In blues music, there's a lot of borrowing, so it's often difficult to identify the originator of a song.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
The blues echoes right through into soul, R&B and hip hop. It's part of the make-up of modern music. You can't turn your back on the blues.
The blues are like the fugue in 18th century. It's probably the music that belongs most to our time.
The blues tells a story. Every line of the blues has a meaning.
I think that the blues is in everything, so it's not possible to neglect it. You hear somebody go 'Ooh ooh oooh,' and that's the blues. You hear a rock n' roll song. That's the blues. Somebody playing a guitar solo? They're playing the blues.
I've always tried to defend the idea that the blues doesn't have to be sung by a person who comes from Mississippi, as I did.
Popular music has always been rooted in the blues, whether it's Adele or Led Zeppelin or Sam Cooke. It's just the beat that changes.
What you have to understand is that blues... it's in a line from the oldest forms of African music. If you're playing it like it's an echo of the past, it would be a lot less exciting, but this music lives today.
The blues is nothing but a story... The verses which are sung in the blues is a true story, what people are doing... what they all went through. It's not just a song, see?
The first time I ever heard the blues, my parents had a stack of records that they weren't using anymore. I found them when I was ten; I didn't know what it was. But I found Lightnin' Hopkins.
The blues is deceptively simple. Verse and chorus. Sometimes not even a chorus. Four bars that repeat, no Auto-Tune, electricity optional. It is the most direct, bare-bones of content. There is no interference between the head and heart.