Portable Library of Blues I

[badgermoonhare]

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So, I really can't stand blues. Blues is one of the few broad kinds of music that can really make me roll my eyes and want to get out of whatever room I am in. At the same time, of course, I absolutely *adore* blues. It is Ur-American art. Cradle of the best and the worst, etc

Comments

[auraphage]

You confuse me, David.

The music was fine, it just sounded like old blues. What was unmissable about it? I'm no blues connoisseur, obviously. But I am American, and that counts for a lot.

[badgermoonhare]

I don't rightly know! Unmissable because the guitar sounds fucking sweet, and the vocal melody sounds like lapping water. I think it is unmissable because noone could possibly do *it* better. I don't think that you are required to like it as much as I do, just because you are American.

[auraphage]

Hmm...well it does sound pretty classic, at least. Maybe it's one of those things where because I'm American I get to be all jaded and take stuff like this for granted, like Europeans get to be with cathedrals and chocolate.

[badgermoonhare]

I can definitely buy into that theory! There is a lot of "classic" Danish music that I have a really hard time hearing out of context. The same used to be true for blues, but when it is good (for me) there is this "wild" tone that really encapsulates what I love about folk music.

[auraphage]

Fair enough. Do you think there has to be an element of the exotic (i.e. lack of context) in folk music to make it exciting?

[badgermoonhare]

No, not necessarily! I just think that context can ruin things, as well as enhance them. If your context for blues music is all privileged people being self-absorbed and lecherous, you are missing important pieces of the puzzle.

[auraphage]

Hmm, that's interesting. I'm curious about when it is context ruins things and when it enhances them. I mean I think I get what you mean, but I'm interested to hear your take on it. It would seem that context would only ruin things when it takes away our fantasy view of something, when it diminishes the exoticism of music and therefore its mysterious allure. Ignorance can be bliss in that sense.

I guess I never really connected blues with privileged people. I've always seen it as sort of a downtrodden, down-on-one's-luck sort of genre, nothing to do with the upper classes or what have you. Through that lens I can definitely see how some middle-class white dude playing blues would tend to scream (silently) "I am a poseur."

[auraphage]

So how is it you simultaneously hate and love blues?

[badgermoonhare]

Actually, it is not simultaneous. I realize I was being unclear on that point. I hate what blues has mostly become - the ultimate douche music - but I love its wild origins, so to speak.

[auraphage]

Ultimate douche music? I thought that was this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MoLUc6cqAOU&feature=relmfu

[auraphage]

U lyyyke? U lyke dat $hit, babydude?

....yyyyeeeahh that shit is disgusting. There aren't that many musicians I'd like to see suffocated with plastic bags, but they do exist.

[badgermoonhare]

I used to pretty much agree with your sentiments, but I have developed a real soft spot for raw, rural blues and gospel from the first part of the 20th century. There is such an intensity in some of those recordings. I would recommend downloading American Primitive, vol. 1, for an excellent primer. Or Goodbye, Babylon, but that is a bit of a big mouthful to begin with :-)

[auraphage]

I should check out that collection myself.

Would you say the sort of old blues you're talking about qualifies as folk music?

[badgermoonhare]

Oh, most definitely (to both of the above). Folk is a very rubbery category, of course, but this ticks more or less all of the relevant boxes for me.

I am also compiling a compilation! To glorify and edify! :-)