Yesterday I took some time off of work to be a chaperone for Geneva's school's field trip to the House of Blues. They took all the instrumental music classes, so there were 220 kids, 4 busses full. (These are all pretty good kids, so the chaperoning part was pretty easy duty, though they got pretty loud and rowdy on the bus. My stash of Cat's Cradle strings came in handy to entertain quite a few of 'em on the bus.)
The House of Blues has a "Schoolhouse Band" that puts on a great, hour-long "educational show", basically on the topic of why they're called "House of Blues" when most of the shows they put on are Rock and Roll. It was really well done, interactive so the kids were involved, and in a great format. The two singers traded off doing narration about the evolution of the blues from West African rhythms up to Hip Hop, with the band playing examples along the way. Sometimes it was a phrase or two, sometimes most of a song. They always kept the kids connected by getting them to sing, shout, or dance along, and the narration never got too long before another song came up.
They covered African chants, slave tunes, spirituals, southern rural blues, Robert Johnson, W.C. Handy, Chicago blues, Jazz, Gospel, Rock, R&B, Muddy Waters, Aretha, Eric, Jimi, Sly, James Brown, Funk, Rap, Hip Hop, up to, I guess, Jet -- and a lot more that I've forgotten already. They were all really good, but the guitar player was amazing. He had to cover every style of guitar, all the way back in time, on a Strat and a wooden National for bottleneck. His "Purple Haze" was spot on. I was impressed. The kids had a great time, but it was probably more interesting to me than it was to them -- kids never care about their Heritage...
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