What is "Deejified Blues"? This way or that way?

It's not so much a "refusal of tradition" as it is a built-in desire to see what can be created from within first... same thing with every art I’ve been involved in. I don’t expect everyone to understand and that’s ok. I am quite aware the traditional Blues guys will get it or they won’t... I’ve had some old timers who love the fact that I’m doing what I feel and others who don’t really want to hear anything that's not what they consider "authentic" (based in times before I was born)... But music is ultimately an expression of “our own” heart and soul no matter how we choose to learn or what our approach is. If I started playing 30 or 40 years ago, it *might* be different... or at least I’d be SO much farther that there’d be time to "do it all"... but because I started the lead journey so late... in 2010 at age 50... I’m quite aware that I probably don’t have 30 or 40 years left... but I am at least planning to try.!! It’s just been more important to *me* to be *original* and share a bit of *myself* because life is too short to think I can do it all.! I don’t discount the "authentic" Blues guys at all... I have many great Blues guitarist friends and absolutely love what they do. And as fellow musicians we simply respect each other for being true to ourselves... whatever that looks like.! So at this point I’m not “Deejifying the Blues” but rather playing “Deejified Blues” which is simply my own interpretation, not taking a traditional form I’ve perfected and modifying it... two very different things... Trust me, I do study traditional Blues and perhaps there *will* come a day when I’ll get to “Deejify the Blues”... but regardless, I only get one time around this planet, which is why I always say, “You only live once, have some fun with it!” And “Don’t take yourself too seriously... nobody else does anyway!” Gotta learn to laugh at yourself sometimes! And you've always gotta be true to yourself!

The “hard core” Blues guys I know typically explain it two ways: 1.)Blues is the “mechanics” in some shape or form based “loosely” (others would say “soley and without variation”) on ideas from some of the originators... OR 2.)Blues is the “deep emotion of being ‘blue’... an expression of things you see around you or experience personally that take it down to that hard place in your soul. I’m in category #2... I never play without expressing an emotion... otherwise I don’t feel like I’m playing from an honest place. This is just MY personal conviction and is also why I prefer improvisation... improv is completely “in the moment” expression and that seems the most honest to me... As human beings we are all uniquely created and therefore my expression of an emotion may be unique “to me" and similarly the first Blues players didn’t have someone to tell them what to do... they ‘created’ out of thin air and pure emotion, pulling in some “culturally relevant” musical influences from around them. They weren’t forced into a box because there wasn’t one... this led to many original styles with varied geographical names... There’s nothing like being free to express our emotions on guitar in a way that certainly has our own “culturally relevant” influences... in my case it was bands like Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix, Jeff Beck and others... but otherwise it is born on the spot and is out of the depths of my own heart and soul... It’s a combination of *MY* culture and how *I* feel “blue”... and it’s *free* from boxes others have created. It’s not to say I don’t love and respect *and explore* what’s in those boxes... I just don’t expect that I will *ever* play like I’m from an era that I didn’t actually live in or play like I'm a copy of someone else... but I do hope and pray, by the grace of God, that I will be able to express myself fully in a way that represents the times that *I* lived in... “Culturally Relevant” is a something I have to do... it’s just there... it’s not forced... it’s just in my blood! I hope everyone will come to respect and appreciate the quest for individuality... mine AND theirs... embrace their own uniqueness and don’t let others define what you should or should not be.

I want to make it perfectly clear that I absoluetly appreciate and totally understand both sides of this issue... What I call "blues" is a "personal blues" that might more properly be called "blues-inspired improvisation"... It is a combination of the expression of my deepest emotion using the "general inspiration" of the "Blues sound" (at some point in it's history)... that influences my creative direction... I think due to my old "adrenaline junkie" lifestyle of dirtbike stunts and free climbing sheer cliffs, I now find it equally exhilarating to improvise on guitar... to trust my emotions to take me somewhere without a roadmap. I have been studying some "traditional Blues"... not that I want to play like (let's go WAY back) Robert Johnson or do songs by Mamie Smith... but just to gather some more information in the back of my mind and see how it can be incorporated into my own style (Deejified). If I live another 20 years, maybe I'll have a brand new thing called "21st Century Blues" that others will want to copy... or maybe I'll just have fun trying... As long as I'm being myself and sharing who *I* am, it's all good! And it's all sure to be "Deejified".!!