If you’re looking for music genres responsible for all of the pop trends of today and the classic rock of yesterday, you’ll just have to stop at the blues and turn everyone else away. Blues isn’t just a flavour of pop, rock and all the others. It’s when where modern Western music started, and even Bach, Tchaikovsky, or Shostakovich wouldn’t complain if they could.
So, where does this leave us? Let’s see. Are we just going to sit here content to watch middle-aged people playing a Jackson guitar stumble their way through Muddy Waters covers in the bar every Saturday night? Are we just going to take some blues-inspired pop single to the top of the charts once every decade and forget about it immediately after, and have to wait another decade?
Nah, the blues is still waiting for you to take it in and live with it. The great songs are waiting to be rediscovered and reinterpreted. That’s what Terry Blade is looking to do with the collection “Chicago Kinfolk: The Juke Joint Blues.”
What for? The goal is two-fold. Sure, these songs need to be preserved, nurtured, and kept dry from the rain. But Blade acts out those stories and gives them a new life. Have things really changed so much since the Chicago Blues era?
Everyone still gets the blues, and, for the most part, for the same reasons as always. Take a listen to the album opener, “Nothin’ but the Blues.” The song features excerpts from an interview with Theresa McLaurin Needham, tavern owner and legendary patron of Chicago artists. Once you’ve heard this, you’ve gained admission to the club.
What’s on offer? Expressive, emotional, traditional blues. The majority of the songs are built around familiar chord progressions played on an acoustic guitar. Terry Blade really sells the songs. The singer possesses a tone that both fits the originals, but also a soulful, modern touch that helps put them into the present.
But there are plenty of great musicians who try and play the blues and fail. There are exceptions, sure. But for the most part, the blues ain’t fun. It’s the sound you make when the air cuts thin. It wasn’t designed so that lead guitar players could show off how fast they play scales. In the interview excerpt added to the album, Jimmy Walker explains: “The blues is pressure.”
Where does this leave us? As we get ready to depart, Terry Blade puts some soul into the familiar “That’s Alright” and melds the old stories of trouble with the worries we have right now for the gospel-tinged “Fallen Sons.”
“Chicago Kinfolk: The Juke Joint Blues” is directed by Blade, almost like a radio show. The old musicians are part of the cast, Blade gives advice to their work, and the blues is the gift that they all share. And, yes, if we need to keep just one genre of music, let it be the blues.
