Robin Williams (with Bill Bailey) Sing the Blues

RIP Robin Williams; to keep the content relevant to the blog here's Robin and Bill Bailey singing the 'Royal Birthday Blues', performed for Prince Charles' 60th birthday. It's brilliant as always.

'I Asked For Water (She Gave Me Gasoline)' - Howlin' Wolf

The Wolf with his band, including Hubert Sumlin

Chester Burnett , AKA Howlin' Wolf, was one of the main pillars of the Chicago blues, along side label friend/rival Muddy Waters. 

His vocal style, multi-instrumental playing and stage presence led him to be one of the top musicians of all time, being listed number 54 on Rolling Stone Magazines '100 Greatest Artists'. He is also inducted in the Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame and the Blues Hall of Fame, with several blues and rock standards under his helm.

This song from 1956, is one such standard, and it popularized the blues saying 'I asked her for water but she gave me gasoline'. 

ZZ Top to Release Album With... David Guetta?!

Apparently, ZZ Top, the bearded blues-rockers, will be releasing an album with electronic music DJ / laptop fiddler David Guetta.

According to NME, 'the unlikely duo met up earlier this year for a recording session in Ibiza and laid down ten completed tracks'. According to ZZ Top guitarist Billy Gibbons: 

"It's a far cry from what people might expect -- 'Gibbons and electronic stuff?' "But a lot of people have overlooked the fact that one of the things that made (ZZ Top's) 'Eliminator' so interesting was the opportunity to go into that experimental side of things and fool around with the coolest new toys that could be found in the recording studio. I'm always fascinated by that, so my time in Spain was very fruitful."

David Guetta found fame by teaming up with well-known pop stars; now it seems he's expanding genres. I'm very skeptical and while I'm a traditionalist, it might be worth checking for... reasons. 

My Cover of 'I Can't Be Satisfied' Is Now Up!

I hope you guys enjoy my cover of the classic Muddy Waters track 'I Can't Be Satisfied' which I wrote about earlier; the recording contains minimal production and each track was done in one take.

The guitar is tuned to open G to facilitate the slide.

Audio production by Abdulrahman Soofi
Video production by Bachir Najjar

It's up on Soundcloud here:



And you can watch the video on Youtube:

Standard of the Week: Five Long Years

In 1952, bluesman Eddie Boyd released what would become a blues standard, 'Five Long Years' on the J.OB. label. The song is a straight up slow tempo 12-bar blues, where the singer tells us about how his woman is never satisfied with all the hard work and money he is slaving for.

Here's a live version from 1965:

It went on to become a number one hit on the Billboard R & B charts, and has been covered by many artists, such as:

Muddy Waters

Buddy Guy

Eric Clapton

B. B. King

Freddie King

Blues Releases for August

Here's a rundown of some of the main blues releases for August, so get your summer money saved!

Mud Morganfield & Kim Wilson – 'For Pops'

Bloomfield, Kooper & Stills – 'Super Session'

Blues Pills – 'Blues Pills' 

Cactus – 'Live In The USA'

Elvin Bishop – 'Can’t Even Do Wrong Right'

Louisiana Red – 'The Sky Is Crying'

Mike Zito & the Wheel – 'Songs From The Road'

Ruthie Foster – 'Promise Of A Brand New Day'

Stevie Ray Vaughan – 'Texas Hurricane'

Sugar Ray & the Bluetones – 'Living Tear To Tear'

Walter Trout – 'Breakin’ The Rules'

Traditional Blues by The Doors - 'Cars Hiss By My Window'

The Doors is one of the greatest bands of all time, and were a central part of  mid to late 60's music. What set them apart was the lyricism of Jim Morrison and their psychedelic blues-rock, as well as being American! (Most bands who were taking the world by storm at the time were British - The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, etc).

This song is from the final Doors album with Jim Morrison, L.A. Woman, released in 1971 (Morrison would pass away a few months after). This album was a return to basics and their more familiar bluesy rock, but with some real blues numbers including 'Crawling King Snake' and 'Been Down So Long'

Track 4 is called 'Cars Hiss By My Window', which is a pure 12-bar blues and fitting to this blog. The lazy / hazy sound just takes you away, as the shuffling guitars and organ trudge the way over Morrison's doom and gloom lyrics and howling at the end of the song. A Doors classic.

Soul-Blues of 'I Can't Fix it' - Jackers

This is an obscure song; I came across this song when I had the soundtrack (don't ask) of the Gang Related movie featuring Tupac Shakur, who I featured about on the blog a while back.

This song is credited to a band or individual named Jackers, to whom I cannot find any information about on the internet (the internet does fail me sometimes).

The song is one of the highlights of the album, featuring a minor key soul-blues mellowness and exceptional guitar playing. The rest of the album consists of pure gangsta rap tunes from 2Pac to Ice Cube to Snoop Dogg and the Doggpound.

I wish I had more information but I don't; it's a nice track to listen to nonetheless:

How to Beat the Blues in 3 Easy Steps

Anatomy of Songs