Blues vs. Rock

Sorry, I ran out of Christmassy things to ramble on about.  I was going to do a blog on blues guitarists, but it occurred to me, after listening without much emotion and reaction to the undeniably excellent Stevie Ray Vaughan – while still being impressed, after all these years, with AC/DC or Mick Taylor (much as I rant that Exile on Main Street is highly overrated) – that there are two classes of blues guitarists.

 The first are the blues purists.  For these guitarists, blues is not a means, but an ends in itself.  They devote themselves to 12 bar blues, which is nice, but wears dull after the 10^th song.  It’s a real challenge to make it interesting when you won’t step outside the box. 

 Prime examples: Stevie Ray Vaughan, Johnny Winter, Peter Green, and Frank Marino [notice all of these are popularly known by their own names rather than associated with bands, except for Green, with pre-Rumours Fleetwood Mac].   I read Steve Miller bust on Joe Bonamassa, describing him as “making perfect copies of Picassos”, faithfully recreating past blues guitarists works, yet contributing nothing new or original of his own.  Of these, I’ve seen Frank Marino in concert twice, and his shows are very good, but be ready for 2-3 hours of practically nonstop jamming.  I have albums by all these blues guitarists and listen to them, I just prefer rock guitarists – as described below.

 The second type of blues guitarists are rock guitarists who have obvious blues backgrounds, influences, and sounds, but whom are primarily focused on making rock music.  Blues are not an ends in themselves but merely the means by which they produce their songs and music; some, like Ritchie Blackmore, will add considerable classical influences to their mix – it’s ironic that Yngwie Malmsteen should mimic Blackmore so much, because I haven’t heard Malmsteen competently execute any blues solos; he’s a classical guitarist who plays classical scales at 100 mph.  Notice these guitarists are associated with particular bands and not as solo artists.

 Prime examples: Jimmy Page (Led Zeppelin), Jeff Beck (solo), Tony Iommi (Black Sabbath), Ritchie Blackmore (Deep Purple). Angus Young (AC/DC), David Gilmour (Pink Floyd), Robbie Krieger (Doors), Duane Allman (Allman Brothers), Mick Taylor (Rolling Stones), Billy Gibbons (ZZTop), Mark Knopfler (Dire Straits), Dave Murray (Iron Maiden), Glenn Tipton (Judas Priest), even Frank Hannon (Tesla), Slash (Guns’n Roses, Velvet Revolver) and Tom Keifer (Cinderella)

 Outside this dichotomy I put two guitarists: Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix.   To call Hendrix a blues guitarist is like calling Oprah a “talk show host” or Hitler a “political figure”.  He was so much more than that.  It’s remarkable that he only had THREE studio albums.  Clapton started off as a blues purist, but then went commercial.  Although he still considers himself a blues guitarist – and certainly consistently markets himself as such – his career has been a constant effort to put the blues into a commercially viable and popular context.