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Classic Vinyl

With John Gardiner, At Stratford

Music in the 1960's: Buried Alive in the Blues

Tuesday, September 24, 2002

I can't remember whose album is called "Buried Alive in the Blues", or what decade it's from, but the phrase could certainly have been used to describe the '60's, when awesome blues bands just sort of sprang to life all over the place. As I'm writing this, I'm listening to Cream's album, "Wheels of Fire" and the tune "Sitting On Top of the World". Quite seriously, folks, it doesn't get any better than this.
For my money, the golden period of 1960's electric blues was from about 1965 right through to the end of the decade, and then even a bit into the '70's with groups like the Allman Brothers, who started in the '60's, but gained popularity well into the next ten-year span as well.
Now you've got to remember that really all of the popular music we listen to here in the 21st century (man, does that sound weird) is based in the blues in one way or another. From rock 'n' roll, to country, to swing, to most croonin' favourites, there's usually a good chunk of the blues hidden away in the chord progression.
I first became aware of the blues as a genre one day while I was visiting Sam the Record Man in Toronto back in about '66. I heard the coolest tunes being played over the store's sound system and ended up buying an album called, "British Blues Beginnings" with guys like Cyrill Davis and the All-Stars on it – Cyrill being the first guy to record the electric blues harp, according to some circles. Then, there was a bit of primitive and poorly-recorded Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page. It wasn't much, but it turned me on.
I should add, though, that I was also very much into the garage band scene back in the mid-1960's, and when we got together for a jam, we played almost nothing but the blues. I suppose that's why I started listening to it as well.
I started to search out Clapton and Page, got into Alvin Lee with Ten Years After, and then there were bands like Canned Heat and Savoy Brown. And, of course, the one that hit with the biggest commercial success – the Stones. There were bands like Santana with outstanding versions of classic blues tunes like "Black Magic Woman". Even Fleetwood Mac was an amazing blues band before going poppy on us.
I mean, the list just goes on and on. The biggies like Jimi Hendrix and Led Zepplin were really blues acts when you stripped everything away. Jeff Beck's first big solo success after the Yardbirds (a huge mid-60's blues band that featured Clapton, Page and Beck at different points) was with the album "Truth". It gave Rod the Bod his start and was the Bod's best work on tunes like "Shapes of Things" and "Rock My Plimsoul". It is a pure blues album with Nicki Hopkins doing keyboards and should be in any classic rock record collection.
A special mention should go to two of the earlier electric blues acts that had a large influence on everything that came later. First would be John Mayall, who showed us the true potential of guys like Clapton, and the other is Paul Butterfield, who brought us Mike Bloomfield and had a guy named Elvin Bishop playing rhythym guitar in his band (strange, but true).
The Canadian rock scene was right in step with the blues revolution happening on other musical fronts. After all, Rompin' Ronnie Hawkins is credited with bringing rock 'n' roll to Canada and his unique brand of rockabiliy has an enormous blues flavour and is mostly built around the 12-bar blues progression.
There were some awesome Canadian blues bands back in the golden era. There were acts like King Biscuit Boy and Crowbar and McKenna, Mendleson Mainline (spawned by the likes of the Ugly Duckings in an earlier blues-influenced era). Indeed, Dominic Triano was one of the most underrated blues guitar players of his era.
I could go on all night about this, becuase some of it is my favourite music of all time. The blues in nearly all of the music we listen to today, but its importance is mostly lost on the younger generation, who seem to have lost the ability to jam. And jamming the blues used to be the one big way to practice the art of spontaneous creativity. Because that's really what 1960's electric blues was all about – making it up as you go along. And that's something we could a lot more of in this day and age.



John Gardiner is a 25-year-veteran of the community newspaper business, but he is also a prolific writer of moralistic short fiction he refers to as "emotional thoughtscapes" or "adult fables". Samples of his fiction can be found at:

He has also produced a noteworthy piece of humanist philosophy which can be found at:

http://www.xs4all.nl/~aboiten/ad502.htm

He welcomes comments on his work.