If you really like Bukka then shell out some brass for the ultimate recording The Legacy of the Blues:
Monthly Archives: April, 2009
Bukka White jammin` hard. Just so everybody knows where Hendrix is really coming from.
Here`s Furry Lewis playing when I lay my burden Down.
I previously wrote about unusual guitar practices and sometimes you`ve gotta have an unusual name just to back yourself up….Furry Lewis, Clarence Gatemouth Brown, Blind Lemon, Pink Anderson & Little Pink, Keb` Mo, Big Bill Broonzy, Muddy Waters, Black Spider Dumpling, Hound Dog Taylor, Pine Top Smith, Screamin Jay Hawkins, Little Richard, Professor Longhair, Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem, Smellfoot Johnson, Jake “The Snake” Edwards and the It Doesn`t Matters…..
These guys are the real cats….and Robert Johnson obviously don`t need no moniker….
I`ve written some rules about the blues over here just to help anybody get started with the blues.…
If you`d like to find the missing jigsaw piece in American musical history featuring African American; Cajun; European American; Anglo-American blues, folk country rarities here it is:
You can listen to the tracks here. This superb set features commercially recorded but hard to find and rare 78rpm songs by artists from Blind Lemon, to Blind Willie, Chubby Parker and Rabbit Brown.
I`ve had my second stratocaster awhile maybe 15 years or more and unfortunately Kurt from Hennessy Love Machine asked me to borrow it for their recording of Follow Your Nose over the weekend. Well it`s a personal subject and a talisman and the rest of that story is here…
What a fantastic engineering job from Beermaster Ben Edwards at The Sitting room – he sure knows how to get his separation, compression and mix up to scratch – delicious. MOre soon, but we`re so busy….so so busy…
Today I`m going to stretch the art of guitar metaphor a little further and give everyone out there an insight into some visually shredded guitar art that combines fast colour kinetics, motion and explosive emotional intent. I`ll be posting more soon. Artist Michael Babyak hails from the lone star state via the way of New York City and you can find out more at his website below.
Visit www.babyakart.com for more – all paintings are copyright Michael Babyak.
Hair metal poodles and spandex clad rockers beware..!
There are ways to burn on the guitar that far surpass the egocentric simplicity and slavery to technique of that whole guitar school, speed focused, sweep picking, notes for notes sake playing that occurs in a vacuum devoid of taste, subtlety and emotion. A while back I posted here about tasty solos and in a way all of these are shredders in the following sense:
The guitar as an instrument is emotive, not mechanical, slick or polished unless it needs to be as part of the expression – e.g. a Freddie King Lick, an Albert King bend, a Clapton phrase, the Leslie West tone, Hendrix` sustain etcetera…..What makes these kinds of players special is the integrity and honesty in the ability of their playing to communicate something very human and powerful – emotion, character, experience and individuality.
it`s a combination of melody or lack thereof, timing, timbre, attack, tone, technique and more; imperfection, humanity, frailty, strength, ambition, fear and glory. It`s ALL FEEL playing the guitar, nothing else, especially if you`ve a great song to do it with! J.J. Cale is a great example of a musician whose delivery, content, songwriting and even message seems to consist almost entirely of feel, and feel alone – incredible. Then again someone like Paul Gilbert really, really cooks up storm! Find what you like and mix it all together.
SO, it IS up to you entirely – there is an entire genre of speed/technique worthy of admiration ranging from neo-classicists such as Yngwie Malmsteen or Gary Moore (try the album After the War) – who has incidentally “reinvented” himself as a blues player – to the insane dexterity and sweep picking of Batio below….one day it`ll be so fast you can’t even hear it!! Mark Knpfler always seemed fast enough for me….
But if you feel good shredding, get down to it and have look at the video below especially between 1.40 minutes and 2.20 minutes. Michael Angelo Batio fast, very, very fast; or J.J.Cale…very, very slow…..mmmm
Cheers,
Jake Edwards
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