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Monday, September 30, 2024

STEVIE RAY VAUGHAN - VOODOO CHILE (SLIGHT RETURN) LIVE FROM AUSTIN TEXAS!

 Just because!


well so we end on an up beat note and don’t leave it with my negative criticism of Monsier Trucks and feature the interstellar Stevie Ray Vaughan
You have a guitarist who most find they can only dream of playing like and at times (like Jimi) you wonder how on earth (the third stone from the sun) HOW such playing is even human and not from another planet entirely

The master at work and woefully young when we lost him!

Derek Truck and Susan Tedeschi play for the President (no no not that one, this one!)

 Trucks and Tedeschi play for Barack Obama! Rollin’ and a Tumblin’!


Now this is where we get contentious before we retire to the snug in the West Wing
I think this is more evidence were any needed( it IS it IS! -ED) that Derek isn’t really a very good guitarist and like many others learned his chops growing up in the public eye but his style of slide here is the worst I have heard in a long time and he sounds like someone learning to play! I got told off when clearing to not dampen behind the note other wise you sound like this and his wobbly technique is peculiar to slide players learning in that they aren’t really hitting the note on the nail so waver around it find it as they play!

Awaits howls of derision!


Jimi Hendrix - Red House (Live in Sweden 1969)

 guitarists contd., with Jimi hisself!

While Jimi Hendrix is often hailed as “rock’s greatest guitarist,” the music he most closely identified with was the blues. After all, this had been the soundtrack of his youth, the music he heard his paternal grandmother sing and his father play on their record player. “Jimi lived on blues around the house,” Al Hendrix remembered. “I had a lot of records by B.B. King and Louis Jordan and some of the downhome guys like Muddy Waters. Jimi was real excited by B.B. King and Chuck Berry, and he was a fan of Albert King too. He liked all them blues guitarists. He’d try to copy what he’d heard, and he’d make up stuff too.”
Jimi’s account of his musical roots aligned with his father’s: “I was largely influenced by blues when I first started,” he reported in Rolling Stone. “When I first started playing guitar, it was way up in the Northwest, in Seattle, Washington, and they don’t have too many real blues singers up there. The first guitarist I was aware of was Muddy Waters. I heard one of his old records when I was a little boy, and it scared me to death. Wow! What was that all about? It was great.” 

Jeff Beck - Behind The Veil - versions



I developed a little bit of an obsession with this number this week and find it fascinating . . . difficult somehow and not to everyone’s taste perhaps and can’t see a jazz infused reference to any classic I can recognise to have a reggae infused improvisation around. Anyone?

Geoffrey Arnold Beck (24 June 1944 – 10 January 2023)

e name but . . . . . .here we go!

 Jeff Beck and group Live - Behind The Veil


Jeff Beck live at Ronnie Scott’s - Behind The Veil

Jeff Beck - Behind The Veil - Live At Ronnie Scott's Club London 2007.
(c) Eagle Rock [Audio Upgrade] 
 
Band Members :
Jeff Beck - Guitar
Tal Wilkenfeld - Bass
Vinnie Colaiuta - Drums
Jason Rebello - Keyboards

Jeff Beck - Little Wing Live 6-12-2011

so we went off piste a bit there with precious few musical entries!!! What IS that about? 

Lets make up for that with a thread of guitarists , , , , , , Jeff playing Jimi


Alan Rickman | The ‘baddy’ everybody loved

Which actors have played a character in a TV show or movie that was utterly despicable but the actor themselves were adored by the cast and crew?



Mr. Rickman as Professor Snape.


Alan Rickman played his share of bloodthirsty, evil villains, but everyone who knew him (apparently) adored him.

Some examples:


Daniel Radcliffe:


Alan Rickman is undoubtedly one of the greatest actors I will ever work with. He is also, one of the loyalest and most supportive people I've ever met in the film industry. He was so encouraging of me both on set and in the years post-Potter.


I'm pretty sure he came and saw everything I ever did on stage both in London and New York. He didn't have to do that. I know other people who've been friends with him for much much longer than I have and they all say 'if you call Alan, it doesn't matter where in the world he is or how busy he is with what he's doing, he'll get back to you within a day'.


People create perceptions of actors based on the parts they played so it might surprise some people to learn that contrary to some of the sterner (or downright scary) characters he played, Alan was extremely kind, generous, self-deprecating and funny. And certain things obviously became even funnier when delivered in his unmistakable double-bass.


As an actor he was one of the first of the adults on Potter to treat me like a peer rather than a child. Working with him at such a formative age was incredibly important, and I will carry the lessons he taught me for the rest of my life and career. …


Ian McKellan:


Alan Rickman was a constant agent for helping others. Whether to institutions like Rada or to individuals and certainly to me, his advice was always spot-on. He put liberal philanthropy at the heart of his life.


He and Rima Horton (50 years together) were always top of my dream-list dinner guests. Alan would by turns be hilarious and indignant and gossipy and generous. All this delivered sotto, in that convoluted voice, as distinctive as Edith Evans, John Gielgud, Paul Scofield, Alec Guinness, Alastair Sim or Bowie, company beyond compare.


When he played Rasputin, I was the Tzar Nicholas. Filming had started before I arrived in St Petersburg. Precisely as I walked into the hotel-room, the phone rang. Alan, to say welcome, hope the flight was tolerable and would I like to join him and Greta Scacchi and others in the restaurant in 30 minutes? Alan, the concerned leading man.


On that film, he discovered that the local Russian crew was getting an even worse lunch than the rest of us. So he successfully protested. On my first day before the camera, he didn't like the patronising, bullying tone of a note which the director gave me. Alan, seeing I was a little crestfallen, delivered a quiet, concise resume of my career and loudly demanded that the director up his game.



Kate Winslet:


Alan Rickman was the kindest and best of men. Had the patience of a saint. He was a warm-hearted puppy dog, who would do anything for anyone if it made them happy. He was a loving and devoted partner to Rima, and like so many of us in our vast industry, my life was enriched by knowing him.


I could list more accolades, but they are so similar … from everybody … that there really is no point.


I have yet to discover anyone who worked with the man who didn’t think Alan Rickman was close to being a saint. Although Mr. Rickman will probably not be canonised, some of his friends would no doubt be quite comfortable if sainthood were to happen.




QUORA- Behind The Scenes

Studied History & English Literature at University of California 

Other September birthdays | Remembering Linda (September 24, 1941 – April 17, 1998) Yoko Ono Lennon




The first time I met Linda was at one of the Beatles’ recording sessions. Paul introduced her to us. She was attractive, obviously—she had a sunshine smile—but I thought that there was a certain vulnerability about her. Later I came to understand that that impression was wrong, because when I think of Linda’s life, I think of a very strong woman. One day, around the time of that first meeting, Paul brought in to the studio some photographs of Linda in New York, in front of the building where she grew up. She was wearing a camel coat and a white scarf, just looking casual and glancing around. That is the Linda I remember from that time.

During the Beatles’ sessions, Linda and I quickly learned that our husbands were not all buddy-buddy. John and Paul were both talented but very strong-willed people. There was some tension there. Linda and I left them alone. But we didn’t go chummy-chummy, wink-wink, ‘Aren’t they silly boys?’ either. We both stood by our men. That was how we were. Then came the Beatles’ breakup. The world blamed it on Linda and me. The attack was like a storm. I think the fans needed a scapegoat, and they chose us! We both had the love and protection of our husbands. Linda had that very much from Paul. But still, it could not have been easy for her.

The long years after the breakup were not easy, either. John and Paul were not talking. John and I would play Paul’s latest Wings record in our kitchen. John would say some nice things. He couldn’t say it to Paul, but when Paul was not around, John would say nice things about Paul. When Paul and Linda got a farm in Scotland, John said, ‘That’s Linda. She’s good for him.’ Was the ice finally starting to melt? In the late Seventies, Paul and Linda came to visit us a few times in New York. In a fine old Liverpool tradition, the two guys did most of the talking, and we sat beside them as Paul held Linda’s hand and John held mine. It was nice to see the guys talk after all those years, even if a little stiffness existed between them.

After John’s passing, Sean and I started to receive Linda’s beautiful calendar every year. We felt her warmth; and as a photographer she was getting into her most creative years. We both wanted to show our farms to each other. I was about to go to London with Sean at the time. ‘Mine first, then,’ Linda said. So Sean and I were invited to her farm. I say Linda’s farm, because you really felt Linda’s energy there - you just knew that she was the one who had created this environment for her husband and their children. There was something very real about the way they lived. They weren’t surrounded by servants or anything. And it was wonderful. Linda had horses and sheep - it was a working farm, not a manicured estate. She and her children were doing things together. Seeing them with Sean was great. Hopefully, our children will be wiser than us.
What I noticed with sadness was that Paul and Linda’s children were living with the pain of what their mother went through. Their mother was attacked by the world and for a long time not recognized for her achievements. Everything that was good was considered the work of her husband, and everything the public did not approve of was considered her doing. I didn’t hear any of this from Linda. But when I met her children and saw how protective they were of their mother, I felt the pain of their knowledge that the world was not always kind to her.
When I heard of her illness, my first instinct was to share that with the fans at the concert I was giving in London and to pray together. But, of course, I couldn’t. So I dedicated the concert to ‘a friend in England who has been taken ill.’ 'Names!’ they shouted. 'No names!’ I shouted back.
That’s how it was. We were no-name friends.
The last conversation I had with her was in January this year. She sounded like the usual powerful and energetic Linda. I thought she had beaten the disease. Linda and I did not meet up and have coffee and muffins in a corner cafe or anything like that. But we communicated. We communicated in deeds more than in words. When she was strong, I felt strong. She took a sad song and made it better. Her commitment to vegetarianism and animal rights brought her message to a wider audience than that of rock & roll. But her most important contributions were all made in private. Just like so many women before her, she made a difference in silence. It was nice to know you, Linda.
With love,
Yoko Ono, 1998
By Yoko Ono  Rolling Stone September 24, 1998


Read more:

In Your Mind – The Infinite Universe of Yoko Ono
The true story of the woman John Lennon loved.
https://linktr.ee/conceptualbooks

Dhani Harrison : a favourite George Harrison story

 


“I came home one day from school after being chased by kids singing “Yellow Submarine”, and I didn't understand why. It just seemed surreal: why are they singing that song to me? I came home and I freaked out on my dad: 'Why didn't you tell me you were in The Beatles?' And he said, 'Oh, sorry. Probably should have told you that.'” - Dhani Harrison


#TheBeatles4Ever

#thebeatles


Also this month

September 26: On this day in 1969, Abbey Road was released in the UK.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Dkj6vKVqd4


To those that haven’t heard it, the isolated vocals from the side two suite served as a reminder of exactly how good these guys were, even when personal relations were frayed.


The identity of the woman in blue who walked through photographer Iain MacMillan’s frame - and serendipitously made it pop - has never become known. (Decades later, the late Paul Cole identified himself as the onlooker seen in the background of the front cover, but his story has been met with justifiable skepticism: see Roger Stormo’s analysis here: https://tinyurl.com/y3asky73 )


The letter tiles immortalized on the back cover also have a “rest of the story”:

https://tinyurl.com/yyjj23be

George Harrison - quote of the day

 



"I don't know if I delivered something really valuable. The fans will say my music and maybe I agree, but I think that more than the songs themselves what is really valuable is the sincerity that each one of them has. You can like it or not, but they are all from the heart."

—George Harrison—

#TheBeatles4Ever

#thebeatles

Kris Kristofferson 1936 - 2024



Kris Kristofferson has died aged 88 at his home in Hawaii surrounded by family, a legendary country style singer and former Oxford ‘blue’ (1958) for boxing, he asked that his gravestone be marked by a Leonard Cohen lyric from Bird On A Wire
“Like a bird on the wire
Like a drunk in a midnight choir
I have tried in my way to be free” 
 
But others may recall his own thoughts on freedom
“Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose”
Me and Bobby McGee (Kristofferson)

Author and singer of many great songs, Me and a Bobby McGee being one, Help Me Make It Through the Night being award winning, and he is perhaps know best amongst the recovery community for one of the best songs about such in Sunday Morning Coming Down. I always loved what he said about Johnny Cash’s ‘Big River’ citing it’s poetry (a favourite song)

He is also known for being a member of the so called country super-group The Highwaymen along with Waylon Jennings, Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson of whom Kris said “Whenever I look at pictures of the Highwaymen I always think it looks like some fool let the janitor play with them”!

He also proved to be a fine actor working with Martin Scorsese. Married three times, our thoughts are with his family and friends at this time. Kristofferson is survived by his wife Lisa, his eight children, and seven grandchildren. 

We will not see his like again


Big River - The Highwaymen

Help Me Make it Through The Night


Sunday, September 29, 2024

Getting late here so what could be fairer than our wondrous Maddie! ‘I'm TIRED!’ Madeline Kahn

 Madeline Kahn "I'm Tired” [BLAZING SADDLES]


Celebrating 50 years of Blazing Saddles with the great Madeline Kahn's performance of "I'm Tired”!


How do you sing THIS badly? It is an accomplishment and no mistake. It is either that she was tone deaf ( she wasn’t) or a work of genius!

Guitar World | Glenn Hughes and Joe Bonamassa - BLACK COUNTRY COMMUNION | Floppy Boot Stomp - Voodoo Wagon

 

"Joe and I had been hanging out, secretively making music, knowing that one day we'd do something. Four sessions later, we had an album”: How Glenn Hughes brought his low-end expertise into the spotlight with Joe Bonamassa and Black Country Communion” Glenn Hughes

Now I have said and started much argument about my not really caring for the mostly American gang of ‘heavy' metal guitarists [and several there who maybe don’t fit that bill] and dear Joe Bonamassa is one such but thanks to the boys at Floppy Boot Stomp and The Voodoo Wagon posting this on Facebook today I am always willing to re-consider. The sound of this bass with Hughes and Bonamassa here shredding his best is just staggeringly good . . .still not ENTIRELY my style of music but hey I can get behind that bass!











COLLIDE - Black Country Communion 


Getty Images


Mo’ gals!

Billie!

Susannah!
Oh, Susannah!

How many balloons Nena!

Can’t do without our Debbie!