Singing the Blues

[caddyman]

The benefits of leaving home comparatively late to miss the rush hour include the ability to watch BBC breakfast news, which generally includes bits and pieces that don't generally fill the remaining news broadcasts during the day, even on BBC News 24.

This leads me to a piece of information which may be of interest to at least three people on my friends list, in no particular order: telemeister, cybersofa and suitandtieguy.

Having been seriously unwell a couple of years back, Chris Rea has spent the past 18 months or so recuperating, and took the opportunity to record some material without particularly worrying about commercial needs. He just jammed in a studio with a bunch of like-minded musician friends. The upshot is that he went back to his musical roots and has just released a 11 CD (+ 1 DVD) set of blues material, called Blue Guitars. The CDs are split into different blues styles, so:

CD1 BEGINNINGS
CD2 COUNTRY BLUES
CD3 LOUISIANA AND NEW ORLEANS
CD4 ELECTRIC MEMPHIS BLUES
CD5 TEXAS BLUES
CD6 CHICAGO BLUES
CD7 BLUES BALLADS
CD8 GOSPEL SOUL BLUES AND MOTOWN
CD9 CELTIC AND IRISH BLUES
CD10 LATIN BLUES
CD11 60s / 70s
CD12 DVD STONY ROAD

More to the point, it is priced at under £40 to keep it accessible.

Comments

[caddyman.livejournal.com]

I'm going to assume that there's no sarcasm in that 'oooooh', Young James.

[cybersofa.livejournal.com]

Well, that sounds just my speed, especially the accessible part, and indeed the classified part. Thanks for the tip! It's now in the wish-list/afford-queue, right behind this.

[caddyman.livejournal.com]

Well there's no way of me knowing that is there? And given your track record in sarky commenting...

[caddyman.livejournal.com]

I thought you might be interested.

And now I have to find some way of getting that Cream DVD into my posession, too.

Hmm. Maybe a hint or two in the right lug holes on the run up to Christmas...

bandwagon jumper

[bluesman.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the heads-up, Bwyan.

Having lived on another continent for the last fifteen years, I only dimly remember what Chris Rea sounded like, but I do clearly remember that no-one seemed to know exactly how the fellow likes his last name pronounced, and that his music was a welcome earthy change from all the plastic drivel out there that some gaggle of cloth-eared media pillocks tries to foist on us (calm down, Two-Dog).

He is just about completely unknown over here, though I'm sure I could find his CDs online - hell, the blues section in any CD store comprises a few dusty John Lee Hooker, B.B.King and Keb Mo' items, so heck if it's worth stepping up to the counter and asking the gum-chewing teenage Britney Spears clones in there if I can special order a Muddy Waters or Son House CD. They look at me like the out-of-touch old fart I am, and start looking up Mr Waters under "M" on their database.

I am always wary of white boy musicians who suddenly switch genres (anyone remember those opportunist weasels, Spandau Bloody Ballet?), but I wish Mr Rea luck, as I do with anyone trying to raise people's awareness of the best music around: the blues. If hearing his blues inspires them to investigate further and deeper into some of these tasty sub-genres, all well and good.

"Celtic Blues"???? Lordy trousers, saints preserve us. What a crusty old purist bugger I am, begorrah.

Re: bandwagon jumper

[caddyman.livejournal.com]

To be fair to Chris Rea, his music has always been of the Rock/Blues/R&B (by which I mean proper R&B, not the odd noise that is labelled R&B these days)variety, so it really is a case of going back to his roots.

You being the blues expert here, I was hoping you might know what "Celtic Blues" might be. Hitting the bass drum with a Knob-Kerry perhaps?

Re: bandwagon jumper

[bluesman.livejournal.com]

I have not heard any Celtic Blues, and the very phrase fills me with cynicism. I've always been wary of musical trends, going all the way back to "Philly soul" music in 1974, through disco, new romantics, house, rap, etc, and "world" music. Most ethnic music is only deeply appreciated by people of that particular culture, as it addresses, and comes from, their lives. This includes the original Delta blues. So the (for instance) African music that was trendy in London in the early '80s left me completely cold, and I saw those fashionable types who raved about it as bandwagon jumpers of the lowest calibre. I grew up on the Beatles and similar white-boy radio pop of the '60s, then Glam, prog, heavy rock and punk in the '70s, and I've never strayed too far from those. Bandwagon jumping has always seemed to me the most shallow, heinous crime among those who appreciate music, so if I ask someone what kind of music they like, and they only name a few Top 40 acts who are currently fashionable, I never take them seriously.

Celtic music is okay, certainly as "valid" as any other, and more than some, but it doesn't toot my tug boat, so to speak. I remember sitting in the back room of a Camden Town pub one evening with some friends, sometime in the mid-'80s, and some musicians walked in, whipped out a bodhran, uillean (sp?) pipes, fiddle and guitar, and started playing something celtic. It was delightful in that setting, but I wouldn't buy a CD of that stuff, as I know I'd never listen to it.

During the early '90s there was a blues boom, and some musicians who previously played other kinds of music jumped on the blues bandwagon (one who comes to mind is Gary Moore, whose hyper rock-blues I do like). Blues has never been the most popular form of music, and the boom waned after 2 or 3 yrs, and their interests wandered elsewhere (shallow buggers). I got the blues bug when I first heard Stevie Ray Vaughan around the same time, so I suppose I jumped bandwagons in the same way, but I got deeply into it, listening to the old masters, and I only play pop music now on the worship team at my church.

If I want to hear New Orleans blues, Texas blues, or any other kind you listed with Mr Rea's CDs, I can think of practitioners who did it first and best, some of whose music I own. Still, if he loves the stuff as much as I do, and can convincingly play those styles, good luck to him, and I'd rather hear that than the over-produced tripe that people call R&B these days.

Of course, if Celtic Blues really is eminently tasty stuff, I am willing to have my prejudices shattered.