Art & Inspiration Why traditional?

I dunno, too dumb to do anything else I guess.

 

Most of us on here do like different eras `s and styles. You cant ask a question about why traditional and not other era`s on a traditional only site. We cant even talk about other era`s or years on here. Just because were here doesn't mean we like this style and no other.

 

As a lifelong working musician, who was born to a Jazz Musician who played with many of the greats in the 40's through 60's and played to the day he died, I have a little different view. West Coast blues in the vein of T-Bone Walker et al isn't really what I consider "Traditional" Blues - which would be more in the likes of Charlie Christian, and Robert Johnson, through B.B. King. I think Jump is really more rooted in Big Band Music with a slight Blues influence. Swing to me is for sure Big Band (unless you talk about Country Swing LOL) and I spent years doing and recording Swing music as a Drummer.
But I also love Modern Blues - From Eric Clapton to Stevie Ray and Joe Bonamasa - I can listen all day!

You didn't know Elmore James? Oh Man, he fits right in their with the early traditional blues masters!

Funny how different exposure brings different likes

 

I am about to turn 37 and I bought my 59 chevy truck at 17. I built it pretty much stock the first time around and started re-doing it again a couple of years ago. To me I like the traditional style because it seems to have more soul than a billet/tweed build. I found the HAMB in my 20's and it helped focus my vision for my truck. I am on an extreme budget but I have tried to stay true to a mid-60's time frame except for a couple of cheats ( Clip and 700r4 ).

 

I cannot figure out how to quit.

 

I'm 30 yrs old, my dad has had street rods longer than I've been around and they will always have a place in my heart but traditional cars have always been about the challenge to me. Anyone can call up Pete and Jakes (hell I live 40 min drive away from them) and have a complete kit sent to their house... I bet I have a month of research, trial and error and sleepless nights just to make my fan clear my radiator on my AV8 but I couldn't have been more happy when I final hit that right combination! Traditional is just the right amount of fun and challenging to make it perfect.

Sent from my SM-N900P using The H.A.M.B. mobile app

 

Because............

 

Man this world is FULL of experiences. It just BLOWS MY MIND how many people have established everything that is going to be part of thier life experience by the time they are 21. I am 56 and still searching, hunting for new things to take in, new sounds to hear, new foods to taste, new things to learn about motors, you name it. Life is so full and you have so little time to experience it. You gotta actively chase it, or you turn to stone.
Where I am right now, there is a burgeoning custom bike scene, its like the So Cal hot rod scene in the late forties, every time I come over here I see more modified small displacement singles pop up, and there are new local grass-roots businesses coming up to support it. It really just started to get off the ground when I was here about 5 years ago, and it is taking off. Its cool to see it happen all over again, the fact that its 125 hondas instead of Ford flatheads doesnt realy matter, its watching a movement spring to life that parallels ours that is interesting and exciting.
Lift your eyes up and look around, theres always something to see.

 

Im only 17 and for me, the reason I'm into traditional cars is that cars back then were designed with a lot of care and they looked good. They looked great. Why traditional kustoms/hot rods? Because the work that guys did back then was real. They built with what they had and they did things right.


What'cha got in there, kid?

 

The last few years I have become a freak for fifties R&B, Wynonie Harris, Joe Turner, Jr. Parker, that kind of thing. But I also listen to be-bop, jazz, traditional Blues, punk, classical, chicago blues, and even classic rock. And I love stuff like Zappa and the Fuggs. Yet early Sarah Vaughn makes the hair on my neck stand up. If your world begins and ends with "Hamb traditional", get a big crowbar and pry that padlock off your doors of perception, its a big wide world out there! Its not a question of one replacing the other, its about adding new things and destroying self imposed limitations. And if you see me driving by, dont be surprised if you hear Vivaldi pouring out of my car window.

 

" traditional to me means taking what is available and making your car faster, cooler etc. with wit and work, not a credit car and a catalog....that's what traditional hotroding was before it was "traditional " and just " hotroding " .....I am 56 yeas old , love 40s to 60s style hot rods but also I am taken back in time when I see a late 60s pony car (nova , mustang cuda etc. jacked up with L 60 tires sticking out past the fenders....that's what hot rods were when I was a kid!....

 

I really dig that scene too. It proves that ingenuity is more interesting than $$, to me.

 

it was the newest fad. it was what all the cool kids were driving. i never grew up

 

We're getting way off track here, but West Coast blues includes a ton of blues musicians, mostly from the Texas area that all moved to LA and the bay area in the 40's. It's as traditional as traditional can get. These guys were blues musicians already before they moved to LA. There is a particular sound associated with West Coast blues, heavily loaded with piano players like Floyd Dixon and Charles Brown; and also the great guitr players like Peewee Creyton and Lowell Fulson. These guy were all influenced by T-Bone Walker, you could call him the Godfather of West Coast blues. T-Bone was working the blues circuit and recorded his first blues in the late 20's, yeah he's traditional. While Muddy and Wolf were making it big in Chicago, T-Bone was doing it down in Texas. Two very different styles, but both traditional blues. Charlie Christian may have played some blues (everybody did) but he was more straight jazz, or bebop. (Charlie was the man! Everybody picked up riffs from Charlie). Robert Johnson was Delta blues, just 1 guy with a guitar. Robert Johnson may have been the most incredible guitar player ever. I listen to his stuff and I'm blown away. It seems impossible without multiple track recording, but that didn't exist then. Today West Coast Blues has developed into a different style, heavily based on Chicago style harmonica (ala Little Walter), really developed in the 80's by guys like William Clarke, Rod Piazza and James Harman. But the guitar style is still heavily influenced by T-Bone, not so much by Muddy or Hubert. Guys like Hollywood Fats, Kid Ramos, Junior Watson, Rick Holmstrum, etc. Swing Blues comes from guys like Louis Jordan, who I love! And that's really not that far removed from Western Swing to be honest. Bob Wills is still the king. If you study the guitar players, there is a lot of cross over in styles. The old "Rhythm Changes" is a common structure within both blues and western swing (and jazz of course!).

I meant when I was a teenager and I heard that comment, it made me go look up who Elmore James was, not when FalconGeorge made the comment in this thread. LOL! That's funny!

Don, I am a working musician as well, very active. Besides being in a couple of bands and an acoustic duo (playing blues, r&b and standards), I also head up a group of blues musicians here in Orange County, we have over a 1000 members, and we host jams 3 times per month at diffferent venues around the county, From Lake Forest, to Huntington Beach to Yorba Linda. I play so often it really cuts in to my hot rod time! If you like the blues we ought to get together some time and do some playing.

 

I've been into old cars as long as I can remember. Whenever I saw a hot rod I was always more interested in the ones that were real steel. The pretty shinny fiberglass ones just never interested me. Also when I saw one with a Flathead I just couldn't stop looking at it. That's what happened when I saw my car on Facebook Marketplace. I couldn't stop going back and looking at it. I had to have it. I instantly started trying to sell everything I owned to get it. Some how the stars aligned and I got it. I'm still trying to recover from the purchase but it was worth it. I've had a lot of 60s and 70s car in my life and still have a couple but owning an old hot rod is a new level of enjoyment for me. It's not exactly traditional but it is traditionally inspired. Now that I have it I can definitely see myself building a more period correct car at some point. I have the fever and all I need now is the space to do it. Living the dream.

 

Old cars and trucks are just like Marilyn Monroe. They are timeless, classics. Most do not bitch about Marilyn or old cars. I am good with that.

 

Stymied again with an old thread. Drats. I will answer anything.

 

I do what I want and don't worry about fitting into any niche. When it comes to car or anything mechanical, I appreciate the effort, workmanship, and craft to accomplish whatever niche (or no niche) it fits. That includes rats, muscle, lowriders, 4x4's, and even a rice-burner. Even so, traditional builds are #1 - they feel so pure and right. It's hard to explain. Why do I like the color orange?

 

Hey Volvobrynk, where did you find this picture? That is Jere Sheehan president of the Camsnappers of Newburyport, Mass. In his 34 roadster. That is the best picture I have seen of his car.

 

This is it

 

I don't see how? I don't look good in a little black dress