Tracks: 1) Boom Boom; 2) How You’ve Changed; 3) Mess Around; 4) Bright Lights, Big City; 5) I Believe To My Soul; 6) Worried Life Blues; 7) Let The Good Times Roll; 8) Ain't Got You; 9) Hallelujah, I Love Her So; 10) I’m Crying; 11) Dimples; 12) She Said Yeah.
Can't remember exactly who it was, Muddy Waters or, more likely, Sonny Boy Williamson, who said that he was obviously grateful that skinny white boys in England were playing the blues and covering their songs but that . . . well, to be perfectly honest, they simply weren't very good at it.
I begged to differ then, and still do today. The likes of the Animals, early Fleetwood Mac, John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, Charlie Musslewhite and Paul Butterfield were well up to it, and added an exciting layer of electrified chops and psychedelic influences to take the blues to another level altogether. Their albums still sound as rivetting and breathless as the day they were made in the late 1960's, and the likes of Eric Burdon and Stevie Winwood could sing with the best of their musical heroes.
You don't have to be black to sing the blues. At least not if you payed at least a few dues along the way (hehe).
I think that people who view this issue as a competition between the old masters and the young pretenders, let alone all the "stealing the black man's music" arguments, commit the mistake of limiting themselves to a certain paradigm. At their best, the white boys in England were taking these things to a different dimension - not necessarily "better", just different - like, indeed, John Lee Hooker's "Boom Boom" and the Animals' "Boom Boom" simply hit different areas of your brain.
Also, from a sociological standpoint, it used to be the case that white audiences were more likely to be exposed to a ton of whitebread electric blues and blues-rock rather than black music (still are, I guess, if they extract their musical knowledge from classic rock radio stations and such). But today, with pretty much everything at arm's reach, you can easily make a playlist that's 50% Muddy Waters and 50% John Mayall and simply dig the different vibes of both instead of succumbing to racial prejudices on either side of the fence.
Can't remember exactly who it was, Muddy Waters or, more likely, Sonny Boy Williamson, who said that he was obviously grateful that skinny white boys in England were playing the blues and covering their songs but that . . . well, to be perfectly honest, they simply weren't very good at it.
I begged to differ then, and still do today. The likes of the Animals, early Fleetwood Mac, John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, Charlie Musslewhite and Paul Butterfield were well up to it, and added an exciting layer of electrified chops and psychedelic influences to take the blues to another level altogether. Their albums still sound as rivetting and breathless as the day they were made in the late 1960's, and the likes of Eric Burdon and Stevie Winwood could sing with the best of their musical heroes.
You don't have to be black to sing the blues. At least not if you payed at least a few dues along the way (hehe).
I think that people who view this issue as a competition between the old masters and the young pretenders, let alone all the "stealing the black man's music" arguments, commit the mistake of limiting themselves to a certain paradigm. At their best, the white boys in England were taking these things to a different dimension - not necessarily "better", just different - like, indeed, John Lee Hooker's "Boom Boom" and the Animals' "Boom Boom" simply hit different areas of your brain.
Also, from a sociological standpoint, it used to be the case that white audiences were more likely to be exposed to a ton of whitebread electric blues and blues-rock rather than black music (still are, I guess, if they extract their musical knowledge from classic rock radio stations and such). But today, with pretty much everything at arm's reach, you can easily make a playlist that's 50% Muddy Waters and 50% John Mayall and simply dig the different vibes of both instead of succumbing to racial prejudices on either side of the fence.