Maybe this only pisses me off, but I was watching the top 100 female’s in rock the other night. They were talking about Patsy Cline and that big guy from Blues Trav. said, “She was country, but she knew the blues”. Is he implying that country performers don’t know the blues. Hasn’t he ever heard Jimmie Rodgers or Hank Williams. :mad: These guys WERE white blues men. I’m not talking about the modern pop country, but real country. What about Dwight Yokum, or Shaver. If anybody doesn’t know the blues it’s Blues Trav, despite thier name they have nothing to do with the blues. What they do know about is long rambling songs that go nowhere and all sound the same.
Another one on the same show that pissed me off was Queen Latifa. Speaking about Aretha Franklin, she said, “She’s been making records from 1968 to 1998…”, now I’m no expert on A.F.'s career but wasn’t she making records in the 50’s?
Why do they get such morons to speak about these perfomers???
I diagree with several things in here, but before I get to my disagreein’… how exactly are you defining the blues? What are the blues? What makes someone a blues person?
Shoot, good thing you qualified that dislike. I was going to have to open a can of some booty wippin’ on ya. I do agree though: the things people were saying were pretty lame. I mean, Dionne Warwick kept saying the same thing about every woman they asked her about “Oh she’s got a wonderful instrument…she can really sing” or some such thing.
The Blues are a form of American folk music which has its origins w/ African-Americans. Usually it is made up of 12 bars: 4 on the tonic, 2 on the subdominant, 2 more on the tonic, 2 on the dominant, and back to the tonic. Of course there are variations on this but this is the basic layout. Another thing which distinquishes blues is the use of blue notes (flatted 3rd, 5th and 7th).
My definition of a blues person is someone who plays the blues well and with feeling, (i.e. Freddy King, Louis Armstrong) but this of course is subjective.
That’s a pretty good definition to start with… on to the part where I disagrees with ya:
Fair enough… but this means that there is a very definite difference between country and blues, although there are indeed places where the two styles overlap. So what, exactly, is the problem with someone specifying that Patsy Cline was one of the country artists that knew the blues?
So… which of these characteristics are the guys in Blues Traveller leaving out?
Subjective it is… its one thing to say that you don’t like the way that Blues Traveller plays (I quite enjoy them, but to each their own), but it’s a pretty big leap to go from there to saying they don’t know the blues and have nothing to do with the blues, dontcha think?
-RiffRaff
PS - I’m with ya on the Queen Latifah thing though
So I spelled her name wrong. Whatever. I don’t like her no matter how many 'h’s you put on the end of her name.
Just from your quote above, it appears as though Queen LatifaH was wrong about when Aretha Franklin started making records, and I believe that that was the point Jonas wanted to make. Easy mistake? Maybe, for someone in the audience… I would hope that if one is going on stage to talk about someone’s career, one would have taken the 10 seconds to get the dates of said career correct first.
Her first full album was in 1965, but her first recording was in 1960 (Yeah, Jonas was wrong with his guess about it being 1950’s, but I leave that for him to speak to). Again, 10 seconds of research coulda helped you out (actually took me 25 seconds, but I chalk that up to a slow internet connection). Use that information superhighway, dude.
And I know that my definition of blues was very basic and lame but the point I wanted to make
was that blues is a definite music form. (By my definition, Elton John can be considered to be blues).
There are groups who are blues influenced and non-blues groups that do blues songs.
I consider blues traveller to be a pop band who may be blues influenced. It fits into the catagory of “I can’t explain it but I know it when I hear it.”
What bothered me was the way he made his comment. He implied by his tone that even though she is country, she knows the blues. It seemed to me to be a put down of country music, saying that country singers don’t ussually know the blues.
Well, if you were to point your browser to http://webhome.globalserve.net/ebutler/, you would note that “Today I Sing the Blues” was Aretha’s first song to hit the Billboard R&B charts, reaching #12 in 1960. Guess that just goes to show that all sources of information are not equal, or maybe just not all researchers.
Ok, that makes sense, and that probably is the best way to characterize Blues Traveller. If you’ll concede that this does not make them completely unrelated to the blues, I’ll concede that they probably should have shied away from actually using “Blues” in their name.
I see what you’re saying here… I didn’t see the show so I can’t offer any perspective on his tone or what he implied. I will say that country music has moved progressively further away from your definition of blues (which I didn’t think was lame, by the way), and maybe this is where his mind was when he made his statement. Or, maybe he’s just an idiot like that LatifaH lady.
Country singers don’t always know the blues. That’s why country and blues are two different genres that sometimes overlap.
Generally speaking, most people know a person’s career beginning with their breakthrough album. For Aretha Franklin, that was Lady Soul in 1968. That’s probably the extent of Queen Latifah’s knowledge of Aretha Franklin, but maybe not. These types of shows that jonas watched are not always very choosy about who speaks about who.
It’s not the end of the world.
jonas, Blues Traveler isn’t exactly what I’d call a pop band, at least not in album sales. Most of their albums haven’t even broken gold.
i agree, blues traveler sucks bad, but MAN can that fat guy play the harmonica! mebbe only stevie wonder ever played it better. mebbe toots thielemans too, mebbe. if you want to know about country blues, rent the blues according to lightnin hopkins, by les blank, very close to my alltime fave movie.
If you’re going to say that BT doesn’t know anything about the blues, I have two words for you–“Mountain Cry”. I would not call BT a “blues band”, per se, but this tune tears some serious ass.
Oh, and the “fat guy”'s name is John Popper, thanks.
What? Don’t get me wrong, Stevie rocks (or should I say, rocked, lest we remember his 80s output), but when it comes to the harmonica, Popper kicks his ass and redecorates his house.
WOW! He plays so FAST. THAT means he’s GOOD. Did you hear he went to SCHOOL to study playing the harmonica?
Playing fast DOES NOT EQUAL playing good. Listen to his solos…they are all basically the same, and he even falls back on the same old rhythms all the time. I wouldn’t hate him so much except that I saw him on a roundtable discussion show once talking shit about Oasis because he seemed to feel they weren’t artistically viable. Big greasy fat men in glass houses full of harmonicas shouldn’t throw stones.
He has a pretty voice, and they got a few catchy tunes. That’s about all I can say for them. And I realize it is a waste of energy to do so, but I hate Blues Traveler.
And they are a pop group…if you go by the more recent definition of pop as a musical style rather than a category based on album sales.
hey, kyomara, i agree that fast doesnt always equal good, but what it does always equal is incredibly accomplished. john popper is a great harmonica player. the reason his solos fall ‘into the same old rhythm all the time,’ in my opinion, is that the harmonica is an incredibly limited instrument. this makes the fact that popper has crafted an utterly unique style and sound on it even more amazing.
now, to dr j, respectfully, dude, that fat guy, no matter how good he is, couldnt carry stevies jock. end of story.
Okay, granted, the man’s style is unique. The moment I hear that harmonica sound, I immediately think “Goddamn, it’s that fat-ass shitty harmonica player again.” No, seriously…I see what you’re saying. “Accomplished” is probably a fairer word to describe the dude’s abilities than “talented,” or even “enjoyable.” And I sure couldn’t do what he does, so all due respect. But I don’t buy that any instrument is so limited that you can’t at least do something GOOD with it. John Popper uses his powers for EVIL.
Getting back to the OP, who gives a fuck what a musician has to say about ANYTHING? That goes double for actors, and tenfold for models and athletes. Shut up and sing, I say.
Except for Blues Traveller. They should just shut-up, period.
