Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2017/11/08/watch-youd-never-believe-th.html
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Amazing, also the video from when he was 10.
My daughter is 9 and plays an instrument since she was 6. I can’t imagine here to be as much at home at her instrument as this guy in even another 3 years, let alone 1.
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10 goldblums out of a possible 10 goldblums.
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I’m just wanting to know exactly what the learning process was? I’m guessing that when you learning to play and improvise that young it’s processed through language circuits in your brain, so this kid has effectively learned to speak “The Blues”.
I notice there’s a particular descending riff he returns to a bunch in the 10 year old vid. So he’s gluing phrases together, and using that one as a home base of sorts.
Interesting. Will like to see if he evolves, or if he just will be one-note-johnny, and ‘speak’ blues his whole life.
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He’s a witch.
Proof of reincarnation.
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As a 60 year old blues and jazz musician (keys and sax), I can’t even begin to tell you how it’s ever worked in my brain. I just know that starting at about age 12, I could hear the melodies in my head, and I had to work to find a way to have them come out of my horn or fingertips. Is it a “language” that you can learn? I don’t know. I’ve taught improvisation before, and I can tell you that you either have it, or you don’t. You can teach modes and scales, but the player has to hear it in their head or it will never come out.
Technical proficiency will only take you so far, if you can’t hear it. I remember jazz clinics that I attended in the 70s, where dazzling players kept coming up with what we called “bullshit solos”. Fabulous exhibitions of the scope of their knowledge of the instrument and their chops. But dead, empty passages that really didn’t “say” anything. They could certainly speak the language, but there was no prose or poetry there.
Long story short: Dude, you gotta feel it.
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This. Technical proficiency does not equal music. I don’t mean in the bullshit Rolling Stone “It has to make a political statement” to be good music way. The only thing that really matters is soul and how it speaks to you.
ETA: the kid is great by the way. Get more kids interested in the blues, please.
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El chiquillo tiene duende.
Little fella gave me the shivers when he started the climax of his performance. He could be forming the Wild Stallyns for all I know.
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Tell Joe Bonamassa, I beg you. He’s a blues scheister of the highest order, in it for the bucks. Somehow he got this gig with Clappo, who seems to go along with him I don’t know why, maybe as a reservoir for licks. It feels to me in this video below, Clappo is just going through the motions, and Bonamassa is just a nodding donkey pumping out licks.
I don’t like Joe Bonamassa. Sorry. I don’t think he’s a musician. He’s kind of the Henry Juszkiewicz of the playing world.
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That said (phew) - this kid is great, absolutely fantastic, and I’m sure pretty soon he’ll be playing with Derek Trucks, who at 13 played this lovely slide of Layla:
The rest of his music is just phenomenal, and BB King made all ssorts of (slightly odd) jokes and suggestive comments about him in this concert:
I also love Chris Thile (mandolin).
We do have great musicians around, but the propensity to consuming slop in all its forms means they don’t get the kind of profile we’d like them to have.
Amen.
I routinely get asked what I’m listening to and get blank stares in return. People tell me there’s no good new music and I just say, “That’s only because you don’t know where to look.” Everyone has their own taste, and that’s kind of the point of music if you ask me, but I agree with you–there’s good music out there.
KWSB (not a new song, of course). Dig the keys.
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Absolutely.
I wish this kid all the best, and apologize in advance if I’m wrong, but he’s probably just another one of these child “prodigy” formulaic blues regurgitators. Rich dad collects expensive Gibsons, buys kid expensive musical training, enters kid in child guitar competitions, etc.
Bonammassa, Kenny Wayne Shepard, Derek Trucks… they’re all the same. Producing bland, generic music for people who are super enthusiastic about bland, generic music.
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Hmm Trucks has alternated between Harrisonesque zither tunes and slidey blues. I profess to really liking him.
I can put up with most of them; they kind of keep the music at least in the public conscience, but Bonamassa is just a twat. He has no natural soul - from word one it was ‘make money by playing, I’ll be the biggest’. In the 60s they would have laughed heartily at him, and correctly identified his mix n’ match copycat style.
Plus he encourages his acolytes to collect guitars, which is annoying, and I do believe he holds a lot of responsibility for driving prices even stupidly further up.
What should I know about Trucks that I don’t? Daddy Rich Boy?
Also Seasick Steve. Born of folklore, that one. He has a good voice and rhythm, but his backstory is not credible (and he has, in fact, been outed - but no-one noticed, because they consume slop, and want to drink the slop they invest in and pay for)
Kaleo - Icelandic band, a few good tunes.
Honestly, Trucks probably shouldn’t be on my little gripe list. I don’t care for the music he makes and am critical of his never venturing beyond the finger picked slide schtick, but he’s a genuinely talented guy who can play with REAL bands. I just can’t stand the blues/jam band crossover stuff.
As far as any “daddy rich boy” sins, his uncle is Butch Trucks, founding drummer of Alman Brothers Band. This obviously opened doors for him but I don’t hold it against him any more that I would Dweezil Zappa’s lineage. You can’t help who you’re born too.
Trucks probably came to mind because I heard an interview (maybe on WTF? (Marc Maron’s podcast)) and he was talking about doing the prodigy competition circuit as a kid. In fact, he specifically called out Bonamassa for being the queen of spoiled little guitar pricks when they were kids.
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I profess to liking KWS. I think he gets it and is trying to make a living for the band. I don’t think he’s a poser.
Different strokes!
Right on, Fogbert.
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Ah ha ha!
But poor kids – competition circuits! Ugh. And now I get it about Trucks + Alman Bros. Cheers!
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