So Many Roads

With apologies to the purists, here are the songs that helped me figure out that  The Blues was the thing:

·      Jimi Hendrix - Voodoo Child (Slight Return)

·      Led Zeppelin – When The Levee Breaks

·      The Doors – Riders On The Storm

·      Canned Heat – On The Road Again

·      Cream – Crossroads

·      Led Zeppelin – Since I’ve Been Loving You

·      Elvis Presley – Heartbreak Hotel

·      Johnny Winter – Highway 61 Revisited

·      The Beatles – Come Together

·      Creedence Clearwater Revival – Suzie-Q

Yeah, I know – but we all get there by different roads.  For me, Main Street was called Beatles Avenue.  Take a right at Rock & Roll Drive, left on Psychedelic Boulevard, left again at Hard Rock Road, slip down a back alley and you find this cool juke joint where they’re all playing:  B.B., Muddy, Sonny Boy, Howlin’’ Wolf, Hooker …  all of ‘em.

Does the road matter if we reach the destination?

The Bad, The Ugly & The Good

When you’re listening to a song and it comes to the guitar solo, do you ever think to yourself, “Boy!  What a bad guitar solo, but it’s good.  I like it?” 

I’m not talkin’ about uninspired or lame.  I’m talkin’ awful, as in, “What’s he doin’?”

For me, a prime example would be Eight Miles High by the Byrds.  Every time I hear it, my initial reaction is, “Sheesh!  That’s the worst good guitar solo ever.”  But by the end of the solo, I’m thinking, “I dig it.  It really fits.”  Which is the ultimate compliment for a guitar solo.

Neil Young’s also excels at being not so good in a compellingly good sort of way.  As does Robby Krieger of the Doors, Dave Davies, John Lee Hooker, and a cat named John Lennon.

It’s a taste thing, of course.  But it’s interesting how we can embrace music that falls short of our personal standard of what constitutes “good.”  One more of the many mysteries of music.

Pick Up My Guitar And Play

You could disagree with the albums, but it’s hard to debate the artists who made Guitar World’s 10 Essential Classic Rock Guitar Albums: Van Halen, Aerosmith, Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Hendrix, The Who, The Stones, The Beatles.

Personally, I would swap Are You Experienced? for Electric Ladyland and Wish You Were Here for Dark Side of the Moon, and I do not count myself among those who believe Exile On Main Street is The Stones’ masterpiece, but let’s not quibble.

Except: The Doors?  Really?  The Doors debut album is absolutely an essential part of the Classic Rock catalogue, but who considers them a guitar band?  And - with all due respect - who puts a ton of effort into learning how to play like Robby Krieger?  I didn’t even remember his name.

Not to take anything away from The Doors well-deserved legendary status, but on a list of essential guitar albums, I think we’d be better served by the likes of AC/DC, Dire Straits, Clapton or Petty.  Little bit more distinguished guitar playing came from those cats.

Music in the Cafes at Night; Revolution in the Air

Beale Street, Bleeker Street, Haight-Ashbury, Sunset Strip, Music Row and Motown.

These are the streets that changed music history, according to Rolling Stone - or is it Chrysler?  And of course, by Motown they mean West Grand Boulevard, but we’ll let that slide, shall we?

Elvis, Dylan, The Dead, The Doors, all those Motown hits, all that Country … no one’s gonna argue that some pretty important music came off these streets – and still does.

Here’s another one, though, that’s kind of a glaring omission:  Abbey Road.  A little band called The Beatles made a few hit records there, and I’m told they enjoyed a bit of influence in their day.  Oh, and The Hollies, The Shadows, Pink Floyd, Radiohead and Oasis.

Oh wait a minute!  Guess they don’t get many Dodge Challengers driving around London.

Baby Please Don’t Go

Here’s a list that reminds us there is a lot of wonderful music outside the ridiculously short playlists of commercial radio:  Gibson’s 10 Great Bands That Ended Too Soon.

Predictably (and correctly) the list includes the likes of Nirvana, The Doors and The Clash, but it also includes bands that are all but forgotten, such as Alice Cooper, New York Dolls, J. Geils and The Faces.  These bands don’t get near enough airplay.

My only complaint is: what about Cream?  Talk about a great band that didn’t last long enough!  If Clapton had died in a plane crash the night before their final U.S.  concert in 1968, we’d still be weeping.

Nice to see The Beatles on the list, though.  Even though their body of work dwarfs everyone else mentioned, nothing wrong with some self-indulgent, “ya, but they could have given us so much more” thinking.  It’s only love.

Hoochie Coochie Man

Q: What do Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Cream, Led Zeppelin, The Doors, Steppenwolf, the Allman Brothers, Otis Rush, Gary Moore, Koko Taylor, Canned Heat, the Stones, Steve Miller, the Animals, Tom Petty, Sam Cooke, Little Walter, Bo Diddley, Elvis, and the Everly Brothers all have in common?

A: Willie Dixon.  They all recorded Willie Dixon songs, per Gibson’s 10 Great Willie Dixon Songs.

Oh, and Paul Butterfield, Savoy Brown, Ten Years After, Etta James, the Pointer Sisters, Jeff Beck, James Cotton, Hendrix, Megadeth and the White Stripes.

That’s quite a list.  A hall of fame, who’s-who, Desert Island, best-ever-playlist kind of list.

You can make your case for Robert Johnson, or Muddy or B.B. as the most influential blues musician of all time, but when it comes to blues songwriting, no one else comes close.  It’s Willie Dixon that make the world wanna know what this all about.

Eruptions

So Rolling Stone has its own list of 100 Greatest Debut Albums, proving once again that there is less room for controversy in a shorter list.  Here’s their top 10:

Beastie Boys – Licensed to Kill

The Ramones

Jimi Hendrix – Are You Experienced?

GNR – Appetite for Destruction

The Velvet Underground – and Nico

N.W.A. – Straight Outta Compton

Sex Pistols – Never Mind the Bolllocks

The Strokes – Is This It

The Band – Music From Big Pink

Patti Smith - Horses

A 40% overlap, but the gap is actually bigger than that.  Led Zeppelin I, for example, comes in at #72 on the RS list, despite the fact that they turned the world upside down, and as RS itself admits “the template was here.”

Just a little confused by RS’s logic.  They claim it’s about debuts “that gave you the thrill of an act arriving fully-formed, ready to reinvent the world in its own image.”  But they also said they deducted points if an act went on to far greater achievements.  OK.  No argument that Zep had many great albums after, but Zep I is arguably their best.  The impact was immediate, the excitement off the scale.  They certainly were “fully-formed.”

Similar gap with The Doors, by the way.

Scanning the longer list, one thing that strikes me is the number of times you could say, “they could have stopped there.”  This is acknowledged in a quote from Elliot Easton saying The Cars’ first album could have been called The Cars Greatest Hits.  You could say the same for The Band, Boston, Oasis, or even Hendrix.  They all went on to make some great music, but did they ever really match that first effort?

The impetus for both Gibson’s and Rolling Stone’s lists was the 50^th anniversary of Please Please Me by The Beatles.  In this case, you gotta wonder if the album is on the list because subsequent masterpieces dictate the debut had to be included.  OK, forget I said that.  But it could be true for Pink Floyd. 

Lovely Debutantes

Gibson’s list of 10 Great Debut Rock Albums makes the point that most bands need two or three records under their belt before the masterpieces show up, then provides a list of exceptions, which are:

Guns N’ Roses – Appetite for Destruction

Black Sabbath – Black Sabbath

Hendrix – Are You Experienced?

Oasis – Definitely Maybe

The Doors – The Doors

The Sex Pistols – Never Mind The Bollocks

The Velvet Underground - … and Nico

The Clash – The Clash

The Beatles – Please Please Me

Led Zeppelin – I (as in the Roman numeral)

Oh, did the Sex Pistols actually make more than one album?

Gibson’s introductory argument stands up.  Most of these bands went on to create more enduring, influential records (incontestable in the case of The Beatles, arguable in the case of Hendrix, irrelevant in the case of Sabbath), but these albums definitely made their mark.

I remember how people went nuts over Led Zeppelin and Hendrix.  Based on the strength of those reactions, I would have included the debut albums from:  The Band, Chicago, The Police, Elvis Costello, Tom Petty, and The Cars.  Everyone seemed to notice.  Your own list will no doubt differ.  You know, depending on your appetite, or experience.  Definitely, maybe.   Never mind; you don’t have to please me.

Rules Are Meant To Be Broken

The formula for a hit song is simple: intro, verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, verse, chorus, chorus again, out.

Other than songs based on 12 bar blues, the above pattern is ubiquitous, predictable, universal.  One of these formulas applies to all your favourite songs.

That is, until you get closer.  Then you notice The Beatles starting a song with the chorus (Nowhere Man), or stretching a 12 bar blues pattern into 14 bars (Revolution).  Or The Animals using two different turnarounds on a 12 bar pattern (See See Rider), or The Doors going verse-verse fragment-chorus-bridge-verse fragmant-chorus-verse (Love Her Madly).  Or ZZ Top refusing to be consistent in how many times they play the intro/hook in between verses (Sharp Dressed Man), an attitude employed by The Stones on Brown Sugar.

Maybe these dudes didn’t know the rules they were breaking.  Maybe they didn’t care.  Or maybe, the rules aren’t creative straight jackets at all.  Maybe they are ignition switches.

A Decade In The Life

Here's an interesting list: the Rolling Stone Top Ten Songs Of The Sixties

Good list, and I guess all pretty much predictable. You quickly see that we have the usual, expected suspects, and they each get one tune (except The Beatles and Stones, who get two, and that's fair).

Here's the list:
1. Like A Rolling Stone - Dylan
2. A Day In The Life - The Beatles
3. Satisfaction - Stones
4. Gimme Shelter - Stones
5. My Generation -The Who
6. Light My Fire - The Doors
7. Hey Jude - The Beatles
8. Whole Lotta Love - Zeppelin
9. All Along The Watchtower - Hendrix
10. God Only Knows - Beach Boys

No point in debating relative placement. They are all wonderful songs (except God Only Knows, and, and, well only He does).

You could have pretty much guaranteed which groups would have been represented. What's interesting is which songs got selected. Satisfaction? Watchtower? Whole Lotta Love? Zero surprise factor.

Gimme Shelter? Nice, especially since it came so late. But it certainly captured the downer mood that undid the Woodstock high and kicked us into the 70's.

My Generation? Classic Rock radio revisionism. No one listened to this song when it first came out. OK, they did, and it was respected, but it wasn't as big or influential at the time as I Can See For Miles or Pinball Wizard.

Hey Jude? Sure. #1 for a zillion weeks. A Day In The Life? Nice. Trippy. Best representation of The Fab at their psychedelic best. But She Loves You started everything. And tunes like Day Tripper summed up what set them apart from everyone, why everything else was second best.

Like A Rolling Stone? If you asked me to pick one song that best represented the 60's I might just pick this one. But it feels like more revisionism to me. Ya, there's the legendary booing at Newport and all that, but it didn't get played much (at least initially). Sure, it marked Dylan's transition from folk to rock, but in the end it feels arbitrary. Blowing In The Wind or The Times They Are A Changing are better representations of what was happening at the time.

So, the thing is this was a reader's poll. And it's the voice of the people and the people are never wrong. The real thing is, how much have we all been manipulated by what we constantly hear, by what we're told to remember?

If you had done a poll on January 1, 1970, you probably would have got the same artists. Not sure you would have got the same songs.

Dazed and Confused

Back on the lists. This one is The Rolling Stone Best Lead Singers Of All Time list - and it's wrong.

I mean, it's good and has most of the names I expected to find, but it's not right.

BTW, there was a previous list published by RS. That one was created by "experts." This one is a reader's poll thing.

Here's the list:
1. Robert Plant. Look. Zeppelin was great. He was fantastic. But best ever?
2. Freddie Mercury. Stronger case. Amazing singer. So powerful on stage.
3. Bono. Ditto, but not quite top 5 in my book.
4. Mick Jagger. The older I get (he gets?) the more I respect him. Definitely Top 10.
5. Jim Morrison. Aw, I dunno. Decent voice, powerful persona. Just wasn't really ever a fan.
6. Roger Daltrey. I'm an on-again-off-again Who fan. Sorry, but one scream does not a singer make.
7. Eddie Vedder. Well, the last two decades have been a bit of a wasteland, so sure.
8. John Lennon. Number 1. Hands down. Versatile, energetic, passionate, haunting, perfect.
9. Chris Cornell. Not a big Soundgarden fan so can't really comment.
10. Kurt Cobain. See Eddie Vedder. Personally, I would have Liam Gallagher as a "recent" pick.

Where in hell is Paul McCartney? Where's Elvis? Aretha? Sam Cooke?

Methinks this list is child of the corporate Classic Rock playlist.

Songs For My Generation

I can't get away from these lists. I'm trying. Honest.

Here's the Rolling Stones Top 10 Songs Of The Sixties list:

1) Dylan - Like A Rolling Stone. Of course.
2) Beatles - A Day In The Life. Interesting choice, but iconic, certainly. Trippy. Progressive.
3) Stones - Satisfaction. Would have expected top 3 for sure.
4) Stones - Gimme Shelter. For me it resonates more. Talks more to the turbulent times.
5) The Who - My Generation. You do expect it, but I really don't remember it being big back then.
6) Doors - Light My Fire. Expected. It was beyond huge, however worn out it is now.
7) Beatles - Hey Jude. Expected. Impressive on so many levels, but never near their best song.
8) Led Zeppelin - Whole Lotta Love. Yes. It was so big, so overpowering, so dominant. Occasionally I still remember how exciting it was before it became a cliché.
9) Hendrix - All Along The Watchtower. Still freakin' amazing.
10) Beach Boys - God Only Knows. Sigh.

I guess something had to slip in to this otherwise rock solid list. Some of the list is revisionary for sure - how we've decided to remember The Sixties as opposed to how we experienced them. But you know, it's not easy to see through the Purple Haze of time.

Run For Cover

There are two basic approaches to doing a cover song:  you can try to be true to the original, paying homage to it by trying to replicate it.  The Beatles were masters at that, because - even though they went virtually note for note when they covered Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry or Carl Perkins - they still sounded like the Beatles.

A second strategy is to come up with a brand new interpretation, to take the song and re-invent it, to capture the magic of the old song yet make it fresh at the same time.  Not an easy thing to do, which is one of the reasons I admire Eric Clapton.  He is a master at re-interpreting other people's songs (OK, except maybe for I Shot the Sheriff).

In both cases you're trying to improve over the original (respectfully of course).  If that's not the goal, or if the song can't be improved (because it's already perfect), then what's the point?

Which brings us to Guitar Heaven, Sanata's recent recording.  Unfortunately, Carlos doesn't seem to be following either strategy.  Except maybe for While My Guitar Gently Weeps, he doesn't really seem to be trying anything particularly new (no, not even the rap vocals on Back In Black).  But he's not trying too hard to stick with the original either.

So, you recognize the songs, and you recognize Santana's guitar playing, but in the end it comes off like Carlos is just jamming along to songs he likes, and we all like.  But has he improved any of them?

Sorry, Carlos, but nope.

By the way, since when was Riders On The Storm a guitar song?

Take Another Little Piece of My Heart

Last week I saw a show billed as "Woodstock Festival Tribute."

The featured tribute artists were Melanie, Santana, CCR, Janis Joplin, Joe Cocker, CSNY, and Jimi Hendrix.  Also on the bill were The Doors and Jethro Tull.  Curious, really, since these two acts were not at Woodstock.

As it turned out it didn't really matter.  CSNY only did Neil Young solo songs - all from after August, 1969.  Tull and Santana also featured songs that couldn't have been performed at Woodstock.

But we live in an age when minor details and facts don't seem to matter.

Bending the truth a little might have been a smaller offence if the show had been good, but it was just OK.  Some good, some more bad.  When you find yourself thinking, sheesh, even the wig is bad, then you know it's pretty bad.

At least they didn't try and re-create the festival itself.  You know, warnings about bad acid and would you “please get down off the towers.”

I guess I made this point before, but: cover bands yes, tribute acts, I dunno.  Actually I do; no thanks.  I get manipulated enough as I go through life without paying for it.  Unless the act is mind-blowingly accurate, it's not entertainment, it’s just creepy.