Music
YouTube Top 10: Blues Music
The first post from a regular column featuring the best and brightest new music on everybody’s favourite procrastination tool: YouTube. Dan Grabiner profiles the best contemporary blues you can find on the video-sharing site.
Just a few short decades ago, the blues appeared to be the sound of a bygone era, a genre that faded away with the likes of Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf.
Today, things are different. The blues are back with a vengeance, contemporary artists blending it with various mixtures of rock, punk and electro genres to craft something new for the blues’ resurgent audience.
Here’s our countdown of the top ten YouTube videos showing this perseverance for the blues in the modern age. All of the artists featured are active and touring/recording regularly.
10. Ain’t Going to Nike Town – Son of Dave (2009)
We begin with one-man-blues-band Son of Dave’s “Ain’t Going to Nike Town”. Quite the hidden gem at the moment with less than 100 views but sure to rise swiftly. The raw, jittery animation of Alex Amelines is the perfect compliment to the scratchy loops, the breathy beatbox and the wise old croak of the travelling bluesman. Anti-corporate ranting at its best. The pronunciation of “Nike” debate remains open. Myspace
9. Woke Up This Morning – Alabama 3 (1997)
The Brixton-based band shot to fame when David Chase selected “Woke Up This Morning” as the theme for HBO’s The Sopranos. Six seasons later, its ominous, acid-blues rhythm is imprinted on the brain of every respectable television viewer. Perhaps not the greatest live act, but this video, featuring clips from the first series, has an undeniable resonance and is an important landmark in the popularising of blues-inspired music. Myspace
8. Dog House Boogie (Live on Jools Holland’s Hootenanny) – Seasick Steve (2007)
“We gonna get down on a little three-string trans boogie …”
Join Seasick Steve with his Mississippi drum machine and the three-string trans wonder. Best when at his grittiest, this video is a fine example of a present-day artist just sitting alone playing the blues. The highlight? Watching Phill Jupitus’ face light up when the riff kicks in. Myspace
7. Loves Lies Bleeding – Pete Molinari (2008)
This gloriously simple video treats us to Pete Molinari strolling through the woods to sit and play his Woody Guthrie-inspired take on the blues. Traits reminiscent of Hank Williams, Billy Holiday, Nick Drake and more than a touch of Blind Willie McTell’s pitching, Molinari is keeping the blues alive and well with the welcome addition of a little country-folk. Myspace
6. Wail – The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion (1996)
Having reached god-like status amongst the punk-rock-blues community, this weird and wonderful video by “Weird Al” Yankovic sums up everything that Jon Spencer and his Blues Explosion are all about. A frenetic, blissful racket. Myspace
5. Your Touch (Live in store at Grimey’s Records) – The Black Keys (2007)
Ohio garage-rockers the Black Keys provide the fifth entry to this list. Here we see Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney performing “Your Touch” to a surprisingly docile crowd at Grimey’s record store in Nashville. A fine example of the power chord chaos that defines all seven of the duo’s albums. Myspace
4. More News From Nowhere - Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds (2008)
Surely the sexiest performer in the industry (with the possible exception of number 3 in this list), Nick Cave is flourishing with age, and in this tranquil video by Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard we are treated to a full eight minutes of Cave in his laid-back mode, wearing a magnificent t-shirt and showing that he’s one of those people who dance using only their arms. Whose cameo excites you more? Will Self’s or Peaches Geldolf’s? Myspace
3. Johnny Got a Boom Boom (Live on Jools Holland) – Imelda May
Firmly placed at the rockabilly end of the blues spectrum, Dublin-born chanteuse Imelda May sings a feisty “Johnny Got a Boom Boom” over a rip-roaring bull-fiddle line bound to get stuck in your head. This is the second clip from “Later … with Jools Holland” to feature in this list and his BBC2 show should be commended for providing a stage for such a broad range of musicians. Imelda’s the star of this clip, but the bicep workout for the percussionist is not to be missed. Myspace
2. Make it Rain (Live on Letterman) – Tom Waits (2007)
No discussion of today’s blues landscape would be complete without mention of the devil himself. Tom Waits, now sixty-years-old but still the finest storyteller and entertainer in the business, is a complex spirit of anger and humor, frustration and playfulness, the intense and the seductive. His interviews are as engaging as his performances and his back catalogue shows an unparalleled, high-end consistency, from the sweet-voiced Waits of “Ice Cream Man” (1973) to the hoarse hellhound manifestation on Lucinda (2009). Myspace
1. Hotel Yorba (Live Under Blackpool Lights) – The White Stripes (2004)
No band has done more for the development and evolution of the blues in the last thirty years than the White Stripes. The candy-cane-coloured “brother and sister” act of Jack and Meg fused Jack’s adoration for the raw, garage-punk, analogue sound with the heartache and passion of his favorite old blues singers like Sun House and John Lee Hooker. We’re spoiled for choice with footage of the band (and Jack’s various side-projects), but it is this scene from the filthily shot “Under Blackpool Lights” concert film where we see The White Stripes in all their glory. Stripped-bare, pornographic blues. Enjoy. Myspace
