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This page: The Old Guard; The New Breed; From the Cradle
The Old Guard
'B. B. King's collaboration with Eric Clapton, Riding with the King, is a prime example of two veteran axemen playing with power and emotion.'
With the "boogie man" John Lee Hooker aged and ailing, B. B. King and his fellow national treasure, the eclectic Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown, are two of the few "golden-age" blues stars remaining vital on the scene.
B. B. King and his lifelong partner, Lucille |
King's recent, long-awaited collaboration with Eric Clapton, Riding with the King (see Harmony Central review), is a prime example of two veteran axemen playing with power and emotion. While this has come to be expected from B. B. after an unparalleled 50-year career, it's a welcome change for Clapton: Despite the accolades bestowed on From the Cradle, his conservative, repertory blues album from 1994, Clapton has shown a dismaying tendency to resort to rock clichés when playing blues. Since the tragic loss of the virtuoso Stevie Ray Vaughan in 1989, "Slowhand" has uneasily worn the crown as the blues' reigning "Great White Hope." Two of Vaughan's fellow Texans could fill the void if only they had the ambition: Billy Gibbons from ZZ Top is a superb blues guitarist with the three "Ts" -- taste, tone, and technique -- but appears to be unwilling to make the commitment, instead, he's content to pander to the MTV audience. More obscure -- but gifted with awesome chops -- is Bugs Henderson. Though condemned to cult status due to misguided management and his reluctance to travel, his American Music from 1993 and Daredevils of the Red Guitar from 1994 prove the fearsome ability of this onetime protégé of Freddie King. His latest release is Have Blues. . .Must Rock.
Duke Robillard and Bob Margolin, baby boomers like Gibbons and Henderson, have been playing some of the best and most authentic blues guitar since the '70s. Duke's New Blues for Modern Man and Explorer show why he is roundly regarded as the "guitarist's guitarist," capable of spinning cool swing and jazz, as well as blues. Steady Rollin' Bob, besides his current work with Big Bill Morganfield, is a master of Chicago blues and related styles, as evidenced on Hold Me To It. Two other veterans of the West Side of Chicago scene, Otis Rush and Eddy "the Chief" Clearwater, find their careers at opposite ends of the spectrum. Rush, a true second-generation postwar legend, has been unable to sustain either artistic or commercial momentum. Clearwater, meanwhile, (with expert assistance from Robillard of late), continues to produce excellent, progressive recordings such as Reservation Blues.
The New Breed
'I am trying to create "our blues," rather than what you would call Chicago or Texas blues.'
-- Bernard Allison
As in the music industry at large, there has been a tendency among blues record labels to trim their rosters -- and those artists lucky enough to get signed had better sell to maintain their spot. But long odds haven't prevented the emergence of some talented newcomers, some of them keeping to blues tradition, others expanding the form beyond its well-established boundaries. Guitar heroes are in demand -- especially the young, white, and photogenic variety that can make the rare crossover to rock radio, like Kenny Wayne Shepherd and Jonny Lang. Lang, who showed tone and taste on his debut Lie to Me, has since chosen to concentrate on soulful songwriting while distancing himself from the guitar hero stamp. Shepherd, on the other hand, has pursued Blues Guitar God status, defying detractors who claim that recordings like Live On derive shamelessly from Stevie Ray Vaughan. "Whether people mention my name in conjunction with [Vaughan] in a positive or a negative way, to me, is a compliment," replies Shepherd who, to date, does not sing.
Bernard Allison is staking his own musical territory while continuing the legacy of his late, legendary father, Luther |
Bernard Allison, the charismatic son of the late and revered Luther, shows enormous promise. No carbon copy of his dad (nor his late friend Stevie Ray), he is a ferocious player, unafraid to venture into funk and pop. The appropriately titled Times Are Changing, displays Allison's vocal and songwriting talents as well. "I was one of nine kids in my household," he says. "And each one of my sisters and brothers had their own musical preferences. Besides blues, we had gospel, jazz, fusion, rock, folk, and funk going on, so I try to use all those styles as my roots. In that way I am trying to create 'our blues,' rather than what you would call Chicago or Texas blues."
Michael Hill and his Blues Mob are pushing the contemporary envelope a little further with their third release, New York State of Blues. Bluntly addressing racism and related societal ills, Hill unapologetically incorporates elements of Jimi Hendrix and other rock guitarists into his decidedly hard-edge, 21st-century blues.
Chris Thomas King, son of the Louisiana swamp blues legend Tabby Thomas, spans the stylistic spectrum on Me, My Guitar and the Blues. A strikingly handsome man who has been picked to appear in the Coen brothers film O Brother, Where Art Thou?, he treads into uncharted waters with eclectic tunes that employ hip-hop rhythms, along with chilling solo country blues performed on a Dobro.
Big Bill Morganfield, the Rising Son of McKinley "Muddy Waters" Morganfield, grew up away from his famous dad and gravitated towards soul, R&B, rock, and other pop forms. Under the tutelage of former Muddy sideman Steady Rollin' Bob Margolin, however, he has started to pave his own way to his country and Chicago blues roots -- on both guitar and bass. "I started playing guitar when I was 12 years old [in 1968], but it was the R&B music of my time, like Marvin Gaye," he says. "I liked my dad's music, but it wasn't something I wanted to play for a while. Because we had not had the time together that I would have wanted, when he died I felt like the bones had been pulled out of my body. I felt like the way for me to talk to him was through the blues, so I made a change."
Playing to the beat of a different drummer, San Francisco's Tommy Castro and his crack quartet make their fans dance with the groovingest R&B. Castro's fluidity and tone are evident on Live at the Fillmore (shades of the Allman Brothers Band!) and three other butt-rocking albums. The West Coast has been an evolving conservatory for classic blues styles for several decades, especially swing and jump blues. Superb ensemble players with exquisite tone, like Junior Watson, have cleared the way for younger bucks like Little Charlie Baty, Chris Cain, and Rick Holmstrom. "L.A." Holmstrom, from harpman Rod Piazza's Handy Award-winning band, proves on Gonna Get Wild that he is a sublimely minimal soloist with the most outrageous distorted tone in captivity.
From the Cradle
An unprecedented recent phenomenon has been the appearance of extremely young guitarists. In addition to the teenage Jonny Lang, youngsters like Nathan Cavaliere and Jake Andrews have been burnin' the strings all over the blues circuit. One of the most promising of this exclusive but growing group is 15-year-old Shannon Curfman. She discovered Robert Johnson when she was ten, after her parents' Led Zeppelin albums piqued her interest. Barely 14 when she made her debut with Loud Guitars, Big Suspicions, she plays astoundingly deep blues and sings with a growl reminiscent of Janis Joplin.
The fact that these young lions are most often learning from a diverse array of sources almost guarantees that fresh sounds will be injected into the blues tradition. By absorbing and injecting influences from disparate genres like hip-hop, funk, and reggae into the music and showing a willingness to stand up to the "blues police," these new players should keep the blues fresh well into the future.
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