Richard Allen tells us why The Blues will never die out...
Fifty-year-old Richard Allen has been listening to the Blues since the age of 12, but is it still an influential genre?
Most of us will recognise the chart hits but do you really understand their origins? Richard believes that: “The Blues is in most of the past, current and no doubt future music” because all we do is change the label of our genres to ‘Indie Rock’, ‘Jazz’ or ‘Pop'.
Being from a small town in the North West of England it’s often difficult to get heard. He plays in local pubs and clubs with his local band ‘The Blue Lakes’, after years of playing and singing in rock bands he wanted to go back to his roots and play the classic rhythms of American Blues.
I understand you used to play in a few rock bands in your youth, what and who influenced you to change from Rock to Blues?
My Early influences were British, people like: Eric Clapton, Alvin Lee, Peter Green, Ritchie Blackmore and Gary Moore it's hard to name all of them as some of the Guitarists were not classed as Blues Players for example: Steve Howe of the prod Rock band Yes and David Gilmour of Pink Floyd, but again their influences were from old Blues players they just put a modern spin on it with Guitar effects etc.
Later on, I started listening to American Blues when my Mother paid for a Blues Magazine subscription and it included a CD of artists like Freddie King, Howlin Wolf, BB King, Chuck Berry, Robert Cray and the man who is said to be the father of Blues Robert Johnson (who reportedly sold his soul to the Devil at the Crossroads to become a guitar player) and who was in fact a major influence on the young Eric Clapton.
Big cities like London still have a strong Blues scene with bars that play live and improvised music such as the ‘Ain’t nothing but..’ bar in Soho offering ‘Jam nights’ on a Monday and Sunday where people get up on stage and show off their talent. But is the Blues scene strong in the North West?
The audiences we play to are appreciative of Blues albeit they don’t understand its roots only the songs. What I mean by that is the musician’s come to see the band play for the Guitar work, as Blues can be expressive and almost a signature of the person interpreting the song and the general public like familiarity e.g. songs that are well known and have some connection to their past or just a feel good factor, either way we get some good feedback and try to include modern Blues in our set to let them know the Blues is very much alive and has a very healthy following.
What do you think of the chart music today?
To be honest a lot of it is background noise to me... the odd song sometimes stands out for example; Rag ‘n’ Bone man - Human I think is full of raw emotion and Ed Sheeran is a talented guy who writes his own songs and that is to be commended.
Respect is something that is needed in the music industry, along with hard work and creative expression and that is the way forward. However, we are in a world of youngsters that feel they can be a worldwide superstar just by singing a bit of Karaoke and not put any effort into their art form. It’s a bit of a joke to be perfectly honest.
That’s funny you should mention Rag’n’Bone man because according to his interview with ABC he grew up with blues music and used to go to jam sessions quite a lot. So with this in mind, Do you think the blues is a dying genre?
This thought is quite amusing to me as The Blues is in most of the past, current and no doubt future music. You can easily discover this for yourself by listening to the chords and melodies of artists both past and present. Yes, they will label it modern, jazz, rock, Indie, alternative it’s just the same horse labelled differently, in short, the answer is -- it can never die. It’s impossible unless we go back to the beginning of time and rewrite the music history books.
Do you think we should do more to introduce the younger generation to other types of music such as Blues, Jazz and Rock ‘n’ Roll?
I think education has a big part to play -- yes, but as kids didn’t we all listen to the latest craze and put posters on the wall? Would they like to listen to Muddy Waters and Howlin Wolf does and the influences from their friends and the media.
Personally, my education was skipping through vinyl in a record shop (Novel I know) but we asked questions like: “who are these guys?” and “can we take a listen please in your sound booth?” Questions you won’t hear anymore, instead they’re replaced by words like “streaming” or “download” it’s an onslaught of your senses and people don’t appreciate anything if it's not tangible, you don’t really own the media as it’s just on your computer or iPhone.
If you're truly passionate about music, you should listen to all genres and not have a closed mind to trying to listen to other artists who express themselves, which is much more readily available now but we live in a ‘30 second world’ e.g. if you’re not interested in listening after 30 seconds you won’t give the song or album a chance.
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| Richard Allen - Picture via Facebook |
