An inspired Chris Thomas King is revitalizing traditional blues

Chris Thomas King wants to bring the blues into the 21st century -- kicking and screaming, if necessary.\nWith the All Over Blues Tour, King is spreading his unique blend of rootsy blues and modern hip-hop all across the country. \nBut not everyone in the traditional blues community approves.\n"I've found a lot of resistance in the United States," King says. "We've been banned from a lot of blues festivals. There are still cities on our schedule that want to stop this tour."\nKing, whose father is noted bluesman Tabby Thomas, says the reaction is different in Europe, where fans don't try to pigeonhole him as a straight-on blues artist. He says that overseas, audiences accept the way he has incorporated the music of his influences, which range from Muddy Waters, Jimi Hendrix and Robert Cray (with whom he just completed a tour) to Chuck D and NWA.\n"It's kind of easy to say I'm influenced by everything, but that's a good way to start," he says. "I let everything seep in."\nAs co-headliner of the All Over Blues Fest, which comes to Bloomington this weekend, King is one half of a blues yin and yang. The other featured act on the tour is the Muddy Waters Tribute Band, a group featuring such respected blues stars as Luther "Guitar Junior" Johnson, Willie "Big Eyes" Smith, Calvin "Fuzz" Jones, Jerry Portnoy and "Steady Rollin'" Bob Margolin.\nKing says the show gives audiences what he believes are two views of the blues -- the Muddy Waters band's traditional Chicago blues and his updated, modern take on the century-old genre, what he calls "21st-century blues." (King heads up his own record label of the same name.)\nHe says he didn't decide to embark on a new musical path overnight.\n"I don't wake up in the morning and say, 'I'm going to make blues and hip-hop,'" King says.\nInstead, he says, it involved a steady process of absorbing and integrating his musical influences and personal experiences -- experiences that differed from those of traditional bluesmen.\n"When I started learning about the blues, Muddy Waters had been dead for several years," says King, who released his first album in 1986 at age 17. \nAs a result, he doesn't attempt to replicate the type of music Waters played.\n"I couldn't be that if I tried," he says.\nBut, he adds, straight-forward hip-hop "doesn't fit me, either." That non-conformist attitude has led to albums and live shows that feature a DJ and turntable in addition to King and his guitar.\n"When I play my guitar, people hear a blues sound, but it's all contemporary," he says. "I've got to have my turntables. I've got to have a little scratching in my music."\nProfessor Susan Oehler says it's that kind of experimentation that will keep the blues fresh. Noting that the blues have survived -- and even thrived off -- such "radical" developments as the white blues revival of the 1960s, Oehler says artists like King fit into the blues heritage.\n"He represents a category of blues performers who carry on a large African American tradition, which is to flavor traditional blues with contemporary sound scapes that occur today," she says.\nOehler cites another key development in African American history -- the massive migration of rural blacks to northern urban centers in the first half of the 20th century -- that helped transform the blues. By electrifying and urbanizing traditional rural blues, artists like Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf created a new genre of music. Artists like Chris Thomas King are no different, she says.\n"To blend in a new musical style is always controversial for some people who think blues as it was is the best, most expressive, most beautiful form of the blues," she says. "But change is a part of the blues, especially if the blues are to be maintained."\nBy the time King released Me, My Guitar and the Blues in 2000 on Blind Pig Records, King's forward-thinking sound had crystallized. But a lot has happened since then. He played itinerant bluesman Tommy Johnson in Joel and Ethan Cohen's movie, "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" and contributed a song to the high-selling soundtrack.\nHis latest release is this year's "The Legend of Tommy Johnson Act I," recorded for 21st Century Blues and distributed by Valley Entertainment. In addition, he is featured on the cover of the November issue of OffBeat Magazine.\nBut not everyone is thrilled with what King is producing. A recent review for "Tommy Johnson Act I" on the Web site "Blues Bytes" stated that "this atrocity jumbles together too many different styles in a way that makes it painful to the listener. At the front of the CD are half a dozen acoustic, traditional numbers that were recorded in a much too sterile environment ... It's all downhill from there, as Thomas King goes electric on the next three cuts and gets too histrionic and rocked out."\nBut for every harsh critic, there seems to be an enthusiastic convert to King's new style.\n"In a world where many blues bands tend to rely on overdone cover songs and mindless guitar solos, it is refreshing to hear the work of an artist like Chris Thomas King, who is able to draw on disparate influences while maintaining traditional blues roots," wrote Barry T. Gober in a 2000 issue of Southwest Blues. "While many listeners might be taken back by King's unique fusion of musical styles ... Chris Thomas King is truly a unique musician whose talents should only grow in the future and his new recording is definitely a worthwhile listen for those with adventurous musical tastes."\nFor his part, King tries not to worry too much about how other people react to his style. Musically, he says, "I just let the chips fall where they may. I let other people try to figure it out for themselves."\nOne of his biggest goals is to help revitalize a genre that, in his mind, is in a downswing.\n"Blues music is pretty dismal, as far as recordings go," he says. "The labels that specialize in blues are really hurting."\nThe problem, he says, is a failure to connect with young people.\n"The records (labels) make don't say anything about the lives of people who buy records today," he says. "They just don't resonate."\nAs a result, he says, King wants to keep the blues alive by keeping the music fresh.\n"I try not to sing about what happened 50 years ago," he says. "I try to sing about what's happened in my life. If I strike a chord with my generation or younger, then I feel I'm doing a service to the blues"