How about the old Fleetwood Mac? "In Chicago" with Otis Spann,Willie Dixon and Big Walter--Ya! And Peter Green holds his own with those guys. Might be cheatin' a little since its like 2 different bands with the same name.
Well, this is a tough one because one could argue that some rockers that play a lot of blues are actually blues bands.
As for my picks, I'd go with The Allman Brothers right off the top. They rock but also play a ton of blues. Another choice for me would be The J. Geils Band. You could argue that they were a rock band. Although they started out as "The J. Geils Blues Band" they dropped the "Blues" from their name and their musical stylings drifted more and more away from the Blues over time.
Dunno if I'd call it my favorite, but I stumbled onto a used copy of "Honkin' On Bobo" by Aerosmith which is an album of blues covers from 2004 (I think). I like it.
Honkin' On Bobo is a powerhouse album, I reckon. I don't like their version of 'Baby Please Don't Go', but 'Road Runner' was like a shotgun blast to the gut... in the good sense.
Yeah, of mainstream rockbands who play blues (minus Hendrix) I'd have to say Aerosmith is somewhere at the top of the list.
It always makes me chuckle when a popular and usually really famous and incredibly wealthy rock and roll band finally says "OK, now we are going to do what we really love" and they put out a blues album - that's why I told my band we are going to skip all the stuff in the middle and go straight to blues - of course we also skipped the popular, famous and wealthy part as well!!! ---------- If it ain't got harp - it ain't really blues!!!!
Definetely Aeosmithin. "Honkin" is a geat CD. I went and saw them live right after this was released and a lot of their setlist was from this album. For those of you who haven't seem them live: You know how blues is just better live than on a cd? Now imagine that being played at a sold out stadium with 10,000 fans.
Good thread. And the knives and blackjacks haven't come out yet, too. Warms my heart to see such comity.
I'll agree with the Allman Brothers Band. When people trot out the old chestnut, "Can a white boy sing the blues?," or however they phrase that general query these days, people often forget about Greg Allman. He's clearly up there with the greatest of white blues singers, if one wants to argue that category. He's got it all: blues pitches, emotional commitment, power, and an immediately recognizable sound that owes nothing to minstrelsy.
Mick Jagger, on the other hand, is a great rock singer but--in my opinion--a very bad blues singer. He's always engaged in a kind of put-on; that's his greatness as a rock god ("It's only rock and roll but I like it," etc.) but if you've ever seen the old TV footage of the Stones sitting in with Muddy Waters....yikes! Mick's not the guy I want on the blues vocals.
Tab Benoit, on the other hand: fantastic.
Here's an odd claim: I think that the very early Beatles REALLY had a feel for that rockabilly/jump blues stuff. No heartbreak-blues, but definitely the Saturday-night jump-on-it blues. "Everybody's Trying to Be My Baby." Let's see if I can find that on YouTube......
I had the pleasure of seeing Tab Benoit last summer at a blues fest. He is a great blues singer and guitar player (When he isn't talking to much politics on stage). But another name that came to mind for this thread was George Thorogood and The Destoyers. You find their music in the rock section, but they play alot of blues.
Ok Confession time. I'm a Deadhead. Early Grateful Dead(The Warlocks pre 1966 Mother Mcree's Jug band before that) Had the Original Keyboard player Ron McKernan who was a Blues guy. He also played Harp, he wasn't a great Harp player but he could damn sure sing the Blues. Turn On your Lovelight, a slow sultry C.C. Rider, Walking Blues, Wang Dang Doodle, Around & Around (Chuck Berry RnR, Hurts Me Too and other Blues and Rockabilly songs were always staples of Deadshows even after Pigpen died, some reports say liver failure, some say hemmoraging stomache but in either case it was drug & alcohol induced over the years. I still do C.C. Rider/Never Trust a Woman with whatever band I'm playing with at the time the same way they played it. I must also mention that whatever the genre I have seen The Dead, at last count, 94 times and there have been several nights that I have heard Jerry Garcia play the best live guitar I've ever heard in my life.
Man, there are so many but for me, Allman Bros. and Skynyrd are it but we can't leave out Eric Clapton espescially during his time with Cream. Claptons version of Crossroads in that band was a rocked up version for sure....
I was fond of the Climax Blues Band when I was a teen. Here's some video of the band when they were older. The harp at 2:30 isn't great, but the guy can sing:
Mick Jagger, and Muddy Waters.....LOL......thanks Gussow, I needed to see that. Now whenever I hear that song I'll think of Mick's "Mouth Spasms"....I crack up everytime I see him perform.
---------- ---Go Chicago Bears!!!---
Last Edited by on Apr 28, 2009 10:50 PM
Led Zepplin is #1 in my book. Album; How the west was won, song; Bring it on home. Album; BBC Sessions, songs; I can't quit you babe and You Shook Me babe. Yes they used others music but we all do cause as they say take it and make it your own. As far as the blues/rock thang is conserned Led Zepplin put a 10 tons of heart into there music. Look it SRV's left handed strat, I see a Hendrix influence there.
Last Edited by on Apr 29, 2009 2:20 AM
For you guys and girls out there who need some educatin' on 1960s rock, just about every rock band at that time was heavily influenced by the blues. Check out Ten Years After, for example. Enjoy...
Adam, re Stones/Muddy. What I feel is that the Jagger/Stones combination is a great one; the Jagger/Muddy combination may not be a great one, but that doesn't say much about Jagger. In fact it wasn't as bad as I expected. Muddy is more miked up than Mick, which means Mick is working harder, and it shows. Mick's improvisation is poor here, for sure.
best rock band to play blues style covers, im afraid its CREAM , they just shoot the lights out of some of all time great blues tracks , check out there live version of spoonful.
Best rock band playing blues, for me is Led Zeppelin. "Since I've been Lovin'you" (perhaps their greatest tune), "Hats off to Roy Harper", "I Can't Quit you Baby", "You Shook Me"... All great stuff.
Then I'll mention Captain Beefheart, specially the album "The Spotlight Kid", very strange blues, but blues anyway.
She's not exactly a rock singer, but she plays and sings the blues in a unique way : Diamanda Galas.
"Lazy" from Deep Purple is a great blues also.
Jimi Hendrix of course, but he was more a bluesman that played rock than the opposite...
I was a huge fan of Cream as a teenager and I believe their music holds up really well. This stuff is NOT ripoff of West Side Chicago blues. "Politician" is a 12-bar blues, transformed into something quite new and remarkable. They were a dangerous band:
dont forget Eric Burton and john mayall he helped put Eric clapton on the map.i am glad somebody mentioned canned heat o ya rember the bear.bull frog blues.
Yardbirds for me also. I was a young kid when they were making music. Keith Relf's playing was my first memory of the harmonica, and it was enough to inspire me to learn for myself.
That was the first time I've ever heard the Allman Brothers Band. I really liked it. They sure have a lot of drummers. I was surprised they were playing as clean as they were and not walking all over eachother. Ok, now I've got to get some of their CDs to listen to while driving to work and back. Are all their CDs blues or are some rock?
diggin the thread the most.like bluzedude46 im a deadhead. i play and ride a lowrider and bring it on home -led zep style. i was gonna have an opiion .than mr so&so hit us with 10yrs after and laid the topic to waste.harp as an instrument you blow suck and use as a guitar slide. a drumstick pick and amazing vocals.well it fucked me up bigtime.10 years after rule the rock and blues genre.
Early Elvis for sure. I have some of his stuff from the 50's and it is fantastic blues singing. Before the Colonel got ahold of him and took him from his roots. I gotta throw one in for SRV too, along with his brother Jimmy. I liked Kim & Jimmy together. Johnny Winter too.
Last Edited by on Dec 31, 2009 4:26 AM
I sit just behind rRobert Plant at Wolves football stadium he's an avid wolves fan. His face is showing the years of hard living Led Zep did. He's still gigging but with his own band. Big brother and the holding company did it for me too,probably because of Janis Joplin. You want to hear blues,Janis with Ball and Chain.Still the killer track for me. Have to agree about Peter Green too. I'd forgotten about Alvin Lee and Ten Years After,still got some of their albums somewhere.
