Tony Furtado and the American Gypsies, Live Gypsy (Dualtone, 2003)
Glamour Puss, wire & wood (Northern Blues Music, 2003)
Doc Watson, Trouble In Mind: the Doc Watson Country Blues Collection 1964-1998 (Sugar Hill, 2003)
Haven't we had this discussion before? What is 'BLUES'? The Rolling Stone
Encyclopedia of Rock and Roll talks about the history of the blues like
this:
"The blues arose sometime after the Civil War as a distillate of the
African music brought over by slaves. From field hollers, ballads, church music
and rhythmic dance tunes called jump-ups evolved a music for a singer who would
engage in call-and-response with his guitar; he would sing a line and his guitar
would answer it. The early blues were irregular and followed speech rhythms...[as
the blues spread through radio broadcasts] they became more regular, settling
into a form in which one line of lyrics was repeated, then answered--AAB--over
a chord progression of four bars of tonic, two of subdominant, two of tonic,
one of dominant, one of subdominant, and two of tonic."
I can hear you all right now, "Oh!" you're saying, breathing a sigh
of relief, "Now I get it. Thanks Dave, for finding that quote!" But
the point is, it's not easy to define the 'blues.' Even blues players have to
resort to a kind of obscure and mystical language to define it. Pianist Otis
Spann said this, "When you in trouble blues is a man’s best friend.
Blues ain’t gonna ask you where you going and the blues don’t care
where you been." Brownie McGhee talked about the blues in a personal way,
"I don’t write anything from imagination. Blues is not a dream. Blues
is truth. I can’t write about something I haven’t seen or experienced…the
highway has been my home." And author Peter Guralnick provided a brief,
but succinct definition, "Blues is a music of joyful self-expression, most
commonly a dance music designed to take away the blues…"
I guess they're all right.
We have before us four completely different albums, all of which claim, in one
way or another, to be the blues -- and yet each one comes at this remarkably
simple structure in remarkably varied ways.
You can read a compleat and wonderful biography of Doc Watson at this Web
site but suffice it to say he is a bluegrass legend for his development
of a unique flat-picking technique. So what has Sugar
Hill done? They've started this collection of Doc Watson's Country Blues
recordings with a banjo tune! Watson sings the blues in his country voice. But
that doesn't make them any less 'blues.' Doc's blues don't ask where you're
going nor do they care where you've been...they simply take the truth of HIS
life and place that truth in a context true to his experience. The Doc Watson
Country Blues Collection presents seventeen folk songs, and blues from a
thirty year period of Watson's long career. These tunes first appeared on ten
different albums released by Vanguard and Sugar Hill. It's a powerful collection
highlighting Doc's guitar work and his plaintive singing and yodelling. If it
seems a bit too country to be called blues, you haven't opened your mind wide
enough. Remember, the structure and intent is what makes it blues. And Doc Watson
covers some classic blues lyrics here. "Worried Blues," and the opening
"Country Blues" are the sound of a good man feeling bad (another well
known definition of the blues). His harmonica solo on "Rain Crow Bill"
echoes the blowing of Sonny Terry. "My Little Woman, So Sweet" displays
Doc's ability on the 12-string. Doc's son Merle Watson joins him on guitar for
"Memphis Blues" and "Stackolee" among others. Not the blues
of the Mississippi, or Chicago then...but North Carolina blues!
Tony Furtado brings the blues into the 21st Century. He is a fiery guitarist
with a rock solid band (the American Gypsies). He uses the blues as a base of
operations to explore all manner of styles. "False Hearted Lover's Blues"
gets things going, with Furtado's voice (reminding this listener of Ian Anderson),
some spectacular slide guitar, and a full tilt jazz sax solo by Paul McCandless.
Tom Brechtlein's drums are relentless, Myron Dove's bass precise. This is as
far away from Watson's country blues as you can get. Furtado is from Oregon
and started as a banjo player, winning two National Bluegrass Banjo Championships
as a teenager. He refused to be kept in a box, and the Dualtone
release Live Gypsy finds him pushing the envelope in every direction.
His own composition "The Ghost of Blind Willie Johnson" is as haunting
as its title and again finds dramatic interplay between McCandless' horn and
Furtado's slide guitar. He mixes radically updated traditional tunes with familar
covers (Mike Nesmith's "Some of Shelley's Blues" and a countrified
rendition of "Stagerlee"). The album was recorded live at various
shows throughout the west and northwest during the months of February, April
and May 2002. Dusty Wakeman's production is brilliant, the sound is intimate
and warm. I suppose we can call this California/Oregon blues, if we have to
place it on the map!
Triple Trouble presents a combination of three good soloist/singers
backed by Double Trouble (Stevie Ray Vaughn's old rhythm section) in an all
out contemporary blues album. Telarc
has been presenting some of the best blues albums anywhere in the past few years.
They create imaginative theme-based recordings (like Exile
on Blues St from last issue), and have a stable of some of today's best
players. And house producer Randy Labbe manages to coax great performances and
beautiful sound out of everyone he works with. Triple Trouble is no exception.
Californian Tommy Castro is a fine young blues guitarist. He was on B.B.King's
Blues Festival Tour last year...but didn't make it to the Toronto gig that I
attended. Too bad. His guitar playing on this album is tasty. Jimmy Hall is
the former lead vocalist for Wet Willie. He also blows a mean harp! Lloyd Jones,
from the Pacific Northwest, doubles on lead guitar. All three sing in voices
ranging from raunchy to mellow, a whisper to a scream. They cover the Beatles'
"Help" as blues; they have the gumption to take on James Brown's "Good,
Good Lovin'" and come away looking good. Don & Dewey's "Mammer
Jammer" and Johnny Winter's "Be Careful With a Fool" round out
the covers, and seven original blues by all three leaders flesh out a rocking
album. Nothing earth-shaking perhaps, but a fine contemporary blues album.
The fourth album is from another label that has been impressive lately. Northern
Blues Music is a Canadian company that has delivered some potent music.
Their Johnny's Blues is a
recent favourite. Glamour Puss is a five-piece band from New Brunswick. I drove
through New Brunswick a few years ago, and I got the blues! They play a jambalaya
of zydeco/roots/blues/rock. Wire & wood is their fourth album, their
first for Northern Blues. It's an energetic party album. That's right, it's
"...music of joyful self-expression...dance music...to take away the blues."
Just like Guralnick said! Ron Dupuis on drums and Paul Boudreau on bass provide
the foundation for Roger Cormier's keyboards, accordion & harmonica, Don
Rodgers' sax, and Travis Furlong's stinging guitar. Everybody sings. They do
all original tunes, which fit neatly into a variety of blues styles, and pay
tribute to John Lee Hooker with a boogie rock rendition of "Boom Boom."
I especially like the acouistic slide guitar on "You're Rich and I'm Poor,"
and the interplay between the accordion and the sax gives Glamour Puss an added
dimension. East coast blues!
There you have it. The blues. It's hard to define, even in its simplicity. But
all over the map people are still responded to those three chords, those twelve
bars. Here's this month's selection.
