THIS AND THAT - March 1, 2010
J. B. Long gave Brownie McGhee Blind Boy Fuller’s steel-bodied National guitar after the artist’s death. Being low on cash one Friday, McGhee pawned the guitar. When he returned to the pawn shop on Monday to get it back the guitar had been sold! It has never resurfaced again.
When asked if there was a silver lining to his battle with cancer John Prine said, "It's amazing. It takes something like this to make you really stop. Otherwise you don't realize how fast you're moving all the time."
Johnny Burnette and the Rock 'N Roll Trio on the original maroon Coral label is the most sought-after rockabilly-related LP in the world.
In a July 26, 1923 Variety article the blues are referred to as “native indigo ditties.”
They said, "You have a blue guitar
You do not play things as they are."
The man replied, "Things as they are
are changed upon the blue guitar."
-Wallace Stevens, The Man with the Blue Guitar
You cannot make a man by standing a sheep on its hind legs. But by standing a flock of sheep in that position you can make a crowd of men.
-Max Beerbohn, 1880
When a dog bites a man that is not news, but when a man bites a dog- that is news.
-John B. Bogart
Way before Loggins and Messina or Buffalo Springfield Jim Messina did surf and hot rod style music for the Audio Fidelity label. Example: Jim Messina and His Jesters- The DRAGSTERS.
CLOSER LOOK AT “LEADING THE PARADE”
Let me say something concerning Cajun Jo-El Sonnier’s “Someday I Will Lead the Parade.” It might seem at first to some like Jo-El’s blowing his own horn but actually to “lead the parade” has a different meaning in New Orleans. To “lead the parade” means to be in a casket at YOUR funeral. If you carefully listen to the lyrics you will see the depth of the reflection. The song, written by Tony Arata and Scott Miller, is really a well-written piece, and starts out:
“After all my lonely nights without an end in sight
A morning shining bright for me awaits
Where the sweetest times will last we’ve forgiven all that’s passed
Someday I will,
one day I know I will
Someday I will lead the parade”
Once I began listening to the blues and realized it was part of a larger spectrum of music, things really opened up for me. That kicked it up a notch. I felt that I was becoming a guitar player, that the blues had broadened the scope of my instrument.
-Jeff Carlisi, founding member of 38 Special
We didn’t bowl or play golf; music was our life. We loved every note we made.
-Billy Cox
Music is an open sky
-Sonny Rollins
ADVENTURE
To those devoid of imagination a blank place on a map is a useless waste; to others, the most valuable part.
-Aldo Leopold
BOOT HILL
In Boot Hill, in a space which takes up 7 acres, there are over 400 graves. 300 of the dead died violently: 200 by guns, over 50 by way of the knife, some were pushed under trains and some died as a result of being in a bar fight. But in Boot Hill there are only two graves belonging to women, which are the only known suicides in that graveyard.
HANDLES
Like blues artists John Lee Hooker and K.C. (Kansas City) Joe, blues and Boogie Woogie piano man Roosevelt Sykes also had a host of pseudonymns- names like Dobby Bragg, the Honeydripper, Easy Poppa Johnson, St. Louise Johnny and Willie Kent. Of all names used by blues cats I still get a kick out of Charlie Patton’s “The Masked Marvel.”
Son House passed away in Detroit, Michigan.
FILM INFLUENCED JAZZ
The movie New Orleans, starring Louie Armstrong & Billie Holiday actually influenced the world of jazz. Louie had so much fun putting together and working with the quartet to make the nostalgic movie that he decided to go from big band to quartet.
There is plenty of security in the cemetery; I long for opportunity.
-David Sarnoff
RAGTIME
Scott Joplin’s MAPLE LEAF RAG was the first million seller. The interesting thing about this, I think, is that MAPLE LEAF RAG sold as sheet music. This was before records, which means this song was actually played in homes!
“Ragging” a tune came from the practice of “ragging” European dance music, a technique developed by slave musicians in the South and was being called “syncopation” in educated music circles at the time.
Ragtime’s popularity was that it was dance music. It drew on both European and African traditions, having come from minstrels and then minstrel shows.
MINSTREL SHOWS
In the pre-Civil War era, blackface minstrel shows evolved into a major thriving entertainment business, requiring elaborate costumes, numerous performers and an array of supporting cast and technicians.
VJING
What is VJing? It means improvising with visuals, specifically those rendered via projected light. The expression originally referred to the video jockey (as counterpoint to a Disc Jockey), but it's more accurately Visuals Jockey- a general description that encompasses older, non-video avocations such as "“running the light show."”
-from the VJ BOOK: Inspirations and Practical Advice for Love Visuals Performance by Paul Spinrad
In relation to light shows and Lumia (the art of light and color), here are some books you might want to check out:
1.) THE ART OF LIGHT AND COLOR by Tom Douglas Jones (Van Nostrand Reinhold Co.)
2.) COLOR by Harold Kuppers
3.) You can get in over your head reading COLOR IN BUSINESS, SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY by Deane B. Judd and Gunter Wyszeck (John Wiley & Jones)
4.) For some great studies in color check out COLOR- A NATURAL HISTORY OF THE PALLETTE by Victoria Finlay (Ballantine Books)
Fire coming on will discern and catch up with all things.
-Heraclitus
I love being alive and I will be the best man I possibly can. I will take love wherever I find it and offer it to everyone who will take it…seek knowledge from those wiser and teach those who wish to learn from me.
-From Duane Allman’s tombstone
HARD TIMES FOR “KING” JOE OLIVER
After Joe Oliver’s tour bus broke down in Kentucky, forcing the cancellation of his remaing playing engagements, his sax player Paul Barnes wrote in his diary:
1 November- Having bus trouble. Stay on road all night. Weather cold. Orchestra make bonfire with bus tire. Get help next morning.
2 November- Bus seized by clothing store, finally redeemed…too late for orchestra to make date in Cumberland, Kentucky. Woman proprietor of Southern Hotel hold King Oliver’s trumpet for rent.
Albert King’s 1st guitar was a Guild hollow-body he bought for $1.25.
T-BONE WALKER
He has a strange way of holding the guitar, he lies it at a distance instead of letting it simply rest flat against his stomach…and one could say that it was enough for him to scrape along the strings with his pick. I do not even know how he manages to hit the right one…and yet, what a touch!
-B. B. King, of T-Bone Walker
Some people think I grew up on Rock & Roll (not so). When I was a kid, there was no rock & Roll. In the early fifties- late at night, I’d tune into some southern radio station that somehow reached the Bronx, listening to The Blues, Howling Wolf’s How Many More Years, Jimmy Reed’s Bright Lights, Big City.
-Dion Dimucci
Link Wray’s first hit single “Rumble” was considered so “raunchy and violent” that it was banned in New York. To my knowledge this was the only instrumental to be banned in the USA.
Billy Lee Riley, whose hit songs “Red Hot” and “Flyin’ Saucers Rock “n” Roll” were later covered by Robert Gordon, formed the Little Green Men- whose stage costumes were actually made from green pool-table felt.
Detroit’s Johnny Powers recorded 4 sides for Sun Records in 1959.
Lazy Lester, writer of "Sugar Coated Love" and "I Hear You Knockin'" took a 2 decde brake from the music business.
Louisiana singer and songwriter Bobby Charles, who wrote such songs as "Walking to New Orleans" and "See You Later Alligator" passed away January 14th at the age of 71. In the liner notes to Charles' 2008 album Bob Dylan wrote, "He's got one of the most melodious voices ever transferred to a piece of vinyl." Charles was signed to Chess Records in 1955. When he first got off the plane Phil Chess was shocked to discover that he had just signed their first white artist.
I've lost the use of my heart
But I'm still alive.
-Line from a Sade song
Most standard tunings are tuned to EADGBE when using an electric tuner. Some have complained that this produces a sour sound, that doesn't work with chording. Here's a suggestion for an alternative tuning method: tune each string to an "A" note that can be found someplace on the neck- 1st string 5th fret, 2nd String 10th fret, etc. Someone stated that this almost worked, but the second and sixth strings sounded bad. He modified the method starting with the high E (1st) string and worked downwards: 1st string: tune to A on 5th fret, 2nd string: tune to D on on 3rd fret, 3rd string: tune to A on 2nd fret, 4th string: tune to A harmonic on the 7th fret, 5th string: tune to A on 5th fret, 6th string: tune to G on 3rd fret by ear.
For those who haven't heard- Austin, Texas visual artist and album designer Bill Narum died this last November of a heart attack (while working at his desk). Bill was the artist behind the iconic ZZ Top covers. Billy Gibbons told the Houston Press that "As the designer and creator of each and every early ZZ Top cover his hand forged the perception of the artist essence of ZZ Top...cactus, desert sand, rattlesnakes and javalenas, jalepenos, hot sauce and hot blues-rock imagery from way deep down in Texas. Scribble on, Bro Bill- You were the best."
-Source- Texas Music Magazine
Buffalo Bill himself salutes you from the saddle at each performance.
-Wild West Show flyer
SHAG’S RULE OF THUMB
Shag, the nuevo-retro artist has a very good work ethic and a great rule of thumb. He makes himself work at his craft 8 hours every day and if he misses a day or even a few hours he must make it up at some point in time. His dedication and focus have definitely paid off.
I think that at the beginning of the 1960s the standard of live sound was terrible. But then it went on to develop in tandem with the music. The bands that were playing then, The Who, Fleetwood Mac, The Move, all cared about how they sounded on stage, so as a PA manufacturer you’d work hand in hand with them.
-Charlie Watkins, WEM
Some of the stuff we’ve done has seven, eight acoustics in there, they add a real breadth to the sound. A lot of the Stones stuff that people think of as electric is really acoustic.
-Keith Richards
Art…must do something more than give pleasure; it should relate to our own life so as to increase our energy of spirit.
-Sir Kenneth Clark
All the Britons stain themselves with vitrum, which gives a blue color and wild appearance in battle.
-Julius Caeser, from his Commentaries on the Gallic Wars
RANDOM HELPFUL HINTS
Never ever chase a skunk.
-Jake
Also, never ever bite into a One-A-Day multiple vitamin. You won't like it.
Oh, and never ever take a rag with soapy water to an electric fence.
When asked if there was a silver lining to his battle with cancer John Prine said, "It's amazing. It takes something like this to make you really stop. Otherwise you don't realize how fast you're moving all the time."
Johnny Burnette and the Rock 'N Roll Trio on the original maroon Coral label is the most sought-after rockabilly-related LP in the world.
In a July 26, 1923 Variety article the blues are referred to as “native indigo ditties.”
They said, "You have a blue guitar
You do not play things as they are."
The man replied, "Things as they are
are changed upon the blue guitar."
-Wallace Stevens, The Man with the Blue Guitar
You cannot make a man by standing a sheep on its hind legs. But by standing a flock of sheep in that position you can make a crowd of men.
-Max Beerbohn, 1880
When a dog bites a man that is not news, but when a man bites a dog- that is news.
-John B. Bogart
Way before Loggins and Messina or Buffalo Springfield Jim Messina did surf and hot rod style music for the Audio Fidelity label. Example: Jim Messina and His Jesters- The DRAGSTERS.
CLOSER LOOK AT “LEADING THE PARADE”
Let me say something concerning Cajun Jo-El Sonnier’s “Someday I Will Lead the Parade.” It might seem at first to some like Jo-El’s blowing his own horn but actually to “lead the parade” has a different meaning in New Orleans. To “lead the parade” means to be in a casket at YOUR funeral. If you carefully listen to the lyrics you will see the depth of the reflection. The song, written by Tony Arata and Scott Miller, is really a well-written piece, and starts out:
“After all my lonely nights without an end in sight
A morning shining bright for me awaits
Where the sweetest times will last we’ve forgiven all that’s passed
Someday I will,
one day I know I will
Someday I will lead the parade”
Once I began listening to the blues and realized it was part of a larger spectrum of music, things really opened up for me. That kicked it up a notch. I felt that I was becoming a guitar player, that the blues had broadened the scope of my instrument.
-Jeff Carlisi, founding member of 38 Special
We didn’t bowl or play golf; music was our life. We loved every note we made.
-Billy Cox
Music is an open sky
-Sonny Rollins
ADVENTURE
To those devoid of imagination a blank place on a map is a useless waste; to others, the most valuable part.
-Aldo Leopold
BOOT HILL
In Boot Hill, in a space which takes up 7 acres, there are over 400 graves. 300 of the dead died violently: 200 by guns, over 50 by way of the knife, some were pushed under trains and some died as a result of being in a bar fight. But in Boot Hill there are only two graves belonging to women, which are the only known suicides in that graveyard.
HANDLES
Like blues artists John Lee Hooker and K.C. (Kansas City) Joe, blues and Boogie Woogie piano man Roosevelt Sykes also had a host of pseudonymns- names like Dobby Bragg, the Honeydripper, Easy Poppa Johnson, St. Louise Johnny and Willie Kent. Of all names used by blues cats I still get a kick out of Charlie Patton’s “The Masked Marvel.”
Son House passed away in Detroit, Michigan.
FILM INFLUENCED JAZZ
The movie New Orleans, starring Louie Armstrong & Billie Holiday actually influenced the world of jazz. Louie had so much fun putting together and working with the quartet to make the nostalgic movie that he decided to go from big band to quartet.
There is plenty of security in the cemetery; I long for opportunity.
-David Sarnoff
RAGTIME
Scott Joplin’s MAPLE LEAF RAG was the first million seller. The interesting thing about this, I think, is that MAPLE LEAF RAG sold as sheet music. This was before records, which means this song was actually played in homes!
“Ragging” a tune came from the practice of “ragging” European dance music, a technique developed by slave musicians in the South and was being called “syncopation” in educated music circles at the time.
Ragtime’s popularity was that it was dance music. It drew on both European and African traditions, having come from minstrels and then minstrel shows.
MINSTREL SHOWS
In the pre-Civil War era, blackface minstrel shows evolved into a major thriving entertainment business, requiring elaborate costumes, numerous performers and an array of supporting cast and technicians.
VJING
What is VJing? It means improvising with visuals, specifically those rendered via projected light. The expression originally referred to the video jockey (as counterpoint to a Disc Jockey), but it's more accurately Visuals Jockey- a general description that encompasses older, non-video avocations such as "“running the light show."”
-from the VJ BOOK: Inspirations and Practical Advice for Love Visuals Performance by Paul Spinrad
In relation to light shows and Lumia (the art of light and color), here are some books you might want to check out:
1.) THE ART OF LIGHT AND COLOR by Tom Douglas Jones (Van Nostrand Reinhold Co.)
2.) COLOR by Harold Kuppers
3.) You can get in over your head reading COLOR IN BUSINESS, SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY by Deane B. Judd and Gunter Wyszeck (John Wiley & Jones)
4.) For some great studies in color check out COLOR- A NATURAL HISTORY OF THE PALLETTE by Victoria Finlay (Ballantine Books)
Fire coming on will discern and catch up with all things.
-Heraclitus
I love being alive and I will be the best man I possibly can. I will take love wherever I find it and offer it to everyone who will take it…seek knowledge from those wiser and teach those who wish to learn from me.
-From Duane Allman’s tombstone
HARD TIMES FOR “KING” JOE OLIVER
After Joe Oliver’s tour bus broke down in Kentucky, forcing the cancellation of his remaing playing engagements, his sax player Paul Barnes wrote in his diary:
1 November- Having bus trouble. Stay on road all night. Weather cold. Orchestra make bonfire with bus tire. Get help next morning.
2 November- Bus seized by clothing store, finally redeemed…too late for orchestra to make date in Cumberland, Kentucky. Woman proprietor of Southern Hotel hold King Oliver’s trumpet for rent.
Albert King’s 1st guitar was a Guild hollow-body he bought for $1.25.
T-BONE WALKER
He has a strange way of holding the guitar, he lies it at a distance instead of letting it simply rest flat against his stomach…and one could say that it was enough for him to scrape along the strings with his pick. I do not even know how he manages to hit the right one…and yet, what a touch!
-B. B. King, of T-Bone Walker
Some people think I grew up on Rock & Roll (not so). When I was a kid, there was no rock & Roll. In the early fifties- late at night, I’d tune into some southern radio station that somehow reached the Bronx, listening to The Blues, Howling Wolf’s How Many More Years, Jimmy Reed’s Bright Lights, Big City.
-Dion Dimucci
Link Wray’s first hit single “Rumble” was considered so “raunchy and violent” that it was banned in New York. To my knowledge this was the only instrumental to be banned in the USA.
Billy Lee Riley, whose hit songs “Red Hot” and “Flyin’ Saucers Rock “n” Roll” were later covered by Robert Gordon, formed the Little Green Men- whose stage costumes were actually made from green pool-table felt.
Detroit’s Johnny Powers recorded 4 sides for Sun Records in 1959.
Lazy Lester, writer of "Sugar Coated Love" and "I Hear You Knockin'" took a 2 decde brake from the music business.
Louisiana singer and songwriter Bobby Charles, who wrote such songs as "Walking to New Orleans" and "See You Later Alligator" passed away January 14th at the age of 71. In the liner notes to Charles' 2008 album Bob Dylan wrote, "He's got one of the most melodious voices ever transferred to a piece of vinyl." Charles was signed to Chess Records in 1955. When he first got off the plane Phil Chess was shocked to discover that he had just signed their first white artist.
I've lost the use of my heart
But I'm still alive.
-Line from a Sade song
Most standard tunings are tuned to EADGBE when using an electric tuner. Some have complained that this produces a sour sound, that doesn't work with chording. Here's a suggestion for an alternative tuning method: tune each string to an "A" note that can be found someplace on the neck- 1st string 5th fret, 2nd String 10th fret, etc. Someone stated that this almost worked, but the second and sixth strings sounded bad. He modified the method starting with the high E (1st) string and worked downwards: 1st string: tune to A on 5th fret, 2nd string: tune to D on on 3rd fret, 3rd string: tune to A on 2nd fret, 4th string: tune to A harmonic on the 7th fret, 5th string: tune to A on 5th fret, 6th string: tune to G on 3rd fret by ear.
For those who haven't heard- Austin, Texas visual artist and album designer Bill Narum died this last November of a heart attack (while working at his desk). Bill was the artist behind the iconic ZZ Top covers. Billy Gibbons told the Houston Press that "As the designer and creator of each and every early ZZ Top cover his hand forged the perception of the artist essence of ZZ Top...cactus, desert sand, rattlesnakes and javalenas, jalepenos, hot sauce and hot blues-rock imagery from way deep down in Texas. Scribble on, Bro Bill- You were the best."
-Source- Texas Music Magazine
Buffalo Bill himself salutes you from the saddle at each performance.
-Wild West Show flyer
SHAG’S RULE OF THUMB
Shag, the nuevo-retro artist has a very good work ethic and a great rule of thumb. He makes himself work at his craft 8 hours every day and if he misses a day or even a few hours he must make it up at some point in time. His dedication and focus have definitely paid off.
I think that at the beginning of the 1960s the standard of live sound was terrible. But then it went on to develop in tandem with the music. The bands that were playing then, The Who, Fleetwood Mac, The Move, all cared about how they sounded on stage, so as a PA manufacturer you’d work hand in hand with them.
-Charlie Watkins, WEM
Some of the stuff we’ve done has seven, eight acoustics in there, they add a real breadth to the sound. A lot of the Stones stuff that people think of as electric is really acoustic.
-Keith Richards
Art…must do something more than give pleasure; it should relate to our own life so as to increase our energy of spirit.
-Sir Kenneth Clark
All the Britons stain themselves with vitrum, which gives a blue color and wild appearance in battle.
-Julius Caeser, from his Commentaries on the Gallic Wars
RANDOM HELPFUL HINTS
Never ever chase a skunk.
-Jake
Also, never ever bite into a One-A-Day multiple vitamin. You won't like it.
Oh, and never ever take a rag with soapy water to an electric fence.