Meanwhile, Jim Stafford is both an underrated guitarist, a talented comedian, and he had some minor hits in the 70s, and he’s still alive. Congrats.
Stafford had a number of minor hits, but I remember one in particular. I’d just lost a girlfriend, and this song seemed to make sense of it all. In retrospect it didn’t, but so what.
Dude was and is funny.
Here’s one of the prettiest songs George Harrison ever wrote and one of the most appropriate videos I’ve ever seen.
For some unknown reason that song always makes me tear up, and there’s something in that innocent video that hits my heart.
Have a great weekend, folks. See you back here tomorrow.
The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain is a group of all-singing, all-strumming Ukulele players, using instruments bought with loose change, which believes that all genres of music are available for reinterpretation, as long as they are played on the Ukulele.
Great stuff. The world is your lobster if you have a bass ukulele.
LIVE CAM: Train Engineer’s Cab View in Norway [click here for local time]. Not sure which line this is, where it’s headed, or if it’s running above the Arctic Circle. Check it out in full screen view and I’ll see you back here in a couple of days.
Someday, I suppose I’ll go to Norwegia and ride that train. Meanwhile, I’ll listen to The Mighty Mighty Bosstones from 1993.
Or maybe I’ll roll with Fishbone, one of the tightest ska/rock/funk bands I ever heard. Those guys won me over a long time ago. (Check out this 1987 live version. Sound quality sucks, but the energy is killer.)
There are a lot of Utoobage entries for Elmore James, but I couldn’t find any live video performances, so let’s go with some covers, with links to the original recordings.
Pure awesome. Girl in the stripes gets my vote [via].
“The Wrecking Crew” recorded some killer stuff, and you’ve likely never heard of them because they weren’t named “The Wrecking Crew” until 1990. Their peak years were 1962-73 when they worked with Phil Spector. They weren’t a solid unit as the musicians came and went, but the music WAS solid, no matter who was sitting in at the time.
Tommy Tedesco, one of the greatest session musicians ever, was a member of the post-defacto-named Wrecking Crew. Tedesco was one of those rare people who, if told something was a musical instrument, could play it flawlessly.
Now about “The Memphis Group.” Steve Cropper, Duck Dunn, Al Jackson & Booker Jones provided the backup for some amazing recording artists, but you already knew that.
Have a great weekend, folks and we’ll see what happens tomorrow.
I really don’t know what to make of this, but it somehow seems appropriate given the fires in California. Reminds me of early Devo vids. [h/t Bunkessa]
Justin Johnson amazes me. Plays lead, rhythm, bass and chorus at the same time on a 4-string cigar box slider. One of the commenters on the Utoobage posted “I’m convinced this guy is f***ing Buckethead,” and others agreed, so let’s roll with that.
“I was eating it, and I put the mask on and then the bucket on my head. I went to the mirror. I just said, ‘Buckethead. That’s Buckethead right there.’ It was just one of those things. After that, I wanted to be that thing all the time.” –Buckethead
Yeah, that’s a hella nice jam despite the silly visual gimmicks. Brian Carrollrocks.
Then here comes this guy.
Have a great weekend, folks. Be back here tomorrow for more stuff.
Nate Smith jams it. Betcha can’t spot the mistake.
Seems I heard Justin Johnson before, but only accidentally. Sure, it’s a compilation vid, but that there is some righteous awesome. Reminds me of this guy:
Ry Cooder took the slide guitar and shoved it right though my temporal lobes with his 1987 album “Get Rhythm.” It’s a must-have if you like Swamp Rock.
Have a great weekend, folks. See you tomorrow when the time is right.
Guy fitted his cat with a GoPro to find out what it does while he’s away, and no, it doesn’t sleep [via].
Ever hear of David “String Bean” Akeman? No? Here’s a documentary of the comic/iconic speed banjo player. Video starts at 06:00 for his rendition of the traditional folk song “Li’l Liza Jane. [Related post here.]
Akeman and his wife were murdered by burglars at their rural Tennessee home in 1973. The killers took only a chain saw and some firearms and were later apprehended and convicted.
The Blasters perform “Jubilee Train” at the 1985 Farm Aid concert in Champaign, Illinois. (Check out the impressive list of performers at the link.)
“Buckjump” by Trombone Shorty – a nice retro-funk groove to wrap things up.
