I’ve been singing since I was about 5 years old and started playing drums at 11 and guitar at 13 so it’s tough for me to picture life without playing music. At least once or twice a week I have a fan come up to me at a show and tell me they used to play guitar or piano when they were younger and really wish they had kept playing. I always tell them to get back into it.

If I never played another professional gig I’d never stop playing guitar, harp and piano for my own pleasure. There’s nothing like sitting in the comfort of your own home and playing a few chords or riffs just for fun. If you used to play and miss it, or you’ve never tried, get yourself a cheap guitar or keyboard and get a few lessons at the local music store, bring it on home and play!!

When I was first asked to write a blog on the Blues I sat down and wrote a long opinion piece that I ended up editing right out of existence. In re-reading my thoughts on the Blues I realized how opinionated I was on the subject. If there’s one thing I can’t stand on the internet is opinionated “Know It Alls” telling me how and what to think about music. What gets passed around is usually tongue in cheek lists like “Rules For The Blues”…..You can’t get the Blues in a Volvo…But you can get the Blues in a broke down Cadillac.

Like Jazz, Blues is a universal language. It knows no color barrier or cultural strata. From time to time every person on this planet gets the Blues. A corporate exec may get the Blues when the stock market takes a dive, the factory worker may get the Blues when he gets laid off from work. They’re different, but the same. The way you sing about them is different too. We may “testify” about our problems so that others can learn from our mistakes, or we may make fun of the situation to put things in proper prospective. It’s all part of the huge scope of the Blues.

When I was first discovering the Blues for myself back in the 70s I was listening to Rock versions of old Blues standards by people like Clapton, Zeppelin, and the Stones.

When I bumped into diehard Blues fans at that time they would comment that what the “white boys” were playing was Rock & Roll. The bottom line was you had to be black and from the south to play the Blues. Everything else was Rock, or Pop, or R&B.

A few years ago I attended the Blues Music Awards in Memphis. I was astounded to see what modern music lovers now called Blues. From R&B to Rock and Roll to Folk music played on a banjo. I think it was Willie Dixon that said “The Blues is the roots, everything else is the fruits” What I saw that night was mostly fruit and some of it was pretty good. Some was so bad I had to leave the room, but it changed my point of view on the Blues as well.

When I was composing songs for my four previous albums I would always keep my chord patterns and vocal lines as close to traditional Blues as I could. Many songs we tossed in the trash if they didn’t fit the correct mood or chord progression. When I started writing for South By Southwest I was a little more forgiving when a song started to develop and there’s more of a variety on that album even stretching a bit into the Rock side of the Blues on Boogie On Down The Road. We had a blast recording that album and I’ve since written several songs that I wouldn’t dare put on an album in the past because they wouldn’t fit the Blues structure that I had envisioned for myself.

Well, that’s all changed now. With times being what they are, I’m leaving the old behind in 2010. I’m going to write what ever comes to mind ( as long as it’s good ; ) The next album won’t be all Blues, but it sure will be interesting.

All The Best,

Nelsen

I got the idea to start a Blog about my impressions of the Blues around the first of the year. As you can see it takes me a while sit down at the computer and actually write this stuff down.

          I’ve recently been reading W.C. Handy’s autobiography “Father Of The Blues”. I’ve never been much for Blues history. I have some friends that are real Blues historians and can give you the names of the towns where famous musicians were born, or are buried etc. Those facts and figures never impressed me. I always thought that the music itself tells the story of the musician.

I have read a couple of biographies. Muddy’s
“Can’t Be Satisfied” and Little Walters “Blues With A Feelin”.

Both had some great stories of playing the Blues in the south and later in Chicago and all over the country. What strikes me the most about Handy’s life is the time in history that he grew up and became a success. He was the son of a freed slave. The stories of him growing up and on the road as a young musician are sometimes shocking, and other times heartwarming. He tells stories of a depression in the 1890s. Of sleeping on a corner lot in St. Louis with hundreds of other unemployed people who would look for work on a daily basis. It makes you realize how “Tough” we have it now when we have to tighten our budgets to not go on a vacation this year, or maybe we can’t afford that 54” plasma TV this month.

Without rambling on too much more I would say that “Father Of The Blues” is first a great book and an inspirational read. I would also say that people like Handy and the black people of his generation created the path that lead to the doors that were later opened by such musicians as Louis Armstrong and later on Ray Charles and BB King to name a few. They were the first black doctors, lawyers and music publishers to name just a few.

The point I’m trying to make is not so much about the music, but the exposure of Afro-American culture and music to the white population.

Below is an excerpt from Handy’s book. It was written by a good friend of his, Noble Sissle as a comment on Jazz and Blues. I think it’s spot on and is timeless when you consider the financial situation in the US right now.

This was written in 1934. The war Sissle talks about is the World War One.

….All our music is derived from suffering. During slavery the suffering was the result of the lash and the cruel separation of families and loved ones. Today we suffer as a consequence of the past, through man’s inhumanity to man. Then as now our music was our consolation. The white man always liked this music, but he has liked it as a thing apart. When he became involved in the World War however, he became involved in similar suffering. The draft tore him away from his own loved ones, tossed him across the sea, showed him the horrors of bloody struggle and taught him in small measure some of the things that Negros had been suffering constantly for generations. In this condition he found the spirituals an expression of the heart, where formerly he looked upon them as a novelty of the mind. He welcomed the relief and release of Jazz.

          Then the depression came and white people suffered the pinch along with their darker brothers. With us, of course being broke and low down is an old story. With us there has never been anything else but depression. We have known for years how to laugh under trying circumstances, how to go on living with nothing but song to sustain us. But it took a woeful depression to teach this trick to white America.

          Now there seems to be a much greater appreciation for the little things in life, including music. Indeed according to one university man, only steel and oil were larger industries than music during the worst of the depression. Proof again, if more were needed, that in times of suffering and uncertainty America must sing.

Till next time,

Yours In The Blues,

Nelsen