Listing, Listing …

I’ve recently been wondering why I don’t write as much about acoustic guitarists as their plugged-in friends, because the music I listen to probably contains as many acoustic guitars as electric.

Maybe it’s the wow factor of the electric guitar.  I dunno.

I don’t even have a Top Ten list.  Maybe it’s just too hard.

I mean, where do you start?  You could fill the list with the influential blues cats like Robert Johnson, Big Bill Broonzy, Son House or John Lee Hooker.  You could fill it with acoustic specialists like James Taylor, Bruce Cockburn, Cat Stevens, Harry Manx, Paul Simon or Donovan.  You could easily fill it with players who also play a mean electric guitar, like Clapton, Page, Knopfler, Bonamassa, Neil Young or Colin James.

Hmmm.  Plenty of wow factor in all those names.

I guess there’s the “defined the instrument/broke new ground” thing that gets applied to musicians on other instruments.  In that case, I suppose my list would be: Leadbelly, Johnson, Broonzy, Taylor, Simon, Donovan, Stevens, Cockburn, Young and Page.

But then I’d be omitting artist I listen to – and wonder, “how did he/she do that?” – a lot.  People like Clapton, Harry Manx, Arlo Guthrie and Bonnie Raitt.

To hell with lists.  I revere all the guitarists mentioned – them, and a lot more.

Sunshine Came Softly

The other night, I had the pleasure of attending a Donovan concert in Toronto.

His voice isn’t what it used to be, but he’s such a good storyteller, and his songs practically sing themselves anyway, so it was all good.

What was especially heartwarming is that not everyone in the audience had white hair.  I was amazed at how many people under 30 were there – and they weren’t casual listeners.  They knew him.  They were fans.

Donovan himself described his music’s timeless appeal as hopeful melancholy.  He confronts that madness of our species, and shares his sadness at our willful self-destructiveness, but he celebrates the wonders of the world around us with an enduring spirit of hopefulness.

He is the hurdy gurdy man, singing songs of love.

The Rover

Wow.  I always knew Jimmy Page was a session player before he signed on with The Yardbirds and then founded Led Zeppelin, but wow.  Gibson’s Jimmy Page In The 60’s article shows you just how much this guy got around.

You’ve got your big names: Tom Jones, Van Morrison, The Kinks, The Who,  Donovan, Cocker … wow.

You’ve got your forgot-about-thems: The Southerners, The Nashville Teens, The Sneekers … who?

You’ve got your really?: Burt Bacharach, Petula Clark, Lulu, Herman’s Hermits … are you kidding me?

You’ve got your that-was-him?:  Gloria?  Here Comes the Night?  Can’t Explain?  As Tears Go By?  With a Little Help From My Friends? (Cocker, not Beatles) Hurdy Gurdy Man?  Did I say wow yet?

This guy was everywhere.  But the song did not remain the same.  He rambled on, met a few friends, went out on the tiles, slapped us upside the head with Good Times Bad Times, and carried us over the hills and far away.

ps – Leave My Kitten Alone?

8 Miles High

Well, why not?  40 Great Stoner Albums, a list of albums Rolling Stone says are “great for blazing along, but also great when you’re not high as a giraffe.”

Item one:  I’m no stoner.  I only owned 3 of the 40 albums listed, and I only recognized 14 album titles in total.  Tons of bands/artists I had never heard of!  I kinda always thought that drug and pop culture weren’t that far apart, and that you didn’t need to partake to get it.  Maybe I’m wrong.

Item two:  item one aside, I wonder if all these records are for stoners, or if some of them are just by people who were stoned.  David Crosby’s, If I Could Only Remember My Name, for example.

Item three:  Rock & Roll is an interstellar escape pod?  Pardon?  What does that mean, exactly?  I must be straighter than I thought.

Item four:  there is no item four.  Still trying to deal with item one.  I mean, I expected to see one or two blues greats, maybe Cream, Zeppelin, Dylan, The Byrds, Neil Young, Deep Purple (Mark I), Donovan, Tull, one of the 70’s Brit prog bands, someone from California other than The Dead …  Just three albums (Axis, Dark Side and Rubber Soul).  Sheesh!

Maybe I need to take a dreadlock holiday.

Dividing Up The Pie

I was playing around with my music map, figuring out where to locate my favourite artists. Came up with this:

 

Things get a little crowded in the centre, which makes sense. Given my assertion that psychedelic has a dose of Classical, I'd like Cream to be more to the left. And, given Gilmour's guitar playing, I'd like Pink Floyd to be more to the right, touching the Blues.

The Rock circle is definitely the busiest. Those that touch the circle but are partially outside make sense to me (e.g. Eagles being part Rock, part Country - as compared to Buddy Holly who is Rock but you can hear the Country influence.

It was easy to put Petty and Young at the confluence of Folk Rock and Country Rock. On the other hand, I confess that the placement of Springsteen was purely arbitrary.

The model breaks down for some artists. Dylan has a heavy Blues influence, and Zeppelin was pretty good at Folk, but I don't have Blues and Folk overlapping. CCR and The Beatles both need to touch the R&B circle but I couldn't do that without giving up something else.

Of course the best bands defy categorization, and cover more territory than I was able to allocate.

One nice bit of foresight (if foresight can be accidental) was the little blank space just north of Rock centre where you could say the influences where everything and nothing. Good place to put the most versatile - and unique - bands, isn't it? And those would be The Beatles and The Stones.

The Endless Groove

People tend to associate the groove with American R&B, but endless groove are everywhere.

You've got your Irish groove (U2, Bad), your American groove (John Lee Hooker, Boogie Chillun),  your Jamaican groove (Bob Marley, Get Up Stand Up), your English groove (The Cult, She Sells Sanctuary), your Guyanese groove (Eddy Grant, Electric Avenue), and your good old Canadian groove (April Wine, Say Hello).

You've got your classic soul groove (Aretha Franklin, Chain of Fools), your 80's New Wave R&B groove (The Fixx, One Thing Leads To Another), your low-down moanin' blues groove (John Lee Hooker, Tupelo), and your psychedelic boogie groove (Canned Heat, On The Road Again).

You've got your electrofunk groove (Marrs, Pump Up The Volume), your reggae groove (Bob Marley, Stir It Up), your folk groove (Donovan, Riki Tiki Tavi), your dance groove (k-os, Crabbukit), and your I-am-all-genres-at-once groove (Lenny Kravitz, Fly Away).

You wouldn't call Bob Dylan or Jimi Hendrix R&B guys, but they did it (All Along The Watchtower). Ditto Steve Miller (Wintertime), Bruce Cockburn (If A Tree Falls), and Collective Soul (December).

Maybe black people "own" the groove, 'cause they do dominate the list.  But white boys can definitely hold their own (Eric Burden, Spill The Wine; Van Morrison, Gloria; George Thorogood, Bad To The Bone; Warren Zevon, Werewolves Of London).

The groove is elemental.  It knows no boundaries.  It unites us all.

Groove on, people.

Let's Make Nice

Are there any nice lyrics out there?  Anyone not angry, depressed or who-gives-a-damn selfish?

Music is an art and art, should make you feel so any emotion is valid, but do you have to tune in country station to hear something positive or uplifting?

Or does "let's party" pass for positive these days?

Take Rude Boy by Rihanna, for example:
Come on rude boy, boy
can you get it up
Come here rude boy, boy
Is you big enough

Well, it's not negative.  And I guess its main virtue is that it's direct.  Not every song has to be deep poetry filled with metaphor, but is there any emotion involved here?  I suppose it serves for some fun gesturing on the dance floor, but then what?

In contrast, take Happiness Runs by Donovan:
Happiness runs in a circular motion
Thought is like a little boat upon the sea
Everybody is a part of everything anyway
You can have everything if you let yourself be

Now, I haven't got a clue what it means, but it makes me feel positive, optimistic, nice.

Nice is good for a change, isn't it?