So You Think You Can Play the Blues? Some Advice form a Blues Player .

Ok, here’s the deal people; I am sick of the guitar players who think they can play the blues. I’m not talking about bad musicians; I’m talking about guitar players who think that playing bunch of pentatonic notes over a I-IV-V progression is playing the blues. I'm taking to the guys who only play a straight I-IV-V without regard to a proper turnaround, all the time. That is not the blues. Sorry to disappoint. What makes the blues so special, and you hear this all the time from guys like BB King and Buddy Guy, is the emotion, the feel. It’s not what you play, but how you play it.

Sadly, a lot of you think Stevie Ray Vaughn is the be all, end all of blues and he’s just not. In fact, in my opinion, SRV ruined the blues. “What?!” you say, “How can you possibly say that?!” you cry incredulously. I’ll tell you. It’s because ever since SRV, generations of wanna be blues players have been convinced that his speed and technical virtuosity is  what made him special and you’ve been copying that formula; instead of feeling his music, you’re just listening to it and now you want to impress everyone with your speed and flash. Stop. Just stop. You are missing the point!

If there is one thing the world does not need, is another jackass trying to be the next Stevie Ray Vaughn when in fact it just needs someone with soul and guts to put it out there. Look to who SRV idolized. Skip Hendrix and look to his blues influences: Albert King, Freddie King, Albert Collins... These players did not concern themselves with being virtuosos, they wanted each note to have a voice and be as a word in a bigger sentence, every melody is a story, with ups and downs and like when telling a story, if you speak too quickly the meaning is lost and it is hard to follow.

I have two heroes in the blues, amongst many excellent performers:Howlin Wolf, and Albert King, each for different reasons. Now Wolf, he was a band leader and a blues harp player. In his music, you won’t hear guitar wizardry or Hendrix style shredding but what you hear is an incredibly tight band that pulls up pain from the depths of a man’s soul and serves it shamelessly. He is a big personality and it is reflected in his music. He crafted his stage presence to command his audience and was true to himself and his band. He b=never upstaged hos band mates; he treaded everyone on equal terms. If he did steal the show, it was only because his personally was as big as the man himself (who clocked in at 300 lbs. and over 6 feet tall).

Albert King on the other hand was most impressive and a master at guitar. His band was equally tight but he indeed knew how to coax every ounce of feeling for every note he played and was a direct influence on SRV’s style more than anybody else. He never threw a note away and he let the story be told with his music, just listen to how he plays on Born under a Bad Sign, and you can tell he wanted to say something and his instrument did not get in the way of that. His style on guitar more than any other bluesman, is what I crave.  He was talking to ya if you wanted to hear the conversation.

SRV was the same, his voice was the guitar and his virtuosity was a byproduct of his soul, it did not give him soul. He used it as it was his natural gift, much as Hendrix did with rock n roll but hos flash is not what endeared him to Albert King, King recognized a man who sung with his instrument in the way that only a real blues man can, he saw a kindred spirit. Yes, his flash was a part of it, you cannot deny that, but it was his pain, his voice with the 6 string that made him great.

What I’m saying is make sure the story is being served by your guitar and not simply a backdrop over which to impress us all with your speed and technicality. The song does not exist to make YOU sound good and if that’s your mentality, your blues will have no depth and will be only candy, icing with no substance whatsoever. Let each note breath, have space, if you need to impress someone with your flash, go join a metal band.

If you truly want to be like Stevie, listen to who influenced him and be your own player; find your voice. Live life, fall in love with bad women, do bad things with the best intentions and write songs about it. Spend some time at the bottom and experience real pain; the ‘rip out your soul and drive you insane’ kind of pain, the ‘wishin I could die’ kind of pain. In fact, without that kind of sorrow, you can’t play blues. Period. If you biggest misery in life is having to decide between the Lexus or the Ford SUV, paying a 35% tax rate or only having 4 vacations instead of 5 this year, you can’t really be a blues player.

There is a line by the screen version of Blind Dog Fulton from one of my favorite movies, Crossroads. (The one with Ralph Macchio and Joe Seneca, and not that other piece of shit). In fact, if you haven’t seen it and you’re an aspiring bluesman, watch it right now. Anyways, Blind Dog says “The blues is nothing but a good man feeling bad, thinking about a girl he once was with.” .This more or less sums up the blues.