Who’s That Again?

Interesting memory test in Rollling Stone’s 10 Singer-Songwriter Albums … You’ve Never Heard.  Forgive me if I abbreviate the ridiculously long title.

Anyway, the 70’s was the heyday of the singer-songwriter, and I remember a lot of it - some good, some angst-ridden cheddar.  But I guess I didn’t notice it all.

I remember Hoyt Axton because I remember Three Dog Night.  I remember Thank You For Being A Friend, but not Andrew Gold.  I remember Tony Joe White because Polk Salad Annie was a fun tune.  Jesse Winchester?  Vaguely remember the name is all.

Elliott Murphy?  Steven Grossman?  Wendy Waldman?  Randall Bramblett?  David Forman?  Rory Block?  I gotta believe my FM station played all these artists, because they were pretty diverse.  But sorry, don’t recall them.   Goes to show our memories make us all smaller over time.

Thanks for the homework, RS.

Long Long Long

When we think about longevity, images of wrinkly Rolling Stones or half The Who come to mind.  And that makes sense, especially from a performance standpoint; some acts just keep on trucking.  The Stones, especially, give the air of having some kind of record for surviving the longest.

But if you examine the question from the perspective of recording new music, they haven’t/didn’t last so long – at least in my iTunes library.

Here’s the ranking of the artists who have had the longest careers in terms of their earliest and latest recordings (again, in my iTunes library – yours will differ).

Artist/Band	Earliest Recording	Latest Recording	Number of Years
Ringo Starr	1962	2012	50
Paul McCartney	1962	2007	45
B.B. King	1956	2000	44
Bob Dylan	1962	2006	44
Steve Winwood	1965	2008	43
Eric Clapton	1964	2006	42
George Harrison	1962	2002	40
James Taylor	1968	2007	39
Robert Plant	1969	2007	38
Joe Walsh	1969	2007	38
David Gilmour	1969	2006	37
Mark Knopfler	1978	2015	37
Bruce Springsteen	1973	2009	36
Tom Petty	1976	2010	34
Rolling Stones	1964	1994	30

OK, the Ringo thing is a bit of a fluke.  I finally saw him live in 2012, and was so happy about it that I bought the tee-shirt and the CD.

I don’t buy everything these folks release, but it’s wonderful that they’re still making great music – the ones that are alive anyway.

Speaking of which, I wonder if Hendrix or Lennon …. oh nevermind.

Reelin’ In the Ears

Great songs hook you quickly, and reel you in.  This is nicely illustrated by Guitar World’s The 20 Best Guitar Intro’s of All Time.

Day Tripper, Sunshine Of Your Love, Smoke On The Water, Heartbreaker, You Really Got Me …  Hendrix, Van Halen, Chuck Berry, Hetfield, Keef …   Some of the best riffs of all time courtesy the greatest riff-meisters of all time.

Most great songs have a ‘hook,’ something that grabs you, catches your attention, somehow makes you feel like you already know the song even when you’re hearing it for the first time.  Sometimes that hook is a riff, but not always.  Sometimes the hook doesn’t show up until part way through the song.  But looking at GW’s list, I’d have to say the winning formula has got to be to snag ‘em right away.

In His Blood And In His Bones

How many genres can you pack into one song?  I dunno, but Mark Knopfler managed to jam quite a few into In The Gallery.

Blues, rock, country, R&B, a bit of psychedelic maybe?  What do you hear?

A good song should sound like an old friend on first hearing.  The more genres the songwriting – and arranger -  can draw on, the deeper the listener can mine for familiar sounds.  It can’t be a sloppy pastiche, of course.  Everything has to fit together.  And when it does, as with In The Gallery, what you get is one rich song.

Pretty tasty guitar work by Knopfler, too.