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Amazing blues solo breaks

agnesdavies said:
And that extends to the fanbase, too. How many people who "found" the blues through people like Clapton or John Mayall then went back to source and started digging through the back catalogues of the original artists?
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not me - i never could stand the electric blues of clapton and the like, so never bothered with the older stuff... think i got into it through a cbs comp i picked up on the boot market (the story of the blues - a suberb album if ever there was) which opened my eyes somewhat.

i can even handle a bit of electric blues these days (in small doses...)
 
killer b said:
not me - i never could stand the electric blues of clapton and the like, so never bothered with the older stuff... think i got into it through a cbs comp i picked up on the boot market (the story of the blues - a suberb album if ever there was) which opened my eyes somewhat.

i can even handle a bit of electric blues these days (in small doses...)
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For me, it was mostly pub bands. I probably heard most of the blues standards for the first time sitting in the Southampton in Surbiton or Kingston's Grey Horse - definitely white boy blues, but not generally quite as self-regarding as the mainstream stuff, which made it easier to relate it to the originals when I started listening to them.

There used to be an amazing band that played at the Grey Horse, with a strangely hunched singer (they used to do an incredible cover of "Ain't No Love In The Heart Of The City"), but I can't remember what they were called - but they were very influential in my growing interest in blues music back then.
 
ericjarvis said:
Initially the blues was very much a music of and by black people, but at the time was mostly played on acoustic instruments. By the time the electric guitar became popular the blues had very much crossed the racial divide, particularly in the UK.
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Hmmm, not sure I agree with your take on that. For the decade or so post war the blues form had morphed into (electric) Chicago blues (basically black rock n' roll, IMO) and was segregated by record company marketers and the Billboard charts from music aimed at white people. So, blues that was 'of and by black people' and *electric* was predominant until the early 60s.

Anyway, here's Otis Rush from 1960-ish, with a proper solo too

 
I must be in a minority here preferring electric blues - 1950-1960's the golden period for me, the stuff on Chess etc
 
agnesdavies said:
But the racism certainly doesn't extend to the artists -
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ERIC CLAPTON: BIRMINGHAM 1976... Do we have any foreigners in the audience tonight? If so, please put up your hands. Wogs I mean, I'm looking at you. Where are you? I'm sorry but some fucking wog...Arab grabbed my wife's bum, you know? Surely got to be said, yeah this is what all the fucking foreigners and wogs over here are like, just disgusting, that's just the truth, yeah. So where are you? Well wherever you all are, I think you should all just leave. Not just leave the hall, leave our country. You fucking (indecipherable). I don't want you here, in the room or in my country. Listen to me, man! I think we should vote for Enoch Powell. Enoch's our man. I think Enoch's right, I think we should send them all back. Stop Britain from becoming a black colony. Get the foreigners out. Get the wogs out. Get the coons out. Keep Britain white. I used to be into dope, now I'm into racism. It's much heavier, man. Fucking wogs, man. Fucking Saudis taking over London. Bastard wogs. Britain is becoming overcrowded and Enoch will stop it and send them all back. The black wogs and coons and Arabs and fucking Jamaicans and fucking (indecipherable) don't belong here, we don't want them here. This is England, this is a white country, we don't want any black wogs and coons living here. We need to make clear to them they are not welcome. England is for white people, man. We are a white country. I don't want fucking wogs living next to me with their standards. This is Great Britain, a white country, what is happening to us, for fuck's sake? We need to vote for Enoch Powell, he's a great man, speaking truth. Vote for Enoch, he's our man, he's on our side, he'll look after us. I want all of you here to vote for Enoch, support him, he's on our side. Enoch for Prime Minister! Throw the wogs out! Keep Britain white!
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Well someone had to bring it up! I am surprised it has taken this long!
 
Clint Iguana said:
Well someone had to bring it up! I am surprised it has taken this long!
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:confused::eek:

Funny, he doesn't mention this episode in his autobiography!!

Blimey. Still, I gather he did get pissed once between the late sixties and mid-eighties, so perhaps it was then. And by "once", I mean that he appeared to spend the entire time blotto...

No excuse for that kind of behaviour, though. That quote has diminished him somewhat in my eyes.

ETA...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_Against_Racism said:
Clapton has never withdrawn or apologised for his remarks, and has in recent years stated that he still stands by his statements and has reiterated his support for Enoch Powell
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Fuck. It's horrible when something like this happens. Urgh.
 
agnesdavies said:
One of the things I love about the blues (and jazz) forms is the tradition of giving everyone (well, nearly everyone) a go at a solo somewhere in the song. And there are some spectacular and wonderful solos out there.

So this is a thread for outing the greatest solo blues/jazz breaks to be had...

And what prompted me to think about this was listening to Papa John Creach's "Big Leg Baby", a great, gospelly 12/8 8 bar blues with a nice walking bass line, and and an amazing backing band (the Bernie Pearl Blues Band). And it's not even Papa John's violin break that's the highlight of this track, but the lyrical piano solo, which leads into an equally amazing and soulful sax break.

Mind you, Papa John's not too bad on his, either :)

Any particularly outstanding solo spots you'd care to name...?
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For a harder and faster interpretation of a classic, you might like Jimmy Page and the Black Crowes doing an Elmore James song called 'Shake Your Moneymaker.'

 
One of my favourites is Muddy Waters' slide solo in 'Nineteen Years Old'. It's on the Muddy Mississippi Waters Live album and also cropped up on the Hoochie Coochie Man comp.
 
NVP said:
Really?
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I didn't, either. It doesn't seem entirely conclusive - he seems to have been somewhat equivocal on it in some interviews, but then quite pro-Powell and his racism in others.

I don't like it that people have to posture for the benefit of the media, etc., but it does trouble me that he seems to be as equivocal as he does...
 
It just surprises me that people haven't heard of this. It's usually the second or third thing that comes up when you mention Clapton.
 
Jessiedog said:
Clapton?

How sad!

:(


Woof
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Just as an experiment, I tried listening to him yesterday. Doing a nice blues standard. And, in among the exquisitely bent notes, the eloquent phrasing and the liquid guitar technique, all I could hear in the gaps which always said "economy of approach" before was "blacks out".

Feh.

TBF, I realise that he's not exactly Captain White Power, but it really does leave a nasty taste in my mouth...there's just no way I can square racism with blues music - white racists performing blues music is the worst perversion of the form I can think of.
 
For Jazz it has to be John Coltrane's A love supreme; John Coltrane, Jimmy Garrison, Elvin Jones and McCoy Tyner right at the top of their game. Got to be some of the most skilled playing of any genre. Ever. Maybe. It's also the way they work together though, kind of making their own way through the piece, but totally aware of what the others are doing... 4 equals rather than 3 people accompanying Coltrane.
 
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