The third in what will be a long series of mixtape posts.
This is 'Side A' of the Blues cassette, and is Acoustic Blues. Beautiful music by some of the great musical geniuses of the twentieth century.
I've been awestruck by most of these artists for a very long time. First it must be said that I have always thought 'the blues' a somewhat arbitrary genre distinction-- and saying "acoustic" is even more arbitrary-- the musicians themselves having come from all sorts of different angles-- ragtime, songster tradition, boogie-woogie, gospel-- and the blues itself always shading imperceptibly into jazz or country on the fringes-- and almost all the musicians always seeking to grow and change throughout their career, so that many started acoustic and wound up amplified, or with horn sections, or changing from piano to guitar and back again, etc.). But there's something about the blues that activates something deep & lonesome in the soul. In even the most joyful & raunchy bounce of a dance song, there's the resonance of time slipped past, and the ache of struggle in the face of cruelty and need.
This doesn't change the fact that the blues is primarily a dance music, music for fucking, music for drinking to and forgetting your troubles. Despite my own post-20th century white intellectual's penchant for despair and angst, the blues was always a way to sing one's way out of pain, not into it.
Anyway, if you don't know the blues very well, this is not a thorough survey, but it may be a good taste before you dive in (and I'm happy to recommend and/or post other albums). If you do, you'll likely have heard many of these songs before. Either way I think this is a very enjoyable way to pass three-quarters of an hour. If there's one thing I know how to do (and there are a couple), it's make a blues mixtape.
Obligatory Note (in case you can't be bothered to read the previous posts):
These mixes were originally put together for a teenager, so the content is designed to do a little educatin' and a little mind-blowin'.
They were formatted to fit on cassette, so each 'side' will be around 42 minutes.
Most of them are genre-specific, and sort of strike a balance between trying to cover the bases in that genre (i.e. reflecting the 'great artists' in the canon), and reflecting my taste (which is erratic, mystically-oriented, and limited by ignorance), and fitting well together. Occasionally this leads to odd results. But I think they're good listening.
Up next: electric blues!
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