This Historic Day In Music: Jimi Hendrix

Posted on November 27, 2010 by sixstrstories

When I was a teenager, I belonged to a record club. Not just any record club, mind you, but the Record Club of America. And though I’m sure that I bought a number of records from them, there’s only one that I actually remember the day I received it in the mail.

That record would be: Electric Ladyland by the Jimi Hendrix Experience.

I can still see that grainy, just-out-of-focus, flaming red and yellow cover photograph/head shot of an emotive, eyes-closed Jimi Hendrix coming out of the brown, corrugated cardboard mailing box. 

I’d been waiting for this one.

It was a two-record set, 16 songs in all, and to a small town New Hampshire teenage boy in 1969, the music contained in those vinyl grooves was…

Side A, my first listen.

Whoa. What the heck was that?

The back of the gatefold jacket said: “…AND THE GODS MADE LOVE.”

Whoa.

The last song on the side was something called “Voodoo Chile.”

The liner notes said that Jack Cassidy (from Jefferson Airplane) played bass and Stevie Winwood (from Traffic) played organ on this song with, I assumed, Mitch Mitchell on drums. 

It was a 15-minute-long cut and there were cheers, clapping, like it was recorded live in a small club or there was a party going on in the recording studio while the band played. Jimi’s guitar is huge, simply huge, his voice passionate and soulful, sounding like he looked on the record cover. 

The music started with a low-string, reverb-drenched guitar riff and slowly built, adding vocals, the organ, bass and drums, through verse, chorus, guitar solo, more chorus, an organ solo and finally climaxed and then slowly dropped down through a drum solo and just when it seemed the song was over, the guitar came back and all of it, not-so-slowly this time, built up again, and let loose with another thunderous, mountain-shattering roar.

End of Side A.

On sides B, C and D, there were more great songs, more mind-boggling sounds, more amazing music unlike any other record I’d ever owned.

“Come On (Part 1),” “Rainy Day, Dream Away,” “Still Raining, Still Dreaming,” “All Along The Watchtower” and (thank you, Jimi!) “Voodoo Chile (Slight Return).”

I am, to this day, in awe as I listen to this music. 

This was the third and soon-to-be final release by the Jimi Hendrix Experience. It came out in October of 1968. Jimi died on September 18, 1970 in London, England, where the Experience had been formed on October 6, 1966.

Jimi Hendrix was born James Hendrix in Seattle, Washington, on this day, Novemeber 27, in the year 1942.

No one before him, no one while he was alive, no one since, ever did or, in my mind, ever will play the electric guitar like he did. No one.

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Happy Thanksgiving!

Posted on November 25, 2010 by sixstrstories

Happy Thanksgiving, dear reader. I hope this finds you well and enjoying this day.

If I may, here is a bit of music for your holiday.

“Thanksgiving Eve” by Bob Franke.

The story, as I know it, is that at one time in his early days, it was Bob’s tradition to spend Thanksgiving at the home of a fellow Folk musician with a large group of like-minded folks gathering for the day’s festivities. Each musician would prepare and/or create a piece/song to share with the group after the big meal. Bob wrote this song for one of those Thanksgivings.

I first heard the song in a live recording of Bob that was released on a sampler by Rounder Records. Years later, Bob added a third verse and published it with a lead sheet to the song in an issue of Sing Out magazine. I’ve performed the song many times over the years, and not just at Thanksgiving. It is much more than my favorite Thanksgiving song.

If you’ve got a few minutes, here is a link to a youtube clip of Garnet Rogers doing the song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_efdDMlCe-A

Enjoy.

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This Historic Day In Music: November 23, 1936, The Gunter Hotel, Rm.414, San Antonio, Texas

Posted on November 23, 2010 by sixstrstories

They had travelled from Mississippi to Texas, the young black man with a guitar and the older, white buisness man. Years later, people along their route would still remember this unusual sight.

The business man was Ernie Oertle, a talent scout who covered the Southern region of the country for ARC Records. H.C.Speir, a Jackson, Mississippi-based record store owner and successful talent scout, had first auditioned the young Blues musician and passed his name on to Oertle. Oertle liked what he heard in the test recording that Speir had made and got in touch with the young man, inviting him to go with him to San Antonio for a recording session.

At the Gunter Hotel, A& R man Don Law and recording engineer Art Satherley had set up a make shift recording studio in two adjoining rooms. They had a machine that recorded directly onto aluminum disks, with about three minutes of recording time per side.

At today’s session, the young Blues singer/guitarist/songwriter recorded eight songs: “Terraplane Blues,” “Come On In My Kitchen,” “Kind Hearted Woman Blues,” “When You Got a Good Friend,” “Ramblin’ On My Mind,” “I Believe I’ll Dust My Broom,” “Sweet Home Chicago” and “Phonograph Blues.”

The young Blues musician recorded at the Gunter again on November 26 and 27.

“Terraplane Blues” b/w “Kind Hearted Woman Blues” were released on the Vocalion label in March of 1937. The 78-rpm record sold well enough for another recording session to be booked and the young Blues musician recorded again, this time in Dallas, Texas, on June 19 & 20, 1937.

The young Blues musician recorded a total of 29 songs or sides in his recording career.

But when you look at the list of songs recorded at his first session, on this day, November 23, in 1936, Robert Johnson would still be considered the King of the Delta Blues Singers.

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This Historic Day In Music: November 20, 1961, Columbia Records’ Studio A, N.Y., N.Y.

Posted on November 20, 2010 by sixstrstories

The recording session started at 2:00 pm.

The 20-year-old Folk singer/guitarist/harmonica player/songwriter was Columbia Records producer John Hammond’s latest find. As the session progressed, Hammond must have had second thoughts. He found the young musician to be: “In a word… terrible. I’d never worked with someone so undisciplined before.”

The young musician had brought a wide repertoire of songs to record. As he told Hammond, they were “some stuff I’ve written, some stuff I’ve discovered, some I’ve stole.” The first song recorded was “You’re No Good”  from Blues singer/multi-instrumentalist Jesse Fuller. Other songs recorded this day were “Fixin’ To Die,” “Baby, Let Me Follow You Down” and “In My Time Of Dyin’.”

Two original songs were recorded today, the only two that would appear on the released album, and they were: “Talkin’ New York” and “Song To Woody.” As was the preference of the young musician, all songs were given no more than three takes, many, like “Song To Woody,” were done in only one.

In what seems to have been one of several spur-of-the-moment song-choice decisions of the session, the fifth song recorded this day was “House of the Rising Sun.” The young musician performed a passionate rendition of the song in a minor key, 6/8-time arrangement borrowed from (without permission, and eventually released, despite a request not to, by) Greenwich Village Folk singer/guitarist Dave Van Ronk.

The session ended at 5:00 pm with seven songs finished. A second and final 3-hour session was held two days later and resulted in the other six tracks needed to complete the album. 

The album, “Bob Dylan,” was released on March 19, 1962.

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This Historic Day In Music: Neil Young

Posted on November 12, 2010 by sixstrstories

Boom boom strum strum strum strum strum strum | strum….. strum strum….., by-um bum dum.

Can you name that tune?

I’ll give you a clue.

It’s the guitar intro to a Neil Young song.

Every student who starts learning how to play guitar with me learns that intro and the rest of that song. For years now, I’ve also used two other Neil Young songs: “After The Gold Rush” and “Sugar Mountain,” in my teaching.

One of my favorite Neil Young songs to play and perform is “Birds.” It’s on the album “After The Gold Rush” and he plays it there on piano, but I’ve got a bootleg Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young album where he is recorded playing it live on guitar. “Lover, there will be another one, to hover over you beneath the sun…” A chills-inducing, fabulous song.

(Still trying to figure out that song? Try reading the line out loud…)

I’ve only seen Neil Young live once.

Back in the early 1970’s, my friend Norm and I were at an acoustic Crosby-Nash concert at the then-named Music Hall in Boston. As the show neared the end, Steven Stills wandered out on stage, guitar in hand, to thunderous applause and the trio launched into a couple of CSN songs. Then a voice from the audience called out: “Where’s Neil?” and out from the wings he came. The crowd went crazy. I mean totally off-the-charts CRAZY. I don’t remember what they played/sang together but I can still hear that voice from the audience and feel the rush of the thrill of seeing the four of them together on that stage.

Writing in The All Music Guide To Rock, Stephen Thomas Erlewine says: “After Neil Young left the California Folk-Rock band Buffalo Springfield in 1968, he slowly established himself as one of the most influential and idiosyncratic singer-songwriters of his generation.”

Singer/guitarist/songwriter Ben Harper once said: “Another mystical thing is that one guitarist can play a G chord and stand the hairs up on your neck, while another will hit a G and you go, ‘Well, it’s a G.’ Why is that? How can Bob Marley, Elvis Costello, Bob Dylan or Neil Young get so much soul out of a G chord?”

Neil Young was born on this day, November 12, in the year 1945, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Happy Birthday, Neil. Thanks for everything. Take care and all the best.

So, reader, what’s the song?

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This Historic Day In Music: Bonnie Raitt

Posted on November 8, 2010 by sixstrstories

Thanks to Bonnie Raitt, I’ve learned to play and sing some great songs.

Not too long after I got my first job (teaching 4th, 5th and 6th grade music in the public schools of Exeter, NH), I started trying to put a band together with some friends. One of the women in the band was a Bonnie Raitt fan and she wanted to do Bonnie’s version of the Jackson Browne song, “I Thought I Was A Child.” The band never got off the drawing board, but I learned that song, performed it often over the years and still love to play it to this day.

Recently, being at the right place, at the right time and knowing how to play Bonnie’s take on “Angel From Montgomery” by John Prine, I got what proved to be a most-enjoyable gig backing up a superb singer who loves Bonnie’s music even though she was a decade away from being born when Bonnie put “Angel” on her album Streetlights in 1974.

Thanks to Bonnie Raitt, I first heard about the legendary Blues musicians Mississippi John Hurt and Son House and Sippie Wallace and Skip James and Fred McDowell. 

In the cover story article/interview with Bonnie by Patricia Brody in the May 1977 issue of Guitar Player magazine (yes, I still have my copy), she names the artists above and several others as being major influences on her guitar playing and singing style.

As a college student in Cambridge, MA, in the late 1960’s, Bonnie got to meet and learn directly from several of the elder statesmen of traditional Blues. Throughout her career, Bonnie has not only recorded their songs, but in countless print interviews and appearances in documentary films and on TV, she has continuously championed her heros and heroines, trying to keep their names and music alive and in the public’s eyes and ears.

Thanks to Bonnie Raitt, some of my heros have found a larger audience.

In 1989, after I had spent the previous year telling everyone about this outrageously good album (Bring The Family) by John Hiatt, Bonnie released her breakthrough album Nick Of Time and had a major hit with her version of a Hiatt song, “Thing Called Love,” that had been on Bring The Family.

In 1994, Bonnie Raitt released the album Longing In Their Hearts. It contained her version of the Richard Thompson song “Dimming Of The Day.” Back in 1989, before Nick Of Time won all those Grammy awards, Bonnie was still playing in small venues like the Hampton Beach Casino Ballroom here in NH. Richard Thompson was on that tour as her opening act and would play guitar behind her when she did “Dimming” during her set.

Thanks to Bonnie Raitt, I know how incredible and exciting slide guitar playing can sound.

Throughout her albums, in all the live and filmed performances I’ve seen, Bonnie Raitt stands out as one of the most evocative, emmotional, expressive and positively smokin’ slide guiarists playing today or, for that matter, who has ever put a glass bottleneck to steel strings.

Not so sure you agree with that? 

If you’ve got 5 minutes, check this out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Mylo0piAgc

Bonnie Raitt was born on this day, November 8, in the year 1949, in Burbank, California.

Happy Birthday, Bonnie. Thank you for everything. Take care and all the best.

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This Historic Day… My Son

Posted on November 7, 2010 by sixstrstories

Happy Birthday to you,

Happy Birthday toooo yoooou,

Happy Birrrthdaaaaay, dear Son of mine,

HAP-PY  BIRTH-DAY  TOOO–OO-OO-OO–OOO… YOU!!!!!

Let the party begin!

“November 7th” by Eric Sinclair

T.C., H.F., E.W., D.T.A.W.N. and M.M.L.

P.S.: If, dear reader, you would like to hear a song I wrote for the birthday boy when he was but a young lad, go to the archives for June 2010 and scroll down to my post of June 4: Summer’s Here. There is a link to click on to hear the song (of the same name as the post).

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This Historic Day In Music: Guy Clark

Posted on November 6, 2010 by sixstrstories

In September, 1995, author Joyce Maynard published her new novel, Where Love Goes, with something extra: a CD. The hardcover first edition of the book came with a 19-track mix CD of Maynard’s favorite songs from the albums and artists she’d listened to and been inspired by as she wrote the book.

Seeing as my wife was a big fan of Joyce Maynard, I purchased a copy as a Christmas present for her. In January, I made a cassette tape copy of the CD, editing out the two or three songs that were too “Country” for my wife’s tastes, and that collection got pretty regular airplay around the house and in the car right on through the whole rest of the year.

One song in particular became a favorite of mine: “Baby Took A Limo To Memphis.”

The song was by Guy Clark.

In October, 1997, Acoustic Guitar magazine had a feature article about Guy Clark that included a rave review of his newest CD: Keepers – A Live Recording. Writer John Herndon starts the article by saying: “Guy Clark is one of the very few songwriters for whom the term poet should be reserved.” He ends the article like this: “For Guy Clark, the simple folk song is an art form every bit as moving and significant as any of the great works of Western civilization.”  

Keepers was the very next CD I purchased. It was, and is, an album full of wondrous songs.

On March 28, 2003, my friend, Jim, and I went into Boston for a concert at the Orpheum Theatre. It was billed as “An Evening with Lyle Lovett, John Hiatt, Guy Clark and Joe Ely.” It consisted of over two hours of the four singer/songwriter/guitarists sitting in a row of chairs across the stage, taking turns singing songs and spinning stories. Spellbinding, to say the least. But all throughout the show, Lyle, John and Joe paid their respects to the man who sat at the right hand end of the row: Guy Clark.

One of the songs Guy Clark played that night was called “Stuff That Works” and I was so taken buy it, that the next day I was on the computer, searching out what CD of his it was on. Before too long Dublin Blues (1995) was spinning in my player, amazing my ears and I was adding “Stuff That Works” to my performing repertoire.

Over the following years, my Guy Clark CD collection continued to grow: Cold Dog Soup (1999); The Dark (2002); The Essential Guy Clark (1997); and on up to his latest: Somedays The Song Writes You (2009). From album to album, track to track, Guy’s songs are never less than great and some are absolutely devastating.

In August, 2009, my wife and I saw Guy Clark, with his dear friend, singer/songwriter/guitarist Verlon Thompson, at that summer’s version of the Newport (RI) Folk Festival.

At first on that Sunday afternoon, it seemed that Guy was not having the best of days. He had great difficulty climbing the short staircase up to the stage and as he stood, awaiting his introduction, he appeared to be in pain. At one point during the show, he even ackowledged his discomfort saying that he was dealing with “an old songwriting injury.”

But for nearly an hour he played his guitar and sang his songs. His words and music and stories filled the tent and long, warm, loving applause rolled up to embrace and support him song after gorgeous song. Among his last numbers, he did “Stuff That Works” and “Dublin Blues.” If, then and there, it had been my time to go, I would have died a very happy man.

At the beginning of that set, Guy Clark spoke the best lines I heard from a performer all weekend. He looked across the packed Fort Stage area and said: “We have come here today to sing you some songs we’ve written. Some we know. We don’t use a set list. We just kind of wing this and, ah, we have no agenda, we have no clue, but we have no fear.” 

If you’ve never heard any of the songs of Guy Clark, I recommend the CD Dublin Blues as the best place to start with Cold Dog Soup and Keepers as very close seconds.   

Guy Clark was born today, November 6, in the year 1941 in Monihans, Texas.

Happy Birthday, Guy. Thank you for everything. Take care and all the best.

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This Historic Day In Music: “Guitar Blues”/”Guitar Rag” – Take 1

Posted on November 2, 2010 by sixstrstories

On November 2, 1923, African-American Blues guitarist Sylvester Weaver sat in front of the large horn/”microphone” of the acoustic recording machine in the New York City studios of OKeh Records. He played and recorded two original instrumental guitar pieces that day: “Guitar Blues” and “Guitar Rag.” The resulting 78-rpm record stands as the first recordings of solo acoustic Blues guitar music.

Two weeks earlier, on October 23, 1923, in the same studio and also for OKeh Records, Sylvester Weaver was the guitarist on the session that produced the first record by a Classic Blues singer where the only accompaniment was an acoustic guitar. The singer was Sara Martin and the songs were “Longing For Daddy Blues” and “I’ve Got to Go and Leave My Daddy Behind.”

The success of these initial recordings led to Sylvester Weaver cutting 25 more sides with Sara Martin, making 24 more solo recordings and recording several duets with guitarist and occassional-singer Walter Beasley. In 1927, Weaver’s recording career ended and he returned to his home town of Louisville, Kentucky.

Sylvester Weaver, born on July 25, 1987, passed away, in Louisville, on April 4, 1960.

That’s pretty much all that is known about Sylvester Weaver.

But it is enough.

When I listen to “Guitar Blues,” all I need to know is: this record is the beginning.

When I listen and the first notes start creeping up through the dense fog of scratches, pops and surface noise from the original 78-rpm record, I find myself turning an ear towards the speaker or closing my eyes, putting my hands over the headphones and leaning forward, straining to catch every glimpse of the music. Listening to this music feels like stepping into the frame of a faded, sepia-toned photograph. Old recordings such as this are the sounds of ghosts.

I’ve seen re-enactments of what it was like making records in the days before electric microphones and long before tape recorders. In these films, there is a Jazz band or small orchestra being recorded and the musicians are positioned in careful proximity to the sound-capturing horn, softest instruments in front, loudest further back, so that the resulting record has a full and balanced sound.

I can thus picture Sylvester Weaver, the lone guitarist, sitting right up close to that horn and playing loud, pulling the notes from his instrument and pushing them up towards and, hopefully, down into the gaping mouth. I imagine that it took several test recordings and “takes,” this being the first time for recording this kind of music, before everyone was satisfied that a releaseable “best” of each piece had been made.

The actual 78-rpm records were made of shellac: thick, brittle, easily broken and record companies reserved the highest quality record-making material for their serious, Classical music releases. It’s a wonder that any copies of “Guitar Blues” or similar music from the 1920’s survived into the digital era.

But thanks to a small, passionate (yes: obsessed) group of record collectors who started back in the 1940s building and sharing collections of these fragile gems, we can still hear this music. They saved these recordings from certain extinction and allowed the music they contained to be preserved for future generations of enlightened listeners.

Like you.

Check it out.

“Guitar Blues” by Sylvester Weaver

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By Request

Posted on October 31, 2010 by sixstrstories

In his comment to my post of last Sunday, Jim G. requested “a little slide guitar.”

So, my friend, and friends: here you go.

“Tool Box” by Eric Sinclair

I’ve been playing slide guitar for quite awhile now. When I started, I would go out, in nice weather, and sit on our small back porch after dinner to practice. As I’ve improved, I find it to be a wonderfully expressive way to breathe life into even the most common melody. I started out with “Amazing Grace” and “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.” Then I learned “Sitting On Top Of The World,” based on an arrangement by Folk singer Jim Ringer. “Tool Box” is my first successful original slide guitar instrumental.

For playing slide, I use my high-action, mahogany body, 1970’s Harmony acoustic (my first guitar). It is strung with medium gauge strings, including an even heavier 1st string, and tuned to an open-D tuning. I pick with bare fingers and use either a thick glass or heavy, tapered brass slide worn on my left hand pinky finger.

When my daughter first heard this piece, she asked what it was called. I told her it was called “Tool Box.” When she asked why, I answered: “Because it has a lot of hammer-ons in it.”

Much eye-rolling ensued.

I hope you enjoy it.

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