Most Underrated Blues Rock Bands of the Sixties and Seventies

July 04, 2022 Post a Comment

Skwink FRIIIIIIIIIITZ

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May 14, 2010

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I'm a huge fan of Cream, and I really like The Doors, the Animals, Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones. What's some other good blues rock from the 60's to early 70's?
Ok I'll have a go.
My first suggestion is made knowing that the response will be WTF?? Check out some of Rod Stewart's really early stuff with The Faces. To my mind it is some the loudest, hard rocking, blues based rock of the early 60's. "Stay With Me" has one of the great intros and just blasts out of the stereo. "Black Cat" with Jeff Beck is great too.

The Lovin' Spoonful probably deserve a gig, though a little behind the names you mention. Band leader John Sebastian is a top guitarist and song writer.

You mention The Animals and The Stones so I'm assuming British Invasion counts. Early Yardbirds then have to count. Check out the names of the band members......it's basically Cream and Led Zeppelin.

Back in the USA, I'm a big fan of the very underrated Bad Company. Classic Americana. Check out Rock n Roll Fantasy and I'll be Creeping....you'll be hooked after one listen. They morphed into the better known Free....you probably know their hit Feel Like Makin' Love.

Out of patriotism I'll also give a nod to The Easybeats from Australia. The first successful band from here to crack it overseas and responsible for arguably the greatest rock anthem for the working man.....Friday On My Mind.

Early AC/DC and Steppenwolf, while more hard rock, are not totally out of place here. Check out "The Pusher" by the latter. And don't discount The Beatles contribution to great blues rock, when they played it they nailed it. Likewise The Kinks.....massively influential.

That's a few that spring to mind easily and fall comfortably within the genre I think you're after.

I'd add though, you really do need to investigate the granite that all this was built on (post 1955 without going back further.....disclaimer also keeps Owen G from rightly calling me out). Any history of blues based rock is incomplete without checking out Elvis, Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard.

EDIT.... Crap, forgot Canned Heat and I'm sure a heap more will come to mind. Will add as inspiration calls.
Skwink FRIIIIIIIIIITZ

Joined:

May 14, 2010

Messages:

5,682

Cool, thanks. I'll check those bands out.
Umm...jesus the amount of bands I could recommend you...I don't have the patience right now because I don't particularly feel like spending an hour and a half writing them all down right now.
What you have is a good start. You may also want to check out Hot Tuna, The Grateful Dead (live stuff if you can find it. Don't listen to studio stuff before 1969 and after 1977, it's terrible.), Traffic is one of the most underrated bands of the late 60s and early 70s. Low Spark of High Heeled Boys is a stupendous album and everybody should listen to it. Nao. Creedence Clearwater Revival are fantastic. The Kinks in my opinion are the best thing Britain ever produced in the 60s. Something Else, Village Green Preservation Society, Arthur, Lola vs Powerman and the Moneygoround, and Muswell Hillbillies are must-hear albums. Velvet Underground is great. Allman Bros are must hear. Live at Fillmore East is perhaps the greatest live album every released by anyone ever. Freddie/Freddy King and Albert King likewise. Born Under a Bad Sign is an outstanding album. Cream is aight, I've come to resent them more over the years because their music is blues with all the soul sucked out of it. Wheels of Fire is a pretty decent album though. John Mayall and the Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton is an outstanding album, totally jumpstarted Clapton's career. In fact John Mayall in general is awesome as he jumpstarted the careers of some of the most famous British Blues artists of the 1960s Genesis is great. Paul Butterfield Blues Band is good too. I could go on, but I'll make it look nicer later. Can't be assed right now.

If you have to listen to anything, ANYTHING at all though. Get your hands on some Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, and Elmore James. To put a very generalized point on it, everything that came out of the 60s is essentially derived from these three artists (plus smatterings of Buddy Holly, Little Richard, Little Walter, B.B. King, and Chuck Berry).

Some songs to get you started:

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See what the guy above me said about Hot Tuna? Listen to him and listen good. You won't hear two guys playing (often) acoustic instruments and get a bigger sound. True masters of technique, tone and taste.
I agree about the comment on Cream aswell. Of course all three of them can play their asses off (though it kinda puts me off that they don't seem shy about letting you know it), and pretty much every hard rock/metal band ever owes them a debt. But I just find them soulless. In a genre that can be considered limited in terms of song structure and instrumentation, it's that intangible ability to simply move the listener that defines the greats. The clips above from Muddy Waters, Elmore James and dunno if it's there cause many are blocked, but Howling Wolf just hit me in that heart and hips in a way that Creme can't come close to IMHO. And given their pretensions to basically be a modern blues band I think they miss the mark.

Oh, and Traffic were mentioned too. Definitely worth a listen.

EDIT.....haha, just realized I highlighted those 3 essential bluesmen without properly reading above where Owen says those three are your "go to" guys too......says it all really. Arguably three of the most important musical figures in history when one considers the global impact of rock n roll.
Don't forget about Jack Casady, probably one of the best bassists of all time. OF ALL TIME
I can't find the live recording of Candyman, which features one of the best bass solos I've ever heard .

You'll have to settle for this

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To be fair, rock and roll didn't have much to do with Chicago blues - it had much more to do with the jump blues of the 1940s. Muddy Waters was quite right when he said that the blues had a baby and they called it rock and roll, but if you want the aural illustration of that, don't listen to Muddy Waters, listen to Wynonie Harris or Big Joe Turner or Louis Jordan.
The Chicago bluesmen were awesome, but in their heyday of the 1950s they were not widely known and not widely influential, even within Chicago. It was the British blues fans who first really picked up on them and began imitating them.

In other words, Chicago blues didn't give birth to rock and roll - it gave birth to rock, which is something quite different.

Anyway, I'd echo the mention of Canned Heat as the obvious go-to 60s blues-rock band. Fleetwood Mac, in their earlier incarnation (i.e. Peter Green era), have to be included. Also, although they're rather later, I would recommend the Fabulous Thunderbirds. You might also like Johnny Winter, though he's perhaps an acquired taste, and of course Stevie Ray Vaughan.

In addition to the other "proper" blues musicians mentioned, I'd say that anyone interested in this sort of thing should listen to John Lee Hooker, Albert King, and also the later work of Freddie King (the earlier work is great, but less rocky). If you want to try 80s-style blues-rock then I suppose the first person to go for is Robert Cray, normally classified as blues but really closer to rock, at least during that period.

For more British-type blues, John Mayall is the one to look for. I would also recommend Cyril Davies, if you can find anything by him - one of the very first British blues musicians. I have heard only a single track by him but it was brilliant.

Oh, and it's funny that no-one's mentioned him, but surely the greatest blues-rocker of all time - Hendrix?
I don't know about this. Waters and Walter consistently found themselves atop the R&B top charts. Juke was a major hit, as was My Babe. Blues with a Feeling and You're So Fine both charted no 2. Muddy Never charted no1, but many of his singles did chart in the top ten such as Long Distance Call, Honey Bee and Mannish Boy. They weren't nationally known, but they were certainly well known within the R&B ciruits.
But yes, it wasn't until the Newport Jazz Festival that the bluesmen were brought back and brought back with a vengeance. It's plain to see just in how many of their hits were covered. Smokestack Lightnin, Can't Be Satisfied, Mannish Boy, It Ain't Right, Trouble No More, Rock Me, etc. It became even more overt, I would say when you started to see the Southern Rock Acts like Allman Bros and Lynyrd Skynyrd. Where guitarists like Clapton and Paige were explicitly influenced by B.B. and Albert King and Hubert Sumlin, guitarists like Duane Allman were explicitly influenced by Muddy Waters and Elmore James.
Sure, they were successful, but not to the extent you'd think given their prominence in the subsequent rise of rock. And even the story you tell here indicates an odd discrepancy. Little Walter was more commercially successful than Muddy Waters, but it's Muddy, not Walter, who is consistently listed as one of the titans of the blues. Walter's a supporting character in the traditional narrative. Or again, the most popular Chicago bluesman of the 1950s was Jimmy Reed. He had more hits than B.B. King. But he again doesn't figure in the "canon" to the extent that Waters and Wolf do. So even if you confine your attention to 1950s Chicago blues musicians, the story's not quite as simple as the standard narrative would have us believe.
Don't get me wrong, I love all of these musicians, and wouldn't want to denigrate their achievements - it's more that I think others get unduly neglected when the same names are always repeated. Muddy Waters was a greater musical talent than Wynonie Harris, without a doubt, but you'll still hear more rock and roll in every note Harris sang than in any of Waters' records - and he never got to record with the Stones.
Just as an aside, this is a white boy in 1947 with something sounding suspiciously like "Rock around the Clock"
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What Plotinus is talking about reminds me a lot of this website which says rock and roll was originally another term for rhythm and blues or jump blues, and elements of Chicago blues was only added by later British artists more interested in the guitar than the saxophone. Not really sure if it is true or not, I haven't done the research myself.
Anyway I second all mentions of the Allman Brothers, CCR, The Yardbirds, and The Jeff Beck Group which are the bands I am loving right now. Especially the Allman Brothers. I love the Allman Brothers first album and the live album released from the archive Live at the Ludlow Garage. Those two albums caught the band when they focused on being loud blues-rockers. There next album Idlewild South moves to a more traditional sound but is still just as awesome. At the Fillmore is rightfully considered one of the awesomest live albums. Eat a Peach and Brothers and Sisters have some country songs but are still mostly blues rockers.

Other than that I'm just taking note of what everyone else is saying.
They are more described as Psychedelic rock, but try Jefferson Airplane. I think if you like the Doors and Zepplin you will like them.
Ok I'm calling it. They are the seminal psychedelic rock band and one of the greatest rock bands ever.
Totally off topic clip, included soley because it is sublime.

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Meh, I don't like them as much as I used to, but they are fun. I think Quicksilver Messenger Service did their schtick better. Also, why hasn't The Band been mentioned yet.
YOU NEED TO LISTEN TO THE BAND! GET THEIR EPONYMOUS ALBUM NAO! IT WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE! (Eric Clapton has said Music From Big Pink was his impetus for quitting Cream)

For other people:

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Funny thing is, as soon as your name came up as last posted I was like "Oh crap, I've awakened the Dead"......and if you argued they were the seminal 60's band I wouldn't argue for a second.
The key to Jefferson for me is getting past White Rabbit, Somebody to Love etc, basically the bookmark songs of the era and getting to the timeless stuff (elitist I know). That's where they really shine.

And Grace Slick is only the second best vocalist in the band as the above testifies.
Oh no I agree. Their stuff beyond that is much better. I used to listen to the Monterey Pop version of Other Side of this Life on a daily basis. I think for me though it is that I've started trending away from the Psych stuff; since I discovered the Chicago blues I just don't find it as fun, and if I want to get my fill of Jorma Kaukonen or Jack Casady I'm much better off getting my fill from Hot Tuna, how were a much much better band, in my opinion.