Blue-eyed Blues

[BOP]

I've gotten more into the Blues of all kinds in recent years, although Blue-eyed Blues is something of a return to that genre for me.

This is a group I'm not all that familiar with, called "Family" out of the UK back in the '60s. I do know of Rick Grech, who was with the short-lived Blind Faith, Traffic, Ginger Baker's Air Force, and others.

For no other reason than I like the song, Family, "How Many More Years."

 

[BOP]

Some of this stuff, coming out of the '60s as it does, really overlaps with psychedelic rock. I'm familiar with Stone the Crows, but only passingly. Mainly because a lot of this stuff, not just Stone the Crows, was never mainstream on AM or FM. "Freedom Road."

 

[BOP]

Wilson Pickett with Duane "Sky Dog" Allman on guitar, "Hey Jude." The Allman Brothers Band became a southern rock innovator and powerhouse, but like most groups back then, claimed the Blues as their heritage.




One of my all-time favorite songs, this version by Duane Allman and Cowboy, "Please Be With Me." I probably like Eric Clapton's version best, but it's all good.

 

[Larry Gude]

I've gotten more into the Blues of all kinds in recent years, although Blue-eyed Blues is something of a return to that genre for me.

This is a group I'm not all that familiar with, called "Family" out of the UK back in the '60s. I do know of Rick Grech, who was with the short-lived Blind Faith, Traffic, Ginger Baker's Air Force, and others.

For no other reason than I like the song, Family, "How Many More Years."

]

Love that guys voice except for the warble. As for the rest of the band, blues at its worst. Playing something that repetitious is mind numbing.

 

[Larry Gude]

Some of this stuff, coming out of the '60s as it does, really overlaps with psychedelic rock. I'm familiar with Stone the Crows, but only passingly. Mainly because a lot of this stuff, not just Stone the Crows, was never mainstream on AM or FM. "Freedom Road."

]

Almost as painful to watch as it is to listen to. Keys can be glorious and they can be...like this.

 

[Larry Gude]

One of my all-time favorite songs, this version by Duane Allman and Cowboy, "Please Be With Me." I probably like Eric Clapton's version best, but it's all good.

My appreciation for vocal harmony and melody, the skill required, has grown with age. That and the playing, like that song. As for Clapton, never got it, never will. There are SOOOO many guitar players with more feel in one note than he has is a career. Duane not least of them. I mean, you can feel every note.

 

[Larry Gude]

I've gotten more into the Blues of all kinds in recent years,]

Swapped vehicles with my partner for a week and he has satellite radio. Total Arkansas Hillybilly. So, I ended up listening to outlaw radio a good bit. Plus we did a road trip together a month back and listened to it.

It's growing on me. Some fabulous playing, great song writing. Expanded my horizons back 50 years ago.

 

[BOP]

My appreciation for vocal harmony and melody, the skill required, has grown with age. That and the playing, like that song. As for Clapton, never got it, never will. There are SOOOO many guitar players with more feel in one note than he has is a career. Duane not least of them. I mean, you can feel every note.

Clapton is a technically gifted guitar player, and that's his greatest weakness. He's been around forever, he's known and played with everyone, and he's been on the cutting edge of introducing the world to the blues. For all that, mega kudos to him. The one and only album of his (not counting the Creme and Blind Faith) I ever owned was 461 Ocean Blvd. I enjoy listening to him, but I don't feel the music the way I do with a lot of people.

 

[BOP]

Swapped vehicles with my partner for a week and he has satellite radio. Total Arkansas Hillybilly. So, I ended up listening to outlaw radio a good bit. Plus we did a road trip together a month back and listened to it.

It's growing on me. Some fabulous playing, great song writing. Expanded my horizons back 50 years ago.

I know, right? I lived the latter part of the '70s and most of the '80s in outlaw land.

Ray Wylie Hubbard (Up Against the Wall, Redneck Mother), singing "Wanna Rock and Roll."

 

[BOP]

You'll probably dig this, too. Or your buddy will. James McMurtry "Choctaw Bingo."

 

[Larry Gude]

I know, right? I lived the latter part of the '70s and most of the '80s in outlaw land.

Ray Wylie Hubbard (Up Against the Wall, Redneck Mother), singing "Wanna Rock and Roll."

[ ]

Ok, imagine how much fun that kid had once he got over ####ting his pants!!!!!

 

[Larry Gude]

You'll probably dig this, too. Or your buddy will. James McMurtry "Choctaw Bingo."

[ ]

Love that one!!!!

 

[BOP]

I've been a fan of the late (I'm noticing more and more that many of the artists I grew up on are "late") Alvin Lee and Ten Years After since probably not long after Woodstock. In fact, it was my father's youngest brother who turned me and my cousins on to groups like Ten Years After, Iron Butterfly, Steppenwolf, and others.

 

[BOP]

One of my more favorite bands, this one at Woodstock. Canned Heat "On the Road Again."

Alan "Blind Owl" Wilson (guitar) and Bob "Bear" Hite (vocals), both gone too soon. That was confusing, since Wilson is actually doing vocals on this song. Hite is the big guy with the bushy beard and the harmonica.

 

[BOP]

Guy at work turned me on to Cadillac Angels a couple, three years ago. Homegrown band out of Arizona, I think. I dig 'em.




Here's an older CA video, "Viva Zapata," which you might remember from the old surf band Link Wray. Clearly CA has had a lineup change on bass.

 

[BOP]

This isn't "blue-eyed" blues, this is from the source. Big Mama Thornton "Hound Dog," and "the Down Home Shakedown."

 

[BOP]

Janis, along with Big Brother and the Holding Company at Montery Pop Festival, 1967, "Ball and Chain."

 

[BOP]

Jefferson Airplane, before Grace Slick. The singer is Signe Toly Anderson, and this is purportedly her last performance with the band, singing her signature song, "Chauffeur Blues." The sound is, to put it charitably, crappy, but she's got a voice on her.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signe_Toly_Anderson

 

[BOP]

I was familiar with the band Hot Tuna, but never really a fan, despite the fact that there was a fluid movement of Jefferson Airplane/Starship members back and forth between the two, and more toward Hot Tuna as the Airplane faded as a performing act. Interestingly, Hot Tuna actually opened for Jefferson Airplane on more than one occasion. You can hear Papa John Chreach prominently on electric fiddle, as you can on many of the Starship songs. It was something of a signature sound for them.

The name Hot Tuna allegedly came from this song, live in concert, when the singer is doing the line "...what's that smell like fish, oh baby..." and an audience member yelled out "Hot Tuna!" That's the story, anyway. There were a few songs I liked by Hot Tuna (mainly I dug the name), and this is one of them. "Keep on Truckin'"

 

[BOP]

I've only recently, within the past few years, gotten into the really old blues. I'm sure I've pointed out how bawdy or risque many of those early songs were. Many of them, sung by both men and women, skated right up to the edge of indecent, and even beat the hell out of that line that separated them.

I stumbled across this just now, even though I've listened to it in the past, and I was struck by the seeming coincidence of the line from Hot Tuna that I posted and the name of this song. Not much question of where Hot Tuna came up with the line from, don't you think? I'm not holding my breath on whether they gave Blind Boy Fuller any credit.

'What's That Smells Like Fish' BLIND BOY FULLER (1938)