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.

One Summer Day

For me, Cream’s version of I’m Sitting On Top Of The World was that moment when I said, "Yeah, alright.  I get it.  The Blues."

Cream gave me Muddy, and Hooker, Robert Johnson, and B.B., and Son House, and Keb’ Mo’, and Bonnie Raitt.

Riding With The King

The introduction to Guitar Player’s 12 Most Influential Guitarists of All Time starts with an apology, as if they were expecting an avalanche of criticism – and I know I’ve done my share of whinging about lists over the years.

But they’re talkin’ about influence – not who’s best or who’s the most favoured – and I, for one can’t find a darn thing wrong with this one.

Who hasn’t copped a Chuck Berry lick?  Who hasn’t tried to emulate Clapton or Page or Van Halen?  Who hasn’t dropped his or her jaw at Hendrix or SRV and said, “How’d he do that?”  Who doesn’t appreciate how large Robert Johnson or Chet Atkins loom over all those cats?  And then there’s B.B..

Influential?  You bet.

Dust My Lick

Gibson’s 10 Iconic Blues Riffs & Melodies is focused on playing – maybe fooling around and coming up with your own riffs.  But it could just as easily be called The Best Blues Songs of All Time.

Yeah, I know, there are a few thousand tunes competing for that honour, but it’s a pretty impressive list.  Songs written by giants like Willie Dixon, Howlin’ Wolf and Robert Johnson, and played by the masters:  Sumlin, B.B., Buddy Guy, Elmore James, Albert King, Clapton, Hendrix and Johnny Winter.  It doesn’t get much better than that.

But the article’s main point is a good one:  mess around with something you already know and it might take you somewhere new.  I’m sure that’s how most songs are written.

This Hell I Live In

With apologies to Mssrs. Lennon, McCartney, Winwood, Waters, Gilmour, Springsteen, Johnson and Anonymous …

The five saddest songs ever written are actually all in Les Miserables.

Reconsider Baby

Another album missing from Gibson’s best covers album list is From the Cradle by Eric Clapton, a terrific collection of blues standards performed flawlessly – and sung passionately – by the greatest blues guitarist of all time.

No use standin’ around crying, but I’m tore down that this masterpiece was omitted.

BTW, his tribute to Robert Johnson is also amazing.  Red hot renditions of 14 of the most influential blues tunes ever written.

Giving the Finger

Now here’s a list that’s close to my heart: Gibson’s 10 All Time Great Finger Pickers.  Why?  Cause that’s mostly how I play.  I may have been weaned on rock ‘n’ roll, but my wanderings into classical and folk made me drop the pick.

Here’s the list: Merle Travis, Davy Graham, John Fahey, Martin Carthy, Jerry Reed, Reverend Gary Davis, Tommy Emmanuel, Jorma Kaukonen, Leo Kottke, Chet Atkins.

I can’t pretend to know all of these guys, but I would have added Mark Knopfler, probably the most successful finger picker in rock.  And Bruce Cockburn, for my money, one of the best acoustic guitarists of all time.  And where is Robert Johnson, the guy with titanic influence over most genres, the guy whose licks we’re still trying to figure out, the cat that made one guitar sound like three?

Anyway, hats off to the finger pickers.  They might not get as much energy into the strings as the plectrum crowd, but they can pull off some tasty licks.

Speechless

The main thing that jumps out at me as I scan Gibson’s 10 Great Rock Guitar Instrumentals is that it would be hard to build on.  The list apparently features pieces known for their “pioneering impact” as opposed to virtuosity or popularity.

But, like, what else would you add?  Is there much else out there to debate?  We’ve got Beck, Page, Edgar Winter, Van Halen, Duane Eddy and The Ventures – like you’d expect.  And we have to dip into The Who’s Tommy to get to 10.

The genre has a major handicap: no lyrics.  Kinda hampers the singing along, which makes it more difficult on the memory, which reduces the odds of a tune being popular.  Not to mention the emotional impact that lyrics can add to a great song.

Make that two handicaps, the second being that instrumentals tend to be vehicles for showing off.  With all due respect to Mssrs. Beck, Satriani, Malmsteen, Johnson and McGlaughlin et al, chicks don’t dig it.  You can’t dance to this stuff.

These guys have an audience limited to mostly other guitarists, which is why the list is brought to you by Gibson as opposed to a popular culture magazine.  The guitar has dominated popular music for over half a century, but it works best in a supporting role.

Songs From Kill Devil Hills

Have you ever read Old Weird America by Greil Marcus?  It’s ostensibly about Bob Dylan’s Basement Tapes, the sessions, the times, the world around and all that.

Ostensibly.

What it is, really, is the deepest exploration of American – and along with it – Western – culture I have ever read.

This book is deep.  Whole chapters interpreting the meaning of one song, entire groups of chapters explaining how the stories in those songs are universal, how they grew out of real-life experiences and events, and grew until they became legend, about how the legends actually matter more than the facts.

Large sections describing the beauty, the majesty, the viciousness and the shame of everyday life.  Deep insights questioning whether any of the history as we know it is real, at least real in comparison to the passions and follies of men and women – good and bad – sung about in the folk and blues of rural America.

And that music is what informs just about all the music you listen to, so whether or not you give a damn about Doc Boggs and Woody Guthrie and Leadbelly and Robert Johnson – or Bob Dylan or Led Zeppelin – that music is important.

I quickly lost count of the insights, epiphanies and “a-ha’s.”  Rock history, sociology, anthropology, musicology … this book is deep.

Do Ya Think I’m Sexy - I Mean Clever?

“If you’re a serious musician or songwriter and wish to be treated as such, your chiseled features and smokin’ bod could prove problematic.”  So says 10 Rockers Too Sexy For Their Own Good.

Got it.  Some musicians have flaunted their attractiveness to the point where their musicianship became secondary, and that’s a sad thing.  Even worse, though, is the legion of entertainers who have road their looks to undeserved stardom – especially true in these days of Broadway dance production, monotone melodies and Autotune.

But the real thing that jumps out at me about this article is its total randomness.  Critics don’t take Marnie Stern seriously, and comment on her looks even though she doesn’t dress to exploit those looks?  Liz Phair chose the wrong song?  Rod Stewart was, what, hugely successful with his music and with the ladies?  Ann and Nancy Wilson were bullied and exploited by the chauvinist suits at their record company (and fought back)? 

And listen:  Robert Plant did not write the lyric “squeeze my lemon ‘til the juice runs down my leg.”  It came from Robert Johnson’s Travelling Riverside Blues.  And Johnson borrowed it from Arthur McKay, who we can be sure borrowed it from someone else.  The lyric is probably 300 years old.

Few females I know like Robert Plant, and they do cite his appearance (“acts like he’s sexy but he’s not”) as the reason.  Most males I know have the same attitude towards Rod Stewart, but they disguise it with criticism of his somewhat juvenile choice of songs.  But Plant, Stewart and the Wilsons have sold a gazillion records and are in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

So what exactly does “too sexy for their own good” mean?  Nothing, as far as I can tell, except maybe an eye-catching title (sexy) that lures you into reading an article that has no regard for facts, context or logic.

Guess it worked.

A Big Deal

This is not, repeat not a political statement:  FDR’s New Deal was the best thing that ever happened to music.

Stay with me.  Without the New Deal’s “make work” projects, Alan Lomax would not have been sent out to collect folk music.  If Alan Lomax hadn’t done that, we might never have heard of Son House, Robert Johnson, Lead Belly, Doc Boggs, Big Bill Broonzy and Skip James.  Woody Guthrie might be an interesting footnote.

If the folk music, white and black, of the south had not been captured and exposed to a broader audience, the Chicago Blues as we know it might never have come into being, “race music” and rhythm and blues might never have been noticed by white kids.  There might never have been a folk revival in the 50’s.

No delta blues?  Nothing in Chicago?  No folk revival?  No:

Beatles

Rolling Stones

Bob Dylan

Led Zeppelin

Cream

Animals

Shall I go on?

Elvis, Chuck Berry, Carl Perkins…  life, and culture, as we know it would simply not exist.

I can’t imagine a better use of government money.  Big Bird might just agree.

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.

Say It Ain’t So

Aw…   New Musical Expresses piece on 29 Rock Myths Exploded is just a party-pooping downer.

No stomach pumps? no song-induced suicides? no mud sharks? no ash-snorting? no doobies in the john at Buck House? no Mars bars? no ham sandwiches?

Aw, come on!  They were such great stories!

Anyway, how do we know Charles Mansion didn’t audition for The Monkees?  Did anyone ask Stephen Stills?  Are we sure Paul didn’t die?  And what about Dylan?  Are we really sure?

And dammit, we gotta believe Keef had those full-body blood transfusions!  It’s just part of who he is!

Who are these people at NME?  Of course Robert Johnson sold his soul to the Devil!  Everyone’s known that for, like, 75 years.

This is what’s wrong with the Internet.  People can just make stuff up!  Deniers!  Truthers!  Balloon-prickers!  Liars!

Good on Keith Richards, by the way, who, true or not, got himself involved in 2 ½ of the 29 myths.  1^st place, even if it is in an alternative reality.

Trinities and Triangles

I started playing this game in my head:  name three guitarists, then start exploring how they defined your musical world.

Take Robert Johnson, Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton:

How did they define musical boundaries?  Well, how about roots (Johnson is the source), astonishment (as only Hendrix) and musicianship (Clapton exactly right)?

What about connections?  Let’s see: there’s a direct line from Johnson to Hendrix (how did he come up with that?), a link between Johnson and Clapton (that’s perfect for the song), and an eternal contention for supremacy between Hendrix and Clapton in the OMG department.

How about John Lennon, Keith Richards and Jimmy Page?  Boundaries set by genres (Rockabilly, Blues and Celtic-Indo-European-something-or-other Folk?).  Strong connections on riffs, riffs, riffs?

How about Woody Guthrie, Son House and James Taylor?

How do just three names sum up what appeals to you, where your boundaries are, what styles you dig, how you play, what you aspire to?  How do they differ?  How are they similar?

It’s a fun game.  Try it.

Rolling Stone Reacts and Revises

A while back Rolling Stone published senior editor/writer David Fricke's version of the 100 Greatest Guitarists (DF version). With all due respect to Mr. Fricke, I know I had lots of issues with the list. I wonder if others did too, because Rolling Stone assembled a panel of experts and came up with a new list, 100 Greatest Guitarists (panel version).

The fun with lists is that you get to disagree, but I must say the 2nd list defies the camel-is-a-horse-designed-by-a-committee business. I mean I like it better.

Let's compare the top 25:
     DF Version                       Panel Version
 1. Jimi Hendrix                     Jimi Hendrix
 2. Duanne Allman                Eric Clapton
 3. B.B. King                         Jimmy Page
 4. Eric Clapton                     Keith Richards
 5. Robert Johnson               Jeff Beck
 6. Chuck Berry                     B.B. King
 7. Stevie Ray Vaughan        Chuck Berry
 8. Ry Cooder                        Eddie Van Halen
 9. Jimmy Page                     Duanne Allman
10. Keith Richards                Pete Townshend
11. Kirk Hammett                  George Harrison
12. Kurt Colbain                    Stevie Ray Vaughan
13. Jerry Garcia                    Albert King
14. Jeff Beck                         David Gilmour
15. Santana                          Freddy King
16. Johnny Ramone             Derek Trucks
17. Jack White                      Neil Young
18. John Frusciante              Les Paul
19. Richard Thomson           James Burton

20. James Burton                 Santana
21. George Harrison             Chet Atkins
22. Mike Bloomfield              Frank Zappa
23. Warren Haynes               Buddy Guy
24. The Edge                        Angus Young
25. Freddy King                    Tony Iommi

I definitely prefer the content and the sequence of the 2nd list.

David Fricke did have some cool inclusions, like Robert Johnson, Ry Cooder, Jack White and John Frusciante. But those inclusions came at the expense of Albert King, David Gilmour and Angus Young. Nice to see Derek Trucks on the panel's list too.

You could argue that panel version is safer. I mean with the exception of Keef, who seems to gain more respect with each passing decade, the panel list looks a lot like the list has looked for over 40 years: Clapton, Page, Beck, Hendrix ... all at the top.

So hats off to David Fricke for maybe stimulating some controversy. Like I said, the fun with lists is that you get to disagree.

Walking Along A Dusty Road

The death last year of Hubert Sumlin makes Gibson's 10 Great Journeymen Guitarists all the more interesting. Here's the list:

Hubert Sumlin, Corey Harris, Eric Bibb, Guy Davis, Duke Robillard, J.J. Cale, Roy Book Binder, John Hammond, Johnny Winter, Keb' Mo'.

Gibson's reference point seems to be the itinerant bluesman, the Robert Johnson standing at the crossroads thing, which explains why it's a collection of blues guys. Works for me.

I have to confess I haven't heard of all of these guys, and for sure I'm going to check up on at least one of them. I mean, how cool is a name like Roy Book Binder? Well, trippy anyway.

Of the ones I know, the other thing they all have in common (other than their constant touring and hard work) is they are/were under-appreciated. Keb' Mo' would be my prime example. He's a gem.

Curious how Johnny Winter slipped from guitar god status down to this list, though. There was a time when he competed with the likes of Hendrix, Clapton and Page for the best guitarist title. Were Rory Gallagher still alive, it would be interesting to see if he would have been on the list too, because he also was an under-rated-journey-man kinda guy.

It might be a lonely road, but it's a crowded world for great guitarists.

Tell the truth and shame the devil

A while back I saw Harrison Kennedy live.

Check this guy out! He's fantastic. A genuine blues man of the old school. I mean old school.

He's real. He's raw. He's a complete throwback. Something straight out of the 30's, like he hung out with Son House and Robert Johnson and just stepped through a time portal.  He tells the truth.

Keep strummin' and pickin' bro'. You got the mojo for sure.

Favourite Songwriters - Part 2

Going back to a previous post  ...  whenever you cut a list short at 10, you start feeling guilty about who you have omitted (well, I do, anyway).

So, some honourable mentions:

Influential blues greats:  Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, Howling Wolf, Leadbelly, Willie Dixon.  See?   There are too many to squeeze into a top ten.

Pete Townshend.  You could say he's uneven, but his best material is huge, and massively influential.

Paul Simon.  Ditto.

Neil Young.  I mean, Neil Young is Neil Young, and even if he didn't make my top ten list, he should be on yours.  Who said this had to make sense?

David Gilmour, Mark Knopfler and Warren Zevon.  My holy trinity of under-rated songwriters.  You can decide which is father, son and holy ghost.

Yikes!  And so I just remembered I forgot - completely forgot - about Bruce Springsteen.  Too late to revise the top ten, so let's put him in with Neil Young and say he should be on yours.

Best Guitarists Ever - Part 2

Some honourable mentions, in no particular order:

Joe Bonamassa.  He has studied - and mastered - the masters.

Peter Green.  Clapton's successor with John Mayall and founder of Fleetwood Mac, Green was the master of the tasty lick.

Robben Ford.  Incredibly versatile, I don't understand why his isn't a household name.

Robert Johnson and T-Bone Walker.  Definitely the two most influential guitarists who ever lived.

John Frusciante.  The Chili's frontman has all the right chops!

Shifting gears to acoustic greats:  Keb' Mo', Bruce Cockburn, and James Taylor.  Well, you don't have to be a blues guy to play amazing guitar.

In leagues of their own:  Harry Manx, who manages to blend blues, folk and Indian music and make it sound obvious;  Ritchie Blackmore, whose lightning speed and unique vocabulary have never been matched.

Oh ya, and Paul McCartney.  Sure, we think of him as the bass player who can play piano, but his solo on Taxman alone earns him a spot on the list.

Again, each one of these giants can surprise and delight, but always to compliment the song.

About The Blues

John Lennon famously said "before Elvis there was nothing."  But as far as I was concerned before John Lennon there was nothing.  For a long time anyway.

When Muddy Waters sang "the blues had a baby and they named it rock and roll," to me, that was just some old guy trying to stay relevant.  For years, I just didn't get it.  I got that Cream and Led Zeppelin and Jethro Tull were doing all these great blues covers, but all I was hearing was Cream and Led Zeppelin and Jethro Tull.  To me they were just covers.  Even when my idols brought their idols Muddy Waters and Howling Wolf over to London to record, I didn't get it. I thought they were just being nice to these old guys.

Years later, I finally went back and started to listen.  And I got it.

What's not to get?  A hypnotizing groove, raw sexual energy, guitar virtuousity, betrayal, heartbreak, injustice, standing alone against the world.  How had I missed all that?  Wow!

Muddy Waters, Howling Wolf, John Lee Hooker, BB King  ...  they may not have shaped my world as directly as Lennon, McCartney, Clapton or Page, but in the end their influence was even bigger.  First they influenced me indirectly through my idols.  Then they touched me directly.

And it turns out there was plenty before Lennon, plenty before Elvis.  It just keeps going back:  Big Bill Broonzy, Robert Johnson, Son House, Leadbelly, Blind Lemon Jefferson ...  there is no beginning.

Hopefully there will be no end.