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Stellar video manipulation.
Bumpin, relentless jam.
And a tribute to one of South Africa's most important and beloved cultural exports, Miriam Makeba.

I think there is some good stuff out there, but they just aren't popular. I know you like Melody Gardot. There are others like Beth Hart, Caro Emerald, etc.....but most folks have never even heard of them.

In a word, today's music is shallow. The pop stuff is so horrible that I can't even listen to it. I have tried to like Rap, but it's also lacking depth and most of it is vulgar. I'm glad I was able to be alive during the 60s and 70s. I enjoyed some of the stuff from the 80s and recently have found an appreciation for some of the female artists of the 90s, such as Suzanne Vega. I also enjoyed a lot of the music my parents listened to, such as the guy you brought up earlier--Nat King Cole--and many of the other great artists of that time period.

I actually spend quite a bit of time making new playlists. It's fun in that brings back great memories and I then can enjoy playlists that fit my mood and/or activities. I made a new I Got the Blues playlist over the last couple of days. Great stuff from John Lee Hooker, Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters all the way through to guys like Alvin Lee, Joe B, and Gary Moore.

I've always been more about how lyrics and vocals can make you feel the music. I also think a great guitar player can accomplish that same thing. And while there's still music coming out that does that, the older I get the more trouble I have relating to much of it. But then it was the same way for my dad when I listened to my music in the 70's so I'm thinking that's sort of the natural order of things. This was a group that did exactly that. While I'm showing a single video, it took me back to a time when you could be an album and play the entire thing through without wanting to miss a single track on the entire album.

This is a really underrated, under appreciated band from the 90’s, Bighead Todd and the Monsters. They were great live. Their album Strategem is a VERY good listen.



A link to the Strategem playlist…
https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFDF14109519F6F62

Another underrated band. A true slice of America.
David Hildago is a living legend.
Another incredible live band.




I’ve had the pleasure of working around Steve Berlin (sax/keys/percussion) a few times. He’s a Portlander. Super down to earth dude.

This is an artist right out of Cleveland I've always thought was overlooked and surprised I had never seen any of his music on any of these video threads. I would post a live video but it's hard to quite portray all of his skills that way. In this recording he plays all of the instruments and puts it all together. I find his talent to be amazing.



4,364 views Nov 22, 2014

The title cut to the CD "The Guitarsonist", written, recorded and produced by Rick Ray. All instruments by Rick Ray. Released in 2002 on Neurosis Records. Available at www.rickray.net

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Re: Los Lobos

When the Circus Comes to Town is a really good song.

The entire "Kiko" album is great.

There was a House of Blues special on TV a lot of years back where they played the whole album live. Like you said, a very underappreciated band .

"When the Circus Comes......" :

This was a song I used to emotionally abuse myself with while I was going through a rough breakup with my first true love. I had started drinking, hard. It was pretty much my bottom. This song, and the entire Jar of Flies album was my cudgel.
I’m glad I made it out alive. Unfortunately not everyone does.
This performer is testimony to just such a tragedy.

These guys… I saw them in ‘92 before Dirt was released. Just before they got huge. They were loud as all hell. They were different. Live they were powerful, emotional, raw. The heavy metal of grunge.

Layne was a beast. Jerry has had access to the best singers in the world and as much as he’s tried… AIC can’t replace him.
Around 2:25 through to 3:30 or so… goosebumps. This is from 1990. He was 23 years old in this video. Crazy.



From the same night in Seattle… man o man…

Okay… so these guys… talk about defining my early 90’s experience. I caught them live a couple times around Nothing Shocking. Which I consider one of the best albums of the 90’s. They were rock and roll infused with the LA drug scene at the time. Raw, weird, powerful, in your face…




Early Jane’s with Flea on bass… Perry and Dave it sweating out. You could probably have licked them and gotten higher than you’d ever been. Lol

I love AIC. Layne Staley is one of my fav if not all-time fav vocalists.

Saw Jane's Addiction one year at Lollapalooza. I don't know what year it was but NIN was on the bill (they were awesome), if that helps. I really liked Janes Addiction back then too, was looking forward to seeing them play. Perry Ferrell sang so out of key (just like in the video posted above) I had a bad acid trip. I just wasn't expecting that.

Re: Layne Staley. He and Jerry Cantell had great harmonies. The new front man in AiC is surprisingly good.

Re: Jane's Addiction. Those first 3 albums (self, nothing, ritual) were truly some of the best alt rock albums of the time, and they have held up well. Their last 2 albums, I didn't really for. They have a really good live DVD called Live Voodoo (from Halloween night in New Orleans) some years back. I liked it very much. He didn't sound so out of tune on that one.

You’re right, Jane’s albums hold up. They have a distinct ‘90’s sound but they aren’t dated by it. Partly because of how unique it was. Bands like Faster Pussycat were what was on the rise in LA in the late 80’s. Then here comes these weirdos out of nowhere. Perry Ferrell was just different. Their song writing was more raw, emotionally and sonically complex, and generally more nuanced than the fading glitz, glamour, and ‘guitar god’ style of hair metal. Thankfully bands like Jane’s help put a nail in hair metal for good. Yuck.

Every one loved Nat Cole's singing voice, but he was was a vocal heart throb, he was a Jazz pianist at the top of his generation's class. He not only played things that could drop your jaw, he also made it look childishly easy and elegant as h#.

Look what he was able to do with the old standard chestnut "Tea for Two":






I'll talk about Ms. Holliday in another post. She deserves her own space.

Just go back in time and admit you like it:

More old school. Love this song and the energy by Cab Calloway.



A newer version from the movie The Blues Brothers.

That's good stuff. All around entertainers with a completely distinct style (on world class level) are harder to come by now.

Though I will say that in the newer version you posted, he's looking a lot like Frank Costanza.

Two cover versions of the same song.
One by the old guard, Jerry Reed and Chet Atkins. One by the new kid on the block, Billy Strings.

Man, Billy Strings has some major talent! I watch a lot of his videos.

I caught him at a bluegrass festival on a side stage in 2016. He was obviously talented but the last couple of years he’s really come on. He’s filling the biggest concert halls in the country now. He’s on the edge of stadium level shows… as a traditional bluegrass artist. Crazy.

It certainly sounds crazy on the surface. But I sort of liken it to what Stevie Ray Vaughan did for the blues. It was quite uncommon at the time to have a blues artist so popular but he helped bring blues back into the forefront. Maybe not the exact same circumstances but similar IMO.

There’s been a growing bluegrass/newgrass scene riding the coat tails of the Dead scene. Jerry had Old and in the Way. Introducing a lot of us (heads) to traditional bluegrass. From that grew an underground jam grass sound. Bands like Leftover Salmon and The String Cheese Incident pushed bluegrass out of the hills and into hippies ears through their weird eclectic take on psychedelia and bluegrass. Band like Yonder Mountain String Band and Greensky Bluegrass bring an updated take on more traditional bluegrass. Etc. None have broken the surfactant of becoming mainstream on any level.
Billy is the first to really find a footing there of sorts.

Speaking of Greensky Bluegrass. These guys can play.
This is from a festival I’ve attended every year for nearly a couple decades.

Anders Beck is the dobro player… so talented. It’s a long video even if you don’t listen to it all give it a start around the 7:30 mark.

Road music from my youth.

When I was an early 20-something kid, I used to spend hours on the road in my English sports car. I was young/single/healthy af, and had a blue-collar job with an income that other guys were raising families on. I was living in a 2-bed apartment with a/c, cable... and a $160/month rent load. Banking fat cash for the future, invested in the company's stock plan, partying my ass off at the late-nite clubs, and buying toys that were shaming those punx who tried to bully me back in the high school days.

I had a custom cassette rig with an Alpine 4-channel 40W RMS amp mounted under the passenger seat. Alpine 6x9" speakers in the front footwells, Pioneer TSX-9 wedges in the parcel deck behind the seats, Blaupunkt head set under the driver's seat. It was designed to sound good with the ragtop in the down position. A dome of hi-end sound, with the sky as my roofline. It was nothing like the trunk-thumping car stereos of the 90's-present -hip-hop car culture. Loud af sound... clean, full, aimed inward... instead of out into the neighborhood. I rolled my town inside my own soundtrack silo.

This is a live version of the studio recording I played when I was on the road. Three masters in collaboration.

Johnny Mac was a personal hero from his Mahavishnu Orch days.
Al was a personal hero from his days with Chick Corea and Return To Forever
Paco was a hero from my study of Flamenco in Ethnomusicology 302.

So, when these three broke out with a feature album, I lost my mind.

In this live video, the Director clearly does not know the music/arrangement. [/b]
1. camera angles do not match the music's arrangement
2. tight camera focuses are aimed inappropriately (video footage shows a player comping, when another player- off-camera -is actually playing a solo)
3. Paco De Lucia's second statement of the opening subject 1:36 is played into a dead mic.[/i]
Pathetic production values.



Anyway, I submitted this clearly flawed example for two reasons:

1. Video was the thread's criterion. I follow rules.
2. to share the genius that was happening at that time.


DISCLAIMER/FYI: When you finish this vid, I strongly urge you to listen to my second embed. This was the version I was listening to, as I drove my car about the contours of Bellefontaine, Hocking, and SE Ohio- seeking curves and hills... with a 4-speed manual gearbox, swerves, and thrills.


Al DiMeola takes the first solo.
Paco DeLuicia takes the second.
John McLaughlin takes the third.

...and then, all 3 trade solos, back and forth.


Ain't no shreddin' like Olde Schoole shreddin'....
This is from 1980.

Rock shredders wish they could be this fast/precise.
Precision is artistry.







If I'm gonna take the time to share My Craft/My Love with you brethren, I promise to never waste your time.
I will only share with you the best of my best.