By the late 1970s, rock music was in the doldrums, the pits. Almost everything seemed to be corporate-marketing-department-formula-driven-pre-packaged-garbage, and much of it sounded the same. There was so much over-produced audio drek, I started going retro. Then this song hit me, and I liked the vibe.
Have a great weekend, folks. Be back here tomorrow for more stuff.
P.S. We filed a complaint with the WordPress peeps about auto-play advertisements and got a positive response. They asked for a screencap of the offending ad, so I sent one. Let’s see what they do with it.
“I’m just an entertainer, and I use music as a medium for entertaining. But I’m not really an entertainer either, because to be an entertainer it implies you have a great desire to want to entertain.”
Leon Redbone
Leon Redbone‘s take on Lonnie Johnson’s “Mr. Jelly Roll Baker” in 2009. (BTW, “jelly roll” was slang for something other than a pastry.)
On growing up in New Orleans Parish: “There was music all around us, and in my family you’d better play something, even if you just banged on a tin can.”
Lonnie Johnson
Lonnie Johnson created the single-note guitar solo in the 1920s, and decades passed before the guitar was regarded as more than a background rhythm instrument. I don’t know who’s on drums or piano, but that’s Willie Dixon on bass, and the vid is likely from the mid to late 1960s.
My first impression of “ethnomusicologist” Bob Brozman was that he’s a pretentious jerk. On the other hand, he’s crammed some great country/Delta blues licks into his American Steel.
Let’s wrap this baboso up with two of the greatest modern day slide guitar players, on stage together in Austin: Bonnie Raitt & Roy Rogers jamming “Gnawin’ On It.”
Bill Plympton is one of the last of the great hand-drawn animators. Amazing stuff, his.
I know this is early, but when I saw the post at Weasel Zippers about Holdren telling the FCC to force broadcasters to air “population control” messages, I thought of Chairman Mao.
Which naturally made me think of this: A version I’ve never heard–no Lowell George, but another very good (recently) dead guitar player.
Tip o’ the tarboosh to cbullit of Soylent Green for that link and comment.
Before we get to our main feature, I found this at the last minute. For those of you that think the “Summer of Love” was all hippies and beads and tie-dye and bell bottoms and pot, check this out: IT’S 1967 AND PITTSBURGH ROCKS!
(Note that the Dickies covered “Nobody Like Me” in 1983, George Thorogoodcovered it in 1982, which had been covered by the Human Beinz in 1967, originally recorded in 1962 by the Isley Brothers. As if you didn’t know.)
Ry Cooder is considered the greatest slide guitarist of the last 30 years. Here’s his version of “Jesus on the Mainline.”
The great Bonnie Raitt (also considered the greatest slide guitarist of the last 30 years) sleazes it up with the great John Lee Hooker (considered to be the greatest slide guitarist of the last 1,000 years) on “I’m in the Mood.”
Nice slide from Rory Block with her cover of Robert Johnson‘s “Terraplane Blues.”
Hannes Coetzee: No bottleneck git-fiddle here, just a soup spoon. [If it doesn’t play, try here.]
Who doesn’t like the B-52s, especially a catchy song with no rhymes at all? [Found here with lyrics.]
Tacky Raccoons 