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Build That Bridge
When it comes to stretching the boundaries of the blues, few
artists in recent memory have gone as far as Chris Thomas King.
Many blues fans know him as Tommy Johnson, the character King
played in the movie O Brother, Where Art Thou? - indeed,
King is in the midst of a 42-city tour of Down From the Mountain,
a showcase of the music made popular by O Brother.
But King is also the president of 21st Century Blues Records,
a new label targeting the highly prized 18-to-45 age demographic.
"We're going to make blues music that's geared toward youth,"
says King. "One way of doing that is using hip-hop instead
of the tried-and-true formula that everybody's been using since
the '60s: mixing blues with rock. I think you're not going to
reach the youth culture by mixing blues and rock anymore, no
matter how well you do it."
King's insistence on hip-hop may have won him more detractors
than friends in the blues community. But there is validity to
his argument, even if his approach seems calculated to stir up
controversy. Hip-hop is the blues of today's inner-city projects,
says King. "When you listen to Tupac Shakur or N.W.A., you're
listening to a form of modern blues. They say a lot more about
pain and suffering, depression, discrimination ... they spent
the night in jail, their father isn't at home. Blues isn't something
you have to be 55 years old to have. All these emotions that
are supposedly the blues, you start experiencing as soon as you're
a teen-ager.
"In the marketplace, there's nobody catering blues culture
and blues music to a younger audience. We're going to make records
and create packaging that a young audience - urban and suburban
- can relate to. We're not trying to dictate where the music
is going. We're going to find out what the people want and get
it to 'em. What are you listening to? What do you like about
that song? On Bandstand, Dick Clark used to ask all the
people, 'What was so special about that song?' They always said
it was the beat. I don't think that's changed. So I'm going to
give them a beat, maybe a little harmonica with it or a little
slide guitar."
But is it blues? When King embarked on last fall's All Over Blues
Tour with the Muddy Waters Tribute Band, many audiences were
expecting Tommy Johnson. What they got was a DJ and a fog machine.
King makes no apologies. "We're doing something totally
different. It doesn't mean that [the Muddy Waters band isn't]
playing the blues. It doesn't mean that I'm not playing the blues.
My appeal is to a different fan base than theirs. Because you
like what they're doing and you don't like what I'm doing, it
doesn't mean one was better than the other. Why not have both?
In rock you have Pearl Jam, but you've also got Metallica. It
doesn't mean that one isn't rock 'n' roll. Everybody has their
audience."
King sees great potential in an audience that isn't aware of
traditional blues. "The blues is whatever I tell them it
is," he says. "They don't have any preconceptions.
All they know is that I'm the guy from O Brother and if
I say, 'Here's a blues song by Heavy D,' then it's a blues song."
The purists might shudder, but with plenty of blues fans who
believe the blues begins and ends with the likes of Led Zeppelin,
King isn't too far off base. Who's to say hip-hop blues can't
co-exist with blues-rock, soul blues, jazz/blues - and every
other variation - under the "blues" umbrella?
Certainly not King. "In order for this genre to grow, you
have to embrace every form of it and have it be diverse. Just
because the bridge isn't there, you know, go and build that bridge
- and charge people a toll to cross it. Nobody holds the patent
on the music or on this culture. I don't own it. I don't control
it. Neither am I trying to. Sometimes the older ideas have run
the course, and it's time for them to move on and make room for
something else. It would be nice if the blues genre opened up
and allowed some alternatives."
With 21st Century Blues Records, however, King knows that the
bottom line will be more important than what any critic might
say. "I have a dual situation here. As the owner, you have
to be concerned with the commerce side of it. As an artist, I
try to make music that I feel good about and that moves me spiritually
and emotionally and that I enjoy creating. Right now, I'm wearing
the Leonard Chess hat. If people want to hear Muddy Waters play
electric guitar then that's what [Chess] records. When that's
no longer profitable, he stops recording it. Motown had the Supremes
and Smokey Robinson, and that's what people were buying at the
time. Now Motown is into whatever people are into today.
"At the end of the year, whether we're a success is not
going to be based on what the reviews say. It's going to be what
the accountant has to say. If we don't earn more than we're spending,
we're just going to close up shop and find something else to
do."
For more on 21st Century Blues
Records visit the label's Web site.
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