ADE or CFG
After writing the last post, I had the privilege of getting a response from Matt at Axebay.com (definitely a cool site! I’d recommend it to anyone who digs guitars!!) that “Rock N Roll really started with the blues.
And he’s 100% right!! Though we were talkin’ about how rock-and-roll got its name, let me take a second to tie it in with what Matt said:
From the Mississippi Delta to the streets of Chi-Town (Chicago), the hard, mournful chords of a plain “box” (acoustic) guitar served as a backdrop to the plaintive, soulful wails of streetcorner blues artists. Their songs would echo the sadness, sweat, strain — and sometimes tragicomedy — of a hard-workin’ life.
A few decades ago, I had a friend who played with legendary bluesman Big Bill Broonzy, and asked him what the basic blues chords were.
He looked at me like “I don’t believe you just asked that!” then burst out in a booming laugh.
“Chuck, there ain’t no “basic chords” in the blues, man!” He picked up an old Kay guitar he was using and continued,
“Look a-here … you feel kinda good, ya might do a little sweet stuff, like this!” And he played some soft, almost angelic chords.
“But,” Sammy continued, “let’s us say yer wife done left ya for some UHHH-gly man. Whatcha gonna do?” He immediately hit the chords like he was gonna break ‘em! A “G”, an “A”, a “C” …
Then he put the guitar down, pulled out a toothpick to suck on, and said, “If they’s any ‘chords’ you could call ‘blues’, jus’ stick with them ‘big three’. Yep … ‘A, D, E’ or … ‘C, F an’ G’. Ever’thang starts from there!“
Now, I know this is sorta gettin’ away from our continuing posts about rock roots, but Matt’s comment triggered this memory. Sammy died shortly after I talked with him that afternoon, but he knew the blues like “maple” knows “syrup”.
And it was just as smooth …
August 14th, 2009 at 1:12 pm
Great story! Thanks for the shout out too!