Category: Saturday Matinee

Saturday Matinee – Buddy Merrill, Neil LeVang, Tommy Emmanuel with Billy Strings, & Molly Tuttle

Buddy Merrill played for Lawrence Welk‘s Champagne Music Makers for twenty years before he decided he didn’t like playing on camera.

You might not know his name, but you’ve heard his work.
Neil LeVang was one of the greatest studio guitar players of all time, played on many TV shows and movie soundtracks. Lawrence Welk hired him when Buddy Merrill was drafted.

Tommy Emmanuel & Billy Strings do things with guitars that just aren’t supposed to be done [via].

One more. Molly Tuttle has the perfect voice and style for this John Hartford cover. If that ain’t morning roadtrip music, nothing is.

Have a great weekend, watch out for the guys in black, and we’ll see you back here tomorrow for stuff.

Saturday Matinee – Lou Reed, Tom Waits & Popa Chubby

Lou Reed had an incredible a vocal range. In 2015, as he was about to be (posthumously) inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, his sister wrote about their early years in A Family In Peril.

Tom Waits‘ “Telephone call from Istanbul” from the movie Big Time. The missus-to-be and I saw it at the Nuart in L.A., and I remember it being damn surreal.

Popa Chubby (aka Theodore Joseph “Ted” Horowitz) cranks out Hambone Willie Newbern‘s “Roll and Tumble Blues” (1929).

Have great weekend, folks, and be sure to wear a mask and maintain proper social distance if you decide to go looting and burning businesses in your neighborhood. See you back here tomorrow.

Saturday Matinee – Chet Atkins w/ Jerry Reed, Creedence, and Les Paul w/ Dickey Betts

Last week I erroneously (and embarrassingly) confused Nena Kerner with Nina Hagen. I lost a lot of karma for that blowzit, so I’ll try to make up for it.

Chet Atkins & Jerry Reed play Bob Dylan. Not sure of date / place.
(Long intro, jump to 02:00.)

Creedence Clearwater Revival, 1970 Oakland California.

Video caption: The audio track is from the CD commemorating the concert and while I had to make some adjustments in speed to match the video, it sounds a hell of a lot better.

Les Paul with Dickey Betts on a Les Paul from 2001.
(Jump to 02:00 to bypass banter.)

Hope that absolves me somewhat. Have a great weekend, folks, and take a moment to remember what Memorial Day is all about.

Saturday Matinee – Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream, Trio, Nena & the Allotria Jazz Band

Kraftwerk on The Midnight Special (1975).

I didn’t realize Tangerine Dream was German – but I should have. We’d listen to this while pulling all-nighters at Biteme U.

Trio [via]. I remember the song, never saw the vid.

Nina Hagen in 1983. I always liked that song, but didn’t realize she was born in East Berlin. Unusual circumstances the government allowed her to leave when she was 21.

[UPDATE: Dang. I blew it. Thanks daver.

daver Says:
Monday, 18 May 2020 at 7:07 PM | Reply
Nina Hagen did not record that song, the German band Nena did, the lead singer was Nena Kerner.

Live from München, the Allotria Jazz Band plays Jelly Roll Morton.

That’s about all the German stuff I can take for now. Have a great weekend, don’t let the scolds get to you. See you back here tomorrow and stuff.

Saturday Matinee – Thee Lakesiders, Thee Sinseers, St. Paul & The Broken Bones, & Taj Mahal

Thee Lakesiders have a good East L.A. retro vibe that kinda matches my mood lately. Let’s groove it up a bit.

More East L.A. R&B, this time from Thee Sinseers.

St. Paul & The Broken Bones successfully channels the Stax Records sound, and my mood is improving a bit.

Taj Mahal takes a ride around town, pickin’ the classics, and I feel better.

<vent>Way too much stuff went down in meatworld this week, some very good, some pretty bad, and the latter was starting to get to me. Backing into a BMW SUV in a hospital parking lot didn’t help either – just one more damn thing to accept and deal with. Yeah, the Lord’s testing me…</vent>

Ah well, have a great weekend, folks. Wear masks if you have to, don’t if you don’t. Do what you want and ignore the scolds – they’re not going to eat you (unless you let them). See you tomorrow.

Saturday Matinee – How Countries Fight Their Wars; Les Paul with Carol Kaye & Justin Johnson

Awesome [via BlenderGuru email].

Les Paul with Carol Kaye.
Don’t know who she is? You’ve heard her many times before.

Justin Johnson covers ZZ Top‘s “La Grange” with no backup.

Ah, May is here, and in a few more months we’ll be “allowed” to have some of our freedoms back. Perhaps soon we’ll find out who’s been doctoring the statistics to justify their abhorrent destruction of prosperity.

Ah well. Have a great weekend, folks, ignore the scolds and have fun anyway. That’ll really piss ’em off. 😀

Saturday Matinee – Live at Crossroads 2010: Hubert Sumlin, Jimmie Vaughn and Robert Cray; Pino Daniele, Joe Bonamassa and Robert Randolph & The Family Band; AND ZZ Top

Wow. Hubert Sumlin, Jimmie Vaughan and Robert Cray at the 2010 Crossroads Guitar Festival.

Wow again. Pino Daniele, Joe Bonamassa with Robert Randolph & The Family Band were also at the 2010 CGF.

Good God can these three put out some loud! ZZ Top at the same place, same year.

It just dawned on me that it’s been 10 years since all that awesome went down. Lotta time flies buzzing around my head these days.

Have a great weekend, folks. Do what you wanna do, go where you wanna go. Don’t worry about a thing, and always remember: it’s not the heat, it’s the humanity. See you tomorrow.

Saturday Matinee – Food Preparation Tricks, Messer Chups, The Raybeats & Dick Dale

Wish I’d known about these great shortcuts back when I was eating cold Hormel Chili out of the can. [Vid found here.]

Messer Chups cranks some electric surf, and yeah, they’re Russian.

Oleg Gitaracula (Oleg Fomchenkov) – Guitar
Zombierella (Svetlana Nagaeva) – Bass
Rockin Eugene (Evgeny Lomakin) – Drums

“While Messer Chups’ mostly instrumental sound is hard to neatly categorize, it’s safe to say that it would be embraced by fans of rockabilly, horror punk, vintage surf records, Italian slasher films, My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult, Pulp Fiction, lounge music, the theremin, The Cramps, and the theme song from The Munsters.”

That group reminded me of the Raybeats. Their album Guitar Beat is awesome. I have it on vinyl.

Listening to Dick Dale while driving results in a speeding ticket every time. (Don’t ask me how I know.)

Have a great Saturday and a peaceful Easter Sunday.

Saturday Matinee – Southside Johnny & the Asbury Jukes, Maceo Parker, & the Ghost Town Blues Band

Southside Johnny & the Asbury Jukes (in 1985) with their 1976 hit “I Don’t Wanna Go Home.” The missus walked in while I was watching the vid and said, “Okay, so who’s the pirate?” That’s Miami Steve Van Zandt, – he wrote the song. SJ & the AJ had a great retro sound that was all but missing in the mid ’70s.

Maceo Parker makes it funky at the North Sea Jazz Festival, Rotterdam 2012. The badass backup:

Corey Parker, Martha High (backing vocals);
Lee Hogans (trumpet);
Troy ‘Trombone Shorty‘ Andrews (trombone);
Bruno Speight (guitar);
Will Boulware (keys);
Rodney “Skeet” Curtis (bass);
Marcus Parker (drums).

Ghost Town Blues Band picks up the Beatles’ Come Together and throws it right into the swamp, and then it’s Norwegian Wood meets Whole Lotta Love. Kinda matches my attitude these days.

Have a great weekend, folks. Go ahead, leave your house, get some fresh air and go wherever you want while it’s still legal. See you back here tomorrow for stuff.

Saturday Matinee – Germs and You, The First Edition, Gunhild Carling & Elvin Bishop

Yankovic tweeted this out recently as a public service announcement.

The First Edition (featuring Kenny Rogers on bass & vocals) had their first big hit in 1968.

Gunhild Carling is amazing. According to Wiki, she plays trombone, bagpipes, trumpet, recorder, string instruments (such as banjo, ukulele and harp) and can also play three trumpets simultaneously.

So where do we go from here? Oh wait. I got it.

Haven’t heard that song since high school. Elvin Bishop had a few minor hits, but never got the recognition he deserved despite touring with the Allman Bros. (According to the comments on the Utoobage, I wasn’t the only one who thought the other guitar was Dickie Betts – it was Johnny ‘V’ Vernazza.)

Have a great weekend, folks. If you decide to go out, hoard me some, too.