It was while studying at the Guitar Institute in London that I first realised that many players do not develop this part of their playing. This realisation prompted me to want to find a way that guitar players could learn this simple thing with the minimum of effort. Some of them could play every guitar solo Jimi Hendrix recorded, yet couldn’t name one single note!

My feeling was that most guitar players just didn’t want to spend time on something that they felt wouldn’t benefit them that much. Unless their practice time resulted in them learning a flash guitar lick they just didn’t want to know. Always one for a challenge, I decided it was my duty to show these poor souls the light. How would I do that?

I decided to use my good friend, Paul, as a guinea pig. Although he played quite well, he, like countless others, hadn’t learnt his fretboard. I asked him why. His reply went something like this: Why would I want to spend time learning the notes on the fretboard when I could be working on a Jimi Hendrix solo? No, it’s not for me, it just seems like so much effort for nothing. I’d rather learn a new chord shape or a hot guitar lick. I honestly don’t see the point.

Paul’s response was pretty much the same as the other people I asked. Waste of time, one said. I’ll probably get round to it one day, chirped another. Little did any of these people know, familiarising themselves with their fretboard would not only improve their guitar playing it would DRAMATICALLY improve their musicianship!! I set to work on Paul.

I wrote out a diagram of the fretboard with 12 frets and 6 strings. I then wrote in all the notes and handed it to Paul. What do you want me to do with this? he asked. I want you to learn it, I replied. Take it home, study it, and then let me give you a test. He wasn’t overly keen on doing this, but I managed to persuade him. I gave him two weeks to learn it all. He placed the sheet into his guitar case and took it away with him.

It was actually three weeks later that I next saw Paul. How did you get on with the fretboard study,? I asked him. Ok, he replied. Right, let me test you. Paul took out his guitar and placed it on his knee. Ok, an easy one to start. Show me an A on the 6th string. Paul thought for approx 15 to 20 seconds and then successfully placed his finger on the 5th fret. I congratulated him, Well done Let’s try another. Show me where to find an E flat on the 3rd string. Paul’s face sank. He thought about it, and then he thought some more, and then, he played me……F sharp! I was disappointed. Wrong! Let’s try another one. How about D on the 2nd string? This is quite an easy one, but once again, after some thought, Paul failed to find D. Ok, a C natural on the 3rd sring. Once again Paul couldn’t do it. I asked him why. Well, I did try, but it is just too mind numbingly boring. It’ll take ages for me to learn the whole neck, Paul complained. Now I couldn’t let this go. It wasn’t a light hearted challenge any more. Paul was going to learn the fretboard whether he liked it or not.

I set to work on an instructional booklet that would make learning the fretboard easy and fun. I also knew that I had to make it motivational and inspiring. I worked hard typing up the study. In 5 days I had a rough copy. I printed it off and took it round to Paul’s house. Not again, muttered Paul when I handed him the booklet. Just humour me, and give it one more go, I pleaded. He reluctantly agreed. I didn’t want to push my luck too much, so I quickly left and wished him well.

Four days later there was a loud knock on my front door. Ok, ok, I yelled as I rushed to answer it. As I pulled open the door, I found an extremely excited Paul with his guitar case in hand. Test me again, he demanded. He pushed past me to the living room and opened up his case. Go on, ask me any note on any string. I sat down and called out G flat on the 3rd string. The words had no sooner left my lips when Paul was on the 11th fret playing me the requested note. And another, my friend requested confidently. Ok, C sharp same string. Paul played the C sharp. I then asked for a D on the 1st string, an F sharp on the 2nd, a C on the 4th. Paul played each one without any hesitation. What do you think about that? he asked smugly. Oh no, I thought, I?ve created a monster!!!!

Paul then went on to play notes all over the neck, calling them out as they sounded. I couldn’t believe it, I knew my fretboard study was good but I didn’t expect these results. Paul was delighted. He thanked me for the study, and also for encouraging him to master his fretboard. He said he now knew what I had meant when I told him how much this knowledge would improve his playing. That study is dynamite, he told me. Maybe he had a point.

Now, a few years down the line, I realise just how true Paul’s words were. The study IS dynamite. I have used it with many of my students and they have all reported results that are equally as impressive as Paul’s. After much encouragement from my students and friends, I have now decided to make it available worldwide. For the small price of ?5.00 (five pounds), you too can experience what Paul did all those years ago, and also what countless other people are experiencing today. If you are serious about being a guitar player you really need to know your fretboard. Visit our website at www.jack-sky.com for your copy of this great ebook. You will not be disappointed.

Improve today – Grab the Fretboard Master!

Peter Jones is the Managing Director of Jack Sky Ltd. Based in the great city of Liverpool, Jack Sky is committed to providing 1st class guitar tutorials to all of its customers. A warm welcome awaits you at http://www.jack-sky.com

Similarly, musical improvisation is the act of writing (creating it as you play) a song while performing it, a technique found most often in jazz and bluegrass (but can be traced back to renowned classical improvisers like Handel and Bach). Of course, it’s a little more complicated than an imaginative children’s game. Though improvisation is a highly creative and flexible technique, it requires great skill on the part of the musician. A musician involved in an improvisation must have a detailed knowledge of chord structure and complicated scales and modes. The musician must also have an intuitive ability to structure a song on the fly; great improvisation thrives on its ability to sound not improvised but rather wholly composed. That illusion, the ability of a song to seem anything but spontaneously made up, is part of improvisation’s allure.

There are two basic forms of improvisation: structured improvisation and free improvisation. Structured improvisation, though a contradiction in terms, is the most common of the two. In this form, musicians will use a pre-determined series of chord changes, usually held down by the rhythm section, as the song’s base. The lead instrument in the improvisation (sometimes also pre-determined) then have the freedom to create new melodies and harmonies from these pre-determined chords. The flexibility of this improvisation form is dependent on the flexibility of the chord changes, and the musicians involved must be able to play exactly what they hear in their heads, as some complicated changes may not allow for large deviations.

If we were to improvise on a song such as Billy Boy, for example, we would follow the chord progressions of the song, but make up a different melody for it. Some musicians choose to stay fairly close to the melody by using neighboring tones and half-step slides and so on; other musicians feel free to completely abandon the traditional melody and make up a new melody entirely.

In addition to songs, many musicians in the jazz and rhythm & blues tradition improvise endlessly on the 12-bar blues, which has a chord progression using only the I, IV and V chords (also known as the primary chords of a given key) of whatever key the musicians are playing in. For example, if a jazz group was playing in the key of Bb, the improvisations would be based on the I, IV and V chords in the key of Bb: namely Bb, Eb, and F.

Of course musicians also add extra notes to chords such as the 7th — especially in the blues — and sometimes also change the harmony somewhat from time to time. But the recurring theme always reverts to the I – IV – V formula.

Free improvisation, on the other hand, is far more like a game of House or Doctor — it has no rules. Instead of focusing on harmony or melody, free improvisation focuses on the feeling and texture of the music and the way the instruments complement each other. This form tends to be far more experimental and rarely adheres to one style or genre or music — it is, quite simply, what it is.

Duane Shinn is the author of the popular free 101-week online e-mail newsletter titled Amazing Secrets Of Exciting Piano Chords & Sizzling Chord Progressions- Intelligent Piano Lessons For Adults Only! with over 84,400 current subscribers.

Today it?s just me up there on stage, looking out into the smoky lights. I know how many silhouettes are out there. Lot?s of ?em. It?s my charge to elicit a state change in them, or else their journey is for nothing. I?ve got play that perfect note, to the perfect rhythm; any sound at all that comes forth from this stage must be true, and come from me and only from me; not a cheep imitation of someone else. They can sense that which is authentic?they may not have properly considered this before, but deep down they know. Oh yes they will know.

Time warps. I see shadows moving in slow motion; no one connected with my production is moving fast enough for me. The sound check makes getting anyone?s attention that much more difficult. They are all somewhere else right now. My first task is to round ?em all back up. Where are they? Somewhere between gender tension, and release of inhibitions I suppose. I want them back as an audience though. And I will have that.

First song fires off and I see people glance up. The sound is weird. It?s not coming from me as much as it is coming from somewhere off to the side. That?s ok. Caught a fleeting glimpse of some bopping heads, and covert toe-tapping in the darkness. They begin to suspect that everyone in the room is part of something bigger than the sum of its players.

My next shot is going to be deadly accurate. I decide upon a Blues Shuffle. My bass string begins with a heartbeat. Bum-pa-bum-pa-bum-pa-bum. I see them looking up now. Heads begin bopping and several women are swinging their hips. Feet tap out seconds on the clock. Good sign indeed. But wait until I start hammering the six string, and ease that blues harp in?you haven?t heard anything yet! And then the harp begins wailing its woes. Telling its tragic tale, while the conversation fades into the darkness. I know they are somewhere out there staring like deer in the headlights. Gonna get you now. Some people rise to their feet when I belt out the growley g-man voice. Boom Boom Boom Boom. Mr. John Lee Hooker knew this.

This was his science lab.

The song builds and people begin to gape. They are in the net now, and many are wriggling like salmon on the deck. Sit back, relax, and let the blues carry you down stream.

Copyright (c) 2005 Gary Wesselhoff

Gary g-man Wesselhoff is an acoustic blues writer/performer woking the Chicago Metro area. You can contact him at: gman@gmanblues.com

Please Visit my site: http://www.gmanblues.com

Boogie originally started as a strictly piano form; the most familiar versions are still based solely around the instrument. The precise origin of boogie-woogie piano however is uncertain; it was no doubt influenced by early rough music played in the roadhouses and honky tonks in New Orleans and Kansas City and other cities and towns in the south.

A couple early boogie-men were W.C. Handy and Jelly Roll Morton, and as it grew in popularity many other pianists adopted the style. But as boogie became more and more popular, so too did the idea of including a whole band. Before long, the once solo genre adapted itself to accommodate an entire band. The latest versions of boogie often include guitar and other instruments, but the piano and drums remain the focal point. Even years later you can hear the influence of boogie in the music of Jerry Lee Lewis, Elvis, Johnny Cash, and many others.

Many boogies (but not all) are based on the familiar 12-bar blues, which is a series of chord progressions using just the I, IV, and V chords:

Typical 12-bar blues:

4 bars of the I chord

2 bars of the IV chord

2 bars of the I chord

2 bars of the V chord

2 bars of the I chord

then rinse and repeat

Here is a typical left hand boogie pattern in the key of C that can be played either as single notes or octaves or offset broken octaves:

C – E – G – A – Bb – A – G – E

C – E – G – A – Bb – A – G – E

F – A – C – D – Eb – D – C – A

C – E – G – A – Bb – A – G – D

G – B – D – E – F – E – D – B

C – E – G – A – Bb – A – G – E

Boogie is often credited as the originator of rock and roll, but that idea isn’t necessarily valid. While boogie definitely played some role in rock and roll’s early days, it was really rhythm and blues that started the form. Boogie, on the other hand, remained an off-shoot of blues and an entity in its own right. It also may have indirectly spawned a dance of the same name, a dance that led largely to boogie being credited as rock and roll’s most dominant predecessor.

The boogie dance, an upbeat and energetic social dance with small roots in swing, was danced mostly to rock and roll. It spread through teenage social circles like wildfire and became almost synonymous with rock and roll. As boogie (the dance) continued to grow through the 50s, boogie (the music) began to disappear from the limelight. And as it grew further and further from the mainstream, boogie’s captivating hold on audiences became understood as a product of the dance, not the music. The way in which the two forms of boogie were interchanged often led to confusion about where and when the form originated and how it related to the dance and the inception of rock and roll.

In any case, boogie is here to stay. It’s fun to play and fun to listen to.

Can you become a boogie-man or boogie-lady?

Duane Shinn is the author of the popular free 101-week online e-mail newsletter titled Amazing Secrets Of Exciting Piano Chords & Sizzling Chord Progressions- Intelligent Piano Lessons For Adults Only! with over 84,400 current subscribers.

http://www.playpiano.com

Boogie originally started as a strictly piano form; the most familiar versions are still based solely around the instrument. The precise origin of boogie-woogie piano however is uncertain; it was no doubt influenced by early rough music played in the roadhouses and honky tonks in New Orleans and Kansas City and other cities and towns in the south.

A couple early boogie-men were W.C. Handy and Jelly Roll Morton, and as it grew in popularity many other pianists adopted the style. But as boogie became more and more popular, so too did the idea of including a whole band. Before long, the once solo genre adapted itself to accommodate an entire band. The latest versions of boogie often include guitar and other instruments, but the piano and drums remain the focal point. Even years later you can hear the influence of boogie in the music of Jerry Lee Lewis, Elvis, Johnny Cash, and many others.

Many boogies (but not all) are based on the familiar 12-bar blues, which is a series of chord progressions using just the I, IV, and V chords:

Typical 12-bar blues:

4 bars of the I chord

2 bars of the IV chord

2 bars of the I chord

2 bars of the V chord

2 bars of the I chord

then rinse and repeat

Here is a typical left hand boogie pattern in the key of C that can be played either as single notes or octaves or offset broken octaves:

C – E – G – A – Bb – A – G – E

C – E – G – A – Bb – A – G – E

F – A – C – D – Eb – D – C – A

C – E – G – A – Bb – A – G – D

G – B – D – E – F – E – D – B

C – E – G – A – Bb – A – G – E

Boogie is often credited as the originator of rock and roll, but that idea isn’t necessarily valid. While boogie definitely played some role in rock and roll’s early days, it was really rhythm and blues that started the form. Boogie, on the other hand, remained an off-shoot of blues and an entity in its own right. It also may have indirectly spawned a dance of the same name, a dance that led largely to boogie being credited as rock and roll’s most dominant predecessor.

The boogie dance, an upbeat and energetic social dance with small roots in swing, was danced mostly to rock and roll. It spread through teenage social circles like wildfire and became almost synonymous with rock and roll. As boogie (the dance) continued to grow through the 50s, boogie (the music) began to disappear from the limelight. And as it grew further and further from the mainstream, boogie’s captivating hold on audiences became understood as a product of the dance, not the music. The way in which the two forms of boogie were interchanged often led to confusion about where and when the form originated and how it related to the dance and the inception of rock and roll.

In any case, boogie is here to stay. It’s fun to play and fun to listen to.

Can you become a boogie-man or boogie-lady?

Duane Shinn is the author of over 500 music books and music educational materials such as DVD’s, CD’s, musical games for kids, chord charts, musical software, and piano lesson instructional courses for adults. His book-CD-DVD course titled How To Play Chord Piano In Ten Days! has sold over 100,000 copies around the world. He holds advanced degrees from Southern Oregon University and was the founder of Piano University in Southern Oregon. He is the author of the popular free 101-week online e-mail newsletter titled Amazing Piano Lesson Secrets Of Exciting Piano Chords & Sizzling Chord Progressions with over 70,000 current subscribers.

For those of you who are turned on by horns, I recommend a small watering place in Cleveland called the Lake Shore Club.

There, Ted Witt and his Forest City Jazz Band hold forth on Saturday nights with the best music this side of New Orleans.

Located through the courtyard of an old motel, it is not the kind of joint you would wander into cold turkey. But, take my word, the surroundings are pleasant, the drinks unadulterated, the prices average, the food good and the clientele well dressed without ostentation.

I was introduced to jazz while stationed at the U.S. Naval base in Key West during World War II. The best honky-tonk in town had a small jazz combo of venerable black players, but the soul jerking notes poured out on those Sunday afternoons after church when the colored folks (their term) conducted a funeral.

No matter what day of the week a black person might happen to meet his Maker, the funeral was held on Sunday. Then the fishermen would be home, no one would lose wages, and the mood of religious contemplation would be deepest.

After regular morning services, lengthened by a substantial eulogy to the deceased, the march to the grave yard began. The coffin rode in one mule-drawn wagon and an assembly of horn players in another. The mourners marched behind in swallow-tail suits, high hats and formal dresses.

The parade to the cemetery was somber and featured plaintive hymns such as Just A Closer Walk With Thee, Old Rugged Cross, Amazing Grace, and Will the Circle Be Unbroken. Now, 30 years later, these tunes nearly break me up as bittersweet memories flood back.

The return from the cemetery, however, was jubilant as the marchers asserted their faith that their departed companion was well on his way to a just reward in heaven. Of course there was When The Saints Come Marching In, Washed In The Blood of Jesus, and Down By The Riverside. But there was also a lot of high stepping to Georgia Cakewalk, High Society and Muskrat Ramble.

It was a meaningful blend of sorrow, reverence, and Christian faith in a better life here after.

Since those days – now gone I am told by travelers to the southern-most Florida Key – I have pursued the blue and golden notes in New Orleans, Nashville, St. Louis, Memphis, and Chicago. For there, in the Mississippi Valley, is the true home of American jazz.

Strangely however, I have found the most creative practitioners of this unique American music in Key West, Cleveland, New York, and San Francisco. One of the characteristics that has made jazz great is its ability to be exported, and to be assimilated by diverse cultural communities.

Where did it all start?

Stephen Longstreet, the jazz historian, says it is best to begin in New Orleans, where the black man became in time a little lighter, and the white man often a little darker.

The French and the Spanish, the African tribesmen often with royal chief’s blood under their heavy muscles – and even the Indian peering in – the long boats from Kentucky, and the Yankee mountain men in buckskin fringes – in for a big bust and swallowing of untaxed whiskey – all wanted music, and helped make it, said Longstreet.

New Orleans mixed it all up, and churned it around, and made it a part of a new nation – that was part of a New World where anything could happen.

Today we call it history. But then it was simple people, wild people, pioneers and men on their way up in a hurry. All sang a lot and stomped around to music.

Whether it was in the Congo jungle of Africa or in the tromped-down grass of Congo Square in New Orleans, it was rhythm that started it all.

Music and dancing, said the white slave masters, made the Negroes too tired to work hard, so the wild people from Africa just clapped their hands at first.

Then they made a drum on the sly and brought it out – when the Master was off somewhere else subduing the passions of his own wild country – to remind them of their native jungles.

An old horn was snitched from some white man’s junk heap, or maybe a rusty old banjo was given by a keel boatman from Ohio who didn’t give a damn about plantations and cotton anyway.

At last the Negro had become part of musical America. He was ready to add a sense of freedom and lusty beat that created a new musical art form peculiar to the United States.

In time, jazz evolved through a variety of forms – spirituals, marches, cake walks, ragtime, blues and swing. But the basic foundation was always twelve 4-4 bars of singable notes.

Louis Satchmo Armstrong was the last of the Golden Generation of jazz musicians. Today we rely on the artistry of Pete Fountain, Turk Murphy, Al Hirt and Ted Witt to carry on the glorious tradition of authentic jazz.

Ted Witt is great on the licorice stick and still belts out a few numbers on the fish horn soprano sax made famous by Sidney Bechet. Ted’s other front men, Emmett Wiley on the slip horn and Dick Petscher on trumpet, are ably supported by John Bittance on bass, Bert Smith at the piano, Al Gutheim on the skins, and Bill Morehead on banjo.

Somehow, when those guys cut loose, such things as the economy, Watergate, and Mideast wars don’t seem all that important.

September 18, 1974 .

Click here to see this article on Lindsey Williams’s website

.

Lindsey Williams is a Sun columnist who can be contacted at:

LinWms@earthlink.net or LinWms@lindseywilliams.org

Website: http://www.lindseywilliams.org with over a thousand of Lin’s Editorial & At Large articles written over 40 years.

Also featured in its entirety is Lin’s groundbreaking book Boldly Onward, that critically analyzes and develops theories about the original Spanish explorers of America. (fully indexed/searchable)

We’re not talking here about the cliches of Line Dancing, Stetsons and songs about losing Wife, Dawg and Car (not necessarily in that order).

What we’re talking about is music with attitude, whether that be protest songs, introspective ballads or just plain old bad-ass hell-raising good time music – country yes, but Americana is also rock, blues, traditional bluegrass and even soul. Music without boundaries, held together by a common thread of realism, honesty and heart.

You like Springsteen and Neil Young? Well, Steve Earle is probably the most high profile name in Americana. If you’re a fan of The Boss and Neil Young in equal measures and you haven’t come across the phenomena that is Steve Earle then do yourself a favour and get hold of ‘Guitar Town’ or ‘Copperhead Road’ and see what you’ve been missing.

A whole new generation of singer-songwriters influenced by pre-’Achy, Breaky Heart’ country music are making their mark today, inspired by another anti-hero Townes Van Zandt (a better songwriter than Dylan, many would say). And don’t think Americana music is a closed-shop club of world-weary men. Take a listen to Tift Merritt as an example of a young girl with vocals as soulful and powerful as Aretha, or Patty Griffin, who can fell a person at fifty feet with her soaring vocals and incisive lyrics, and can blow you away with the hardest rocking alternative guitar music around.

So you don’t want deep and introspective? Okay, Shooter Jennings might be just up your street – the son of Waylon, Shooter has hung out with Guns’n'Roses and obviously listened to Ted Nugent as a kid. Good time music, next generation. Take a listen on a road trip and you’ll be singing along. Guaranteed.

Americana has its own association, and it is close to having its own Billboard chart. But Americana is independent; the Americana Music Association could just as easily have been named the Awkward Musicians Association. It is a free spirit, embraces all comers and loves the diversity of the dobro, mandolin, Les Paul and Stratocaster. It is conservative and liberal in equal measures and pretty darn hard to pin down.

In 2005 the Americana Music Association celebrated its 4th annual Honors and Awards ceremony which was held for the first time at the famous Ryman Auditorium in Nashville Tennessee, the spiritual home of Country Music. The AMA is happy to co-exist with the Country Music Association, but where the CMA Awards are a glitzy, showbiz affair, the AMA Awards are more down home, more real. Heck, they even have a ‘Freedom of Speech’ award.

Americana music is deserving of your attention. The Americana Music Association is run by people who care deeply about the music, about its influence and about retaining the true spirit of traditional music and traditional values. Yes, we love our Country Music and our singer-songwriters and our Texan attitudes, but you won’t find any inverted snobbery about Shania, Tim or Faith.

So, enough words … track down the music and judge for yourself.

Sally Smart has been running a successful Booking and Promotions agency for US acts touring the UK for a number of years. She has recently expanded the business into retail by opening a dedicated Americana online CD and download store.

Smart Choice Music for the best in Country and Americana

Lookin? at the stats for my web-site; four percent of my traffic this month comes from Thailand.

It kinda makes me think that the blues is universal and even in Thailand they get the blues. So I surfed and guess what? They?ve got the blues! They?ve got Creole Samui playing Thai blues at a New Orleans Style bar (except instead of serving Hurricanes, they serve Typhoons), The Big Buddha Blues Band (they get down?with purpose no doubt), and also the Soi Dog Blues Band?(and you thought dog was a delecacy)?

It?s universal I tell you. Last month the United Kingdom and Hungary took an interest in my site, a few folks from the Netherlands poked around there too. It?s a small world after all. It would be cool to do an MTV type video based on Wallyworld’s ?It?s a small, small world ride, where the boat would be sailing down the river, and it would be BLUES PLAYERS from all over the world singin? their woes in miniature jail cells, unemployment lines, flop houses, and alleyways.

The blues may have started in the Mississippi Delta, but it has spread to all ends of the earth?not the blues proper, but the expression of it. It?s a story that has to be told; Over and Over and Over. The blues, the whole Blues, and nothin? but the Blues.

Gary g-man Wesselhoff is an acoustic blues writer/performer woking the Chicago Metro area. You can contact him at: gman@gmanblues.com

Powerful Blues Music Is Officially Born

While the lyrics of blues songs seem soulful and sad, the music itself is quite powerful and emotive filled with rhythm and celebrating the life of black Americans. What makes this kind of music appealing is its reflection of their daily lives, talking about sex, drinking, poverty, love lost, hard labor anything they experienced.

Among the first documented blues is W C Handys Memphis Blues in 1909. The music grew in popularity and when the 78-RPM phonograph came in the late 1920s Paramount, Aristocrat and other record labels recorded some of the famous country blues artists. Around 1941-1943, field recordings of blues men were made in their surroundings by famous blues folklorist Alan Lomax. This is significant because thats how the white folks got introduced to the blues. Budding artists got exposure to some national record labels.

Blues Travels North

The blacks migrated North during the Great Depression along the route of the Illinois Central Railroad toward Chicago, bringing with them blues music. With huge crowds gathering to enjoy this, performers like Muddy Waters and Howlin Wolf switched to electric guitars and also included drum sets to their bands. This became even more powerful than the original blues. There was a lull until the late 1950s when The Kingston Trio recorded the chart topper, Tom Dooley, and gave birth to the folk revival in 1958. The Newport Folk Festival then brought back folk and blues music to the white American people till 1966.

What followed later was a merging of blues with rock forming the rock blues bands of the 1960s and 1970s. Some artists faithful to the form were The Rolling Stones, John Mayall, Led Zeppelin.

Types of Blues Music

There are four types of blues music. The Deltas blues is said to be the original being played by the black men from the Mississippi delta region, using the piano or harmonica. The style was a call and response lyrical framing. Then we have the Chicago Blues, which used electric amplification of voice using mics, drum sets and electric guitars. The Texas Blues are similar to the Chicago blues. In the early 1960s originated the Blues-rock, which was directly influenced by the Delta and Chicago blues.

by

Werner Wichmann – http://www.electricguitarz.com

More articles at Database for Articles

So, we know that every town can have a stab at a claim to fame on the generating genre list. Its not difficult for the Liverpudlians to shout Cilla Black or Gerry and the Pacemakers in front of a passing tourist. They dont even have to mention the B word too much these days. Even Leeds can boast the more recent Sisters Of Mercy; probably one of the most innovative bands from the Goth movement, but, hold fast, there are more obscure places to go and find the birth of great names. What about Cobham in Surrey who gave us Peter Gabriel and who can forget Stanmore in Middlesex who gave us Billy Idol? So who have we been able to identify as more than just a blotch on the British music industry from this historic city?

Well, delving through the deepest depths of the back of my mind, I came up with two bands who have graced us with their enigmatic presence. The first of these bands are almost certainly going to be figures of the Sixties generation. Back in the midst of the psychedelic decade, long haired, introverted students were busily working away on their own stunning slants of already secure music themes. It wasnt just The Beatles that we got all unnecessary about by any stretch of the imagination. The youth of the day were shifting into a pattern of generating their own angles of music that their parents had been brought up on. The British Blues scene took its turn at peaking around the late Sixties with such sounds from John Mayall, Eric Clapton and Peter Green. Born out of the inspiration of the ever changing social acceptance of free thinking, a certain band flung themselves onto the general public from Nottingham and they eventually called themselves, Ten Years After. Appearing as though they had all failed the audition for Easy Rider, and with Leo Lyons, their bass guitarist looking more like Frank Zappa, these three individuals came together an created some of the greatest British born Blues around.

Although they may not light up any seasonal fire crackers in your minds, they will have made their presences felt throughout the revolutionary British Blues scene. Solidifying true Southern U.S blues with a predominately white guitar feel, they embarked on a historic career that has never really ended. Even though British Blues artists had been smouldering away in the privacy of their own bedrooms since the late Fifties, it was, strangely and literally, ten years after that this sound from the now, heavenly regarded, artists of that time, really came to the fore. It was great musicians like Alvin Lee, of Ten Years After, that gave us the backbone of a lot of the rock music we still listen to today.

Thankfully, they are still going strong and sounding just as exciting and revolutionary as they did forty years before, they just look like our dads now; bearded, friendly and trusting like a well behaved Spinal Tap, they undoubtedly, can still rock. For future gigs and contact, please go to www.ten-years-after.com.

The next influential band to come out of the Robin Hood city was a band that need no formal introduction. Tindersticks plunged head first into our ears initially as the strangely titled, Asphalt Ribbons. Quite where this name originated, I dont know, and even so, it was not under this name that they found any great success. Yet, it was the three musicians plus three more that gave us the name that stayed fast. Although, they never appeared to conger up any real critical acclaim, they did have a fairly memorable album, The Second Tindersticks Album, that landed the position of number 13 in April 1995. Describing them to a complete stranger is rather a difficult task as they did seem to create a genre all of their own. Not quite fitting into a known category, other than chamber pop, they may have been brushed casually with the title of Goth Gods, although this would have been better felt to be at the most extreme end of the scale where Goth may have met Country on a unique and totally accidental night

One thing was for certain, they somehow found the same frequency as a few other darkly spirited romantics floating around at the time. As the colourful craziness of the Eighties came to an abrupt halt and the more monochromed moroseness of the Nineties began, Tindersticks found themselves an audience that was surprisingly and completely at their mercy. Their depressingly precise lyrics and heart aching melodic music was quite the tonic for the faint hearted. Even though they were fundamentally a band who produced meaningful prose and wistful string arrangements, they were not unlike the pensive side of Lou Reeds Velvet Underground. The brooding vocals of Stuart Staples in Tindersticks was enough to melt the most coldest of souls. His emotion altering lyrics shifted darkly and absorbingly through the aching tunes and mournful chords, that the listener felt quite dragged in to his doom and gloom world. Perhaps making what we knew as mainstream Goth more along the lines of Stock, Aitken and Waterman..

Despite their bleak outlook, their beauty came from their traditionally perfected arrangements. Their music, although noose-needing, spelt out a theme that probably applies to us all at some stage in our lives. What Tindersticks gave us was an alleyway; destitute and deathly as it was, but a path when, on such down trodden moments, we might just find a guiding light. These glamorously laced themes dripping with personal failure were beautifully crafted with such musical skill that the songs seem practically timeless. It could well be argued that there never was, nor will there ever be, a band with such a gentle, inoffensive sound quite like Tindersticks. Find out more about this uniquely accomplished band at www.tindersticks.co.uk.

Since the two above mentioned bands slot into the filing cabinet of our minds of bands from Nottingham, they couldnt really be any further apart in the genre sense. Yet they are just as important to mention as any other, more famous name from anywhere esle. Both just as inspirational now to up and coming bands as others were to them in past decades. With this in mind, and with these two enchantingly professional groups, perhaps it is about time that we were graced with another band or artist from this city

michelle duffy 2006

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