Is there such a thing as progressive blues?

Absolutely

 

I'm also quite confused as I'm not following the line of discussion with the samples that are being offered.

 

Definitely Maybe!

 

Stand Up by Jethro Tull is probably the closest to a progressive blues album that I have heard.

 

Atomic Rooster, Vincent Crane laying down some evil Hammond over Fats Waller type barrelhouse blues runs on acoustic piano, and the guitarists were all playing a blues!

 

when this came out i kind of thought it was progressive blues, if we mean the same things.

 

I don't call it that. I call this LP, everything you need to know about women in one LP. It's a darned fine straight blues LP. I love it just as much today as I did when new. Worth listening to all day long. LP and CD both great. Get "Strong Persuader" in your collection, thank McLover later.

 

Bolero
Rice Pudding

 

Al Dimeola
Go - Live In Paris

 

Midnight Rambler always struck me as this.

 

Having (coincidentally) just played Safe as Milk and Trout Mask Replica not half an hour ago, I would say the former is straight up electric blues. There is no real progressive element to the album, rather a deliberate effort to adhere to the most basic forms of the Delta Blues genre, albeit with some psychedelic overtones. The latter is certainly experimental, but doesn't seem to be guided by any specific desire to develop or build upon anything...it's really more of a collage of sorts which does feature blues elements.
Those two albums anyway seem to straddle 'progressive' by being formalistic and eclectic respectively.

 

Great album, but just electric blues. More accurately, psychedelic blues fusion. I mean, it's LITERALLY just Muddy singing over psych rock. Not even real psych rock as much as standard rock with some studio effects and pedals. Tom Cat is a killer track though....
I'd say if anything, After the Rain is more ''progressive', but still very much a blues album in traditional sense.

 

pigmeat blues band - w ian buchanan

 

IMO The Groundhogs Hogwash and Solid lp's are loaded with killer progressive Delta blues (there's another sub-genre for ya)

 

I think the thread is interesting but some of the stuff listed by the OP is not "Progressive Blues" because it is not blues IMO. Mostly Rock and not blues. Yeah I know, it has blues elements but just because it has blues elements does not make it blues.
As much as I love this song, it is not Blues. It is Rock IMO. Very little as far as blues inflections, a mixolydian chord progression, does not really swing at all. It is a great Rock song and not a blues song.

 

I dont think this that complicated. Was SRV a progressive blues guy? No. He was in the vein of traditional electric blues. Im not sure why Johnny called it "the progressive blues experiment". That album is also simply traditional electric blues. Maybe with a bit more bite. Maybe he meant that his journey would be one of progressing the blues into more of the rock n roll flavor. But he really didnt do that either. "Johnny Winter And.." was pretty much a rock record. Some blues roots sure. But so do many many rock albums.

Rather than a progression, Id say it was more of a mixing. Some may call that progress. Others may not.

Prog rock is a mixture of classical and renaissance, old folk medium, galic etc. It really has very little to do with rock n roll. Doesnt make it less cool, just different. I certainly dont see it as a progression from Little Richard or Chuck Berry.

I think the term "progressive" was/is used as some sort of way to make a mixed genre seem as if its some sort of mountian top or leaving behind something that is lesser. When its really just a way of trying to be creative by mixing together what others have laid down.

 

you seem to be defining it so that any prog expansion of the sound means it's not bluesy enough. i agree it's a rock song inasmuch as that means something, but I hear a lot of blues in this, the intro, the lyrics, the penatonics, two chords, and then branching off coming to a transcendent climax. blues doesn't need to swing, it doesn't need a band. in a lot of robert johnsons catalog the rhythm is tacit.

 

I enjoy reading these intelligent counter arguments.