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Another Round of Blues? No thanks
Archive
African American author Ralph Ellison once said “The Blues is an impulse to keep the painful details and episodes of a brutal experience alive in one’s aching consciousness, to finger its jagged grain…”
These words describe a musical tradition steeped in sorrow; a method of expressing genuine emotions of deep personal significance. The Blues was once something sacred, and often spiritual. The relative simplicity of its musical structure echoed the directness of the lyrics that accompanied it.
But today, ‘The Blues’ is often nothing more than soulless party music for intoxicated yuppies. And this extreme commercialization and bastardization of blues tradition is painfully apparent on the Boise Blues Society’s compilation disc, “Another Round: A Collection of Original Northwest Blues Music.”
To be blunt, almost all the music on this disc is extremely derivative and stale. The chord progressions and scales are worn out and tired, the lyrics are often absurdly simple and stupid, and song after song passes by with barely a hint of real emotion. To call much of this ‘original’ music, is stretching the definition. Ripping off the riffs and vocal melodies of other artists doesn’t qualify as ‘original’ in my book.
Even so, a couple of tracks on this disc stand out from the others. Neighbor Dave’s “Blues Boomin’” is a decent and authentic sounding acoustic blues number with some creative samples in the background–the only innovation on the entire CD as far as I can tell. The other track worth mentioning is the very last, Area 51’s “Caught In Your Spell,” which isn’t notable for its originality, but for the quality of Ed Hornung’s voice, and some great instrumentation from Ken Harris and his Organ.
But overall, this is a very professional sounding conglomeration of Boise’s finest bullshit. This might be something nice to throw on for the drunk customers at the local sports bar, but serious music lovers should avoid it like the plague. Go buy some Muddy Waters, Hendrix, Leadbelly, John Lee Hooker, or any other blues album with some substance.