This is a huge field so don’t take this as any attempt to be definitive. Here are some clips that capture a few special and historically important performers. A lot more Blues and Rock to come!
Rock was invented by a woman
Sister Rosetta Tharpe started as a Gospel singer. She added blues tropes, a distorted electric guitar, and foot-stomping beats, creating something that would become rock and roll. Throughout her career, she continued to perform Gospel music, mixed in with this new thing she was inventing. She had both white and black fanbases, but could only perform for one or the other at a time because most venues were segregated. Rock came to be dominated by white boys, so we’ve largely forgotten its origins in Black music. Even less well known is that its first practitioner was a woman. Here is “Didn’t it Rain?”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9a49oFalZE
Who invented the rock guitar solo?
Here is some of the earliest footage of what we would call the modern electric guitar solo. Complete with the swagger. From Chuck Berry to the Stones and Led Zeppelin, they all owe a big thank you to Sister Rosetta Tharpe. If you have never seen her, brace yourself.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qj3fpujjFis
Gloomy Sunday
This was actually a Hungarian song that was not written in a Blues style, but somehow Billie Holiday turned it into a definitive Blues song. Some radio stations (including the BBC) refused to play the original because it had supposedly triggered waves of suicides. I’ve listened to it, and it's got nothing on Holiday's version. (See the text in the youtube clip if you want a more complete history.) Holiday's life and death were almost unthinkably tragic. It's amazing she was able to give us what she did.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50E3tL1YMeU
B.B. King and some friends
Where does one even start, regarding this clip? People love to debate levels of greatness, and we all have our picks for best this or biggest that, but among the musicians who invented rock, it’s safe to say BB King was The King. Who else could bring together a bunch of sidemen like this? Buddy Guy, Albert Collins, Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck? Are you kidding? Crazy.
Another from B.B. King and friends: Buddy Guy, Eric Clapton and Jimmy Vaughan. Born at roughly 10-year intervals, they represent four generations in the evolution of the blues into rock. In fact, almost all of today’s popular music genres, from rock to soul, funk to surf-music, trance to hip-hop—owe a significant debt to the Blues. Foundational rock musicians, including Hendrix, Clapton, Beck, Jimmy Page and many others, considered themselves bluesmen first. Nerd note: Vaughan is the older brother of the late Stevie Ray Vaughan, and you hear some of the same heavy note striking that was a signature part of SRV’s sound.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4OXrmxDp44
More from B.B. King and friends. This time it’s Clapton, Robert Cray and Jimmy Vaughan, wrapping up Crossroads 2010. I particularly love the contrast in their guitar styles: B.B. with his uniquely pure, fat, ringing notes; Clapton’s light, nimble touch; Cray’s haunting, plaintive tone; and Vaughan’s emphatic striking. Cray, like Buddy Guy and Jeff Beck, is often called “a guitarist’s guitarist” by other musicians. He could have had even more commercial success but always chose to explore new ideas.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgXSomPE_FY
Janis Joplin. No filters. No security. No post-production polishing. No bullshit. What you see is just a fraction of what you get. She broke a lot of barriers. A woman, making it as a headliner in an overwhelmingly sexist business. A white person who did the blues without stealing anything, because she WAS the blues, as much as any Black blues artist. A singer without a singer’s voice, who made you love her raw, broken sound. One of a handful of artists I don't listen to with other people, because she turns me into a mess.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uG2gYE5KOs
One of the crazier things on youtube: Jeff Beck and a few friends
Beck, of course, was one of the founders of the British blues movement (along with Mayall, Clapton etc.) and still makes a point of celebrating the blues masters who started it all.
Buddy Guy played a key role in birthing modern rock. He was a major influence on Beck, Hendrix and pretty much all the foundational rock guitar players. The first song in this clip is a blues number that also really rocks, which is the point. Billy Gibbons was an anomaly in Texas, an early experimenter with psychedelic rock who was himself influenced by Hendrix, for whom he opened several shows. In the second number, he does a great cover of Hendrix’ Foxy Lady, with Beck playing rhythm. Through it all, Tal and Vinnie crush it as usual.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_dUJigRWfo
Oh, man, very nice! I've read a bit about Sister Rosetta Tharpe... but I need to check out her music, closely. Thanks!
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