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.

The First Cut Is The Deepest

When you’re huge, you’re huge, and after you’ve been around a while, your entire body of work tends to morph into one, uh, huge, thing.

So it begs the question, who would we still view – years later - as huge if they had stopped after only one album?  Hendrix, Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, The Cars, Buddy Holly  …

After that, I dunno.  Adele?  The Band?  The Byrds?  Crosby Stills and Nash?  Dire Straits?  Eagles?  Elvis?  Jeff Beck?  Steely Dan?  Maybe.

There are a lot of names from the rock pantheon missing, a lot of acts that took a couple or three albums to really establish a place in music history.  The Beatles, The Stones, The Who, U2, Pink Floyd, Chuck Berry, AC/DC …

Maybe we’d remember them all, but more as flashes in the pan than big influencers.  But not many artists nailed it the first time out.

The Session Men

Gibson’s 10 Great Session Guitarists brings some well-deserved focus to some brilliant musicians who have delivered a heap of magic over the years.

Lukather, Cropper, Carlton, Tedesco, Atkins, Spedding … where would pop/rcok/blues/soul be without them?  Or, to put it another way, where would Rod Stewart, Michael Jackson, Wilson Pickett, Otis Redding, Steely Dan, Billy Joel, Joni Mitchell, Elvis, Ricky Nelson, Sam Cooke, Bryan Ferry, Elton John and  Aretha Franklin be without them?

OK, some of them would probably have done OK, but you get the point.

And then there was this cat by the name of Jimmy Page.

Note to Gibson.  No one is going to dispute the importance of James Jamerson, but he was a bass player.  Is there really no other session guitarist out there that should have made the list?

Two to Tango

It takes two, so says Rolling Stone’s 20 Greatest Duos of All Time.  “Less narcissistic than a solo performer, more intimate than a band.”  Not sure that quite holds up, but when the chemistry works, a duo can indeed be magical.

I’m a tad confused about what holds this list together, though.  We’ve got bona fide duos, such as Richard and Linda Thompson, Simon & Garfunkel, and The Everly Brothers.

But then we’ve got duos that may be duos but they sound like bands, even though they are definitely driven by a partnership of two, e.g. Black Keys or Steely Dan.  I mean, is Ronnie Wood any less of a hired gun than Larry Carlton?

Debatable, maybe, if you apply that logic to Sam & Dave, but then the list gets weird.  Ashford & Simpson were really known for songwriting, not performing, so why not King & Goffin?  Fripp & Eno were a one-off.  Ike Tuner was big before Tina, Tina was big after Ike, and no one wants to remember the period in between.

Maybe 20 is a stretch and this should have been a Top 10 list.

ps - Lee Hazelwood and Nancy Sinatra have “stood the test of time?”  Really?

Partners in Crime

Gibson has a list of 20 Great Rock and Roll Songwriting Partnerships, which includes:

Strummer and Jones from The Clash

Tyler and Perry from Aerosmith

Marr and Morrissey from The Smiths

Page and Plant from Zeppelin

Fagen and Becker from Steely Dan

John and Taupin for Reggie Dwight

Bachman and Cummings from The Guess Who

Chilton and Bell from Big Star

Jagger and Richards from the Stones

Lennon and McCartney – ya, d’ya think?

Nice to see Bachman and Cummings on the list, although The Guess Who had more than a few good songs after Bachman departed.

Why no Holland-Dozier-Holland?  Motown was rock ‘n’ roll, and those guys outsold everyone.  I know the article was tagged ‘dynamic duos’, but it’s really about partnerships.

Otherwise it’s a solid – if predictable – list. 

Or maybe it’s constrained and difficult to populate.  I scrolled through my iTunes library, and had a hard time coming up with any other real partnerships.  Lots of cases where the whole band gets credit.  Cases like CSNY or the Eagles where there were several individuals who each contributed great songs, but not many real partnerships.

Curious, that.  Music is such a collaborative thing.  I would have expected more.

Listen Up

There is no better way to get your attention than to kick off a song with a killer riff, as illustrated in Gibson's 10 of Rock's Greatest Guitar Intros. 

Something new, something clever, something loud, usually something simple.

Hey!  Over here!  Pay attention.  Stop what you’re doing.  You’re gonna dig this.

It’s arguably part of the formula for a great rock song.  As hinted by the carefully worded title, these are 10 of rock’s greatest intros, not rock’s 10 greatest intros.  The comments below the posting really drive this home.  No end of worthy candidates.

Though, really, is there anything better than I Feel Fine?  No wait!  Layla.  No, Start Me Up.  No, no, no!  Blackdog.  Wait! …