pandora blues

[drnihili]

I want to start an acoustic blues station on Pandora, but don't know where to start. Any suggestions on who I should listen to?

[Freeman Keller]

I'm not familar with Pandora, but the obvious question is who do you listen to and why? I guess I would think that if you were going to start a music station you would need to own a pretty big library of the music and have a pretty good feeling for the genre.

 

My meager little collection of blues is probably about fifty cd's, maybe a hundred vinyl records, a few videos and ranges from RJ, MJH, BBF (and all the other Blinds) to EC and the other white boys and girls.

 

edit to add, you might want to listen to some of the blues programs on you local quality radio stations and look at their set lists (which will be online). In my area NPR has a saturday afternoon bluesy show (called the Saturday Show) and in Porland Oregon the jazz station does a friday night blues show. I'm always picking up new ideas when I listen to these.

[Cldplytkmn]

pandora is pretty cool... www.pandora.com is the address...

 

i'm not really a blues guy, but i'd say start with robert johnson or clapton and go from there... you can direct pandora as you go so just start listening and tell it what you like and don't like...

[drnihili]

A "station" in pandora is music that pandora plays for you. You give pandora some starting points in the form of artists or songs and it finds similar music that it thinks you will like.

 

I started an acoustic guitar station off of Leo Kottke and have found a lot of good stuff - Brooks Williams, David Grier, Kaki King, etc. that I didn't know about before, as well as gaining a greater appreciation for Bruce Cokburn's instrumentals. I've also got a Jazz station started based on Flim and the BBs (not guitar). So I thought I'd have a listen to some acoustic blues, and wanted suggestions for starting points.

 

I'll give Robert Johnson a try. Clapton is more electric and rock than I am hoping to go, at least the clapton I'm familiar with.

[Freeman Keller]

OK, I thought you were creating music for others to listen to.

 

Here are some players that I really like:

 

Delta and Country Blues

Blind Blake, Blind Boy Fuller, Blind Willie McTell, Robert Johnson, Gary Davis, John Hurt, Bill Broonzy, Sonny Terry/Brownie McGee, Son House

 

12 String

Heddie Ledbetter, Willie McTell, Kottke (some of his really early stuff is more bluesy)

 

Transition to more modern players

Ry Cooder, Stefan Grossman, John Fahey,

 

Modern players with roots in the blues

Jorma Kaukonen, Eric Clapton (Unplugged is the blues, in my book), Bonnie Raitt, Rory Block, Bob Brozman

 

Those come to mind and should give you a start. Pretty much my musical roots

 

oh, and a modern group that my wife just loves, Saffire, "the Uppity Blues Women"