advertisement


Buddy Guy: The Blues Chases The Blues Away

I’ll look out for it when it’s available elsewhere, Skin Deep is a much played album on my system
 
hope I can catch it when it comes on again ... and hope to God (no irony intended) that **&&$%^! eric clapton isn't on it.

if someone reads this and can confirm either way I'd be grateful.
 
Clapton is on it, but not for long, and certainly not in an irritating grandstanding way.
 
It is back on this weekend for those of us that missed it previously.

excellent - thanks for the heads-up.

and @ tonyl, thanks. but the Claptonitis is off-putting ... why does he have to be a talking head on what feels like just about every music doc going?

and arrrghh!, literally just had an email from 'record corner' notifying me of a new release of his ... thanks a lot RC :rolleyes:!
 
and @ tonyl, thanks. but the Claptonitis is off-putting ... why does he have to be a talking head on what feels like just about every music doc going?

It would be hard to erase Clapton, Page, Keith Richards etc from the Buddy Guy story as they all obtained their fame by copying him to some degree. This is (very gently) covered in the film, the spark Buddy Guy lit when touring the UK in the ‘60s was a very bright one and can (along with Hendrix) be seen as lighting that whole scene. The film is beautifully done as off stage Buddy Guy is such a quiet self-effacing and genuinely nice bloke he’d never dream of taking credit for any of this (he even said at one point he doesn’t feel comfortable being described as a ‘professional musician’!). The whole premise of the film is the blues is an evolving form with everyone standing on the shoulders of giants, and it does fit, and (very gently) goes a fair distance to redress the balance from the white appropriation of the form and place things in their correct timeline. SRV, John Mayer etc are also covered and were/are friends of Buddy Guy. It is a great film.
 
It's Clapton's infamous on-stage rant from the 70s that gets my goat - particularly given how he had come by his fame and riches. really bugs me to watch him opining in the context of music / musicians I enjoy and admire.

but I should watch the doc. anyway I appreciate. I love Buddy's playing / act.
 
Likewise. I think he’s a cock and I’ve never rated that white blues stuff anyway. I still don’t. I view blues, like jazz, as predominantly being protest music. A music with a distinct cultural context, not just a style. Over the decades jazz has morphed effortlessly into soul, funk, rap and is now being reborn in That London and elsewhere fully retaining its political/protest context being aligned with #BLM etc. I just don’t see the point of Clapton, SRV, Mayer, Bonamassa etc. I have no idea what they are for or what they add. By saying that the real blues players (JLH, Guy, Waters etc) found enough in these musos to offer friendship and even benefit from the markets they opened. I think Mayer, Bonamassa etc are all thoroughly decent people, they seem very likable in interviews etc, but I can’t imagine wanting to buy their albums unless I had absolutely everything by JLH, Howling Wolf, Muddy Waters, Taj Mahal and the rest of them first.

PS Appropriately dour Canadian guitar tech ‘Dave’s World Of Fun Stuff’ on YouTube rather wonderfully described Bonamassa as “the Justin Beiber of blues” the other day which made me laugh rather a lot!
 
interesting, if hard-line, thoughts Tony L.
I have (or had anyway) a lot of time for 'white' (not sure I like putting it into ethnic /racial terms but of course I know what you mean) blues where it effectively became a fusion genre (so Cream to a degree, Ledzep at their best certainly, Prog-meldings (if you dig) etc).
With Clapton it is specifically his horrendously hypocritical spewings that produce a knee-jerk reaction in me whenever I see him. I believe he has (belatedly) 'apologised' for them, but all the same... (I know others might point to his alcoholism and drug-addiction at the time, but I don't cut him any slack for those reasons).

sadly I've seen his words being referred to admiringly and endorsingly this very year on the Hoffman board, for example.

the (re)-politicization (sp?) of jazz in terms of the 'black' community is understandable, but i hope it doesn't go too far and start tending towards 'reverse' racism, and exclusivity.
I watched that generally brilliant documentary about the Blue-Note label a while-back, and I thought I was getting that vibe (unspoken) from the some of the young, current musicians featured.
One of the true beauties of jazz for me in particular (and thus blues) is that it transcended that kind of thing during the 60s and 70s in particular, and the much-derided 'fusion' movement had much to be admired for in that context (one reason why I love the best of it so much).

I remember reading a sad comment from Kevin Ayers (who I otherwise like, in terms of his music) to the effect jazz was only genuine back in the 50s being played by black guys wearing pork pie hats ... so that's all the ECM stuff, for example, in the dust-bin then!


Anyhow, - the comments in the thread above have convinced me to 'get over myself' and watch the doc. - so hope it is on sky arts this weekend; looking forward to it.
 
Last edited:
I remember reading a sad comment from Kevin Ayers (who I otherwise liked, in terms of his music) to the effect jazz was only genuine back in the 50s being played by black guys wearing pork pie hats ... so that's all the ECM stuff, for example, in the dust-bin then!

It also rules out Dave Brubeck, Bill Evans, Art Pepper etc etc, all of whom did great work and were a huge force for good culturally in the 50s and 60s. IIRC Brubeck refused to play many venues if they treated his mixed-race band any differently. There was a lot of shit back then, e.g. Billie Holiday having to sleep in the tour bus whilst her white band could access a hotel room etc.

It is essential to view blues/jazz in the cultural context that it emerged from. It was, along with blues, a protest music that emerged from a violently segregated racist country. That is absolutely in its DNA, as it is in rap, hip-hop etc today. That said these forms have proven to be a remarkably inclusive force for good. The modern jazz scene is a remarkably diverse and inclusive genre. It is wonderful to see people like Emma Jean Thackray at the heart of it along with Shabaka Hutchings etc.

PS Clapton is still an utter cock. That’s a given.
 
Jazz, Blues and Soul, Disco and House etc music....music is also party music. It is and was played in clubs, bars, house rent parties... There's a danger that aspect is lost if we look at it from purely a political and, lets face it, outsider perspective. Part of the reason Chicago Blues became electrified was so the band could be heard in larger venues where the crowd were having quite a good time.

One of the the main pushbacks of the cuturally, economically and socially disenfranchised is the ability to party on their own terms.
All praise to Saturday night...
 
Last edited:
yep, Rory was great - particularly like the early 'Taste' stuff - power trio etc.
and I guess that's my point - after Hendrix I suppose*, a lot of 'white' blues had already morphed into a 'fusion' music, in a pretty organic way.

taped the Guy doc. last night, and hoping to watch this weekend.

(* but then, for example, see larry coryell's comments in the [superb; Joachim Berendt author] 'Jazz Book' about Hendrix taking over his 'thing' (musically I mean!), much as Coryell loved it ... A huge amount of give and take in the 60s particularly)
 


advertisement


Back
Top