The guitar (book) of the day is The Grateful Dead in Concert

The Grateful Dead in Concert
Essays on Live Improvisation
Edited by Jim Tuedio and Stan Spector
Foreword by Stanley Krippner
ISBN 978-0-7864-4357-4
32 photos, notes, bibliographies, index
365pp. softcover 2010

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The Grateful Dead in Concert: Essays on Live Improvisation offers a spirited analysis of the unique improvisational character of Grateful Dead music and its impact on appreciative fans. The 20 essays capture distinct facets of the Grateful Dead phenomenon from a broad range of scholarly angles. The band’s trademark synergizing focus is discussed as a function of complex musical improvisation interlaced with the band members’ collective assimilation of an impressive range of marginal musical forms and lyrical traditions. These facets are shown to produce a vibrant Deadhead experience, resulting in community influences still morphing in new directions 45 years after the band’s initial impact. 
 --
This is a really great book by any objective standard. Oh, I just noticed I have an essay in it titled "Non-Systematic Thoughts on Improvisation." Who knew? ...especially that I might know something about "marginal musical forms." :)

C

Hendrix notes no. 1: The Prodigal Son

This series is inspired by the scene in the Monterey Pop documentary of the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival, where an unidentified woman watches the end of Jimi’s performance in stunned silence. She’s never heard or seen anything like this. Hendrix notes is an open question, a forum about all things Hendrix, not  the usual hagiographic account of a supernatural being, but a cyberplace to reasonably discuss his continuing influence.    
That's groovy, man.

Why the title Hendrix notes? Well, making Jimi Hendrix the guitarist of the day seems, for now anyway…too redundant, boringly so. I mean, really? What is there to say that you haven’t literally heard thousands of times? He’s passed into history that by definition, for a single figure, implies a clear narrative/story (what is history?) understood as a definitive statement of that biographical person’s experience in, and continuing effect on, culture; in Jimi’s case: music and pop culture. Don't we already know that story? 

I need another way in, a reason to be interested in writing about Hendrix....a mission. So, here is my mission statement: Hendrix notes is an open question, a forum about all things Hendrix, not  the usual hagiographic account of a supernatural being, but a cyberplace to reasonably discuss his continuing influence.

Let's begin with one view of the mythological Hendrix:

Example no.1. The return of the prodigal son. In the fleshing out of this biblical archtype: Jimi, after being rejected by the racist American music industry, goes to England where he finally, now an old man in his mid to late twenties, gets his chance to succeed in the enlightened neo-blues climate of 1960’s London. All the British guitar slingers creamed (I believe it) their tight bell-bottom blues genes. 

After this oversea success, Jimi is finally embraced in his home country of the USA, as the genius native son (a fact complicated by his being black, but also partly “Indian” since he can’t be too black in this now ancient 1960s story/myth). This return is symbolized by his performance at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival.

Does the above example seem simplistic to you? Plug in another artist's name and run the story in your head. Now?

To be continued ad infinitum.

The guitarist of the day is Joe Maphis "King of the Strings"

You probably did, but I didn't know anything about Joe Maphis until I very recently starting listening, looking at videos, etc. He is the typical "find" in terms of ruining all my assumptions about who invented what and who invented it first. It's the typical mistake: thinking that the first time we heard a style or a sound that impacts us, it is the original utterance.*  Check out Joe Maphis, the virtuoso from Bakersfield (Merle Haggard must've known him?) You'll quake in your snakeskin Gucci boots. The double-neck Mosrite is out of control.

The entry is lifted from Wikipedia (a dubious source), but one that gets us started:

Born Otis W. Maphis (born May 12, 1921 Suffolk, Virginia – died June 27, 1986), was an American country music guitarist. He married singer Rose Lee Maphis in 1948.

One of the flashiest country guitarists of the 1950s and 1960s, Joe Maphis was known as The King of the Strings.^[1] He was able to play many stringed instruments with great facility.^[2] However, he specialized in dazzling guitar virtuosity. Working out of Bakersfield, California, he rose to prominence with his own hits such as "Dim Lights, Thick Smoke (and Loud, Loud Music)" as well as playing with acts like Johnny Burnette, Doyle Holly, The Collins Kids, Wanda Jackson, Rose Maddox and Ricky Nelson. His playing was an influence on such greats as Merle Travis, Jimmy Bryant and Chet Atkins. He was known for his use of a double-neck Mosrite guitar, specially built for him by Semie Moseley, which was a boon to Moseley's fledgling career as a guitar builder. He was a regular guest on the Jimmy Dean television show in the 1960s.

Joe's guitar hero was Mother Maybelle Carter, matriarch of the Carter Family. Her daughter June Carter Cash and husband Johnny Cash so admired Joe's guitar playing that Joe is buried in a Hendersonville, TN cemetery next to Maybelle, her husband, Ezra Carter (A.P.'s brother), and daughter, Anita Carter.

"Pickin' and a Singin.'" A display of crazy virtuousity by Maphis on double-neck electric guitar, mandolin, violin, banjo, upright bass, and vocals. The hat flourish at the end is symbolic of a time when a certain kind of of showmanship was a required professional skill. My wife is right in saying that Maphis on all the other instruments really contextualizes the double-neck guitar playing that was his primary focus. I wish I'd thought of that-damn it.




* check out the this video of Jimi Hendrix listening to Buddy Guy in New Orleans, and experience the same kind of reality check. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3v5YWSBD23U

The guitarist of the day is Susan Tedeschi

Susan Tedeschi is fucking cool. Don't say it. Don't say she sounds like Janis or Bonnie because it ain't true. It's the genitalia that's confusing you. She sounds like herself. And check out that solidbody D'Angelico in the second clip - damn.  Susan's definitely got the blues, and good for her. Soul, taste, tone, songs, the whiskey-inflected voice quality....it's all there (who knew Boston could produce anything but millions-of-notes guitar clones?) I've never seen her live, but I will ASAP.

Susan's music is drawn from a  confluence of American musics including blues, country, and jazz; and she rocks (see the period).  Her work shows a consistent craftspersonship (yikes!), and her songs contain interesting lyrics, arrangements, and jazz/blues chord changes in addition to the root/fifth blues shuffles we all know and love when grooved right. Susan's musicality and tasteful restraint on the guitar are some of her trademarks, as is her really fine singing. For some reason, I feel like there's an Elvin Bishop reference here, but it might just be my 'magination running away wit me.

Don't compare her to other women, but to other musicians if you are the comparing kind. Gender don't matter here in the USA, y'all (what?). In fact, don't compare her to anyone at all. Especially to her famous guitarist husband: he who shall remain nameless in this post. It's about HER and her artistry. Is she an effective communicator and artist with the musical language she uses? - yeah.

I'm glad to see real artists making a difference in the world, and surviving somehow. It gives us all hope and inspiration. Cheers to Susan Tedeschi. She is definitely on the "good" side of this blog and blogger. Keep up the work. Susan, I'm definitely partial to the telecaster, though. :)

homepage and more sounds at http://susantedeschi.com

The (dickhead) guitarist of the day is X

I recently performed at the Next Wave Festival at BAM in NYC. X was the composer on the project. I've enjoyed X's compositional work in the past, and I've heard he is a decent guitarist, and as a part of the New York downtown scene, X has had a good run as a public artist. I had never met X previous to this project, so I was happy to make his acquaintance. I introduced myself as did a friend of mine who is a composer and leader of a new music ensemble. I gave X some of my music, explained what I did as a composer and fellow guitarist and expressed my excitement about working with him. X was a little distant, but that's cool because it's such a loaded environment, what with the production looming and all, plus we're all artists: a little weird, self-conscious, and socially awkward-well, not so much me and my friend, but definitely X.

Anyway, the next day during a production lunch break, some cast members and I (and my composer friend) go to a falafel place we like in the Brooklyn neighborhood where BAM is located. Lo and behold, X is there and our waiter sits us right next to him. This is cool. We gesture his way, but it is clear that X is not interested since he goes out of his way not to acknowledge us. I know what you're thinking - what a dickhead, right? But let's not jump to conclusions, after all, there is Mediterranean food coming.

Anyway, X begins a LOUD soliloquy about the proliferation of young composers in their twenties who are working and thriving in the city  (I've noticed that too and think it's cool). Then X, still in declamatory mode, asks the rhetorical question: "Why are there are hardly any, or no, composers in their thirties and forties who are doing any interesting work, or that I have even heard of?"  I couldn't believe this douche bag! I mean, we thirties and forties are sitting right there, all of us professional working artists,  and with the gigs and experience to merit collegial treatment at the very least, but not insults from this troll (X).

I chose not to confront X since he was a principal in our show that opened the next night, and I never  want to bring bad vibes to a production (plus X looks a little soft). But, it was all I could do not to channel my Queens vibe and wring X's late-fifties chicken neck. Maybe X hasn't heard of us (hundreds at least) because his inner ear can't hear beyond the perfectly sound-proof sphere of ego that surrounds him; or, perhaps because my generation is too close in age to X for us to be acolytes or fans; or maybe he doesn't support artists other than himself.... I don't know... and don't care to speculate beyond this post.

I'm not inklined to say who X is, but my story is true - my hand to God (Woody Allen voice). X is definitely the (dickhead) guitarist of the day. Way to go X! Keep up the good community work that is a stated part of your liberal ethos.  There is a lesson to be learned here, and that is a lesson in how not to be like X. BTW, the BAM show was fabulous despite the generic music.

The dickhead homepage

Keep on practicing y'all. Don't let the devil get you down.

Sentient beings are numberless. I vow to save them

You're so vain, you probably think this song is about you.

- Carly Simon

 

brain-droppings: What the hell is "roots" music anyway?

 

brain-droppings: What the hell is "roots" music anyway?

The term "root" as in roots music is problematic for a description of music/culture. If you keep in mind that root is a metaphor and that metaphors work by resemblance, you'll see that root conjures up a single source, like a tree root, as the source of the entire tree (forget the seed at this point). But if metaphors work to open up new ways of thinking about what was previously unthinkable, they can also obscure: remember we are trying to talk about "roots" music, not trees. Others have suggested  rhizome* as a better metaphor for music/culture because it traces back to multiple sources rather than to a single source, yet retains other organic associations such as growth and development. Perhaps the rhizomic metaphor may illuminate new aspects for us, but what will it obscure? We'll see.

The search for origins in music is complicated, and people who devote their lives to the study of historical and cultural aspects of music know that the specific origin of a particular style or instrument or practice always disappears in a hazy mist of rumor, tradition, politics, and self-interest. Notice that anytime you see someone argue for a specific origin, they have a specific agenda (usually self or group interest) to sell. Of course, generalizations can be made. I mean, who is going to argue about the centrality of African-Americans in the birth and development of most American popular music including jazz and the blues? You have to be a wing nut to believe otherwise. You can also point to movements and specific persons who contributed to, lets say jazz, in distinctive and influential ways. What you cannot locate is the first utterance of "jazz, " the inventor of it. The old work around was the term "folk music" meaning that it came from the folk (group) rather than from an individual. But that is an outdated and ultimately irrational term: let's face it, people (single and multiple) make music, not cultures.

Still, "roots" has current utility as a musical category, even in the much beloved Grammys. We have to deal with it. But lets remember that the original need for a metaphor comes from being unable to express the complexity that the metaphor points toward.

I guess for now, I'll just continue being a avant-blues and roots guitarist, whatever the hell that means or points to. Time to shut up and play my guitar.

* In botany, a rhizome (from Greek: ῥίζωμα, rhizoma, "root-stalk") is a characteristically horizontal stem of a plant that is usually found underground, often sending out roots and shoots from its nodes.

Quote of the day

 

"Just because it's an interesting idea, that doesn't mean it's going to sound good." 

- Leah Pressman 

 

 

The guitarist of the day is Lefty Williams

The guitarist of the day is Lefty Williams

I'm a sucker for that southern rock-blues sound that is Lefty's staple. Smooth tones, soulful playing, a Ronnie Van Zandt trace in the vocals, this up-and-coming Atlanta guitarist is bound to be heard by you and yours. With just a little more development and better production values, I think he could inhabit a popular sweet spot between Nashville, rock, and roots-inspired music. 

The most impressive thing about him is his commitment to, and love of music - and he is just another example of the power of music to hold our imagination and channel our energies.  In the CNN piece, his story is told in the tired American dream/myth style of overcoming all adversity in reaching the promised land, but music can't be overcome; it has to be respected, given in to, and studied - any moment now, music will kick your ass. You don't reach the promised land, but you aim for it. I think Williams knows that. He hasn't overcome - he's just working like a muthaf****.

The fact that he has only one hand is of no musical consequence; it is a biographical detail. CNN idiots - god!

Watch out John Mayer, there's a hellhound on your trail!

Lefty Williams Band homepage

The CNN story:

The guitar site of the day is amptone.com

amptone.com

Amp Tone, Effects Placement, and
Cranked-Amp Tone at Any Volume. (since 1997)

A comprehensive professional site dedicated to most or all the issues associated with getting an optimum tone from your particular set-up. Debunks many myths that the music instrument industrial complex tries to sell you in the way of new gear (you need the new Slash Les Paul so you sound just like him!). Your old gear may be fine. but you may not be maximizing its or your potential. The site is partial to tube amps, but aren't we all? Let's face it, good gear is the frosting on the cake that is you. You are the instrument, or you are the cake....or something like that.

 

The part-time guitarist of the day is John Mayer

Part-time blues guitarist, full-time, self-confessed, wanna-be pornographer John Mayer is at again. In his latest Rolling Stone and  Playboy interviews, multi-million dollar watch collector Mayer, obsessed with his cock, and unable to distinguish between the reality and illusion of his stellar career, shows us the dangerous path that a young person with his degree of talent and dumb luck can take.

I've always thought that if Mayer had more time to pay his dues, then he might also develop a less derivative approach to his playing, and music, and living in general. The tradition of the blues, like jazz, is not just a form or sound or sentiment, it is also a tradition of innovation; of standing on the shoulders of masters, yet finding a personal musical voice with which to express your perspective from the stream.  Mayer kind-of sings like Stevie Ray Vaughn, and sort-of plays as if the blues were invented in 1960s England (see/hear, but don't buy the DVD Where the Light Is: John Mayer Live in Los Angeles). He hasn't found his own musical voice yet, but having one or searching for one is a basic requirement of being an artist.  Mayer's talent is formidable, but musical talent and musical accomplishment are not necessarily coextensive, and anyone's artistic growth is endangered when the prerogatives of the market are their sole guiding principle. Any fool with industry backing can win a Grammy - even multiples. It's not necessarily a measure of musical accomplishment as much as a measure of commercial accomplishment.  I imagine lover-of-starlets Mayer confuses his bio with himself- something equally dangerous for those at the top, middle, or bottom.

In guitaring/living, the bar is set high, but John ("blowing me off is the new sucking me off") Mayer is looking down at his Rolex. Mayer is a student lost in tangents, not a master practitioner. The sword (yes, even Mayer's "sword") has to have an ethical imperative if it is to mean something other than senseless ego gratification. He may yet dedicate himself to becoming an artist rather than an two-degrees removed impersonator of dead black guitar players. I think we could all benefit from that. Hopefully, he'll stop being such a jerk.

For all those watches, John doesn't know what time it is. Sell the watches. Give ALL the proceeds to the Haitian relief effort. Champion other artists. Respect women. You can do it John. I have faith in you.  I know you can be fully human.

Sentient beings are numberless. I vow to save them.

C

Your thoughts?

The non-guitarist of the day is Guitar Center girl

So I walk into my local Queens Guitar Center because I'm looking for a new bridge for my telecaster. I ask the Latina (proud of my peeps) guitar girl in the accessories department, and she brings out an aluminum slide. Since I sometimes mumble, I assume my words are unintelligible, and I again ask for a bridge for my telecaster, at which point she brings me a nut for an acoustic steel string guitar. Now I understand, so I take one of those heavy metal death-inspired guitars and show her what part of a guitar is the bridge. I don't see a light turn on, but I'm just looking for my bridge, and figure now I'll find one.  Has anybody seen a bridge? All of a sudden she is not talking to me and walking around behind the counter aimlessly, and I wonder what is going on. I say, "what about the bridge for my telecaster?." She says "telecaster?", and I say "Fender" telecaster. But this is already too much information and her vacant eyes drift off into the clouds. I imagine that her piercings can actually be melted into a bridge for my "Fender" telecaster. I show her a "Fender telecaster" so she can learn, but she is not in a learning mood. Guitar girl says, "I don't think we have that." Twenty seconds of silence. I say, "sister, I'm trying to buy something from you, throw me a bone here!" She doesn't know how to look it up and finally another "sales representative" is called and she looks it up--wouldn't you know it - no telecaster bridges - guitar girl was right: mea culpa. It serves me right for playing such an esoteric instrument - the longest-running electric guitar model in production, in history.  Oh, well.  I decide to pick up a Tube Screamer I spy behind the counter. Things are going smoothly. Guitar girl rings it up without any problemas. She asks if I want to buy Guitar Center insurance for it. I say no. Guitar girl says stone-faced, "it (the Tube Screamer) sounds better if you buy the insurance." I guess I must look like a total idiot.  I say no, but thank her for looking out for my sonic health. I've been dazed and confused for so long it's true. I wanted a woman--never bargained for you.

Sentient beings are numberless. I vow to save them.

Cristian

The guitarist of the day is Roger Kleier

The guitarist of the day is Roger Kleier. An NYC experimental guitarist with a West Coast sensibility about space, content, and time. Kleir is patient with his tones, and he colors like a sound painter.... He rocks too.  His long standing association with his partner/collaborator Annie Gosfield have yielded innovative and influential recordings on various labels. His latest 2009 solo CD The Night Has Many Hours is on the Innova Recordings Label of the American Composers Forum. Bend an ear, yo.

Track: Hyperplane
more tracks and info: Roger's homepage

Guitar Gak: AMIGOBOMB No. 1 "Bustelo" Guitar Amp

AMIGOBOMB No. 1 "Bustelo" Guitar Amp (Head only). .5 - .7W. 9 Volt battery powered. gain/boost switch. volume control. ultra-touch sensitive studio lo-watt, lo-noise solid state amp based on "Little Gem" design and 386 op-amp. Voiced by Amigo for single-coil heaven and humbucking overdrive tones. Gain/boost switch gives you "2-channel" operation. Speaker loads tested from 4-16 Ohms. Plenty loud and plenty soft. hand-crafted (obviously). can voice to specs. Plenty of sonic and design oomph. $150 (you supply the can). Taking orders now. 4 week delivery or 2 days depending. Serious tone inquiries only. camigo@mac.com.

brain-droppings: The Grammys

Ok, so the Grammys have come and gone. I have to remind myself that they don't represent the state of music, rather the state of the music entertainment business--that way, I can fool myself to sleep at night. When the person who wins album of the year can't be bothered to sing in tune during her performance, and even interesting artists are reduced to objects in a Big Brother freak show, you've gotta scratch your head and ask yourself, "Oh, my god. What have you done?" Letting the days go by.

The guitarist of the day is Ali Farka Toure

The guitarist of the day is Ali Farka Toure. Ali Farke Toure was a virtuoso of the highest order in Africa, and the pivotal figure in modern Malian music. The son of an upper class Muslim family, this non-griot (not of a music family or caste) came to music through an abundance of talent and skill. Musicians do not rank highly in most Muslim societies, so a music career was actually a downwardly mobile move for him (and by extension his family) to make. Eventually, Toure came to symbolize and sound Malian music to the world, and nothing raises local status like success.  His international popularity was sealed by his association with American guitarist/producer Ry Cooder, and by the obvious affinities between Toure's music and American deep blues (particularly John Lee Hooker) that made Toure's sound immediately recognizable and available, with a difference, to European and American ears. He played up this blues/Malian connection to the maximum, both inventing and discovering linkages. White people ate that shit up. Sophisticated radio hosts (especially in LA) thought they had discovered the unspoiled direct river route to the mother land. What they got was a direct shot of Ali Farka Toure, the maestro. Allāhu Akbar (الله أكبر). God is Great!
 ---
 Ali Farke Toure discussing American "black" music and it's relation to him and Malian/African music. American blues guitarist Corey Harris is the interlocuter and second guitarist.

The guitarist of the day is Atahualpa Yupanqui

The guitarist of the day is Atahualpa Yupanqui. One of the founders of the South American "new song" movement of the 1950s and 60s. Atahualpa transformed Argentinian folklore with his inimitable guitar style and lyrics that empathized with the common man-the peasant-the mestizo (Indian/European) that he himself was. His style has been copied by all Spanish-speaking South American guitarists to the point that it is a part of the basic stylistic vocabulary of traditional or roots music.

The video, taken when he was older, still shows the maestro in good, if not top, form. Refer to sound recordings for definitive performances.

The classic Luna Tucumana: