Sorry for the self-promotion, but I posted a pre-war Blues and Country thread a few years ago; several interesting recordings and info were posted there: The Pre-War Blues and Country Music thread
Keeping the energy up with Earth Wind & Fire's sole major release live album: Gratitude (1975) On the heels of That's The Way of the World success this follow-up album is witness to some of what it was like to see them live. Wish I had.
Today some might say it falls under the R&B umbrella but back in the late 20’s when Mississippi John was letting it rip R&B wasn’t a term..
So this, from 1949, would definitely be R&B, right? Despite, to me, it being early Rock N Roll. Fats Domino "The Fat Man" Killer song!
As I mentioned, some would say so. Myself, not a chance!!! This guy is in his own category - honestly who else, in the history of Mississippi Delta Blues sounds like him??? While you can hear several styles in his repitore, you always know when it’s him - that thumb is remarkable!!!
I know......seems like a real spectacle ala funkadelic .....my favorite EW&F might be but the two that preceded it are great too
He actually was more a songster than a bluesman, with his own unique style. The Yazoo CD with his 1928 recordings is a treasure and gives a good idea of his repertoire. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Songster
I kinda feel like we both said the same thing in our own way.... Love those reissues of his early recordings - a treasure indeed!!
PFunk - yes. Still haven't seen a decent video of them live. But it was an event to attend really. No video could capture that experience - I don't think.
Yeah, part of seeing PFunk was being overwhelmed by the entire show. You can't capture how that feels on video.
Now, is this jazz or soul or r&b? Swing?Hot as heck but you could put a drum track (boom-bap) over it at 4/4 and it would easily be r&b. Take out the bass player, put in say, a Roland Tr-9 laid track and it would still swing. Don't have any of my old equipment anymore to do a demo but engineers soup old jams like this all the time, making hits without most of public even knowing it.
R&B producer Jimmy Jam said he wanted to do a tribute of sorts to Joni Mitchell's Big Yellow Taxi, having grown up listening her music. So he did his studio tricks and made a r&b hit with Janet Jackson (& Q-Tip) out of a 20 year old song in a similar fashion like what I described above: Now, so called purists would likely respond that r&b is traditionally played by live musicians. I'll conceed that. But I think we can safely say that tradition ended with the 70s. Stevie Wonder's masterwork, Songs in the Key of Life (1976) featured synthisizers and his next album, The Secret Life of Plants, was primarily a machine produced work. So how far do you go back and where do you stop with regard to the r&b designation? Time, it seems, has little and everything to do with it! Beautiful thing about music.
A throwback by Any Winehouse is The Rehab Song. If it was released in 1955 there'd be little argument with the r&b label. In 2006 would purists balk at what producer Tom Elhirst tried to pass off as legit r&b?