About once a month, I spend an hour or two DJing blues music at Glen Echo Park for its weekly Back Room Blues dance. Preparing for these occasions requires some consideration of the types of blues music that I would like to play and the arrangement of the music into a cohesive set that meets my personal goals, including novelty, quality, variety, flow, and suitability for the expected crowd.
Recently, the Back Room Blues DJ crew began posting highlights about our sets with some commentary about a particular track. I like this idea and have decided to cross-post them here as an ongoing series. The following entry is from my most recent set.
For any scheduled time slot, I tend to prepare my set a week in advance, and then use the rest of the time to refine it. Sometimes a particular track just doesn’t fit, or two tracks don’t work well together. Sometimes the set stays too long with one style, or moves too quickly through a section. On rare occasions, I discover a great new track during that week of testing and decide to redesign part of the set to accommodate it.
This track from Byther Smith is that kind of track. I like its low-key, echoey groove and its variations on the standard 12-bar blues structure. I enjoyed finding a place for it in my set and the musical options that it enabled.