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I don't agree! See The Beautiful South and Paul Heaton's take on the traditional love song "Song for whoever" and many of his songs about relationships. See Elvis Costello and his many hops across genres. It can be done but you have to think song first, guitar second.
There should be a voice, there should be something to say, ideally an understanding of the conversational nature of blues.
The yard is nothing but a fence, the sun just hurts my eyes...
However, the issue for me is the voices. Bb, freddie albert king etc didnt just have decent voices, imo they are some of the best ever recorded.
Out of the current crop JD has the best voice imo
In terms of “clean blues” Robert Cray - total package. Tone and chops, strong songs, excellent choice of covers, excellent voice.
The yard is nothing but a fence, the sun just hurts my eyes...
I think Robben Ford pretty much paved the way for the amazing-guitar-but-weak-vocals phenomenon...in the blues at least. Hendrix was maybe the first in any genre. Gary Moore was a bit club style too.
I have a lot of respect for people like Guthrie Trapp (obvs more country than blues although he plays amazing blues) who say "no...I could probably get away with it but it won't be very good" and get guest vocalists on their records.
Yes the “3 kings”, particularly BB in his prime, we’re also outstanding. Plenty of the old country blues singers were nothing special in the vocal department and tended to follow the same template.
Hooker is great but relatively one dimensional when you study the songs.
I think the “white mans blues” thing is waaay over played. Clapton, Green, Winter, Trucks et al are/were an equal to those of different skin tone. It’s all great music. Limiting respect only to those who worked the fields is short sighted.
Personally, I think his body of work has placed him equal to and in fact surpassing that of some of the original blues guys.
Where do you draw the line at how close music has to be to its origin to be considered worthy of merit? It’s a silly arguement. By that definition the greatest musical accomplishments were made with fife and drum on the cotton fields and all who came after are frauds. You don’t need to be a slave to “feel the blues”.