Is Blues the Mother of All Modern Music? 

LA and Nhare, Thank you both so much! ❤❤❤

The potato analogy is somehow incredibly clear

To paraphrase blues songwriter, Willie Dixon: the blues is the roots and the other musics is the fruits. In keeping the roots alive you yield richer fruits.

One influence of the blues that I feel like isn't covered a lot is how it affected vocal melodies. The blues scale isn't the most ubiquitous thing, but the syncopation that blues singers used in their melodies has continued through basically ever genre of music since, and I think it's made music a lot better.

"True Blues, the lyrics are absolutely true. Its singing about life experience. Sometimes good, sometimes bad. But they didn't lie." - Jimmy "Duck" Holmes

“We don’t have to do classic blues.” LA nails the development of modern music in one sentence. One of the things I love about music more and more is how interconnected all the genres are. As much as purists like to keep their preferred genres in individual silos, someone’s going to come along and mutate it into something new and amazing that we’ve never heard before. Great video, LA and Nahre, as always.

Bleeding Gums Murphy tells us that playing "The Blues isn't about making yourself feel better. It's about making other people feel worse" Bender Bending Rodriguez conversely remarked "The Blues! The sweet sound of other people's suffering - that oughta cheer me up" Somehow, both of these statements are correct.

Musical evolution is the endlessly complex story of culture interacting with itself. I like that they capture the key points of a style without glossing or oversimplifying the accompanying events and trends.

I can’t get over how good the editing is

It's funny how I never listened to the blues until I started playing the guitar. Now I only listen to the blues 😂

Chicago Blues will always be, for me, one of the best periods in the evolution of music. Take that raw blues and plug it in for that sweet electric guitar sound, wow, just amazing. Electric blues.

Jazz and Blues are the fathers of metal and rock. Black Sabbath, the fathers of modern metal, started as a blues outfit. And you can't listen to early Zeppelin without catching bluesy grooves. Even Pantera, with groove metal. Its everywhere.

Like they say “The blues is the roots and everything else is the fruits” Interesting video

"The blues scale is even really common in Heavy Metal" *plays hard rock song*

Nahre seems to have internalized much more that blues feeling (as can be sawed in her improvisation) in this video than in her first one in her channel. It was really nice to see she kept interested.

Any kind of modern music that has elements of rock/soul/funk is a child of the blues.

I think you missed one hugely important feature of the blues: the shuffle. You can't play the blues straight; that's rock and roll

We NEED more Blues in modern music.

From someone who has made playing the blues his lifetime profession, I must say that I am very proud of you guys for getting it right. This is a true representation of the real blues! Thank you so much.

Whether or not it was, blues still is the genre that got me into music

Your track reminded me of the krautrock era, when German musicians transitioned from copying blues-rooted prog and psych rock sounds to more spacey synth music. The synth you chose had even that gentle, naive sound of old electronic gear. Very nice.

Bends, hammer-ons/pull-offs and slides are incredibly important to traditional Blues music. I find when I listen to B.B King that his guitar is pretty much impersonating a human voice. That's what gives it so much soul and connects with us on a deep level.

This reminds me of the _Phineas and Ferb_ episode "Dude, We're Getting the Band Back Together". One of the songs they played was an exploration of how blues music inspired rock and roll.

Thanks for posting. This 81 year old listener enjoyed listening to the material. So interesting!! Sounds so good!!

Your blues song sounds more jazzy to me, I like it though. Interestingly enough, I had this conversation about the root of jazz, blues, hip hop and as I believe you said (I'm going to watch again) I believe they all, even blues, stem from the knee slapping/clapping call and response of gospel.

This is such an incredible nuanced video essay! You guys put so much work into your videos. I hope to see more in the future. Great work guys :)

I never felt more satisfied than listening to the Blues, it really is potatoes because it can become anything afterwards, Rap, Rock, Pop, Soul, Funk, etc... everything has a little bit of the Blues in it plus it plays with the beat, in-between, around or as the lead and always tells a story with words or no words, I'm so glad my grandparents was into the Blues enough to let us hear it in it's rawest form, it's something you can't unhear if you heard enough of it

Love this. Thank you so much for putting this together. It endorses so many things that I try to teach in my classes of music. Love your manner and presentation. Thanks again

What a good video. I just learned more about the blues than anything I knew before. Thanks.

I love this program, PBS never fails to deliver. I also really enjoy Sol's content and all of her collaborations. She embodies the essence of an NYC musician, regardless of what she plays on the piano. That said, I think that she echoes the same misconceptions that a lot of amateur musicians have about the blues (myself included). The blues isn't a chord form, or a means to play a particular scale. The blues was a vocal form before everything else. The vocal structure of a blues is what truly makes it a blues. And the way the blues is sung. In Jazz, we often add chord substitutions to add more movement and complexity. That said, Charlie Parker knew how to play down and dirty blues. John Coltrane knew how to play down and dirty blues. Miles, and especially Louis Armstrong. They knew it because most of them grew up playing in Rhythm and Blues bands and Blues Bands (look at Charlie Parker with Jay McShann). I'm glad that Buckner clarified the importance of the vocal in blues. There's too many people bending strings and playing blues scales and calling it the blues. Perspective, Stevie Ray Vaughn knew how to play a blues--but many imitators just steal his licks and think there the next Blues Boy. Same thing with Jazz standards, we gotta go back to the lyric, to the vocal, to really understand how to play the music. That's my pedantic soapbox moment for the day. Hopefully it's not too inflammatory--it actually wasn't meant to be, I still love Sol's laying and her channel!

Excellent !! The whole program! Thank you both cool people!

Blues + upper extensions + modern beats = jazz fusion! Good stuff...thanks, y'all.

I just subscribed to this channel and I'm learning a lot more about music than I thought I would. I love how you guys talk about it with passion and it makes me happy to know that I'm not alone in that. ❤️

When Electronic Music and the blues come together, it sounds like all my old garage band projects...

I'm learning so much from these types of programs on different aspects of music. A blues singer once said no matter race religion man or woman even little babies everybody's got the blues Thanks to all involved in the making of this video

You folks took the blues and made one of the best jazz fusion songs I've ever heard

I absolutely love the song you two wrote for this one.

I have no idea how I ended up here, but I'm glad I did. Thank you.

I thank RU-vid for recommending this channel, I can’t stop watching now😭

I use these videos all the time in my music classroom. Thank you for uploading the content!

Thank you. I just saw film Elvis, and wanted to understand how African American blues was started and its influence on popular music. I absolutely love your video. Sparks my yearning to know more

Just discovered your channel, GREAT STUFF guys. Really appreciate it!

Great synth blues composition. It really resonated with me.

The track you did sounds like it would be a perfect fit for some of the weirder point-n-click adventure games out there - like Dropsy!

man the blues song you guys made is a jam!!

Both of you are amazing!

Love your collaboration. Brought a tear to my eye.

Your song.... I'm clearly on a moon base seeing life go by on earth from a telescope wondering "why do they persist?" Like, 22nd century blues? XD

Huh, I always thought of Blues as a very earthy sound -you know- embracing a lot of very friction-heavy textures, like the vocals, which seem dented by the slow, rigorous onslaught of life, the slide which is made of a broken or shattered object and waltzes into and away from the intended frequency, the blue notes that only seem more blue by the fact that the structure and harmony of the Blues is so repetitious like life itself, all in all representing the struggles of life and the struggle of struggling through those struggles without struggling, if y'all catch my drift. Speaking of drift: In contrast, yours seemed very airy, like a volcanic glass cloud that melancholically watches what a thunderstorm it is causing by all those atomic pieces of glass colliding and lighting up otherwise peaceful forest scapes. Far removed emotionally, which is why I feel it more like jazz, but still lamenting and still bluesy, thank you, this was a very enlightening video for me :D (btw sry if my English is weird. I'm not a native speaker, and just trying to convey what I feel)

This video was the start of it all for me. Blues was the key to opening up my appreciation for all forms of music. Can’t believe I’ve come so far

Wow! As always, this is such a magnificent work that feeds curiosity like no other! I really appreciate the fact that you have continuously provided such high quality video essays without making any compromises from the day one! Never been disappointed by any of your mind-expanding and detail-oriented works! Thanks so much for this! Final take was so pleasant to listen - instrumentation choice was unique and sweet sounding!- and Nahre's playing was so colorful and during chord progression demonstration it reminded me of the timeless classic "Ahmad's Blues" by Ahmad Jamal and at one point while listening to her dynamic passages, it gave a room for some new possibilities and my imagination added some additional trills to it like in "Ahmad's Blues". In fact, what I love about Blues is exactly the same that even though it sometimes consists of endlessly repeating familiar forms and even sometimes overly used cliches, it still contributes to one's imagination with new possibilities by providing access to the home, to certain conventions/forms all the time whenever you feel a bit homesick when searching for new things! Kudos to your enthusiasm and effort as always and please listen to "Ahmad's Blues" one more time for me as well! This piece created a huge influence on Miles Davis that he even used it in his classic "Workin'" album and Jamal was one of his few main influences that even though he was a harsh critic sometimes, in his autobiography, he openly commented on Jamal's music that "He knocked me out with his concept of space, his lightness of touch, his understatement, and the way he phrased notes and chords and passages." Thank you to all for everything you've done so far! 😊👏🚀💥🎶🎉🤯❤️

This girl is amazing!!!!

Common in heavy metal music *Proceeds to play AC/DC

This series is so important. Thank you for having a show about music in a way that non-musicians can understand. I loved the song you guys made, but I think that it can be hard to really appreciate it without hearing the full song. Lastly, I am on a journey to discover for my self the difference between blues and jazz. I have been associating all sorts of blues songs with the jazz label that are in fact just blues. So this episode was timely for me. I did not get my question answered, but it was fun none the less.

I just found this channel. Easiest subscription ever.

Normally, if any headline ends in a question-mark, the rule is you can safely answer it with a "no" - this time is different! Thank you for the great overview of the history and influence of Blues, Nahre and LA... that was awesome! :) In addition to the factors you mentioned in the "what makes blues sound like blues" segment (Blues-Pentatonic, Dominant 7 chords on I IV and V, 12-bar structure), I think there are a few more "analytical" points of interest: * Rhythmically, the predominant shuffle-feel is notable - and to expand on what LA mentioned, microtiming is pretty important in blues - usually one plays a little behind the beat, interspersed with rushed passages in the melody to convey urgency and intense emotionality. And related to that: * Melody in blues, aside from using the minor or major blues pentatonic scale, often places extreme emphasis not just on the vibrato-type wailing that you included, but even more centrally on bending notes - both in vocals and guitar, but ultimately both are imitating aspects of the wailing and crying of a human voice, with its rising pitch on single "notes", prolonged uneven pauses and interspersed rushed passages. This glissando and note-bending happens both over microtonal (quarter-note bends) and wider intervals, and is often emphasized even more by increasing depth and or frequency of vibrato on guitar or tremolo and/or vibrato in vocals. * Additionally, Blues was the first kind of music in the western world where both in vocals and a bit later in guitar playing, harmonic distortion ("overdrive") became central to the genre's preferred timbres. Those last two are also why I must say I personally felt more R&B / chill-out-jazz than blues in your piece - without note-bendings, glissandi (and potentially some overdrive) in the melody, it just doesn't evoke too much of that blues-feeling for me... that might just be me though. As always - you did an amazing job with your video! :)

Some say that "blues" isn't just the sadness and melancholy, but rather the blending of all human emotions at once - the way all the colors in the visible light spectrum blends into white light, all human emotions blend into this one bluesy color...

You guys are awesome - quickly becoming one of my favourite RU-vid channels ✌️

Thanks for such a great video, from Japan! 🇯🇵 I shared this video with my Japanese friend, who is around 70 years old and loves blues. Although he doesn’t get any English, but this video makes enough good sense to him visually. When I translated the potato analogy, he was also profoundly amazed. It’s such a meaningful video, even for non-English speakers!

Sunshine Of Your Love has to be the best psychedelic blues song of all time

RE keyboard riffing: She's got (Sol / Seoul / soul).

This is the best! LIVE with FEEL and GROOVE and fresh! Way to go! Is it so easy it bores you? It's open. I am with you.

Awesome video about blues music. I am happy to learn in this video that blues music is the mother of jazz, rock and roll, and country music.

I love that potatoes analogy :D I didn't grow up around gospel or soul, so when I moved to Mississippi the very first thing in terms of the musical culture that blew my mind, was the church music. People sang snatches of hymns on the school bus, and of course the choir room was frequently filled with singing that drew from gospel traditions, something I'd never heard really. I got to college and everything blew up into this huge storm of learning and encountering sounds that were utterly new for me. In a lot of ways, blues challenged me as a musician just as much - maybe more! - than the "difficult" 20th Century composers. For instance I learned, unequivocally, that I am very white, I have no rhythm, haha! Not that my music friends cared; blues is rooted not only in suffering but in this sense of community that can transcend every boundary of race and language and time, if you want it to. I was fortunate, surrounded by people who were more than happy to lead me to more experiences and more ways of seeing and hearing. Not always to explanations. I find I'm getting a LOT more of that now, learning as I follow this channel and see where you take us. As for the progression itself, which is the thing that is easiest to put my finger on...once I learned it, I heard it *everywhere*, and we had a solid week of music theory class that was basically just a multiple part jam session...because someone or other would come in and start playing just a plain twelve bar blues, and the entire class would be singing or clapping, improvising around it, before the professor even got there. And twice he didn't stop us for ten minutes :P That twelve bar blues is just incredibly easy to play with and elaborate on; it gives enough structure to let the music "go somewhere" but it doesn't insist on any particular direction. You can get crazy with it, very quickly, and sometimes folks do. I think that's also why so much of the blues music from the beginning is still just as vital, just as well known in its way, as anything recent: it never went out of style, never really "died" as a sound. It is about suffering, about life, as you said; but blues has a unique way of simultaneously being very specific AND universal, about that suffering. I have zero idea what "dust my broom" really means as a phrase (I'm assuming it's slang), and I'd be hard pressed to easily understand the lyrics for many, many blues songs: and yet, that doesn't matter. Blues doesn't need words to tell you about those feelings. We KNOW those feelings. It's as if it's in our bones and the song just teases those resonances out of us. We've all felt exhausted. We all know grief, and jealousy, and exasperation. The highs and the lows of love and of life. The unfairness of basically everything! Blues will make you sing and cry and laugh all at the same time, without you having to open your mouth. That's why it's the best :D and I think it's also why it's so very American. As horrible as our past has been, and as awful as things continue to be right now with so many unspeakable events that weigh heavy on the hearts of anybody sane... But, the blues wouldn't be here without it. I believe Eddie Izzard made the observation (heavily paraphrasing him) that sad people make fantastic music; and people with nothing to complain about make, well, rather boring music. I feel like that's somewhat valid here. It by NO MEANS excuses or justifies any of the godawful things that have been inflicted on marginalized groups by the people with the power. But if America is a cultural melting pot - in the case of the blues at least, injustice has been the fire. (Which we didn't start. Sorry! I couldn't help it.)

And every real blues man has one or more songs about TRAINS!

Fantastic series. Thanks to you both.

Excellent. I love the sound of the Toms on the drum set!.

Your song had this weird uncanny effect for me, to my ears it's both the song you've done which sounds most distinct from the genre it's riffing on, and yet at the same time is instantly recognizable as a blues tune. It's a really cool synthesis of the genre's elements and distinct feel, I really enjoyed it

Early Black Gospel to me was really ''The Mother of all Modern Music''....Then the Blues, Jazz, Swing, Bebop...then electric Blues...then early Black Rock and Roll (Little Richard, Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley) then Rhythm & Blues, Soul (Motown)...then early Funk or Funky Soul (James Brown 1964-'1969) new Black rock and Blues (Jimi Hendrix) Then new new Funk (Again, James Brown 1970-'77)..with Sly Stone (1968-'73). Stevie Wonder came with his own sound (70's and 80's was his heyday).....Next P-Funk (1970-1987) (and all the Funk and Soul bands of the 70's) Disco, early Hip Hop (Suger Hill Gang, Soul Sonic Force and Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five)..then the new Black POP SOUND (The Majors) Prince, Lionel Richie, Tina Turner, Cameo and of course Michael Jackson (and Janet Jackson). Then the new version of Disco music in the 80's called Garage House Music created by Frankie Knuckles and Larry Levan (New York & Chicago). Then the ''Golden Age'' of Hip Hop....1986-1994 then New Jack Swing, Neo Soul...then last Age of Hip Hop transitioning into Rap-Trap-Then-Crap (my opinion!!) from 1998--2006. Now Black music (in my opinion) has lost it's SOUL!! The new music today feels blatantly ''Evil''......and I know basically all music if we're not praising The Lord is not to be listened too...(but I listen to everything I've listed) but something just feels different with today's Black Music. I'm not feeling it. So I'll just stick to the old classics...music with Soul!

Go Sound Field! 🔥🔥🔥 the BEST PBS web show.

Love the hosts! Perfectly presented. Keep it up, guys!

I believe y’all may have created a new genre, ‘New Age Blues (sprinkled with hints of Nintendo)’ you can copyright it I don’t mind 😂.

Blues itself had its own influences, such as folk music. There is no start and end point for modern music.

THANKS TO BOTH OF YOU

Loved your song! The blues don’t get enough attention in today’s world. Thanks for posting.

yes

I was waiting for this video for so long. Every genre carries out a heritage from the past, but what makes music iconic is how the artist is able to level-up. Something that, in my personal opinion, is lacking nowadays. Great to see L.A and Nhare back, I was missing Sound Field´s videos :) Regards guys :D

This was... beautiful. Great work.

This channel is great. Keep it going! So inspiring, always an instant click and like! 💯

Can I just say that nahre is the cutest person alive

There's something about the blues gets under my skin more than any other type of music. Must have something to do with the down-to-earth humanity of it.

I love this series so much!

all blues blues is def my favorite rendition of the 12 bar, that chromatic planing of the V chord as well as the texture in the opening with continual brushing and bill evans fluttering thirds, man

That's why i adore AC/DC their blues songs are out of this world, Also highway to hell, is not metal it's hard rock/ rock

This woman knows her music. That was definitely the Blue's she was playing on the piano.

Awesome video. You guys are blessed.

Best episode ever! Thank you! 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

The ending song reminded me of Stevie wonder

The last song sounded like bossa nova to me :^]

Your blues was amazing, so soulful & relaxing, thankyou

This is my favorite song you guys have created so far.

Your song is weird! I like it.

What's upsetting to me is how it seems that a lot of white rock and roll artists essentially stole almost entire songs from black blues artists without giving any compensation or credit to the true artists behind those hits. I noticed this pattern and a lot of popular rock and roll songs were actually just ripped from old school blues artists.

Stumbled across this - great, informative vid with top notch presentation - good work.

Amazing. Thank you! Now I'm going to go binge some blues.

So, how far can it be pushed before it is no longer the Blues? Obviously, the roots are there no matter how different the flower, but at what point is a rose no longer a rose?

“What do these song have in common?” *looks at title* “I’m about to end this mans whole career”

Sister here on the piano is kickin" on the 88. She's awesome!! Love the way she did the sample for us. :)

wow i think this is my favorite song yall made on this channel. love the chords u layed over the I IV V pattern

Blues is the roots, the rest is the fruits. Your plant might need roots to grow, but the fruits generally taste best.