Blues Songs of Jim Jackson, Do 12 bars define Blues?

It seems Jackson didn't care the number of bars in his decision to play Blues or a ballad. For instance, Love Sick Blues a song of 8 bars but he didn't play in his ballad style but his Blues style. In case the number of bars and form of the theme is what supposed to be the thing that defines Blues than Jim Jackson doesn't seems to care, whenever he want to play his Blues licks, he does it anyway.

Who said 12 bars defines Blues?

Well, if you ask me, poor musicianship did. ;)

Most of the pre-war country blues artists weren't too fussy about counting the bars.

Of course, a solo artist has more liberties than someone playing in an ensemble, but...

Many modern musicians tend to think that these guys were bad or ignorant musicians, while nothing could be further from the truth. There are several reasons for not strictly following the exact pre-meditated number of bars.

One is that keeping a rigid form sometimes leaves not enough space for the vocalist to catch his/her breath before the next chorus, so an instrumental vamp is required, to allow the song to breathe. An example that instantly comes to mind is "Ragtime Millionaire" by William Moore, which is a fairly sophisticated song, but still has these impromptu and uneven vamps between the choruses.

Another reason is simply artistic choice. If you listen to the (mostly) 13-bar blues "Bad Luck Blues" by Blind Lemon Jefferson, there is no question whether he was unsure of the form; he simply decided to add the extra bar after the IV chord, to insert the vocal line he wanted to. Or listen to "Easy Rider Blues", where the few extra 1/2 bars in the song form add a really nice touch to the song, and are completely thought of, and carefully crafted with the vocal melody.

Good points obviously he knew the form. There was also Georgia Tom saying on Jim Jackson Jamboree "don't play another bar" to Speckled Red. The ability to control single bar or use it whenever wanted like improvisations seems to me was more important on early Blues, maybe part of what they wanted to be able to do. Makes Sense?

My own feeling is that there are MANY "attributes" that define blues, but a blues song need not have all these attributes to be considered "blues" - just some. The 12-bar form is one of those. And of course since the blues is maleable, you don't even have to play the 12-bar form per say, as long as you "approach it"

The 12-bar form is of course just a result of a thrice repeated 4-bar phrase; 10(ish) beats of statement, and 6(ish) beats of response.

Hey this is silly. Unless I'm missing something. Maybe this is here to find out whether new comers like me can take a joke?

Culturally this sort of question was already daft by the 1950's Its not about ballad style and blues style against metre. Surely its about artist choice and variety in presentation and performance to keep the customer interested.

By the way that title 'Bad Luck Blues'? How many bars? Unlucky for some I'd say! I'm surprised he didn't notice. But perhaps he did, just maybe there's a little 'exactly pre-meditated' musicians 'in joke' there!

Maybe there should be a thread discussing whether blues players were adroit enough to know what they were about?

Not giving a highly skilled, blind, black man who earned his living playing, composing and recording music for his whole life and became hugely famous for his astonishing abilities, the credit for enough intelligence to know what he is doing, might seem to some surprisingly condescending. I'm sure that wouldn't be the case here would it!

I just edited this down from a bit of a rant, but musical snobbery can make me a bit verbose.

Sorry if thats a bit grumpy for a second post. But Really!

Percy

Do I hear an "Amen" to that?!

Peter B.

<<Who said 12 bars defines Blues?>>

I never said that ... I can assure you.

There are many classic and famous 8-bar blues that are 'standards' in the genre:

"Sportin' Life Blues" - Brownie McGhee
"How Long Blues - Leroy Carr/Scrapper Blackwell, and others
"Trouble In Mind" - Rosetta Tharpe and many others
"It Hurts Me Too' - Elmore James, and many others
"Key To The Highway" - Big Bill Broonzy, and others
"Cherry Red" - Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson
"Sitting On Top Of The World" - Miss. Sheiks, Howlin' Wolf, Bob Wills, and many others
"Tomorrow Night" - Lonnie Johnson's 'theme song'
"Fool's Paradise" - Charles Brown and others
"Baby, Please Don't Go" - Big Joe Williams, Muddy Waters, and others
"Catfish Blues" - traditional, Muddy Waters, Honeyboy Edwards, and many others
"Danger Zone" - Percy Mayfield, Ray Charles, and others
"Please Send Me Someone To Love" - Percy Mayfield and many others

... and on and on.

... okay, you get my drift ... Who said 12 bars defines Blues?

Sorry
Just fatigue! I guess

I haven't visited the BBF for a number of days because it seems someone recently invented the self-closing can of worms, the one which seals again by itself so that each and everyone can get the nice feeling of opening it.
Defining the blues? The question has been pending for nearly a century, since Handy made his best efforts to have them acknowledged as folk music, eventually followed by John Lomax and Dorothy Scarborough (who initially disagreed), and anyone claiming today that he's got a definite clue would be a liar or a cheater at some point. Which does not grant hard-rockers or other tenants of so-called "rez-bluzz", "Muslim roots", or contemporary African developments a right to reject all objective criteria, and replace them by "blues is a feeling" (possibly mine, at this very instant) or "blues is whatever I like" (so please shut up you purists!).
Who said the twelve bars were a satisfactory definition, or a necessary condition? Probably no-one, except some jazz folks who rightly considered it was the most convenient structure which enabled the first line to be repeated as is, with all the harmonic contradictions it involves. No-one I ever read or talked to, at least, except people who never bothered listening to the music itself, but it's always an excellent rhetorical device to put words they never spoke into people's mouths so as to dismiss them. Is the same old story repeating itself? I was called a "purist" for years by people from my country, who had once and for all decided to ignore whatever happened before the sixties, and summed up the blues as pentatonic scales played on electric guitar.
First thing I 'd like to say is that there is a slight confusion in the discussion. Marvel never said that Jim Jackson was hesitating, this is a strict 8-bar (or sixteen, according to the way you choose to write it) blues song, intended as such from the start. As most pre-war professionals, Jackson makes no "mistake" while counting beats, floating bars are a later phenomenon - quite obvious in country AND city blues from the early 50's - which seldom occured in pre-war music. And I'm not joking, years ago I spent hours counting beats on a kitchen table with a pencil in my hand, to find out that when Son House or Charley Patton meant a blues to be 11 bars an a half, 13 and a half, or other, it was so from the first to the last verse!
Second thing is that there is no real surprise about Lovesick Blues (not Emmett Miller's yodeling one, but Jim Jackson's in our case), which follows one of the best-known blues structures, found in numerous examples from Harvey Hull's Gang Of Brownskin Women to Carl Martin's Old Time Blues, and later variants of Key To The Highway. No repetition of the first line, but a simple statement-and-comment pattern, as in hollers or camp moans which all consisted in two-line verses.
Now I don't mind calling it ragtime if one insists that blues should be 12 bars (or anything close to it)... but the fact is that it was marketed as blues, like John Hurt's or Frank Stokes' songs, and historically included in a corpus of secular songs which consistent god-fearers used to reject as such.

what is the blues? I won't answer this in any exact way, but I will say that

1) no, it doesn't require 12 bars, but the only person would say that it doesn't matter, in an actual 12 bar blues, whether the leader is making 12 or 14 bars, is the one who hasn't had to try and play backup to said leader - and here sometimes issues of professionalism will indeed rise -

2) I put less stock in the number of bars than in the harmonic order of the piece - meaning it does require the 1-IV-I V-IV-I to qualify, otherwise what is the purpose of calling it blues? I mean, if everything is the blues than nothing is the blues, if there is no distinction than there is no reality; we are then living in a relativist hell.

but than, I just spent a year of my life trying to answer this question. Ultimately, given the amount of formal historical overlap (shouts, hollers, moans, blues, et al) there is no better way to give it a clean definition than to start off with the harmonic requirement.

just my feeling.

<<2) I put less stock in the number of bars than in the harmonic order of the piece - meaning it does require the 1-IV-I V-IV-I to qualify, otherwise what is the purpose of calling it blues? I mean, if everything is the blues than nothing is the blues, if there is no distinction than there is no reality; we are then living in a relativist hell. >>

allenlowe,

What about blues songs that are totally linear ... and have only one chord (I chord) ... ?... like early versions of "Catfish Blues" and "Jack 'O Diamonds' and "Po' Boy, Long Ways From Home."

Also, what about a song like "Baby, Please Don't Go" ... ? ... which most frequently was played with only two chords (I and V chords).

There are blues songs that don't necessarilay stick to the harmonic order as you have outlined:
<<...meaning it does require the I-IV-I V-IV-I to qualify>>

...many of the classic 8-bar blues that I listed previously don't adhere to this I-IV-I-V-IV-I fomat.
(I/V/IV/I/V/I) = "Key to the Highway"
(I/I7/IV/IVm/I/V/I) = "Sporting Life Blues," "Trouble In Mind," "How Long Blues"

and other 8-bar blues that don't adhere to the I-IV-I-V-IV-I fomat ... "So Sweet" and "Step It Up And Go" by Blind Boy Fuller ... "Frankie & Johnnie" and "Stack 'O Lee" ("Stagger Lee") and many others.

Does this place us in a 'relativist hell'????
:rolleyes: :blink:

Is "Death Don't Have No Mercy" - Rev. Gary Davis - a blues song?:
Im/bIII/V/I
Im/IV/bVII/bIII/V/
Im/IVm/
Im/bIII/V/I/

"What about blues songs that are totally linear ... and have only one chord (I chord) ... ?... like early versions of "Catfish Blues" and "Jack 'O Diamonds' and "Po' Boy, Long Ways From Home."

pre-blues in origin, likely; with related ancestry


"Also, what about a song like "Baby, Please Don't Go" ... ? ... which most frequently was played with only two chords (I and V chords)."

closer - altered blues I would say - as with the other examples like How Long and Trouble in Mind - with the implied harmonic gravity of the blues -

so all related to the blues - or maybe, more accurately, a sub-strata of the blues. Like some classical formats that were variations on other formats. Comes from, comes out of, inspired by.......symphonic but not necessarily a symphony?

and yes, when it comes to this whole subject, we are living in a relativist hell. Since there is no consistent body of research or opinion. And I find, when it comes to the subject (and I am not referring to anything in this thread) people just make stuff up. So it tends to confuse things.

Allen,

Respectfully, your suggested "requirement" perpetuates a misunderstanding of what might be said to constitute the standard blues form: While the insertion of the IV chord between the V chord and the I chord is a very common "variation," it is not an essential feature. For example, the "skeleton" 12-bar blues form consists of just the following:

I --- | I --- | I--- | I--- |
IV---| IV---| I--- | I--- |
V--- | V--- | I--- | I--- |

[But I certainly don't believe this can be claimed to "define" the blues! I myself am primarily a jazz player, and the progressions that jazzers are willing to consider as blues (albeit "jazz blues" -- which is still "blues" to me) are varied and liberally defined. About the only thing that's almost always present (at least in 12-bar varieties) is that measure one begins with a I chord and that measure five begins with a IV chord.] ;)

this is news to me - what is your source for a definition of "the standard blues form" ?

you're right about the jazz variations - which may eliminate the IV chord, really, but adds a 2m7 before going to the 5, often, and so which has that similar feeling of harmonic movement -

and the V chord which resolves back to the I chord without a IV chord in between is really likely a pre-blues characteritic (Worried Man's Blues, for example or Ain' Nobody's Business, both of which, according to Dick Spottswood, pre-date the blues) -

<<and yes, when it comes to this whole subject, we are living in a relativist hell. Since there is no consistent body of research or opinion. And I find, when it comes to the subject (and I am not referring to anything in this thread) people just make stuff up. So it tends to confuse things.>>

<<pre-blues in origin, likely; with related ancestry>>

<<closer - altered blues I would say - as with the other examples like How Long and Trouble in Mind - with the implied harmonic gravity of the blues ->>

allen lowe,

Thanks for the response. Much appreciated.

This has always presented itself as a problem for me ... trying to be 'definitive' about blues is a challenge, to say the least.

I've been playing and teaching blues and blues guitar for well over 45 years ... I have 8,000 +/- online blues guitar students at www.jamplay.com who depend on me for 'answers' ... and trying to generalize about what formats are 'truly' blues formats is not an easy issue to approach ... 12-bars, 8 bars, whatever ... you use the term 'altered blues", is that still blues?

I have to teach these issues on a daily basis, to individuals and to groups large and small ... I understand where you're coming from ... I teach the importance of 12-bar blues as being a definitive aspect of blues (as well as an A/A/B poetic format) ... trying to hang a label on the 'sub criteria' ("pre-blues in origin/implied harmonic gravity of the blues") ... is a sticky business ... we must generalize sometimes for brevity and to get an overview of the music ... but it's difficult for me to 'toss out' some formats as "pre-blues in origin" or "implied harmonic gravity of the blues" ... when many of those songs are considered as 'classic' or 'standards in the genre (8-bar blues I've mentioned previously, the linear blues I've mentioned previously, etc.) IMHO, I can't exclude "How Long Blues," "Trouble In Mind," "It Hurts Me Too," "Baby, Please Don't Go," et. al., as being soley ... "implied harmonic gravity of the blues" ... they ARE blues songs ... in my mind ... the 'implications' are, to me, that trying to define blues as being only recognizable via a 12-bar format ... is not inclusive when one looks at the entire body of the genre ... Yes, a "relativist hell." ;)

As I stated, I'm required/challenged to deal with these issues on a regular basis ... here's the very general way I approach the subject for total beginners:

Understanding Blues Music/Blues Music and Poetic Forms;
http://hawkeyeherman.com/media/guitar-lesson01.mp3