Somebody Holds The Key

Eric Clapton was the face of blues rock for more than a generation.  Steve Winwood stood tall within the pantheon of prog rock immortals.

Yet they gave us Can’t Find My Way Home, a haunting, rapturous, achingly beautiful folk song.

Good work, fellas.

ps – yes, I’ve written about this song before.  It’s just that kinda song, ya know?

Long Long Long

When we think about longevity, images of wrinkly Rolling Stones or half The Who come to mind.  And that makes sense, especially from a performance standpoint; some acts just keep on trucking.  The Stones, especially, give the air of having some kind of record for surviving the longest.

But if you examine the question from the perspective of recording new music, they haven’t/didn’t last so long – at least in my iTunes library.

Here’s the ranking of the artists who have had the longest careers in terms of their earliest and latest recordings (again, in my iTunes library – yours will differ).

Artist/Band	Earliest Recording	Latest Recording	Number of Years
Ringo Starr	1962	2012	50
Paul McCartney	1962	2007	45
B.B. King	1956	2000	44
Bob Dylan	1962	2006	44
Steve Winwood	1965	2008	43
Eric Clapton	1964	2006	42
George Harrison	1962	2002	40
James Taylor	1968	2007	39
Robert Plant	1969	2007	38
Joe Walsh	1969	2007	38
David Gilmour	1969	2006	37
Mark Knopfler	1978	2015	37
Bruce Springsteen	1973	2009	36
Tom Petty	1976	2010	34
Rolling Stones	1964	1994	30

OK, the Ringo thing is a bit of a fluke.  I finally saw him live in 2012, and was so happy about it that I bought the tee-shirt and the CD.

I don’t buy everything these folks release, but it’s wonderful that they’re still making great music – the ones that are alive anyway.

Speaking of which, I wonder if Hendrix or Lennon …. oh nevermind.

Undercover Agent For The Blues …

… and Rock!  Take a look at the influence John Mayall has had.  The connections.  The influences. The great music that came out of his influence.

It’s almost unbelievable.  The diagram just depicts the most obvious connections.  The ones that could fit on a page.  It’s missing the Yardbirds-Page-Zeppelin link.  It obscenely abridges Clapton’s reach.  It skips the whole Dylan universe outside the Willburys.  It doesn’t even try to show who Phil Collins has touched, which is, like, everybody.

Was John Mayall as influential as Lennon, Dylan, Jagger, Hendrix or Page?  Maybe not, but when you think about who he’s played with – and who they played with, he’s touched just about everything.  Mayall is one important cat.

I Stand Alone

Gibson’s 10 Great One-Man-Band Albums reminds us just how freakin’ talented some cats are.  Write the tunes, play all the instruments, produce it, mix it … sheesh!

Prince (we’ll call him Prince today), Dave Grohl, Steve Winwood, John Fogerty, Todd Rundgren – oh, and this English knight called Paul McCartney.  These guys stand as giants, even when performing as members of their respective bands.

Then they go and demonstrate that they might not actually need the help.  Hats off to ‘em, I say.

Rock is full of huge talents whose creative force drove not just the songwriting but the studio production – guys like Jimmy Page, Keith Richards and Pete Townshend, for example.  But they don’t stand on their own.  They need the presence of – not to mention the chemistry with – other musicians.

By the way, where is Stevie Wonder’s Innervisions?

Hey Mr. Fantasy

As the intro points out, the number of reunions that have taken place since Traffic first did it in 1970 are too numerous to list, but the Readers’ Poll on Bands That Should Reunite is still kinda sad.

We’ve got the usual suspects: Pink Floyd, Oasis, GNR, The Smiths, Genesis, The Kinks  …  but most of the write-ups say something like “it ain’t going to happen ‘cause xx hates yy” or “zz isn’t interested, so dream on.”

So it’s sad.  Or worse.  I mean, Led Zeppelin can’t reunite because their drummer is dead.  Ya, the 2007 show was amazing and Jason Bonham did a great job, but shouldn’t we move on?

Can’t we treasure what’s come before and still give a shot to the host of current acts out there that deserve a listen?  Isn’t “the new” what attracted us to those old acts in the first place?

Sweet Jam

Further to that last post on The Charlatans, if you go back to the references you get one awesome jam session:  John, Paul, George, Ringo, Mick, Keef and Stevie Winwood.

Woulda got some sweet sounds out of that supersession!

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.

The Reason I've Been Waiting All These Years

Back to the Sad Songs thing.

Blind Faith's Can't Find My Way Home certainly belongs on the list. One of those mood-changers that always grabs me.

Perfect vocal performance from Winwood, clever blending of two guitars into one by Winwood and Clapton, and gorgeous music sailing through a sea of heartache.

I love the tension. The music makes a feeble attempt or two at hope, but ultimately succumbs to despair and melancholy. It's almost so pretty you kinda feel good, but in the end you feel like weeping.

Well done, lads. Briefly, you held the key.