Blues

Music  /  PotD
Everybody Has The Blues
October 17, 2015
charles i. letbetter - Everybody Has The Blues

charles i. letbetter - everybody has the blues

Most Refined (2009). Model: Samantha Caster

Everything comes out in blues music: joy, pain, struggle. Blues is affirmation with absolute elegance. It’s about a man and a woman. So the pain and the struggle in the blues is that universal pain that comes from having your heart broken. Most blues songs are not about social statements.—Wynton Marsalis

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]Everybody has the Blues. I have the Blues right now because the kids are already awake and making way too much noise, and because this is the end of Blues week. I like next week’s theme of classic nudes, but this week has been rather special and I’m sorry to see it come to an end. My friends have the Blues, one from not sleeping well for several nights, another remembering, and feeling, the passing of a friend on this date some years ago. Blues happens to everyone, everywhere, all the time. There is not a day, nor even a moment that passes but what someone has the Blues.

I don’t think the Blues are something to be avoided, though. If anything, I think the Blues should be embraced, welcomed, and given the time and emotion to be felt deeply. The only way one gets over the Blues is to feel them and then to let that feeling come out in some form. Creative people have an advantage there; they can write or sing or paint or draw their way through the Blues and end up with something beautiful. Some of the most wonderful works of art have come from letting the Blues take over the creative process. When we allow the Blues to be a natural part of our experience, they participate as the balance against which we measure our level of joy. Without the Blues, how would we know how happy we are?[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]The music this week has been some of the best. One of the  reasons Blues music is so popular is that the emotions from which it springs are universal; one can identify with the music because one has felt the emotion for themselves. Blues music brings us together in our pain, or at the very least the remembrance of it. For example, as I get older I think of people who were part of my childhood, people whose names I can’t even remember now, and the song, “Do I Ever Cross Your Mind” plays on cue in my head. Or something happens that reminds me how much things have changed in my lifetime and the B.B. King/Bobby “Blue” Bland duet, “Funny How Time Slips Away” comes to mind.

“Everybody Has The Blues” seems like a fitting way to end the week. It doesn’t matter who we are, rich, poor, married, single, young, old, we all get the blues. The song, like today’s picture, is a little more refined than what we normally see from the Blues, with Ray’s orchestra and the smooth voice of Tony Bennet joining him.  Yet, there’s still that tone of melancholy in the bridge. There’s no escaping the Blues. They’re going to get you. Might as well accept them and go on. Enjoy the song.[/one_half_last]

 

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Music  /  PotD
Baby Grand
October 15, 2015
charles i. letbetter - baby grand

charles i. letbetter - baby grand

Steal The Moment (2013). Model: Loren Hawk

Sometimes I can only groan, and suffer, and pour out my despair at the piano!—Frederic Chopin

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]I’ve never owned a baby grand. I’ve played countless numbers of them over the years, but for a variety of reasons I’ve never owned one and that makes me a bit sad. Not all pianos are created equal, you know. Even when they’re in tune there is a significant difference in the tone between a studio piano, which is what I had growing up, and a baby grand. Of course, when I was much, much younger I thought I’d have a twelve-foot Steinway sitting in the middle of my living room floor. Perhaps, had life taken a very different turn 30-plus years ago, that might have happened, but there’ve been many times when, moving logistics aside, twelve feet was longer than any one side of the living room. A baby grand is five-foot to five-feet, four-inches long, which fits in just about any room. I still don’t have one, though.

Still, no matter what size piano or keyboard one has, they make for incredible friends when one has the Blues. A baby grand is the perfect outlet for the widest range of emotion. Sometimes, one is quiet and contemplative, and a gentle touch on the keys produces a soft tone that is reflective and peaceful, full of thought. When one is sad, all it takes is shifting to a minor key and what would be tears fall into beautiful melancholy streams of emotion. Angry? The piano has been the outlet for my anger more times than I care to count; it can not only handle the power of the emotion but sends it back with a musical force that is satisfying.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]The problem with relying on a baby grand as one’s emotional outlet is that often one feels those emotions most deeply and strongly in the middle of the night. Timing tends to be an issue for anyone not actually playing the piano. No matter how skillful the playing or how beautiful the song, people tend to not be too terribly receptive when it jars them from their sleep at 3:00 AM. I’ve even had one neighbor threaten violence over what he considered to be the inappropriate timing of my playing. During the quiet moments of the night, even the softest tones are too much for most people.

Perhaps it is better, from a relationship perspective, to put one’s worries into a good book, divert the energy toward more physical pleasures, or at least some activity that doesn’t wake the entire neighborhood. I can tell you right now, though, even taking pictures of beautiful women, such as today’s photo, as much as I love doing it, is not as emotionally satisfying as sitting down and becoming one with a baby grand. Nothing else responds to the Blues in quite the same way, personally, deeply, as though it were a part of your body, as does a baby grand. There is no better therapy.

Ray understood. Enjoy the music. [/one_half_last]

 

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Music  /  PotD
What Kind Of Woman Is This?
October 14, 2015
charles i. letbetter - what kind of woman is this?

charles i. letbetter - what kind of woman is this

Blue All Over (2015)

Being jealous of a beautiful woman is not going to make you more beautiful.—Zsa Zsa Gabor

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]I’m going to go off script this morning, because, with a title like What Kind Of Woman Is This? I feel the need to do some explaining. We tend to look at the Blues as a way of working out something challenging to us. No, not always. There are times when all it takes is the presence of a beautiful woman. Here are the lyrics:

The gates of Heaven must be open
I think I saw an angel just walk by
Hey, the gates of heaven must be open
I think I saw an angel just walk by

I heard a blind man screamin’, say
Now there goes a sight for my sore eyes
There goes a sight for my sore eyes
Now there goes a sight for my sore eyes
What kind of woman is this?

You should be locked up, pretty girl
In my bedroom with me
Hey, you should be locked up, pretty girl
In my bedroom with me

So we can do the same thing that Adam
Did under that old apple tree
What he did under that apple tree
What he did under that apple tree

Well, well, well, well, well, well
Choke out
Here I come again

There’s always some good lookin’ girls
Hangin’ ’round this famous place
Well, hey, there’s always some good lookin’ girls
Hangin’ round this famous place, talkin’ bout legends now

Aww, but this particular one
Looked like somethin’ from outer space
She looked like somethin’ from outer space

What kind of woman is this?
Hmm, what kind of woman is this?
What kind of woman is this?
Ooh, what kind of woman is this?

Look at that, she shakes all over when she walk
She made a blind man see
Made a dumb man talk
What kind of woman is this?
Hmm, shucks

[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]What  Kind of Woman is This? is the only original song on Buddy Guy’s 2005 album, Bring ’em In. That would mean he was 68- or 69-years-old when he wrote the song. Considering the fact that it really is not much more than one long pick-up line, one might think that the Blues comes from knowing he’s not going to be the one to get her. I would have to challenge that, though. Blues musicians seem to get better with age, like so many other things, and I’ve not seen one yet that didn’t have groupies waiting at the stage door.

One might also question whether the song’s title is sexist, patronizing, objectifying, or possibly even misogynistic. I think the song is actually more appreciative than anything. We’ve all been in that crowded room when a particular woman walks in and turns every head in the place. Maybe she’s wildly attractive, or maybe she’s a strong, confident woman who doesn’t put up with the bullshit she gets from men; perhaps she’s both.

So, where do the Blues come in? What’s the cause for the emotion? Can there be such a thing as a happy Blues song? Yes, there are happy Blues songs, and in some aspects this may be one of them. But what I think Guy is talking about is a distraction. Perhaps the woman’s presence was unexpected. Maybe she sat a little too close to the stage. One thing for sure is that everyone in the room, including the blind man, if more interested in the woman than in the person on the stage. Any musician will tell you, a distraction that compete’s with your performance is plenty of reason to sing the Blues.

Here’s to the women who can distract whatever is going on in any room, and here’s to the musicians who have to endure the distraction. May you both manage to keep your composure. Enjoy the song.

[/one_half_last]

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Music  /  PotD
Dust My Broom
October 13, 2015
charles i. letbetter - dust my broom

charles i. letbetter - dust my broom

INTENSITY (2012). Model: Cole Prosper

You may write me down in history with your bitter, twisted lines. You may trod me in the very dirt, but still, like dust, I’ll rise.—Maya Angelou

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]There comes a time, or two, or more, when one has to look at their life, their circumstances, and maybe even the people in their lives, and decide to make some changes, or “dust my broom.” An exact etymology of the phrase was difficult to find, but it seems to go back quite ways, which seems to make sense. I can just imagine some poor woman of the 15th or 16th century stepping to the door of her humble little house and shaking out all the dirt the broom had picked up while being dragged across the floor. Dusting the broom was just a natural part of cleaning house. “Cleaning house” is a natural part of our lives as well.

We see people dust their brooms today when they prune their social media friends lists. We collect names because they make our numbers look good, but over time we realize those names and numbers are not only doing us no good, but may even be causing some of our problems. When we hit that realization, often in a fit of frustration, we clean house and dust our broom. I did that very thing back at the beginning of the year, culling over 1,000 names that were little more than numbers. Fewer than ten asked to be re-instated. Those numbers were obviously little more than dead weight.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]If one digs down and examines the phrase, we realize that dusting the broom is the final act of cleaning house. When cleaning house, you need the broom handy to get all the dust and muck and dead spider skeletons out of all the corners and from under all the furniture. You gather everything up in a pile, dump the bulk into the garbage, and then dust the broom. Get rid of the big stuff first, and then shake off the little stuff that wants to cling on and cause more trouble. Who knew there could be such deep, introspective meaning to a Blues song?

Tuesdays seem like they might be a good time to dust the broom. Monday delivers a lot of garbage and we tend to let that mess just accumulate and stack up. Time to get rid of it all. Sweep out the nonsense, tidy things up, and put everything back in order so you can get on with your week. Dusting your broom is an act of empowerment, you taking action to put your life back in balance, being done with yesterday’s dirt, and moving on. So grab that broom, shake the dust out, and then put on some blues. We’ll all feel better for having done so.[/one_half_last]

 

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Music  /  PotD
They Call It Stormy Monday
October 12, 2015
charles i. letbetter - call it stormy monday

charles i. letbetter - Call It Stormy Monday

Solitude (2012).

I read in the newspapers they are going to have 30 minutes of intellectual stuff on television every Monday from 7:30 to 8. to educate America. They couldn’t educate America if they started at 6:30.—Groucho Marx

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]I know, Monday. Erg. No one likes Monday because it means going back to work. And there’s the rub, how much of our lives do we spend hating one-seventh of our week? Any way you come at this, you end up with the blues. Monday means an end to the fun, an end to the play, an end to family time, an end to leisure. Who wants to give that up? Well, unless, of course, you’re an NFL player or something related where you work on Sunday. I suppose the Peyton Mannings of the world look forward to Monday as a chance to recuperate from Sunday. That would be another reason we’re jealous of the rich bastards, and another reason to have the blues.

Preachers typically like Monday, too. I know Poppa did. Mondays were his quiet day, or at least he tried to keep them as quiet as possible. He put everything he had into those two services on Sunday. Monday was for him. He’d get us kids and Mom off the school and then hit the coffee shop, or donut shop depending on where we were living. He’d sometimes hang out with other preachers, maybe go to lunch, and then take a nap before we all came busting through the door as noisily as possible, absolutely destroying his solitude. There are probably a lot of people who look at Monday as a relief, but doesn’t mean they don’t still sing the blues.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]Actually, you realize we have unions, industrialization, and that whole 40-hour-work-week thing to blame for our attitude about Monday. Prior to that whole 40-hour thing, Monday was just another day. Sure, folks would take a pause on Sunday for church and such, but there wasn’t any difference between Monday and any other day of the week. There wasn’t such a thing as the weekend. There was no Friday night football. No Saturday afternoon football. No Sunday night football. Good god, how in the world did those poor people survive without football? No wonder they had short life spans.

Music gives Monday a bad rap, too. Rainy days and Mondays alls ways get me down, you know. Manic Monday. Blue Monday. Monday Monday. Blues great T-Bone Walker sings about Stormy Monday below the break. The thing about Monday music, though, is it actually seems to help one feel a little better about getting the day started, or surviving the whole thing. That’s what the blues does for you, gets out those negative emotions so you can feel better about yourself and get on with your week.

Although, Tuesday’s just as bad.[/one_half_last]

 

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Music  /  PotD
Damn Right, I’ve Got The Blues
October 11, 2015
charles i. letbetter - damn right i've got the blues

charles i. letbetter - damn right i've got the blues

Feelin’ Blue (2012). Model: Aubrey Carr

The blues was like that problem child that you may have had in the family. You was a little bit ashamed to let anybody see him, but you loved him. You just didn’t know how other people would take it.—B. B. King

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]I listen to a lot of music while I’m sitting here editing pictures. Walk in on me during one of these sessions and you’re likely to hear anything from The Gaither Vocal Band to Florence + The Machine. The playlist that I hit most often, though, is four and a half hours worth of the Blues. Everything from remastered Robert Johnson and B. B. King to Bonny Raitt and Aretha Franklin is on that list. The Blues get me through those sessions when I’m just not feeling it; when I’ve lost the emotional connection I might have had with a picture. One thing photographs have to do is make people feel, and if I’m not feeling anything chances are pretty high no one else will, either. The Blues gets me over that hurdle because the Blues are little more than pure emotion given some rhythm.

Contrary to popular belief, having the Blues doesn’t mean one is depressed. Depression is a serious mental illness. The Blues are just the realities of living and the challenge of living them. A Blues singer wails about what’s bothering them, whether it’s a lover that’s done them wrong, a boss that demands too much, a car that won’t run, or a leaky roof. Sing it out. Sing through what you feel. Put it out there, let it be what it is, and then move on with your life. A good Blues song doesn’t try to solve life’s problems, but unites us all in the fact that we all have the same issues, that we all survive, and we all keep right on going, because that’s what people do.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]Musically, the Blues aren’t especially difficult to play. Take a smooth walking bass line and drop three, maybe four, chords over it, and then take that wherever you’d like to go. The Blues don’t require one to have a lot of musical skill or training, but simply that one has the ability to feel. Sure, there are some people who do it better than others, but it’s the emotion, not the music skill, that they bring to the song that makes the difference. The deeper one can feel and communicate that feeling, the better the song.

So, all this week, we’re going to have the blues. The pictures are all processed with a blue tone, using a variety of different processes. No two are processed alike. Then, we’re going to pair those pictures with some of my favorite blues songs, which I’ll include with each picture. The pictures don’t have any direct connection to the songs chosen, but our hope is that between the photograph and the music your day will be a little bit better.

What’s important in life is that we are not afraid to feel, and that we find positive and appropriate ways to communicate that feeling. We don’t need anyone else getting upset and picking up a gun, or taking out their frustration physically on another person. Sing it out. Even if you can’t carry a tune, you can still sing the Blues. We don’t mind. Go for it. Feel better. Enjoy the Blues.[/one_half_last]

 

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