Well, I had a talk with a young player over the weekend. And I heard it again. "I'm not a old-style player, I want to see the blues evolve, I want to take it somewhere- take what I've learned from the old masters and help the blues evolve."
And so I asked- who are your influences?
Well, SRV, Clapton, the White Stripes, Zepplin""
No BB King, no Buddy Guy, no Blind Willie Johnson, no Guitar Slim. Only post-modern rock players. No Earl King, or Charlie Patton, or Pee Wee Cayton or T-Bone Walker, Lowell Fulson, Albert King, Lightning Hopkins or Mance Lipscomb.
How best to put this and not sound like an old fart? This could lead one to dispair. You can't take music somewhere if you don't really understand where it's been. If you don't understand the basics of the language, haven't studied it. So please don't kid me that you're doing the music a service. All you're doing is skipping doing your homework and trying to excuse it. And you're not fooling anyone.
Hit the books. Study the records. Learn the language first, convince me that you know the basics. Then we'll talk about taking the music somewhere.
