmonics or doing a subtle physical tremolo effect are two ways to reference Blues within classical playing. There's more I could say. But that is a little bit of what I feel inspired to add in.
Very Well Done!
Tks!!!
Thank you
You may be right to an extent that there’s been a historical pivot away from blues in popular music. However I have a couple comments. First, blues-rich music is in no danger of being forgotten or lost as you put it. It permeates the archives that new artists always draw from and it can and will come back in new forms. Second, it’s interesting to look at the historical conditions at work-and obviously the way much music is produced today, as compared with say the 1930s, explains a lot. As you say, the pitch “correction” and rhythmic quantization that are available to everyone too often correct out the idiosyncrasies that canonical performers worked so hard to cultivate. We are still learning to work with these new technologies and people do come along once in a while who shock everyone by producing really idiosyncratic music using computer technology. Think of J Dilla who had the audacity to produce off kilter beats.
I’m going on too long, but I guess I’m merely saying that history is not over. It keeps going. And if there is a momentary lack, be patient. It’ll be back!
It's about a sense of tonality, hearing movement in a chord progression....and young people have lost it. To them it's a dead letter....it touches them not. And make no mistake. It's not just about any particular style or form of music. It's about ALL music...jazz, classical, opera...and any high art form...literature, drama, poetry etc. etc. So what's left ? Pap, junk, twaddle..." inexplicable dumb shows and noise". A cultivated person has one refuge...the PAST. Things were not always this bleak...
I'm sorry for you that your cultural life is so poor, that you fell like you must take refuge in some mythical past tense. It's only recently that cultural snobs such as yourself would include Jazz in your list of acceptable "high art" forms, & eve then not until it became more like a cerebral recital than a fun debauched dance party dripping in sex.....All this in a conversation about the Blues..Not high art, & doesn't even need a chord progression at all... & all the better for it. There has always been terrible popular music, & there currently some frighteningly gifted musicians recording & playing live, you obviously haven't been looking in the right places...
It's interesting how blues and jazz had dominant 7th and 9th chords with flatted 7th note (b7). In 1970s in folk rock there were instead major 7ths in sings by America, and Steely Dan used major 9ths and other chords with natural 7th note of scale. Both types of song styles and chord usage were happening at same time along with blues based chords. When synth keyboards came out there were some features like 1 finger chords; press the root note and the keyboard computer would supply remaining notes. Other automation in music made learning chord formulas unnecessary for the uninitiated or those not interested in learning basics of music theory. Over time perhaps that kind of knowledge is disappearing slowly. Yikes!
Sadly, music is disappearing from “popular music.” Gotta find good stuff, support it, and enjoy it for yourself.
You beat me to it.
A brilliant analysis.
Its not up to individual people to "save the blues". The collective decides what is remembered. The Renaissance is a good example. Its been 500 years and people still love and remember Leonardo da vinci and Albrecht Durer, because its great art. Just like great music. It will be remembered and loved by generations to come.
It is interesting how different scales besides the typical Major/Minor haven't gained much popularity after all this time.
Well that's all fascinating but how does it explain the riot that occurred in response to The Rites of Spring? There's always someone somewhere who says "kids today!"
Yeah, based on comments I’m reading, I think many viewers are missing Ted’s point completely. He isn’t saying that “no one’s playing 12 bar blues anymore!” Rather, he’s saying that *fundamental aspects of the style (feel, harmonic influence, vocal delivery, etc.) are disappearing from modern popular music* . As a gigging musician and private lesson teacher for many years, I can attest to this first-hand.
Yes. He is talking about blues elements in pop music. But so many people, maybe the majority, believe that blues is limited to the typical 12 bar blues.
My only wish is that you will take my music and share it with all of the blues loving people,i have learned to play blues harmonica for this reason only,i love it,and love teaching children to play also, God gave me the gift, i only want to share it ❤
Ted, keep rocking 👍😎
Ted: Thank you for this excellent lecture. There is only one challenge that I would make: @ 6:14 "(we)didn't have to play 'in tune' anymore…" I would change that to "we didn't have to adhere to western classical standards of tuning anymore". Nothing is more "in tune" (and difficult for a musician to hear and perfectly execute) than a B.B. King 1/4 step bend. You only have to hear a mediocre guitarist who attempts the feat without hearing it or being able to control it on his/her instrument. The blues expanded the western concept of what playing in tune is. Alto saxophonists Ornette Coleman and Jackie McLean are "in tune" because of their solid blues roots and above all, it's obvious that they hear what they are playing. Looking forward to the next lecture. (And for anyone that is not familiar with it, Ted Gioia wrote one the very best books on the history of jazz simply entitled "The History of Jazz" .)
Hi ; is this the guitarist Eric Schultz who used to live in Paris in the 1980`s ? Sorry to disturb etc.
Great points in the summary here. It's really about a larger world. The loss of it is truly a loss.
I think the big culprits here have got to be the corporate approach of the music business, as well as a blanket rejection of the Boomer generation, who were the ones who really took blues to the largest audiences via rock, pop etc. in the 60's and 70's.
I'm 60, and will keep playing as Sonny boy, and many others,i love harmonica and slide electric and Dobro, I'm not giving up!!! My music on yt is free USE IT!, no copyright ever
Ted- there is a generation of young musicians I have met in the past couple of years- I’m 49, the 80s blues resurgence gave me my portal into musicianship (I was a pro bassist for many years) - these kids are ALL about blues rock. And I hear that blues rock is huge isn’t he WU
There are a lot of young people into blues. I think it is more a problem that no musicians or music are becoming big anymore. Honestly, there's not really any form of media that breaks the boundaries anymore, maybe just my perspective though.
Well - I'm 52 and a musician- one of the instruments I play is harmonica - currently I'm playing with a very talented younger cat folks are calling the next Taj Mahal- his name is Justin Golden- look him up
Iluminador. Gracias.
While I agree that in terms of the most popular sounds (generally speaking) the blues seem to have nearly disappeared, I'd say that there are still some within the most popular bands that still take inspiration from or at least acknowledge blues and blues players. Joanna Connor isn't a popular musician by today's standards, yet I can point out many artists from many genres that consider her to be highly inspirational. For instance, James Hetfield mentioned her in an interview, and the fact that he goes to her shows as often as he can. If I'm not mistaken he said that he would often see other high-level players at her shows standing there dumbfounded by her ability.
I think the problem is when we think of any particular song or genre's popularity (at least in terms of the marketing and presentation) some of us still think in terms of the "radio era" in which a given song's ACTUAL popularity was tracked by how many callers wanted to hear a song, or how many records were sold, etc. But in this day and age, especially with Spotify or other similar platforms, the trends are put forth to you and heavily curated in such a way as to maximize monetary gain for the platform, and not so much so for the artist. There are countless examples on all of our playlists of bands or songs that in our opinion should be top of the charts, bands, or songs that we play for our friends who love the sound too. Then you see the song has like 50,000 listens, and realize that if it isn't Taylor Swift, Kanye, or (insert generic pop artist) it won't matter how good the band or song is, it will NEVER be at the top of charts.
With all that being said, if you are still using listens and views to gauge popularity, you're doing it wrong in my opinion. These numbers can be easily influenced by a number of outside factors that have little or nothing to do with the actual popularity of any given song or genre in the first place, but can also be "pushed onto us" so to speak by the powers that be. I believe that you (Ted) brought up a similar point in the Beato interview in which you described unknown or potentially fake artists who somehow had millions of listens. Using the same logic then real artists could potentially be getting "fake listens" for all we know as well. We will probably only ever know the extent of these sorts of problems once platforms like Spotify are forced to be much more transparent about how the business operates. So likely never lol
Very insightful and compelling.
How do you know that blues influence is dying? Blues was actually rediscovered in the 50's and 60's by rock'n'roll and rock musicians of that time, so it was already lost by the 50's but reemerged. So things become popular and get abused and overused and then leave the scene for good, only after a decade or two later to be rediscovered and reinterpreted in a new fresh way.
Good point.
I've had more of a feeling that blues elements have been disappearing from much pop music -- and music has suffered much because of it, too. It isn't just the ubiquitous use of autotune, but that it is indicative of a desire *away* from the beautiful imperfections of all music rooted in blues. Harmonically there is much more reliance on subdominant and submediant chords (and perhaps an overuse of deceptive cadences -- are they really "deceptive" if they are used constantly?), and an avoidance of sevenths (which includes that tension of the tritone). I think this give voice in a more concrete way of what some people have intuited, that "music isn't the same as it used to be" -- and these are actual musical reasons why that is the case. The sort of clinical precision of digital recording (its sense of absolute control over every possible nuance) is destroying what life music has. Obviously there are exceptions, but the music industry is purely out to make a buck, not to make good music. The best pop music of any genre is good BECAUSE of its imperfections, all those elements that can't be notated or defined: blue notes playing "in between the cracks," inconsistencies in tonal color, slightly off timing, etc. The digital studio is destroying all of this for an abstract exactness that is simply soulless. Could you imagine an autotuned Aretha Franklin? Who would want to listen to it?
I hear the blues tones clearly in black popular music today if not the old predictable structures the real question is how dry academics feel qualified to pontificate
A great topic and a sad trend, but plenty of less-than-famous American musicians laboring in the nooks and crannies of college towns and smaller cities still mine the golden lode of the blues tradition. The "Americana" genre is alive and well, and plenty of country bands still employ the kind of traditional harmonic story telling that is so glaringly absent in too much modern pop. Your reference to the tritone might have gone into specifics: the sound of the dominant (usually V7) chord resolving down a fifth is part of Western music's DNA, the foundation of the blues, and not likely to disappear. The vagaries of the "star making machinery" are another story. Thank you for sounding the alarm.
Joe bonamassa keeps the blues very much alive. A new kid who has the blues chops Quinn Sullivan. On the popular charts the music has become pretty sad.
No, it's not. The influence of the blues is everywhere, especially in vocal styles. Is it on the charts? Not really. But if you go to any city and into the clubs, blues is VERY alive and well. I'm in a bunch of blues bands myself. You must notice that there is a serious disconnect between what's on the charts and what's being played live. Also, the days of hit radio are over. Nowadays, paid satellite service is so specialized that you can create a blues only playlist if you want. Blues festivals are often the largest and most plentiful festivals in North America and the world. I believe the way we are consuming music is in transition as well. We are in a time when we can discover EVERYTHING.
i've had this kind of conversation countless times about rock. but either the world is asking for a certain type of music and the charts are (for some reason) not a credible representation of musical genres that are alive and kicking... or these "alive and kicking" genres are dead. yeah, people in a club are more likely to play the blues or a rock song over, say, trap... but are these songs new? are they advancing their genres? is something new being told in rock or blues? or jazz, for that matter? to put it bluntly, i don't think so, not in the mainstream of the western world. yeah, sure, there are lots of really new and cool rock/ blues/ jazz records out there... but you have to get out and find them. all by yourself. and you have to already know these genres and be willing not to stop at the classics and have the time to work on the search. compare that with, say, electronica. there's really no match. kids don't want to play guitar anymore, they want to be "producers". that must account for something, right?
EDIT: i'd also add that the average recording procedure in 2020 music production is absolutely alien to convey the blues. everything is in tune. everything is on a grid. people are getting used to listen to that... because that's what is on the charts, on commercial music on tv, in films, etc. can you play the blues and have melodyne fix the vocals? i don't think so.
@@SimonMas It really depends what someone wants out of the music. For a lot of people, whether or not it's new doesn't really matter...it's how it's delivered. Also, for better or worse, not everyone is willing or has the time to delve deep into classics. Ths also goes with seeking things out. Some of us (like myself) are willing to make the time time. It's my job. It also depends on what on the definition of making it is. I teach guitar and have a bunch of students how to play. Kids definitely want to play guitar out there. It will probably take another 100 or so years for it to totally be out of the lexicon, that is, if we haven't all killed each other yet. Also, the technology has exploded. People don't need to go to studio to get good sounds. So there is a much stronger DIY element now. As for recording the blues, any blues album I've been a part of has been pretty much live off the floor, wrinkles left in...keeps it raw and real. Most of my blues colleagues have this approach too.
@@ferox965 absolutely, but i thini that what people means with "[such and such genre] is dead" is that, compared to when it was alive, it has become super niche or anchored to a mythical classical period. as i said: there's always new music... but as you said, it depends on someone's taste and time to find it. when a genre is alive, according to me, there's no effort to be done. it's in your face, whether you like it or not.
personally, i love rock, i love blues and i love jazz (i like electronica, too, but less). i hope it's a passing phase... but, let's be realistic. i doubt it is.
@@SimonMas Rick Beato explains alot of what you said in his video about autotune and its effects on modern music. Almost everyone wants to autotune these days and use beat detective as well and these software plug in tools don't work well with the blues because of reasons like you and Rick Beato said. I hate so much of today's modern music because of this plug in computer software crap because it to me doesn't sound like real music and it doesn't even sound human. Even much of modern rock and metal is getting away from the blues and incorporating this hip hop techno EDM, Dupstep in their music. Everything perfectly in tune and on grid isn't real music because this isn't human to be perfectly in tune and this takes the humanity out of the music. The blues is the perfect example of being a human being when it comes to music.
@@midnight-2021 if you like raw, "uneven" stuff, it's a hard time for listening to new music. th worst is that sometimes these things are imposed on the bands, too. during the recording one of my albums (100% independently produced out of my pocket) i had to argue at length with the engineer, because he had started putting all the drums to a grid by default, not even bothering to ask me or the drummer whether we wanted that or not. the guy kind of argued that it was like me telling him which microphone to use. i argued that if i was paying, i was well allowed to tell him that, too, if i cared.
Ted, Blues is alive in Chicago (38th annual free three day fest in Millennium Park this weekend, June 7-9), New Orleans, rap and neo-Soul, among other precincts. Yes, a lot of non-blues in today’s pop, And there will be no more superstars, as the music industry has imploded so only anodyne stuff, saleable internationally ( just like the big movie studios’ blockbusters) gets promoted. For younger players hear Christine “Kingfish” Ingram, Fantastic Negrito, Rhiannon Giddens, Don Lemons, and mid career Shemekia Copeland, Billy Branch, Lurrie Bell, Marcia Ball, among others. They themselves are not shaking up “pop,” but they have gigs, tours, records, audiences, respect and a fair measure of renown.
Here are some you should add to your playlist: Larkin Poe, Carolyn Wonderland, Sue Foley, Beth Hart, Joe Bonamassa, The Tedeschi Trucks Band, and many others.
@@audiophileman7047 , and another "must-listen": Tab Benoit. High energy blues and blues-based rock. One battered guitar, two combo amps, no effects pedals ---- unless you count the alligator head perched on his amp, holding a slide and some picks (neither of which he uses much, he mostly picks with his fingers), as an "effect". Vibrato? Its in his fingers. Tremolo? A fast manual rotation of the volume knob. I suspect the gator is there to remind him to *keep it dangerous*. If he comes to your town, you gotta go see him, he and his stripped-down power trio will knock your socks off. PS, he's a pretty good drummer too. Must be something special in that Louisiana bayou swampwater!
@@goodun2974 Thanks for the tip on Tab Benoit. I haven't heard of him, but I'm always looking for new blues and blues rock talent. This guy sounds like a genuine musician who relies more on resourcefulness than tech gimmicks. Only great music can come from that. 👍👍👍
@@goodun2974 Boy you are right! Tab Benoit kills it. I love the guy and just heard him for the first time today! His band is tight. His vocals are really good, and he knows how to make his Fender Thinline blues rock our world. Thank you very much for telling me about him. 👍👍👍👍👍
@@audiophileman7047 , "Wetlands" is a good one, if you can find it (its on Telarc). "Fever from the Bayou" is another good record. There's lots of live concerts from him on UA-cam. If I'll post a link or 2 here for you when I get a chance.
The Blues is one of the greatest contributions black Americans have made to American culture. It's probably impossible to determine all the ways its incorporation into American music directly or indirectly influenced this country, especially in arenas far removed from music. This was the assessment of prescient Czech composer Antonín Dvořák:
-------------------------------------
"I am convinced that the future music of this country [the USA] must be founded on what are called Negro melodies. These can be the foundation of a serious and original school of composition, to be developed in the United States. These beautiful and varied themes are the product of the soil. They are the folk songs of America and your composers must turn to them."
- Antonín Dvořák, 1892.
-------------------------------------
Looking back on 20th century American music, all I can say is, boy howdy, did they ever!
richard
--
I'm bored to tears with the blues, having lived with them from Elvis, through the modern jazz era, to now. The idea that the tradition of white classical music never pushed any envelopes or ever used a tri tone before African music reached our shores is utter nonsense. See Chopin, lots of Bach, Schoenberg, tritones were everywhere. Foreign influences have always been a good thing, but the blues has been overdone. Life is change. As to bent notes, hard to bend a note on a piano, harpsichord, or organ, instruments that formed the basis of western music for centuries. But the fiddle players in bluegrass music have bent notes forever. Love this channel by the way, just don't agree with the idea that we can't. live without the blues for awhile. I certainly can.
The problem with your opinion is the Blues is American music and should be embraced by American musicians. The same goes with the Jazz styles from Ragtime to Bebop.
Ragtime is one thing... but another SRV knockoff is just a sad death-rattle of the 80's/90's.
Everything sounds like "12-bar" to the caveman who want samples these days.
I play guitar and drums... Backbeats and Pentatonics are only enjoyable in small doses.
Blues has its limits, but can be incorporated into other genres
Marcus King, Derek Trucks, Brittany Howard, even John Mayer to some extent... it is still around but not mainstream Top 40.
Bending of the notes is common in many folk cultures, for instance in Irish sean-nos singing.
I’ve talked to people in their 20’s who don’t know who Elvis is. Bring up a blues artist? Forget about it. You can(can’t) hear that in music today. Do we call the evolution? Or do we call that loss? I guess we’ll have to see if rock song structure ever returns. But where will they derive that inspiration?
here's an observation, anecdotal but widespread i think, and a phenomenon related to the topic of waning blues.
after playing the guitar since 1973 i've finally and for the first time ever, started formal lessons and a deep dive into theory. from the high dive i've plunged into the bebop jazz pool. my instructor is a knighted bebop jazz guitar dragon slayer of the highest order.
at the same time i'm guiding my son and found him a teacher of his own. he's 28.
The observation - "swing" has disappeared from human dna. "Swing" as i'm using it here is in the technical sense when playing jazz, but it transcends all genre's. for example, a shuffle is swing. the intro to "i know a little" by Skynyrd (Steve Gaines) is a typical "bebop open" that typifies swing. "taking care of business" by BTO is a classic rocknroll shuffle that typifies swing. yada yada. . . .
my recent introduction to the jazz world informs me that swing has always been a difficult task for instructors. but not for me. i'm over-swung. i swing every thing i play. playing straight is foreign to my immune system and is attacked with vicious ferocity. the reason is, virtually everything is ever listened to had swing in it.
But swing is difficult for my son to get. realizing this, i've sniffed around some, and the jazz guys tell me that swing is difficult to teach to those that don't have it. so, in one sense swing has always been a problem with some students, academically.
but not biologically. from the mid 50s through the 80s, swing was abundant in popular music of all genres. it was bred in by audible osmosis.
I'm 58 and a child of the 70s. virtually every song had swing. most melodies had swing built into various turns. the harmonies had swing.
roll over beethoven is probably the first rock and roll song that significantly amplified what rock and roll felt like, and was going to feel like for decades to come. it is drilled with deep wells of swing.
not anymore. evolution has bred the swing genes out of pop dna. today's pop song hook is a different medicine. it doesn't provoke the muscles with an impulsive polo to a rhythmic marco. if swing were a music virus then the shuffle beat was once a contagious strain that is now endangered because of the loss of habitat brought on by the inoculation of current popular music.
it is what it is. the world changes and the glorification of foregone eras is often a circle-jerk of desperate nostalgic insecurities.
but its more than that. those 30 and under were not raised on music with swing. blues was a huge importer of swing into what became rock and roll. the same goes for musical tension. swing and tension are the parentheses, bookends to phrases that create complete movement within sonic journeys.
pop music no longer has these devices as components. teaching rhythm and swing to grown person is similar to teaching someone to talk that never learned as a child.
exposure must take place at a young age.
"It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing"...... I concur whole heartedly. Personally I lean more towards blues and blues-rock than I do to jazz but I 100% understand where you're coming from. Unfortunately, today's quantified recording processes constitute a direct effort to completely remove "swing" from music.
I thought of blues sort of as a reflection of salvation, representing harms of society. I like this interpretation that it breaks free from conventions. Music and culture is being pushed more and more toward conformity, and maybe a new blues-type music will come as traditional form becomes too structured for people to allow free expression.
As a lover of Charlie Patton, Skip James, Barbecue Bob, etc., I find the diminishing influence of the blues alarming. Still, should so much blame be placed at the feet of Pythagoras? After all, the dominance of major and minor scales didn't come about until the early 1600's, and even-tempered tuning wasn't fully established until well into the Baroque. That's 2000 years after Pythagoras.
“It’s hard to sing the blues when you’ve got a Cadillac. It’s even harder when you’ve got two”. - Tommy Tedesco.
I love you man ❤️
I personally hope that Christone Kingfish Ingram will help to keep the blues alive. Just saw him in Minneapolis a little over a month ago & the show was amazing!!! However, I will note that I’m 36, and the crowd was significantly older than me.
I play blues harmonica,i will keep it up..,...
This gives me the blues
I think there are some artists out there that are playing an evolution of the blues. Mark Lanegan (RIP) in particular, as well as sludge metal bands like Down and Goatsnake
I can't believe I just learned about this man. Brilliant analysis of Western culture.
Yes we should be a bit concerned..The blues is a part of history. I’m not an American and the blues is part of American history. The blues tells something and I think telling stories is universal. I agree with you that music today is beginning to be or already are something else. I don’t much care for that sort of perfection that is today - music and blues are feelings, stories and neither are perfect. Music is also about the small mistakes, it’s human. Yes I think we should be a bit concerned.
It would be a real tragedy if the blues disappeared completely, I couldn't agree more. However, it's true that the popularity of the blues has waxed and waned in the past. There was a big blues revival in the 80s, at a time when techno-pop was all the rage in the wake of German synthesizer bands like Kraftwerk. And I think that, as long as there are people who appreciate honesty and authenticity in music over sonic perfection, the blues will not be gone for long. At least that's how I see it.
I think part of this is if we see a 20 year old street performer for example who is either doing Blues standards or new Blues songs they wrote they are seen as co opting that genre or just a revival act and not doing anything new. That sort of happened with Swing for a short while with acts like Squirrel Nut Zipper and Pub Folk with Mumford and Sons.
The blues in contemporary jazz is gone
I believe that you have to "Feel" the blues in order to play it well.
Today kids are only exposed to robotic toys that have no feeling at all. But, I been around long enough to see things come back again. There's Hope.😁🎶🎹🎶Play On.
I compare the blues to the original popular cars, probably started, really, by the Model T (that combined the assembly line with the new tech, making them affordable). That is, nobody drives a Model T any more, but the inspiration from the Model T (and others from the time) are obvious in all modern cars, even electrics.
But the Model T has "disappeared".
I used to play blues jams in the Seattle area 10-20 years ago. It was fun but I got really bored with the over simplistic sound of the blues. The new stuff that is BASED ON the blues is a lot more interesting and, often, much more musically satisfying. That said, I loves me some blues every now and then, but I don't need to ever hear any "new" blues. Just as I don't need any new "classic rock", which also inspired much of modern pop/rock.
Meh.
Society is so fragmented that pop music is barely a thing.
Meanwhile blues and older genres are thriving in little enclaves of fans.
It will be back. It's cyclic. When the younger generation gets bored and starts searching for different sounds, then they will tap into the blues once again.
In my opinion the blues got a popularity shot in the arm when Stevie Ray Vaughan emerged and set the world on it's ears. And when he died so went that shot in the arm.. Blues men and women are still out there keeping the blues alive..Waiting for the next kick.
Blues isn't the only rich American music tradition in danger of dying out. What about Cajun music ? I love Cajun music and it is also in danger of disappearing.
Cajun music has been partly absorbed into, or at the least has influenced other regional music styles, including blues and jazz. It's probably hard to hang onto the original Cajun culture as French falls by the wayside. I guess you could characterize Cajun music as a seasonal or sporadic ingredient in the stew, the gumbo, the continual melting pot of southern Louisiana. Personally I am mostly into blues and blues based rock, but 2 of my favorite guitarists are Tab Benoit, and Sonny Landreth, both from Louisiana. You can hear the Cajun influence in both of them, especially Sonny since he used to play with Clifton and Cleveland Chenier (and he played jazz trumpet as well from grade school through college). Sonny's slide guitar technique is revolutionary, nobody else sounds like him; Tab is a powerhouse, an excellent picker and singer, leader of a stripped-down, rocking power trio, and a darn good drummer as well.
What is the Broose?
I've been playing at the blues for decades. but, I didn't live the blues.... can''t really feel the blues '''' those all -the- way- down- to -the- bottom - blues, The hopeless blues. The closest I think American rock ever came is Alice In Chains. I wouldn't recommend going there. That blueness burns the soul.
Mr. Gioia, what's you take on Jack White as actually someone keeping the Blues tradition alive in the mainstream?
Just adding to these comments that he says "Popular Music". That really is relegated to hit radio, trend-setting music. etc. In other words, the BIG earners. Yes, you can find blues artists, but they are not leading artists in the terms I just stated.
Hi Ted. I just started following you after your talk with Rick. An hour in, when you talked about the importance of Blues, I said to myself, "this guy sounds like me!" Then later, a funny thing happened. I had lunch with the masterful jazz pianist, Rob Mullins, in Los Angeles. We spoke about the Beato interview and Rob said to me, "when that guy talks about the Blues, he sounds like me!"
I'm a music educator, guitar instructor and a total music theory nerd. I'm excited to say that I've unearthed a brand new music theory that literally cracks the code of the Blues. For years I was flummoxed that Blues defied a good deal of the rules of Harmony as we're taught. That's the same theory that's been expanded upon since the early days of Bach. As far as I'm concerned, before Blues emerged, all music theory was based on European chord analysis. But the Blues is a thoroughly American musical form. It requires a new theory and I found it!
I can now explain why the I IV and V of the Blues are Dominant 7th chords. This theory is a total revelation! Once I get it out there, I hope the concept will spread around the internet and encourage young composers to bring the Blues back into popular music.
We're all doing what we can to preach Blues and Gospel to the public at large. Thank you for your wonderful work. It's compelling to say the least.
May be IA
Similar to the extinction of flora and fauna.
But we still have the records and CDs 😊
Blues was hardly ever in pop music, some characteristics of it accompanied other genres into the mainstream 'like rock when it was pop(60s-70s)' but straight up pure blues stuff like the works of Son House/ Lightnin Hopkins / BB King were never really mainstream IMO .
@Renny
Jimi Hendrix was considered a pop star and was heavily entrenched in the blues and actually was pushing the boundaries of the genre more than anybody. His music was and still is way ahead of its time. Rolling Stones did pure blues all throughout their career and are one of the most successful bands of all time and influenced countless other bands to incorporate blues into their music as well.
R and B has blues in the name and many of the classic Rhythm and Blues artists are considered pop stars and even some modern day R and B artists still use blues elements even if they are not doing it intentionally. There was pop music that didn't really utilize the blues going all the way back to the fifties and sixties but there was still traces of the blues that could be detected usually. These days there is basically zero trace of blues to be found in popular music which renders it lifeless and dull in most cases..
This is just false. The blues was everywhere in pop music. Like he said earlier, the first thing that most guitarists learned were blues scales and chords. And, this was incorporated into a lot of the songwriting at the time, even in pop music
@@Gknoweth
Absolutely, I think people these days have a misconception about what the blues is and how big of an impact it had on culture and music in general during the golden age of rock and roll and pop music. The blues is the building blocks of all classic rock. It is there whether people realize it or not.
People complain about modern music not being interesting without knowing why, but it is very simple. The youth are not listening to blues music like they were during the fifties, sixties, seventies, eighties, and nineties. Blues doesn't appeal to young people anymore and music is dying because of it.
Blues sounds antiquated to most people now that were not exposed to it from a young age. I myself didn't appreciate blues until I began to study music but once it clicked for me the blues became the most important form of music to understand because it allows you to be able to play literally everything else. Same goes for jazz but you don't have to be a great musician to play the blues so it is more universal and accessible.
I see young musicians attempting to play music without utilizing blues and jazz elements and they are struggling with ideas because they are trying to come up with something out of thin air that took hundreds of years to develop over many generations of musicians. They don't have a clue that the classic rock musicians they strive to emulate were studying the blues and standing on the shoulders of legendary performers before them.
For these young musicians today, the blues is boring and they want to skip it and get to the highly evolved rock and roll that came in the seventies and eighties and nineties. They are learning the hard way that you can't skip the blues and become a master musician and they are missing out on vital lessons and essential wisdom that come from the endless fountain of creativity that is the blues.
I feel this current dilemma in music will be resolved in time, but it will take a miracle for these young people to develop the patience to appreciate the blues once again..
@@PlaysWithChildren , The Rolling Stones definitely did not play "pure blues" for all of their career, they were obviously listening to and taking influences from country music when they recorded "Sticky Fingers".
Something that record collectors and blues purists have a tendency to forget is that some of the people from 80 to 100 years ago that we associate as "blues players" could actually play other kinds of music as well, because if they had a gig to play at a catfish fry or a barbecue or a dance or whatever, invariably somebody would ask them for some pop song that they'd heard on the radio or from a phonograph record. The more songs you knew from different genres, the more paying gigs you would get. Thus we had people like Mance Lipscomb who was really considered to be a songster and not strictly a blues artist. The fact that we hear these guys mostly playing blues on records might be primarily a function of some record promoter/producer showing up with a recorder and some cash, saying "play me some blues", because that's what the promoter knew, or thought he knew, would sell well to his particular clientele.
I'm concerned, but also convinced that too many people won't give a sht anyway. The 20th century was it for blues.
The only way to stop anymore egregious exclusion is to crowdfund our records and reject all the majors, including publishers. I’m going all blues to heck with their tick tock junk.
Ted, I’m not sure if this is a provocation or a genuine concern about blues. My response is: John Mayer. John is a hugely successful artist who draws heavily from the blues tradition and shares this in his live concerts.
I’m a lifetime student of guitar and there is no shortage of materials for wannabe blues guitarists out there, just search UA-cam. I can only assume that this reflects a demand for blues instruction at the grass roots of music making.
There's John Mayer
...the blues ain't nothin’ but a botheration on your mind
Not saying this isn’t right or interesting at least… but as a European I’m struck everytime I hear an American (like Rick Beato) talk about « popular music » as if there was just one kind of it (the north american one), as if bossa nova, reggae, afrobeat or any kind of "world music", or even european electro never had any influence - the blues’ elements in this genre are just covering a fifty years period of history in western music, let’s say from the very beginning of rock n’ roll to the late grunge hype with a peak in the late 60s-early 70s (British Blues Boom, Hendrix, heavy blues bands as Led Zep, or the Stones at their best borrowing everything they could from their idols)… We also could add 50 years of jazz but the aficionados probably wouldn’t like to include it in « pop music »… Anyway, I’m not far from thinking that rap has been a kind of black revenge on this white blues exploitation - I once read an interview in the 80s where a young hip-hop black artist said : « Journalists and critics keep asking me about the lack of blues roots in my music… I don’t care about the blues, I’m not a slave ! »… So now we have « pop », for the worse more than the better… I’d say it has a lot more to do with the way music nowadays can be produced and listened to ; and while I’m struggling to put my fingers in the right place on my guitar, my young neighbour downstairs is making 3 songs with soundfiles on his laptop and a chinese microphone… Call that the « boomer’s blues » !
In terms of pure blues? Yes I guess it's disappearing. But the blues scale and chords are becoming more and more prevalent in music, kind of to an irritating degree. Every guitarist plays on the minor pentatonic scale, most pop singers use it, plenty of hip hop and jazz is leaning heavily on blues, and rock is 100% dominated by blues. We could actually do with a break from it.
Its amazing how Pete Townshend almost never played a blues riff and was still hugely successful in the 60-70s when his rivals were fully immersed in that genre.
Townsend was far more influenced by rockabilly, country and even jazz, not to mention the skiffle music of England, than he was by the blues. Another very influential but far less well known British guitarist who similarly was influenced by just about everything except the blues is Richard Thompson. There is no one else who plays like him. No one. And he is a fantastic songwriter as well.
Maximum R&B was the tagline of the early Who. Go listen to their debut album, My Generation.
@@mick5137 , I used to have a copy of that poster, which came inside of the Who record "Live at Leeds". I don't know who made up the poster but more likely it was someone at the Marquee Club and not necessarily the Who themselves. Regardless, although I don't actually own the first record, "My Generation", I do own the "Meaty Beaty Big and Bouncy" compilation record, which has songs from the first 3 or so records that the Who put out, songs that we know really well such as I Can See For Miles, Substitute, Happy Jack, The Kids Are Alright, Can't Explain, and yes, My Generation and none of them are exactly what I would call "rhythm and blues". These were not the sort of songs coming out of Motown or Stax Records! (Can you imagine "I'm A Boy" or "Pictures Of Lily" on a Motown or Sun record?). And by the way, the aforementioned Richard Thompson writes in his biography "BeesWing" about seeing the Who play regularly in their residency at the Marquee (as well as the Yardbirds). The dilemma was that if he stayed for the second set, by the time he got out of the club the busses and trains were no longer running, and he would have to walk 7 or 8 miles to get home. The lure of the music was sufficiently powerful that he walked home a lot! (Years later, this became a partial inspiration for his song "Walking the Long Miles Home" which blended a girlfriend into the theme).
I think the world that spawned the blues is gone. Blues is our: Fado, Rembetiko, Tango, Trwu Bador, Canciones. Unlike those musics that are proudly held onto by their cultures. it hard for Americans to love something that is so fundamental to our soul.
I like Kingfish.
They have taken the soul out of music
Soul is being purposely extricated from popular music.
Blade Runner Blues:
ua-cam.com/video/-Vilr8y9FE4/v-deo.html
R&B and Hip Hop are blues. It's different but it's blues. Robert Johnson's style was long gone by the 1950's...
Are you kidding me? The demise of the Blues has been greatly exaggerated. What about Blues Hammer? They are still rocking.
Joe Bonnamassa, Eric Gales, Derek Trucks, etc.
Sue Foley, Samantha Fish, Joanne Shaw Taylor, Kara Granger .....
Point taken. He said "popular music". Great artists, but not the leading ones, per se.
@@euanthomas3423 , Tab Benoit, Joanna Connor, Irja Lytinjen, Anna Popovic, Larkin Poe. I can't stand Joe Bonamassa, however, his music and playing have all the personality of an actuarial accountant. Sadly not very impressed with Samantha Fish either.
Music is disappearing from popular music.