PigLick on 10/2/2006 at 07:59

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fuck yeh Robert Cray man, very underrated. Also check out Robben Ford for some more modern sort of blues with a bit of funk.

I also cant believe no one has mentioned Muddy Waters, so I will mention him. Muddy Waters should be your first stop really, its raunchy, dirty and soulful.

TheGreatGodPan on 10/2/2006 at 22:37

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Like you, I'm definitely more into blues than jazz, but if you don't dig "Haitian Fight Song" by Charles Mingus, there's something wrong with you. Other people have already mentioned a lot of greats, so I'll just throw out Corey Harris, because new isn't necessarily bad (it just usually is).

Is there anyone besides me who prefers George Thorogood & the Destroyers' never-ending version of John Lee Hooker's "One Bourbon, One Scotch and One Beer"? Yeah, I know, its hard to sound authentically bluesy when you're a white dude from Delaware (especially when you're associated with an 80s hit everyone knows but most don't particularly like, like Bad to the Bone), but comparing the two versions I think George wins hands-down.

Ulukai on 11/2/2006 at 01:28

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Blues is tricky to recommend. None of this stuff is like Sweet Home Chicago, She Caught the Katy etc. from BB, but it's still jazz/blues and I like it.

Miles Davis needs to be in here. There's an album called Kind of Blue, and it's damn good. I'm convinced the musicians who composed for SimCity 3000 were influenced heavily by this. Lots of saxophones and light piano weaving up and down in a fantastical way.

Louis Armstrong needs to be in here too. Get past the Bond themes and well known tracks, and you'll find that man sings as well as he plays the trumpet, and he's damn good at both.

Going back a bit, I also have a huge admiration for (http://www.redhotjazz.com/fats.html) Fats Waller, mostly because one particular composition called Alligator Crawl drove me up the wall trying to get right on the piano. And it's still not up to Fats' standard by a country mile. (Ok, so I've been known to murder it ¬¬ Sorry, Fats.)

Scratching round in my MP3 collection, I've kept lots of other random stuff by Duke Ellington and John Coltrane. Don't know anything about those two, but it's emminently listenable stuff.

Stating the obvious maybe, but the best thing to do is to listen to as much as possible, and keep track of what you liked because you will forget the names.

And going off at a slight tangent here, there really isn't enough live jazz these days.

Tocky on 11/2/2006 at 06:07

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*cough*RBJ*cough* Billie Holliday aint tho. Or were you only going for guitar work? Shit, near everybody has been influenced by the blues. It's a bit psycho (they mention Sleestacks and Omni mags metal women) but robot hive/exodus by Clutch has a blues feel (if not outright stolen) especially on "Gravel Road" and "Who's been talking". Mostly it's heavy warped funk and voice O' doom that sticks to your ribs. I only mention it because I like the holy shit out of it for some reason.

Ulukai on 11/2/2006 at 12:13

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It's not a taste issue, I think Noid means that it's a jazz album, not blues per se. You better damn well listen to it all the same, Scots :D