Twenty-first Century Blues
Can the Blues Survive in the Information Age?
by Dave Rubin
September 26, 2000
'There is no shortage of hot, swinging, and low-down blues guitar on the contemporary scene.'
The blues is no casual pastime -- for fans or musicians. The intense, emotional nature of America's most fundamental indigenous music requires an emotional commitment that's rare in other music circles. With that commitment comes passion, and that passion has let the art form -- born on the plantation and forged in the industrial cities -- remain vital in our cyber culture.
Deborah Coleman is among the emerging crop of fine female guitarists. But will she get the recognition she deserves on the male-dominated blues scene? |
Guitar has been a featured "voice" of the blues since the beginning, ascending to a dominant role with the great postwar electric-blues expansion. Although many fans think of the late '50s as electric blues guitar's golden age, there have been spurts of turnover and growth in the decades to follow. In 1965 Vanguard Records issued a three-album set called Chicago/The Blues/Today! featuring Otis Rush, Homesick James, J.B. Hutto, and Johnny Shines, among other guitarists. In 1978 Alligator Records released an extensive series titled Living Chicago Blues that included Jimmy Johnson, Lonnie Brooks, and Magic Slim. Alligator followed with The New Bluebloods in 1987, presenting Melvin Taylor, Lil' Ed and the Blues Imperials, and Maurice John Vaughn.
While no contemporary label has yet addressed the state of the blues in the year 2000, there is no shortage of hot, swinging, and low-down blues guitar on the contemporary scene. Not since Stevie Ray Vaughan and Robert Cray emerged in the early '80s has there been as dynamic -- and diverse -- a crop of up-and-coming players. But like society in general, the blues community is frequently torn by passionate debate about race, gender, and how those factors determine who truly qualifies as a blues artist
Whose Blues Is It?
Amazingly, race still plays a nasty part in blues circles -- especially among critics, journalists, and academics. Nowhere is this clearer than in the stark contrast between the leading journals of the genre, Living Blues and Blues Revue. LB still holds to the antiquated notion that blues is the sole province of African-Americans -- viewing all others only as imitators or quaint archivists. BR, on the other hand, recognizes the "full spectrum of the blues." In the process, they provide wider exposure for the very artists LB wishes to protect. While there's no question that exploitation has played a role in blues, and that the form came to existence as part of the African-American experience, it would seem unfair to performers of all backgrounds to make race an essential ingredient of authenticity: Where does the Native American band Indigenous -- with the excellent blues guitarist Mato Nanji -- fit in?
The increasing number of excellent female blues guitarists that have emerged in recent years further illustrate the paradox of open- and close-mindedness in the blues community. With the few exceptions of the past -- like Memphis Minnie and Jessie Mae Hemphill -- the macho world of blues guitar has been a man's domain. Today, we have Debbie Davies, Sue Foley, Joanna Connor, Shannon Curfman, Susan Tedeschi, and Deborah Coleman, among others. Their presence has helped to breathe new life into a genre over-represented by Stevie Ray Vaughan wannabes.
But Tedeschi and Coleman, for example, have had to deal with obstacles particular to their gender (and in Coleman's case, her race, as well). Though she was nominated for a Grammy for Just Won't Burn, has won three W. C. Handy Blues Awards, and earned the praise of B. B. King and Buddy Guy, Tedeschi has encountered her share of resistance from a surprising source. "In the blues I get a lot of white people who come up to me and question why I sing the blues since I am not black," says Tedeschi. "Not one black person has ever said that to me."
Coleman -- unusual in this age for being an African-American woman playing blues guitar -- seems to have hit a glass ceiling in her career despite guitar, vocal, and songwriting chops that merit major stardom. She has four critically acclaimed albums to her name, including her most recent, Soft Place To Fall, and she also has the requisite great looks: One would have to be naïve to believe that someone of her exceptional ability is not being held back due to her color. The double standard exists, from the audience to the marketing by the labels, to the mainstream press.
Next Page: The Old Guard; The New Breed; From the Cradle....
Dave Rubin, the Executive Editor of GuitarOne Magazine, has written books on artists ranging from Robert Johnson to B. B. King to Jimi Hendrix -- and beyond. He's also the author of the Inside the Blues series of method books, and has performed with Chuck Berry, Son Seals, Johnny Copeland, the Coasters, the Drifters, the Marvelettes, and members of James Brown's JBs. He's taught guitar for over twenty years and performs in the New York metropolitan area.
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