By Rick Hart
Musical tastes change over the years. As far as well-liked music goes, you can count on what was popular 10 years back, not being favored today. That is just the way that it is.
And the fact that music has gotten so chipped into different classes makes things even that much more overwhelming. An artist must stay inside their "category" or their label and perhaps even their audience will get upset.
Yes, we've become the "give me everything" culture. Take Television. With cable telly, there are presently so many choices that coming to a decision on what to look at regularly takes as long as the average show lasts. And who does not frequently watch more than one show at a time to help in avoiding those annoying commercials.
We often feel exactly the same way about our music. We want what we want... And we want it now. Therefore we each have our own music on our iPod players and infrequently jump into new music. Gone forever are the days of 60's radio when you never knew what was going to be played next and often heard new music and new styles all the time. You infrequently got stuck in one genre or one musical style.
And the fact that music has gotten so chipped into different classes makes things even that much more overwhelming. An artist must stay inside their "category" or their label and perhaps even their audience will get upset.
Yes, we've become the "give me everything" culture. Take Television. With cable telly, there are presently so many choices that coming to a decision on what to look at regularly takes as long as the average show lasts. And who does not frequently watch more than one show at a time to help in avoiding those annoying commercials.
We often feel exactly the same way about our music. We want what we want... And we want it now. Therefore we each have our own music on our iPod players and infrequently jump into new music. Gone forever are the days of 60's radio when you never knew what was going to be played next and often heard new music and new styles all the time. You infrequently got stuck in one genre or one musical style.
Even the bands themselves back then, frequently played many fashions of music. One minute they played a blues song, next a country song, and next a folk song. You could not categorize them into one type of music like today.
But Some Things
It's strange how some fashions of music are always there. Although they may go out of favored style, they mostly seem to have a following of some degree. The Blues is one of those styles. Even though it was created over 100 years ago, there is still a massive enough following for the style to have many magazines and online radio stations dedicated to the music.
Why is this so?
I suspect there are 2 reasons.
First, many other styles are based on The Blues. Actually jazz, and country rock, and all kinds of rock 'n roll came directly from the blues. After all , it was Muddy Waters who said... "The blues had a baby, and they called it Rock and Roll."
Secondly, as people discover more about the music they like, whether rock'n'roll or country or jazz, they desire to find out more about where the music came from. And these types of music came directly from the blues. The chord structure and harmonic tendencies are direct descendants of blues musician's from over 50 years ago.
Yes music fans wish to know the history of the blues music they adore. So the music of blues guitar players like Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, T-Bone Walker, and lots of other creators of this music will always be popular. Sooner or later, they will be "discovered" by the next generation who needs to know the history. But in fact they're being "re-discovered" as they have been by each generation for over 100 years.
So the lineage continues. Lovers of The Black Keys, are led to Howlin ' Wolf. And that leads them to Robert Johnson and Skip James and a bunch of blues originators who taught him. Event
But Some Things
It's strange how some fashions of music are always there. Although they may go out of favored style, they mostly seem to have a following of some degree. The Blues is one of those styles. Even though it was created over 100 years ago, there is still a massive enough following for the style to have many magazines and online radio stations dedicated to the music.
Why is this so?
I suspect there are 2 reasons.
First, many other styles are based on The Blues. Actually jazz, and country rock, and all kinds of rock 'n roll came directly from the blues. After all , it was Muddy Waters who said... "The blues had a baby, and they called it Rock and Roll."
Secondly, as people discover more about the music they like, whether rock'n'roll or country or jazz, they desire to find out more about where the music came from. And these types of music came directly from the blues. The chord structure and harmonic tendencies are direct descendants of blues musician's from over 50 years ago.
Yes music fans wish to know the history of the blues music they adore. So the music of blues guitar players like Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, T-Bone Walker, and lots of other creators of this music will always be popular. Sooner or later, they will be "discovered" by the next generation who needs to know the history. But in fact they're being "re-discovered" as they have been by each generation for over 100 years.
So the lineage continues. Lovers of The Black Keys, are led to Howlin ' Wolf. And that leads them to Robert Johnson and Skip James and a bunch of blues originators who taught him. Event
First, many other styles are based on The Blues. Actually jazz, and country rock, and all kinds of rock 'n roll came directly from the blues. After all , it was Muddy Waters who said... "The blues had a baby, and they called it Rock and Roll."
Secondly, as people discover more about the music they like, whether rock'n'roll or country or jazz, they desire to find out more about where the music came from. And these types of music came directly from the blues. The chord structure and harmonic tendencies are direct descendants of blues musician's from over 50 years ago.
Yes music fans wish to know the history of the blues music they adore. So the music of blues guitar players like Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, T-Bone Walker, and lots of other creators of this music will always be popular. Sooner or later, they will be "discovered" by the next generation who needs to know the history. But in fact they're being "re-discovered" as they have been by each generation for over 100 years.
So the lineage continues. Lovers of The Black Keys, are led to Howlin ' Wolf. And that leads them to Robert Johnson and Skip James and a bunch of blues originators who taught him. Eventually they're going to get back to the very beginning and W.C. Handy.
This search is inescapable. Just like it's unavoidable that preferred music tastes will continue to change.
About the Author:
Secondly, as people discover more about the music they like, whether rock'n'roll or country or jazz, they desire to find out more about where the music came from. And these types of music came directly from the blues. The chord structure and harmonic tendencies are direct descendants of blues musician's from over 50 years ago.
Yes music fans wish to know the history of the blues music they adore. So the music of blues guitar players like Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, T-Bone Walker, and lots of other creators of this music will always be popular. Sooner or later, they will be "discovered" by the next generation who needs to know the history. But in fact they're being "re-discovered" as they have been by each generation for over 100 years.
So the lineage continues. Lovers of The Black Keys, are led to Howlin ' Wolf. And that leads them to Robert Johnson and Skip James and a bunch of blues originators who taught him. Eventually they're going to get back to the very beginning and W.C. Handy.
This search is inescapable. Just like it's unavoidable that preferred music tastes will continue to change.
About the Author:
Rick Honeyboy Hart is an experienced blues guitarist. He's played in several bands over time and now helps others guitarists learn blues guitar on his site www.BluesGuitarInsider.com