Guitar Roots

This entry is an attempt to share my earliest musical experiences, and recollections of  my choice of landmark  guitar music.

Some of this music  has somehow not only become embedded in my life and language, but has stayed with me for over forty years, without shedding any of the fire or beauty that flew out of the mono grooves of my old vinyl record collection. But this is an ongoing affair, seemingly without end, and with tendrils galore, taking me beyond my blues roots. I write as a fan, not as a musician, and I delight in the fact that there is great  music to be discovered every day. New music and music from long ago.

I can clearly remember  a day in 1968  when my friend Al came round to our house, with a copy of the just released Jethro Tull LP This Was, tucked under his arm.  It  included a version of the 1961 Dr Ross blues; Cat’s Squirrel. The same number was also featured on the first album by Cream released in 1966. This was indeed for me.

However, the standout track, of course, was Song for Jeffrey. I had never heard anything that sounded like it. On this album, the riffs and the tone of Mick Abraham’s guitar were what really grabbed me by the lapels.  I have to admit that, as a schoolboy, surrounded by government-issue grey people, the look  of the band on the sleeve ( looking nicely weird) also had an impact on me. That album signalled for me, that something more important than pop music was rearing its unwashed head.

Earlier that year, before I owned a record player, the same friend had bought  Boogie With Canned Heat, which launched the unlikely hit single On the Road Again . I went to his house, and heard the rest of the album for the first time. At this point, I was listening to John Lee Hooker, John Mayall, Fleetwood Mac, Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters and Elmore James whenever I could. Nothing prepared me for the sound of  World in a Jug. I think I made Al play it around ten times before I walked home in a slight daze, feeling that something new had entered my life. This was the blues and rock alright, but with  toxic ingredients added to the brew. Noise. Distortion. Attitude. Volume. I was hooked.

At a weekly disco, there was a blues segue, to allow the dancing people - who  moved and grooved to Motown, Stax and R & B classics, to take a break. I took in Savoy Brown’s Walkin’ by Myself and the odd track from the Mayall “Beano” album along with Elmore, Fleetwood Mac and Mr Hooker and Mr Harpo.The first time I heard anything through headphones was in that hallowed – and now demolished -  hall. The guy at the decks  let me hear Hendrix through his headphones, with panning, and in  glorious stereo. This was a big leap towards what was to become the norm.

Around this time, I discovered what a riff was. I liked guitar riffs. I still like guitar riffs. The first album I bought was Crusade by John Mayall, with the young Mick Taylor on guitar. Checking on my Woman blew me away. We saw the band live in 1968 at Birmingham Town Hall, and that Albert King riff still hits the spot today. John Mayall  was my main blues man for many years, and is rightly credited with academy status.

Other injections were the first two Fleetwood Mac LPs. I heard tracks from the first album all the time, and became familiar with the Elmore James school of bottleneck playing because of it. Money being tight, I actually paid one third of the cost of  Mr Wondeerful – the second Fleetwood Mac album, with Al and his sister as my  partners. I took that album everywhere. It was even mounted on the wall of the school youth club disco every week.

 My first serious wooing was conducted to that record. It spun round every Saturday night on my girlfriend’s parents’ radiogram. For me, the warm Peter Green sound of Love That Burns, sat comfortably with the Jeremy Spencer/Elmore James material. I could not wait for Love That Burns to end actually, but enjoyed her enjoyment of it. My investment was possibly the best I have ever made.

At a local church hall (in Quinton) I saw a guy actually playing  guitar with a slide for the first time. The band were called Slamhammer. I was mesmerised. My mystified girlfriend was not. Sometimes at gigs, all these years later, I am still as much in awe as on that schoolboy night in  The Black Country. I met that guitarist on a train one day much later, when we were both in our day-job suits, and he seemed to be very happy that I had remembered his playing on that night.

At this time, the Blue Horizon label was pretty effective at promoting  blues music to the masses. Not only were Fleetwood Mac popular, but they were educating us about the roots of their music. It was noted that BB King was the influence for the sublime Peter Green tone and solos, and that Elmore James’ Dust My Broom was the bedrock for the Jeremy Spencer repertoire. Stan Webb and Chicken Shack did their bit too, and with humour as well as blues panache. Mayall educated us about the Chicago guys. Twelve bar blues with guitar solos were cool for a few years, and were solid grounding for the musical experiences to come. Like seeing Bukka White. Like seeing Jeff Beck. Like seeing Buddy Guy and Eric Clapton. Shit ~ I never saw Hendrix. I saw Roy Buchanan, John Fahey  and John Martyn though!

Born under a bad sign maybe, but  at a good time for real music, with longevity. Longevity.

Blues Power

Last night, I enjoyed an evening of great, and honest, live music, at a jam night, managed by guitar wizard Gwyn Ashton. The venue was Ye Olde Foundry in Dudley, here in the West Midlands.

I had a chance to play plenty of blues harp with great musicians, and enjoy the playing of several great guitarists, who blew everyone away without showing off - or breaking sweat. Here is a shot I took of Gwyn playing bass with Daniel Seth, who is a great all - round singer and guitarist. However, he really can sing and play blues. Sometimes with a twist. Last night he segued B.B.'s "The Thrill is Gone" with " Another Brick in the Wall". 

click here

The blues structure allows people to play music together without team building courses. Or even speaking to each other sometimes! The opening guitar riff/chord and a nod of the head for a solo works every time. When jamming, the endings are usually the rough end of the pineapple. The icing on the blues cake however, is that familiarity with the songs or the structure, enables soloists to fly. In my case, sometimes too near to the sun, but travel broadens the mind and is good for the soul.

click here

Of course, not all good open mic. or jam night music has to be blues, but it sure as hell is a great way to enable people to gel. I urge everyone to abandon the processed shite that we are being spoon-fed, and go out to see live music. Appearing now at a pub near you......

Blues jam. Try it as one of your five a day. 

Bath Blues festival 1969 remembered. A little.

'twas in another lifetime - as Dylan said, that my friend Steve and I, hitched several lifts from the West Midlands to Bath, for the one day 1969 Blues Festival,which was held in the showground.

We were in our last year at school, and this was to be an adventure. No tent. No intent, other than youthful what-the-hell. We slept in a field, under a shared overcoat on the ground en-route, and again on the return journey.

I made eye contact with a local girl, on the bus to the showground, and later met up with her at the festival. I remember that we gave her £1 to get sandwiches and cider from the town, as there was no beer for sale at the festival. I can't remember what was on sale there. Not much compared to today's events I'm sure. Letters were exchnged after the festival, but of course we never met again. I still have the letters!

It is extraordinary to think of the bands who were on the two small stages that day. Suck on this ~ Colosseum,Ten Years After,Taste,Chicken Shack, Blodwyn Pig, John Mayall, Led Zeppelin,Fleetwood Mac and The Nice. And more.

Zeppelin were on stage mid-afternoon as they were a new act, with Fleetwood Mac closing. I remember Shake Your Moneymaker as the defining moment of the day. John Peel was the compere by-the-way.

The origins of a lot of things I am still driven and excited by, can be traced to that one day (June 28th 1969). I doubt if anyone who was there that day, thought that this would have lasting resonance. However, that day and the much bigger festival at nearby Shepton Mallet the following year, which we also hitched to, germinated the Glastonbury Festivals. A lot of people have posted comments online about the two Bath festivals. Clearly, I am not alone in marking them as important events in the popular cultural history of the U.K. or in the popular personal history of growing into who we are now.

Of course what is missing (other than my girlfriend for a day's letters - which I have exclusive worldwide access too, when I climb into  my rock and roll loft) is documentation. In 2011, any event - electrifying or deadly dull, is on facebook and youtube within minutes, but in 1969 and 1970 we did not consider posterity,or the possibility that these events would mark a boundary and a new hope for young people and music.

There are not many images circulating fom the 1969 festival, but what is available to us, shows that we did not look like the guys grooving in San Francisco. First attempts at looking cool. A similar event now would show teenagers looking currently cool, alongside middle-aged blokes wearing larger sized versions of the clothes they wore at the 1969 Bath Blues Festival.

Oh ~ and everyone sat down on the ground to listen to the bands. No flags blocking yer view of the stage. Let alone blogging yer view.

Talking About My Generation and the Slim Gaillard/Dylan Longevity Blues

At the time of writing, there is a lot of attention being paid online and in the printed media, to the ebb and flow in status of celebrities (who are accredited with few meaningful achievements themselves) regarding their skill at judging amateur musical acts and dancing dogs. Here are a few thoughts about talented musicians and longevity.

A few weeks ago, a friend told me that he was re-reading On the Road by Jack Kerouac. We both read it in 1970 while hitch-hiking in Europe, and earnestly training to be hippies. He mentioned the reference to Slim Gaillard in the book. 

My old man was a fan of Slim Gaillard (and the equally entertaining wordsmith and rock and roll routemaster, Louis Jordan) and would often burst into a refrain from "Cement Mixer,Putti Putti" or "Flat Foot Floogie With a Floy-Floy". Gaillard invented a cool language called Vout, or Voutie. I discovered last year, that Sarah (my eldest daughter) remembers her Grandad singing these songs, but assumed that he made up the crazy lyrics himself. So she has clearly not heard the songs elsewhere.

As a pianist, singer and guitarist, Gaillard had several hits in the 1930's, and a big hit in the USA in 1946, with a song called Dunkin' Bagel. In some ways his songs were a precursor to rap, and he utilised gimmicks to entertain his audience. He could play piano with the back of his hands or - with fruit, Yes -fruit. Fruit.

His daughter married Marvin Gaye, and he can apparently be heard on hand claps, on a track on the album Sexual Healing. Slim migrated to England, and continued to play music until his death in 1991. You can see some wonderful online footage of him,including a number with Jools holland, and the awesome Omar Hakim (ex-Weather Report) on drums. 

My point? Slim Gaillard enjoyed a career spanning almost sixty years. Will it be possible for musicians to have such longevity in future? I doubt it. Living in the here and now is fine and dandy, but looking in the rear view mirror can often pay a rewarding bonus. The musicians with something new to say who are popular now, all show signs of having listened well.

May 2011 was the one hundredth anniversary of the birth of Robert Johnson, who died in 1938. He died aged 27, leaving only material from two recording sessions, but bequething a great slab of the bedrock of blues and rock music. Longevity.

Bob Dylan clocked up seventy years on our planet in May this year. It is incredible to think that he turned the popular music world upside-down in 1965 at Newport. Recently, I watched a concert from 1985, and it is as powerful and urgent as the stuff from the sixties - and this was not considered to be his hot period. I imagine that he still writes and plays music as part of his five a day. Even now, he nods to Blind Lemon, Blind Willie, Leadbelly and Mr. Guthrie. Longevity for them all.

I recently watched two TV programmes - which I rate as promotional films, about the actor Hugh Laurie, making a blues album. He is now an international TV star, and gauged by the programmes I watched, he has a genuine love of the blues. My gripe, is that the programmes did not introduce newcomers to the music of Dr. John or Professor Longhair, or the generic music of New Orleans. Nor did it satisfy confirmed blues lovers, by showing classic footage or recent performances by New Orleans musicians. In sixty years time Hugh Laurie will not be seen as an innovator. He could have done something more enlightening with his time, other than to satisfy his blues lust. Jools Holland acknowledges the past masters of his chosen idiom, as does the excellent Ben Waters. Then they take it forward..... 

During the 1960's blues boom in England, we heard John Mayall, Fleetwood Mac, Cream, Savoy Brown, Chicken Shack and others, playing their versions of American blues. I for one, sought out the source of their material, and still do. One of my favourite clips on youtube - Son House playing his song Death Letter, has one million less hits than the version by The White Stripes. It is amazing that  we can watch Son House on our computers, when I never saw him on TV when he was alive. I know that Jack White is a fan of Son House (see the film It Might Get Loud)  but will he have a sixty year career? I hope sob if that is what he wants, because I like his music. Will he ever invent a cool language, and play guitar / drums with fruit? Fruit.

I have gone on for too long. Don't Look Back. I did, and look where it got me to: A state of fruity voutie longevity. Who wants that? Maybe, my generation?

Captain Beefheart. The Dust Blows Back.

I heard the news today oh boy. The Captain passed away on Friday, aged 69.

I usually feel like I am pissing in the wind, when I try to convince people that he was one of the most important musicians to grace the contemporary music scene since the 1950's. It is good, and reassuring therefore, to see that tonight when I spent an hour seaching the net, to see tributes galore. Also to see that the press belatedly admit his influence on disparate musicians across the globe and the years.

I have no idea what I did last Wednesday, but I recall with clarity hearing the man/ magic band for the first time, on my Stella radio, courtesy of his UK envoy John Peel on his Sunday radio show. The track was Sure 'Nuff & Yes I Do from the album Safe as Milk. It tapped into my recently realised fascination with blues ~ particularly the stuff featuring harmonica and slide guitar. The cement hardened a week later, when Peel played Electricity, which I remember hearing on the same radio, sat in a field somewhere here in the Black Country. Clent? That track connected with the underground stuff we were also listening to. Possibly even more than hearing Sonny Terry, he made me want to play blues harp when I was about sixteen. We are back in 1967/8 now. I have had a bash at playing drums in recent years with limited success - and it is obvious that the drummer John "Drumbo" French laid down my patterns.

" Beefheart Through the Eyes of Magic". I had returned to  reading this this week ironically enough, having set it aside to read the Keef biog. Another great ~ really great, read is " Lunar Notes" by Bill Harkelroad who was Zoot Horn Rollo in one of the best manifestations of The Magic Band. His stuff on Clear Spot is just ace.

Beefheart was - according to the written accounts, something of a bully, but what he managed to create by telling the musicians what he wanted was extraordinary. Via numerous line-ups he managed to fuse blues, poetry and jazz. I also think he was funny. A factor missing from a lot of accounts. Peel related that when he drove the Captain to Kidderminster for a gig (now commemerated by a blue plaque: see John Combe's excellent book http://www.kidderocks.com/) the Captain said that he needed to stop to talk to a tree and  it is uncertain whether this was true ~ or more likely that he needed a piss. Also saying that he asked for dressing rooms to be cleared so that he could levitate. Priceless.

Trout Mask Replica is always quoted as the masterpiece. It is , but to a lot of people it is difficult listening. It should be heard with the story of it's making in mind. However with a rock /blues brain in-gear, buy Clear Spot ( which may be available still with The Spotlight Kid) if you don't know the man's music.  Click Clack is the pre-set sound in my head. Here is a live version.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2ZMOKLsiuY

I only saw him once. Birmingham Town Hall.With the band on this video. The sound was awful!. I dragged along some non-believers, and was given a lot of grief later.

I think that if there was a way of monitoring the number of times tracks were played at home, then my running order would put Big Eyed Beans From Venus, Click Clack, Bat Chain Puller  ~ oh shit and the rest, at the top of my heap. Don's Howling Wolf voice has only been matched (?) by Tom Waits who has been heavily influenced by both, and by Ian Siegal ~ I think.

I am so glad  that he and the musicians he played with hit that long lunar note, and let it float. Maybe the dust blows forward as well.

Thanks for the mark you left Don.

Doors Closing. Mind the Gap

With wife and eldest offspring gone orf to see a friend performing in a local production of Carwash tonight, I was left to my own diabolical devices. Rejecting the obvious allure of the X Factor on TV, I cooked a steak, and settled down with a bottle of wine, to watch the dvd of " When You're Strange" the  doc. film about The Doors with narration by Mr. Depp. This was a self-chosen birthday present.

Other than some misleading film footage, which purports to show J.M. driving in the desert (actually a look-alike) it is a decent overview of The Doors and their brief life as a band but with a Jim bias.

When I read in reviews, that the surviving members of the band approved of the film as an honest portrayal of the band - and in particular of Jim Morrison, and that they were not involved in the production, and were not interviewed for the film, I counted myself in for the ride.

Somehow the film left me just feeling sad. The previously well documented decline of Jim (due to the pull of " Jimbo" according to Manzarek) was the focus, made difficult to take at face value, by the use of shots of Morrison in various stages of off planet mind trips, but often slowed down, and with no continuity of hair length or biblical beard / no beard. They seemed to be random, eyes half closed photographs in non-linear sequence. Stoned immaculate?

The first and last album were both recorded in about a week, and some of the material was written in the studio at both sessions, which I think illustrates something greater than the simple idea that J.M. was just wasted all of the time.

He was however, wasted a lot of the time.

The film does manage to portray the period when The Doors were active in a way which should make young folk sit up and take notice. 100 police at a Doors gig! Many of them on stage! Jim(bo) was arrested on stage and sentenced for a second offence. rack(sic) and role. I think the doors opened around that time, before the end. Groan. Jim sould be alive now, and be creating music with a blend as Plant has done recently.

One of my points, is that it is easy to see how directors & producers work backwards to produce the story they can sell, to get the funding for a film. A celebration of The Doors can't be done without Jim's story, but the film only mentions the nights he crashed, whilst listing how many dates they performed. LOTS.

I lay under my tenage bed-covers listening to Radio Luxembourg the night Jim Morrison died. They played the Doors for hours. L.A Woman is part of my mythology, and Riders on the Storm is a deserted island risk.

Music to my ears, or how I learned to love the cassette as an emblem of...

There is a goodly chance that I will use this outlet to rant about music, and take - up where I left off some years ago, in telling chums about recently acquired albums and gigs. Years ago, I would make a list within a letter, boring innocent people shitless, and thus earning my place in anorak corner for posterity, or until they threw the purple piece of paper daubed with green ink in the bin. I / we progressed to posting cassettes. This enabled tracks to be passed on. " Home recording is killing music" was a campaign by the record companies. Bollocks. Without it, I would not have a collection of jazz cd's, and would not have seen Miles et al.

Sorting my remaining 200 or so cassettes (having carried out a preliminary cull last year) has caused me to re-discover some gems which I have bought on cd for the first time. Others are either going to landfill, or being dumped onto cd, which brings them back to life in a surprisingly good way.

Last week on a car journey, I happily listened to a cd, taken from a best of jazz-rock cassette, compiled from various vinyl albums over ten years ago. I am sure that I had not played the tape for years. Suddenly The Crusaders, Morrisey Mullen & Nucleus etc were brought back into my life. Gary Boyle anyone? I had forgotten him. So: Vinyl to cassette, and then casette to cd. Recycling. 

Now the rant part of the post. We are encouraged to dump outmoded stuff all the time. I am sure that we are not alone in still using video tape sometimes, even though we have a dvd player, plus the video player/cd recorder. Ok I hear you. I am alone on this one. Shut up Chris!

Some of the old formats still work well. I replaced my fifteen year old stereo amp last week. Of course, it has inputs for a turntable. If we had believed the experts, nobody would be playing LP's in 2010 but they are. A lot.

Earlier in the summer/ characterless season which has, according to the calendar, just passed,  I invested in an Apple ipod. When playing on shuffle, it has been a revelation. I have only loaded rock, pop, classic songwriters and bands, with a small amount of blues and jazz onto it, and that is what I intend to stick with.

The shuffle throws up some real goodies. Tonight while typing this, it threw Jimi, Robin Trower and Stevie Ray in sequence. What are the odds? My ipod and me are going to elope, and make a little family of cadmium batteries and live a blissful life in the woods, where nobody can be cruel to us, mocking her cruel domineering corporate Apple ways.                    And relax. 

The interesting outcome of buying the beguilling little minx, is that I realised that I do not actually play the albums which I think of as my favourites, as often as I think I do. The reason? They all have stinker tracks on them! Bung them onto any player/ compilation minus the stinkers, and everythng changes. Your own radio station is the answer. Two good examples are After the Goldrush and Axis Bold as Love. My edit rules.

The other attraction of the ipod, is that part of the reason for my love of the 12 inch LP, was that twenty/five minutes of one artist or style was - I have always thought, ideal. Over seventy minutes is pushing it. Even I turn off.

A final thought for tonight. I don't know if I am alone in being pissed off about music which I love, being used in television adverts. Sarah had to put a cushion over my face regularly, to stop the expletives flying a couple of years ago, when Goin' up the Country by Canned Heat was used in a butter advert. Dark Side of the Moon was sullied, when I stopped for a piss at a services on the M5 to hear "Breathe" coming over the system in the WH Smiths.aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrgggghhhhhh!

A couple of my unused photographs there, from the Tony Gillam "Untangle the Strings" cd  photo session.

http://www.bizibmusic.com/3.html

See also:

http://passengersintime.blogspot.com/

You can also follow his brother if you are unemployed/on drugs/sad/want something good to read/are fixated by the name Gillam. I met someone who was!!