Possibly appropriate, given that most of you will by now be feeling the creeping effects of the “Monday blues”, not exactly looking forward to heading into work for another week --- unless you're a beer tester or bikini inspector! --- to hit you with another selection of blues tracks. This time out, I'm going to concentrate on current artistes, blues tracks lifted from albums that are not blues-dedicated, but nevertheless have at least one good blues song on them.
You may not agree with all of my choices, but I'd like to try to show that the blues can emcompass so many different styles and eras, and that it is, in the end, universal and eternal. Hopefully some, if not all, of the below will go some way towards demonstrating this.
Start off with this, from the great Led Zep, track from the album “Presence” called “Tea for one”. Just listen to that Jimmy Page make his guitar wail!
Someone who's often overlooked in this genre but who has a genuine love of the blues is Chris Rea. Here's “Easy rider”.
Perhaps this wouldn't be considered blues
per se, but I think it gives a real blues feel. It's Joe Cocker, with “Night calls”.
I feel the same can be said about this one from Marillion. From the album “Radiation”, a great little track called “Born to run”.
And a fragile little song from Prefab Sprout, from “Jordan: the comeback”. It's called “One of the broken”.
Title track to Bon Jovi's Richie Sambora's debut solo album, “Stranger in this town”.
Of course we'd have to have one of the prime exponents of the blues of this era! Here's Rory, with a great version of John Lee Hooker's “Wanted blues”.
And not far behind him, Gary Moore, with the last studio track recorded by him before his untimely death this year, this is “Trouble ain't far behind”.
Steve Earle certainly knows how to sing the blues. Here he is with one of his earlier songs, “It's all up to you”.
And another Steve, this time the late, sadly-missed Stevie Ray Vaughan, with “Tin Pan Alley”.