Topic: Country Blues: What do you want to hear?

[Johnm]

Hi all,
I have been wondering for some time what people who consider themselves aficionados of country blues are looking for in the music they listen to, whether we're talking about historic recorded performances, the music of present-day performers, or, for aficionados who are also players themselves, what qualities they are striving for in their own music.
I'd be interested to hear what people have to say about these questions, so I hope folks will post their own thoughts as to what they are looking for in the music they listen to and play.  Let's refrain from judging or arguing about what people's musical wants and needs are, and just take a look at the different ways people hear and experience the music.  I'm interested in these questions both as a teacher and as a player.  I think I'll wait a while before posting my own interests so things are not pointed to much in one direction starting out.  Thanks for your thoughts and I encourage anyone who would care to, to get the ball rolling.
All best,
Johnm 

[dj]

Thanks for asking a nice, small, easily answered question, John!  

I think I listen to country blues (or any blues, or any music), I'm generally interested in it on three levels:

1) Musical.  Obviously, I'm interested in music that moves me emotionally and engages me intellectually.  That's a pretty broad category, and it gets broader every year as I hear more and learn more.  More specifically, interesting or unusual lyrics catch my ear and draw me into a song.  Sometimes I like to try to listen to songs as a whole, to try to really hear every part, instrumental and vocal, all at once, and to hear how they relate to each other.  But then again, I like to listen to an individual instrument or voice repeatedly and in detail, to hear what the player is really doing.  Transcribing lyrics or trying to notate an instrumental part is a good way for me to do this.  I love fluffed notes, forgotten lyrics, and studio mistakes in general, as they force me to remember the human being that's making the music.  The most frustrating thing for me when I listen to this music is that I don't have a better memory.  I'd really like to be able to hold it all in my head in great detail, something I can all to rarely do.  Edited to add:  I guess at this stage in my life I've come to believe that there's something of musical interest in almost every recording, and it's up to me to find that and appreciate it.

2) Historical.  How everything relates to everything else.  Who sang the same lyric earlier, and who sang it later.  Who the person I'm listening to was influenced by, and who they influenced.  What the lyrics mean in their historical context.  How styles are evolving.  Who played on a record, when it was recorded and for what label.  How an individual song fits into the whole body of music.

3) Cultural.  I think that's one of the things that drew me to this music originally; it just seems like it's coming from a place that's so close to the world I live in, yet at times so far away, and the music is a way of looking into this world.  That sounds kind of flighty and romantic, I know, so let me put it more concretely.  When I was 20 years old, I moved out of my parents' house for the first time.  I moved about 2 miles down the road, and found myself living in the black section of Hopewell Junction, New York.  I was 20 years old, had lived just outside of this hamlet of what was then a few hundred people all my life - I had a grandmother, aunts, uncles, and cousins, living in the hamlet itself - and until then I never knew Hopewell Junction HAD a black section.  But there it was, north of the railroad tracks along route 376 and along a little dirt road called Purse Lane.  I feel like country blues up through the early 60s is kind of like that, something that's right there if you look for it but that is so easy to walk right past and miss.  While I'm talking about that time of my life, I should add that something else happened then and there that really profoundly shaped my interest in this music.  My landlords were a lovely elderly couple, George and Olga Cuzzens.  I was crazy about the blues, and George made this comment to me:  "A lot of kids listen to this music, and what they hear in it is an excuse to drink and womanize and carry on.  (That would have been me!)  But it's music that we would come home from work and put on a record and sit down and talk and relax to, just with the family and friends."  Of course, George's ideas of the blues ran more towards Jimmy Rushing and the like, but that comment for some reason hit me like a 2 by 4, and kind of fundamentally changed the way I've seen the music ever since.                  

Well, I'm not sure I've answered your question at all, but that's the first stuff that came into my mind as I thought about it.  Maybe I'll do better later.

[Johnm]

Thanks very much for responding, dj.  That's the stuff!  There's no need to change anything on my account.
All best,
Johnm

[Mr.OMuck]

Great response DJ. Love the autobiographical details, makes it real.

What i want from this music has changed emphasis over the years but still includes first and foremost the sense of connecting with another human being across time, space and culture in a deep way. Then, i think I am attracted to the unexpected in music, the large or small idiosyncrasies that keep me off balance and in a state of delighted anticipation of the next invention. Humor has come to take precedence for me over tragedy or profundity, hence my love of Big Bill Broonzy's music in which not only the lyrics but the music itself is often hilarious, witty, offbeat, funky and threatening to crash and burn from being played at breakneck speed. I find an inexhaustible supply of anti-depressant therapy in his playing and singing.
Singing has a lot to do with what I look for. Is the voice captivating, expressive, communicative as in Herman Johnson's understated approach, or extraordinary for its use of ornament or unusual timbres like Sleepy John Estes' or Skip James'. Does it summon the blood like Bessie Smith's(in truth NO One does this for me like Bessie Smith) or issue a clarion call to the spiritual like Gary Davis'?
Then there's the guitar playing. Here i seem to prefer stuff with drive and intensity and a lot going on.
Once again humor and wittiness are things I gravitate towards. Having said all that though, I also think Libba Cotton's playing is sometimes transcendently beautiful, in the same aesthetic neighborhood as Gould playing Bach.
Lyric content has become less important to me than the actual sounds that emerge as a result of the lyrics, but occasionally there is a meshing of word and music that is close to perfect and amazingly satisfying. Bukka White's strange place blues has always hit me as an extraordinarily naked, brave and moving song dealing with the death of his mother and its implications for his later life. Universal and at the same time utterly personal it s one of the few examples i've encountered in art to take on this uncomfortable subject. I'm just remembering the beginning of Joyce's Ulysses which also treats this subject. Rare company.I'm sure there are others..Van Gogh's death bed portrait of his mother rarer company still.
Sometimes I'm just lookin' for a cool deep, drinking companion groove of the type Lightnin' Hopkins delivers also with one of my favorite voices, or a made for love groove like John Lee Hooker's or a funky juke joint dance groove like Smokey Babe's.
Maybe at this point in my life I'm lookin' for anything of value, any talented soul took the time and trouble to leave behind for me to enjoy and this music truly contains an embarrassment of riches.

[dj]

first and foremost the sense of connecting with another human being across time, space and culture in a deep way

Well said, O'Muck.  That's a lot of what I was trying to get at, but you said it so much more elegantly than I.

Lyric content has become less important to me than the actual sounds that emerge as a result of the lyrics

Interesting that you should say that, as I've gone in almost the opposite direction, from caring mostly about the sound of the voice and occasionally noticing lyrics to taking a deep interest in the lyrics, how they're put together, and what the artist may have been trying to say and, especially, how a contemporary audience might have perceived them.   

[blueshome]

You really know how to ask them John.

I was drawn to this music in my teens by the fact that it possessed a certain "something" that just hit a nerve and has continued to do ever since to the extent that I'm basically a blues fascist, nothing else will do, other music just doesn't feel right to me. I don't know why, and am way past caring, because I enjoy listening to it so much.  I'm sure my attitude was partly tempered by my take on events at the time (early 60's re US Civil Rights, apartheid etc) and of a certain teenage romanticism about these fellows wandering the streets and playing and living an outlaw kind of life but it was still something in those sounds??

As to what is I listen for, I find it difficult to analyse and express in words.
Perhaps it's better put in the context of some of the leading performers I "appreciate" rather than  enjoy listening to repeatedly, despite their undoubted virtuosity - examples are  MJH, Lonnie Johnson,Leadbelly, Blind Blake. On the other hand, performers such a B.W.McTell, Memphis Minnie, Bo Carter, Tampa Red, Kokomo Arnold, King Solomon Hill, amongst many, hit the spot for me. I wish I knew exactly why, as they are a diverse bunch.

With regard to performing I suppose I end up synthesising the sounds of the old stuff I've been listening to for the best part of 50 years to produce arrangements which generally aren't attempts at mimicry but try to capture the "feel" of old guys with varying degrees of success according to both my playing and singing abilities.

Sorry it doesn't really go far to answering the questions John, I'm afraid I'm too much "I know it when I hear it" type to do better. I'm hoping that other folks replies might help me define the "it".

[eagle rockin daddy]

John,

Great topic here, I've been thinking about it for a day or so, and I'm just as confused as when I started thinking...I'll put down a few thoughts, and probably add more as my ideas evolve by reading this thread.

I sometimes wonder why I love this music so much, and why I have devoted so much time in order to learn how to actually play it.  I try and recall back to when I was young, and heard folks like Paul Geremia, Roy Bookbinder, Rev. Davis, Andy Cohen, Chris Smither, Bill Hinckley, David Bromberg, Van Ronk, etc, play this stuff at our local coffee house, and I was just drawn to this.  I loved the sound, how much you can get out an acoustic guitar using this technique, and I just remember thinking 'I want to do that!'  It wasn't about attracting girls, or even performing, there was just some connection to the music that was simply there.  So I set about learning it.  I've never really been interested in the ethnomusicology like some here, perhaps because when I learned this, in the late '60's, the 20's and 30's didn't seem so far away as it does now.  For some reason this music well played just stops me in my tracks.  The other day I was listening to Blind Blake, songs I've listened to thousands of times, and I'm still stunned.  I mean, the sound just does something to me that causes me to stop, listen and feel  something, I'm not sure what but I like it.  Same with Rev. Davis, but where Blake is more good time stuff, funny stuff about life's silliness, Rev. Davis pulls out the spiritual.  When I listen to 'There's a Bright Side Somewhere', I feel it.  The inflection of his voice, the playing, how he seems to lose himself in the music to share his feeling and belief in redemption and God through music reaches deep to Spirit, and I feel one with him.  Contemporary artist do the same thing, see the list above, plus many many others.

I'm starting to get a bit out there now, but I guess I find a real profound spiritual aspect to a lot of this.   Over the years, I've struggled with issues relating to performance, creativity, and why this music.  I may have mentioned here and there a book called 'the Artist's Way' that explains these issues in a way that works for me.  The author Julia Cameron basically says that we all are given gifts by a higher power, who I call God, and when we use share these gifts with others, we are thanking God, and creating a connection with each other that helps us remember and feel our true spiritual origins. (ok, I know this is spiritual stuff, and I hope I'm not bothering anyone, but this is just for me).  So I feel this way about this music, and I don't question this too much.  I mean I can play this stuff, which a lot of folks can't, and I have been around great players who have showed me how to play it, so how can I question that too much?

Now back to more worldly issues.  I love the rhythm of this stuff.  I love songs that talk about everyday events in a fun way that we can share, like fishin blues. I love funny songs, like Travelin Man, that have a historical context and purpose that I can appreciate through the humor.  I love the challenge of the technique, that has allowed me to express my musical thoughts in a way that I can understant and is fun.  Some people play cards, collect stuff, sew things, I struggle with playing 'West Coast Blues.'  Dunno why.

I also love the people I have met through this music.  Whenever I meet someone who appreciates this stuff, and even plays it, for some reason I just feel a connection there that I like.  I guess when I get down to it, I feel like O'Muck does, that this music, like all art, gives me that feeling of connection with my fellow human beings in a real way, and I like that.  O'muck, being a true artist explains this better than I ever can.

I will try and get into more specifics, more tangible ideas as this thread goes on.  Perhaps that is what John is looking for? but for me, as time goes by, much of the attraction of this music is part of a spiritual plane.

Mike

[Norfolk Slim]

It is as suggested, a massive question and not one Id really considered properly.  Its really such a wide thing, that whatever answer I give feels like ive missed something out...

Distilling as best as I can, I think I'm looking for an intensity that is (or at least seems) absolutely genuine and natural. I used to find that intensity only in real upbeat numbers, delivered with a powerful vocal. As a kid I generally loved fast aggressive music- starting out with the rockiest of my dad's rock and roll records, and then moving on to the likes of Public Enemy- full of hard (and often very complex, unlike most rap music I overhear today) rhythms and rage / energy.

Thinking about it for the sake of answering John's query- I realise that its far wider than that.  The intensity can come from harmony (or more likely slight disharmony), rhythm, lyrics (though to a lesser extent on the whole) and overall timbre.  I love Blake's playing- its not harsh and aggressive but the intensity of the rhythms is stunning because of the complexity and precision in them- and the variation.

Its important to note the distinction between complexity and intensity.  One doesn't necessarily follow the other.  I can think of highly complex rhythms and melodies which do nothing for me at all because they are too clean, too smooth, even though they must take remarkable skill and concentration from the performer.

The more I type this- the more I agree with Phils "know it when I hear it" approach- but its a fascinating intellectual introspective exercise to try to figure some of it out.

I love to hear a genuine clean acoustic sound.  No gimmicks, no effects.  To get a superficially intense sound with electronics, distortion etc etc is pretty easy, but essentially unsatisfying to me.  I enjoy Rory Block's playing but her recent albums (tributes to Johnson and House) whilst techncially great, are played through a twangy pickup, which takes the soul out of it for me.

Voices are something which I have become passionate about - and will explain my view to any poor mug that will listen.  I think we are trained, in the western world to recognise what is a "good" voice and to dismiss anything that doesnt fit.  Its not a conscious thing even, we just talk in terms of whether people have good or bad voices.

It was so liberating when I realised that (mainly through blues) I had left that behind and actually enjoy and appreicate a voice for what it is- which is a highly personal instrument.  The personality in a voice is all important.  Of course, there are still lousy singers and people who sing badly out of tune, but in a voice I no longer look necessarily for the qualities that society tells us singing voices should have, but rather a personal connection with the artist, and a sound and tone which is (1) all the artist's own and (2) uninhibited and just let free to sing.

Another overiding thing is to have sounds that are constantly a surprise to the ear.  Whether rhythm, tone or melody- to have something which takes the music (even if only for a moment) somewhere that feels different or even unnatural is great.  I figure that is a big part of the blues- in as much as those discordant moments, the flattened thirds, the bent notes, those grungy noises that some of the old guys made, are all unnatural to my western ear, even though I now expect to hear them.  

Its perhaps no coincidence that my non-blues tastes have rarely been  mainstream- and the musicians I listen to have always tended to have an edgy quality.  Tori Amos (harmonically and vocally plain weird at times, lyrics full of edge), Tindersticks (full of complex rhythm not expected in songs, unusual melodies,  powerful and sometimes discordant arrangements) being two examples that immediately come to mind.

Well I've made a start- I suspect there's years of thinking to be done on this subject....

Oh- and I forgot dynamics- there was a great article on the IGS site some years ago by a sound engineer who explained how 90% of modern music is compressed to hell, and produces a graph shaped like a rectangle with no variation.  When I started listening out for it, I began to realise what made a lot of the things I was hearing so dull.  All the ingredieients for a good song might be there, but with all the dynamics missing through over production, something just doesnt engage with me.  Until this was pointed out to me, I hadnt realised what it was that was missing.  Its like leaving the garlic out of something.  You dont miss the taste unless you are looking for it, but somehow there's something missing.

[Stuart]

Great question, John, and the all of the answers have been well thought out and very insightful as well.

When I thought about this, my mind jumped to the "before the beginning" stage--back to the point before I had consciously heard Country Blues, back in 1968 or so. Since I had yet to hear CB, I did not know what I wanted to hear. But I once I had heard it, I then knew that I wanted to hear more of it, and I knew what I wanted to hear when I heard it. I guess the best way to put it was that it turned on the obvious nature of pre-analytic thought.

It has been said that music is an emotional language, with all of it's components functioning together as a complete whole. Maybe I was like a little kid, who when learning a language, doesn't think about it--the brain and mind figures it out in background. It's what we use to express ourselves and to understand others. To connect with others on an meaningful level, to paraphrase Mr. O.

This is probably not a satisfactory response and not what you are looking for, but it is what came to mind, so I thought that I should post it.

[frankie]

It shouldn't be so hard to describe what I like, but it is, for some reason...

I like music that:

- makes me feel like I'm being let in on something

- sounds real (hard to quantify)

- has loose ends, but strong rhythm

good god, I'm starting to sound like kim...

I know that I like it if it feels like it wells up inside me

the guitar is best if there's a happy thumb

[Prof Scratchy]

For me it's always been music with secrets to unlock. How did they do that?? How did they invent that style, tuning, that technique, that regional variation, that vocal oomph? When I first got a guitar it was the 1950's. Guitar playing was a boom chang or thrash affair then. Then I heard muddy Waters, Big Bill Broonzy, Sonny and Brownie, Josh White, Leadbelly. For two years in about 64-66 I bought every Leadbelly I could get my hands on. The man/myth/legend stuff came second to the quest to get that sound. No liner notes (as I recall) ever gave away the secret of the low tuning and the unison third course of strings. And some liner notes ("zither accompaniment") were downright misleading. Added to the mystery though, and the hunger to unlock those secrets. Also in '64, John Lee Hooker turned up one night at the Troutbeck Hotel in Ilkley, West Yorkshire. All night I stood two feet away from him and watched him play, one after the other, a series of songs in E. E and nothing else. Now by that time I'd mastered the E chord. Why couldn't I make it sound like that? Another mystery and set of secrets to unlock. Needless to say when I encountered Memphis Minnie and Kansas Joe, Blind Blake, Robert Johnson, Georgia Tom and Tampa Red, Ramblin' Thomas - all within months of one another in 1967/68, I was subject to a sensory overload from which I've never recovered. Now - the time has come when I have to throw in the towel in my quest to unlock everybody's secrets. If I can fake a pastiche, an essence of somebody's style and then make it my own, I'm as happy as Larry. And when I see contemporary players with brilliant ears, who are hearing a lot more than I am and have worked out how to do it, I'm not averse to stealing a lick or two. So thanks John/Ari/Frankie/Banjochris and others too numerous to mention!

[oddenda]

Duke Ellington said that there were two kinds of music... good music, and the other kind. I prefer the former, but it's just so damn personal!!

Peter B.

[Johnm]

Hi all,
Thanks very much for your responses.  It has been instructive seeing the range of people's connections with the music, and I appreciate folks not taking too literally the questions I asked in the first post--it makes the thinking process less like a response to a poll, which is all to the good.  I'll try to answer the questions myself.

For the historic connection to the music, I think what I respond to is having the sense, as I listen to the music, of the choices with regard to phrasing, rhythmic treatment, over-all sound, and vocal expression being shaped by players' senses of what was right and how the music should go.  I like the feeling of connecting across time with the end product of someone's decision-making process, sort of looking over their shoulder in retrospect as they arrive at what they want to hear and want their audience to hear, how they represent themselves in their music.  I respond most strongly to what is consciously and unconsciously individual in the music.

Strongly related to the first point is a fascination with how personality manifests in music--the intense wound-up energy of Dan Pickett and Tommy McClennan, the calm of Libba Cotten, the scary emotional high-wire act of Roscoe Holcomb, the playfulness of Algia Mae Hinton, et al, and how the music can accommodate all these different personality types and modes of expression.

For players of any era, I respond most to those who don't see idiomatic correctness as the star that they're reaching for.  I like hearing influences from elsewhere creeping in, and feeling that there's something more to the music that I'm hearing than could simply be explained by their having listened to a lot of records.  I like feeling as though the musical language as we have received it is a starting point to build upon, and not the final word as to what may ever be expressed appropriately in the style.

All best,
Johnm

   

[daddystovepipe]

How do you explain "love at first sight"... (or hearing in this case)

This is how it went :
I was 14 years old and every wednesday afternoon from 1 to 2, I listened to a radio show which featured the latest pop hits.  When the show was finished I always went out to play with friends but one day I didn't do that and kept listening to the radio...a new show started with (I found out much later) Big Bill Broonzy playing "St Louis Blues" on an acoustic guitar...I was hooked and bought my first guitar two years later.
A little detail on the side is that Broonzy recorded St Louis Blues only once, as far as I know, and he did that in my home town : Antwerp.

In retrospect as a player it's the 'one-man-with-guitar' situation that attracted me the most and especially because in blues the guitar is used as an important part of the story the artist brings, the guitar accentuates his feelings.  I never found that in folk and singer-song writers material where the lyrics form the most important part.
 

[Michael Kuehn]

Coming from an academic background in philosophy, this is one thing I do not over-intellectualize: the music just feels right. I have no particular interest in the lyrics, although if they're something other than "the sun's gonna shine in my back door someday," then I'm interested. I have no particular interest in the cultural milieu in which the music was born. I am drawn to individuals, to the performers on a one-on-one basis, not the generalities of the times, but to the experiences of the individual performers I admire, like Reverend Davis and Mance Lipscomb. I am often amazed by the creativity of the artists in constantly recreating the genre -- in taking a simple 3 or 4 chord structure and making something unique. I am constantly rewarded by this music.

[Blue in VT]

+1 to Mikes Comments...I also take the tack of not over thinking this music too much...its about the feeling afterall.  From my background in History and Archaeology I spend WAY too much trying to get into the heads of people long dead...I try not to do it with this music.  For me its the music itself that attracts me so much...despite it being called the blues most of the CB I listen to is upbeat and often happy...MJH, Mance, Libba etc.  I certainly appreciate the deeper darker side of the this music as well (Skip, patton, son house etc.) but the music I want to play comes from the first group...mostly....  I t was MJH's candyman that hooked me afterall...

I also greatly enjoy the humor that is present in much of this music.  it is often clever and enlightening...and frequently makes me laugh out loud.  I also love the fact that this music isn't over produced...one artist, one guitar, one take...I love that.  Too much of our world is overly produced these days and I like the raw unaltered reality of a single take performance.

Cheers,

Blue

[Stuart]

Like Mike and Blue, I have an academic background. However, I don't think that necessarily predisposes one to overthink the music or anything else, for that matter. I have also played guitar for 50 years, but I don't listen to the music primarily for the guitar playing. I first listen to it for the music that it is--a lot of it is great, some not exactly great, but everyone hits a clunker from time to time, as the old saying goes.

I don't think that being a guitar player, a trained historian, a student of literature, etc. has to get in the way of enjoying the music in the same way that someone in the audience enjoyed it at the time when it was played live or first released on record. If anything, I think that it can serve to enhance one's understanding and appreciation of the music as it allows insights that someone else may not have.

If one treats the music as a historical artifact or curiosity, or just as a source for guitar licks or material, then I think that one is missing the most important aspect of the music.

Of course, there's nothing wrong with analyzing and taking the guitar playing apart, transcribing and teaching it, transcribing and analyzing the lyrics, or mining any aspect of a greater whole or overall context for whatever information and patterns it may yield. It's just that like anything, it has to be properly applied.

Don't overlook the obvious.

[dj]

Reading everyone's comments has helped me to clarify my thoughts a bit, so I'd like to add a couple of things to my earlier response, both having to do with my interest in the music itself and not its historical place or cultural significance.

Rhythm:  One thing I like about a lot of the early blues recordings, and about most of the artists rediscovered in the 50s and 60s, AND about some of the early revivalists, is the sense of rhythmic elasticity they had.  Whether it's a song speeding up evenly or at one particular spot in every verse, or whether the overall tempo is constant but there's a bit of rhythmic give-and-take within the verses, I just love it.  For me, it helps make the music come alive.  I think a lot of us have had it drilled into us to keep the tempo constant.  But I think better advice for country blues (heck, for all music) is "keep the rhythmic drive constant", which is another thing altogether.  

Virtuosity:  When I was young, I was a big fan of instrumental virtuosity.  Some of the recordings of rediscovered blues singers disappointed me because I thought they had "lost a step" instrumentally.  But as I get older, I find I enjoy virtuosity for its own sake less and less.  Which is nice, as it lets me enjoy the strummers and minimal pickers that I passed by in my youth.      

[unezrider]

hello friend,
it's a very thoughtful question john has put forth here. & there have been several thoughtful answers, too. i have been thinking it over the last couple of days, & i can say i agree with several of you here. in a round about way, dj's thoughts cover a lot of mine, too. & i find it very likely that what i listen for now is not what i was listening for when this music first grabbed me. though in regards to country blues, i find this music endlessly rewarding on so many levels. i am still hearing things in songs i've been listening to since i was 18 that i hadn't noticed yet. or noticed in 'that' way. it was a strange music from a strange place, played by some strange people ? & i loved that! i find the musical landscape of this music was so varied & creative that it offers so much.
but as to what i listen for, & want hear in my music, i think it's a lot of things. & i notice the one constant through all kinds of music i listen to & enjoy ? i like it raw. i find a joy in the performance. the majority of the music i like is from the 20's ? 50's. so these by & large aren't 'studio creations', these are documents of artists performing their art. you can hear them taking chances, nearly avoiding collapses at times. there is an excitement to that. i listen to the interplay between musicians. i listen to the 'tone'. i like thinking about what kind of instrument is being played. how it's built. acoustic, ladder braced, x braced, reso. electric, dearmond, cc, p90, paf. all that guitar geek stuff. i love the humor. i love the earthy-ness. i feel it's a part of me, in a way. like i am connected to that strange place with those strange heros of mine, doing their wonderful thing.

[frankie]

rhythmic elasticity

and

But as I get older, I find I enjoy virtuosity for its own sake less and less.  Which is nice, as it lets me enjoy the strummers and minimal pickers that I passed by in my youth.      

beautifully said.

[Blue in VT]

Like Mike and Blue, I have an academic background. However, I don't think that necessarily predisposes one to overthink the music or anything else, for that matter.

Well said...and of course YMMV...its not that I feel that I'm predisposed to over think this music its just that I can see the rabbit hole that that could lead to...which, for me, may actually reduce my love for the music itself.  Their are portions of my job that have become chores rather the passions that they started as...I attribute this (to some extent) to actually knowing too much about a particular subject...i.e. not seeing the forest for the trees...I would hate to have that happen to my love of acoustic blues...it brings me so much joy as it is I don't want to lose sight of that fact.....again YMMV.

BTW tons of great comments and thoughts in this thread!

Blue

[Johnm]

Hi all,
I also like what you said about vituosity, dj.  I care less and less about it as time goes by, too.  I also realize that what I said in my initial answers to the questions can be expressed a lot more simply than I did it.  What I enjoy hearing in the music is what a particular person had/has to say that is his or her own.  It needn't be earth-shaking, virtuosic, or even notably original, but if I can hear it and feel as though, "Yes, I hear how this person heard it this way.", that spark of individuality and personal connection to the music will hook me at some level.
All best,
Johnm

[waxwing]

Blues, for me, is lust born of despair. The first and most honest expression of the true condition of the XXth Century common man in a popular art form. A touchstone for all but the elite and the ostriches. ⓒ

Wax