I received a phone call from a musician friend of mine from Texas yesterday. Things are going well for him in the field of music right now. While I wish him well, I can’t help thinking he will only be trampled over (again) for all of his endeavors.

Most people just really do not care about more traditional forms of Blues music these days. While the folk and rock musicians of the sixties and seventies had the most noble of intentions to preserve and bring attention to trad. Blues, they also had an adverse affect. It was inevitable and unavoidable.

It’s a double edged sword, actually. If it hadn’t been for people like Keith Richard(s) and Eric Clapton (to name only a couple), the Blues, as a genre, may have withered completely out of the collective consciousness. It was diluted and added to, however, to make it more “accessible” to their audiences. While it served to spawn an interest in the music, it also redefined what Blues is. The result is that is has become well nigh impossible to get anywhere playing acoustic, folk blues these days (save for one’s living room or porch.) (Not that this is uncommon in other areas of music, as well, but I am willing to bet that Bluegrass would be more readily accepted at a Country music venue than Country Blues would be at a Blues or Rock club, or, even at a Folk Music event.)

I fell in love with this simple, unaffected musical form a long time ago. While I do, indeed, listen to and appreciate many different types of music, I would definitely say that I am a purist when it comes to blues, and I am really only interested in playing purist blues. I’ll listen to (and, likely, enjoy) modern blues & rock all day with you, but I’m not going to attempt to play it. It doesn’t interest me that way.

What I’d rather do, however, is hand you a guitar and a tall glass of iced tea as we sit down on the front porch together and go over some of these old Blues recordings I found...

peace, wayf