Don’t Fade On Me

“The soundtrack to your life” may be a cliché, but to the extent that we all have one, mine seemed to be slipping away in 2017.  Check out Rolling Stone’s People We Lost This Year.

Chuck Berry, Tom Petty, Malcolm Young, Gord Downie, Greg Allman, Walter Becker, Fats Domino, J. Geils …  sheesh!  That’s a partial list of cultural icons relegated to our memories.

Back up your hard drives, people.  We need to keep this stuff alive.

Different Shades of Blue

One of the things I really dig about Joe Bonamassa is he’s an all-in-one deal.  

Play one of his CD’s and by the time you’re done you’ve had your Cream fix, your Zeppelin fix, your Allman fix …  Buddy Guy, B.B., Gary Moore, Rory Gallagher, Mark Knopfler, Taj Mahal … Humble Pie, Savoy Brown – the list goes on and on.

With Joe, you get all the major food groups in one very tasty blues-rock stew.

Like all great musicians, Joe Bonamassa has his own voice.  But like all great musicians, he’s a superb student of what’s come before.

Twice The Fun

The guitar is a wonderful instrument.  In the right hands, it can be strongly emotive, awe inspiring, gobsmacking.  Unfortunately, sometimes there can also be a bit too much look-at-me-look-at-me-look-at-me, as Guitar Player points out in Top 10 Guitar Tandems.

Two guitarists can keep that impulse in check.  And the bi-play between them can take a song to a whole new level.  Allman and Betts, Tipton and Downing, Angus and Malcolm, Keith Richards and whoever … some pretty good bands have decided that two guitars are better than one.

Nothing wrong with Guitar Player’s list, but there are lots of other acts you could add:  Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac, Humble Pie, Wishbone Ash – and, oh, this little band out of Liverpool called The Beatles.

Paying The Cost To Be The Boss

Imagine a world without Hendrix, Cream, Santana, Paul Butterfield, The Allman Brothers, Johnny Winter, Fleetwood Mac, ZZ Top, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and Robert Cray.

Hard to imagine, isn’t it?  Not something you’d want to imagine, is it?

Well, according to Rolling Stone’s 10 Legendary Acts That Wouldn’t Exist Without B.B. King, all that magic would not have happened were it not for B.B. King.

That’s 10 more thankyous we owe to B.B..

Got Live If You Want It

As the introduction to Rolling Stone’s 50 Greatest Live Albums of All Time says, it’s impossible to capture the frenzy (and I would add joy) of a great live show on record.  But as the list shows, there have been some awesome live recordings.

Confession:  in general, I have always preferred studio albums, because the sound quality is better, there’s less self-indulgence from the band, and the mistakes land on the cutting room floor.  But I still enjoy a good performance, and I love going to concerts.

The list has something to satisfy just about every musical taste, and it includes some career-establishing performances.  But for me, its main virtue is that it serves as a healthy reminder that music is meant to be enjoyed live.

Groundbreakers

Hey, Rolling Stone!  What’s with these lists delivered as advertisements?

You need to work at Rolling Stone’s 40 Most Groundbreaking Albums of All Time to get to the detail, but it’s more or less worth it.  Probably.

Well, Kanye West should pleased to be included on a list featuring Woody Guthrie and Frank Sinatra.

And Perrey and Kingsley – whoever they were - should be mighty proud to be on a list that includes Bob Dylan, Ray Charles and Dave Brubeck.

Are we surprised to see pioneers like Nirvana, The Ramones, The Allman Brothers, Paul Butterfield or James Brown on such a list?  Of course not.  Or masters such as Michael Jackson, Marvin Gaye or Carole King?  Nope.

Nor, though I’ll never understand it, can we be surprised to see The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds, The Velvet Underground’s Nico, The Mothers of Invention, or Sabbath.

This couldn’t have been an easy list to assemble.  It covers every major music genre over seven decades.  And I know I’m just a rabid fan, which in no way qualifies me as an expert, but I do wonder why there are so many entries on the list that I have never heard of.  I mean, I have been paying attention and all.  And while it’s nice to see The Beatles with two entries, how can such a list omit Elvis, Buddy Holly or Chuck Berry?  I’m just sayin’.

Hoochie Coochie Man

Q: What do Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Cream, Led Zeppelin, The Doors, Steppenwolf, the Allman Brothers, Otis Rush, Gary Moore, Koko Taylor, Canned Heat, the Stones, Steve Miller, the Animals, Tom Petty, Sam Cooke, Little Walter, Bo Diddley, Elvis, and the Everly Brothers all have in common?

A: Willie Dixon.  They all recorded Willie Dixon songs, per Gibson’s 10 Great Willie Dixon Songs.

Oh, and Paul Butterfield, Savoy Brown, Ten Years After, Etta James, the Pointer Sisters, Jeff Beck, James Cotton, Hendrix, Megadeth and the White Stripes.

That’s quite a list.  A hall of fame, who’s-who, Desert Island, best-ever-playlist kind of list.

You can make your case for Robert Johnson, or Muddy or B.B. as the most influential blues musician of all time, but when it comes to blues songwriting, no one else comes close.  It’s Willie Dixon that make the world wanna know what this all about.

Eruptions

Gibson’s 10 Great Rock Instrumentals nicely illustrates at least one reason why instrumentals tend not to be as popular as songs: there are no words to sing along to, so that melody had better be extremely catchy.

Here’s the list:

Beck Bolero – Beck, Page et al

Black Mountain Side – Led Zeppelin

Jessica – Allman Brothers

Sparks – The Who

Rebel Rouser – Duanne Eddy

Frankenstein – Edgar Winter Group

Walk Don’t Run – The Ventures

Maggot Brain – Funkadelic

Mood for a Day – Steve Howe

Eruption – Van Halen

Make that two reasons:  you can’t dance to a lot of this stuff.  I mean, Mood for a Day is an impressive display of virtuosity, but does it get your toes tapping?

Maybe there are three reasons.  There’s a line somewhere that divides “appreciation” and “participation.  You listen to and appreciate a Brahms symphony or well-done bit of prog rock.  You sing along to a good folk song.  Pop/soul/rock ‘n’ roll?  You get up and dance while you’re singing.  While you might appreciate all the pieces on this list, you’re only going to participate in a couple of ‘em.

Alien Blows

Gibson’s 10 Albums That Changed Rock Guitar shows that virtuosity covers a pretty wide spectrum.  Here’s the list:

Jeff Beck - Blow By Blow

Jimi Hendrix – Are You Experienced?

Van Halen – Van Halen

Black Sabbath – Paranoid

Led Zeppelin – Led Zeppelin

Robert Johnson – King of the Delta Blues Singers

Chuck Berry – After School Sessions

Joe Satriani – Surfing with the Alien

The Allman Brothers – At Fillmore East

Boston – Boston

A huge variety of styles, and so many disparate techniques - not to mention tastes (which we shouldn’t mention lest I go off on a rant about where is Eric Clapton and you’ve gotta be kidding about Black Sabbath).

It’s interesting how many of these albums are firsts: Zep, Boston, Hendrix … which doesn’t necessarily mean that subsequent albums didn’t measure up – just that the shock and awe were done.

It’s a good list because every one of these records inspired a million players to say “I wanna play like that!”  New ideas, big changes, epic influence. 

Hats off to Robert Johnson, by the way, who managed to make the list 23 years after his demise.  Which is proper, because if you look at the list in terms of influencing the influencers, Mr. Johnson winds hands down.

Monster Live

The Rolling Stone 10 Best Live Albums list makes the point that a good live album could actually make a career, and that’s true.

The reverse was almost true too.  There were some pretty bad – make that pathetic – releases that seriously damaged the image of some otherwise unimpeachable stars (at least for me).

Here’s the list:

 1.  The Who – Live at Leeds

 2.  Allman Brothers – Live at the Fillmore East

 3.  Peter Frampton – Frampton Comes Alive!

 4.  Rolling Stones – Get Yer Ya-ya’s Out!

 5.  Kiss – Alive!

 6.  Deep Purple – Made In Japan

 7.  Little Feat – Waiting for Columbus

 8.  Nirvana - Unplugged

 9.  The Band – The Last Waltz

10. Bob Seger – Live Bullet

I wonder if it helps to have an exclamation mark as part of your title?

Some great music by some fabulous bands here for sure.  Some are amongst my all time favourites.

The write-up talks about the colossal mistake Townshend made by destroying the rest of the recordings from the tour  - featuring mostly material from Tommy, which is what dominated their shows at the time.  But I remember how incredibly refreshing it was to not hear Tommy, how cool it was to hear The Who rock out, simple, pure and raw.

The albums on the list that had the most impact on me were the ones that were accompanied by films.  The visuals helped overcome the poor sound quality.

To be fair, technology, professional standards and perhaps reduced or alternative substance abuse have tremendously improved what can be achieved in a live recording.  But back then, things were a bit rough and uneven.

Speaking of visuals, when I first heard The Beatles at Shea Stadium, I was embarrassed.  It sounded just awful.  Remember, this was released not long after Abbey Road, one of the cleanest, best produced albums of all time.  Now, when I watch the doctored-up clips on Anthology, I’m convinced Shea Stadium was the best concert performance of ever.

And I guess that’s the challenge of a live album: technology and taste aside, does the recording and the performance manage to convey the magic these musicians can conjure up?  

Anyway, this list sure is a good representation of my generation.

On Tour On Your Stereo

Dunno 'bout you, but I didn't buy many live albums because they weren't that great. Poor sound quality, maybe substance-induced sloppy performances ... who needs that?

Things changed a bit in the video era when rehearsing, Broadway-like production, showmanship - not to mention digital editing - became the norm. But the early days were rather rough.

Interesting, then, that Gibson's recently published The Top 10 Live Albums Of The Rock Era is all from the 60's and 70's. Here's the list:

1. Live Cream
2. Woodstock Soundtrack
3. The Who, Live At Leeds
4. Bob Marley, Babylon By Bus
5. Rolling Stones, Love You Live
6. James Brown, Live At The Apollo
7. The Band, The Last Waltz
8. The Allman Brothers, Live At The Fillmore
9. Jimi Hendrix, Band Of Gypsies
10. Led Zeppelin, How The West Was Won

Pretty good list, especially the 1st four entries, which would exactly match my sequencing. All of them have exciting moments, but all of them also support my points. The sound quality is poor compared to what can be achieved now, and doesn't stack up to the studio albums made by the same bands.

And while one of the things that makes live music exciting is the risk involved, there are some "ouch" moments, not to mention downright sloppiness.

Didn't stop me from wearing out Live At Leeds though.

Good Ol' (English) Boys

I listened to Sticky Fingers in its entirety for the first time in decades the other day (as I transferred my vinyl to cassette, then again later to CD, then again later to MP3, the "playlists" shrunk each time, justifying the narrow-mindedness of classic rock radio, but that's a different story).

Anyway, sure they were the self-proclaimed "world's greatest rock and roll band," but the Stones were so country.  The music oozes south.  It's not classic rock, hard rock, British rock, psychedelic era hard rock, or blues rock (OK, maybe it's actually all of those things).  But more than anything, it's southern rock.

And how southern rock is it?  It's so southern, I've decided the Stones weren't doing southern, they were southern (are, I guess).  They are so southern the southern bands are trying to sound like them versus vice versa.  They own the sound, and bands from The Allman Brothers to the Black Crowes to Collective Soul have been trying to copy them ever since. 

Sorry, bro' but that's what it sounds like from up here in the Great White North.