Blues musicians who continued to be innovative during the rock era.

New blues related answers please!

Mark, personally I think the lame psych/blues crossovers of the late 60s/early 70s now sound far more dated than the more 'traditional' blues style of the '50s (although this is all v. complicated - in the late 50s/early 60s, blues/folk 'purists' were often horrified to hear ppl like Muddy Waters and John Lee Hooker playing amplified Chicago blues, rather than the supposedly more 'authentic' pre-war acoustic style that they expected/demanded - hence the fact that Chess started to call albs by Hooker and Howlin' Wolf 'Real Folk Blues' etc., and Waters played the Newport Folk Festival. My point is, to please the audience, many of the great blues artists actually had to 'regress' their sound...)

The Hooker/Canned Heat alb is pretty good as these things go.

Andrew, I also prefer the traditional blues of the Fifties to the "lame psych/blues crossovers" you were talking about. I don't get excited by 20 minute blues-jams with extended guitar solos. My question was partly inspired by reading about "Tom Cat" which is the Waters track on the David Holmes compilation. I haven't actually heard this track yet but I've been told that it contains very funky rhythms.

I'm interested in the way that electric blues (and r 'n' b as performed by the likes of Little Richard) paved the way for funk. This connection is often lost because rock musicians and rock critics turned the blues into music for the museum. We have been told so often that the blues led directly to the Rolling Stones that it is sometimes hard to trace the other paths it took after 1964.

I've always wanted to hear the electric Muddy Waters album from the late 60s that featured Pete Cosey (from Miles Davis's band). I bet it would be both good and hilarious.

To my ears, Slim Harpo is one who continued to make interesting, contemporary sounds on into the mid- and late-60's, before cut short by untimely death. Rather than reacting to the rock sounds of the day, I think Harpo responded to the marketplace by pursuing a dance-oriented funk/soul vibe with minor hits like "Tip On In" and "Tee-Ni-Ne-Ni-Nu".

'I'm interested in the way that electric blues (and r 'n' b as performed by the likes of Little Richard) paved the way for funk'

New Orleans stuff from the early 60s - check out Lee Dorsey, Ernie K-Doe, and does your definition of 'blues' encompass Professor Longhair?

Dave, I've got a wonderful compilation called "New Orleans Funk" (on the Soul Jazz label) that features all of the people you mentioned.

Johnny 'Guitar' Watson changed quite a bit in the 70s from his 50s RnB roots. and of course Lowell Fulson's 'Tramp' (1966)

there's a compilation (of dubious legality) called 'Daybreak' with a red sleeve, which has some excellent cuts, including a great, crazy Professor Longhair track.

there's a great Little Richard track ('Nuki Suki') on the Warner/Atlantic 'Right On vol 3' compilation

some 'funky blues' suggestions were posted last week on the Crates mailing list.

some that were posted (not heard these by the way):

MUDDY WATERS
Electric Mud (Chess 68)

MUDDY WATERS
After the Rain (the psych one?)

HOWLIN' WOLF
The Howlin' Wolf Album (Cadet 69)

JOHN LEE HOOKER
Free Beer and Chicken

BOBBY BLAND
Dreamer (ABC/Dunhill 74)
'Ain't No Love In The Heart Of The City'

MEL BROWN
Wizard (Impulse 68)

PAUL BUTTERFIELD BLUES BAND
Resurrection Of Pigboy Crabshaw (Elektra 67)

ETTA JAMES
Etta James (Chess 73)

ETTA JAMES
Come A Little Closer (Chess 74)

ALBERT KING
King Of The Blues Guitar (Atlantic 69)

ALBERT KING
Lovejoy (Stax 71)

LITTLE SONNY
Black & Blue (Enterprise ?)

JOHNNY OTIS
Cuttin Up (Epic 70)

JUNIOR PARKER
Love Ain't Nothin But A Business Goin On (Groove Merchant ?)

FREDDY ROBINSON
At The Drive-In (Enterprise 72)

the second volume of the SoulJazz New Orleans stuff ('Saturday Night Fish Fry') is also great by the way

Hound Dog Taylor played a bunch of raucous 1 chord stuff in the 70's, but I don't know what he was doing before then.

"Let's Get Funky" by Hound Dog Taylor rocks like crazy, for instance.

Innovation in blues and gospel may not be one of its strong points. Stasis seems to be part of the beauty of the art-form, and so be it. Skip James, Son House, Robert Nighthawk, J.B Lenoir, Mississippi John Hurt, Guitar Shorty, Henry Townsend, Robert Pete Williams, and Bukka White all did wonderful work, some of it their best during this era.

thought of another LP, Johnnie Jenkins 'Ton Ton Macoute' (Capricorn, 71), which includes the great 'I Walk On Gilded Splinters' (sampled by both Beck and Oasis among others)

Magic Sam!

the bo diddley you're wanting is the scarifyingly fucked up "Black Gladiator"; "electric mud" is good but it ain't quite the rare holy grail it's being made out to be here, the "I'm a man" from that LP is basically the most recognizable version at this point from all its soundtrack and advertising appearances; the chess stuff from this era came out on the cadet subsidiary and there's a couple of good cd comps of cadet that shouldn't be too impossible to find.