Davy Graham

October saw the release of the above which is perhaps the  first truely definitive Davy Graham compilation.

“When Davy Graham died last December, the British folk scene lost one of its most extraordinary and influential guitarists, for he was years ahead of his time. He was fascinated by traditional music, but also by blues, north African, Middle Eastern and Indian styles, and classical music.

It was impossible to guess what he would turn to next, and he brought a new experimental approach to the folk scene that persists today.

This new two-CD set concentrates on his most creative period, the 60s, and much comes from the Decca catalogue. It starts with the original 1963 version of his best-known guitar piece, Angi (later rerecorded as Anji).

There are also tracks from his influential 1965 album, Folk, Blues & Beyond,

which includes everything from Mingus to Dylan, and from the experimental Folk Roots, New Routes, recorded with singer Shirley Collins. Then there’s his treatment of a Bulgarian dance piece, a Purcell harpsichord work, and the extraordinary She Moved Thru’ the Bizarre, which switches from English folk song to a raga, and then back again. The man was a genius.”

www.guardian.co.uk

“I Can’t Keep From Crying Sometimes” – Davy Graham

Graham was born in Hinckley, Leicestershire, England, to a Guyanese mother and a Scottish father. Although he never had any formal music lessons, he learnt to play the piano and harmonica as a child and then took up the guitar at the age of 12.

As a teenager, he was strongly influenced by the folk guitar player Steve Benbow, who had travelled widely with the army and played a guitar style influenced by Moroccan music.

At the age of 19, Graham wrote what was probably his most famous piece, at least for aspiring guitarists: the acoustic solo tune “Anji”. Colin Harper credits Graham with single-handledly inventing the concept of the folk guitar instrumental (whilst acknowledging that John Fahey was making a similar invention, simultaneously, in the U.S.).

Graham’s acoustic guitar solo “Angie”, named after his then girlfriend, appeared on his debut EP 3/4 AD in April 1962. The tune spread like wildfire through a generation of aspiring guitarists, changing its spelling as it went. Before the record was released, Bert Jansch had learnt it from a tape which Graham had lent to his half-sister, Jill Doyle, who was a friend of Jansch. Jansch included it on his 1965 debut album as “Angie”. But the spelling Anji became the most popular after it appeared in this way on Simon & Garfunkel’s 1966 album Sounds of Silence, and it was as “Anji” that Chicken Shack recorded it for their 1969 100 Ton Chicken album.

“Anji” – Simon & Garfunkel

One way that Graham came to the attention of guitarists was through his appearance in a 1959 TV film produced by Ken Russell, entitled Hound Dogs and Bach Addicts: The Guitar Craze, in which he played an acoustic instrumental version of Cry Me a River.This was broadcast as part of the BBC TV arts series Monitor.

Graham introduced the DADGAD guitar tuning to British guitarists, though it is not clear if it originated with him. Its main attraction was that it allowed the guitarist more freedom to improvise in the treble while maintaining a solid underlying harmony and rhythm in the bass. While ‘non-standard’, or ‘non-classical’ tunings were widely practiced by guitarists before this (Open E and Open G tunings were in common use by blues and slide guitar players) his use of DADGAD introduced a second standard tuning to guitarists.

To buy the music of Davy Graham click HERE

To buy the music of Simon & Garfunkel click HERE

Friday Fun

 

Been there……seen it, done it and bought the t-shirt!!

 

“Drunken Nights In The City” – Frankie Miller

 

To buy the music of Frankie Miller click HERE

Here is a bonus, Frankie with Rory Gallagher

The Blind Boys Of Alabama

The Blind Boys Of Alabama popped un on my shuffle play last night thus giving me the idea to post about them.

The Blind Boys of Alabama are a gospel group from Alabama that first formed at the Alabama Institute for the Negro Blind at Talladega, Alabama in 1939. The three main vocalists of the group and their drummer/percussionist are all blind.

As of 2008, they continue to tour nationally and internationally, with Jimmy Carter singing lead vocals. In 2006, Clarence Fountain, the group’s former long-time lead vocalist and founding member limited his touring for health reasons. Another founding member, George Scott, died on March 9, 2005 at the age of 75.

Releases by the group in recent years have been favorites at the Grammy Awards—they won the Grammy Award for Best Traditional Soul Gospel Album every year between 2002 to 2005. The Blind Boys of Alabama were inducted into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame in 2007.

It was their 2001 album “Spirit Of The Century” that was my gateway to their music.

From this album here is their take on a great Blind Willie Johnson song

“Nobody’s Fault But Mine” – The Blind Boys Of Alabama

To buy the music of The Blind Boys Of Alabama click HERE

Dr Feelgood

Pub rock is often derided as a movement that was in the thrall of rhythm and blues traditions and ‘proper’ musicianship, at best an unfashionable precursor to punk, devoid of the DIY attitude and the year-zero rhetoric. Yet both movements shared contempt for the mainstream, were reacting against the prog-rock sounds that dominated the era, and a number of punk’s prime movers were inspired by or graduated from the pub rock scene. Julien Temple’s latest conceptual rock documentary focuses on Dr Feelgood, who came from the ‘Thames Delta’, Canvey Island, and puts the case for Lee Brilleaux, Wilko Johnson, the Big Figure and Sparko as ‘four estuarine John-the-Baptists to Johnny Rotten’s anti-Christ’. What emerges is the great, and deeply moving, rock’n'roll history of one of Britain’s finest and unfairly overlooked bands, with Canvey, a reclaimed island in the Thames estuary just off the Essex coast, lying entirely below sea level and dominated by the petrochemical industry, central to it. Enlightening interviews with band members and contemporaries are complemented by some fantastic archive footage, which, at the very least, confirms Brilleaux and Johnson as two of rock’s great showmen, and justifies Dr Feelgood’s reputation as an incredible live act.

Michael Hayden

The new Dr Feelgood biopic debuts at The British Film Institute this week.

This is what all the fuss is about:-

Finally here is a staple from the mid 70’s discos at The Concord, you won’t believe it but all the girls did the slosh to this……………..

“Back In The Night” – Dr Feelgood

 

To buy the music of Dr Feelgood click HERE

 

Beware of imitations….the original is best

Alcohol Awareness Week

We are now fast approaching the end of the promotion  that was “Alcohol Awareness Week” whilst the weeks events made every effort to get over some very important facts and messages it does not mean we can’t have a laugh along the way.

Laugh and Learn

For the facts and the frights relating to alcohol awareness click HERE

“One Bourbon One Scotch One Beer” – John Lee Hooker

……………….and that’s more than enough.

 

To buy the music of John lee Hooker click HERE

Harmonica (not Lewinski) – Little Walter

 

You can have all the technology you want but you will never better Little Walter.

Little Walter is the stage name of Marion Walter Jacobs (May 1, 1930 – February 15, 1968), a blues singer, harmonica player, and guitarist.

Jacobs is generally included among blues music greats—his revolutionary harmonica technique has earned comparisons to Charlie Parker and Jimi Hendrix for its innovation and impact on succeeding generations of harmonica players. His virtuosity and musical innovations fundamentally altered many listeners’ expectations of what was possible on blues harmonica. Little Walter’s body of work earned him a spot in The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the sideman category on March 10, 2008, making him the only artist ever to be inducted specifically for his work as a harmonica player.

Jacobs made his first released recordings in 1947 for Bernard Abram’s tiny Ora-Nelle label, which operated out of the back room of Abrams’ Maxwell Radio and Records store in the heart of the Maxwell Street market area in Chicago. These and several other early Little Walter recordings, like many blues harp recordings of the era, owed a strong stylistic debt to pioneering blues harmonica player Sonny Boy Williamson I (John Lee Williamson). Little Walter joined Muddy Waters‘ band in 1948, and by 1950, he was playing on Muddy’s recordings for Chess Records; for years after his departure from Muddy’s band in 1952, Little Walter continued to be brought in to play on his recording sessions, and as a result his harmonica is featured on most of Muddy’s classic recordings from the 1950s

Jacobs’ own career took off when he recorded as a bandleader for Chess’ subsidiary label Checker Records on 12 May 1952; the first completed take of the first song attempted at his debut session was a hit, spending eight weeks in the #1 position on the Billboard magazine R&B charts – the song was “Juke“, and it is still the only harmonica instrumental ever to become a #1 hit on the R&B charts. (Three other harmonica instrumentals by Little Walter also reached the Billboard R&B top 10: “Off the Wall” reached #8, “Roller Coaster” achieved #6, and “Sad Hours” reached the #2 position while Juke was still on the charts.) “Juke” was the biggest hit to date for Chess and its affiliated labels, and one of the biggest national R&B hits of 1952, securing Walter’s position on the Chess artist roster for the next decade. Little Walter scored fourteen top-ten hits on the Billboard R&B charts between 1952 and 1958, including two #1 hits (the second being “My Babe” in 1955), a feat never achieved by his former boss Waters, nor by his fellow Chess blues artists Howlin’ Wolf and Sonny Boy Williamson II. Following the pattern of “Juke”, most of Little Walter’s single releases in the 1950s featured a vocal on one side, and an instrumental on the other. Many of Walter’s numbers were originals which he or Chess A&R man Willie Dixon wrote or adapted and updated from earlier blues themes. In general, his sound was more modern and uptempo than the popular Chicago blues of the day, with a jazzier conception than other contemporary blues harmonica players.

“My Babe” – Little Walter 

 

To buy the music of Little Walter click HERE

 

 

Early One Morning – Eva Cassidy

Eva Marie Cassidy (February 2, 1963 – November 2, 1996) was an American vocalist known for her interpretations of jazz, blues, folk, gospel, country and pop classics. In 1992 she released her first album, The Other Side, a set of duets with go-go musician Chuck Brown, followed by a live solo album, Live at Blues Alley in 1996. Although she had been honored by the Washington Area Music Association, she was virtually unknown outside her native Washington, DC when she died of melanoma in 1996.

Four years later, Cassidy’s music was brought to the attention of British audiences when her version of “Over the Rainbow” was played by Terry Wogan on BBC Radio 2. Following the overwhelming response, a camcorder recording of “Over the Rainbow”, taken at the Blues Alley, was shown on BBC Two’s Top of the Pops 2. Shortly afterwards, the compilation album Songbird climbed to the top of the UK Albums Charts, almost three years after its initial release. The chart success in the United Kingdom led to increased recognition worldwide; as of 2008 her posthumously released recordings, including three UK #1s, have sold around eight million copies.

Somewhere is the title of Eva Cassidy’s seventh posthumous album. For the first time, it includes two songs written by Eva Cassidy herself.

Here is her great blues song

“Early One Morning” – Eva Cassidy

Early one morning
As the sun was rising
I heard a voice in the walley below.

Don’t decieve me
Don’t you leave me
How could you treat
A poor girl so?

Early one morning
I saw her walking
I heard a voice in the walley below.

Don’t decieve me
Don’t you leave me
How could you treat
A poor boy so?

So I sit on yonder hill
And I wonder if anyone
Thinks of me still

Why did you leave me?
Why did you decieve me?
How could you treat
A poor girl so?

If anyone thinks of me still
Why did you leave me?

Despite having the same song title it is not a take on the Elmore James song

“Early One Morning” – Elmore James

 

To buy the music of Eva Cassidy click HERE

 

To buy the music of Elmore James click HERE

Slade Alive!

Slade Alive! was a live album released by Slade. The album was released on March 24, 1972, and reached No. 2 on the UK Charts. It has also been consistently voted as one of the all-time Top 10 greatest live albums ever released, mentioned in the same breath as “Live At Leeds” from The Who and “Live and Dangerous” from Thin Lizzy.

The album contains original songs, plus cover versions of songs by Ten Years After, The Lovin’ Spoonful, Bobby Marchan, and Steppenwolf.

In its original LP vinyl format, the album was issued in a gatefold sleeve which revealed a huge cartoon drawing on the inside. This drawing was the winning entry in a competition run the The Sun UK newspaper to design the album cover.

Here is their version of a Ten Years After classic

“Hear Me Calling” – Slade

To buy the music of Slade click HERE

Here are Ten Years After.

Jeff Beck and Imelda May

 

Hot on the heels of my Beck and Clapton news story and also in response to the big interest shown on my Imelda May post from 1st July (click HERE)  here is a report on a recent Jeff Beck show at which he used the Imelda May Band plus Imelda herself as guest vocalist.

Jeff Beck & The Imelda May Band
Indigo 2, London
Monday, September 21

“He’s using a different guitar with each bloody song!” exclaims an impeccably attired and surprisingly sober Ronnie Wood. Sat next to him, almost on the edge of his seat, Jimmy Page is staring ahead at the stage absorbing the sights and sounds with a forensic intensity. Honest Ron suddenly gets up and yelps in appreciation, breaking Page’s concentration as his face collapses into a warm infectious grin. “Marvellous”, he exclaims like a proud headmaster, beaming at his charge.

Both of these legends have been drawn out of hibernation by the lure of fellow guitar slinger Jeff Beck’s one-off performance with the Imelda May band in a special show arranged by American Express. Earlier that day a usually taciturn Beck held a master class comprising a short tutorial and lots of entertaining anecdotes about his adventures with the Yardbirds.

“The show tonight will be like hearing Jeff’s personal record collection,” announced manager/promoter Harvey Goldsmith referring to the choice of vintage material.

Looking a little nervous, without his usual pyrotechnics and camouflage, Beck took a while to warm up and really hit his stride about four numbers in with Train Kept A Rollin’ featuring a simple, swamp-dirty solo which was the total antithesis to his normally baroque fret workouts. This was swiftly followed by Howlin’ Wolf’s Poor Boy – a nod to Chess Records, Beck explained – and Arthur Crudup’s My Baby Left Me.

“Back in the old days when the singer got knackered we had to fill in with an instrumental,” announced a by-now jocular Beck who seemed really moved by the audience’s ecstatic response. “This is the tune that made us all go out and steal a Fender Stratocaster… Unfortunately, I didn’t get away with it.” Cue a robust take on The Shadows’ Apache followed by Santo & Johnny’s Sleepwalk.

Candy Box Burlesque Club veteran Imelda May displayed her torch singer credentials with spine-tingling renditions of Remember (Walking In The Sand); Cry Me A River, Lilac Wine, and Please Mr Jailer. It’s easy to see how Beck was inspired to perform this material by May and her band, who have serious rock’n'roll credentials (Page could be seen backstage immersed in conversation with May’s husband/guitarist Darrel Higham about their shared passion for vintage vinyl).

As the show came to a close Beck could be seen to visibly relax during a loose rendition of Green Onions, a stirring tribute to Les Paul on How High The Moon – featuring some gorgeous multi-tracked vocals from Imelda, doing her best Mary Ford impersonation, and an uproarious version of Shake, Rattle and Roll.

As Jimmy Page commented afterwards: “It was just like listening to your favourite jukebox.”

Peter Makowski

Set List: Feel Me/Love Tattoo/Baby Let’s Play House/Double Talking Baby/Cruisin’/Train Kept A-Rollin’/Poor Boy/My Baby Left Me/Rockin’ Is Our Business/Apache/Sleepwalk/Peter Gunn/Remember (Walking In The Sand)/Please Mr Jailer/Corpus Christi Carol/Lilac Wine/Green Onions/Casting My Spell/The Girl Can’t Help It/Brush With The Blues/Rock Around The Clock/Cry Me A River/How High The Moon/Shake Rattle And Roll/Somewhere Over The Rainbow

Review from www.mojo4music.com

For more information on Jeff Beck click HERE and HERE

For more information on Imelda May click HERE and HERE

As a bonus for Imelda fans here is”Johnny Got A Boom Boom” from the iTunes only “Live London Festival ‘09″ EP which you can purchase HERE

“Johnny Got A Boom Boom” – Imelda May

The Yardbirds

Former Yardbirds members Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck are to perform a concert together in London next year.

The one-off show at London’s O2 Arena on February 13, 2010 will be the second time the guitar legends have played together in recent times.

Jeff Beck speaking about their live collaboration, says: “Eric and I played together in Japan earlier this year and had a blast. Since then we have been in regular contact and talked about doing a similar show for our fans.”

“I’ve always considered Jeff Beck to be one of the finest guitar players around. He’s a friend, a great guy, and a truly gifted musician. We had such a fun time in Japan that it seemed natural to play together again,” responds Eric Clapton.

Tickets for the one-off show go on sale on Monday September 28.

“Stroll On” – The Yardbirds

Source www.uncut.co.uk