The Birth of Rhythm and Blues

I have several ideas for books in my mind.  One of them I mentioned in this blog.  I am planning a cookbook called, 'Health, Strength, and Self Defense.'  I also am dreaming of a book on art any mythology called, 'The Osiris Myth in World Culture'.  But I think a lot about music and how the Beatles changed everything.

So I thought I'd chat about the birth of rhythm and blues.  It didn't start in the 1960s with The Beatles and The Rolling Stones and Jimi Hendrix.  All good musicians start out new, listen to a lot of music, and start to sound like their influences.  Being a great musician is all about who you sound like.  So one decade of music is based on the previous. 

I first like grunge rock in the 1990s. I was a teenager and thought those cats were cool.  I especially liked Nirvana.  Three guys from Seattle who were rockstars but didn't want to be rockstars.  It was a bit of a paradox.  When Kurt Cobain died, the music world was reeling.

After 1994, I got into the Beatles.  Their 30 year re-issue of their two greatest hits albums showed me what real music is.  These guys don't mess around.  Even their mainstream hits were genius, let alone their lesser known songs on their multiple albums.  The Beatles were special.  Each song featured 8 or 9 or 10 chords, and was not chinsy 3 chord pop music like all the music of the 50s and 60s.  These guys were good.

What I came to realize was, was that they didn't invent this shit either.  Their initial sound was four white boys from Liverpool with long hair playing black people's music.  So rock n roll does not come from Britain, they just took the ball and ran with it.

Rock n Roll is black music.  It started in the 1950s with Muddy Waters who discovered Chuck Berry.  These were the two great innovators.  Without Muddy, we would be defunct.  He was the first bluesman from Mississippi to go from the south to the north and from acoustic to electric.  I dig his music.  Visually, he looks like a jokey man, but he as soul and pinnache and can do so much with three chords.  His songwriting capacity is mind boggling. 

Muddy Waters discovered Chuck Berry in 1955 and that was when Maybellene was released.  That was Chuck Berry's first hit and the beginning of his career.  He was already past 30 at the time, so he was a middle aged man singing songs for a teenage audience.  It was a bit pretentious, but nobody seemed to mind.

I like Chuck Berry's music the best.  He was the axis mundi of rock n roll.  It went from Robert Johnson to Muddy Waters to Chuck Berry to everybody else.  His music was profound.  Although it only featured three chords per song, he could innovate on his sound every time he wrote a song and keep it fresh.  He wrote intelligent lyrics that appealed to a mainstream audience.  15 and 16 year old children starting out on working and dating could spend some of their hard earned money on his albums.  This was a great time for America.

Obviously, the era of rock n roll was short lived. I would say, from 1955 to the end of the 1970s was the heyday of rock n roll.  By the end of the Vietnam War, rock n roll was dying, the ghetto scene began, the war on drugs began, and black soldiers came back from the Army addicted to drugs with no relevant job skills.  The past 40 years has been a washout.  Each year, America degrades not improves.  Europe, Israel, and Asia has taken leaps and bounds beyond America.  America is no longer leader of the free world.

But at least when I listen to Chuck Berry or John Lee Hooker or Muddy Waters or Elmore James, I can hear the music of the climax.  The black rhythm and blues musicians led to the anglo rock n roll musicians.  Eric Clapton is extremely talented and is now an elderly man.  He is the hero of everybody who likes blues and rock.

So it didn't just start in one place and explode.  Each decade builds on the previous one.  Chuck Berry and his sound was largely based on Rosetta Tharpe and her overall sound and the guitar playing of T Bone Walker.  Great musicians innovate.  They take old things and recombine them and add something new.  I don't just listen to black dudes playing guitar.  I also like Bob Dylan, The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, CCR, and The Doors.  By now, most of these guys are elderly or deceased.  But those were the days.

Today's music aint got the same soul.  It is all about looks and not talent.  The personality, reputation, and stage presence of the musician is more important than how good they actually are.  I don't think Kanye West knows the difference between a D Major and a D Minor chord.  And Taylor Swift's guitar is essentially a prop.  But they are rich and I am poor so I tap out.

I started guitar right when music was dying.  I don't like most of the music of the past two decades.  I think it is more commercial and has nothing to do with the music and poetry of oppressed people.  Most of the delta bluesmen never got rich or famous, and they invented something of benefit to society.  So it reconfirms the JudeoChristian worldview.  Suffering is Grace.  Even the famous bluesmen like Howlin Wolf and Elmore James are just a minority of the guys who where out there at the time.  Most of them didn't become famous names.

So the birth of Rhythm and Blues is a uniquely American story.  It has to do with white people playing black people's music.  In the 1960s, people were brought together through music.  This was the golden era.  These are dark times. 

So as a middle aged man in the year 2020, I don't have to listen to Nirvana or the Beatles.  I got over that.  I go straight to the source, to black men playing guitars in the 1950s.  I often listen to Lightnin Hopkins, Elmore James, Howlin Wolf, Muddy Waters, and my favorite, Mr. Chuck Berry.  The way a black man plays guitar, it is like he is choking the instrument to death.

So I like blues and rock and I will keep listening to it even if I am no longer relevant.