Calling All Blues

This is an overdue post.

The first quarter of this year played host to two of popular music's biggest names. Two individuals who have inspired countless to pick up the guitar (pun intended, and me withstanding). In January, Eric Clapton, filled the rafters of the Singapore Indoor Stadium and in March, Buddy Guy, headlined the MOSIAC Music Festival at the Esplanade. I was fortunate enough to be able to attend both events and catch two people who have shaped the music I listen to. Satisfied, as I was with both performances, some part of me left disappointed.

My foray into the blues began in earnest, with the Eric Clapton Unplugged album. The last song, Rollin' and Tumblin' especially. I began my hunt searching for the bluesmen that Clapton had recorded from, men like Muddy Waters, Bo' Diddley and Robert Johnson. However, the stark and harsh reality of the 'real' blues left me a little shell shocked. Not ready yet to appreciate the full depth and extent of the blues, I left it at that, as a person who hitherto had drunk only Chivas and now attempt to dive into a Laphroaig. So Clapton, was my bridge for some years afterwards. I would buy three more of his albums, Eric Clapton's Blues, From The Cradle and Me And Mr. Johnson. And in between, I enjoyed his recordings from his time with the band Cream. The psychedelic sounds of a confused generation seemed in tune with that of this young man growing up. As the years passed, I gradually accumulated a sensible collection of blues records, I would spot songs I enjoyed Clapton play and go and hunt down the 'original' recordings of those songs. And thus, I soon found myself listening to Clapton on few and far occasions. And that to me, has always been Clapton. Not unlike a teacher, who introduces a wealth of knowledge to his student. And, it should have been with that knowing, that I entered the Singapore Indoor Stadium. But, I let myself drift, and tried to compare him with those whose songs he sung. It was no contest. It was unfair and Clapton would fail spectacularly if judged by those standards. So when I heard, grown white men use superlatives like, 'genius' and 'master', as they left the concert, I was saddened. Saddened even more, when the Straits Times article conferred the title, Bluesman upon him so liberally. Clapton maybe a great exponent of the guitar; an equal amongst men like Hendrix, he maybe a great singer and his ability to create wonderful popular anthems remain his strength. But a Bluesman he is not, and despite the warmth conferred upon him by bluesmen like Buddy Guy and B.B. King and their willingness to welcome him into their world, he can never truly be considered as one. Yet that tragedy lies not in the debate about him being a bluesman, the greater tragedy, lies in the fact, that many among those who sat listening that day, their only source of blues would be Clapton or even some Stevie Ray and maybe a token Buddy Guy or B.B. King.

Two months later, Buddy Guy would arrive on Singaporean shores. Compared to Clapton, Buddy was all blues. Born in the village of Lettsworth amongst the Louisiana swamps in 1936. Buddy Guy grew up to a share-cropping family and picked up guitar around his early teens. In harsh backdrop of the segregated American South, he notes, "I didn't pursue this [as a job] because you really couldn't sit down and learn guitar thinking you could make a decent living...". But he must have learned something, for when he left for Chicago in 1957,he took part and won a competition against Chicago's West Side guitarists, Magic Sam and Otis Rush. Soon he was backing the Godfather of the Chicago Blues, Muddy Waters and his pioneering distortion and feedback would influence more well known guitarists, Clapton, Hendrix, Jeff Beck, etc. Unfortunately, for Buddy, his career has been beset by wrong timing and failed chances.

Early in his career his record company bosses (Chess Records) did not think much of the 'noise' emitting from his guitar and flatly refused to record him, only to realise that Clapton and Hendrix were using his techniques and selling millions. Later on, when white America fell in love with the blues, Texas guitarist, Stevie Ray Vaughan was the 'brightest' blues star in town, Buddy Guy still remained in the shadows. In countless interviews, SRV would tell of the influence of Buddy Guy and even record a couple of his songs, but the acclaim that came to Clapton, Hendrix, Rolling Stones and SRV would elude Buddy. Buddy Guy still talks about that period with regret, feeling it might have to do with him being black. And with the blues revival having passed, Buddy Guy would forever be in the shadows, despite the relative success of his later rock-blues album, Damn Right I Got The Blues.

Nonetheless, in that insular world of blues music, Buddy Guy grew strength to strength, his partnership with Chicago blues harpist Junior Wells would define the modern sound of the slow electric blues. And that impromptu album recorded in Paris in just under a day, Buddy Guy & Junior Wells: Alone & Acoustic , showcased the wonderful depth and texture, feeling and emotion of the blues.

But perhaps, the fact that he was never given his full due credit lingers on in his mind, and some recent concert reviewers have remarked him as 'wash-out' , 'over the hill' , 'lost it' and adjectives of the like. Yet, when I was seated at the Esplanade, I was hoping he would share some of the blues he had lived with those fortunate enough not to have lived it.

Indeed, Buddy Guy the entertainer was on full display, the incendiary display of guitar pyrotechnics would have put even Hendrix to shade (of course, who'd he get it from !!!). His range of showmanship and sly tricks would have Guitar Slim and T-Bone Walker smiling in approval. But it was his vocal display that perhaps was the best of the lot, his soulful rendition of Otis Redding's 'Dreams to Remember', the Detroit growl of John Lee Hooker's 'Boom Boom', the comic rendition of Cream's 'Strange Brew' to the powerful and angry 'Damn Right I Got The Blues'. Buddy Guy showed his critics he had never lost a damn thing. That, in the mood, he could cut it if he wanted to and despite him, at many times, being more slated to trickery than mastery, he still showed why it should have been him atop of the ladder, not {insert name commonly found in Guitar World Magazines}.

That interplay as his voice ranged from soft to loud, as his trademark comic falsetto pierced through to the audience out of a sudden and then slipped back. Beneath the voice, the guitar was alternating between a slow coaxing, as he juiced out all the emotion from every note, and a frenzied strumming/picking of strings that seemed to come straight from a maddened place. That was Buddy Guy - the master of the tension and release.

It was a thoroughly enjoyable performance, but for the fact, that he really did not play much blues. I guess he could have, but having sung the blues for so long and with so little to show for it, it would have been hard pressed to convince him otherwise. Once again the local newspaper wrote, "...an audience that knew their music..". That was a pile of bull's manure, all they knew was 'blues' played in the rock-blues clubs. When Buddy Guy, walked up on stage, one of them called out, "Damn Right I Got The Blues!". I heard no one call out, "First Time I Met The Blues" or "One Room Country Shack". Indeed, Buddy Guy recalled what Muddy Waters told him shortly before he died, "Don't let the goddamn blues die on me!".

The applause that rang out when he did a John Lee Hooker was partly in comparison as to when he stomped the 'wah-wah' pedal on to the intro to Jimi Hendrix's 'Voodoo Child'. And when, as he put it, "this one is by the late, great Albert King", the applause was so polite, it bordered on the pathetic. It was not his doing, in a world that has long since lost its fashion with the blues, Buddy Guy has tried to keep up his promise to Muddy Waters.

And when they audience yearned out for a 'Mustang Sally' or 'Voodoo Child', they missed the chance to see Buddy Guy doing 'Let Me Love You Baby' or a 'You Better Leave My Little Girl Alone'. And that fact saddens me. But perhaps, while the rock blues thrives in the patronisation of myopic white folk, the blues that captured the voice of a people will go they way of Maxwell Street in Chicago, where in the decades past the amplified blues rollicked and enthralled a whole generation, and a whole world, but now it lay desolate, barren and ear-marked for redevelopment.