I happened to watch a video of Eric Clapton playing Hootchie Cootchie Man on youtube, and made the mistake of reading the comments.
The one that got to me stated that while the commenter loved it, he found it sooo weird to see an English guy "channeling Chicago and Delta blues". There is a lot of that when it comes to blues and such. To me, if music grabs you, it grabs you.
Obviously this idiot has no clue that much of rock ad roll, and the best of the British Invasion was blues based, and a lot of it even has elements of Bach. Is it somehow off limits for other ethnicities to play music written by black people?
Are black people and non-whites banned from playing Beethoven? What fools.
Granted, a lot of people just do not feel the blues groove. Much of it gets me moving like few other genres. I find it grabs me whereas a lot of bluegrass doesn't. Either things resonate with a person or not.
I can assure you that Clapton, the Stones and other Brits ot only recognize the source of this music but did much to bring greater fame and rewards to may of the old blues guys like Howlin' Wolf, and others.
It never ceases to amaze and irk me when people insist on making a racial issue out of such things.
Clapton does a good cover of it, by the way. He's not pretending to be black. He likes the music. He has done entire albums of Robert Johnson, the protagonist of the crossroads legend, as well.
Oh, and another guy wanted the meaning of the lyrics explained. Much of the blues is full of sexual metaphor. I refrained from going into it. Some of it contains terms which originate in superstitious magic type practices.
More fun to play what you like and for me, to play off stuff that allows improvising and just letting out what you feel. Blues offers that.
I believe basketball was invented by a white guy. Do you think it is out of line if Africans or Chinese like to play the game?
Really, the worst thing about the internet is that it has made me painfully aware that there are millions of idiots running around loose. I was naive enough not to know the number of dimwits was so large.
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Friday, February 8, 2013
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Can't make comments any easier, I don't think. People are having trouble--google tries to kidnap them. I'll loosen up one more thing and let's see. Please give it a try