From: John Frazer Date: Sat, 27 Jan 1996 08:50:13 -0800 (PST) Subject: Blues is truth
HARMONICA JOHN San Diego PO Box 740613 SD CA 92174 (619)263-6826
God, family, music, fishing, work. Can blue men play the whites?
> I'm as influenced as much by Benny Goodman, the Beatles and Van Halen as I > am by Little Walter.
me too
The songs often have a blues form but I write and choose lyrics > about things that I can relate too.
That is what Brownie McGhee said on "blues is Truth" You write and sing about what you know. There are not many cowboy songs being written today about horses and riding the range. Mostly because that is not reality for enough people. "Jet Airliner" by Steve Miller is an example of a modern blues song. Even Railroad songs are disappearing, as the railroad takes a backseat to supperhighways and jets. You have to sing about what you know to know what you are singing about. Otherwise you are merely honoring the memory of things past. Kind of like when the elder would tell stories around the communal hearth. Of course there have been too many paradigm shifts for the story to remain the same.
The people around the hearth would have as little concept of an airport as we might have of hunting a stag with spears and dogs. Still I would bet the farm that they sang songs about those dogs and stags. The blues is nothing but a framework to tell your story. The harmonica is nothing but a voice for your emotions.
