50 BLUES ROCK SONGS YOU MUST HEAR BEFORE YOU DIE
Blues rock lies at the heart of rock’n’roll. Ever since the likes of Albert King injected electricity and volume into the music of their forefathers, it’s been an essential part of any rock lover’s vocabulary. As a sub-genre it has prevailed and reinvented itself for generations, where others have fallen by the wayside. Sometimes it can appear boring, even a little ‘worthy’ – usually when artists reduce it to an exercise in slick, purist boxticking. So it’s worth taking the time to remind ourselves what a legit smorgasbord of musical treats blues rock actually offers.
With that in mind, we’ve collated a list of 50 brilliant blues rock tracks that any classic rock fan should check out. There are some established classics here, and plenty of artists you’ll already associate with blues rock. But beyond that we’ve gone a little deeper and unearthed some overlooked gems, forgotten favourites and hidden killers by bands you might not expect to find in a feature like this – Van Halen, Soundgarden and Aerosmith, among others.
THE NAZZ ARE BLUE
The Yardbirds 1966
In 1966, with Jeff Beck settled into the lineup, The Yardbirds unabashedly showcased their trophy guitarist on a rollicking 12-bar that scorched the eyebrows off anyone who came expecting psychedelic whimsy. Granted, the verse was child’s play for a player of Beck’s calibre, but the first guitar solo showed the first hints of his genius – listen out for the sustained note at 1:25, which hangs around so long it might have been played by Spinal Tap’s Nigel Tufnel.
DIDDY WAH DIDDY
Captain Beefheart And His Magic Band 1966
In the Captain’s mind-boggling palette of influences, blues was the primary colour – his former schoolmate Frank Zappa once recalled that the teenage Don Vliet “would just sit at home and listen to R&B records, and scream at his mother to get him a Pepsi”. So it followed that the nascent Magic Band got a record deal, the line-up debuted with a retooling of Willie Dixon and Diddley’s standard, with the full-fat bass thump and fluttering harp. Beefheart would never play it so straight again.
BORN UNDER A BAD SIGN
Albert King 1967
While the album sleeve of King’s Born Under A Bad Sign swarmed with hoodoo imagery, the title track was the luckiest song he ever recorded. Strictly, Stax Records’ go-to writer William Bell wrote the star-crossed lyric – ‘If it wasn’t for bad luck, I wouldn’t have no luck at all’ – but it was King whose wounded howl and stinger licks sold the song, lifting the bluesman into flagship venues and mobilising acolytes such as Cream (whose cover of the song on Wheels Of Fire runs the original close).
