Robert Johnson?

Samgb · December 2018

StuartMac290 said:

Actually, I love that and most of what he does. I don't find it hard to listen to at all, I find it very relaxing. I'd take that over yer average blooz noodler every time, to be honest

I agree. When i was younger and coming at it as a young whipper snapper looking for the roots of Clapton or Zep i found it difficult. The older i get the more resonant i find his music. Clever lyrics, some good tunes, some serious guitar chops. Listen to Come on In My Kitchen. Its lovely stuff, and funny too.

thegummy · December 2018

HAL9000 said:

thegummy said:

And there's obviously no key that sounds objectively better than others or everyone would just stick to that one.

As I understand things, this is only true for equal temperament tunings. Different keys apparently sound happier, sadder, more melancholy, etc on instruments that are not tuned to equal temperament.

Edit - this explains it better than I can...

https://youtu.be/6c_LeIXrzAk

That's correct - without equal temperament, different keys do sound different but that's a whole different kettle of fish (you can't tuna fish).

But the proponents of the A != 440 theory still keep equal temperament so different keys do sound the same, just higher or lower pitched. They even slow down or speed up existing records to claim how much better it sounds.

If anything, people might like hearing it differently to the other 100 times they've heard the song. They might just personally prefer it higher or lower pitched. Or there's probably the psychology at work that makes people buy in to conspiracy theories in general; e.g. "I'm now more enlightened than the masses" or "I'm fighting against the man, they can't keep me down!" and probably many others I don't know about.

Lewy · December 2018

Samgb said:

Cols said:

Try this; there’s a convincing theory that the original recordings are being played back at the wrong speed. This sounds much better to me.

https://youtu.be/_JKS3j8fl_g

The hole in that theory is that when those records were first released and raved about in the 60s, quite a few of Robert Johnson's contemporaries and friends from Son House and Howlin' Wolf to his STEPSON Robert Jr Lockwood, were still around and not one of them said anything about the records being at the wrong speed or sounding weird.
This seems to be an effort from a dude to understand why he cant play or sing like one of the most famous musicians of the 20th Century. Its like saying "well if Louis Armstrong didnt have that gravelly voice i would sound just like him"
Its silly. frankly.

100% agree. “How can he have played so high up the neck ... it has to have been sped up” No, he was that good.

”His voice is so high, that’s not what a blues man ought to sound like”. Ever heard of Skip James?

People will literally swallow anything except the fact that these people were consumate professional musicians. They like the idea of them being shambolic drunken rakes because it’s suits their fantasy better.

Anyway, as for RJ....exceptionally skilled in my opinion, but demonstrably one of the most derivative musicians to have ever recorded. Almost everything he did on the guitar is a carbon copy of someone else. He just happened to be the one that that people picked up on in the 60s. He really doesn’t deserve any kudos as an innovator or originator except for the fact that he did more than others to package the format into I guess what you’d think of as a pop song format, and his lyrics (the ones that are really his at any rate” have more structured/involved narratives than most of his contemporaries.

thegummy · December 2018

Lewy said:

Samgb said:

Cols said:

Try this; there’s a convincing theory that the original recordings are being played back at the wrong speed. This sounds much better to me.

https://youtu.be/_JKS3j8fl_g

The hole in that theory is that when those records were first released and raved about in the 60s, quite a few of Robert Johnson's contemporaries and friends from Son House and Howlin' Wolf to his STEPSON Robert Jr Lockwood, were still around and not one of them said anything about the records being at the wrong speed or sounding weird.
This seems to be an effort from a dude to understand why he cant play or sing like one of the most famous musicians of the 20th Century. Its like saying "well if Louis Armstrong didnt have that gravelly voice i would sound just like him"
Its silly. frankly.

100% agree. “How can he have played so high up the neck ... it has to have been sped up” No, he was that good.

”His voice is so high, that’s not what a blues man ought to sound like”. Ever heard of Skip James?

People will literally swallow anything except the fact that these people were consumate professional musicians. They like the idea of them being shambolic drunken rakes because it’s suits their fantasy better.

Anyway, as for RJ....exceptionally skilled in my opinion, but demonstrably one of the most derivative musicians to have ever recorded. Almost everything he did on the guitar is a carbon copy of someone else. He just happened to be the one that that people picked up on in the 60s. He really doesn’t deserve any kudos as an innovator or originator except for the fact that he did more than others to package the format into I guess what you’d think of as a pop song format, and his lyrics (the ones that are really his at any rate” have more structured/involved narratives than most of his contemporaries.

I don't have much experience with listening to these people but surely there are modern day players who are just as fast at playing and thus negating the need for an explanation / theory?

One of the things I love about YouTube is that up until fairly recently there was always the kind of general idea that the top musicians were famous. That the fastest or "best" guitarist would be one of the famous ones. I suppose there was a subconscious assumption that if anyone was faster or better they'd become famous themselves. Also that they all come from a select handful of countries, mainly America or Britain.

Then with YouTube we found out that loads of random people from all over the world are insanely talented at just about everything, definitely including guitar playing.

carlos · December 2018

I'd take RJ over any, absolutely any, white blues player that's come since.

thegummy · December 2018

carlos said:

I'd take RJ over any, absolutely any, white blues player that's come since.

The white ones you've heard so far or do you have a racial policy on it?

StuartMac290 · December 2018

thegummy said:

StuartMac290 said:

Actually, I love that and most of what he does. I don't find it hard to listen to at all, I find it very relaxing. I'd take that over yer average blooz noodler every time, to be honest

By "average blooz noodler" are you referring to average members of the public going up and down some scales on his PRS to relax after a hard day of extractions and fillings or actual musicians like SRV, Clapton etc.?

All of the above, really. Clapton leaves me absolutely stone cold, despite having tried many times to get into him. I've bought a number of albums, and the only one I've enjoyed really was Unplugged, but...well, have you ever heard Muddy Waters' Folk Singer, for example?

SRV - I loved his playing on Let's Dance, love his tone and attack, so I bought one of his albums. It just does nothing for me at all. I learned Scuttle Buttin' for the exercise of it, maybe played the rest of the record three times after that, then I've never felt compelled to put it back on.

It's just not my thing at all. Personal taste and everything, but I'd take a Muddy Waters or BB King over either of them.

Cols · December 2018

Samgb said:

Cols said:

Try this; there’s a convincing theory that the original recordings are being played back at the wrong speed. This sounds much better to me.

https://youtu.be/_JKS3j8fl_g

The hole in that theory is that when those records were first released and raved about in the 60s, quite a few of Robert Johnson's contemporaries and friends from Son House and Howlin' Wolf to his STEPSON Robert Jr Lockwood, were still around and not one of them said anything about the records being at the wrong speed or sounding weird.
This seems to be an effort from a dude to understand why he cant play or sing like one of the most famous musicians of the 20th Century. Its like saying "well if Louis Armstrong didnt have that gravelly voice i would sound just like him"
Its silly. frankly.

To be fair, you’re expecting the above contemporaries to dredge up memories of a man 30 years in the ground and compare them to songs recorded over a few days.

For me at least, it’s not searching for an excuse for “Hey, if I change the recording speed I can play this stuff!”. It was a case of having a good listen and coming to the conclusion that, good as the originals were, they sounded a lot better played at the different speed.

dtr · December 2018

For me Robert Johnson is to the blues what Bob Marley is to reggae. Both died tragically young, with all the iconic baggage that brings, and both were 'breakthrough' artists who popularised their genre to a much wider audience. When I listen to them I appreciate why they achieved the levels of fame they did, but they are rarely the artists I choose to listen to (and I listen to blues and reggae all the time).

I don't think it's purely down to some kind of muso snobbery (but it might be!), but probably that they both take a genre that in it's time and place was the rhythmic, repetitive music to dance to and craft it towards a 'pop song' format more suited to the radio than the dancehall.

Listening today I think I find the appeal of artists closer to their dancehall roots easier to appreciate than the radio popularisers, so for blues I'll listen to Bukka White or Mississippi Fred McDowell way more often than Johnson, but that's because I tend to want to lose myself in the feeling of the music. I can see why Johnson has greater appeal for someone like Clapton, for whom the ability to craft a radio-oriented pop song is much more relevant.

gringopig · December 2018

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guitars4you · December 2018

kswilson89 said:

guitars4you said:

I know what you mean and have thought similar so many times - Yet many like Clapton, can listen to the song, get it, interpret it and create their own version from it - Jut sounds so bad to me - Certainly raw

Yet I also find similar with Billie Holliday and others just say genius

Now Billie Holiday really WAS something special IMO, what a talent.

granted she was and mighty influential to many others - But just doesn't do it or me - Maybe in part to old 'scratchy' recordings

Lewy · December 2018

dtr said:

so for blues I'll listen to Bukka White or Mississippi Fred McDowell way more often than Johnson

Two of my absolute favourites and worthy of serious attention for anyone who likes RJ but hasn’t delved further.

thumpingrug · December 2018

And there's obviously no key that sounds objectively better than others or everyone would just stick to that one.

D minor. The saddest of all keys.

EricTheWeary · December 2018

I was going to say I’ve not listened to him for years but I’ve listened to those two tracks now and enjoyed them immensely. Maybe I should dig out my Complete Recordings.
He has this very odd place in the history of the blues. Thrown up as a cult figure by the sixties blues boom having been almost a non entity up to that point and turned into this archetypal figure of the mysterious bluesman.
But there is this tremendous haunting quality to some of what he recorded.

NPP · December 2018

I was a teenager when I bought the three-record set of King of Delta Blues over 30 years ago. I did not find it quaint and inaccessible at all, quite the opposite, and it felt totally natural to play RJ in between ACDC, Zep, Clapton and SRV, all of whom I loved back then and still do. But then again I have long realised that the music I like revolves around the blues, understood in a (too) wide sense as ranging from Billie Holiday to ACDC.

Kilgore · December 2018

I much prefer modern interpretations of Johnson's work. It's the limitations of the recording process back in the 20's/30's that puts me off.

edenfield99 · December 2018

I love Robert Johnson, I'd rather (and do) listen to him more than most modern music, blues or otherwise. It's raw it's emotional and some of the songs still make the hairs stand up on the back of my neck.

edenfield99 · December 2018

Oh....and Billie Holliday is great too!

Lewy · December 2018

Yes you can't get away from the fact that you have to listen past the scratches and noise on the recordings. And they haven't always been well served by the people creating the assorted "remasters" - some of them have the most awful swooshing noises from the crude application of noise gates and such. If you listen to enough of them then you do start to develop the ability to filter it out, but you have to really have an active interest in this old material to get to that point. When I first heard RJs recordings I was like "screw that" and went back to listening to "After Hours" by Gary Moore (my gateway blues record). It was probably a decade later once I started trying to learn acoustic country blues that I revisited them with a different mindset.

Cols · December 2018

thumpingrug said:

And there's obviously no key that sounds objectively better than others or everyone would just stick to that one.

D minor. The saddest of all keys.

So what’s your favourite song in D minor?

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Robert Johnson?

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