Political solutions to made up problems are the opiate of the masses.
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What am I listening to?
“Hear About It Later” – Van Halen
While listening to Fair Warning I usually skip over this tune. I don’t know why. Probably a holdover from my youth when I wanted to keep rockin’ after “Sinner’s Swing” right into “Unchained.” But the last time I listened to this album I let it play. Eddie’s chorused guitar sound at the beginning of the song…THAT is the chorus sound I want.
“He’s Gone Away” – Charlie Haden & Pat Metheny
There really are no words for the beauty of this song. Pure emotion might come close. It’s just Metheny on a nylon-string guitar, the unadorned beauty of Haden’s upright bass, and some subtle synth strings toward the end of the tune. Mezmerizing stuff.
“Once I Prayed” – Phil Keaggy
One of the most beautiful tracks in the Phil Keaggy canon, “Once I Prayed” is Keaggy’s setting of a Helen McDowell to original music. A wonderful marriage of great music and wonderful, thought-provoking poetry.
Grand triumvirate of tone for this week
Tom Hemby on In The Moment, Robben Ford on Blue Moon, and Steve Stevens on Memory Crash.
I’ve migrated the content of my “weird band names” page from my old blog to the new. Knock yourself out. The URL is http://licksandliturgy.wordpress.com/weird-band-names/.
I actually stole this idea from the Guitar Noize blog. The goal here is to feature five songs from one year starting from the year that I was born. So here we go with my birth year, 1967.
I want to feature things that inspired me and still inspire me to this day. I have plenty of blind spots and holes in my listening experience, so if one of your favorites from one year doesn’t make my list, leave me a comment and tell me about it.
I encourage you to listen to some of the stuff I will list here and purchase a few tracks and/or albums by the artists listed in the coming weeks. Finding new music is fun.
Without further ado, here are my picks for 1967:
“Gimme Some Lovin’” – Spencer Davis Group (Gimme Some Lovin’)
I have always been a sucker for Steve Winwood’s voice and organ playing. When he hit it big in the mid-1980s I was thrilled. I loved his hit singles during that time. Little did I know that it was Winwood singing on this 1967 classic by the Spencer Davis Group.
“Strawberry Fields Forever” – The Beatles (Magical Mystery Tour)
What a lovely, sprawling mess of a song. Was there anything left in the studio that the Beatles didn’t use on this track? The song has mellotron, brass, strings, a barroom piano, and some sublime guitar work throughout by George Harrison. Oh, and the false ending where the song re-enters and Lennon says, “cranberry sauce.” It is songs like this that keep me coming back to the Beatles’ catalog over and over.
“Sunshine of Your Love” – Cream (Disraeli Gears)
One of Eric Clapton’s greatest guitar riffs and Ginger Baker’s oddball drumbeat, which was played mostly on his toms while emphasizing beats 1 and 3. And don’t forget Jack Bruce’s fuzzed-out bass. This song is a great example of Clapton’s “woman tone.”
“How Insensitive (Insensatez)” – Sinatra & Jobim (Frank Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim)
Sinatra, Jobim, and Claus Ogerman’s orchestra. What’s not to love? Such a beautiful version of this great song.
“The Wind Cries Mary” – The Jimi Hendrix Experience (Are You Experienced?)
I am not a big fan of Hendrix. In fact, for such a towering electric guitar figure, his stuff doesn’t do much for me. Give me Clapton, Beck, and Page from that era any day. However, there is no denying Hendrix’s visionary genius. “The Wind Cries Mary” is one of my favorites because Hendrix turns things down and lets his great rhythm playing come through.
There were only a few tracks that I left off of this list. I like some of the songs off of Pink Floyd’s debut album The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn (especially the song “Astronomy Domine”). Smokey Robinson & the Miracles released “I Second That Emotion” in 1967…a great track. And The Moody Blues released “Nights in White Satin” in 1967, which narrowly missed my list.
That’s all for 1967. Next week…1968.
Folk musician David Wilcox has a song called “Guitar Shopping” that contains the following lyric:
There’s a guitar here in the window
I’d like to play before its sold
Its such a classic, mint condition
Great shape for one this old
Now all these axes have their stories
Of the gigs that they have seen
But when this one sold the first time
I was seventeen
‘Course back then I didn’t want it
It was way too new for me
I needed something old and righteous
With its own authority
So the first guitar I ever bought
Was twice as old as me
Cause its life was full of music
As I dreamed that mine might be
In the past I have agreed with Wilcox. When thinking about “my dream guitar” I thought about a brand new, pristine guitar that I would play hour upon and hour and wear off the finish myself. Therefore, I always considered the idea of “relic-ing” an instrument kind of silly. I suppose there is some sort of “high art” to the exact copies of Stevie Ray Vaughan’s “Lenny” or Eddie Van Halen’s Frankenstein but thought of buying a mass-produced Fender “road worn” instrument always struck me as goofy.
Along comes the fledgling company Rittenhouse Guitars to change my opinion of relic’d instruments. Rittenhouse works with their customers to create what they call a “unique, one-of-a-kind” instrument. This isn’t a production line relic’d guitar. Each Rittenhouse guitar is a handcrafted beauty that oozes vintage vibe and is made by working closely with the customer. This level of commitment to customer service is seriously cool in this day and age and Rittenhouse is to be applauded.
Rittenhouse Guitars is holding a contest in which they will give away a relic’d guitar to one lucky winner on December 24. You better believe I have entered. But as much as I would love to keep it if I won the guitar, I would probably give the instrument to my two daughters (aged 10 and 9). They have really, REALLY caught the guitar playing bug this year and want me to teach them to play. They both have guitars on their Christmas lists but, like everyone else these days, we’ve tightened our belts and there won’t be a guitar under the tree this Christmas. So, if I won a guitar from Rittenhouse, it would go to my daughters. I can’t think of a cooler instrument upon which to learn than a custom-built guitar made just for them. After all, as David Wilcox said, a guitar that looks as “old and righteous” as a Rittenhouse has “its own authority.”
Feel free to click on through to Rittenhouse’s website and have a look around. They are a great little company filled with quality people. I’ve got my fingers crossed that a picture of a beautifully relic’d Telecaster will end up under the tree for my daughters this Christmas.
This is my re-entry into blogging. Topics up for discussion will be primarily limited to music, specifically music outside of the church (especially guitar-related stuff) and music within the church (liturgy, church music, etc.) I hope you consider me a witty provocateur and that we can reason together and discuss things as ladies and gentlemen.
Now…on with the show.
