The Blues List

R. L. BURNSIDE


It's Bad You Know


As someone commented about this song on YouTube, "Only a legend could make a song with one chord."

This is that legend and this is that song. R. L. Burnside was born in 1926 and spent most of his life playing the blues, but he wasn't really appreciated for it until 1990, where only roughly 15 years of his remaining musical career, till his death, was really appreciated. There are movies and documentary pieces about him, such as Hill Stomp Hollar, which was about him and several other blues men that recorded for Fat Possum Records. He appeared on Conan O'brian's late night show, and his music has been used in commercials and TV, including the show, The Sopranos. I believe this particular song was used for a murder sequence in The Sopranos.

He leaves a legacy though of multiple family members that continue to tour and play the blues. The Black Keys claim he was an influence and incorporated some of his music in their songs.

It's Bad You Know, is a piece really fitting of the times. Our struggles through a pandemic, the attacks on our democracy, the destructive hate that fills our world today. The Hitleresque-Dickensian nightmare we just can't escape from. This is the existential reality, and, it's bad you know.

This reminds me of a French song I will post next.

 

LA FEMME

It's Time To Wake Up



Here is the French song that R.L. Burnside's song, in my last post, reminded me of. There is more than one chord here, but barely. It is written in the key of F with a I - V progression. The chords go C F C F, till it reaches the last part of the song where it sometimes goes from F to C minor.

It's Time to Wake Up (2023) was released on April 8th 2013, and uncannily is a Postmodern dystopian song about a pair of survivors in the future struggling to survive after some kind of apocalyptic event, created by the Other. She sings to her partner, 'You will die in 2023.'

La Femme is a French psychedelic punk rock band formed in 2010. Their music has been described as hypnotic. French girls make my heart melt, and I do enjoy female French musicians, and look at those two in La Femme...!

My first trip to France, the very first French phrase I put together was, 'You are very cute.'

This song is much darker than, Its Bad You Know. And it is fairly prophetic. It refers to California in 2023. It tells that people, both voluntarily and others by force, had chips placed in their bodies. Coincidentally, in 2023, several companies began experimenting with chips that would interface with human consciousness (in hopes of helping paralyzed people gain mobility). The term transgenital is used, again, suggesting some kind of modification of the human body with technology. It is a description of human's rebelling and trying to maintain their humanity in a world headed down the path that French philosophers like Baudrillard have warned us about.

Most Americans, including myself, first heard this song in the movie, Archive, where its theme is very fitting. The minute I heard the song, I had to find it. Archive, for those who haven't seen it, is a movie that takes place in the near future, about a technology that allows the consciousness of a deceased person to be archived giving a period of time for the loved ones to communicate with their loved one until the consciousness eventually fades. The story centers around a computer technician, who was in a fatal accident with his wife. He tries to build a cyborg of his wife in order to illegally download her consciousness from the archiving machine into this cyborg replacing his wife in hopes of not only never losing her, but once again having her in physical form. (The movie ends with him having sex with her cyborg for the first time, and then him remembering how ruthlessly irritating she was, and he immediately hates her very existence-----------I'M JUST KIDDING! That does not happen---but there is a twist at the end.) But what does happen in the movie---one morning, his latest and best version of her cyborg, who is gradually assuming memories and traits of his wife, puts an LP on the record player and plays this song.

Some say, because it says the two suns are up, that it refers to an alternative reality. I interpret it in an Apollonian sense, so the other sun could represent imperial power or a Big Brother technology. Unfortunately, the eyes of the state, ever watching via technology, is something we also have to contend with today.

Did I mention the French girls?

 

Today was a busy day for me, and I didn't have a chance to copy the next post over from my Instagram page.

But on my way home----I was listening to a Samantha Fish album that I recently bought----CD, that is-----the Dark Wind Howling album. So here is a song off of that album.

Its got slide guitar, a harp (harmonica), a wah wah peddle, and Samantha's sexy voice------what more do you need?!





here is a slightly different live version without a harp:

 

OTIS TAYLOR

My Soul's in Louisiana


I'm sorry I havent been posting as much lately. I have been very busy, and the horrible genocide taking place in Gaza right now, occupies a lot of my time.

Otis Taylor, and all his songs about the struggle of black people, and everyone else, seems fitting for a post at this time.

He is a great blues musician with many accolades. He was born in 1942 in Chicago, but grew up, in my birthplace, in Denver. If you havent heard him play, you may have heard one of his songs in any number of movies, or on TV.

What better genre could there be for him than the Blues. The first blues music emerged from the struggle to live of black people---it came from the Southern plantations, where the slaves, recalling the roots of their music in Africa, turned the existential nightmare of their lives to music.

And this song, about the extrajudicial killing of an innocent black man by some railroaders and a local sheriff, is just that. His soul wanders to Louisiana, as his family and loved ones will probably never know where he is, or what happened to him.

The famous Black activist, James Baldwin, said, "There is nothing under heaven... more important than a single human life." This has always been my belief. It doesn't matter what color your skin is, or what you believe, or where you live. We are all the same. Apartheid and racism are built upon lies.

I am truly saddened by the upsurge in racism in this country, and by the horrible injustices and war crimes happening in Gaza.

His Instagram, by the way, is @otistaylortranceblues

 

DYER DAVIS

Dog Bites Back


This great song, Dog Bites Back, was my introduction to Dyer Davis. We all sometimes feel like we are that dog, and it's time to bite back. In fact, us old hippies, who grew up with the understanding that, 'we are all in this together,' or, 'Come on People now, smile on your brother, everybody get together, and love one another right now,' can all too easily be used and abused by the younger generations that apparently grew up looking at the world as, 'Its not my problem.' So, yeah, this old dog is starting to bite back.

Speaking of old hippies, I ran into an English friend at the store the other day. Back in the day, he was good friends with the London version of Owsley. He even has stories of being at this guy's flat when Lennon and McCartney stopped by to buy some product, which, as his story goes, gave them a vision which inspired them to go to India. (Thus my friend became one of the first people to know that the Beatles were going to go to India.) I became friends with him about a decade and a half ago when Ginger Baker was living in the area and was in the news as having immigration problems. I was sitting at a Starbucks when I heard this British accent ordering a latte, looked up, saw the hair from behind, and thought it was Baker, and decided I had to meet him. He wasn't Baker, but still pretty cool.

Anyway, I saw my friend the other day, and he happened to remark how he is just listening to 60's and 70's music all the time. There's nothing good anymore he told me. I responded, 'Man, you've got to listen to the blues, it's happening there! New musicians, new music, great stuff!

Dyer Davis is one such happening musician. He's only in his early twenties, but he has been performing for a decade already as I understand. I believe, he has only one album out now, at least under his own name, but man, some great stuff--like this song. His Instagram is @dyerdavisofficial I'm sure he will put out some great stuff for us----rock, blues, and soul.

 

I am really discovering some great female guitar players lately!! Somebody with MONEY should get a female festival together!!

 

I agree!

 

Thinking of female blues musicians I remembered a girl that was real popular in the Colorado blues scene back in the 2000's----Her name was Tempa and her band was Tempa and the Tantrums. I have a video I took of her at the Empire Blues Festival in about 2005 or 2006. Unfortunately that camera got stolen in the Philippines and the cassette is too small to watch in a VCR. I would plug the camera into the TV to watch it. SO I haven't watched that video since 2007. I was right at the stage, and I remember she turned and shook her incredibly sexy ass right in front of me---all caught on camera.

A number of years ago I searched on YouTube for her and couldn't find anything. But tonight I looked and there are some videos!!





She appears to have gained some weight since I last saw her in this video:

 

Then this evening my wife was playing blues songs off of YouTube on our Roku TV in the living room. The videos were randomly popping up, and then a Jeff Beck video popped up----with Beth Hart doing the vocals. BUT DAYYUMMMM!! Look at that Bass player!

I had never seen her, and had to get on google to search her---who was the Bass player for Jeff Beck featuring Beth Hart?

She is an Australian girl------Tal Wilkenfeld. She has opened for The Who and has done a lot of sets with Jeff Beck! She has also put out her own music.

 

SUSAN TEDESCHI

Friar's Point


Here is another great blues musician that learned a lot about music by listening to their father's records of the great blues musicians of the past. Susan Tedeschi's voice has been described as a cross between Bonnie Raitt and Janis Joplin. And a great voice it is!

For many years she had her own band, and then, while opening for the Allman Brothers Band, she met Derek Trucks who was the slide guitarist for the Allman Brothers, but also had his own band, and they fell in love. They then combined their bands (the Susan Tedeschi Band and the Derek Trucks Band), forming the Tedeschi Trucks Band (so yes, two future posts---Derek Trucks and the Tedeschi Trucks Band). Their Instagram page is @derekandsusan .

Friar's Point is one of those fun blues songs that makes you want to be at some bar off in the countryside or up in the mountains with your friends getting drunk and listening to good music. The song ends, and you think it's over, but wait a moment--there's a bit of a reprise after the silence.

It's a song that takes you back to good times somewhere... Some of the fun girls I've known. I assume that for the girls, it may take you back to some of the fun guys you've known. But then, part of it is in her voice, so maybe not. It has the quality that I associate with those girls who have lived life in the fast lane, seemingly happy-go-lucky, but underneath, they know what life brings. They've hit the rough spots and will not be fooled again. But tonight, the beer is flowing, and they're gonna have fun, maybe drink some troubles away. This is one of those existential realities that the blues come from. One of the reasons the blues is played. This song, whether played on a juke box in the corner, or on a stage in the back of the bar, is perfect for those moments.

Oh man, I miss those days when the mountains of Colorado had lots of bars that the bands played in...

 

Lookin'/ watchin / listening to that Jeff Beck video --really shows the progression from the 3 note beginnings of Rock n'Roll!

 

SON SEALS

All Your Love


I know what you are looking for. You want that song that goes, do-d-do doon, doo-doooo, do-do-do doon, d-doo-doooo... Am I right?

That's, All Your Love!

Son Seals was born in 1942, and his father, Jim 'Son' Seals owned a small juke joint called the, Dipsy Doodle Club in Arkansas. He began his musical career at 13 as a drummer, and played with, Robert Nighthawk, and then picked up guitar, and at 16 started playing with his Brother-in-law, Walter 'Little Walter' Jefferson at a club called, T99. He played with a lot of other famous blues musicians there, including, Albert King, Rufus, and Bobby Bland.

In '71 he moved to Chicago, where he was discovered by, Bruce Iglauer of Alligator Records at The Flamingo Club. His debut Album, The Son Seals Blues Band, which contained this song, and this album cover (pictured above), was released in 1973.

In 1993 his wife shot him in the jaw. I guess he didnt get all 'her' love, at least, not all the time. He then lost a leg from diabetes, an illness which eventually killed him in 2004.

There's great playing all through this song. Play it once to hear Son Seals on the lead guitar with that boogie that really stands out in this song, and some great solos too, and then listen again to just hear that bass guitar all through the song holding up the bottom. Then there's that organ---a Hammond?

 

Yes that was a fantastic song!

When he died I did a video on one of my Instagram pages that talked a bit about him then played that song. I saw him at a show with ZZ Tops about 10 years ago at a Denver Venue known as Fiddler's Green. One cool thing about that show is that you can see the Mountains behind the stage. There was an electrical storm coming in over the mountains which provided quite a show as well. But what was really amazing is that the lightning strikes were right on time with the guitar of ZZ Tops----every power chord----as if they were controlling the weather!

 

I was in Winterland in SF to see some big band, but their plane got snowed in in Philly. The substitute was none other than---Tal Mahal!! Oh, I was NOT disappointed!!

 

I think I put this up earlier , but---here it comes again!!

 

But like you said, you can certainly see a line from the earlier rock, through Jeff Beck, into the 80's.

 

And then there's----Susan--