From: muddy@cbnewsg.cb.att.com (michael.c.recchione)
Subject: Re: BLUES: Howlin' Wolf vs. Son House
Organization: AT&T
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 1992 22:16:41 GMT

In article <1992Aug19.130533.1942@dragon.acadiau.ca> 880139h@dragon.acadiau.ca (Rob Hutten) writes:
>deadhead@beyond.ugcs.caltech.edu (stephen thompson) writes:
>
>>So, I picked up two CD's recently.  The Howlin' Wolf London Sessions
>>and the Library of Congress' Son House Recordings.  The two men have
>>very different styles, but they are both playing the blues.  Son House
>>was playing a country/rural blues, while Howlin' Wolf plays a more
>>urban/Chicago blues.  I was wondering where and why this transition
>>in the blues form occurred...  Any comments?
>
>I think it's a regional thing, just as Texas blues is different than
>Chigago blues which is different than Delta blues.  If I'm not
>mistaken, Son House was from Louisiana, while Wolf was from Chicago.
>I don't think you can call this a transition, really.

I disagree.  I don't think that the stylistic differences between Son House 
and Howlin' Wolf are regional; they are more a function of the periods and 
environments in which they worked, and reflect transitions made in the 
traditional blues form in response to changing technologies and fashions.  
Most of Son House's work was done in a pre-swing, rural environment - he 
dropped out of music for a long time because he felt he couldn't compete with 
the increasingly popular swing bands.  When he was re-discovered, it was 
primarily for his value as a representative of a dying (or dead) folk style.  
In contrast, performers like Howlin' Wolf and Muddy Waters remained committed 
to trying to earn a living by playing music despite changing venues and 
fashions.  The Wolf's earlier work was definately rural Delta blues (as was 
Muddy Waters'), and his stuff didn't really electrify until Chicago in the 
50's (ditto for Muddy).  

The reason that the music produced by these displaced folksingers changed in
the post-war urban environment is not so mysterious.  In the same way that
big band swing drove performers like Son House out of the business, it forced
(or inspired) others to change.  Some people say that the amplification used 
in urban blues was an effort to compete with big bands, and that it was the
advent of amplification that made the Chicago style possible - you could
get a lot of new sounds out of amplified guitars and harmonicas that you 
couldn't get from their purely acoustic counterparts, and you could hear them
over a dance-band style rhythm section.  Swing also influenced the harmonic 
and rythmic structure of the blues, as well as the instrumentation
seen in the typical blues band. (This is really apparent in the work of artists
like B.B. King.)

Oddly enough, Howlin' Wolf's London Sessions mark another turning point in his
career.  These sessions were recorded toward the very end of his life, and 
included musicians like Eric Clapton and Bill Wyman - their flavor is really 
much more late 60's British Blues-Rock than it is classic Chicago Blues.  
The careers of both Muddy and the Wolf can be characterized by a number of 
adaptations that preserved much of their essential character, but that were
stylistically different from one another.  Each began as a rural folksinger,
moved to a more electrified, swing, jump, & jive-influenced style in the early 
50's, experienced some relatively hard times in the late 50's and early 60's,
and were re-discoved by the British Blues revival movement in the late 
60's and early 70's.  This was kind of ironic - Clapton, Page, & Beck started
their careers trying to sound like Muddy & the Wolf, and Muddy & the Wolf ended
theirs trying to sound like Clapton, Page, & Beck.  Life's a bitch sometimes,
ain't it?

>
>Regional differences aside, all the great bluesmen had/have their own
>style.  Stevie Ray Vaughan and Albert Collins were/are both Texas
>bluesmen, but they sound very different.
>
>-Rob
>-- 
>rob.hutten@acadiau.ca  
>hutten@agcrr.bio.ns.ca 

Mike


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