Was Ringo right, do you have to pay your dues before you can sing the Blues?

or does it just really, really help?

Looks like the Thumbs Down Idiot has struck!

I really think that he's right. The blues aren't just music. It's a feeling. And you have to have felt that (IMO) to be able to portray it properly in your song (music).

Yes he's right! And you know it don't come easy!

The Blues is one of those rare things that, in order to really sing it right, you need to feel. Not necessarily go through it. I think if you spent time in certain places, you will understand it. the blues is about pain, about lost love, about many things. the blues is probably the hardest music to explain, but the easiest to understand.

Generally speaking, yes, one usually has to pay his dues.

However, it is without question that
"He who pays the fiddler, gets to call the tune".

Yes, of course. That goes for whiteman's blues, too. If you haven't lived it, how are you going to sing it with the passion and soul? I hate it when people who grew up with everything sing about being poor and when people with no world experience try to give advice.

YES, and what the f*ck does Ringo know about the blues?

Yes.

The blues is about healing. Haven't been hurt? No need to heal.

nothing really, really happens. and as for Ringo's statement, he got it from Gary Glitter, who got it from who knows who, but it rings 1005 true. The Blues has little to do with culture or color or musical ability or savy, for it to come across as genuine, it has to transend commercial success, and popular taste, it is just a true song, that has a lived message, all others fade quickly, and like other forms of music that demand life experience, such as Country,soul and gospel, people can tell if your genuine, don't ask me how, I'm not that educated in over analyzing motives and the finery of every note of a song, but I know a real blues artist from a "made" blues artist, for evry few dozen medicre artist and songs there is a real artist who has been drug through the mud, and you can tell. I'm not going to go into my face in the mud life, but I sing the blues, but that doesn't mean I'm angry, envious or have given up, it means I got to just look at things with a little down heartedness and a good dose of sarcas;m and humor. the blues is a medicine that somehow makes you feel a little better afterwards.