In the course of re-reading a novel by the best detective noir writer you never heard of—Chester Himes, creator of the baddest detective team north of 125th Street and south of the Bronx, Grave Digger Jones and Coffin Ed Johnson—I ran across mention of another all-timer you probably never heard of: blues singer Lil Green.
Update! Below the fold, a little excursion into the world of Grave Digger and Coffin Ed.
Two absolute beauties via our bud KT, she of the Saturday Pet Thread, among other fine and wonderful things. First, Dame Judy Dench demonstrates why she’s considered one of the all-time greatest actresses, with a spellbinding from-memory presentation of a sonnet by the greatest writer of all time.
Judi Dench was on Graham Norton last night to push her new book about her life and work with Shakespeare. After making the point we quote Shakespeare daily without knowing it, this happened: pic.twitter.com/CIhP39b4Bs
— Justin Sherin (@wychstreet)
The entire spectrum of human emotion evoked in one gorgeous stroke of pure artistic genius, right there. The way Shakespeare shifts gears from the darkling pits of despair right to transcendent, unleavened joy at the lines “Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising/Haply I think on thee, and then my state…” is as pluperfect an example of the power and sweep of the English language—as well as both Shakespeare’s and Dame Judy’s command of it—as can possibly be imagined. If this sort of thing touches your heart as deeply as it does mine, you may find the room you’re in to be a lot dustier than you realized by the end of the vid. Graham Norton really says it all with his final word: “WOW!”
Next, Camille Saint-Saëns shows why he’s probably the all-time greatest of what’s known in some quarters as the Progressive Era of orchestral-music composers with his immortal Dans Macabre.
Many, many thanks to KT for posting these uplifting links for us.
In a comment to this post, AWM helpfully reminded me of something I already knew:
That’s Billy Preston, not Buddy Miles. I know, they all look alike…..
To which I responded with this:
Heh. Yeah, I was just kidding around with that one, hence the big buildup before the vid. I’d just been listening to some Buddy Miles earlier, and the strong physical resemblance between the two–especially the classic 60s/70s Nee-grow coifs and cool threads, duuuuude–kinda struck me as funny. No racial slurs or anything intended (this time–AHEM), they’re both fine musicians and I love their stuff, which in the end is all that matters to me.
My thanks to AWM, whose good intentions provided me with an unassailable excuse to repost this:
Man, ain’t never the wrong time to rock out on that fat, butt-rocking-good groove, if you ask me. One of the very best rock ‘n’ soul/jazz/R&B crossover hits the era ever gave us, in my opinion.
Them Changes is an album by American artist Buddy Miles, released in June 1970. It reached number 8 on the 1970 Jazz Albums chart, number 35 on the Billboard 200 and number 14 on the 1971 R&B albums charts.
Reception
Writing for Allmusic, music critic Steve Kurutz called the album “quite simply, one of the great lost treasures of soul inspired rock music…definitely worth the extra effort to try to locate.” Conversely, Robert Christgau wrote “His singing is too thin to carry two consecutive cuts, his drumming has to be exploited by subtler musicians, and the title cut is the only decent song he ever wrote.”
Yeah, well, y’know, Robert fucking Christgau. He always was a consummate bitch-ass little prick, according to all I’ve heard from people in a position to know firsthand. Now the NYT’s longtime lead music crit, Jon Pareles, on the other hand…
A-HENH! That blurb was just one of the first of quite a few favorable reviews Parales went on to bestow on us, from which you can easily discern that here was a man who knew what the fuck he was talking about.
Anyway, to press ”ESC” on the self-congratulory digression and get back on-topic: It just kills me how, given the way classic-rock stations keep spinning the same well-worn old tunes over and over and over—many of which I do love, mind, but I mean really now, COME ON!—somehow you never, ever hear this one. It’s as if programmers, DJs, and/or station managers are completely unaware that these great artists actually recorded and released a helluva lot more material than just the five or six all-too-familiar songs they’ve boiled entire careers’ worth of output down to and are even now running into the fucking ground. I just don’t get it, I really don’t.
Update! What the hey, one golden musical memory from my childhood deserves another, right?
Buddy Miles, as I’m sure y’all know, filled the pounding-skins slot for Jimi Hendrix (among other notables) for a goodish while there. Preston, for his part, worked the 88s for pretty much everybody who was anybody in the classic-rock days. Wrote or co-wrote a fair few hit songs recorded by other artists, too; pretty much anyplace you looked on the Billboard Hot 100 in the late 60s/early 70s, there ol’ Billy Preston would be. God bless ‘em both, sayeth I.
4Another via our favorite tall but brilliant, fabulously talented and visually stunning example of a placental mammal.
Man, that gal can really blow, leaving me completely slackjawed with envy. Blues harp—or as my old bass-player friend Joe hilariously referred to it, the “nigger whistle”—is one of three instruments I tried hard to learn years ago but failed miserably, the others being banjo (finger-picked, not clawhammer; any fool with two hands can play clawhammer) and slide guitar.
This installment of Middle Finger Symphony Theater also includes a ripping-good blues duet with Buddy Guy featuring the estimable and pulchritudinous Ally Venable totally dominating her Les Paul. Trust me, folks, you don’t want to miss that one either—you really, really don’t.
Update! Think I was kidding about that “pulchritudinous” business, do ya? Better think again.
A smokin’-hot babe, a red LP, a short dress, and righteous blues chops—what more could anyone want?
3
2
1DM has a post up on the latest doin’s Oliver-wise.
Is economically illiterate. He cancelled his show because he won’t do it unless he is paid $120,000, with the venue only charging $25 a ticket.
Don’t buy Cotton Eyed Joe tickets for $99 apiece. Sure as hell don’t buy tickets for VIP passes for whatever bulls–t prices they’re on. Don’t pay $100 for a ticket. If we’ve got to cancel the venue and play somewhere else, we will
Unfortunately this kind of economic self sabotage is common:
- Complains about poverty
- Doesn’t understand money
- Demands $120,000 for a 60 min performance
- Cancels the performance he agreed to do because he thinks ticket price is too high
The venue only holds 1,500 people. Oliver’s take costs the venue $80 for each ticket, assuming that the show is sold out. He moved the concert to a larger venue (Knoxville Convention Center) which holds 10,000 people. Now his take costs $12 per ticket. The rest of the costs of the venue, as well as profit for the venue, have to come from the other $13.
Do you think he learned about economy of scale? Or does he still not understand how money works?
There’s even more to it than just that, as I pointed out in a comment over there:
Mike Hendrix · September 19, 2023 at 4:03 pm
While I very much doubt Oliver is unaware of what his asking price might be, his booking agent/manager/whatever will be the one setting that, on a whatever-the-market-will-bear basis. 120k per gig is a pretty sweet payday for a mid-level-venue artist, no matter how you slice it.
Back in Dec 92, my band played a three-night stand, two shows a night, at Tramps in NYC opening for Little Richard, billed as a “60th birthday celebration.” I became good friends with Richard over those three nights, who was absolutely thrilled with us–even going so far as to give my manager and myself his home phone number so’s a European tour as support act for Richard could be arranged.
I know for a fact Richard made 60k per night for those three nights. And that was Little Freakin’ Richard, the Architect of Rock and Roll (as he called himself), who by then had been one of the biggest stars in the rock and roll firmament for more than forty years. No Johnny Come Lately, one-hit-wonder flash in the pan, he. The shows were all sold out, SRO crowds each show, each night.
I also know a thing or two about venue expenses that people not in the biz may not. One of the bigger outlays for any venue is for security; the number of security personnel required for any given show is set not by the venue owner but by their insurer. Other staff–bartenders, waitresses, doormen, stage management, sound engineers, lighting techs, etc all add up pretty quickly, and that’s before you even get to things like building rent/mortgage, property taxes, various licenses, electricity bill, liquor and beer, cups and glasses, etc etc.
If the venue had agreed to anything less than 100 bucks a ticket, they’d’ve almost certainly lost their ass on the booking. Do that on the regular and you’ll be well on the way to going under, becoming a FORMER venue. Y’know, like Tramps is today.
And even that doesn’t begin to cover every expense involved here: the venue cleanup-crew; toilet paper for the ladies’ room; bar tools like shaker cups, strainers, speed-pour bottle tops, swizzle sticks, and such; brooms, mops, mop buckets, and bar towels; trash bins; ice machines; audience seating; and so on and on and on.
Many mid-level venues (ie, 1500 to 3000 seaters; think House Of Blues or the Agora chain, say), in addition to the house sound system, provide what’s called a backline—guitar amps, bass amp, and/or drum kit—for their shows, free of charge to the artist. If a certain band has a keyboard player, just imagine what it costs to rent a grand piano or Hammond B3 organ and have a crew load, deliver, unload, and rassle that heavy-ass monster into position onstage!
Trust me, it ain’t cheap. NONE of it is; taken altogether it all adds up to a pretty daunting list, most of those costs incurred before you’ve even opened the doors for your first show.
The sad fact is that live-music venues are on extremely shaky financial ground from Day One of their usually-truncated existence. Just think for a moment of all the venues you used to know and love that are long gone now, wherever you may be. Here in CLT alone, I can think of quite a few: PB Scott’s; Kidnappers; Tremont Music Hall; the Pterodactyl; Park Elevator (where I once rode my old Shovelhead FLH—apehangers, suicide shift, drag pipes and all—through a tiny loading-dock door onto the stage to kick off our set); the 1313 Club; the Alley Cat…the list goes on and on.
Although I do get his Quixotic horror at ticket prices, Oliver should have taken the money without complaint, and stiff-armed the living hell out of anybody who dared to even ask him about what he was making. Accuse him of being a sell-out if you will, but as some performer in the early days of the punk era (can’t remember who, sorry) once famously put it: “I don’t understand all this talk about selling out. You’re an artist, you’re TRYING to sell!” The definitive line on that subject comes from Metallica ex-bassist Jason Newstead, during a 1998 interview on eMpTV’s Behind The Music: “Yes, we sell out—we sell out every seat in the house, every time we play.”
Heh. ‘Nuff said. It occurs to me that sometime I really oughta do a post recounting the wild tale of those Little Richard shows at Tramps, maybe. Believe me, it’s one hellaciously good story, which led to all sorts of unlooked-for offshoots and bizarre developments, both for the BPs and myself personally. Then again, could be that it’s just too much inside-baseball type stuff for most non-showbiz types to have any real interest in. We’ll see about that, I suppose.
Update! Much as it annoys me sometimes, ya still can’t help but love WP. No sooner had I typed in and posted that last ‘graph above than it hit me that it might be fun to do a poll, so as to bring y’all readers into the mix here. I knew there were poll plugins available for WP, so I found one and installed it right quick, then set up our first-ever CF reader-opinion poll. Exciting, no?
[ays_poll id=1]
Vote early, vote often. For those of you who don’t give a shit one way or another about any Little Richard guff, the poll plugin is supposed to provide secure and anonymous voting, so you can vote “Hell no, fuck that noise, you bastige” without fear of catching any blog-retribution flak from Your Humble Host. If I’m not mistaken, your choices aren’t limited to the prefab three responses you see in the poll box; custom answers are enabled, just speak your piece in the “Other—please specify” field at the bottom. Hopefully, it will all work and not break the damned layout or anything.
Oh frabjous day update! Callooh callay—that first “HELLS YEAH!” response was me testing the plugin, seems to work as advertised. Have fun, folks.
Well I’ll be danged update! Just came across a good pic of Little Richard onstage from the Tramps show, as well as a NYT day-of-show interview with Da Man himself. Good stuff if you ask me, which admittedly you didn’t.
Informational update! To the fellow who has kindly asked for an email address in the poll above so’s he can make arrangements for a snail-mail contribution to Ye Aulde Fundraiser, the addy is over in the right sidebar near the top: mike-at-this-url dot com. Thanks, buddy!
1For many years, I did two fundraisers per annum here, one in the Spring and one in the Fall. I fell off that wagon a few years back, and haven’t really thought much about it since, seeing as how the fine, fine folks at Hosting Matters up and cut me a seriously sweet deal on hosting after I’d repeatedly gotten into serious arrears with them.
Alas, now that I’m without any real income other than the pitiful few shekels brought in by this h’yar blog and the Eyrie, I find myself forced to reinstate the Fall fundie at least; renewal of the domain name is coming up soon, and I’m ashamed to say that I’m broke as a joke and without other prospects.
That being the case, then, I must with great regret extend the battered tin cup in y’all’s direction and beg for alms. The donation links are at the top of the blog, as you’ve no doubt noticed; I ditched PayPal a while back, although my account with them is still active. Offensive an imposition as it no doubt is, I’ll affix this post up top for the remainder of the month; don’t know what that will mean for the Donnybrook post, having two designated “sticky” posts up there. We’ll see how it goes.
Update! Hey hey hey, the two-sticky-post thing seems to be working just fine. Looks like the old dog just learned hisself a new trick.
Hail Mary update! Since response to the Fall Begathon so far has fallen what you might call way short of overwhelming, in desperation I’ve reinstated the PayPal donation links both above and in the sidebar. Hit ‘em early, hit ‘em often. My thanks to the readers in advance.
Goin’ down for the last time update! Last day for the Fall Begathon will be tomorrow, the 30th; I’ll be renouncing this post’s “sticky” status sometime on Sunday, after which it’ll sink down out of the way, something I know y’all will be as happy about as I admit I’m a-gonna be. If nothing else, a lot of pain-in-the-ass scrolling will be eliminated thereby. So we got that going for us, anyhow.
My sincerest and most humble thanks to all of you who paved your way to Heaven with good intentions via parting with a little of your hard-earned gelt to help out the World’s Greatest One-Legged Blogger in his time of direst need. As always, I remain awed and grateful by/for the generosity of my readers, in terms of both financial considerations and your kind attention.
The total take this time out was a good bit less than that of Begathons past here, which usually only ran for a week or two. Not that I’m complaining, mind, not a bit of it. In these, the days of the Biden Economic MIRACLE!™, such hardship is only to be expected. Things are pretty tough out there nowadays for just about everybody, no matter what Praetorian Media wants us all to believe. And hey, in the lean times every little bit helps, right? Right.
And now, the confession even a blind man coulda seen coming, given the title of this h’yar update: The main point here, gang, was really to provide me with an excuse (as if any were needed) to repost one of the verymost classics of the classic-rock oeuvre. Hell no, I ain’t ashamed of this cheap little subterfuge of mine; I’m PROUD of it, dammit! Why do you ask?
52Via: Sundance
1Better half says it’s not new, but it’s being put up that way. Maybe new to rumble or something.
After the last one where I mentioned the two Chevy’s in the drive, here we title with “Chevy” 🙂
Drive the libs crazy, video shows a weapon in a holster attached to the Chevy!
2Of the incomparable SRV, I mean.
That, of course, is Kenny Wayne Shepherd, courtesy of the likewise incomparable Diogenes Sarcastica, who I gratefully thank for the steer to this one. A bit of bio on Shepherd and his interesting road to blues fame—a long, strange trip fueled, of all things, by the delight of grandmas across America: S&H Green Stamps.
Kenny Wayne Shepherd (born Kenny Wayne Brobst; June 12, 1977) is an American guitarist. He has released several studio albums and experienced significant commercial success as a blues rock artist.
Shepherd was born in Shreveport, Louisiana. He graduated from Caddo Magnet High School in Shreveport. He is “completely self-taught”, and does not read music. Growing up, Shepherd’s father (Ken Shepherd) was a local radio personality and some-time concert promoter, and had a vast collection of music. Shepherd received his first “guitar” at the age of three or four, when his grandmother purchased a series of several plastic guitars for him with S&H Green Stamps, which Shepherd has said he would “go through like candy”.
Shepherd stated in a 2011 interview that he began playing guitar in earnest at age seven, about six months after meeting and being “pretty mesmerized” by Stevie Ray Vaughan, Labor Day weekend in 1984, at one of his father’s promoted concerts. His self-taught method employed a process of learning one note at a time, playing and rewinding cassette tapes, using “a cheap Yamaha wanna-be Stratocaster…made out of plywood, basically”, and learning to play by following along with material from his father’s record collection.
Blues musician Bryan Lee invited the then-13-year-old Shepherd to play guitar onstage. He subsequently made demo tapes, and a video was shot at Shepherd’s first performance at the Red River Revel Arts Festival in Shreveport. It was this video performance that impressed Giant Records chief Irving Azoff enough to sign Shepherd to a multiple album record deal.
From 1995 on, Shepherd took seven singles into the Top 10, and holds the record for the longest-running album on the Billboard Blues Charts with Trouble Is…. In 1996, Shepherd began a longtime collaboration with vocalist Noah Hunt, who provided the vocals for Shepherd’s signature song, “Blue on Black”. Shepherd has been nominated for five Grammy Awards, and has received two Billboard Music Awards, two Blues Music Awards, and two Orville H. Gibson Awards.
I thought I recognized drummer Chris Layton in the above vid, an alumnus of Stevie Ray’s Double Trouble band, and turns out I was right about that; he’s been back there pounding the skins for Shepherd since 2006, as it happens. No surprise that, really; although it could be argued that Shepherd doesn’t quite have the same casual, flawless fluidity as Vaughan, there’s no denying the lad has some damned fine chops of his own, and definitely knows a thing or two about that elusive will o’ the wisp: TONE. It’s the bluesman’s meat and potatoes, a make-or-break quality that the very best players spend entire careers obssessively chasing down, never entirely convinced that they’ve quite caught it. YET.
And Kenny Wayne has it, in spades. His breakout classic-rock-radio hit “Blue On Black” I’m sure you’re all familiar with already, so let’s try another one on for size and see how it fits.
Fits pretty nicely on a hot summer Saturday night, I’d say. One last vid to pull it all together.
Somewhere out there, Stevie Ray Vaughan—and Jimi Hendrix too, probably—are smiling down in approval at their rightful heir.
5Another aging-out 70’s (both age and era) classic-rock superstar has come out swinging against Wokistry in all its guises and pretexts.
Rock legend Alice Cooper — who pioneered performative gender-bending on stage — believes that generation woke’s obsession with transgenderism is a “fad” that has gotten so out of control that it is now “laughable.”
Alice Cooper took particular issue with gender transitions for children in an interview this week with Stereogum.
“I’m understanding that there are cases of transgender, but I’m afraid that it’s also a fad, and I’m afraid there’s a lot of people claiming to be this just because they want to be that,” he said. “I find it wrong when you’ve got a six-year-old kid who has no idea. He just wants to play, and you’re confusing him telling him, ‘Yeah, you’re a boy, but you could be a girl if you want to be.’”
He continued:
I think that’s so confusing to a kid. It’s even confusing to a teenager. You’re still trying to find your identity, and yet here’s this thing going on, saying, “Yeah, but you can be anything you want. You can be a cat if you want to be.” I mean, if you identify as a tree…And I’m going, “Come on! What are we in, a Kurt Vonnegut novel?” It’s so absurd, that it’s gone now to the point of absurdity.
Cooper, a devout Christian, went on to say that the desire to “respect” others’ gender non-conformity has gone too far.
“It’s getting to the point now where it’s laughable. If anybody was trying to make a point on this thing, they turned it into a huge comedy,” he said.
“I don’t know one person that agrees with the woke thing. I don’t know one person. Everybody I talk to says, “Isn’t it stupid?” And I’m going, “Well, I respect people. I respect people and who they are, but I’m not going to tell a seven-year-old boy, ‘Go put a dress on because maybe you’re a girl,’ and he’s going, ‘No, I’m not. I’m a boy.’”
Cooper said that biological reality is a fact that cannot be rationalized away.
“If you have these genitals, you’re a boy. If you have those genitals, you’re a girl,” he said.
Not to put too fine a point on it, or to come off all dismissive and disagreeable, but if you don’t know a single person that agrees with “the woke thing,” Alice, I’d say your circle of acquaintance isn’t terribly broad—particularly for someone in the music biz, which is brimming over with shitlibs every place you care to look.
Not that I’m disagreeing with him, of course; he’s perfectly correct, in every least particular. Alice Cooper is known far and wide as an extremely nice, easy to get along with, and considerate person to hang out with, evincing not a jot or tittle of the ego-tripping and sniffy stand-offishness that seem to go hand-in-glove with a certain level of celebrity. He’s also quite astute in his political views, which makes him a signal departure from the usual run of famous-person-dumbassery endemic amongst the showbiz glitterati.
Kudos to him for unabashedly telling it like it really is, knowing full well the condemnatory hue and cry one is likely to get in return for such frank honesty in Amerika v2.0. Unlike Paul Stanley and Dee Snider, I very much doubt Alice Cooper will be tippy-toeing away from his common-sensical, scientifically correct slam of “transgender” lunacy anytime soon due to the political backlash.
So well done, Mr Furnier, well done indeed. Calls for not one but two Tune Damage embeds, I think, if for no other reason than that I absolutely adore both these songs.
Love that Rich Mockingbird Pete Friesen is playing (I think it’s Friesen, could easily be wrong about that though) in the vids. Don’t see a lot of those out there nowadays, but they’ve always been damned fine instruments, a player’s guitar for sure.
Another good one, mixed with dogs and Chevrolet’s. The man is the real deal.
Via: Gateway Pundit
Controversy! My wife informs me that some places call the song “Brink of War”.
I have checked his youtube channel and “I Want To Go Home” is correct.
1In his own words, straight from the horse’s mouth.
Im sitting in such a weird place in my life right now. I never wanted to be a full time musician, much less sit at the top of the iTunes charts. Draven from RadioWv and I filmed these tunes on my land with the hope that it may hit 300k views. I still don’t quite believe what has went on since we uploaded that. It’s just strange to me.
People in the music industry give me blank stares when I brush off 8 million dollar offers. I don’t want 6 tour buses, 15 tractor trailers and a jet. I don’t want to play stadium shows, I don’t want to be in the spotlight. I wrote the music I wrote because I was suffering with mental health and depression. These songs have connected with millions of people on such a deep level because they’re being sung by someone feeling the words in the very moment they were being sung. No editing, no agent, no bullshit. Just some idiot and his guitar. The style of music that we should have never gotten away from in the first place.
So that being said, I have never taken the time to tell you who I actually am. Here’s a formal introduction:
My legal name is Christopher Anthony Lunsford. My grandfather was Oliver Anthony, and “Oliver Anthony Music” is a dedication not only to him, but 1930’s Appalachia where he was born and raised. Dirt floors, seven kids, hard times. At this point, I’ll gladly go by Oliver because everyone knows me as such. But my friends and family still call me Chris. You can decide for yourself, either is fine.
In 2010, I dropped out of high school at age 17. I have a GED from Spruce Pine, NC. I worked multiple plant jobs in Western NC, my last being at the paper mill in McDowell county. I worked 3rd shift, 6 days a week for $14.50 an hour in a living hell. In 2013, I had a bad fall at work and fractured my skull. It forced me to move back home to Virginia. Due to complications from the injury, it took me 6 months or so before I could work again.
From 2014 until just a few days ago, I’ve worked outside sales in the industrial manufacturing world. My job has taken me all over Virginia and into the Carolinas, getting to know tens of thousands of other blue collar workers on job sites and in factories. Ive spent all day, everyday, for the last 10 years hearing the same story. People are SO damn tired of being neglected, divided and manipulated.
In 2019, I paid $97,500 for the property and still owe about $60,000 on it. I am living in a 27′ camper with a tarp on the roof that I got off of craigslist for $750.
There’s nothing special about me. I’m not a good musician, I’m not a very good person. I’ve spent the last 5 years struggling with mental health and using alcohol to drown it. I am sad to see the world in the state it’s in, with everyone fighting with each other. I have spent many nights feeling hopeless, that the greatest country on Earth is quickly fading away.
FAIR WARNING: the link is to a post on Anthony’s Fakeberg page, if that’s a problem for ya. This once, it wasn’t for me.
I’ve seen some speculation here and there that Anthony is in reality some kind of false-flag sleeper agent for TPTB, but I can’t honestly say I buy it myself; his story rings true enough to me, especially knowing as I do how these lightning-in-a-bottle moments work in the music biz, and how commonly they actually do occur.
And, per John Nolte, those jackwagons at NRO can STILL kiss my baggy, white ass.
(Via Insty)
3Borepatch likes the Cowboy Junkies’ reimagining of it, but for me there can only be the Marcels, there simply is nobody else.
No, not even Elvis.
2Another Jimi Hendrix thang from Quora Digest, one part of which I especially dig (in bold, natch).
Was Jimi Hendrix a significantly better guitarist than his contemporaries?
Yes, with some very minor reservations which I’ll get to in a minute.Hendrix raised the bar and changed the game, when it came to electric guitar. Jazz musicians like to talk about a musician’s ‘conception’, meaning that musician’s general approach to the instrument, and to making music. Another musician might find it difficult to play with someone whose conception they couldn’t understand. (Ornette Coleman sometimes had this problem, until he attracted musicians like Ed Blackwell, Don Cherry and Charlie Haden, who grasped his conception very well.)
The recorded evidence shows that, in terms of his conception—his understanding of what the electric guitar was good for, and could be made to do—Hendrix was simply head and shoulders above his peers. He effortlessly incorporated controlled noise and feedback into his playing, when his peers were tentatively mucking about with them. He was a superb rhythm player: most of the other guitar heroes of his generation were at best workmanlike rhythm players, and not even the best rhythm players of the time (Townshend, Page) could match the fury and precision of Hendrix’s part on ‘Killing Floor’—there’s a reason why he chose that song to introduce himself to American audiences at the Monterey festival. His leads were almost endlessly inventive and expressive: listen to what he can do with just one chord in ‘Voodoo Chile (Slight Return)’. His expressivity on guitar was supreme. Other guitarists, like Clapton, took a plank of wood and an amp the size of a fridge, and in the words of Philip Norman, made it sound like some kind of strange but haunting wind instrument, but Hendrix made it sound like a whole orchestra, playing in a hurricane.
With all respect to other answers to this question, and their authors, many of whom are people whose other answers I have enjoyed and admired, I have to laugh when I see Hendrix being considered as if he belonged in the same company as players like Clapton, Mike Bloomfield or even Jeff Beck. They belong in each other’s company; they do not belong in his.
VERY well said, sir. I chose not to put that last line in boldface as well, but it was a near-run thing, and a difficult decision indeed.
1Aldean has stood behind his song and its message, and the attempts to cancel it have only made it more popular.
But now some people are reporting that Aldean caved to the woke mob by removing footage of a Black Lives Matter riot from the music video of “Try That in a Small Town.”
“Jason Aldean caved under pressure and removed all the Black Lives Matter footage from his music video despite receiving an outpouring of support from conservatives. So much for that. There are no more heroes,” lamented journalist Ian Miles Cheong. “Gotta have it both ways by pretending to be based for that cash, while folding to the woke in this business if you wanna keep getting invited to the Grammy’s [sic].”
“Jason Aldean quietly edited out the BLM rioters from his ‘controversial’ music video,” Brigitte Gabriel of ACT for America observed. “Very disappointing to see him cave to the woke mob.”
But that’s not what happened at all. According to a report from TMZ, the BLM riot footage used in the Aldean video came from Fox 5 in Atlanta, and the production company behind the video didn’t get the proper legal clearance to use the footage.
From the story Margolis links:
Sources connected to the music video production tell TMZ…back when they were producing the video, the company that produced it reached out to FOX on May 8 and asked for permission to use the 6 seconds of video shot by FOX 5 Atlanta…showing violence at a BLM rally.
We’re told the folks at FOX asked for more information … specifically the lyrics of the song. We’re told the production company sent FOX a link to the song — which was released May 19 — but the protocol was to send the lyrics in writing, which they never did.
Our sources say a week ago, FOX reached out to the production company and asked them to remove the video to avoid any legal action — which was described to us as a “polite ultimatum” — and the production company complied.
And there you have it; as always, the truth will out, though it may take a minute doing so. But also as per usual, the Left will use any lie they must so as to paper over the truth and claim another “victory” for themselves—even as flimsy, easily-disproven a one as this. Back over to Matt for the finisher, and the lesson to be learned, remembered, and always borne closely in mind.
So, this wasn’t about caving to the woke mob. This was Aldean’s production company being sloppy and not getting permission to use the footage included in the video. While there have been plenty of times conservatives have been rightfully disappointed by someone caving to the woke mob, this wasn’t one of those moments, and conservatives shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions.
Exactly, precisely so. They win enough as it is, without us pre-emptively surrendering when there’s no need for it, reflexively throwing one of our own under the bus at their behest. FUCK all that noise.
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