Blues For Life Your place for blues reviews and news.

I knew there was a reason for me liking David Alan Grier. Sorry international readers who don't get hulu. Try Youtube I guess.

Okay so there is this documentary I'm watching called "Before the Music Dies" posted over on The Blues Report. Well basically it's an hour and seventeen of people complaining about how superficial music is today. They even go through all the motions of showing how easy it is to create a pop artist today, much like Miley Cyrus (ask your kids). More things they complain about include radio, and Mtv.

What interests me about all the old people complaining in this movie, including Eric Clapton and Bonnie Raitt is that they assume that the generations growing up in todays mass media marketed music scenes will have no taste and then let music itself die for a newer faux music. I honestly don't know what they want from us? My grandfather laments everyday that Rock & Roll killed Sinatra. Music changes, period. Jazz killed the light Orchestra and Mozart killed Bach. You can't get mad at my generation for what they like today or else you all hypocrites. It's not like I listen to what they do and their are a ton of people my age into tons of music but to say that all the popular music is designed by comity and not by artist is true but it has a long history. Do you think that Neil Diamond liked writing songs for the Monkees? Remember every generation has their manufactured music and The Monkees are no different from Hannah Montana.

My favorite complaint from the documentary is the complaint on the Modern record industry. This is frankly bullshit. It's not as if they were good before; hell Leonard Chess stole from Muddy Waters and everyone stole from Wille Dixon. People need to be honest and say hey it's always been pretty bad. In fact I'd say the music industry of today is the best it's ever been purely based on technology. Digital distribution and the ability to record anywhere changes how music get's recorded. I know a guy who set up a studio in his basement that is pretty awesome. Sure it's not major but how is it any different from Stax which was set up in an old movie theater?

If feels as if most of my complaints about the film is not the film itself but that it is all people complaining about change. Recently I found a quote that I think sums up my thoughts on change pretty well "Nature does not know extinction. All it knows is transformation." The quote is by Wernher von Braun the father of modern rocketry. Braun saw his inventions go from being used to kill to being used for man's crowing technological achievement, the of landing men on another world. Forty one years ago people could look at the moon and say "Man hasn't been there." but one year later they couldn't say that. Okay so nut jobs still say it but who want's to be a nut job?

Heads up all our readers in Dubuque, Iowa. First that is an awesome name for a city and second look out because the Scissormen are in town this Saturday. Head of the Scissormen Ted Drozdowski, had this to say of the blues to your own Dubuque Telegraph Heard,

"As a guitar player in punk, psychedelic rock and improv bands, I'd digested a lot of music, but when I heard R.L. Burnside, Junior Kimbrough and Jessie Mae Hemphill, they totally blew my mind,"

He also said,

"We've never been to Dubuque before, so we're really excited about it,"

Hell I hadn't even heard of Dubuque and I'm excited. I mean just look at how Ted flosses his teeth.

Growing up I loved to draw. Fortunately for me I’ve had the opportunity to work most of my adult life as a professional artist. Last year I started doing Blues themed artwork to express my passion for the music form. The culture, the history, the performers old and new- I love it all!

As a younger artist I had a great number of artists I admired. One of which I’ve always felt a special affinity toward because of our mutual passion for drawing and the blues. R. Crumb is an iconic figure in the world of popular culture- he’s probably best know for his “Keep on Truckin’” character in the 70’s and as the pioneer of the whole “underground” comic movement.

He’s also an accomplished musician and collector of vintage 78 rpm records. His love for blues has manifested itself in many of his works. He’s created graphic novels, books, and even a comic book biography of Charlie Patton based on a biography by Stephen Calt and Gayle Wardlow.

Heroes Of The Blues Trading Cards stands out as my favourite of Crumb’s forays into the Blues motif. The set of 36 cards depict the legends of early blues history: Mississippi John Hurt, Son House, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Memphis Minnie, Charley Patton, Jaybird Coleman, Big Bill Broonzy, Barbecue Bob, to name a few. Not only does each card feature Crumb’s fantastic artwork, flip it over and you get a brief bio of the musician on the back of each card. Brilliant!

I found this video of what is a basically a slide show of some of these great drawings. Words of caution- try not to slip into a seizure from the psychedelic transitions.

Enjoy the genius that is R. Crumb!

Up here in chilly Canada, you don’t come across a whole lot in the way of genuine Juke Joints. Hockey arenas yes-juke joints not so much. So when a frost bitten blues fan like yours truly wishes to see some live blues at a genuine juke joint –well he best pack a change of boxers, gas up the car and point it south.

From the Tennessean

Legendary Nashville blues guitarist Johnny Jones, a mainstay on the city’s Jefferson Street blues scene in the 1960s and a mentor to guitar hero Jimi Hendrix, has died. He was 73.

Carl over on his Juke Joint posted something I was not aware of though, Johnny Jones's influence on a young Jimi Hendrix. Specifically he posted a series of videos Jones did with Gibson about his style, life and of course his Gibson guitars. As much as I had to admit he does a hell of a shill.




For the rest of the videos head on over to Carl's post.

Okay so I don't really get twitter but I did start following this guy aptly called thedeltablues who has a website called surprise, The Delta Blues over in wordpress land. As I am currently obsessed with learning to play the delta blues I took a gander at his site and found it to be quite good. I really recommend checking it out.

Here is a little except from a recent article on Blind Willie McTell.

Though he wasn’t from the Delta, per se, he could play those country blues. “Blind Willie” McTell was one of the great blues musicians of the 1920s and 1930s. Displaying an extraordinary range on the twelve-string guitar, this Atlanta-based musician recorded more than 120 titles during fourteen recording sessions. His voice was soft and expressive, and his musical tastes were influenced by southern blues, ragtime, gospel, hillbilly, and popular music.......

This post is inspired by JP over as Strat-o-Blogster. He posted a rather awesome video of blues legend Albert Collins giving a little instruction on his trade mark "Ice Pickin'" style. I'm pretty sure I had seen this video two years ago when I was first beginning my quest to learn to play the blues. At the time I was playing around with open E, doing a pathetic attempt at learning Duane Allman's slide. Then I saw this video with Albert Collins and him showing his crazy minor tuning of F-C-Ab-C-F tuning and I gave up on special tunning. I just figured I'd work on regular tunning for a while like my hero Buddy. Well now I'm back to the slide I love with some success with open G.

Still through. you can learn a lot about feel from this video.

This almost pains me to post. Here is a list posted by the Gibson company on their own blog that discusses ten great electric blues live albums. My first comment is that isn't it interesting only three of the artists mentioned are players of Fender guitars. Muddy Waters, Buddy Guy, and Albert Collins are the only Fender slingers on the list. I am inherently distrustful of  Gibson; I mean have you seen what they've done to Jimi Hendrix? Not only are the selling cheap Chinese made Fender knockoffs under the name of Jimi Hendrix but, they also posted about it on their company blog where outrage was so vocal by all guitarist that they pulled the articles in shame. Still though, not as much same as Janie Hendrix should feel what with her being a blood sucking leach.

However I will grudgingly admit that Gibson put together a fine list. It's not a top ten list but just a list of ten great albums.All the artists I previously mentioned are in great company with the rest of the roster filled by Lonnie Mack, Freddie King, Howlin' Wolf, Son Seals, Johnny Winter, John Lee Hooker, and BB King. Like I said there's nothing really to complain about; their not saying these are the best, just some great albums. Heck there are a few I don't have which are going to be added onto my must buy list. However, I will point out an album that should have been included. It's by some Fender player who is pretty popular.

When I sent out the call for collaborators I figured there was someone I should have probably have asked first and as luck would have it he was the first person to apply. Now it is my pleasure to introduce  the newest member of Team Blues, Mr. Paul Lachine. Frequent readers might recognize Paul as one of the few frequent commenters on this site. But even if you're not a frequent reader you should be able to see that banner for his own website thats been sitting in the top right corner of the several months now. Paul is in fact the artist, owner and operator of 12barart.com.

Here's a biography for Paul that I've lifted from his own website.

Paul Lachine’s acrylic and scratchboard paintings of blues pioneers are a unique and compelling homage to some of the greatest musicians of all time.

Lachine, a 42-year-old illustrator and artist who lives near Windsor, Ontario, has been drawing and painting since he was a small boy. By his teen years, his cartoons had become the bane of his teachers. In his early twenties, completely self-taught, he began drawing and painting professionally.

“It’s just something I’ve always loved to do,” he said. “I have never imagined myself doing anything else.”

Since those early years Lachine has built a thriving career as a newspaper and magazine illustrator, with publishing credits in the Chicago Tribune, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Philadelphia Inquirer, San Francisco Chronicle, and Toronto Star, among many others.

This series of blues paintings grew out of his passion for the music. A musician himself, Lachine some years ago fell in love with the cadences, rhythms and resonance of the blues. His growing interest in the lives and stories of the form’s great masters naturally led him to want to express this visually.

“I just want to share my love of the music and its creators with others, and connect with them on some level,” he said.

Having read his bio it's not really surprising  with me being the youngest person at most of the shows I go to that I've just teamed up with someone twice my age. Anyways good to have you on board Paul!

I recently got to talking with a coworker about great southern musicians and we started talking about a guy named Steve Gaines. Well I had never heard of him and I wasn't all too familiar with the group he played in, Lynyrd Skynyrd as I've always been a Allman Brothers guy. Well I got a quick education on Skynyrd and about Steve Gaines. Holy shit was this guy good! Listen to the clip below and don't tell me that Stevie Ray Vaughan doesn't sound exactly the same guitar wise. Seeing how Gaines was from my home state Oklahoma it's not surprising some Texas influenced jumped the border. The song is "Ain't No Good Life" and it is the only song by Lynyrd Skynyrd before 1977 that doesn't feature Ronnie Van Zant as lead vocals, that is in fact Gaines singing. However, his body of work was tragically cut short much like the group itself as Gaines was killed in the Plane crash.

Still though, his music lives on.

After nearly two years of posts I find myself quite busy with school and not able to post as much as I would like. So now I've decided to send out the call. I'm looking for some people to collaborate with to breath some new life and fresh opinions into bluesforlife.com. After seeing other sites' successes with multiple writers I've become quite jealous and I'd like to see this site have the same same collaborative atmosphere.

Advantages of writing for bluesforlife.com

So I recently bought myself an old Kay arch top guitar and I was trying to think of people who I knew who played arch-tops in the blues. The first name I thought of was T-Bone Walker so after a little video watching I found this crazy video from 66. Sure there is T-Bone but who's that guy with the bent trumpet? Yeah thats Dizzy Gillespie! Look for his solo and the trumpet mouthpiece. Yes just the mouthpiece.