Keef on the Blues - Don’s Tunes

 

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Wisdom comes in many forms but you KNEW you would find it here . . . . .

TAJ MAHAL

“It’s never been about ‘Watch me,’ said Taj Mahal during an interview from his home in Berkeley. “The audience is part of the performance. It’s not like I’m up here on stage and they’re all down there. I’m just one man trying to make a global connection that anyone can plug in to.”

“I’ve always seen the bigger picture, that a majority of people in this world don’t know that the Top 10, Top 20, or Top 100 even exist,” said Mahal, who cites Freddie King, T-Bone Walker, Sleepy John Estes, Jesse Ed Davis, Mississippi John Hurt and Blind Willie McTell as his biggest musical influences. “There are 7 billion people on this planet and what’s considered commercially viable doesn’t interest the majority of them. So why would I limit myself to what record executives think will sell?”

“I’m in this thing for the long haul,” Mahal declared, “and for me, that means ignoring conventional wisdom and just playing music for the love of it. I’m hard-headed and will continue doing this for as long as I’m breathing. Just like Lightnin’ Hopkins, I learned early on (that) playing music is what I do.”

Source: John Roos / Patch

Photo: Jay Blakesberg

 

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Might sign off the day with these pearls of wisdom from the great man himself, 

The Taj

Remembering Charlie Watts (2 June 1941 – 24 August 2021)

Photo by Paul Natkin

Mick Jagger: "Charlie was an incredibly open-minded musician, and there was a real subtlety about his playing. He was so catholic in his taste, through jazz, boogie-woogie, blues, classical, African music, dance, reggae and dumb pop songs that just happened to be good. People always say he was a great jazz fan, but he wasn’t just that. It’s over-simplifying his musical tastes, and what he liked to play.

It’s a bit of a myth that Charlie didn’t go out. Of course he did. We used to go to watch sport, and to lots of fashionable places, to eat and to hear music. In the studio we would often play just on our own, every kind of music, after everyone had gone home or before people turned up. Sometimes he’d play these African beats, and some of the things he did were amazing. He wasn’t super-technical, but he was very adaptive, so when he got a new beat, he got very excited about it.

He was a classical music fan, too. He liked Dvořák, Debussy, Mozart, and he and I used to listen to Stockhausen and Mahler. We listened to modern composers and tried to figure out what the hell they were on about.

He was intelligent, and softly spoken, but he could be direct and say what he thought. He would keep his private life very private, but we understood each other’s thought processes. Charlie was a very quiet person, but he had a great sense of humour and we laughed all the time. I miss him in so many ways."

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Think it’s called love . . . .right there . . . . . . we all did too! Sharp dressed man ask his wife! Shirley

“Charlie’s good tonight, inne?" 

Charlie had a quite unique style of playing drums and I have heard it discussed elsewhere but simply he never let the two hands strike at the same time, it is simple and yet almost impossible to mimic

Frustrating and almost irritating to some it appear somewhat primitive but he could hold the back beat with it till the cows come home

Hit it, Charlie!

The Rolling Stones - Jumpin’ Jack Flash - Charlie Watts Drum Cam (Shine a Light / 2008)

Remembering John Bonham (31 May 1948 – 25 September 1980) | Don's Tunes

 

"It was quite strange, really, meeting John Paul and Jimmy," Bonham, who had already befriended and performed with Plant says. Plant persuaded Page to invite Bonham to play with the band, which Page originally founded as "the New Yardbirds" following the breakup of Page's previous group the Yardbirds.

"Coming from where I come from, I sort of thought it was a bit of joke getting this sort of telegram," Bonham says of the invitation. "There's a chance of becoming one of the Yardbirds? It's like a gift from heaven, wasn't it?"

According to Bonham himself, his own style is mainly rooted in the actual drums themselves, not the various cymbals and percussion that he surrounded himself with throughout the years. “I’ve always liked drums to be bright and powerful,” Bonham said in a 1973 interview. “I’ve never used cymbals much. I use them to crash into a solo and out of it, but basically I prefer the actual drum sound.”

Although well known for his unmatched power, Bonham also took pride in his ability to lay down a solid groove. “It’s all to do with the swing,” he says in the same interview. “You get a much better tone with a big stroke than you do with a short stab.” John Paul Jones doubled down on his and Bonham’s ability to stay in the pocket. “Yeah, we were both huge Motown and Stax fans and general soul music fans, James Brown fans,” Jones said in 2008. “Which is one of the reasons why I’ve always said that Zeppelin was one of the few bands to ‘swing’. We actually had a groove in those days. People used to come to our shows and dance, which was great.”

Photo: Led Zeppelin, in 1968 by Dick Barnatt/Redferns

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Led Zeppelin - How Many More Times (Danmarks Radio 1969)

“Thank you, I’d like to introduce Led Zeppelin to you!

On bass guitar - John Paul Jones, John Paul Jones

On drums  - John Bonham

On lead Guitar - Jimmy Page

and myself  - Robert Plant

This is what he meant!

Moby Dick (excerpt)

Led Zeppelin - Moby Dick Drum Solo (Madison Square Garden 1973)

BIRTHDAYS: + Mo’ Taj . . . Happy 84th birthday to the great Taj Mahal! here With Bonnie Raitt | Don's Tunes

 

Taj Mahal and Bonnie Raitt perform Tajs 

'Done Changed My Way of Living’ on NBCs The Today Show

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“The music had cultural value,” Taj insists, “not just something that was going to be on the Hit Parade on radio Friday nights. Back then, the songs I was hearing might not have had value for everybody, but they were important to me. The records back then were like relatives talking to you. It wasn’t Top of the Pops or Top 20 Countdown or anything like that.

“That all changed in the ’60s, when the record industry started feeding us only music they were making money off of. We were being programmed, and I was much more interested in being programmed by my own culture.”

“If you want to know anything about me,” he insists, “I’m more impressed by my what my ancestors think about me than anything else going…no matter what! That’s why, for me, I consider the records of Toumani Diabaté, the kora master from Mali, so important. Through it, I managed to make the connection to my ancestral music — and that all came through finger picking!”

One day, he was down in the basement when he discovered his stepfather’s six-string and started to teach himself how to play using a broken comb for a pick.

“At some point, I became fascinated with Jimmy Reed. I liked his tempo, what he had to say. And then I got lucky enough to run into a neighbor next door, Lynwood Perry. I was 14 or 15, and he was a little older – and he could play. He came right out of the tradition in North Carolina. He could play a whole bunch of stuff…Muddy Waters, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Blind Boy Fuller.

Marty Gunther / Blues Blast Interview

Photo source: Amy Richmond / Taj Mahal on FB

For his Birthday where it all began for me!

From Rock Machine Turns You On came this I was 15!

 Taj Mahal flashes a peace sign at his Topanga Canyon home, 1968. 

Photograph by Baron Wolman

Jeff Beck on playing style . . . . .Don's Tunes

 Jeff Beck: I had a criticism once, I read a review of one of Ronnie Wood’s gigs, and I know what they meant by this comment - and it said, ”Ronnie Wood, unlike some people we could mention, knows when to shut up” - and I just suddenly went red, and I thought, ”They’re talking about me! S***.” And it stuck with me, and I used that criticism to some effect. 

Cause you know, you talk about the 70’s, and Eric Clapton playing 20-minute guitar solos - without even one rest - absolutely note linked to note, there’s not one break in it. And that last concert was the epitome of everything I didn’t want to be - standing there wailing away for hours on the same riff. 

And also, I’ve been heavily influenced by Scotty Moore and people like that, and Albert Lee, cause he just plays beautifully, and Steve Cropper - he just does a jab in ”Green Onions”, and it’s so cool. They’re the kings, just wonderful players.

Paul Guy Interview

Photo: 1967 Pictorial Press Ltd

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Billy Gibbons on 'La Grange’ | Don's Tunes

Photo: Jay Dickman

 

Billy Gibbons: “The “La Grange” riff is another interpretation of one of the cornerstone staples of that splendid American art form, the blues. There are many ways to chop it, we just got really lucky and landed something with resonance that lasts and lasts.” 

As Gibbons recalls, “Growing up in Texas, there were two requirements toward manhood: You had to visit La Grange, and you had to go to the Mexican border. We somehow captured both in one single trip.” 

The guitarist points to Buddy Holly’s “Peggy Sue Got Married,” the rock pioneer’s sequel to “Peggy Sue,” as compositional inspiration. “That song showed us you didn’t have to rhyme every single stanza or verse,” Gibbons says. 

“Plus, Holly left things open to interpretation: ‘I heard it’s a rumor from a friend.’ Did she get married or not? So with ‘La Grange,’ we tagged the closing with lines like, ‘I hear it’s fine… but I might be mistaken.’ The invitation stood at that moment.”

Regarding a failed lawsuit by the copyright holder of John Lee Hooker’s “Boogie Chillen’,” which resulted in a court ruling that the rhythm was in the public domain, Gibbons says, “It seemed to be a somewhat egregious and curious accusation. At the end of the day, we were kind of flattered to know that our music had taken a very important position in the history of rock and roll.” 

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any excuse to revisit Peanuts covering their favourite boogie! Charlie and Snoopy can really rock!

Jeff Beck the Petrol Head | Don’s Tunes

 

Jeff Beck was undeniably a world-class guitarist (named the fifth best of all time by Rolling Stone), but that didn’t stop him from spending half his life with his mitts shoved firmly in the finger-crunching inner workings of an engine. “If I worried about my fingers, I’d never pick up a pair of pliers,” he said.

His motoring passions stretched back 60 years – before joining the Yardbirds, he worked in a car body shop as a mechanic to make ends meet. He was that rare breed of celebrity who didn’t just know his way around an expensive car showroom, but underneath the bonnet as well. The chances are, if you visited him at his Surrey mansion, you’d find him tinkering away in his purpose-built garage, where a whole fleet of his beloved hot rods is housed. When his old friend Eric Clapton showed him his collection of Ferraris, an unimpressed Beck commented: “Anyone can buy those.” Then he indicated the hot rod he’d driven over in. “These, you make.”

He'll be remembered as one of rock's greatest pioneers, a titanic influence on modern guitar music who was universally respected for an iconoclastic, innovative approach to his work that took in genres as varied as jazz, opera and punk.

The two-time Rock and Roll Hall of Famer told the crowd at his second induction that “I play the way I do because it allows me to come up with the sickest sounds possible. That’s the point now, isn’t it? I don’t care about the rules.

“In fact, if I don’t break the rules at least ten times in every song, then I’m not doing my job properly.”

Source: Benjie Goodhart / GQ

(Photo by Robert Knight Archive)

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Jeff Beck - A Day in the Life (Beatles)

The 25th anniversary Rock and Roll Hall of Fame concert

The ‘mechanic’ at work!

Birthdays: Norah Jones | Don's Tunes

 Happy 47th birthday to Norah Jones!

 

"Part of the reason I signed with Blue Note was because I knew they weren't going to turn me into some pop thing, and that's the concern with big labels. I'm not trying to sell zillions of records, I just want to keep making them and knew if I sold a small amount they'd keep me on. And I was excited by the fact they didn't put pressure on me.

"I know there are people who are very straight-ahead jazz snobs who don't listen to anything else. But the fact is times have changed. I come from a very strong jazz background and for about six years that was all I listened to, but right now this is the evolution I've taken with it. And I just happen to be on a jazz label."

Graham Reid Interview 2003

Photo: Danny Clinch

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Norah Jones - Come Away With Me

PHEW!

Remembering Magic Sam (February 14, 1937 – December 1, 1969) | Don's Tunes

Samuel Gene Maghett was born on February 14th, 1937 in Grenada County, Mississippi. He learned to play the blues by listening to records by Chess label mates Muddy Waters and Little Walter. When he moved to Chicago at the age of 19, he was already playing well enough to get gigs in local clubs. Although his first few singles on the Cobra label didn’t chart, the influence of his music as well as that of Buddy Guy and Otis Rush, was being felt all through the blues world. The three musicians had created a new electric blues sound, that of Chicago’s West Side.

"Most of the guys were playing the straight 12-bar blues thing, but the harmonies that he carried with the chords was a different thing altogether. This tune “All Your Love”, he expressed with such an inspirational feeling with his high voice. You could always tell him, even from his introduction to the music."

Willie Dixon

Still riding high from the success of West Side Soul, Magic Sam kept the same soulful recipe of primarily cover songs when he recorded Black Magic. Mighty Joe Young appeared on both records as did drummer Odie Payne. Mac Thompson played bass on the all the Black Magic tracks where he had only played on three West Side Soul songs. Lafayette Leake played piano on Black Magic, but the main difference between the two albums was the addition of Eddie Shaw on tenor sax.

Magic Sam was posthumously inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1982, and Black Magic in 1990 in the category Classics of Blues Recordings – Albums.

Source: American Blues Scene

Photo Source: Marvels of Modern Music Auction

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Magic Sam - Magic Sam's Boogie 1969 (live)

Bonnie Lass - Bonnie Rait discusses her start in the Blues Patricia Brody 1977 |Don's Tunes

 

When did you develop confidence in playing?

Bonnie Raitt: During my first gig with Taj Mahal one afternoon. I took out my National and started playing some Fred McDowell stuff, and Taj, who didn't know me, looked over and said, "Hey all right." He came over, took out his guitar, and we started playing a wordless duet, him playing Willie Brown to my Charley Patton, you know, just throwing blues licks off each other, not saying anything.

Finally he reached out his hand and said, "Hello, my name is Taj Mahal." John Hammond has been a great help to me. I had a crush on him for years. Being a girl helped. These musicians came in, heard me sounding — or trying to — just like them, and they'd be flattered, and helpful. If I'd been a young guy doing a show just like John Hammond's, he might have felt a bit threatened. I wasn't playing as good as them, but they were real tickled that I was into their style.

How did you develop your own style out of the traditional blues?

My style is probably the result of a problem. My voice, actually soprano, is around five keys up from where Robert Johnson or Son House would do a song, say in Spanish open G tuning. I can't tune the strings up or down to get that open octave; I have to capo up three or five frets to get the same tuning, which is the only way to make the guitar part sound good.

You lose the octaves — with no cutaway you can't get your hand up there, and you've got only around three frets left to play slide. My National has a new, hybrid neck with fourteen frets, and that's one of the reasons I went to electric, for the longer neck. Just adding my voice to a Fred McDowell guitar part would bring about a unique style, though.

Patricia Brody / 1977 Interview

Photo: David Gahr

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