Nitty-Gritty Music Radio

23/10/2024

The Rolling Stones ‘Welcome To Shepherd’s Bush’ out December 6th. The 90-minute set featured several rarely played deep cuts. Check it out here.
https://www.rockandbluesmuse.com/2024/10/22/the-rolling-stones-welcome-to-shepherds-bush/

22/10/2024

𝚁𝚎𝚖𝚎𝚖𝚋𝚎𝚛 𝚠𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚍𝚘𝚛𝚖𝚘𝚞𝚜𝚎 𝚜𝚊𝚒𝚍
𝙵𝚎𝚎𝚍 𝚢𝚘𝚞𝚛 𝚑𝚎𝚊𝚍
𝙵𝚎𝚎𝚍 𝚢𝚘𝚞𝚛 𝚑𝚎𝚊𝚍

https://youtu.be/WANNqr-vcx0?si=FMhS6kM1pICUgYrz

12/10/2024

Buddy Guy: Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page didn’t think a Strat could play the blues. But then they all went to buy Strats after they saw me because, as a matter of fact, one of ’em told me I threw the guitar, and I caught it back in the right key.

“And I don’t even remember that, man, because I think somebody flashed a light, and I missed the damn guitar. But they surprised me because they thought back then that the Strat was for Texas, Tennessee and country/western; they were always playing those kinds of guitars.

“But I just liked the Strat. Even if it was busted up and had a few scratches on it, it played like somebody stole it.”

It’s like an Edsel car from 1959. You get in there to drive, and it just feels a certain way. It’s like my old friend Junior Wells would say, ‘Man, you can pull your woman so close to you in the car that you could kill her headache,’ and with the guitar, it’s the same way.

“It’s still got that tone, but a lot of people forgot about the tone. And a lot of people ask me about that tone, and it’s still got it. But they start looking at the looks, and just like a car, the looks sell it more than the ride; it’s about how pretty it looks. But I don’t care how pretty it is; if it don’t run, I don’t want it.”

Andrew Daly / Guitar World Interview

Buddy Guy, Ann Arbor Blues Festival 1969
Photograph
By Jim Marshall

11/10/2024

In a little h***y tonky village in Texas
There's a guy who plays the best piano by far
He can play piano any way that you like it...

The Commander Cody Band - Beat Me Daddy, Eight To The BarRecorded Live: 8/5/1977 - Convention Hall - Asbury Park, NJMore The Commander Cody Band at Music Vau...

09/10/2024

Who influenced you to want to play music?

Leon Russell: I think originally it was probably just the music itself. I was pecking around on the piano when I was three, trying to figure it out. In later years there were all sorts of people I saw and heard that really influenced me. Chuck berry was on the first rock and roll show i ever saw, and I thought he was really remarkable. I also studied classical music, and thought some of those guys were incredible. I also thought Harpo Marx was pretty great- that comedy versus great harp playing going on. I don't know, it's hard to say. The list goes into the hundreds.

What would you say are some of the most memorable sessions that you played on?

Well, one time I played on a Sam Cooke record. That was remarkable. I was glad I got a chance to be there for that. Also, I played on an Aretha Franklin record for Columbia, and there was an orchestra on it. At the end of it there was the tapping of all these violin bows on the stands. That was pretty remarkable. Those guys are pretty cynical. They don't get very excited about anything. It was amazing. And of course there were the Phil Spector sessions, which were interesting, and a kind of experiment to see how many people you could get into a small room. (Laughs)

by Michael Buffalo Smith / Swampland
November 2001

Photo: GAB Archive/Getty

05/10/2024

Jeff Beck: “I’d like to get back to that Jimi Hendrix Experience type of approach,” he says. “The way that Jimi played, you didn’t miss the keyboards. It was all heavy and powerful. It just suggested power through the drummer, which I like. I love the sound of a big three-piece.”
"When I saw Jimi, we knew he was going to be trouble, and by ‘we’, I mean me and Eric (Clapton) because Jimmy (Page) wasn’t in the frame at that point.” I saw him at one of his earliest performances in Britain, and it was quite devastating,” he continued, humbly revealing his envy. “He did all the dirty tricks – setting fire to his guitar, doing swoops up and down his neck, all the great showmanship to put the final nail in our coffin. I had the same temperament as Hendrix in terms of ‘I’ll kill you’, but he did in such a good package with beautiful songs.
I don’t want to say that I knew him well, I don’t think anybody did, but there was a period in London when I went to visit him quite a few times,” Beck added later. “He invited me down to Olympic studios, and I gave him a bottleneck. That’s what he plays on Axis: Bold As Love. We hooked up in New York and played at Steve Paul’s club, The Scene.”

Photo: Gered Mankowitz

04/10/2024

Why blues music is called “the blues”

The origins of the blues are poorly documented.
The name of this great American music probably originated with the 17th-century English expression “the blue devils,” for the intense visual hallucinations that can accompany severe alcohol withdrawal. Shortened over time to “the blues,” it came to mean a state of agitation or depression. “Blue” was slang for “drunk” by the 1800s. The link between “blue” and drinking is also indicated by “blue laws” that still prohibit Sunday alcohol sales in some states.

By the turn of the century, a couple’s dance that involved slowly grinding the hips together called “the blues” or “the slow drag” was popular in Southern juke joints. A rural juke would be jammed on weekends with couples getting their drink on, doing the pre-coital shuffle to the accompaniment of a “bluesman” on guitar.

Today, musicians play “the blues” in the twelve-bar format introduced by William C. Handy in his 1912 sheet music “Memphis Blues.” Although Handy imposed a somewhat-artificial structure on blues music, the typical three-line blues verse did emerge from call-and-response songs made up by slaves in the fields. West Africans working American fields did what they would have done at home: they improvised songs to the rhythm of the task at hand. The lead singer repeated a line twice to give another singer time to improvise a response.

Plantation work songs were primarily sung a ca****la, but after Emancipation traveling country-blues singers used the guitar and harmonica to earn money playing picnics and dances. Over time, the blues became music that expressed the singer’s struggles and passions, both carnal and spiritual.

The blues invigorated American popular music with African musical techniques and values — and rock and roll and jazz were born. Country blues evolved into the classic blues of the 1920s and 1930s, sung by stars like Bessie Smith in front of a big band or piano-led combo. The blues gave options to women like Smith and Memphis Minnie, who might have spent their lives scrubbing white peoples’ floors. It made legends of plantation workers like Son House and Charlie Patton.

As Africans became African Americans, they maintained their ethics and aesthetics — even as they were stripped of their languages and religions. What a great cultural achievement that they transferred these values to an alien world and created a new music that transcends racial and cultural boundaries, such that today blues artists can fly to Japan or Poland and be met by hordes of screaming fans who may not speak their language — yet feel their music.
Source: “Why is the Blues Called the “Blues”? by Debra Devi, Huffington Post, Dec. 6, 2017
Photo: Juke joint, Belle Glade, Florida, 1941

30/09/2024

In memory of Kris Kristofferson, thanks your your songs

from "The Silver Tongued Devil and I"the second album released in 1971 on Monument Records

30/09/2024

Remembering Kris Kristofferson (June 22, 1936 – September 28, 2024)
Kris Kristofferson, who wrote indelible songs about lovers, loners, boozers and a footloose pair of hitchhikers — and who later became a screen star, appearing in dozens of films — has died at age 88.
Kristofferson was a Golden Gloves boxer, rugby star and football player in college; received a master’s degree in English from the University of Oxford; and flew helicopters as a captain in the U.S. Army but turned down an appointment to teach at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, to pursue songwriting in Nashville. Hoping to break into the industry, he worked as a part-time janitor at Columbia Records’ Music Row studio in 1966 when Dylan recorded tracks for the seminal “Blonde on Blonde” double album.
At times, the legend of Kristofferson was larger than real life. Cash liked to tell a mostly exaggerated story of how Kristofferson landed a helicopter on Cash’s lawn to give him a tape of “Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down” with a beer in one hand. Over the years in interviews, Kristofferson said with all respect to Cash, the Man in Black wasn’t even home at the time, the demo tape was a song that no one ever actually cut and he certainly couldn’t fly a helicopter holding a beer.

“Freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose/Nothin’ ain’t worth nothin’ but it’s free,” he wrote in “Me and Bobby McGee.” Janis Joplin, with whom Kristofferson was briefly involved romantically, had a posthumous No. 1 single with her plaintive recording of the song in 1971.

Later that year “Help Me Make It Through the Night” became a No. 1 country and Top 10 pop hit in a heart-stopping performance by Sammi Smith. The composition won Mr. Kristofferson a Grammy Award for Country Song of the Year in 1972.

Reflecting earlier on his career, Kris Kristofferson said he felt “that I and many of the people I admire are figments of our own imagination. When I think back to when I was writing my first songs, like when I was 11 years old down in Brownsville, Texas, I think that I imagined myself into a pretty full life after that.”

Photo: Peter Yang

28/09/2024

𝙹𝚞𝚜𝚝 𝚐𝚒𝚟𝚎 𝚖𝚎 𝚘𝚗𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝙸 𝚌𝚊𝚗 𝚑𝚘𝚕𝚍 𝚘𝚗 𝚝𝚘
𝚃𝚘 𝚋𝚎𝚕𝚒𝚎𝚟𝚎 𝚒𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚕𝚒𝚟𝚒𝚗' 𝚒𝚜 𝚓𝚞𝚜𝚝 𝚊 𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚍 𝚠𝚊𝚢 𝚝𝚘 𝚐𝚘

Live in Wonderland Holland

28/09/2024

Mick Jagger: I first wrote songs in the blues idiom. And most of the writers that I learned form were blues writers – John Lee Ho**er, Muddy Waters, Sonny Boy Williamson, Howlin’ Wolf, Willie Dixon – they were all in their forties when those songs were written. Those guys were not particularly young or particularly old . . . they just wrote as they felt it.
James Brown was a big favorite, and a different kind of music than I played at that time, which was mostly Chicago-style blues and rock. In those days, he did a lot of ballads, and also did super-fast stuff like “Night Train.” All these songs were on this huge-selling album, where you kind of lived the James Brown show without actually seeing it, so I was very familiar with it. When I first went to America, I met James at the Apollo, and he let me hang out with him. I was just a kid, really. He was, like, ten years older than me or something, but he’d been doing it for so long, and he had it down so much. He was kind to let me hang out, and I watched the shows. They did, like, four or five shows a day. Not all with the same intensity, obviously. It’s not possible. So I watched him there at the Apollo, we hung out some, and then I met him various times, we crossed paths on tours and so forth. I went on stage with him at the Apollo in the seventies. He called me up on stage with him. It was kind of a cringy moment for me, because English people don’t really…(laughs)…I just wanted to watch the show. I wasn’t there to be called up to dance with James Brown. But of course, you had to. That was the first time I was on stage at the Apollo, funny enough. James was always very nice to me, always giving me advice.

Photo: Peter Webb

27/09/2024

In 1968, Bib Mama Thornton released “Ball and Chain,” another one of her signature songs. Similar to “Hound Dog,” the song track presents a woman who has been mistreated by her partner.
In Thornton’s interview with Anthony Connor and Robert Neff, she disclosed that she had written the song nine years prior to its recording. She stated, “I was singing that way before I recorded it.”

After one of Thornton’s live performances of the song in San Francisco, the band Big Brother and the Holding Company approached Thornton seeking permission to cover her song, which Thornton granted. Notably, Janis Joplin was the lead singer of the band. The band’s guitarist James Gurley sought to put the band’s own twist on “Ball and Chain” by slowing the song down and changing its key. Big Brother’s cover propelled the band and Joplin into the spotlight after their performance at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967. The following year the band recorded “Ball and Chain” for their album Cheap Thrills. After the album’s release in August 1968, the album remained at the top spot of the Billboard Hot 200 charts for two months.

While Thornton voiced displeasure regarding Presley’s cover of “Hound Dog,” her views towards Joplin’s cover differed. According to Michael Spörke, Joplin repeatedly named Thornton as one of her musical influences. Furthermore, when Thornton and Joplin shared the same stages at venues, Joplin gave credit to Thornton by introducing her as the writer of “Ball and Chain.” As a result, Thornton respected Joplin as a fellow musician.

Although Thornton passed away in 1984, her contributions to music have been recognized after her death. She was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1984. In addition, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame included “Hound Dog” and “Ball and Chain” as part of its list of 500 songs that greatly shaped Rock and Roll music.

Yale University Library

Photo: Tom Copi, Getty Images

24/09/2024

Despite the popularity of The Band‘s signature song ‘The Weight’, it actually only charted at number 63 in the United States. Yet, these days, the track is recognised as one of the most iconic recordings of the 1960s, often celebrated as one of the best songs of the decade.

‘The Weight’ appeared on The Band’s 1968 debut album, Music from Big Pink, and uses a storytelling structure to depict the travels of a man through Nazareth, Pennsylvania. The song is rich with biblical language, with the first verse mirroring Mary and Joseph’s attempt to find a place to stay before the birth of Jesus.

As the track progresses, with both Levon Helm and Rock Danko alternating between lead vocals, the listener is introduced to a collection of unique characters, all inspired by people Robbie Robertson had met in real life. These bizarre figures give the song its unique charm, with Helm explaining the backstory in his autobiography, This Wheel’s On Fire: Levon Helm and the Story of The Band.

He wrote: “The song was full of our favourite characters. ‘Luke’ was Jimmy Ray Paulman. ‘Young Anna Lee’ was Anna Lee Williams from Turkey Scratch. ‘Crazy Chester’ was a guy we all knew from Fayetteville who came into town on Saturdays wearing a full set of cap guns on his hips and kinda walked around town to help keep the peace, if you follow me.”

Helm added: “We recorded the song maybe four times. We weren’t really sure it was going to be on the album, but people really liked it. Rick, Richard, and I would switch the verses around among us, and we all sang the chorus: Put the load right on me!”

The song is credited to Robertson, although Helm argues that the other members of The Band contributed a significant chunk of the lyrics. However, the song’s beginnings can be traced back to Robertson, who started writing it while jamming on his guitar. He noticed that the inside of his instrument contained a manufacturing label stating that it was made in Nazareth. From there, he began penning lyrics with the place in mind, drawing from various cinematic influences.

While living at the Chelsea Hotel in New York, Robertson became acquainted with Gotham Book Mart, where he would read film scripts. “The bookshop was a dusty, funky place owned by F***y Steloff that sold used and new books,” he explained in an interview. “After looking around, I found that the store also stocked movie scripts. I loved film, and had long wondered how plot elements in a film fit together. These scripts were like blueprints”.

Alongside Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal, Robertson was also enamoured by the work of Spanish surrealist Luis Buñuel, best known for directing films such as Un Chien Andalou and Belle de Jour. “Luis Buñuel’s scripts for Nazarín and Viridiana, which examine the impossibility of sainthood, also captivated me,” he said. Thus, seeing the word ‘Nazareth’ inside his guitar “unlocked a lot of stuff in my head from Nazarin and those other film scripts”.

Robertson once explained in detail how Buñuel’s films connected with ‘The Weight’, stating: “People trying to be good in Viridiana and Nazarín, people trying to do their thing. In ‘The Weight’, it’s the same thing. People like Buñuel would make films that had these religious connotations to them, but it wasn’t necessarily a religious meaning. In Buñuel, there were these people trying to be good and it’s impossible to be good.”

He continued: “In ‘The Weight’ it was this very simple thing. Someone says, ‘Listen, would you do me this favour? When you get there will you say ‘hello’ to somebody or will you give somebody this or will you pick up one of these for me? Oh? You’re going to Nazareth, that’s where the Martin guitar factory is. Do me a favour when you’re there.’ This is what it’s all about. So the guy goes and one thing leads to another and it’s like ‘Holy s**t, what’s this turned into? I’ve only come here to say ‘hello’ for somebody and I’ve got myself in this incredible predicament.’ It was very Buñuelish to me at the time.”
- Aimee Ferrier / Far Out
Photo: Barrie Wentzell

22/09/2024

Gregg Allman: “People will have a good time when they come to my shows. They’ll be singing and dancing and laughing. My goal is to make folks smile and lose themselves in the music for a few hours. And I’m gonna be like John Lee Ho**er, because they are going to have to drag me off the stage, man! I want to play as long as I can.”

“My first experience in L.A. really was a drag,” he admits. “That raw deal our band The Hour Glass got from Liberty Records taught me some hard lessons about the music business, and it caused some real problems between me and my brother for a while.”

Looking back on it now, Allman says the only positive memories he has of that period are the ones related to all the great musicians he got to hang out and jam with.

“We were part of the whole L.A. scene, playing at clubs like the Troubadour, the Avalon, and the Whisky a Go Go,” he recounts. “We opened for some heavy hitters, man — The Doors, Paul Butterfield, Buffalo Springfield, Buddy Guy, and even Ike and Tina Turner! I got to know guys like Jackson Browne and Tim Buckley, both of whom had a huge impact on my songwriting. So did Neil Young. His ‘Expecting to Fly’ [a song on Buffalo Springfield’s 1967 album, Buffalo Springfield Again] is a masterpiece. Hanging out with bands like Spirit, Love, The Seeds, and the guys in Poco really made a terrible situation a bit more tolerable, but that was it.”
Interview by Mike Mettler
Photo: Danny Clinch

21/09/2024

𝗠𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗯𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝗲𝗮𝘀𝗼𝗻 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗰𝗵

https://youtu.be/ne7CFsVufy4?si=2s82Ca-BsMWW8jeU

09/09/2024

𝚂𝚑𝚎 𝚔𝚎𝚙𝚝 𝚜𝚊𝚢𝚒𝚗𝚐 "𝙸'𝚟𝚎 𝚗𝚎𝚟𝚎𝚛 𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚕𝚕𝚢 𝚍𝚘𝚗𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚔𝚒𝚗𝚍 𝚘𝚏 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚋𝚎𝚏𝚘𝚛𝚎, 𝚑𝚊𝚟𝚎 𝚢𝚘𝚞?"
𝙰𝚗𝚍 𝚑𝚎 𝚜𝚊𝚒𝚍, "𝚈𝚎𝚜, 𝙸 𝚑𝚊𝚟𝚎 𝙱𝚞𝚝 𝚘𝚗𝚕𝚢 𝚊 𝚝𝚒𝚖𝚎 𝚘𝚛 𝚝𝚠𝚘"
[𝚃𝚑𝚒𝚛𝚍 𝚛𝚊𝚝𝚎 𝚛𝚘𝚖𝚊𝚗𝚌𝚎, 𝚕𝚘𝚠 𝚛𝚎𝚗𝚝 𝚛𝚎𝚗𝚍𝚎𝚣𝚟𝚘𝚞𝚜]

Provided to YouTube by Legacy RecordingsThird Rate Romance (Remastered) · The Amazing Rhythm AcesStacked Deck℗ 1975 Columbia Records, a division of Sony Musi...

01/09/2024

𝙻𝚘𝚟𝚎 𝚝𝚘𝚗𝚒𝚐𝚑𝚝, 𝚝𝚘𝚖𝚘𝚛𝚛𝚘𝚠 𝚖𝚒𝚐𝚑𝚝 𝚋𝚎 𝚕𝚘𝚗𝚎𝚕𝚢
𝙾𝚑, 𝚋𝚒𝚝𝚝𝚎𝚛 𝚠𝚒𝚗𝚎
𝚃𝚊𝚜𝚝𝚎 𝚒𝚝 𝚒𝚗 𝚏𝚞𝚕𝚕, 𝚋𝚒𝚝𝚝𝚎𝚛 𝚠𝚒𝚗𝚎

Provided to YouTube by Renaissance RecordsBitter Wine · It's A Beautiful DayChoice Quality Stuff / Anytime℗ Davlin MusicReleased on: 1972-07-10Composer: Fred...

17/08/2024

Ladies in the sun, listenin' to the radio like flowers on the sand, the rainbow in my mind...



https://youtu.be/p0iqFwJbofI
🎤
📷 Gianne Karla Tolentino