Why the blues?

Welcome back, BlueNotes.

This space has been dark for a few days, while I took a couple extra days off over the weekend - just because I could. But they weren't days off from the blues. I listened to some new stuff - electric, Chicago-style blues - and some old stuff, most notably a compilation  of recordings by Mississippi John Hurt, in his classic finger-picking style.

That all got me to thinking (no snickering, please).  What is it about this diverse collection of styles called the blues that makes it all so appealing? There's old country blues, finger-picking blues, piano blues, jump blues, rhythm and blues, Chicago blues, Texas blues - and on and on. Every music fan I know is very faithful to his favorite. I've known rabid big-band fans, passionate classical fans, devoted jazz fans, and a woman who got teary-eyed just talking about opera (I also cry at the mention of opera, but that's another story).

The point is that there's lots of music and and lots of fans. Each is special is its own way -- are you listening, Mr. Rogers? But I'm gonna argue here, for a minute, that the stuff collected under the heading of "blues" may be slightly more special. 

I think that any art form probably owes its existence to its ability to express deep feelings, to touch an emotional chord, to serve, if you will, as a channel for its creator's soul to broadcast to yours. From his heart and mind to yours. I knew a painter once who spent most of his waking life straining to capture in images the fleeting visions he had of the way life appeared to him -- when he wasn't straining to erase his bitterness with alcohol.

So when you think of the blues and its origins in the black experience in America, you have to think of powerful personal experiences and how the music came from deep feelings. But that's only part of it.

Why does that music continue to sound so good?  To resonate at deep levels with people whose experience is completely different? Why do blue guitar notes, bent and sent spinning into the air, cut so deep? Why do sometimes nearly incomprehensible blues vocals reach so deep into their audience? What does a blues saxophone moan in such complete sympathy  with the human condition? 

I have a theory, probably not a new one, that the personal, gut-level appeal of the blues lies in its earliest use of so-called "blue notes," briefly described here, from Wikipedia:

"In jazz and blues, a blue note (also "worried" note^[1]) is a note sung or played at a slightly lower pitch than that of the major scale for expressive purposes. Typically the alteration is a semitone or less, but this varies among performers and genres ... Blue notes are often seen as akin to relative pitches found in traditional African work songs."

These lower "blue" notes seem to have the effect of stirring something very emotional in the musician and the listener. This deep emotional appeal is broad enough to  cut across generations, across class, across race, across otherwise deep divides. Again, I theorize, this lowered pitch comes from an almost subconscious effort to

Then, of course, there's the rhythm of the blues, found in the sturdy beat of any good blues drummer. Put the emotional context of blue notes together with rhythms that range from the primitive patterns of Bo Diddley to the tough backbeat of any classic blues drummer, say, Willie "Big Eyes" Smith (who just happens to be coming to town soon), and you get this music that opens you up and makes you "feel."  And, like they say, you can dance to it.

I guess this all sounds a little heavy. But the blues does seem to have a very basic appeal that transcends a lot of differences and goes beyond a lot other music in that regard. However, except for now, I generally tend not to think too much about -- just enjoy the hell out of it.

But enough about BlueNotes. Why do you like the blues? Why do you buy Muddy Waters instead of Chopin? Or maybe you buy both, but Chopin never played Mancini's. Or maybe you never think about it at all. That's cool, too. BlueNotes thinks way too much sometimes.

Here's a classic blues video, just for fun: