Take for example one of the standouts of this album, “Be Careful With a Fool”. Nevertheless, purists don’t need to be discouraged at all because the soul of the blues is very much present on Winter’s self titled release. However, what separated this album and in general all of Winter’s releases back then is that he did all that with a hard rock wrapping.
Musically Johnny Winter is similar to his debut, meaning that it contains generous doses of well played electric and acoustic blues from the main scenes of the genre. Johnny Winter’s sophomore release came one year after his successful debut The Progressive Blues Experiment and a couple of months prior to his appearance on the Woodstock Festival. And talking about the Johnny Winter album, it has to be noted that apart from the fiddler himself, some exceptional musicians such as his brother Edgar who handles the keyboards and even the legendary Willie Dixon on acoustic bass have provided some brilliant arrangements. Johnny Winter, as can be demonstrated by his self titled release, is one of the most technical bluesmen combining tasty licks with fiery solos. To the untrained ear, this doesn’t make much difference but it certainly helps Winter with his soloing. Unlike most guitar players around, Johnny Winters uses a thumb pick a guitar playing technique that was developed by early country and blues musicians. In Johnny Winter’s case I can assure you that there aren’t many more emotional players around and he has all those elements that the older statesmen of blues possessed. Another argument is that the OG’s music was much more emotional. The reason most times seems to be that blues players from the 60s onwards added few rock elements to their sound and as a result strayed away from the original sound. Whenever a discussion about the blues is started, there are people who tend to support that only the original blues players had what was needed and all those who came after them were simply faux. It’s about music taking away the pain and as such the blues are all about pride and empowerment. However, those dreadful feelings can be put in context through music in order to relieve their symptoms and this is what the blues is all about. They communicate that pain and anguish are indeed part of our lives and as such cannot be avoided.
The blues convey a sense of pride to the listener. What really separates the blues though from other genres and artists that simply whine or bitch about how everything is awful and without hope, is that the blues aren’t depressing per se. It’s about listening to grown men or women telling stories about how they were mistreated, abused, taken advantage or harmed by people of the opposite sex most of the times. What do you look for when you listen to a blues record? Is it great guitar playing with interesting licks? Is it comfort and solace when somebody has mistreated you? Is it curiosity to discover the roots of you favorite genre of music? Surely, you will definitely find a lot of excellent guitar licks, you’ll find comfort but most of all blues is all about emotions.
0 kommentar(er)
