In Blues, you play with feeling.
You can really learn feeling from the blues.
And when you play blues, you play from your own life experiences.
That's why Jimi Hendrix does not sound like traditional blues.
You grow up a Black sharecropper in early 20th Century America, and you play the blues, it sounds like Muddy Watters.
It sounds like traditional blues.
You grow up with all the optimistic hopes and dreams of the jet age and Jackie Robinson, like Jimi Hendrix did, and you play the blues, it doesn't sound like Muddy Watters.
Not if you are true to yourself and your life experiences.
If you grow up like I did, with all the Steven Spielberg dreams of the world Jimi Hendrix grew up knowing, and you play the blues, really play the blues, keep it true to your own life,
And it comes out sounding like Jimi Hendirx, Cream, or Inna-Gadda-Da-Vida.
That's how you know that Stevie Ray Vaughn plays real blues, true to his own life experiences.
He grew up in Jimi Hendrix's world.
And when he plays the blues, it doesn't sound like traditional blues.
It sounds like Jimi Hendrix.
Even when he plays with the simple song structures of traditional blues.
That's real blues.
Playing true to your own life experiences.
God loves you!
Sincerely,
David S. Annderson
P.S. you grow up like Jimi Hendrix did, with optimism, hopes and dreams, and you get a broken heart, when you play the blues, if you still have a broken heart, it sounds like Layla.
And if you grow up with the hopeless modern era of America, the age of Gangster Rap, and you play the blues, it comes out sounding like Nirvana and Grunge. If you really play it and are true to your own life experiences. Until you discover the hopes and dreams of a Jimi Hendrix.
Sad that Kurt Cobain grew up in the 80's like I did and did not know the Steven Spielberg hopes and dreams that the rest of us did!