Musical tastes change over time. As far as popular music goes, you can count on what was favored 10 years back, not being popular today. That is just the way it is.
And the fact that music has gotten so chipped into various categories makes things even that much more confusing. An artist must stay within their "category" or their label and perhaps even their audience will get upset.
Yes, we've become the "give me everything" culture. Take TV. With cable telly, there are presently so many selections that making a decision on what to watch often takes as long as the average show lasts. And who does not frequently watch more than one show at a time to help avoid those pesky commercials.
We often feel exactly the same way about our music. We'd like what we want... And we want it now. So we each have our own music on our MP3 players and seldom venture into new music. Long gone are the days of 60's radio when you never knew what was meant to be played next and often heard new music and new styles all the time. You rarely got stuck in one brand or one band.
Even the bands themselves back then, often played many styles of music. One minute they played a blues song, next a country song, and next a folk song. You could not categorize them into one sort of music like today.
But Some Things Don't Really Change
It's strange how some styles of music are always there. Although they may go out of favored style, they always seem to have a following of some degree. The Blues is one of those styles. Even though it was made over 100 years back, there's still a large enough following for the style to have many magazines and online radio stations devoted to the music.
What's the reason?
I believe there are 2 reasons.
First, many other styles are based mostly on The Blues. Actually jazz, and country rock, and all sorts of rock'n'roll came straight from the blues. Of course , it was Muddy Waters who said... "The blues had a baby, and they called it Rock and Roll."
Secondly, as folk discover more about the music they love, whether rock 'n roll or country or jazz, they need to learn more about where the music came from. And these types of music came right from the blues. The chord structure and harmonic tendencies are direct descendants of blues musician's from over 50 years back.
Yes music connoisseurs need to know the history of the blues music they love. So the music of blues guitar players like Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, T-Bone Hiker, and hundreds of other creators of this music will invariably be popular. At some point, they're going to be "discovered" by the new generation who needs to know the history. But in truth they are being "re-discovered" as they have been by each generation for over 100 years.
So the lineage continues. Supporters of The Black Keys, are led to Howlin ' Wolf. And that leads them to Robert Johnson and Skip James and a number of blues originators who taught him. Sooner or later they're going to get back to the beginning and W.C. Handy.
This search is inescapable. Just like it's inescapable that favored music tastes will continue to change.
And the fact that music has gotten so chipped into various categories makes things even that much more confusing. An artist must stay within their "category" or their label and perhaps even their audience will get upset.
Yes, we've become the "give me everything" culture. Take TV. With cable telly, there are presently so many selections that making a decision on what to watch often takes as long as the average show lasts. And who does not frequently watch more than one show at a time to help avoid those pesky commercials.
We often feel exactly the same way about our music. We'd like what we want... And we want it now. So we each have our own music on our MP3 players and seldom venture into new music. Long gone are the days of 60's radio when you never knew what was meant to be played next and often heard new music and new styles all the time. You rarely got stuck in one brand or one band.
Even the bands themselves back then, often played many styles of music. One minute they played a blues song, next a country song, and next a folk song. You could not categorize them into one sort of music like today.
But Some Things Don't Really Change
It's strange how some styles of music are always there. Although they may go out of favored style, they always seem to have a following of some degree. The Blues is one of those styles. Even though it was made over 100 years back, there's still a large enough following for the style to have many magazines and online radio stations devoted to the music.
What's the reason?
I believe there are 2 reasons.
First, many other styles are based mostly on The Blues. Actually jazz, and country rock, and all sorts of rock'n'roll came straight from the blues. Of course , it was Muddy Waters who said... "The blues had a baby, and they called it Rock and Roll."
Secondly, as folk discover more about the music they love, whether rock 'n roll or country or jazz, they need to learn more about where the music came from. And these types of music came right from the blues. The chord structure and harmonic tendencies are direct descendants of blues musician's from over 50 years back.
Yes music connoisseurs need to know the history of the blues music they love. So the music of blues guitar players like Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, T-Bone Hiker, and hundreds of other creators of this music will invariably be popular. At some point, they're going to be "discovered" by the new generation who needs to know the history. But in truth they are being "re-discovered" as they have been by each generation for over 100 years.
So the lineage continues. Supporters of The Black Keys, are led to Howlin ' Wolf. And that leads them to Robert Johnson and Skip James and a number of blues originators who taught him. Sooner or later they're going to get back to the beginning and W.C. Handy.
This search is inescapable. Just like it's inescapable that favored music tastes will continue to change.
About the Author:
Rick Honeyboy Hart is an experienced blues guitarist. He's played in several bands over time and now helps others guitarists learn blues guitar on his site www.BluesGuitarInsider.com
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