Lost and Flying Down The Road

Have your favourite cocktail, enjoy your favourite meal and bottle of wine (if that's your pleasure), smoke ‘em if ya got ‘em, savour your favourite after dinner drink.  Listen to Hellbound Train by Savoy Brown.

You could listen all night long, right?

The 2nd Time Around

Some bands grab you right away, and never let go.  The Beatles, say.

Others are hard to ignore but take a little longer for you to appreciate.  For me, bands like CCR and The Band fall into that category.  They were there, in your face, all the time.  I just took a long time for me to realize how much I dug them.

Other bands, though, barley registered in my consciousness, and they sort of slipped on by while I was busy enjoying the music I was already committed to.  After all, you can only buy so much music, right?  Remember buying?

Anyway, every once in a while, I go back and explore bands that I had been vaguely aware of, but never really paid attention to.  Often, the rewards have been richly rewarding.

These days, I’m just as likely to put on Savoy Brown as Led Zeppelin.  And when I do, I always ask myself how did I miss these guys the first time around?  Humble Pie, Spooky Tooth and Status Quo are other bands I really enjoy now but more or less ignored until they were all but gone from the scene.

Your list will differ, but exploration definitely has its rewards.

I Can Turn The Gray Sky Blue

With all due repsect to The Temptations, I just love Savoy Brown’s version of I Can’t Get Next To You.  Kim Simmonds’ guitar work is fantastic.

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.

That Was Only Yesterday

Every time I hear War Pigs on the radio, I think, why is this happening?  Is that the best they can do?

I mean, I know Paranoid had an impact when it came out, and all that, but in my corner of suburban Canada, Black Sabbath enjoyed only a minor popularity.  There were many more copies around of records by the likes of Humble Pie, Spooky Tooth, Wishbone Ash, Spirit, Rory Gallagher, Savoy Brown and Uriah Heep.

Sure, Ozzy enjoyed an elongated solo career, and that allows for some revisionism.  And, no, I’m not a Sabbath fan, but really, check out some of the aforementioned bands.  There are far too many great bands that have had their entire canons reduced to one or two songs by classic rock radio.  And these bands don’t get any airplay at all! 

It’s a dreammare, brother.  It’s a ride on a hellbound train.  Those radio cats are withholding a lot of great music, and it’s got me feelin’ bad.

The Thrill of It All

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Gibson has an overdue list of 10 Guitar Greats Who've Been Unduly Neglected, the list being:

Terry Kath

Ollie Halsall

Luther Grovenor

June Millington

Phil Manzanera

Lenny Breau

Jimmy Nolen

Randy California

Robert Quine

Bob Stinson

Amen, especially for Kath, California and Manzanera.  I might also add Peter Green, Kim Simmonds and Rory Gallagher.

The article hints that maybe you need a larger-than-life personality to get all the attention.  Maybe.  Maybe it was the tunes, the bands, the PR, the hair …

It certainly wasn’t the licks