What do you think of this?

O.K. so I'm 21 and have been playin guitar for 8 years or so. A couple years ago, I began to increase my awareness of the Blues, and the impact it had on music itself, especially the music I usually listen to. So, my friends and I were mainly into metal/hard rock, and I started listening to the "old" stuff, they thought I was losing it. And a couple of em' said, "man, why are you listening to so much blues, and old rock? It just reminds me of an old black guy sittin in a rockin chair."
And I didnt really answer them at the time, cuz I knew they wouldnt understand. But I've been thinking allot about that lately, and here is what I wish I would have told them...
"What about Zeppelin or Sabbath, werent they originally blues bands? What about Clapton? Van Halen? Hendrix? I mean even Dime-bag Darrell? If it wasnt for the blues we would have nothing we love today. So if I'm square because I listen to Mudd Waters, or B.B. or Buddy Guy, so be it, Blues forever.

Yeah, i hear you. I'm an old school hard rock / metal player myself, and years ago i was kinda like your friends - didn't want to hear about anything "Blues". Then i met these two guitar brothers from Texas, and they were telling me stuff like "Yeah man you got some chops.....but if you can't say it with one note..you ain't s**t!" It initially started out as me learning some phrases and stuff just to try and impress them, but i actually got caught up in the whole blues thing , imagine that! LOL! Of course, i never went and dug back to the origins and all that, but i learned and soaked up some stuff like BB, Buddy Guy, and even the stinging attack of albert Collins. Man! it did me a lot of good...learning that stuff, the emotion and all those things that i could drag into my rock "bag". THATS what most people don't get , that people like us are "aware" , and it just makes us better players. Tell your friends to do some heavy research on Darrell Abbott - read some guitar mag interviews and such - they will learn that he was DEEPLY rooted in blues, though a lot of stuff didn't blatantly materialize in Pantera recordings, etc. but that dude was AWARE, i mean - he hung out with Billy Gibbons and Bugs Henderson for cripes sake! How can you NOT soak up something from THAT! LOL!

Rock n' Roll came from rhythm & blues, country, and in turn its influence fed back to these cultures, a process of borrowings, influences that continues to develop rock music. Rock 'n' Roll had runaway success in the U.S. and brought rhythm and blues-influenced music to an international audience. Its success led to a dilution of the meaning of the term "rock and roll", as promoters were quick to attach the label to other commercial pop.
Rock 'n' Roll started off in the early-to-mid 1950s in the United States. African-American artists such as Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Bo Diddley, and Fats Domino played predominantly to African American crowds. While these key early rockers were indisposed to racism, local authorities and dance halls were very much divided upon racial lines.
Mainstream acceptance of rock and roll came in the mid-1950s when what Bo Diddley describes as 'ofay dudes' (or Caucasians) signed to major labels and started covering their material. Elvis Presley and Bill Haley and the Comets, Buddy Holly, The Big Bopper, Jerry Lee Lewis and Johnny Cash often toured and played together in dance halls and clubs across the US and Britain.

Without the Blues there wouold be no rock n' roll. Elvis and all of the people hailed as being inventive and "new" were just imitating what underground blues artists were doing years ahead.

Hi,my best friend is exactly the same with you.....Why you care so much about what they say???Dont care about them...I know that it would be much better if you had told them that but dont worry i am sure that you will have the opportunity to prove it to them.I strongly believe that Blues are much better than hard rock.Blues are music with quality,metal and hard rock:arent!!

There was a program on Jimi Hendrix on BBC a couple of weeks ago....they did this whole bit on how most rock music is based around Blues......you can take most rock and roll songs and turn them into blues pieces........keith richards showed how Satisfaction is actually a blues song....
anyway..thats how it is with all music....as Ian Anderson said: you can take two completely different pieces of music and find that they are simply the same chords just rearranged by a different monkey...
like you said, Clapton, hendrix, led zeppelin, the stones, and a lot of the rock legends started off in blues.
i understand exactly where you are coming from......
i'm 15 and i listen to all the oldies....and i take a lot of critisism from my friends but who cares....?

lets have more unconventional people on this planet...good for you.

Zeppelin started out blues based. Hendrix had major blues roots. Clapton has always been a bluesman. Sabbath were never blues based as far as I know. I am not familiar with Dimebag Darrell.
Muddy, Buddy, and BB are legends and are great. So are Stevie Ray Vaughn, Mike Bloomfield, Albert King, Roy Buchanan, Paul Butterfield, Otis Spann, Howlin Wolf, Janis Joplin, early Bonnie Raitt, James Cotton, etc.
I was like you, listening to rock with friends, but being a guitarist, I was also checking out the jazz and blues greats at the same time. I didn't bring attention to it and my friends probably didn't know. But I wasn't embarrassed about it. Blues Forever! Jazz Forever! Classic Rock Forever!

Blues is the root of it all.
Even the Beatles listened to the blues.

OH U R sooooo right!!!!! U made my day!!! So many people have no clue. Zep did many Muddy songs..even Whole lotta love was a Muddy song! Not to mention the rolling stones..named their band that..it was a Muddy song..they love the blues. Add Steve Tayle to that list he did a 57 song by Slim Harpo...awesome! Clapton was always a blues man..and I am so glad he returned to his real roots in music. Hendrix has a entire blues cd. Buddy Guy was Hendrix favorire guitar player..did you know he cancelled his own gig..to get to see Buddy Guy...the list is endless. Your friends need to start listening to the blues. They will be shocked. Go back to late 60's John Lee Hooker & Canned Heat a double album OMG..See if they think that is a old man in a rocking chair!!!! Keep on doing what your doing..you are gonna be great! Oh ask them about Johnny Winter..S.R.V. Come on..And Slash...can he play the blues!!!!!!!!