The News on Radio 4 this morning had a short segment reporting the death of the “blues” singer, Bobby Bland. It was a name I was familiar with, but I had never considered him to be a proper blues singer. Proper Blues singers have, I believe, now completely died out and it must be that there is no conceivable way that there can ever be any more.
The circumstances that brought the great bluesmen into existence…..the oppressive poverty and isolation of the Mississippi Delta and the vibrant juke joints of Chicago during and after the Great Migration are never going to re-occur.
Blues fans could spend many hours arguing who was the last of the proper bluesmen. My suggestion would be that it was “Pinetop” Perkins. Perhaps not in the first rank of the immortals, but his pedigree was immaculate.
Great blues music continues to be made and performed but the classic bluesman is gone. I feel privileged to have shared some of their era with them and I probably should be more curious about what it was about the music that spoke so directly and powerfully to a 14 year old schoolboy buried in rural Cumberland to the extent that the first long-playing record I ever spent my own money on was a compilation album of John Lee Curtis “Sonny Boy” Williamson and “Big Bill” Broonzy.