Soul to Soul

20 years ago today, the world lost one of the greatest guitar players to ever grace the planet. Stevie Ray Vaughan passed away after a show at Alpine Valley, WI, playing along side his brother Jimmie, Buddy Guy, Robert Cray, and Eric Clapton. Soul to Soul is the "official" Stevie Ray Vaughan biography. Author Keri Leigh met Stevie in 1986 and had interviewed him several times and became good friends. In May of 1990, they discussed the idea of doing this book. She requested no money and gave Stevie complete artistic control of the project. After his death, she shelved the project in her grief, coming back to it a couple of years later, publishing in 1993. Many people helped contribute to the project (forward by B.B. King). The book is filled with pictures marking influences and all periods of Stevie's life. Of the books released after his passing, this one stands at the top.

Really? You got one too?

Wassapening, everyone (anyone?)! Time for some more words of wisdom. Or somethin'... Back on Halloween 1982, I sat at my girlfriend's apartment, mildly pissed off. The Who were 150 miles up the highway in Phoenix that night and I was not. As a consolation of sorts, there was a Clash concert being broadcast that night. I already had "Combat Rock" and the 'Train in Vain' ('London Calling' flip side) 45. Seeing as how the crowd I hung with was long haired hippie Rock before it became classic, I regulated myself to "closet" Clash fan. So, I recorded the concert on my girlfriend's sister's stereo and thus became the owner of a live Clash tape. This show, according to the announcers, was being broadcast "live from St. Louis". If I only knew...

As the 80's rolled by, this tape saw a LOT of play. It turned me into a fairly big Clash fan. I would acquire whatever albums I was missing, became a HUGE fan of Mick Jones' Big Audio Dynamite, collected various books and articles and pictures and the stuff fans usually acquire. I also got pumped a few boots and out take tapes from a friend that worked at a local record store. Then came the MTV Clash "Rockumentary". It was the usual history of the band with various interview bits and concert footage, what have you. Then, they started talking about the Clash's famous stint at Bond's in New York City. This was big stuff. Stopping traffic in Times Square isn't something usually done by masses of pedestrians without the aid of a traffic light. You got a feel listening to what was being said, these were very significant shows for the band.

So, time goes on and various interviews and videos drift by and, same thing; every time it gets to the Bond's part, queue the dramatic music, slow motion video (the Clash always looked cool no matter what speed you ran 'em), and watch the excitement build. I'm starting to feel, this footage, any audio, from these concerts is the Holy Grail for any self respecting Clash fan. Out comes more media, including the superb DVD "Westway to the World" from Don Letts. Same set up for the Bond's shows. Even better, a whole disc (!) called "Clash on Broadway". Alas, not an entire show but video none the less. It's pointed out that "this is all that's left". From other sources, a lotta the film had been lost. Still, Bond's footage!

Flash forward to this past weekend... Tim over at the Clash Blog (see previous post) came up with the great idea of everyone who reads his blog and is on Facebook, to change their status on Saturday to commemorate what would've been Joe Strummer's 58th birthday. I elected to pull videos offa youtube all day and post those. Tim was posting some videos as well and posted a mp3 video of a song from the Bond's shows. Cool! I looked at the poster of the video's page and he had an entire show! Yeah! Let us all drop down and give tanks and praises! So, I decide to do a little research on the show he's got up and find my self on a magnificent Clash site, Black Market Clash. Amongst the tons of info on the Bond's concerts, is the various boots from the concerts that have come out. One of them is entitled "Trick or Treat", culled from a professional recording done on the June 9th show, which was edited down and aired (minus 6 songs) by some FM stations across the country on, you got it, October 31, 1982. The Holy Grail has been in my hands for almost 30 years! Turns out, this is also a very popular Clash bootleg (and there are several other variations out there too). And that's not all! The video that you see from Bond's is also from this show. AND, some of the songs are also on the "From Here to Eternity" CD! So... so much for rare and hard to find! But, in my defense, the announcers at the time DID say "Live from St. Louis". I had no reason to think otherwise. Even as I would hear these songs in other places, mixes were different, and I had no reason to put the two together. Bands play songs similar alla the time.

So, in a way, I kinda feel like a goofball, not knowing what I had all these years. At the same time, how hip is that to be listening to one of the famed Bond's shows for the last 28 years?

'Til we groove again...

Ghost town

I guess the best way to keep people coming in to read my blog is to write more often than every ten days or so. I still have more pics of books to post and to write about but I think the book thing needed a little break. I haven't gotten a chance to take anymore pics of more cool stuff so, that left me pondering what to write about. I'm still groovin' on the same bands (Los Lobos, Jimmie Vaughan, ZZ Top, Stones, etc.) and I've written plenty on them for the time being (even though JV will be in town 3 days after my birthday...). Well, inspiration hit me by the way of Facebook. One of my friends writes a great blog on the Clash (The Clash Blog) and he posted a video he put together of a Joe Strummer song. While the images flashed by me, suddenly there was the line about the Skatalites. Hey! Let's check that out! Well, it's some great stuff and that's what I'm gonna write about.

The Skatalites were formed in Jamaica (where else?) in 1964, bringing together the best musicians around and working in the studios of Kingston, as well as performing live and backing the heavyweight vocalists there at the time. Many of the original and future band members attended The Alpha Cottage School, which was run by Roman Catholic nuns. "It was a good school. If you had ambition you could learn a trade: printer, carpenter, bookbinder, tailor, shoemaker, electrician," recalls Lester Sterling. "You also could choose your instrument and tell the band leader... trumpet, sax, drum. Sometimes the bandleader would put you on the instrument he needed. Ruben Delgado was our teacher for band. A good teacher, he had studied in England and been in the military band." When fellow future band member Dizzy Moore heard a friend playing music he asked where he learned. The boy said, "Alpha, but you have to be bad to go there." Dizzy replied, "That's easy, man." Two years later, Johnny 'Dizzy' Moore was a pupil at Alpha; his folks glad to be straightening him out, Dizzy just happy to play music. Recording back then usually consisted of the band on one track and the vocalist on the other. This helped produced the tight groove the band would develop. The group played their last gig in August 1965, splitting into two groups after that. They reformed with their core members in 1983, backing Bunny Wailer in 1989 on his Liberation Tour featuring 7 original members.

Now I'm just discovering these guys and have a lot more to dig into. Like a lotta folks my age, I got introduced to Ska with the Specials. They not only were a hot band but made you realize how much music you listened to in the past was really Ska. So, I'm gonna check out some more Skatalites and other bands that came out of that movement (gotta expand those horizons!) and if you dig Ska or Reggae, this is a cool place to check out. 'Til we groove again...

(Quotes courtesy of the Skatalites official website)

TEXAS RHYTHM TEXAS RHYME

TEXAS RHYTHM TEXAS RHYME

Yo y'all! Time to write again! I got the new Los Lobos CD ("Tin Can Trust") in the mail today. I've been hearing a track here and there, also the entire CD on NPR (a site well worth checking out). But, I'm not gonna do a review here, although you should give it a listen. Nope, nor am I gonna talk about the new Jimmie Vaughan CD, since I've already kinda done that. But I am gonna stay in Texas for a fine book I picked up years ago, called "Texas Rhythm, Texas Rhyme".

This book is a pictorial history of Texas music (as it sez right there on da cover). There is quite a bit o' text in there too. What's so cool is alla the music they cover. It starts out talking about the 19th century music and the early Country stuff, people like Scott Joplin, Lefty Frizzell, Ernest Tubb, Woody Guthrie, Jim Reeves, and Ray Price. It then heads off into the singing cowboy types (Gene Autry, Tex Ritter), before hitting Country Blues. Mance Lipscomb, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Leadbelly, Big Mama Thorton, Lightnin' Hopkins. Skipping ahead, there's a chapter on Rhythm and Blues. This is where we see T-Bone Walker, Charlie Christian, Albert Collins, Gatemouth Brown, and Lowell Fulson, among others. This book clearly doesn't mess around. Freddie King, Clifton Chenier, the Vaughan Brothers, Fabulous Thunderbirds, Janis Joplin, Edgar and Johnny Winter, ZZ Top, Buddy Holly, Roy Orbison, Waylon, Willie, Stephen Stills, Boz Scaggs, Steve Miller, Kristofferson, the Austin scene in the 70's (some of which mentioned earlier), and lots of others I've left out! It's only a 159 page book! If you wanna get a taste of the Texas flavor and where it came from, this is a great place to start.
'Til we groove again...