WTD 2008 Week 3 - B.B. King's Bluesville

[semipenguin]

From the Delta, Chicago, New Orleans and more: B.B. King’s Bluesville covers more than 80 years of music, for all lovers of the blues. Featuring the roots to today’s blues, it’s your down-home destination where artists and fans are equally comfortable.

Sirius & XM Channel 74

* Please indicate how much you like this channel by assigning it a rating. Simply use the thread rating system found at the top of the thread and give it a vote.

 

[DAB]

I like the blues, but only in doses. The combined channels seems to be a little more focused than previously. I always found previously that this channel was sort of all over the map.

 

[hexagram]

4 stars and it made it to my presets list.

It's not a station that I will listen to regularly, but it will be put to use.

 

[bigdaddyII]

Just recently made it to my preset list a few days before this thread posted. I finally had a small break in my schedule to really explore the new channels and some old ones long forgotten about and came across this gem.

 

[Wolf]

Wouldn't make it a preset, but I enjoy some Blues music on the channel.

 

[HecticArt]

I usually only hit the blues station while I'm driving, but I put Bluesville on for 4 or 5 hours yesterday. It sounded pretty good. It made it to Preset #10.

 

[semipenguin]

This is an awesome channel. I listened to it most of the day, yesterday. This is one genre I know nothing about, but I love the music. I don't listen a lot. Only a few hours a week. I've had it as a preset for quite some time and wouldn't think about not having it as a preset.

Since blues has been around a long time, they play blues from all different eras and from all kind of groups. You get Delta Blues to Rock Blues. Because some of the songs have 40+ years old, it would be nice if they would put the year the songs came out on the screen...

Anywho, I'm soo happy this channel is still around after the merger. Have B.B. King's name attached to it should bring it credibility...

I give it 5 out of 5 starts, but there's always room for improvement...

 

[Aaron]

I wish the Siriusly Sinatra channel was programmed half as good as this one! I was afraid Bluesville would play B.B. King 45% of the time.

I gave the Blues channel a preset during the 2006 edition of Walk the Dog. I like the Blues, but don't listen very often, not often enough to comment on how the channel has changed since the merger.

This channel is certainly good enough to keep its preset on my radio. :bigthumbup:

 

[goreds2]

I listened to this for a few minutes tonight. I have to be in the right mood to listen but find this a great change of pace channel.

 

[jcrean]

I wish the Siriusly Sinatra channel was programmed half as good as this one! I was afraid Bluesville would play B.B. King 45% of the time.

Nope, unlike the Sirius channels, the XM channels (Willie's Place / BB King's Bluesville) really only attached their names for some recognition. (Although, BB King does host his own weekly show.) They were never intended to play a majority of music for which they were named. Whereas, Sirius is so interested in giving everybody their own channel to play only one artist's music. I prefer this approach - naming the channel for an artist to give it personality, but then play music that would interest BB King or Willie Nelson if they were programming it. It all goes back to XM's "Hank's Place" (now Willie's Place) and "Frank's Place" (now Siriusly Sinatra). Back when XM had "Frank's Place" it didn't play as much Sinatra that the channel does now. They would have a block of Sinatra every night (or something like that). Hank's Place didn't play a majority of Hank Williams, but more of the music of his era.
Ah...the good old days.

 

[squigy0]

Sounds: Blues music from the 1920s to now from solo acoustic to rockin' blues

Positives: Always a deep playlist with rarities stuck on vinyl only, always DJs that know about the music and give interesting facts about the artists and where they're going to be if they're alive & touring. Was great to hear that Bill Wax made the cut!

Negatives: Knowledgeable DJs can be overly talky sometimes. The sound quality of the older recordings can sometimes be unpleasant to the ears, especially if it rubs the compression that's applied to the channel the wrong way

Blastability: Medium to High depending on the quality of the recording and how much I got the blues baby

Overall: I've been listening to this channel on and off for many years (way before it got the B.B. King brand name on it). I'm always impressed by the playlist and the things they can find (they played a REALLY old B.B. King recording that he probably was 17 on). BTW, in one of the segments I heard Bill Wax on (filling in for Pat St. John), he sounded really confused and out of place, and kept messing up a lot of his facts and leaving long pauses; anybody know what that's all about?

 

[down4six]

Had it set as a preset all week. How often did I tune to it? Once. Overall, not a bad channel, just not something I could get into.

 

[Road Hog]

A great channel with great DJs. This is the best example of how knowledgeable DJs can enhance a channel.

The one drawback may be that there is only one blues channel, so they have to cram everything in one location. It would be awesome if there were enough bandwidth to have a classic blues channel (call it Muddy Waters) and a current blues channel. Not that I'd advocate that with the current bandwidth, but if we had double...

Any fan of classic rock should really listen to this channel to see how much rock music was based on classic blues. Without this music, we'd never have had Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones, ZZ Top, Allman Brothers, and the list goes on and on. That's why today's rock generally does not measure up to the classic rock, in my opinion. Today's musicians were not brought up on blues music.

 

[siriusfan]

One of the best! Four Stars