Bon idea Publishing

In the earlier days of rock n roll, R & B, blues, on both sides of the Atlantic, a bunch of truly eager, enthusiastic and passionate new musicians, who wanted to fuse and create a hybrid of music, broke the rules by playing a new instrument, an electric guitar. This latter was all about tone and expressing raw emotions and could be used as a voice. All these legends of the past who created rock and brought the blues to a wider audience were pioneers. They were highly creative individuals with a vision, and their youth was on their side as they could rebound rapidly from obstruction and really play and develop their artistry, their own brand of aesthetic. 

All our legends started at an early age, they had the music in them, despite all stops put onto their path, they were willing to go to the extreme to play the music they so loved. Looking over the life of these rock / blues stars, they went through hell and back. Unfortunately, drugs and women did not help to ground them. Before they could break free from the norms what music ought to be, they took risk as being unpopular. How did they survive? Youth gave them wings to conquer the world with new aesthetic. Commerciality was the enemy putting a rigid restriction/pattern upon their creative minds. It seems only the strongest survived the excess of living the rock n roll lifetime. 

You can’t fault these legends for being highly creative individuals, who changed the face of music and brought to life extraordinary music that we can all enjoyed nowadays. Music created 60, 50, 40, 30 years ago seem timeless and rich, expressive and full of energy. Our most celebrated guitarists started their ascend in unassuming bands.  The Yardbirds for example saw Clapton, Page and Beck passing through. The three of them became giants. This band was too small, and their limited creativity was hindering these highly creative spirits. Clapton has been kept on a leash for 2 years, when he walked, he was so dispirited by the music industry that he wanted to quit it. Thanks god he was rescued by John Mayall who provided the perfect outfit to finally express himself freely as a musician by improvisation. The genius of Clapton was this ability to create on the moment. Similarly for Page. When he played first ‘Daze and Confused’ he was still in the Yardbirds. This version was a pale shadow of what Page would make it with Led Zeppelin. Putting together talented musicians together with similar sensibility was the real deal for Page. Likewise for Clapton when he joined Cream. He was in partnership with highly creative musicians who wanted musical freedom.  Hendrix was a superlative guitarist but did not have the right support behind him to ground him and look after his finance and business. Traffic was an innovative band fusing genres with Winwood on the creative wheel. Jeff Beck was too creative too settle for a band only experience. 

Real musicians put together truly shine as seen in these examples. Likewise for the Rolling Stones with Jaeger, Keith Richards, Ronny Woods. The Beatles was composed of three highly creative writers. George Harrison was at the beginning held down by Paul and john who considered themselves as the main writers, thus slightly suppressing his creative urge.  Harrison was a prolific writer of great songs. Artistically it was good for them to end the band and develop their own style. John Lennon said in an interview that he needed to work with different musicians to remove the staleness of the Beatles. Lindsey Buckingham felt the need to break from the success of Rumours by trying new things. It is true for a band, when creativity ceased to exist, a pattern is repeated, a staleness arises and kill creative partnerships. Hence the need for highly creative artists to work alone and do their own things. There so many highly creative artists that I did not mention here who have blessed us with their own aesthetic grace. They have benefited from their forebearers, musicians who came before them to enable them to be great artists. I have read a statistic lately that bands are becoming far and few because of this creative factor. Hence lots of respect for our legends who went through hell to keep music fresh and opening the way. My purpose is to acknowledge these pioneers who carved the way for new artists. 

The main characteristic of all these musicians were at the inset, a strong desire to play authentic music trying to balance creativity and commerciality as much as they could. Those legends are still performing because they kept their original purpose. If an artist is no longer playing and become so disinterest to create, we would have to address it by rekindle his / her original purpose.  What was it?  Miracle can be made by revitalizing any goals that has been forgotten or dismissed. We could have saved many artists or bands and relationships in this way. 

Please notice, I am a human being with feelings, and I write that I have observed.