What is blues? Is it sorrow, resilience, protest, healing, or quiet joy? For five contemporary artists- three-time British Blues Guitarist of the Year Matt Schofield, Grammy winner Eric Gales, seven-time Grammy nominee Shemekia Copeland, Altered Five Blues Band lead singer Jeff Taylor, and B.B. King Of The Blues Award winner D.K. Harrell- blues is not merely a genre. It is inheritance. It is influence. It is life itself, shaped by history, emotion, memory, and survival.
In an exclusive interview with Firstpost’s Zinia Bandyopadhyay, the five artists, who were in Mumbai to perform at the Mahindra Blues Festival 2026, decode the lineage behind their music, the heroes who shaped them, the histories they carry, and what blues ultimately means in their own lives.
Matt Schofield and understanding Blues history as a white man
For Matt Schofield, blues begins with listening. Growing up in Manchester, he was surrounded by his father’s record collection, B.B. King, Albert King, Freddie King- the holy trinity of electric blues guitar. But it was American guitarist Ronnie Earl who articulated what Schofield had always felt.
“Blues is the language of the soul,” Schofield says, echoing Earl’s phrase. “People think blues is sad music, but it is really about expressing life itself. Happiness, pain, joy, confusion- everything. It is musical emotion.”
Schofield’s fluid phrasing and organ-trio sound carry the stamp of Texas and Chicago blues traditions, yet he approaches them with the precision of a British musician who understands he is working within a form born of African American struggle. “I can never place myself in the position of those who created it,” he reflects. “Their suffering was unimaginable. Yet they created something profoundly beautiful. Blues was created to soothe and heal that trauma.”
For Schofield, influence is not imitation but stewardship, preserving a language while allowing it to breathe.
Eric Gales on blending blues with rock, gospel, funk and hiphop
For Eric Gales, influence arrived early and explosively. A child prodigy from Memphis, he was hailed as a successor to Jimi Hendrix, not only for his left-handed, upside-down playing style but for the ferocity of his expression. But Gales insists his foundation runs deeper than comparisons.
“Blues is simply playing your heart, soul, and emotions,” he says. “Blues and gospel are at the core.”
Raised in a musical family, with brothers steeped in gospel and soul, Gales absorbed church cadences alongside the electricity of rock. His sound today blends blues with funk, R&B, hip-hop, and hard rock, an expansion rather than a departure. “I am influenced by everything,” he says. “My aim is to transform pain into joy. Even if people don’t know my story, they connect the emotion to their own lives.”
For Gales, blues is not confined to tradition. It is a living current, capable of absorbing new rhythms while keeping its emotional centre intact.
Jeff Taylor feels Blues is life
For Jeff Taylor of the Altered Five Blues Band, influence is collective. Formed in Milwaukee in 2002, the band’s sound draws from Chicago blues, soul, and classic R&B, channeling artists who fused grit with groove.
“Blues is life,” Taylor says simply. “Heartache, joy, pain, happiness, sorrow. It is the musical interpretation of the human condition.”
He points to the genre’s origins in slavery and segregation- music born from enforced silence and systemic oppression. Yet he emphasises its elasticity. “It can be funny, playful, imaginative. It is truth.”
For Altered Five, the influence of the past is matched by the endurance of the present. Two decades of touring have forged a brotherhood rooted in patience and belief. “You have to love the process,” Taylor says. “Success takes time.”
Blues, for him, is not only a sound but a way of surviving the long haul.
Shemekia Copeland and her father’s imfluence
For Shemekia Copeland, influence begins at home. She is the daughter of Texas blues legend Johnny Copeland, and her childhood was steeped in backstage rooms, smoky clubs, and touring life. Yet even surrounded by blues royalty, her connection was instinctive rather than inherited.
“Blues is a feeling,” she says. “It is a person’s emotions about their life. My blues is my story.”
While hip-hop dominated the streets outside, her father’s records resonated deeply within. “Blues records took control of my soul,” she recalls. “Even as a child, I was drawn to it.”
Copeland honours the genre’s roots in trauma and racial suppression but insists it must evolve with lived experience. “Our lives today are very different, so our blues is different. The themes have expanded.”
Her music often addresses contemporary issues, from inequality, political division, to social unrest, proving that influence is not static. It is a dialogue between generations.
D.K. Harrell: Blues was the language he learnt even before he could say a word
D.K. Harrell’s earliest memory of influence is almost cinematic- a toddler in the back seat of a car, singing along to B.B. King. Before he could fully form sentences, he was absorbing phrasing, tone, and feeling. Soon after, Ray Charles became his first hero.
“Blues is life as we live it, as we lived it, and as we will live it,” Harrell says. “It is vulnerability. It is walking naked into the street and saying, this is me.”
He recalls a line by Ruth Brown, “Blues is the only genre where a man can cry and still be respected.” Harrell smiles at the memory. “That honesty is terrifying, but it is also what makes blues powerful.”
His journey has not been easy. Periods of homelessness and despair tested his resolve, but music remained constant. “I could not leave music. It gave me hope and faith.”
For Harrell, influence also carries a political edge. He cites Nina Simone as a guiding force, proof that blues can confront injustice head-on. “Blues reflects what society does not want to confront. It teaches unity. It forces honesty.”
Across all five voices, blues emerges as a continuum, passed down from elders, reshaped by personal struggle, and offered forward as testimony. From Ronnie Earl’s spiritual phrasing to Hendrix’s fire, from Johnny Copeland’s grit to B.B. King’s elegance, these artists carry their influences not as shadows but as living presences.
Blues, in their telling, is not confined to sorrow. It is emotional truth. It is trauma transformed into beauty. It is vulnerability turned into strength.
In a world increasingly driven by speed and spectacle, blues asks for patience, from the musician and the listener alike. It asks us to sit with feeling, to acknowledge history, and to honour the voices that came before.
Perhaps that is why it endures. Because influence, in blues, is not about nostalgia; it is about survival.
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