In the performance “Bluesography” acclaimed performer and recording artist Son Lewis (solo acoustic or with a trio) takes the audience on a musical walk down the fabled highways, juke joints, back ally’s and fields in an historical musical retrospective of over sixty years of American Blues music blending song and historical narrative (and some irreverent humor and opinion).
Blues are America’s only truly indigenous musical art form. No doubt any number of musical scholars can delineate and identify the formal structure that defines that category of American Music. The flatted thirds, and the I IV V chord structure, twelve or sixteen bars, and other theoretical definitions may give some explanation of the Blues, but the real definition eludes us all. It is because, as a musical format, the Blues is the single most consistent musical form in American Music, retaining most all of its original theoretical form, yet able to evolve over seventy years of sociological change reflecting each particular decade as if it were a slice of anthropological study. It’s form, structure and personal emotional content has most assuredly impacted and influenced all other forms of American Popular Music since the early beginning of our 20th Century.
The project you are reviewing came about as the result of Son’s evaluation that, while there are always excellent current "versions" of topical Blues material being offered for the listening public, there was no chronological presentation of the development and evolution of the music BY A SINGLE ARTIST. The uniqueness of that perspective is that, while several good chronological anthologies may exist, the single focus of one artist performing the various historical formats would enable the listener a clearer understanding of the evolutionary changes.
The material for these performances was selected with specific "schools", not only of structure but of presentation and historical period in mind.
One man... one guitar....
The intensely personal nature of the Blues has always been represented by a man sharing his feelings with his guitar. With this in mind, the Texas blues of "I've had my fun", and "Mighty Crazy" (Lighting Hopkins) juxtapose the sad and happy feelings of the rural world, while John Lee Hooker's Detroit style "Hobo Blues" show the urban blues singer reminiscence's of his rural roots. The Rev. Gary Davis "Candy Man" was selected to represent the up-tempo Piedmont influences in the Blues.
My home is the Delta....
The Delta area of Mississippi is legend as the birthplace of the blues in the US. The material selected from the repertoire of Son House, Robert Johnson, Sonny Boy Williamson, and Blind Joe Reynolds reflect thirty years of structural and technical development of the Delta Blues (from Solo Acoustic to Electric Ensemble).
Blues came up the river....
As the itinerant workers moved from the farms to the urban centers in the aftermath of World War II, their blues moved with them, and evolved as they moved. The development of a more sophisticated "city/country blues", which surrounded the towns like Memphis, is represented in the selections by Roosevelt Sykes, Leroy Carr, Tampa Red, and Sleepy John Estes.
Down on the South Side...
From 1950 to the 1990's, the urban communities in Detroit, Memphis, Oakland, and Chicago attempted to shed themselves of their "country" roots, and their music developed into a hard edged club and dance oriented blues sound, which itself evolved into more sophisticated Rhythm & Blues variant. The material selected from the repertoires of Muddy Waters, Howling Wolf, Albert King, Junior Wells, Luther Johnson, Little Walter, Willie Dixon, Otis Rush and Elmore James were selected because they represent development and evolution of the Electric Band sound over a thirty year cycle.
Well... that's life...
Modern music is just steeped in the influences of the Blues... whether its' the Classic Rock of the Allman Brothers or Rolling Stones, the gospel tinged tunes of Sam Cooke or Motown, singer/songwriter stylings by James Taylor, Bonnie Raitt, or even prodigious talents of Frank Sinatra or Louis Prima, a touch of the heritage and influence of the Blues can be found everywhere...
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