My Route To The Blues...

2/21/2016

What brought me to Blues music? How did I discover it? What was my route? Well, it might actually have been Route 66. That's the song, not the road.

As a teenager in the 1960s, I liked the music (and the controversial image) of the Rolling Stones. Maybe I liked them because my elder sister liked the Beatles. So often musical heroes are the subject of sibling debate and to the record companies, this is grist to their ching. Beatles or Stones? Oasis or Blur? JLS or One Direction?
We've all grown up championing the causes of our icons. Who was better? - Muddy Waters or Howlin' Wolf? There was an intense rivalry between these two Chess Records artists. It's said that if Howlin' was luke-warm about performing one of Willie Dixon's new compositions, Willie would say 'Muddy's keen to do it' and that would lead to an enthusiasm on Wolf's part to record the song to have an advantage on his stable-mate. The same was, apparently, true of Muddy who would delight in recording something he was told that Howlin' Wolf was keen to perform.
When I first heard Route 66 on an early Stones album, I thought it sounded fantastic. I had no idea that it had been recorded earlier by several artists and my ignorance continued as I admired the songs which they played with what I now know as the 'Bo Diddley beat.'

I saw the Rolling Stones twice in Cardiff's Capitol Theatre touring alongside the likes of Ike & Tina Turner, The Yardbirds, the Spencer Davis Group and even Long John Baldry who I was privileged to interview forty years later. Each of these artists was at the time delving into the back catalogues of American Blues performers and putting their own stamp upon the music. I was oblivious to this. I liked what I heard and accepted the music as new and hot off the press. I didn't know that there was a British Blues Invasion taking place. I was a young teenager to whom music was very important if it sounded good and was performed by my chosen heroes.
Towards the tail end of the 1960's, my tastes evolved into liking Led Zeppelin - not realising that they were dipping into the same well-travelled musical pool - and I then had a 25 year love affair with the music of David Bowie who just pushed boundaries in every sense for such a long time. If you haven't heard it yet you can listen to my programme 'Me & David Bowie' on Mixcloud. Here's the link:-

https://www.mixcloud.com/bob-williams4/me-david-bowie-a-personal-history/?play=fb&fb_action_ids=10153915264464283&fb_action_types=mixcloud%3Aupload

Reaching my middle years, I became aware that Blues music, as performed by the old Delta guys and the Chicago guys, had been reinterpreted under my nose and (belatedly) followed the historic journey taken by so many performers in the 1960s and beyond.
It was, and still is, a total revelation to realise how simple songs performed by solo artists on their backyard stoops could become stadium rockers. I'm still learning.
How did your interest in Blues music form? What was your route?

3 Comments

Graham Stark

2/22/2016 02:11:26 am

What brought me to the blues - short version.
Having been raised with my 7 years older brother's superb rock n roll 45's (Jerry Lee, Little Richard, etc - there was a Sun Records link here but that is another story for another day) I did have some other background to the very early sixties pop that was on the radio. But my favourites at the time were Cliff Richard & Elvis Presley until The Beatles appeared. But just before this we went to my Aunt's to stay and my brother took his new LP (might have been an import) Muddy Waters At Newport 1960. Whilst he was out I gave it a couple of spins on my own and was drawn into the music. I could not understand a word that Muddy was singing (started with I Got My Brand On You) but the sound - all bassy as it came from one of those old players that had a speaker built in - was something that I had not previously heard and there was something else that I could not then define. That something else was indeed the blues. It was getting inside of me - right through my body - it did not stop at my ears as did Cliff etc,
But that was then parked as the Beatles, then the Stones followed in quick succession by the Animals became my favourites. Note the way that "blues" was being drawn into UK pop.
Next I heard another of my brother's records - the first time that I heard real slide blues. Cannonball Blues by Furry Lewis. This was on an EP called Alexis Korner Presents The Kings Of The Blues. Again the way he plays and sings was just different to everything else and again it went inside me (is that your soul), giving me a feeling of loneliness.
The sixties progressed with all of those new sounds and I started to think that I was old fashioned because I liked that original Rock n roll - but that was "out" then. But towards the end of the sixties it became "in" again with bands such as Blue Cheer and The Whoo covering Eddie Cochran with a new power sound. The late sixties very early seventies was really great with so many bands really playing good stuff.
Sometime around 1968 I picked up a Lead Belly album and that started an interest in his folk blues style. The one that I first got just happened to concentrate on his most bluesy songs. The other blues influence at that time was listening to The Mike Raven Blues Show - on Sunday evening - if I was not out. Mike would never talk over the music and would tell you such information as the record label and even catalogue number of the tracks he played - remember that in those days blues records were hard to come by and often required special order.
But as we got into the seventies it appeared that bands were either going pop or doodling away into what became known as prog. That did not satisfy me at all so I started going back. I checked various styles (again others for another story another time) one of which was The Blues. This is when I came across Charley Patton, Son House, Rev Gary Davis and delved more into those that I did sort of know - Muddy , Howlin Wolf et all. By scouring all around I found some libraries that actually stocked this music and about the same time I got my first cassette recorder - say no more!
The passion for the blues has never gone away.
As I said that is the condensed version but that is my story of how I got into the blues.

2/22/2016 02:27:41 am

Following on from how I got into the blues, other similar stories are "I know that I should like jazz but I just don't get it", "Classical music - the new Led Zeppelin" and "How I nearly had a heart attack at Sun".

Bob Davidson

2/25/2016 08:20:56 am

I think I've followed pretty much the same road into the blues as Bob and Graham. Probably because we became musically "aware" in the same period. I was pleased to see Graham's mention of Mike Raven - I remember listening to him on Sunday afternoons too. He also came to give a talk/lecture at my school around 1968 - a great guy. I would add John Mayall as an influence as far as British blues are concerned - as an introduction to the music of JB Lenoir, and as a catalyst in terms of launching the careers of more than a few British musicians in the late 60s/early 70s.

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