# data[].attributes.body
Early traditional blues verses consisted of a single line repeated four times. It was only in the first decades of the 20th century that the most common current structure became standard: the AAB pattern, consisting of a line sung over the four first bars, its repetition over the next four, and then a longer concluding line over the last bars. Early blues frequently took the form of a loose narrative, often relating the racial discrimination and other challenges experienced by African-Americans.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Blues . Blues Classroom . What is the Blues? | PBS

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
On a lonely night in 1903, W.C. Handy, the African American leader of a dance orchestra, got stuck waiting for a train in the hamlet of Tutwiler, Mississippi. With hours to kill and nowhere else to go, Handy fell asleep on a hard wooden bench at the empty depot. When he awoke, a ragged black…

# data[].attributes.body
"One More Drink"
Strong example of traditional blues song:
--Basic 8 count
--Loose narrative
--AAB Pattern--kind of

# data[].attributes.body
Chuck Berry--"Around and Around"
Slip Harpo--"I'm a King Bee"
Muddy Waters--"I Just Wanna Make Love to You"
Elmore James-"One More Drink"

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Essential Question

How did the early Rolling Stones help popularize the Blues?

Overview

The Rolling Stones ultimately made their mark as the nonconformist outlaws of Rock and Roll. But before they were bad boys, the Stones were missionaries of the Blues. The young Rolling Stones - Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Brian Jones, Charlie Watts, and Bill Wyman - were white kids who hailed from working- and middle-class Britain and set out to play American music, primarily that of African Americans with roots in the South. In so doing, they helped bring this music to a new, largely white audience, both in Britain and the United States.

The young men who formed the Rolling Stones emerged from the club scene fostered by British Blues pioneers Cyril Davies and Alexis Korner. These two men and their band, Blues Incorporated, helped popularize the American Blues, whose raw intensity resonated with a generation of Britons who had grown up in the shadow of war, death, the Blitz, postwar rationing, and the hardening of the Cold War standoff. Much of the Stones' early work consisted of faithful covers of American Blues artists that Davies, Korner, and the Stones venerated: Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Slim Harpo, Jimmy Reed.

The early Stones in particular helped make the Blues wildly popular among young Britons. As the Stones' fame grew and they became part of the mid-1960s British "invasion" of America, they also reintroduced the Blues to American listeners, most notably young, white audiences with limited exposure to the music.

But almost from day one, the Stones were more than a Blues cover band. If at first their Blues covers were somewhat imitative, in time they put an increasingly original spin on their Blues recordings. Additionally, they soon enough ventured beyond the Blues to other American genres, covering songs by R&B and Country artists. In this lesson, students will investigate the Stones' early musical development and their burgeoning relationship with American Blues.

Objectives

Upon completion of the lesson, students will

1. Know (knowledge):

The influence of the Blues on the British club scene in the early 1960s

How the Blues influenced the early recordings and performances of the Rolling Stones

How the Rolling Stones re-interpreted the Blues for British and American audiences

The early musical development of the Rolling Stones, including forays into other styles of music beyond the Blues

2. Be able to (skills):

Trace artistic developments to the historical context in which that art was created

Analyze and hypothesize on the attraction of Blues music for white, middle-class artists and audiences

Pre-Lesson Preparation:

For homework the night before the lesson, ask students to read Handout 1 - British Blues Article, 1965, a story from a British music publication titled "The Animals, the Rolling Stones: English Artists Find 'Soul' Music is More Than Skin Deep."

Motivational Activity:

1. Play the video clip of Bono discussing the origins of the Rolling Stones.

2. Write or display the following quote on the board from Rolling Stones' guitarist Keith Richards, quoted in The Rolling Stones: 50 (Hyperion, 2012):"When we play it's all about the feel; that's the all-important ingredient. The music we play comes out of the blues and you can't play the blues without feeling. As we developed into the pop side of things and then into rock, the blues were ever present, giving us those right feelings."

3. Briefly discuss:

Based on what you read in the assigned article, what is the Blues, and where does this style of music come from?

According to Bono and Keith Richards, what is the relationship between the Rolling Stones and the music of black America?

What questions does the article raise about the notion of white Englishmen playing a style of music created by African Americans?

Procedure:

1. Students will imagine that they are visiting London during the period 1963-65, and will be given a series of primary source materials to guide them through their "travels." Working either individually or in small groups (at the instructor's discretion) they will write and illustrate four picture postcards to an American cousin who lives in Chicago, reporting and commenting on what they see and hear. The postcards will center on visits to British Blues clubs, seeing the newly-formed Rolling Stones in person and on television, and hearing the Stones' first records.

2. Distribute the four packets of materials (one for each postcard) to each student or group: Packet for Postcard 1, Packet for Postcard 2, Packet for Postcard 3, and Packet for Postcard 4. In addition to the source material, each packet includes a writing question and notes about the writer's point of view. These notes may be helpful in getting started students who have difficulty writing, and may be offered or withheld at the teacher's discretion.

Videos for Postcard 1 Videos for Postcard 2 Videos for Postcard 3 Videos for Postcard 4

1. Distribute Handout 2 - Postcard Templates. For each postcard, students should examine the writing questions, the writing point of view, and the artifacts indicated in the materials section. Depending on teacher choice, students should then be required to:

Complete the postcard in class; or

Start the postcard in class and complete at home; or

Take notes and complete the postcard at home

2. Each completed postcard must have two components:

Front: art and text that depict some aspect(s) of the postcard topic

Back: a written note to a relative about the topic

3. Before students begin writing, inform them that their postcards will be assessed based on their success in (1) developing a thesis in response to the writing questions; (2) creating postcard text in support of the thesis and (3) incorporating evidence from the artifacts.

Summary Activity:

Have students to present their postcards to the class, and discuss the themes they chose to emphasize.

Writing Prompt:

Why were the Rolling Stones and their audiences attracted to the Blues, and how did the Stones help reinterpret this music that was originally created by disenfranchised African Americans?

Extension Activity:

Assign students to complete an extended correspondence between the postcard writer and postcard recipient. For short responses, the correspondence may be an exchange of postcards. For deeper, more substantive writing the correspondence may be an exchange of letters. In the case of the latter, encourage students to include artifacts in the envelopes - clippings, drawings, images, articles. For an example of how construct a chain of correspondence, see the book Griffin and Sabine: An Extraordinary Correspondence, by Nick Bantock.

Common Core State Standards
College and Career Readiness Reading Anchor Standards for Grades 6-12 for Literature and Informational Text

Reading 6: Assess how point of view or purpose shapes the content and style of a text.

Reading 8: Delineate and evaluate the argument and specific claims in a text, including the validity of the reasoning as well as the relevance and sufficiency of the evidence.

College and Career Readiness Writing Anchor Standards for Grades 6-12 in English Language Arts and Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science and Technical Subjects

Writing 2: Write informative/explanatory texts to examine and convey complex ideas and information clearly and accurately through the effective selection, organization, and analysis of content.

Writing 3: Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, well-chosen details, and well-structured event sequences.

College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Speaking and Listening for Grades 6-12

Speaking and Listening 2: Integrate and evaluate information presented in diverse media and formats, including visually, quantitatively, and orally.

Speaking and Listening 5: Make strategic use of digital media and visual displays of data to express information and enhance understanding of presentations.

Social Studies - National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS)

National Standards for Music Education
Core Music Standard: Responding

Select: Choose music appropriate for a specific purpose or context.

Analyze: Analyze how the structure and context of varied musical works inform the response.

Interpret: Support interpretations of musical works that reflect creators' and/or performers' expressive intent.

Evaluate: Support evaluations of musical works and performances based on analysis, interpretation, and established criteria.

Core Music Standard: Connecting

Connecting 11: Relate musical ideas and works to varied contexts and daily life to deepen understanding.

National Core Arts Standards
Responding

Anchor Standard 7: Perceive and analyze artistic work.

Anchor Standard 8: Interpret intent and meaning in artistic work.

Anchor Standard 9: Apply criteria to evaluate artistic work.

Connecting

Anchor Standard 10: Synthesize and relate knowledge and personal experiences to make art.

Anchor Standards 11: Relate artistic ideas and work with societal, cultural and historical context to deepen understanding.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Rolling Stones: Giving America Back the Blues - TeachRock

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
How did the early Rolling Stones help popularize the Blues? The Rolling Stones ultimately made their mark as the nonconformist outlaws of Rock and Roll. But before they were bad boys, the Stones were missionaries of the Blues.

# data[].attributes.body
Muddy Waters' song, "Rollin' Stone" is where The Rolling Stones got their band name.

Below is an image of the song's lyrics. The reference is made to a "rollin' stone" in the 3rd stanza

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Music video by Muddy Waters performing Mannish Boy (audio). (C) 1977 Epic Records, a division of Sony Music Entertainment http://vevo.ly/Fq5EOX

# data[].attributes.body
"Mannish Boy" lyrics - around 1:45 on video Waters sings, "I'm a rollin' stone."

# data[].attributes.body
Chicago recording studio who signed Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Frank Zappa once said that the best years of rock were when records were produced by "cigar-chomping old guys who looked at the product that came and said, 'I don't know. Who knows what it is? Record it, stick it out. If it sells, all right.'"

Leonard and Phil Chess were prototypical cigar-chomping, old-fashioned record men who took a chance on music they didn't understand. Jewish immigrants from Poland, they got into the record business more or less by chance: Leonard bought a liquor store in an African American neighbourhood on the south side of Chicago, and did well enough that he opened a small nightclub called the Macomba Lounge. It was a rough ghetto bar, patronised by prostitutes and drug dealers, but from the start it was known for having good music. In the late-1940s, that meant it had jazz groups playing bebop, pop tunes, and mellow blues ballads. That was what the better-paying black patrons preferred to hear, and when Leonard got involved with a small local label, Aristocrat Records, that was what he intended to record.

It was only after the first few records went nowhere that he took a chance on another kind of musician, a Mississippi singer who was too raw and country-sounding to have pleased the crowds at the Macomba. In fact, when Leonard Chess first heard Muddy Waters sing I Can't Be Satisfied, in a Delta growl backed with a whining electric slide guitar, he couldn't imagine it pleasing anyone. "What's he saying?" he asked. "Who's going to buy that?"

Fortunately, his partner in Aristocrat, Evelyn Arons, suggested that some of the black southerners who had moved north in search of jobs might enjoy the sounds of home. So Chess pressed 3,000 singles, they sold out in a day, and six decades later Waters's recording is remembered as the first masterpiece of electric Chicago blues.

In a movie - and there have been several based on this story - Chess would have instantly seen the light and devoted himself to creating further blues masterpieces. But in real life he was not a patron of the arts; he was a businessman trying to cut popular hits. By 1950 Arons had been replaced by Leonard's brother Phil and the label was called Chess, but most of its releases continued to be by jazz saxophonists.

The brothers were small-time "indie" record men making a quick buck from the poorest, least respected people in America

Meanwhile Waters was also trying to reach a broader audience, adding a drummer and harmonica player to his live shows to create a tight, tough band. He was frustrated when Chess refused to mess with a winning formula and insisted that he keep making stark guitar-and-bass records like Rollin Stone, a one-chord chant that was archaic even by the standards of rural Mississippi. Neither of them could have imagined that a dozen years later five lads in London would like that record enough to name a band after it.

That is the paradox of the Chess story. The brothers were not musical visionaries; they were small-time "indie" record men making a quick buck from the poorest, least respected people in America. But their cheaply recorded, bread-and-butter discs of local street musicians and bar bands still sound as fresh today as they did 60 years ago. By failing to be timely, they succeeded in being timeless.

They were also lucky, and unusually loyal to their artists. That loyalty did not prevent them from playing some tricky games with publishing and royalty payments, but it meant that down-home bluesmen like Waters and Howlin' Wolf continued to make records long after other indie labels had switched to a trendy teen style called rock'n'roll.

Leonard Chess and Waters had a particularly close relationship, and it served both of them well. When Waters finally persuaded Chess to record his full band, he incidentally brought the label its biggest blues hit-maker: Little Walter was barely out of his teens, and reshaped the course of blues harmonica by amplifying his instrument and playing it like a jazz saxophone. It was a fresh, hip sound, and in 1952 he cut an instrumental called Juke that stayed at the top of the R&B charts for eight weeks. Then, in 1955, Waters introduced Chess to an unknown songwriter from St Louis named Chuck Berry. In retrospect, the list of artists who were associated with Chess in that first decade forms a pantheon of electric blues and blues-influenced rock'n'roll: Waters, Wolf, Walter, John Lee Hooker, Sonny Boy Williamson, Berry, Bo Diddley. There were some startling one-offs as well: In 1951, a teenage Ike Turner recorded a romping boogie-woogie called Rocket 88 at Sun Studios in Memphis, soon to be the birthplace of rockabilly - but Sam Phillips had not yet started the record label that would spawn Elvis Presley, so the disc appeared on Chess. When Presley hit, Chess got its own white rock'n'rollers, Dale Hawkins and Bobby Charles. Many of the label's biggest hits in this period came from doo-wop groups.

When people talk about the "Chess sound", though, they are not thinking of rockabilly or doo-wop, or even of the brilliant soul records the label produced in the 1960s with Etta James, Fontella Bass and Little Milton. They are thinking of the stripped-down blues discs that, despite changing fashions, always remained among the label's mainstays.

It was because Mick Jagger had a couple of Chess LPs under his arm that he was approached by an erstwhile schoolmate named Keith Richards

Once again, that fame is in a large part due to decisions that at the time were simply efforts to wring a few more dollars out of a marginal style. By 1957, down-home blues singles were no longer hitting, but the Chess brothers had made pretty good money with their first LP, the soundtrack album for a forgettable teen movie, Rock, Rock, Rock. So, since reissues of old material were cheap to produce, they put out "best of" sets by Muddy Waters and Little Walter. The anthologies did not sell particularly well, but it was all clear profit, so over the next few years Chess recycled older tracks by Wolf, Williamson and John Lee Hooker as well. Their core audience was still buying singles, but some middle-class jazz and folk fans were beginning to get interested in blues and picked up the albums. As a result, when the Newport Jazz Festival put on a special afternoon of blues in 1960, it included a folkloric segment, a jazz segment, and a fiery electric set by Waters and his band.

The LPs' most significant influence was even less expected. American listeners thought of Waters and Berry as coming from different generations and styles, and the fact that both were on the same record label was irrelevant. In the UK, there was far less African American music to choose from, so the Chess albums were coveted keys to a mysterious, faraway world. A bright 18-year-old named Mick Jagger ordered them directly from Chicago, and it was because he had a couple under his arm that he was approached by an erstwhile schoolmate named Keith Richards.

It is only a slight exaggeration to say that Chess Records owes its legendary status to that chance meeting on a Dartford train platform. Its British acolytes provided it with a unique identity, and today we associate Chess with the handful of brilliant artists whose work was adopted and recycled by the Rolling Stones and their peers.

According to Leonard's son Marshall, who for five years managed the Stones' record label, his father and uncle were unimpressed with the British groups. But the one thing the Chess brothers never argued with was success.

MARSHALL CHESS Son, employee and boss:

"South Michigan Ave was called Record Row - there wasn't only Chess: Vee-Jay records was across the street, with five or six different distributors. We had a narrow two-storey 1920s Chicago building. The offices were on the first floor and the studios were on the second floor.

"In the front there was a waiting room - a wall with a window in the door, because a lot of people who came to Chess records weren't happy. Like, 'Why isn't my record a hit?' Billy Stewart, the R&B artist, pulled out a pistol and shot the door because they wouldn't let him in quick enough.

"We were dealing with blues artists ... 80% of them were drinking. There was a lot of yelling, a lot of calling people 'motherfucker', and fighting. Blues artists, often you could give them $2,000 on Friday and they'd be broke by Monday. Then they'd come in and say, 'You fucked me - where's my money?' You couldn't be an angel and run Chess records in the ghetto in Chicago.

"My father was the A-type aggressive personality; my uncle very laidback. He had a big fishtank in his office, smoked cigars. They divided up the artists almost by personality. Phil was more sensitive, and produced the doo-wop records. My father was in there with Muddy Waters and Etta James. They were tough Jews. You had to be. It was like the wild west, to be white in the black ghetto in that era. You were put down for even doing business with blacks. When I used to take the money to the bank, it was in a paper bag, and on my way there I used to pass a liquor store/bar, and we used to talk about whether there was blood on the sidewalk outside that day. People carried knives then, not guns.

"My favourite artists were Etta James, Howlin' Wolf, Chuck Berry - they used to send me to take him out to breakfast. I was fascinated that he would always order the dessert first - always the strawberry shortcake. Guys like Muddy Waters or Howlin' Wolf were natural stars, but when their records became hits, it seems like they sucked that in and their charisma grew and grew - it's fed by their stardom.

I got a quick education. Blues artists were primarily interested to know if I got any sex. What does a guy ask a kid? They're not going to ask 'How's school?' Muddy Waters used to ask me, 'Get any yet?'

The Stones came to Chicago to record - the one I spent most time with was Brian Jones. The first time I drank hard liquor out of the bottle was with those guys. I remember driving Brian Jones to his hotel - he had that long hair. No one in Chicago had hair like that. Kids were screaming 'Homo!' at us.

The films about the label? At first I hated it. My Uncle was bothered by it - my father didn't die that way. But Beyoncé was in Cadillac Records, and she's such a big star, now everyone knows about Chess records. It gets the history in to the mainstream. They remember it was important at the beginning of rock'n'roll."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How the blues brothers behind Chess Records made all the right moves

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Frank Zappa once said that the best years of rock were when records were produced by "cigar-chomping old guys who looked at the product that came and said, 'I don't know. Who knows what it is? Record it, stick it out.

# data[].attributes.body
Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon, Howlin' Wolf

# data[].attributes.body
Etta James

# data[].attributes.body
Etta James played by Beyonce' Knowles in Cadillac Records

# data[].attributes.body
Street View

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Muddy Waters & The Rolling Stones - Baby Please Don't Go - Live At Checkerboard Lounge

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Watch The Rolling Stones perform the entire Sticky Fingers album in 2015 in The Rolling Stones: Sticky Fingers at the Fonda Theatre on Wednesday, March 7 at 9:00 pm.

Were it not for a quintessentially Chicago genre of music, one of the biggest bands of the twentieth century may never have formed. The Rolling Stones may be British, but they wanted to sound like black Chicago bluesmen. Keith Richards and Mick Jagger had been longtime casual acquaintances when Richards spotted Jagger at a train station in Dartford, Kent in 1961. What Jagger held in his arms thrilled Richards: records by Muddy Waters and Chuck Berry, special-ordered from Chess Records in Chicago.

Waters especially exemplified a style of music called the Chicago blues, which emerged out of the bitter, acoustic laments of the Mississippi Delta. As African Americans moved north in the huge numbers of the Great Migration during the early and mid-twentieth century, many of the bluesmen came too. Once in Chicago, they started electrifying their guitars, adding more grit and fuzz. Although it was mostly ignored by mainstream, white America at the time, some British teenagers latched onto the music, even though few record stores sold it. Jagger and Richards were two of those teenagers, the former learning harmonica from listening to Little Walter, the latter eagerly mimicking the guitar parts on Chuck Berry songs. After the pair discovered their shared love of the niche genre, they eventually joined with another friend, Brian Jones, to form a band devoted to Chicago blues.

For their name, they turned to the song "Rollin' Stone," by one of their heroes: Muddy Waters. Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Willie Dixon, and other greats all recorded on Chess Records, a label founded by Polish-Jewish immigrant brothers Leonard and Phil Chess in 1947, under the name Aristocrat Records. The Chess brothers sought out talent on the South Side of the city and in the South, selling records primarily to a black audience.

It took British bands like the Stones for the black music of Chicago blues to be accepted by the American mainstream. Many of the band's early recordings were covers of the artists they loved: their first album featured Dixon's "I Just Want to Make Love to You" and Jimmy Reed's "Honest I Do," and they would soon record songs by Waters, too. As the Stones bassist Bill Wyman told the Chicago Tribune during a tour in 1975, "We just wanted to play Chicago blues for anyone who'd listen to us."

In 1964, the Rolling Stones got to meet some of their heroes and record at the legendary source of their beloved blues. During a tour to Chicago, they traveled to Chess Records to cut some songs. When they arrived, they found Muddy Waters painting the exterior, and Buddy Guy recording inside. In tribute to that hallowed ground, they named one of the songs they recorded there "2120 South Michigan Avenue," after the studio's address. "We felt we were taking part in a little bit of history there," Wyman later recalled.

As the Stones' popularity exploded, they made sure to continue to emphasize their debt to the Chicago blues. In 1965, when the band appeared on the American TV show Shindig, they brought Waters and Howlin' Wolf with them. "The Shindig people had no idea who the Stones were talking about," Buddy Guy recalled to the Chicago Tribune in 1997. "And Mick and Keith were embarrassed that Americans didn't know who Muddy and Wolf were... The Stones took the Chicago blues to the world." Later, they would tour with Guy and hire Leonard Chess's son Marshall to head their own record label.

When they passed through Chicago, they often jammed with their idols. While introducing the Stones at one of those sessions, Waters said, "I'm like a daddy to them." And, unlike some other British blues-based bands, the Stones passed along royalties to their forebears when they covered their songs, according to both Waters and Dixon.

Two years ago, the Stones once again returned to the music that formed them with their latest album Blue and Lonesome. The record consists entirely of covers of those Chicago blues tunes the young Richards and Jagger loved so much, songs by the musicians they aspired to be: Howlin' Wolf, Willie Dixon, Little Walter, and others. Fifty years on, they still can't escape those blues.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How a Chicago Genre of Music Inspired One of The Biggest Bands in the World

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Watch The Rolling Stones perform the entire Sticky Fingers album in 2015 in The Rolling Stones: Sticky Fingers at the Fonda Theatre on Wednesday, March 7 at 9:00 pm. Were it not for a quintessentially Chicago genre of music, one of the biggest bands of the twentieth century may never have formed.

# data[].attributes.headline
"Good Time Woman" from Exile on Main Street

# data[].attributes.subject
"Good Time Woman" from Exile on Main Street

# data[].attributes.body
Classic blues sound

# data[].attributes.headline
The Rolling Stones Influence The Black Crowes

# data[].attributes.subject
The Rolling Stones Influence The Black Crowes

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
''I grew up in a musical household. My dad had a big record collection, it covered a broad spectrum of music - there was Mose Allison, early acoustic Bob Dylan, Sly Stone, Joe Cocker, Muddy Waters, and listening through it, I was drawn to country blues. As a guitar player, I have always been attracted to open tunings and different time signatures and that is what I just naturally go to and naturally write. To me the chords that come from open tunings are huge and the resonant frequencies and the harmonics are captured beautifully in country blues. When you tune a guitar differently, the strings vibrate differently and the whole thing sounds different. When you then throw chugging rhythms over it, you get a symphony coming off of the guitar. There are so many things that you can hear with the way that those guys are playing. That's what attracted me to the blues as a kid, and still does."
Furry Lewis Falling Down Blues
From: Furry Lewis In His Prime 1927-1928

(Yazoo, 1975)

Every time The Black Crowes went to Japan on tour, we went crate-digging and there were bootleg stores full of unbelievable stuff, and that's how I first came across Furry Lewis. What drew me to Falling Down Blues is its gentle nature, but because it's a blues song there is this heavier undertone to the pastoral setting. I grew up in Atlanta, Georgia and it sounds like the south in August to me, the gentle breeze, the smells... There is this fluidity in the way he plays and this beautiful tonality to his guitar and his voice and that first line: 'I got the blues so bad it hurts my feet to walk.' I must have listened to this song a thousand times.
Shake 'Em On Down
(Oblivion Records, 1972)

Listening to Keith Richards talk about people like Mississippi Fred McDowell was a stepping stone for us to delve deeper and deeper into the blues. The Black Crowes used to cover this song early on, and we recorded a live version. It's such a powerful song and Mississippi Fred McDowell is one of those dudes that I've always resonated with as
a guitar player - the way that he plays, his big booming voice that is really strong and biting in that low register of his. I mean, it's so intense. There's some amazing footage on YouTube of him playing John Henry and the sound he gets from this guitar, which looks kind of like a Gibson ES-330, but isn't, is mind-blowing.

Muddy Waters

Canary Bird

From: The Real Folk Blues

(Chess, 1966)

I first heard this in the late 1980s in the period leading up to The Black Crowes' first album Shake Your Money Maker. We were getting more and more into blues, or actually me and my brother Chris [Robinson, singer in The Black Crowes] were getting back into blues after discovering it through my dad's record collection.

There was a record by Muddy Waters we had called The Real Folk Blues that compiled songs he had recorded in the 1940s and 50s, and the slide guitar on this one - the biting nature of how it's played, but also the fluidity of it at the same time, man! It's unbelievable! Although it's in a different context with a band and electric guitar, the fluidity is the same thing that Furry Lewis had, but with this bite, and I remember the pointed nature of this song just reaching me on a really deep level. It's such a cool song. Obviously there are a number of Muddy Waters songs that people are drawn to, like Mannish Boy, but for me it was the sound of Canary Bird that appealed. It just sounds unlike anything else and it's so concise. It has true dynamics, no one is over-playing, and there is true discipline to that - it takes more discipline to play the right amount than to over-play.

Lightnin' Hopkins

Black Cadillac

From: The Complete Prestige Bluesville Recordings

(Prestige, 1991)

I love Lightnin' Hopkins' whole thing - the way he plays, the way he sings, and on this song in particular the sonics of the whole recording. I am really into the feeling I get from the sonics of a record and I've always felt that way, and this is the perfect example of what I like. It's a rock'n'roll song and it sounds so fucking cool. It sounds like you are in the room with Lightning Hopkins recording it in 1962 and I can really hear that room. It gives me a feeling of excitement and I really want to be in that room. Whatever's going on in there, I want to experience it, that's where I want to be.

The Rolling Stones

Ventilator Blues

From: Exile On Main St

(Rolling Stones Records, 1972)

Coming from the south and listening to a British band playing American music, but doing it so well and authentically, and bringing it to this other level that is not modern but classic was amazing. The Stones were putting this song into a band setting but having all the guitar parts sound so authentic and sound so cool. They were bringing the
blues into a modern rock band setting for the time. Listening to Exile On Main St growing up was a huge influence on me and also on Chris. Keith Richards and Mick Taylor really influenced my playing and they also led a path back to the blues.

The Georgia Sea Island Singers

Sink 'Em Low

From: Join The Band

(Mississippi/Change Records, 2011)

I was in Glasgow last year record shopping and pulled out this record by The Georgia Sea Island Singers, and it's a whole album recorded in 1959 and 1960 by these singers who I had four songs by on an Alan Lomax compilation. Bessie Jones is one of the singers and she sings a song called Sink 'Em Low. She tells a story and the song is about how roads used to be made and you've got to sink 'em low before you raise 'em high. It's literally one of the most intense, amazing, beautiful and also horrific songs, and the feeling that comes from her voice... it puts you right there. When these songs were written, they were written from people's life experiences and people's emotional reactions to these experiences, whether it is absolute joy or absolute sadness.

Charley Patton

Shake It And Break It

From: Founder Of The Delta Blues 1929-1934
(Yazoo, 1971)

It was through Canned Heat's version of Shake It And Break It that I got into this song, and after discovering it, I bought everything I could get by Charley Patton. The Canned Heat version is literally one of the coolest versions, and hearing the Charley Patton version and the Canned Heat one back-to-back allowed me to see how bands could and would interpret what Charley Patton was doing, and how they were bringing his songs into the 1960s and 1970s.

Jimmy Reed

I Ain't Got You

From: Found Love

Vee Jay Records, 1960

Jimmy Reed was one of the ways I got into the blues, he's so accessible. The moment I heard this I was into it and from a band standpoint, I Ain't Got You was a song that I always wanted to cover. The sound of that song, and the sound of Jimmy Reed in particular, is just one of those things that really moves me. His voice and the way that he sang his songs, it was just such a cool thing.
The Llama Blues EP is out now on Eagle Rock.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
''I grew up in a musical household. My dad had a big record collection, it covered a broad spectrum of music - there was Mose Allison, early acoustic Bob Dylan, Sly Stone, Joe Cocker, Muddy Waters, and listening through it, I was drawn to country blues.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
(It's been a long time since I've done a "Similar Ingredients" post, but I've been listening to "Appaloosa" lately and couldn't place what song it reminded me of, until I heard "Wild Horses" in a store and it was an "Aha!" moment)

The Rolling Stones' "Wild Horses" and The Black Crowes' "Appaloosa" share more than just a reference to horses in their titles. Both songs are mostly acoustic, minor key country rock ballads about the longing for home experienced by touring musicians. Keith Richards said of "Wild Horses", "it was about the usual thing of not wanting to be on the road, being a million miles from where you want to be." (liner notes to Jump Back compilation album). Similarly, "Appaloosa" has lines like "Just coming home to walk my own floors / Just coming home to the one I adore".

It's natural that "Appaloosa" echo "Wild Horses". The Black Crowes have always been heavily influenced by the Stones, as well as other early 70's bands that dabbled in heartfelt, yearning folk rock and country rock such as the Allman Brothers and the Faces. This doesn't diminish "Appaloosa" in the slightest and both songs are high water marks for each band, conveying a sense of yearning tempered with contemplation and a resigned peacefulness.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Similar Ingredients [#9] - The Rolling Stones / The Black Crowes

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
(It's been a long time since I've done a "Similar Ingredients" post, but I've been listening to "Appaloosa" lately and couldn't place what song it reminded me of, until I heard "Wild Horses" in a store and it was an "Aha!" moment) The Rolling Stones' "Wild Horses" and The Black Crowes' "Appaloosa" share more than...

# data[].attributes.body
"Appaloosa" from Before the Frost
at times compared to The Rolling Stone's "Wild Horses"

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Black Crowes - Appaloosa [Cabin Fever]

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Before the Frost...Until the Freeze is a 2009 album by blues-rock band The Black Crowes. It was recorded before a live audience at Levon Helm's Woodstock, NY studio, The Barn in late February and early March, 2009.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Rolling Stones - Wild Horses (Acoustic / Lyric Video)