ROOTS of ROCK

[A rope leash]

Yeah, I just picked up this used CD Roots of Rock. It features poverty-stricken black blues payers of the Twenties and Thirties, complete with all the snaps and crackles to be found upon the old 78rpm recordings the CD was compiled from.

Now, to prove I'm totally bored and distinctly unusable, I'm going to piss on popular music.

Look, I knew that some of the "great" rock bands of the Sixties and Seventies were influenced by the old Mississippi blues scene, but I did not know they took the songs directly from these primitive musicians. On this CD we have the following: When the Levee Breaks, Statesboro Blues, I'm So Glad, Spoonful, Walk Right In, and something that sounds exactly like Goin' Up the Country but is called something different.

Call me ignorant, but they sure had me fooled. Nobody told me. Somebody could have said something to me at the time, like maybe the DJ...but, no. They went ahead and let me think that these white boys came up with this stuff, and deserved the millions they got for it.

I don't know...it leaves a bad taste, like Elvis shilling for Lexus.

What great-but-poverty-stricken writer is out there now unaware that after he is long gone some crank is going to get rich from his soul?

The distance between percieved reality and factual actuality has become too fantastic for me to accept. Is there nothing in this world that is precisely what it claims to be?

Everybody knows who Mick Jagger is, but they've never heard of Blind Willie McTell. Eric Clapton is celebrated, but who was Charlie Patton?

Unfairness, hypocrisy, theft...these are not hippy values...but what was sold to them at the record store appears to not have been quite what the so-called talent on the sleeve would indicate.

Yeah, maybe I'm making a dam out of a speed-bump, but the more I understand history, the more I realize that it is spun like a rotten roulette wheel. The winner could be anybody...depending upon the house.

Look, whatever...it seems to me that real music died around 1950, and everything since then could not stand on its own without a lot of loud radio and television repetition. Sure, The Beatles could make a great recording, but could they stand together in front of a mic and perform it perfectly in one take like the Big Bands did? Absolutley not...they would not even attempt such a thing. The only musicians that could possibly pull such a thing off today are the classical orchestras, who go largely ignored and begging for funds.

Why is this? Well, because ...the radio is in the hands of such a lot of fools...

I give up. Nothing is what it appears to be, or claims to be. Elvis has sold out, and left the building as far as I'm concerned. There are no heroes left to replace him, so...I guess I'll put on You Are What You Is, and have a cold cold beer.

[Mr. Average]

How many variations on a theme before everything is considered derivative. Miles 'invented' a new musical scale, termed it 'modal', and created a totally unique sound. Very few musicians/musical groups can make the claim.

It should be no surprise that Led Zep, Eric Clapton, and others mentioned derive thier core inspiration from these roots recordings. I know that Plant and Page, Clapton, ZZ Top, and many others don't try to hide it, but pay direct homage to it.

Would Elvis have existed without Eddie Cochran? I doubt it. Ray Charles? Probably. How many references can you find in EC's music? That threads been done a dozen times, but the list is never complete.

Everything is derivative (except maybe Tom Waits!). If George Harrison were alive, ask him about "she's so fine" by the Chiffons. An accident? Of course. "My Sweet Lord" derivative? Of course! Not plagarism. But derivative.

[A rope leash]

The songs listed in my post were lifted directly off the dead people that wrote them. I guess that's okay...if the artist that stole them makes it clear. These modern musicians pay homage in interviews and such, but no so much on the album covers.

Yeah, public domain...I know, but still.

[A rope leash]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6nkHJQnEPs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQ8Cky-4Oc0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FII9VdFFO7Q

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzynQ8LP ... ed&search=

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9J5Zt2Obko

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7k39763 ... ed&search=

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHr4XQ9SEcg



Enjoy!

[A rope leash]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyq90NMwhhI
(comparison of James Brown, Micheal Jackson, and Prince...cool)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gp1M6xzI2Z8
(banned racist Disney cartoon)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D44pyeEvhcQ
(reefer man)

[guidedbyvoices]

Interesting topic.

Keep in mind that blues tradition meant borrowing from others, putting your spin on it. Probably everything on that Roots of Rock thing was borrowed from something else before it.

Zeppelin like Clapton came from the blues tradition, and made it their own. Take When The Levee Breaks. Other than the lyrics, Zep's version is a completely different song. That was Plant's thing - he wasnt creative with lyrisc so he'd throw in blues lyrics from a number of different sources into something that musically was separate. A great example of this was the BBC recording of Travellin Riverside Blues. The only thing it has in cmomon with Robert Johnson's version is the lemon squeezing lines. All the other lines were borrowed from a billion other songs. Not to say Zep were completely blameless - Dazed & Confused was stolen from Jake Holmes, and Whole Lotta Love is really close to the Small Faces' version of Willie Dixon's You Need Love. But I'd rather take a band like Zeppelin that stole ideas and made it their own, then the old way in the 50s where a band would make an amazing record, and then al lthese copy cats came out and outsold the original, like Pat Boone outselling Little Richard back in the day with Tutti Frutti.

[Mr. Average]

Interesting topic.

Keep in mind that blues tradition meant borrowing from others, putting your spin on it. Probably everything on that Roots of Rock thing was borrowed from something else before it.

I disagree. This is, in my opinion, true roots American Music. Sure it draws from Cajun, Gospel, Spiritual, Folk, and other influences, but the blend contributed to a unique sound that is the stem cell, not the offshoot of established musical genre's.

[ReadyToHearTheWorst]

Interesting topic.

Absolutely!

... But I'd rather take a band like Zeppelin that stole ideas and made it their own, then the old way in the 50s where a band would make an amazing record, and then all these copy cats came out and outsold the original, like Pat Boone outselling Little Richard back in the day with Tutti Frutti.

The difference is though, that Pat Boone never claimed to have written those songs, which leads to 2 observations:
- at least his recordings made the pop charts at a time when the originals could not have 'crossed over' - you could argue that Pat Boone played a critical role in the globalisation of the blues;
- yes, early blues men copied each others licks & songs, but there was no money in it back then - once whitey took it global and made millions it was pretty mean not to acknowledge (and pay) the dues.