Blues is the new black

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Blues is the new black
July 9, 2010
Brad Wheeler
The Globe and Mail

In the 1990s, Matthew Johnson of Fat Possum records would go in search of obscure blues artists in the countryside of Mississippi, where he would turn up at shacks and trailers, tracking down rumours of long-lost blues players untouched by modern musical convention. It wasn’t unusual for a child to greet Johnson’s arrival shouting, “White man at the door.”

Johnson and others like him – there’s a long history of blues anthropology – have long since given up tracking down such diamonds in the rough. These days, it’s the blues that have been popping up in unexpected places.

This summer, in particular, has seen the release of blues music from some unlikely sources. Distinctly urban pop singer Cyndi Lauper has released the geographically accurate Memphis Blues. Midnight smoker Steve Miller put out Bingo!, a collection of blues covers. Mojo, from Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, sports a strong blues vibe.

Mother Earth, by Cyndi Lauper

Come On (Let The Good Times Roll), by Steve Miller

Meanwhile, former Jefferson Starship vocalist Mickey Thomas has joined the Bluesmasters, a band that is signed to the venerable independent label Blind Pig. And coming soon is Tom Jones’s Praise and Blame, a collection of blues and church music from the virile Scottish lounge singer.

In other words, what’s new, pussycat, is that mainstream artists, for a variety of reasons, are paying homage to the blues. White man is back at the door.

Cynics will put it that pop artists resort to the blues for commercial reasons –lacking inspiration for fresh material, they turn to Chicago and Memphis standards, offering them to their loyal fan base. Cynics aren’t necessarily wrong.

“The word ‘blues’ has been a catchword for the last 10 years,” says Ben Darvill, a one-man blues band, formerly of Winnipeg but now based in London. “Every band has been quoted as saying the blues was a major influence,” continues Darvill, professionally known as Son of Dave. “And yet I don’t hear anyone actually playing blues music.”

What Darvill and others are often hearing is guitar-centric blues rock, polished to a highly sheened bludgeon, with clichéd, growling lyrics on top. The style became popular in the 1970s, and is still the sound general music fans (and many blues fans) consider “traditional blues.”

Now, here comes the blues festival season – a time of year that prompts more questions than usual about what is or isn’t traditional blues, and even (when it comes to the mammoth, pop-and-rock-heavy Ottawa Blues event) what constitutes a proper blues festival.


Summertime blues
The best of the summer festivals
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Pop artists making blues records only further muddy the waters.

As for the Laupers of the world, it would be unfair and probably simplistic to attack their motives. It shouldn’t be forgotten that possibly the purest and most “authentic” bluesman who ever lived, Robert Johnson, was a musician motivated by money. The Depression-era guitarist was a singing jukebox, playing whatever people asked to hear, whether blues or the danceable pop music of the day.

Moreover, some might be surprised to learn that many of today’s mainstream artists have a blues past on their résumés. Before he was a space cowboy, Steve Miller was a hot-shot Chicago blues guitarist.

And Lauper? The New York-bred Girls Just Wanna Have Fun singer says she’s always had a passion for blues, and is particularly enraptured with great ballsy-women shouters of the 1920s such as Ma Rainey. “She was a gangsta before there was gangsta,” said Lauper in a recent interview, after performing in Montreal and Toronto. “The spirit of those people was extraordinary to me, and it was pretty inspiring.”

Lauper, with all-star guests B.B. King, Allen Toussaint and Charlie Musselwhite, travelled to Memphis to record her album of upbeat postwar blues. “I wanted to be authentic – I didn’t want to make the album in New York or Los Angeles,” Lauper explained. “Memphis is where the souls are.”

Blues fans prize the notion of authenticity, and mainstream artists who venture into the blues are hyperconscious of the concept, too. That can be a problem: Pop stars often become fairly handcuffed when making blues records, with the result that the material ends up unadventurous and mannered. So fearsome of offending traditions, they shy away from the unfiltered emotion that often marks not only the greatest blues records but their own pop work as well.

“It’s not a tradition they grow up in, so they have chosen the blues rather than the blues choosing them,” says Bruce Iglauer, founding owner of Chicago’s Alligator Records, a label noted for its passionate blues artists (Son Seals, Koko Taylor, Hound Dog Taylor). Iglauer sees artists such as Lauper as mere passersby. “The fact that they’re usually one-offs before they return to their styles or other careers that made them famous,” he says, “is a good indication of their commitment to the blues.”

Black audiences generally abandoned the blues in the 1960s, just as the music was strongly influencing white rockers, particularly the British Invasion stars. Acts such as Led Zeppelin, Cream and the Jeff Beck Group produced mind-blowing psychedelic blues from across the ocean in the late 1960s and early seventies.

What marked their blues – and the blues of the Allman Brothers and the Grateful Dead, stateside – was a respectful disregard for tradition. Though inspired by the masters, it wasn’t imitation or tribute that was on their minds. Sunshine of Your Love, for example, represented Cream’s own natural blues inclination. The Who didn’t do much blues, but when the mood hit them – as it did with a blistering live cover of Mose Allison’s Young Man’s Blues in 1970 – the results were stupendous.

The Rolling Stones, on their early albums, were a proficient electric blues band. But it was well after they stopped imitating that the Stones excelled on their own blues terms, notably on Sticky Fingers (1969) and Exile on Main St. (1972). Nobody would need to hear a blues album from the Beatles, but John Lennon’s Yer Blues is pretty strong. And it isn’t a coincidence that Eric Clapton’s most adventurous blues work sprung from his libertine days with Cream, rather than the dedicated blues albums later in his career.

Blues invention progressed steadily up until the early 1970s, before slowing to a crawl over the past 40 years. But when it comes – recently from the White Stripes, Otis Taylor, Corey Harris, the Black Keys, the North Mississippi All-Stars, spoken-word specialist Gil Scott-Heron or Darvill (Son of Dave) – it tends to arrive naturally.

“I do what I do,” says Darvill, who on his latest album, Shake a Bone, sings in a high tone and blows harp over a looped beat. “It’s real, it’s pure and it’s different. I don’t pass myself off as an antique.”

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Blues movers and shakers

While several new releases from mainstream artists pay homage to the blues, such albums are typically spirited and stylish, but less than adventurous. This overview of blues innovation shows that it doesn’t always have to be that way.

Robert Johnson His made-a-deal-with-the-devil legend is pure folly, but the Depression-era Mississippian truly did invent the boogie bass line, as played on the bottom strings of the guitar.

Chicago blues Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf and others electrified traditional prewar country blues, bringing a wild, urbanized sound to a wider blues audience.

Sister Rosetta Tharpe A gospel singer who played a wicked electric guitar, the flamboyant and controversial artist shocked churchy purists with fancy attire and swinging blues in the 1940s.

The Single-String Guitarists B.B. King, T-Bone Walker and Otis Rush were the earliest guitar gods, hitting stinging notes and developing sophisticated urban styles.

Sonny Boy Williamson I (1914-48) The blues harmonica pioneer instigated the transition from chords to more melodic lines, influencing the charismatic players (Little Walter, Junior Wells, Big Walter Horton and Sonny Boy Williamson II, no relation) who followed.

British Invasion Jeff Beck, Cream, Led Zeppelin and the London-based Jimi Hendrix took blues to psychedelic extremes.

Fat Possum In the 1990s, the renegade Mississippi record company found rough-cut electric bluesmen such as R.L. Burnside and Asie Payton and modernized their material with tape loops and other studio tricks. Dance-music artist Moby, with 1999’s Play, worked this same vein, but to more commercial success.

Northern Blues The Ottawa-based label pays no regard to stereotypes, releasing albums that are often non-traditional, yet respectful of the genre.

Beat-Box Blues Idiosyncratic one-man bands such as London-based former Winnipegger Benjamin Darvill (a.k.a. Son of Dave) and Vancouver’s multifaceted C.R. Avery (when he does blues) use intriguing lyrics, human beats and earthy harp playing to create a subgenre all their own.