Michael Dyer: Blog

 
CONTEMPORARY BLUES VS. CLASSIC BLUES
AND THE FUTURE OF BLUES
Michael Dyer
© 2011
 
On June 10, 2010 Jim Fusilli (rock and pop music critic for the Wall Street Journal) wrote an article, titled: "Lamenting The Future Of Blues".  The URL to this article is:  
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704002104575290532300233738.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_TOPRightCarousel_2 
He wrote about what he experienced when he went to Memphis to attend a Blues Foundation event. There, he heard many forms of classic/traditional blues (Chicago blues, Delta blues, Texas blues) but he complained that he didn't hear any new kind of blues.  He stated:  "Today's blues music isn't only steeped in the past; it's anchored to it.".
He interviewed various blues spokesmen, who stated that blues fans don't want innovation; that blues gets less and less airplay, and that classic blues artists don't interact enough with artists from other music genres.   Fusilli [...]

I wrote this article back in 2008 and posted it on a hosting website that soon had financial difficulty and so disappeared. I think it is still timely and so I have decided to re-post it here.