I have no idea why, but I am such a sucker for a 12 bar blues. I’m currently traversing approximately 12,000 songs on my iPod and rating them. Buried in there are a fair old number of blues tunes. Some of these I like and some of them I don’t, but I absolutely love any 12 bar blues.
From my dim and distant youth, I can also remember shipping over to a smoky nightclub every week for the blues night and loving everything, but especially loving 12 bar blues. From the simple, insistent, driving bass, the simple drumming, the discipline of the rhythm guitarist, the wailing inventiveness of the lead to the drawn-out climax of the song, I couldn’t get enough. And the 12 bar songs were always the jewels of the show for me, the other stuff was nice, but really it was just fluff, covering old standards like Route 66 were just to keep the some semi-commercial appeal in place.
So, the 12 bar blues: anyone know why it gives me such a thrill?
It is quite a specific selection.
Are you sure its not the blues you like OR the structure.
I mean do 16 or 8 or 32 bar blues really not do it for you?
12-bar blues is the standard, really, the whole I-I-IV-I, IV-IV-I-I, V-IV-I-I.
I’m not sure I’ve ever heard e.g. 8-bar blues…
I am sure you have without realising.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight_bar_blues
@bellagerens, if I started playing a 12-bar blues with the sequence I-I-IV-I it’d be jazz….much more likely to play I-IV-I-I.
ymmv.
HASurvivor
I-I-IV-I functions as the first 8 bars of the 12 bar blues. V-I being the final 4.
Or rather I-I-I-I-IV-IV-I-I-V-V-I-I when not doubled.
Obo, is it the structure or blues notes you love? Does Boogie Woogie on that structure do it also.
Musical definitions are so shakey though. I hope that isn’t meaningless.