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| West Coast blues | |
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| Stylistic origins | |
| Cultural origins | 1940s, Texas, U.S. |
West Coast blues is a type of blues music influenced by jazz and jump blues, with strong piano-dominated sounds and jazzy guitar solos, which originated from Texas blues players who relocated to California in the 1940s. [1] West Coast blues also features smooth, honey-toned vocals, frequently crossing into rhythm and blues territory.
The towering figure of West Coast blues may be the guitarist T-Bone Walker, famous for the song "Call It Stormy Monday (But Tuesday Is Just as Bad)", a relocated Texan, who made his first recordings in the late 1920s. In the early 1940s, Walker moved to Los Angeles, [2] where he recorded many enduring sides for Capitol, Black & White, and Imperial. Walker was a crucial figure in the electrification and urbanization of the blues, probably doing more to popularize the electric guitar in the form than anyone else. Much of his material had a distinct jazzy jump blues feel, an influence that would characterize much of the most influential blues to emerge from California in the 1940s and 1950s.
Other Texas bluesmen followed: the pianist and songwriter Amos Milburn, the singer Percy Mayfield (who would later become famous for the song "Hit the Road Jack"), and Charles Brown moved to Los Angeles. The guitarist Pee Wee Crayton divided his time between Los Angeles and San Francisco. Lowell Fulson, from Texas by way of Oklahoma, moved to Oakland.
Slide guitar is a technique for playing the guitar that is often used in blues music. It involves playing a guitar while holding a hard object against the strings, creating the opportunity for glissando effects and deep vibratos that reflect characteristics of the human singing voice. It typically involves playing the guitar in the traditional position with the use of a slide fitted on one of the guitarist's fingers. The slide may be a metal or glass tube, such as the neck of a bottle. The term bottleneck was historically used to describe this type of playing. The strings are typically plucked while the slide is moved over the strings to change the pitch. The guitar may also be placed on the player's lap and played with a hand-held bar.
Hard rock or heavy rock is a loosely defined subgenre of rock music typified by a heavy use of aggressive vocals, distorted electric guitars, bass guitar, and drums, sometimes accompanied with keyboards. It began in the mid-1960s with the garage, psychedelic and blues rock movements. Some of the earliest hard rock music was produced by the Kinks, the Who, the Rolling Stones, the Yardbirds, Cream and the Jimi Hendrix Experience. In the late 1960s, bands such as the Jeff Beck Group, Iron Butterfly, the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Golden Earring, Steppenwolf and Deep Purple also produced hard rock.
Hadda Brooks was an American pianist, vocalist and composer. Her first single, "Swingin' the Boogie", which she composed, was issued in 1945. She was billed as "Queen of the Boogie". She sang at Hawaii's statehood ceremony in 1959 and was asked for a private audience by Pope Pius XII.
Aaron Thibeaux "T-Bone" Walker was an American blues musician, composer, songwriter and bandleader, who was a pioneer and innovator of the jump blues, West Coast blues, and electric blues sounds. In 2018 Rolling Stone magazine ranked him number 67 on its list of "The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time".
Folk rock is a hybrid music genre that combines the elements of folk and rock music, which arose in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom in the mid-1960s. In the U.S., folk rock emerged from the folk music revival and the influence that the Beatles and other British Invasion bands had on members of that movement. Performers such as Bob Dylan and the Byrds—several of whose members had earlier played in folk ensembles—attempted to blend the sounds of rock with their pre-existing folk repertoire, adopting the use of electric instrumentation and drums in a way previously discouraged in the U.S. folk community. The term "folk rock" was initially used in the U.S. music press in June 1965 to describe the Byrds' music.
Electric blues refers to any type of blues music distinguished by the use of electric amplification for musical instruments. The guitar was the first instrument to be popularly amplified and used by early pioneers T-Bone Walker in the late 1930s and John Lee Hooker and Muddy Waters in the 1940s. Their styles developed into West Coast blues, Detroit blues, and post-World War II Chicago blues, which differed from earlier, predominantly acoustic-style blues. By the early 1950s, Little Walter was a featured soloist on blues harmonica using a small hand-held microphone fed into a guitar amplifier. Although it took a little longer, the electric bass guitar gradually replaced the stand-up bass by the early 1960s. Electric organs and especially keyboards later became widely used in electric blues.
Texas blues is blues music from Texas. As a regional style, its original form was characterized by jazz and swing influences. Later examples are often closer to blues rock and Southern rock.
Eddie Jones, better known as Guitar Slim, was a New Orleans blues guitarist in the 1940s and 1950s, best known for the million-selling song "The Things That I Used to Do", produced by Johnny Vincent for Specialty Records. It is listed in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll. Slim had a major impact on rock and roll and experimented with distorted overtones on the electric guitar a full decade before Jimi Hendrix.
Freddie King was an American blues guitarist, singer and songwriter. He is considered one of the "Three Kings of the Blues Guitar". Mostly known for his soulful and powerful voice and distinctive guitar playing, King had a major influence on electric blues music and on many later blues guitarists.
John Watson Jr., known professionally as “Johnny Guitar” Watson, was an American musician and singer-songwriter. A flamboyant showman and electric guitarist in the style of T-Bone Walker, his recording career spanned forty years, and encompassed rhythm and blues, funk and soul music.
James David Walker Jr., better known by his stage name Jimmy McCracklin, was an American pianist, vocalist, and songwriter. His style contained West Coast blues, Jump blues, and R&B. Over a career that spanned seven decades, he said he had written almost a thousand songs and had recorded hundreds of them. McCracklin recorded over 30 albums, and earned four gold records. Tom Mazzolini of the San Francisco Blues Festival said of him, "He was probably the most important musician to come out of the Bay Area in the post-World War II years."
"Pride and Joy" is a song by Texas singer/guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan and his backup band Double Trouble. It is an original composition by Vaughan and appeared on his 1983 Epic Records debut album Texas Flood. "Pride and Joy" was also released as Vaughan's first single and has become one of his best-known songs.
"Call It Stormy Monday " is a song written and recorded by American blues electric guitar pioneer T-Bone Walker. It is a slow twelve-bar blues performed in the West Coast blues-style that features Walker's smooth, plaintive vocal and distinctive guitar work. As well as becoming a record chart hit in 1948, it inspired B.B. King and others to take up the electric guitar. "Stormy Monday" became Walker's best-known and most-recorded song.
New Orleans blues is a subgenre of blues that developed in and around the city of New Orleans, influenced by jazz and Caribbean music. It is dominated by piano and saxophone, but also produced guitar bluesmen. Major figures in the genre include Professor Longhair and Guitar Slim, who both had regional, R&B and even mainstream chart hits.
For the Canadian 2000s tour band, see: Leslie Carter.
"Driftin' Blues" or "Drifting Blues" is a blues standard, recorded by Johnny Moore's Three Blazers in 1945. The song is a slow blues and features Charles Brown's smooth, soulful vocals and piano. It was one of the biggest blues hits of the 1940s and "helped define the burgeoning postwar West Coast blues style". "Driftin' Blues" has been interpreted and recorded by numerous artists in various styles. The Blues Foundation Hall of Fame and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame have acknowledged the influence and lasting popularity of the song.
"All Your Love " or "All Your Love" is a blues standard written and recorded by Chicago blues guitarist Otis Rush in 1958. Of all of his compositions, it is the best-known with versions by several blues and other artists. "All Your Love" was inspired by an earlier blues song and later influenced other popular songs.
In music, the V–IV–I turnaround, or blues turnaround, is one of several cadential patterns traditionally found in the twelve-bar blues, and commonly found in rock and roll.
"Space Guitar" is an instrumental composed and recorded by American rhythm and blues artist Johnny "Guitar" Watson. Released as a single in 1954, it was Watson's first recording to showcase his guitar playing. The backing arrangement for the piece is fairly typical for R&B and jump blues at the time. However, Watson's groundbreaking performance on the electric guitar sets it apart.
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