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Why the Blues Really Hit The Spot


After a tough week at the office, I found myself headed to New Orleans for a short business trip.

As any of you who have visited Bourbon street know, there are plenty of live bands to choose from: Dixieland jazz, R&B, pop/rock cover bands and simple, down home, guitar driven blues.

I had a great time listening to every single band I could find, enjoying a wide variety of music last week.

But whenever I really settle in with a good, live blues band, I wonder what it is that makes the blues so timeless and appealing -- especially late at night with a good local beer!

So for fans of the blues, can anyone explain?

Do the blues more perceptively touch some aspect of human nature? During times of stress or loss, do the blues give you a sense of empathy and understanding? Or is there some counterintuitive explanation that the blues can somehow cheer you up in a mysterious way like Ritalin somehow calms hyperactive kids?

I guess I am asking the musically equivalent question of when and why people seek out movies like Love Story, Platoon or Terms of Endearment?

What are your thoughts and experiences and when do you most enjoy listening to the blues?
cwlondon

Showing 2 responses by tomcy6

tomcy6's avatar
tomcy6
2,636 posts
 
Some things never change. You can always count on the Blues Police to show up at a discussion like this. To say that no good blues have been played since 1965 is just plain wrong.
tomcy6's avatar
tomcy6
2,636 posts
 
Even more of the great bluesmen and women would have died in poverty and obscurity if the folk music and British blues revivals of the sixties hadn't happened. Even Stevie Ray Vaughan helped put a lot of money into the pockets of aging bluesmen by creating interest in their music.

There is something about the blues that strikes a chord in many people and I think there will be blues booms in the future.

It's OK if blues purists only like prewar (WW II) or first generation electric bluesmen. I have my own cutoff points for the blues that I like. But everyone should listen to the music that moves them and hopefully their curiosity will lead them back to some of the original masters and some will be inspired to make new good blues.

I've read, but I can't say for sure it's true, that Muddy Waters last words in 1983 were, "Don't let the blues die." I'm with Muddy.
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