Young Eric Clapton

My first true musical hero - my teenage idol - was Eric Clapton.

Nowadays, I find his music boring and predictable and the man himself rather unpleasant. However, for a while - starting in 1965 - I was a total Clapton fan boy. I followed everything he did through the pages of Melody Maker, listened to everything I could get hold of and soaked up every single note until, as a young guitarist, I could play along with his records and make a fair fist of it. Hell, I even tried to look like him and grew my sideburns as long as my teenage hormones would allow!

What really set me off on this adolescent idolatry was the "Beano" album - "Blues Breakers - John Mayall with Eric Clapton", to give it its official title. The "Beano" reference was to the kids' comic Clapton is reading on the front of the album cover. 

Mayall gave Clapton more or less equal billing, as the guitarist was a huge draw as far as live gigs were concerned. It's surprising to realise that Clapton's tenure with Mayall only spanned just over a year in total - April to June 1965, and then October 1965 to July 1966. The three month hiatus was down to Clapton deciding to form a band called the Glands and then go and conquer Greece - but that's another story! The Beano album was recorded in May '66 but not released until after the guitarist had quit the Blues Breakers to form Cream.

The album was a hit - reaching number 6 in the 1966 UK regular album chart. Remember, this was a hit blues album at a time when blues music was very much a minority taste!

What's always intrigued me is how a rather pedestrian guitarist with the Yardbirds blossomed so quickly - in a matter of a few months - into Mayall's right hand man and pretty much nailed the sound and style of rock guitar for the next half century or so to come. You get no clues from his autobiography, other than that he woodshedded intensively when transitioning between the Yardbirds and the Blues Breakers. Yes, you get a glimpse of his potential on less than a handful of Yardbirds tracks, but suddenly there he was, BANG! - the toast of the club circuit. Apparently, Mayall made Clapton listen to a lot of electric blues by people like Otis Rush and one can only assume that the guitarist soaked it all up. However it happened, he went from average to great very quickly indeed.

OK, so here's the deal...

This is an attempt to gather together an illustrative collection of non-Beano and pre-Cream tracks, showing what else Clapton got up to around about that time. It shifts from a few Yardbirds tracks to collaborations with Mayall, Jimmy Page and others, and hopefully adds to and illuminates the legacy of the groundbreaking Beano album and Clapton's major part in it. 

Off we go with three tracks from the Yardbirds - a single:"Good Morning Little Schoolgirl"/"I Ain't Got You" (1964) and the B-side - "Got to Hurry" (1965) - of the band's first major hit, "For Your Love". The "Schoolgirl" A-side might well be one of the most moronic blues covers ever, but Clapton's solo comes soaring through with its fat overdriven tone. You'd swear it was Jeff Beck, but it's definitely Clapton. The B-side R&B classic is far more respectfully treated, with a good solo from Clapton. "Got to Hurry" was, by all accounts, the track that made Mayall seek out Clapton for the Blues Breakers.

A one off single record deal in 1965 got Mayall and Clapton a release on the Purdah label, owned by future Beano album producer Mike Vernon. This paired a piano/guitar instrumental "Bernard Jenkins" with "Lonely Years" featuring Mayall on vocals and harp and Clapton, naturally, on guitar. Both sides are stunningly good and it's amazing to think that Clapton was just 20 at the time.

Mayall's Clapton era Bluesbreakers cut a few tracks for the Immediate label sometime in 1965, as Mayall had been dropped by Decca, although the contract was later renewed for the Beano album. These included "I'm Your Witchdoctor" - complete with a solo played using only sustained feedback...

[...it's generally acknowledged that the first purposely recorded guitar feedback was the opening note of the Beatles' "I Feel Fine" and I have no argument with that. However, when it comes to the first use of feedback in a solo, I've read people citing Hendrix, Townshend and others, but no one ever mentions the "Witchdoctor" solo - apart from The Seth Man here. Recorded some time in 1965 (a more exact date is unavailable), it's streets ahead of anything anyone played before or for quite a few years afterwards. Clapton doesn't just throw in a squeal of feedback or sustain a single note, he plays two solos using only continuous feedback. In short, no one had ever played the guitar in such a way before - not ever...]

...and a tasty slow blues - "Telephone Blues" - on the B side. A further track, again with a feedback solo, was recorded - "On Top of the World". Some bloke called Jimmy Page produced these, and also a few rough instrumental tracks with Clapton - some of which which were overdubbed a couple of years later, by some of the Stones and their roadie Ian Stewart. They're just blues jams, with Clapton soloing continuously and, at the time, served as a good way of picking up licks while I was learning guitar. 

Clapton's association with Mayall also resulted in some session work (February 1966) for Decca with producer Mike Vernon. Notably, it included some recordings with visiting blues great Champion Jack Dupree - shown below. Although only three tracks appear to have Clapton solos on, they're well worth hearing and, again, show a maturity well above that expected of a relative novice. Reading between the lines, it may have been this session that revived Decca's interest in signing Mayall again.

Clapton also cut three tracks for the Elektra label with an ad hoc studio band called "the Powerhouse" in 1966. This included Jack Bruce on bass, Steve Winwood (under the alias Steve Anglo) on vocals, Paul Jones (from Manfred Mann) on harp, Pete York (Spencer Davis Group) on drums and Ben Palmer on piano (an old musical colleague of Clapton's). "Steppin' Out" and "I Want to Know" feature some great guitar from Clapton, although "Crossroads" lacks a solo, and is but a shadow of the definitive Cream live version that would follow just a couple of years later.

While Clapton was with the Blues Breakers, the band recorded some sessions for BBC radio and quite a number of tracks are available. I've included a few, but there's more here - an excellent site that's a real treasure trove of obscure stuff. Generally, the radio recordings lack excitement and it sounds as if Clapton had trouble getting a good sound - perhaps the BBC engineers couldn't handle his Marshall combo at full chat! It's interesting to compare the radio versions of songs that also appear on the Beano album, and the BBC version of "Steppin' Out" is well worth a listen. I think I might even prefer it to the Beano album version. 

As for live recordings, very few exist. What there are were recorded at the Flamingo Club in London in April 1966 (possibly professionally for a prospective live album) with the line up of Mayall, Clapton, Jack Bruce on bass and Hughie Flint on drums. They do, however, give a good indication of how incendiary Clapton's playing could be with Mayall in a live setting.  Five of these tracks appeared as one side of a 1977 Mayall live album and the extra track cropped up on a compilation. You only have to listen to "Maudie" with Clapton's insistent riffing and scorched earth solo to imagine how dynamic the Blues Breakers could be at this time. 

[Another side note is appropriate here. In 1979, Mayall's Laurel Canyon house was totally destroyed in a fire. Not only did Mayall's vast collection of pornography end up in ashes, but also his even larger musical archive, including cine film, photos, diaries and other documents and, it has to be assumed, audio recordings which Mayall had amassed over the years. This must surely be one of the reasons for so few live Clapton/Mayall recordings.]

So, what made Clapton's playing become so compelling as he transitioned from the Yardbirds to Cream? Well, part of it was the combination of a Gibson Les Paul Standard with a Marshall amp, resulting in a thick overdriven tone that would set the sonic standard for rock guitar in the decades to come. It's hard to disassociate this from what he played, but what stands out for me, in a musical sense, is how he used stock pentatonic blues lines across the rhythm, and repeated little licks that fitted in, but then subdivided the rhythm and shifted those licks in order to create a skipping effect with real movement. He was also never afraid to leave gaps in his solos. At his best, it almost sounded as if he was flying over the accompaniment in freewheeling ecstasy - sometimes diving, sometimes soaring, or sometimes just in freefall. Hard to describe, but there we go...

So, all in all, here are 30 tracks of early Clapton - by no means definitive, as I've left off some of the BBC radio session tracks - but I reckon it's a fairly thorough overview of what he was capable of whipping out in the early stages of his career. After all this, of course, came Cream, Blind Faith, Derek and the Dominos and then a hugely successful solo career which largely left me cold - and still does, for that matter. 

As for Mayall, although he lost Clapton, their brief association and the Beano album really cemented his well-deserved place in music history as a founding father of British rock and blues. 

What staggers me above anything else is the time scale here - in barely three years, Clapton had gone from joining the Yardbirds to recording "I Feel Free" with Cream - a truly remarkable learning curve, and a stratospheric career trajectory.

To win this carefully curated collection of early Clapton, just answer this simple question as a comment below - who was your first musical hero?

Japanese African Riot!

A guest post from Koen which reveals an interesting musical link...

Sometimes you discover a track from years ago and get a feeling of ‘Holy Crap! That still sounds so futuristic, it could have been recorded yesterday!!’ Of course, this doesn’t happen very often to say the least, but when it happens it really can be mind-blowing.

I first started hearing Ryuichi Sakamoto (ex-Yellow Magic Orchestra) via Thomas Dolby, as he did the vocals on Sakamoto’s Fieldwork, still a nice track by the way. As a result, I bought 1986’s Illustrated Musical Encyclopedia - not bad at all. You might have heard him first doing Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence…

And a year later there was Neo Geo, produced by Laswell and with Iggy Pop singing Risky.
1989 brought Beauty which was even better, from beginning to end an amazing album. However thanks to the Internet (and Napster, Audio Galaxy, etc.!) I started looking at some of his earlier work and found this outstanding instrumental from his 1980 B-2 Unit: Riot In Lagos.

You have to hear this for yourself, but for me it was (& still is) an alien composition sent backwards through time from a distant future.

At times Sakamoto would play Riot on piano solo and it still manages to sound intriguing.
Only last year after listening to Riot once again I decided to do some digging and discovered Dennis Bovell was involved in the recording!

Koen sez:  To get a digital version of Riot In Lagos (+ related goodies), please let us know your own favourite futuristic track(s).

Dan Bairds all!

I've been listening to the Stones a lot lately...

...and one of the many pleasures in doing so is hearing that sort of lurching shambolic swagger they often employ in their more rocky up tempo numbers. I once read an article which explained that it was all about the band following Keith's guitar, so that the drums were just very, very slightly behind the rhythm guitar. As Ron Wood explains: 

In other bands they follow the drummer; the Stones follow Keith, and they always have.

Not that other bands haven't achieved this effect. I've heard it in tracks from the Faces, Mott the Hoople and the Georgia Satellites. It almost has the effect of making the music seem about to topple over into rhythmic chaos, although it never does,

All of which is a contrived way to introduce the subject of today's screed - Dan Baird.

Er...who?

Well, he was vocalist and guitarist with the Georgia Satellites, who'd worked hard over a decade to earn a reputation as a very successful no-frills rock band, although their recording career always lagged behind their live shows in terms of popularity and impact. Baird left in 1990 to go solo after becoming disenchanted with the band:

I developed a very shitty attitude about the band. So, one morning I woke up and fired myself. We were together for 10 years and we weren't able to inspire each other anymore. It's like any relationship that starts getting too old. There was just certain things that started getting lackadaisical.

He eventually went on to release what I think is one of the finest debut solo albums by anyone ever - 1992's "Love Songs for the Hearing Impaired". Recorded with guitars, bass and drums, and an occasional piano, it's a fine collection of what you might call "good time rock" and you'd be delighted if you walked into a bar on a music night and the band sounded like this. 

Baird is the very antithesis of a hard living rocker - a teetotaler and an avid gym rat - but has a real knack of taking tried and tested basic rock ingredients and invigorating them with a fresh and often humorous recipe all of his own. "Songs" does this in spades but it's all so enthusiastic and heartfelt that I don't care when certain musical motifs and devices sound a tad familiar. Shit - he's so damn' likeable and keen to please that I could forgive him anything!

In many ways, the last track - "Dixie Beauxderaunt - pretty much typifies Baird's take on rock. It has very Faces-like guitars that mesh beautifully and the lyrics are very much part of the total package. Dixie's an underage (under drinking age!) teenage rebel who gets roped in to take part in a wet t-shirt contest. Dan's sly and knowing lyrics tell a story very much like Chuck Berry might. 

Well Tina looked at Dixie, said one of us can win that prize
Well Tina didn't win 'cause she danced to Twisted Sister
But when Dixie told the DJ "Gimme Three Steps mister"
All the gentlemen in the audience began to rise

 

The album is a rarity - it doesn't contain a single duff track - although some of the lyrics might be deemed by some to be a little politically incorrect, albeit with the benefit of thirty years' hindsight. Sure, the album wears its influences very obviously on its sleeve, but Baird and the rest of the band attack the songs with such energy and humour that their momentum just steamrollers aside any cliches you might have noticed. 

Above all, it's FUN!

 

Whilst "Love Songs" was reasonably successful, the follow up album, "Buffalo Nickel", was a flop. However, this didn't deter Baird, whose CV has always revealed a really strong work ethic, and after a period playing with the Yayhoos, Bobby Keys and others, he eventually formed Dan Baird & Homemade Sin, recruiting Jason and the Scorchers' killer lead guitarist Warner E Hodges. Even while gigging extensively for a dozen years and releasing a dozen albums with Homemade Sin, Baird still found time to form Bluefields with Hodges, and four albums were recorded.

 

A few years ago, Baird was diagnosed with a form of hereditary leukemia but, unlike many musicians, he had adequate health insurance, was successfully treated and is now in remission. He briefly returned to touring with Homemade Sin, but has now retired from gigging, although he's still recording, going to the gym, and even has a new band - the Chefs - with Stan Lynch from Tom Petty's Heartbreakers.

 

Most people are probably aware of the Georgia Satellites, but they only accounted for a quarter of Baird's four decade - and counting - career. The remaining thirty years are well worth investigating and "Love Songs for the Hearing Impaired" is a great place to start.

 

Find out how to get this album in the comments below.

Now Jimi gimme some feedback

Bootleg collecting can be very frustrating at times. 

You have to pick your way through a lot of dross in order to find the real gems. Of course, the more prolific the artist is, the harder you have to dig to find the good stuff - people like Zappa, Dylan, the Stones, the Beatles and Jimi Hendrix.

So, here's one from Jimi and it's a real mixture, spanning the years 1968 to 1970. There's Jimi solo, with the original Experience, the Band of Gypsys, and Lonnie Youngblood. Quite why it's called "The Capricorn Tape" is a mystery, as there's no reason or cohesion, and nothing in common here - just a seemingly random collection of tracks. It's not even as if Jimi was born a Capricorn...he was Sagittarius. However, what sets this apart from the usual dodgy bootleg stuff is that everything on it is well worth hearing. What's more, it's in great sound quality.

This collection kicks off with "Hear My Train A' Comin'" - or "Getting my Heart Back Together", as it's sometimes called. It's a classic slow burning slow blues that seems to be a composite of two sessions - the change in tempo and studio ambience is a big clue! It sounds as if Billy Cox is there in both sections, and also Buddy Miles in the first half, and then Mitch Mitchell in the second. It's as good as any other version I've heard.

Next is "Belly Button Window" with just double tracked guitars - one straight and one with wah-wah - and Jimi's vocals. It always stayed this simple - even when it eventually got a posthumous release on "Cry of Love". 

By GabeMc - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=29476894

 

Almost 20 minutes of "Villanova Junction Jam" follows, with a lovely solo rhythm guitar intro. This leads into the main theme with Cox and Miles joining in. It then wanders about as a very loose jam (hence the title!) exploring the band's appreciation of dynamics with alternate soft and raucous passages. A harmonica joins in towards the end for some reason. It's all a bit formless, but there's a lot of superb guitar from Jimi, with him summoning what he calls "jungle sounds" from his guitar at one point. 

"Mother" (aka "Georgia Blues") comes next and Jimi gets a chance to show off his blues chops as he accompanies Lonnie Youngblood, who contributes vocals. It's a jazzy take on a slow blues with some impressive chord work from Jimi, and his playing meshes well with the organist attending the session. This is the non-sax version, so you can hear Jimi's rhythm guitar more clearly.

One of the many attempts to record "Lover Man" follows - work on it started a year previously - and it features the original Experience. It's a straight live in the studio take, much briefer than others, with no overdubs and what sound like live vocals. As it's not one of the earliest versions, the band really know their way round the piece, and it's certainly one of the best recordings of the song in spite of, or perhaps because of, this stripped down form. 

Another work in progress is next - "New Rising Sun". Recorded solo with drums and guitar overdubs from Jimi, it's very much a soundscape in places - along the lines of "1983" from "Electric Ladyland" - with lots of studio effects coming in behind some beautiful chordal solo passages. Eventually, the piece gained lyrics and developed into "Hey Baby (New Rising Sun)", although it bears very little resemblance to this early take. 

 "Midnight" closes proceedings with Noel and Mitch in another live in the studio take. After the main theme, Jimi kicks in fuzz and cocked wah and just scythes through the mix with a vicious solo. At about the 5 minute mark, after another written ensemble section, it almost stops and then takes off again with Jimi beating the crap out of his Strat. The end comes with a prolonged wash of high and heavily delayed feedback, repeatedly and rapidly bent with the whammy bar.

So OK, yet another Hendrix bootleg, but definitely one of the better ones. I've read that this might have been intended for legitimate release, but was shelved when the ":Blues" album was compiled. Who knows? Of course, it could just have been thrown together by a fan but, whatever its origin, it's a fine compilation showing off the qualities which made Jimi a true musical legend.

You want album?

You answer question!

Dial 'GW' for Geraint Watkins

Koen's last screed featuring Chuck Berry threw up a couple of votes for "Promised Land" as Chuck's best song. 

To judge by the number of covers, many musicians agree - the Band, the Grateful Dead (they played it live 425 times from 1971 to 1995!), Johnny Rivers, Meatloaf, and several dozen more. One of the more interesting covers appeared in 1971 when Johnny Allan and the Krazy Kats released a Cajun interpretation of it, complete with accordion. 

Chuck Berry fan Dave Edmunds (better known in the US for his time in Rockpile) also cut a version in 1972 for his first solo album "Rockpile" - hence the later band name when he teamed up with Nick Lowe, Billy Bremner and Terry Williams. His first stab at the song adopted a pretty standard approach with guitar, bass and drums and lots of Berry-style guitar soloing from Edmunds. He obviously had a lot of love for the song as Rockpile went on to include it in their live sets.

Somewhere along the way after that, Edmunds started playing the song with a Cajun feel a la Johnny Adams, and the clip below shows him in 1998 fronting an all star band playing a storming version of it. (Full show here - and it's a corker!)

As well as Edmunds, that particular band included Henry Spinetti on drums, Andy Fairweather Lowe and Mickey Gee (a superb player and, sadly, no longer with us) on guitars, Pino Palladino on bass and one Geraint Watkins on accordion and keyboard.

Geraint who?

Well, for saying he's played and/or recorded with Clapton, the Stray Cats, Carl Perkins, Status Quo, Dr Feelgood, Rory Gallagher, Dave Edmunds, Nick Lowe, Ronnie Lane, the Fabulous Thunderbirds, Mark Knopfler, John Martyn, Gerry Rafferty, Paul McCartney, Van Morrison, Bill Wyman and many others, it's surprising that he's not better known. 

No less a musical giant than Bob Dylan - on his Theme Time Radio Hour - once played a couple of his tracks and described Watkins as his "favourite English piano player". Watkins is Welsh, of course, but never mind...that's high praise indeed!

Add to that the fact that he's released several very fine solo albums of his own, that sank without trace, and you end up with one more rock stalwart who's never been or is ever likely to be famous in their own right, but is highly respected by fellow musicians and fans, works steadily and makes a relatively anonymous but significant contribution to this music stuff that we all love. 

Initially emerging in the very early UK Pub Rock scene, Watkins started making a name for himself when he moved from Wales to London. He got lots of session work and ended up in Micky Jupp's band for the 'Be Stiff Route 78' tour. This must have sparked off an interest in forming a band of his own and a few years later he was one of the founding members of the much-missed Balham Alligators.

The Alligators played a heady mix of Cajun, country, swing, R&B, R&R, blues, swamp pop and folk, with Watkins featured most prominently. Unfortunately, the members didn't get on particularly well with each other and their gigs were sometimes marred by arguments such as which song to play next. Watkins commented much later:

“On a good night we were unbeatable, we’d pull the house down, on a bad night we’d be utterly terrible. There didn’t seem to be anything in-between. Great or awful.”

Fortunately, it's the former here...

They were what you might call "a good time band" and became such a huge draw in pubs and small venues that even after they'd broken up they got flooded with booking requests, so the band reformed with Watkins to the fore again and carried on for a while longer. 

As mentioned above, Watkins has a solo career, with several albums released slowly but steadily over the years. His first was as leader of his band called Geraint Watkins and the Dominators, who were soon poached by producer Stuart Colman to back Shakin' Stevens in the studio and on the road, which put Watkins' solo ambitions on hold, but at least paid the rent.

The album was produced by Andy Fairweather Lowe in 1979 and pretty much serves as a smorgasbord of various American R&B stylings with nods to Fats Domino, early Elvis, and Little Richard, although a couple of tracks sound very Little Feats-ish to me, and there's also some tracks that Rockpile fans will enjoy. Unfortunately, there's no accordion from Watkins - he can really ignite a song with it, as he proved with the Alligators -  but it's still a fine album that's recently had its first outing on CD, after over 40 years languishing on ropy vinyl copies and as sub-par mp3s. 

Here's Andy Fairweather Lowe talking about how the album came to be recorded, with a few anecdotes about Watkins which are well worth hearing.

The re-release has some session outtakes as well as a few tracks recorded with Glyn Johns. The latter reveal a more poppy side to Watkins, including a rather Spectorish song. some blues and even a stab at straight rock with Fairweather Lowe on lead vocals. On the whole, it's pretty disposable bonus material, but it's good to have the original album in good quality sound at last.

His later albums are all worth exploring and see him covering an even wider range of material, and in increasingly diverse styles, as in this 2004 recording which reveals what happens when Nina Simone meets some Heroes and Villains...

Or perhaps you'd prefer a 2022 video of early Duke Ellington meeting Johnny B Goode?

Watkins' Facebook and YouTube pages are well worth exploring and contain several videos of his fez-wearing trio "The Feztones" - which is just Watkins greenscreened. He explains that fezzes are expensive, so he bought four of them in a two for the price of one deal, and now has a spare... 

Just answer the laughably easy question in the comments below to hear more from this largely unknown but hugely talented musician...

Go Chuck go!

Koen continues exploring outside the DUBZONE... 

I just finished reading Chuck Berry - An American Life by RJ Smith, quite a fascinating read showing lots of aspects of this Rock & Roll enigma.

Rampant racism, jail time(s), getting ripped off by promoters, the songs, shambolic live performances (with occasional glimpses of brilliance), sexual predator, etc., it’s all there.

Chuck probably was one of the first (if not The First) singer/songwriter responsible for loads of classic rock songs covered by almost every rock band in the US, UK, and Europe, from The Beatles & Stones to Santana and George Benson. Weird fact though, his only number one novelty hit My Ding-A-Ling (reviled by many & hardly covered by anyone!) was more of less a cover of a Dave Bartholomew’s 1952 song… 

My first Chuck lp was On Stage which I considered a great live album not knowing anything yet about the existence of fake live concerts, I was only 10 at the time after all…
Thanks to an uncle I got several singles and eps (on Funckler and Pye International rather than Chess) which I played a lot.

Best though were the Chuck Berry's Golden Decade double lps, I had Volume 2 & 3, the first had some hard to get classics and the second featured a lot of obscure work, but still worthwhile. From his Mercury years I didn’t have much, never cared much about his re-recordings of the old Chess hits and wasn’t familiar with the newer songs. Back at Chess I got (& still have!) his 1971 San Francisco Dues which is excellent.

In 1972 The London Chuck Berry Sessions came out with great cover artwork, but the music was less though, despite the number one hit. Another odd fact, the guys behind the Lanchester Arts Festival where My Ding-A-Ling was recorded tried to get part of the royalties as the audience participation made up a significant part of the song!

Highlight of my collection though was a purple bootleg (but excellent sound) recording of the BBC 1972 live concert named Six Two Five!

Fast forward to the CD era, by now uncountable collections can be found, many of dubious origin and sound quality, which is a shame really. Charlie Records came up in 1991 with a 9 CD The Chess Years box and later Hip-O Select released a number of CD sets; 2008 Johnny B. Goode His Complete '50s Chess Recordings, 2009 You Never Can Tell: His Complete Chess Recordings, and 2010 Have Mercy - His Complete Chess Recordings 1969-1974.

Of course German Bear Family topped them all in 2014 with the massive 16 CD box: Rock And Roll Music - Any Old Way You Choose It - The Complete Studio Recordings ... Plus!
Even so, there are still a large number of outtakes, alternative versions of his songs floating around the Net, but how much does anyone really need?! I still haven’t listened to all his officially released work…

 

His final album Chuck was released a few years later posthumously in 2017 and imo is a fitting farewell recording.

Since the fake On Stage several real live performances have been released officially (& many more unofficially):
Live At The Fillmore Auditorium - San Francisco (with the Steve Miller Band) 1967
Toronto Rock 'N' Roll Revival 1969
The London Chuck Berry Sessions 1972 (3 songs) > 2010 (8 songs)
Oh Yeah, Live in Detroit.

No lack of tributes either, in 1987 Chuck got on the big screen to celebrate his 60th birthday and the resulting Hail! Hail! Rock 'N' Roll (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) is definitely worth listening, partly thanks to the special guests: Keith Richards, Robert Cray, Linda Ronstadt, Eric Clapton, Julian Lennon, and Etta James. Making the movie was at times a nightmare for Keith & director Taylor Hackford as Chuck upheld his cantankerous reputation…

Where to start as most of the Major’s regular visitors probably have all the hits already?
During one of my visits to the home country I bought You Came A Long Way From St. Louis: The Many Sides Of Chuck Berry (2006), an excellent collection of Chess and Mercury songs with insightful liner notes by Peter Doggett which contains a very good track by track (31!) annotation.

During his lifetime in 2004 his hometown St. Louis decided to salute the Father of Rock & Roll with the 19 track Brown Eyed Handsome Man, some great covers!

To get these last 2 lovely discs (+ some surprises!) just answer Koen's question below!

Join the march and eat my starch!

Even before Frank Zappa's death in 1993...

...it was obvious that there was a huge amount of unreleased material in what was termed "The Vault" at the UMRK. The guy recorded every gig and kept copies of all recording sessions. 

Since his demise a lot of this material has been released - sometimes in short squirts and sometimes in great floods. To date, there have been 62 "official" albums issued before his death and a further 62 released posthumously, with album #125 - Zappa '80: Mudd Club/Munich - set for a March release.

Given the sheer number of releases, it's not surprising that some of them have passed under the radar and, whilst some are of limited interest, others are, if not an indispensable part of the Zappa canon, certainly deserving of a wider audience.

So, from July 2016, here's Zappa album #104 - The Crux of the Biscuit. 

This was originally intended as a celebration of the Apostrophe album released forty years (forty-two years, in fact, after some delay) previously. Whether this was his best-selling album depends on what you read, but it was certainly one of the most successful in terms of sales.

It's described as a "Project/Object Audio Documentary" - the fourth such themed album after MOFO, Lumpy Money and Greasy Love Songs - and the idea behind this was to expand on previously released albums, with extra material that gave an insight into their creation and evolution.

Crux is a single disc with the first four tracks, in different earlier mixes, presented as an early sequence for the first side of the final Apostrophe release, although this plan wasn't followed. However, it's the remaining tracks which are the most rewarding.

The eventual title track appears in various forms, with Jack Bruce guesting on farty bass, but the real treasure is a live performance of "Don't Eat the Yellow Snow/St. Alphonzo's Pancake Breakfast" from 1973, Sydney, Australia. This is quite different from the cut and paste job which eventually appeared on the album and contains the "Mar-juh-rene" monologue. It's probably my favourite live version. 

 

There are one or two session snippets from the "Yellow Snow Suite" which never made the cut, and a basic track take of "Cosmik Debris", without vocals. There's also a five minute interview with Frank explaining the origins of the "Yellow Snow Suite" which is interesting. Strangely, however, there's no alternative version of "Stinkfoot".

So, warts 'n' all, that's Zappa album #104 - best enjoyed side by side with the finished Apostrophe release. 

So, get ready to eat that question!

King Albert

Of the "Three Kings" of blues guitar - BB, Freddie and Albert - it's Albert I keep coming back to...

BB's career saw most of the rough, but interesting, edges knocked off his playing as he gained mass appeal and Freddie's style just sounds rather generic to me. Albert, however, just seemed to push his playing harder over time, improving as he grew older - and he never compromised. There was always something gritty and exciting in there to grab your attention.

Born Albert Nelson, and no relation to BB in spite of his early claims, he played a stock right handed guitar flipped over and played left hand - without changing the stringing. That meant that the thinner strings were towards the top of the fretboard - an important factor in his sound. In order to bend the higher strings, he had to push them down - a little easier to do - rather than up. Moreover, he had his guitar in a dropped tuning (CFCFAD according to Dan Erlwine who built King's guitar "Lucy" - shown below) which meant the strings were slacker. Consequently, there was often a slight overbend which gave his lines a certain 'spiciness'. He also picked a note and then bent it numerous times, and to various pitches, with the same pick stroke. These bends were often very wide - a couple or more whole steps. Combined with his tendency to play a run on the top strings and end up with a very brief flourish when he tumbled down onto the lower strings, this meant that he ended up with a very distinctive style. He also followed the maxim that less can be more: that the spaces between the notes are just as important as the notes themselves. I can hear him playing a few licks and I just know it's him. 

(For more info on Albert's Flying V guitars look here.)

Live, Albert stretched out more than either Freddie or BB. A slow blues could often run to ten or more minutes, as he took several choruses and built up in intensity as he got louder and more flamboyant with each one. Then he'd bring the band down behind him and start all over again!

The Three Kings attracted a wider audience in the 1960s, as people began to appreciate the roots of people like Clapton and Bloomfield, and they all ended up with major record deals and plenty of work. Albert got signed to the Stax label and cut many tracks which are now considered blues standards - "Crosscut Saw", "Born Under a Bad Sign" and "Oh Pretty Woman", for example. 

Fortunately, there's plenty of Albert available to listen to and I thought I'd just about heard it all until I stumbled across an album recorded at a Chicago gig in 1978.

It totally blew me away.

There appear to be no recording details anywhere to be found and the album has appeared on several labels under several titles over the years. Copyright, huh?

The recording captures King well up front in the mix and he has a gorgeous guitar sound - the best I've ever heard from him. If it's dynamics you're after, this performance has them in spades. Many numbers start off quietly and then build, drop down and then start building again, and Albert's on fire, with the 11 minute "Please Come Back to Me" serving as a primer on his style, and showing what made it unique. 

OK, this may not be the best band that Albert ever stood in front of - the horns are pretty mediocre and the rhythm section is merely adequate - but this doesn't stop him putting on a display of some of the best electric blues guitar you're ever likely to hear. 

It really is that good.