Blues Name

At the most recent Blues Jam session at Swallow Hill, one of the guys sang an original song called "Blues Name". Ironically, his name was something like Lemony Snicket or Lemon Merangue Pie. Anyhow, it got me to thinking about my blues name. If you're going to play blues and really make it hot you have to have a good name to go along with it. Think about it: John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters, Leadbelly, Stevie Ray Vaughn, George Thorogood.

So the general rule for coming up with a good blues name is Gerund, Boring First Name, President's Name.

Let me 'splain that for ya. If you remember any grammar, you know that a gernund is a verbal noun. (ie "Running is good for you." Where running is the noun of the sentence.) So the first part of your name is a gerund. Running, Sliding, Smoking, Choking, etc. It is always advisable to drop the "g" and add an apostrophe. It just looks better!

The second name, is any boring common name. It CANNOT be one of these messed up new '90s names. There is a caveat. You can have an unusual first blues name, like Joaquin; however, instead of the standard last name, you have to choose a boring last name, like Smith, Jones, etc.

The last name is any president's last name. You got it... Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Jackson...Cleveland...Kennedy...Clinton. I would recommend staying away from Bush. It is only one syllable, he is currently in office, and well, frankly there is too much baggage that goes along with the name.

So I came up with two using this method: Rollin' Joe Adams and Smokin' Roy Madison.

There are a couple of sites that will help you come up with a blues name. These sites came up with: Slim Sigmund Brown, Boney Bones Parker and Drooping Gums Truman, Respectively.

I haven't chosen my blues name, yet. But as my playing improves, I'm going to give it some serious thought!