Curtis Obeda

Curtis Obeda

One of the things that makes Curtis Obeda noteworthy and worth studying as a blues songwriter is that he writes for other vocalists (notably Willie Walker) as well as writing songs for his own band, The Butanes, where he is lead vocalist and guitar player. When you know that your song will be sung by another person, especially an incredibly talented singer like Willie Walker, you have to write more universally and give the singer words, rhythm, melody, meaning plus enough space to allow them to bring their own interpretation to the song.

Obeda was inducted into the Minnesota Blues Hall of Fame in 2014 in the category of “Blues Song” for “Crying to Do”, recorded by Willie Walker and The Butanes on the album “Right Where I Belong” (2004). In the nomination speech, Mike Elias said that Curtis “was comfortable and proficient in both Blues and Soul. He respected the history and limits of the genres.” ¹

He writes and performs across several genres including R&B, Soul and Blues. His songs for Willie Walker are most often about romance and the complications thereof. The songs he sings himself cover greater subject breadth and are often humorous.

Writing for Willie Walker, Obeda gives him lyrics that make sense and can be sung honestly and with feeling. The songs on the first album featuring Walker, “Right Where I Belong” (2004), are, with only one exception (“Change”), about the ins and outs of romance. The most recent Walker album “Long Time Thing” (2011) runs about 50-50 between romance and other topics and is more satisfying for that.

“It Ain’t Your Ladder” tells a woman that other people contributed to her success. She shouldn’t just pull that ladder up after herself once she’s climbed to the top, she should leave it where others might benefit from it –in other words, offer her own helping hand. Great song, taking a complicated subject and expressing it simply and effectively.  “Dirty Deeds” is another one I especially like – it’s more like the songs Curt sings himself with the tongue-in-cheek humor. “Betrayed” is a fresh angle on cheating: Walker sings how he was betrayed by his best (male) friend. In another writer’s hands it would be the woman who is shamed.

I have only one Butanes “solo” album – 2014’s “12 Frozen Favorites from the Upper Bayou”.

The language of the lyrics is pleasingly modern – words that people actually use in conversation. And the songs are smart, with a lot of humor in the lyrics. “Ain’t No Doubt” relates how the singer visits (and quickly leaves) a scary bar, a gay bar and a wine bar before he finally finds a bar he likes. But then his wife shows up. Each verse of “It’s Not That Bad” lists unpleasant things - at home, at the doctor’s and trying to get across town. In verse four he eats oysters in a month with no R… but it’s not THAT bad!

Sometimes Obeda’s cleverness gets in the way of the song. In “Call Me” he uses about every sense of the word “call” that exists – nouns, verbs, adjectival phrases… it’s a great dance number but the song doesn’t really go anywhere.  

He gives himself few songs that give opportunity for emotional expression in the vocal. They generally don’t have the telling detail of the humorous songs. In “Can You Help Me Brother” Curtis tells us how sorry he is, how wrong he has been, how he needs to get back where he belongs but we don’t know what it was that made him so angry in the first place. “Funny Way of Living” expresses anguish about his overbearing woman, but again, no poignant or cinematic detail that would make us feel the way he feels. If she had made him “cut his meat smaller and chew it twice” ² we’d have a bit more sympathy.

What songwriters can learn from Curt Obeda

• ·         He makes the songs catchy – sometimes a repeated refrain, sometimes a chorus. You can almost always tell what the title of the song is. It actually pisses me off that the hook line from “Amy Is a Gold Digger” keeps running through my mind since I don’t particularly like the song but it sure is catchy. The back-up singers are often used to repeat the title or hook, an effective tool for songwriters as well as record producers.
• ·         He puts a lot of work and craft into his writing – the last verse of a song is as well-written as the first. The scansion, rhyme schemes and meter are consistent from verse to verse. He keeps to the subject and theme of the song, the words fall naturally.
• ·         He gives the singer room to sing – plenty of long notes, good melodies and chord changes.
• ·         He adds humor – just the right amount for the genre, I think. He doesn’t limit the humor to sexual innuendo as is common in the blues.
• ·         He will write verses that lead to the chorus or refrain from different, but complementary directions. For example, in “Drift to Sleep” there is a linear story about missing his baby at night… In “Drives Me Crazy” the singer relates how it drives him crazy when his baby takes a long time to make a special dinner. In Verse two, she takes a long time getting ready for bed. In “I’m OK” the verses cover different periods of time – things happen in the span of days in verse one; they span seasons in verse two. In “If You Expect to See Another Day”, after each verse he uses a different lyric in the lift before the repeated refrain. It all adds interest, keeps you on your toes and paying attention.
• ·         You can dance to it! The Butanes mostly play clubs; club audiences want to dance. Aspiring blues songwriters might find bands who would record their songs if they make dance-ability a priority in their writing.

Good songs have the right balance of same and different. Curtis Obeda really has this down. Every song is approachable, not hard to get into. And once you are grooving along with the music, he takes you in an pleasantly surprising direction before he puts you back on track.

Notes.

1. “Limits”… just a word, but it gives me pause as I try to articulate for myself what these limits might be. These boundaries are hard to define; I guess everyone has their own perception of what is inside and is outside of a Blues limit. What is, or is not, the Blues.

2. A line from “B.S. (Bob’s Song)”

I listened to

Right Where I Belong (2004)

Memphisopolis (2006)

Long Time Thing (2011)

12 Frozen Favorites from the Upper Bayou (2014)

Butanes web site

Harrison Kennedy sets a great example for blues songwriters

Harrison Kennedy is a Canadian blues musician who was a pop star for a number of years with the group Chairmen of the Board. After this experience he learned to write his own music and play the guitar, according to the Welcome page of his web site www.harrisonkennedy.ca but there was a thirty-year gap, while he worked as a supervisor in a chemical plant before he began to release recordings of his own stuff.

Kennedy’s roots are down-home acoustic blues. His songs and his sound overall have a coherence and thematic consistency that speak to the integrity of his music; you feel he is just being himself. He has a distinctive sound, many tunes combine an electric band with an old-timey jug band feel, especially when he plays banjo. He is a remarkably good singer with a huge range.

Harrison Kennedy is a bridge between the blues of the 1930/40s and modern blues and R&B.  While his sound recalls the formulaic songwriters of the pre-war years, the songs usually stick to their narrative subject. Rather than just stringing a bunch of bluesy lines together, the verses have linear narrative. We don’t find many huge surprises music or lyric-wise but the songs are well-written.

Many of the songs have modern topics – “One Dog Barking” talks about how the “profit motive” is dominating and screwing up the world like a bully in the school yard. Kennedy mixes in a modern vocabulary.  “I Can Feel You Leaving” is a heart-felt, honest (but over-long) blues with lines like, ”My romantic gestures only met with your sighs”, “You take a piece of my heart with you when you go”. In “Them 90s Blues” he references Frankenfoods, lap dancers, sports bars, wars about gas and “They made a baby in a Petri jar; This morning it was front page news”!

He is willing to go out on a limb with his lyrics. For example, “Leading Lady” is an ambitious attempt to use the metaphor of the stage for life in general. It doesn’t quite work because Kennedy doesn’t give us any detail or “furniture” that paints a scene of a stage theater. Another example is “Look A Like” where he sings about how seeing another woman he is attracted to makes him afraid of losing his own woman – an interesting topic and angle.

Kennedy’s lyrics more often “tell” than “show” – we don’t get to see things through his eyes but we do get to experience how he feels about his subject from the way he sings and plays.

Songs I enjoyed most – “Cruise Control” where it “felt like the twilight zone…” Could Be Me, Could Be You”, about being (or not being) homeless, is the song that made me search out Harrison Kennedy after I heard Eric Bibb’s cover. “I’ve Got Your Number” uses numbers (duh) but does a good job of relating them to the woman who is the subject of the song.

I felt that the earlier albums have more “Kennedy substance” in the songs. The 2014 record (official release Feb 27, 2015) has many lyrics that are blues middle-of-the-road, well written to be sure, but could have been written by anybody. “Shake the Hand” and “I’ve got News for You” have a bit more interesting detail. And “Jimmy Lee” is a nice positive love story that gives us a real sense of person and place as it devotes the four verses in turn to him, her, their morning and then their evening.

I found it encouraging that many reviewers praise Kennedy’s using modern lyrical themes, keeping the songs short and not piling on long virtuosic instrumental solos just for the sake of it (let it be said that there is plenty of virtuosity in the playing).  Harrison Kennedy is setting a good example for blues songwriters and I hope this positive critical response will lead others to do the same.

Albums I listened to:

High Country Blues (2007)

One Dog Barking (2009)

Soulscape (2013)

This Is from Here (2014) (All on Electro-Fi Records).

Allmusic.com has excellent and informative reviews for Harrison Kennedy’s albums here.

The Next Big Thing in blues will come from Europe

It is telling that the blues songwriters that I find to be the most progressive and in touch with contemporary times are either European residents or spend more time gigging there than they do in the USA. This makes me think that the better songs, the new approaches, the real, honest and modern stuff will form and develop in Europe, not the USA.  

I guess that’s not too surprising when we remember that prior to the “British Blues Invasion” of the 1960's and 70's, the American blues audience was very small, especially among white people. All of the important developments in blues songwriting and performing had already happened (within the USA) and were complete by the time we Brits started to pay attention and copy it. But the general US audience was totally unaware of this incredible music right under their collective nose!  

Is it possible that European audiences are more open to change and growth in the blues? Even actively looking for something new instead of the same old same old? The new blues will need some love and nurturing before it can mature, and that might be happening in Europe right now.

Good songwriters take care with the words that go into their songs. You don’t listen to the words unless you are in an environment that facilitates hearing those words. That is - not a noisy bar where the music functions primarily to get people dancing, grooving and buying drinks. It is unusual to find blues being played in a listening room type of indoor venue in the USA. These are typically reserved for musicians that we label singer-songwriter or folk.

This is my first post in a while – I've been touring in Florida and Texas to enjoy the warm winter weather we don’t have in my home state of Minnesota. I did a lot of listening while driving 7,500 miles over six weeks and will be posting regularly over the next month or so.  

Current definitions of Modern and Contemporary Blues

These are quotes from Allmusic.com -

Modern Acoustic Blues finds contemporary artists reviving the older, more country-derived styles of blues in its myriad strains. The form places a great deal of emphasis on instrumental expertise, providing the genre with some astounding players who do more than merely replicate older styles. An outgrowth of the folk music boom and original blues revival of the mid-'60s, its emotional makeup can encompass everything from provincialism to intense personal statements. While clearly honoring traditional forms, the style also has room for original material, providing a forum for new ideas as well as extending the genre's musical repertoire into the future.

Contemporary Blues draws upon traditional acoustic and electric blues, but offers a more smoothed-out take on the genre that incorporates the influences of rock, pop, R&B, and/or folk. As such, contemporary blues is most often (though not always) electric, and rarely (though once in a while) purist. Because of its up-to-date production and mellower audience sensibility, the style tends to be more polished and sometimes even a bit genteel; it's still definitely soulful, but not quite as earthy or gritty as the music that predates it, and not as aggressive or fiery as modern-day electric blues from Chicago or Texas. Since it's informed by other types of music, contemporary blues has a greater chance of crossing over to pop, album rock, or adult-contemporary radio formats. Artists like Robert Cray, Keb' Mo', and prodigies Kenny Wayne Shepherd and Jonny Lang epitomize the contemporary blues sound.

I think these are pretty good definitions. Well written too!

Mark Harrison writes modern blues songs. Hot damn!

Mark Harrison took up blues songwriting fairly recently in his music career after buying a 1934 National Trojan guitar – a wood-body resonator that Eric Bibb had traded in at a guitar store in London. As he tells it, he first tried to play traditional blues songs from people like Charlie Patton, Muddy Waters and Blind Willie McTell but they didn’t sound the same. He had no lessons, didn't read tablature or use video tutorials – he just played what he could. After a while he realized he was writing new songs, not versions of old ones.

His naiveté has paid off. Harrison’s songs don’t sound like anybody else’s, but they are full of the blues tradition that inspired him. I believe he will continue to bring a new audience to the blues and he exemplifies the kind of blues songwriting that I want to write myself.

Lyrics.

The first distinctive thing is his use of contemporary language and subject matter in his lyrics. Most lyrics would sound natural if spoken as part of a conversation. There are very few blues clichés or language that isn't native to London. He does occasionally sing with a slightly Southern USA-tinged inflection (time=tahm, why=whah, don’t=don’) but in general he sounds like he is singing with the same voice he uses when he talks.

Many songs contain portraits of people and events that seem like they might exist in his day-to-day world. We meet Smiler John, Big Mary, Deacon George, Georgia Greene, and even Mark’s Dad. We go with Mark to observe the neighborhood street corner, Highgate Hill, Starley Street… places we might have been to ourselves, people and places that make the songs seem like they are about our own lives.

Mark has advice for us in many songs – be here now, live in the moment and be grateful. He often makes a moral point or commentary on what’s wrong with the world.

Many songs have topics outside of the blues paradigm subjects (romance, travel and anxiety). For example, he writes literally and figuratively about bombs dropping during the Second World War. There are references to charlatans, Mexican gardeners, recurring dreams, panic attacks, a mule with its shoulder gone…all good blues subjects that have been ignored by most blues musicians.

A few songs are set in the USA and we hear words like juke joint, second line, Cadillac; for the most part Harrison’s vocabulary is refreshingly idiosyncratic.

The language in general is simple and straight-forward; it is not hard to understand what he is saying. There were a few lyrics where I didn’t get the point, but just a few. 

Mark’s scansion is generally consistent and rhyme schemes are tight, though he is willing to fudge a rhyme if he needs a non-rhyming word to get his point across. The lyrics are overly narrative in my opinion - he would communicate better if he were to show rather than tell: be more cinematic than descriptive.

Another area he could improve is to focus on very specific detail in order to better communicate the big picture. This is especially true with his characters and the songs about his own thoughts and actions. I didn't have much emotional connection with his characters – I know what they did but I didn't feel what they felt or why I should care about them.

Music.

The songs all have a definite melody. This will strike many blues fans as sounding somewhat less bluesy, perhaps because we have become accustomed to blues songs that restrict themselves to a pentatonic scale. 

The guitar sound contributes a lot to keep the songs bluesy, with Harrison’s scratchy voice adding some more of the same. When Josienne Clarke takes the lead vocal, especially on the earlier two albums, her sweet and pure tone takes the song into the realm of folk music. On The World Outside album, she slides into the notes a little more, gives the flat note a little more time before she straightens it out and hits the melody.

His songs don’t give him much room to emote vocally – not many long vowel sounds. This suits his vocal style, and also the conversational nature of the lyrics. However, I hope he writes some songs that would give a more accomplished singer some room to stretch out. His lack of vocal prowess may be limiting his songwriting.

Harrison often uses a chorus or refrain in his songs, unlike traditional acoustic blues singer-songwriters. Willie Dixon was among the first bluesmen to (re-)use these structures, and typically his songs were recorded by bands, not solo acoustic musicians. This practice helps make the songs accessible – the listener can learn and internalize the repeated sections, and even sing along (aloud or not). Every song on the 2014 album has a refrain.

The songs are quite highly arranged. At least one guitar part will echo or be in unison with the vocal melody. The songs almost always have riffs - lines the band play ensemble that might have started as guitar riffs. Some songs have a very major scale feel in the verse melody that becomes “bluesified” by using the b7 or b3 in a riff. 

As far as I can tell, there is little live improvisation captured on record. It would be interesting to hear the band live.

The music is stylistically similar over all three albums, I suppose this is natural given the same band members throughout. It seemed to me that instrumentals were longer and less numerous in the newest album.

I think that European blues fans must be more open-minded than fans here in the USA. The reviews of his albums in the European blues press praise his non-conformity but still include his music as within the blues tradition, rather than implying that it isn't blues. Mark Harrison has three albums out, gigs regularly and it looks as though his career will be a long one. This is a fortunate thing for blues songwriting and for the blues genre in general. 

Link to Mark Harrison web site

Notes. 

I listened to three albums - The World Outside (2014), Crooked Smile (2012) and Watching The Parade (2010). 

Doug MacLeod observations

Doug MacLeod is one of the few blues singer-songwriters to achieve a long and consistent career performing his own songs almost exclusively.¹ What can I learn from his work to help me be a successful blues singer-songwriter?

I started to wonder if his songwriting has changed over the course of his career, and decided it would be instructive for my own songwriting to dig deep.

I listened to seven albums – No Road Back Home (1984), Unmarked Road (1987), Whose Truth, Whose Lies (2000), Dubb (2005), Utrecht Sessions (2008), Brand New Eyes (2011) and There's a Time (2013). I was interested to see whether he changed the things he wrote about, how he wrote about them, how did they relate to blues tradition…

I believe that blues would be more popular if we were to write songs about our actual day-to-day lives that use common, everyday 21st century language. That’s the whole focus of this blog. Academic study of blues music posits that traditional blues songs are usually about travel, romance and anxiety. Blues developed (like all folk music) as an oral tradition; blues musicians recombined existing blues lyrics to make new songs – a formulaic approach. (A good place to start reading about this is David Evans’ book, “Big Road Blues”.) As blues recordings became more available, songwriters started to get a bit more creative, introducing new ideas, modern references to African-American history, songs about news events and so on. Willie Dixon, more than any other songwriter, brought blues into the 20th century. Blues had spawned pop music, Broadway tunes and jazz. Dixon brought some parts of this modern music back into the blues - musical elements such as bridges and choruses, chord structures that had evolved out of the blues. He wrote about current city culture, you could dance to the blues.

OK, first I’ll talk about lyrics.

Doug MacLeod’s songwriter roots are evidently the singer-songwriters that preceded the Willie Dixon era – even though he spent many years as a band member in Chicago-style electric bands. His song topics generally fit into the blues tradition – travel, anxiety and romance. But every album has one or more tunes that don’t fit that mold; some give us advice or commentary on some aspect of the sorry state of the world.

He rarely uses recombined formulaic phrases from existing blues songs.² His songs usually make sense and the verses relate to one another and progress in a linear way. It does not seem to me that he wrote about different topics as his career progressed. The main change I hear is that he got better and better at doing what he does. The writing is more refined, adept, there are more layers of meaning, and meanings that go deeper; he allows questions to go unanswered. This is not a clear, qualitative old/new MacLeod difference; he tackled difficult subjects early on in his career.  Long Black Train, from 1984, shows us how there is a good side and a bad side to what life gives us. And no easy answers.

Some themes that run through the albums I listened to –

• ·         There is a reason for leaving your lover. A woman may look good, act sexy, but there is something wrong inside. A man might be too self-involved and selfish to really show love. Doug leaves women more often than they leave him.
• ·         Life is what you make it.
• ·         The devil is involved in a lot of things that go wrong.

Some things I notice he doesn't sing about –

• ·         Having fun getting stoned or drunk. Drugs and alcohol generally have bad consequences.
• ·         Ordinary day-to-day activities like shaving, shopping, changing clothes, having a conversation with his wife, dealing with the travel arrangements and details of his touring life…

This was a lot of listening. Fortunately, I can listen to Doug MacLeod all day – the same way I can listen to Muddy Waters. I took detailed notes on lyrics for six albums (excluded Utrecht Sessions) and on four albums for musical content.  My discussion of musical qualities excludes the 1984 album No Road Back Home (blues-rock band) and also Dubb (2000) and Utrecht Sessions (2008) because I focused on early versus late.

Musically, Doug MacLeod’s songs are always well constructed with a feel, chord structure and delivery that is appropriate to the subject of the sing – good prosody in other words. I’m not going to talk about production or very much – the producer(s) have the most influence there, and I’m focusing on songwriting.  But I do want to applaud his wide variety of tonal textures (guitar sounds, vocal styling, etc.) which is common to all of the albums.

Many acoustic blues musicians of the past 50 years who were guitar studs (as opposed to songwriters) went down the Blind Blake/Reverend Gary Davis road, playing pre-arranged and ragtime piano-inspired songs. Doug Macleod certainly has the chops but he didn't do that – he stayed within the blues tradition to a large extent. There are certainly some ragtime chord progressions, but generally not the piano left hand type of arrangements you hear from Stefan Grossman et al. He often takes it outside – a discordant open string accents the chord, maybe a chromatic figure, often an unusual chord choice between verses or as a turnaround.³  But every album has solid traditional 12-bar blues songs, played in the traditional way.

Most albums employ a rhythm section and the early ones feature guest musicians. I think the production has refined in later albums to showcase and focus on Doug’s playing and singing.

He has a lot of songs that establish a groove, often on one chord, for the verse with a couple of additional chords to turn around or for the refrain. Often he uses a b3 – 4 chord progression here, not a traditional blues thing as far as I know. 

He doesn't use bridges. Also, very rarely is there something you might call a chorus, though he does use a lot of refrains.⁴

Bottom line – Doug hasn't changed what he does over the past 30 years of his solo career. He just has gotten better at doing it. And if I want to be a blues singer-songwriter in the blues world that exists today, I should write more songs within the travel-romance-anxiety paradigm.

Footnotes.

1. He recorded a Bukka White tune The New Panama Limited on A Little Sin, Willie Dixon’s Bring It On Home and Muddy Waters’ Rollin and Tumblin’ on Ain’t the Blues Evil

2. Formulas – like Necessary Clothes – no particular story, verses don’t relate to one another as much as other song have it. But he doesn’t use formulas much and this isn’t really just a formula song.  Old Country Road is formulaic – traditional treatment, extra measures of instrumental noodling at the end of the line (in verse 1).  V1 – walking blues away on country road, v2 – moon lonesome, me lonesome too cause my baby treats me so unkind, v3 why do you treat me bad, I’m a good man.

3. Unmarked Road has greater variety of harmonies in guitar – weird chords. Whose Truth Whose Lies has greater mixture of styles and songs about things that are out of the usual blues topics. Norfolk County Line – about lost love, a wistful expressive lyric sung as a duet. St Louis on My Mind -      formulaic. Black Pony – very metaphoric. Unlonely – a simple love song.  Also a lot of guitar textures – distortion on Going Down Country – do we hear that on anything else? You Won’t Find Me has a little distortion – also a less usual chord progression – JL Hooker boogie A-C-D riff with an occasional b7 between verses. Time for a Change – discordant open strings, minor key. I wonder if the later albums go back to more traditional blues structures and timbres.

4. If I wanted to be 100% right about this, I’d go back and listen to everything again but I just don’t want to 

The singer, not the song? Or - is it the Blues or just a Blues?

One idea I had to promote blues songwriting in 2015 is to run a contest for a “new” blues song.

As I've stated plenty of times in this blog, I believe that blues music could become more popular with younger people if the songs were about things they can relate to and used up-to-date language and vocabulary. So - what would be the scoring criteria for such a contest? ¹

The International Blues Foundation sponsors several contests for musicians performing live. They use the criteria of blues content, vocal skill, instrumental skill, originality and stage presence. Blues content is given the most weight, and at first I thought this would be the only criterion that applies to a songwriting contest.

However, I am becoming to believe that you can’t just write a blues song without thinking about how it will be performed. The song, from a copyright point of view, can exist on paper alone. You can write out the melody and words, even indicate the blues inflections you hear in your mind, but it won’t be the blues until someone sings it as a blues. You can’t divorce the song from the performance when you are talking about the blues.

Let’s take Call it Stormy Monday as an example. Every blues singer knows this tune, it’s jazzier than most but I don’t think anyone would argue that this is a blues song. A great blues song. But it just isn't blues music when Pat Boone sings it.² 

The major song contests all state that performance and production quality will be ignored – the judges will listen to the song itself. Well, that’s baloney in practice, but I don’t think you could even make that stipulation in a blues song contest.

So if Pat Boone were to perform a song and submit it to my competition, would it score lower than a Big Joe Turner version of the same song? Should it?  

 Notes.

1.       1. I am working on developing such criteria and finding it painfully hard. Your suggestion are most welcome!

2.       2. Pat Boone Call It Stormy Monday from I’ll See You In My Dreams / This and That (Dot 1960)

Doug MacLeod. Epitome of the Blues Singer-Songwriter

My next few posts are going to be centered on Doug Macleod. The International Blues Foundation honored him in 2014 as the Acoustic Artist of the Year and also awarded his latest album, “There Comes a Time” as the Acoustic Album of the Year. 

To my knowledge, MacLeod is unique among successful blues performers in that he only performs his own original songs. He is one of the few solo artists that are featured performers at major blues festivals. He has recorded 22 albums of his material plus an instructional DVD.  

I will explore:

How does he do it? Why is he successful as a solo acoustic artist in a field dominated by electric bands? What can I learn from Doug that would help me grow as a blues singer-songwriter?

My focus is on his songwriting, but as I've been listening to the man I have come to think that the songs can’t be separated from the performance. And it makes me wonder to what extent this is true for blues in general. While there are blues songwriters whose songs are mostly recorded by other people (Gary Nicholson for example), MacLeod is more of a singer-songwriter. He has had a dozen-or-so cuts by other artists but the overwhelming majority of his songs have been played by Doug only.

Let me over-generalize to make a point. It seems to me that blues audiences are the most enthralled when an instrumentalist takes a solo. Close second – the band is tight, in the groove, a good beat, playing off one another and it makes you want to dance. Vocal performance runs third in holding their attention, and the words of a song don’t really matter. Sure, if you go out to hear Janiva Magness the vocals are going to be your focus, but for nine out of ten acts at a typical blues festival, the melody and words are not the main source of audience satisfaction. Songwriting is all about melody and words.  

Doug MacLeod’s words matter a lot – and his delivery ensures you know what he is saying. His singing is excellent – he has a good range, multiple vocal “personalities”, always expressive and soulful. He will draw you in with this storytelling between (and within) songs. But how successful would he be if he weren’t an absolute motherfucker on guitar? His playing is always sensitive, expressive and appropriate for the song, though he can whip out licks that make your jaw drop any time he feels like it. Do you think instrumental performance is the most important thing? I’d really like to know!

I thought it would be interesting to look at how his writing has developed over the past twenty years; approximately the period since he became mainly a solo performer. I am listening and making notes about three albums recorded between 1996 and 2000, and three albums from the past five years.

What topics or themes did he sing about in the 90’s versus what concerns him today? Has his language changed?

Listening to Doug MacLeod’s music is time well spent. OK, then, let's go!.