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From: Philharpn
Date: Fri, 16 Jan 1998 10:39:32 EST
Subject: Fwd: The Blues Recital/covers

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Winslow responds to Robert's remarks:

"Bonfiglio encounters a young blues harpist in a Santa Barbara nightclub
playing Little Walter solos note for note and is
surprised at this curious phenomenon and a little disgusted....
"Some audiences seem to demand just-like-the-record note-for-note recitals
of blues tunes, just as they do for pop tunes - a blues cover band. The wrong
idea? Of
course, but it's out there."

I agree with Winslow. What would most people rather hear? Blues standards or
originals?

Truth be told, some original songs aren't all that good. I know. The lyrics
are mundane and the tune is like blues elevator music. I hear a lot of
original songs on CDs that come into AHN for review--which I try to explain
with enough information to let the reader decide whether he would be
interested in getting it, I don't rate them with 5 stars, or attack them for
being dull (even when they are).

On the other hand, some originals are good. The true test of this is the
reaction when they are performed live and bring down the house--just like the
standards do-- and most working blues players/writers know what I'm talking
about.

Frequently, a band will cover some of the blues standards on its first CD and
make a good recording of it. The second time out, the band will feature mostly
originals (is "original blues" an oxymoron?) that don't work so well. Because,
truth be told, folks, it's tough to come up with first-rate material.

Cover recordings and cover bands have been getting a bad reputation ever since
somebody came up with the misguided notion in the 50's that a white artist
- --Elvis or Pat Boone among others -- was ripping some poor black artist off by
the white one. The truth is that without the "white" version, nobody (in the
mass market) would have known who Richard Penniman was. The Stones did the
same thing in the 60's.

In the big band era, these songs were simply known as "Standards," which
everyone was expected to know and perform.

With rock, the practice continued but not to the same extent. (They may have
been recorded, but they never made the charts, so they never got played on the
AM radio, and later FM, so they didn't exist for all practicality.

The reality is that as long as records have been made, as soon as "Zelda
Smith" had a hit recording of "The Down Home Blues," Bessie Smith, Clara Smith
and every other Smith put out a "cover" of it to take advantage of the popular
song (and these were just the black artists). Bessie Smith's fans always knew
that sooner or later Bessie would record --er- cover--every hit tune that came
out and all they had to do was wait.

In the 50's, the same studio would put out an R&B version, a country version
and a pop version of the hot tunes (often at the same time) --the idea being
to sell as many copies of each tune as possible because the record company
owned the publishing rights and the more copies of the song sold, the more
money the company made. The profit motive.

(This is not to say that artists didn't get ripped off; they did, and always
will until they get smart enough to hire their own lawyers & accountant to
deal with the record companies--but that's another story and another string.)

So, given the choice of listening to a Little Walter clone play "Juke" or
improvisations based on "Juke" I think I might prefer the "real thing" rather
than an "improvement" "even if it did have the right chords and changes and
four beats to each measure."

Phil Lloyd
American Harmonica Newsmagazine
616-962-2989 for a free copy in USA

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Date: Thu, 15 Jan 1998 10:05:36 -0500
From: Winslow Yerxa <76450.32~ompuserve.com>
Subject: The Blues Recital
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Bonfiglio encounters a young blues harpist in a Santa Barbara
nightclub playing Little Walter solos note for note and is
surprised at this curious phenomenon and a little disgusted.

Other respond that he's young; it's part of the learning process;
he'll grow out of it.

So much for the nervous student hoping to get it right. But what
about the dour, flinty-eyed judges writing copiously on their
evaluation pads?

I mean, of course, the audience. Some audiences seem to demand
just-like-the-record note-for-note recitals of blues tunes, just
as they do for pop tunes - a blues cover band. The wrong idea? Of
course, but it's out there.

Perhaps this is in inverse proportion to the player's
self-confidence and ability to engage (or even steamroller) an
audience. The young, timid player who's too busy getting it right
to project authority and transmit rhythm and emotion to an
audience will spur in them a demand for something, anything - how
about the song the way they know it - that's an obvious concrete
thing to fill the void when the performers aren't delivering
anything they can latch on to.

Even a seasoned pro will have off nights, when nothing else seems
to work and s/he falls back on the tried and true. Which for a
player of little experience, is what was recently learned off a
record.

Winslow Yerxa
Harmonica Information Press
Z

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