January 2007

As a Rolling Stones, Hendrix, Cream, Yardbirds, Kinks, Manfred Mann fan I started noticing that some of the names mentioned on the records (ie. the songwriters) were not members of the band, e.g. Elias McDaniels (Bo Diddley), Mackinley Morganfield (Muddy Waters), Chester Burnett (Howling Wolf , Robert Johnson, Son House, Blind Willie McTell, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGee and many more. This mystery had to be solved and was done so via magazines from England such as New Musical Express. The Stones (for example) would be interviewed and Keith Richards would talk about Robert Johnson as a main influence, and that Chicago Blues was a later extension of Delta Blues, the music of the early slaves in the south of the USA on the Mississippi Delta.

Any guitar player from that era will talk about the incredible (in the literal sense of the word) influence of Robert Johnson on the popular / rock music of the late 1960s and 1970s. Robert Johnson's actual guitar techniques (eg. Open tuned guitar : G Tuning, Slide playing) and the recording of 41 songs in 1936 - 37 in Texas, about 20 of which have been covered by major rock bands, has made him an enigma in popular music to this day.Eric Clapton has his singing debut on The Bluesbreakers LP with his version of Robert Johnson's "Ramblin' on my Mind" (in the Key of E : see "Turnarounds in Lessons 2 and 3 of "Rock Guitar Manual 1" for the techniques that Clapton used on this song), and Cream ("Wheels of Fire" the live LP) featured a killer version of Robert Johnson's "Crossroad Blues" . The Clapton soloing (played on a Gibson 335) is a lesson in taste and violence ... he makes every note penetrate and whilst it is soloing of a genre that is , maybe, not so current in some of today's quarters, it is nevertheless great stuff. Once again, please have a listen to Frannie Beacher's solo on Bill Haley's "Rock Around The Clock" ... it is a master work in rockabilly improvisation. I use the term "rockabilly" because guitar soloing on "pop" records up to that point (around 1955) had all been cheesy arpeggios (and I exclude Les Paul, and Django Reinhardt from this group) and "pretty tunes" that followed the vocal line. Whilst there was a wonderful complement of Jazz players who really ripped (have a listen to "machine-gun" Tal Farlow, or Johnny "Guitar" Smith), they were "underground" and the mainstream was still in love with Perry Como and the "crooners" : not a "Blue" note among them. It took Frannie Beacher and Scotty Moore (Elvis Presley's guitarist) to really bring guitar playing , as an expression of musical focus, to the listening / pop public. The influence of Country, Bluegrass and Jazz was becoming more and more influential in popular music and hitherto unknown (or lesser known) songwriters / performer / players such as Bill Monroe, the Father of Bluegrass,who wrote "Blue Moon of Kentucky" that Elvis Presley made famous, or Country Legend Hank Williams ( "Hey Goodlookin'" ) started to gain recognition as audiences all around the World started to find out about some of the great music from the USA that was to be heard.

All this was news to me and like so many other musicians ay this time I couldn't get enough of it. Unfortunately there weren't any teachers that knew about this type of music, or if there were, they weren't in Melbourne. BUT. ... there were records and ears so all it required was going over and over a certain part of the record to rip-off the licks that were being played and you had it down.... you also had a record that would skip every time it reached that point on the record. The fact that I had no idea as to why a lick was there, or what scale was behind it, meant nothing to me and I couldn't have cared less. I had the attitude that theory was for old people and the blues required a sort of "deeply intense and brooding" approach that wouldn't be helped by anything as insulting as scale practice or study..... it was all about feeling. It still is and I hope it will never change.

.... (later on I found a great book on the History of the Blues :

Giles Oakley, "The Devil's Music : a History of the Blues", Baylis and Son, UK, 1976. The book maps the music from the earliest African American slaves to the movement of the music into the northern states of the USA).

So, I started a love affair with The Blues that never ends. In Melbourne you had a few record "bars" (or retail stores) and these places would look at you in a strange way when you asked if they had any Chuck Berry LPs .... Bo Diddley was a total mystery and about the only type of "avant garde" music that had made its way to Australia was Rolf Harris and his "wokka" board ( "Tie Me Kangaroo Down , Sport" !). There were Australian bands playing Blues and Rock that I liked, I mentioned "The Wild Cherries" before whose lead guitarist was my favourite Australian player : Lobby Loyd. Lobby had a penchant for amplifier abuse and a truly inventive mind. He is produced some of the best records Australia has made. Of course, you might have trouble finding the following 2 singles, but a company called Raven records might help you out. I refer to the wonderful "Krome Plated Yabby" and "That's Life" , recorded by Pat Aulton in Queensland. The Cherries were a band you either loved or loathed, and they were good or bad live, but it was a one of those bands that could kill anyone on a good night. Another of my favourites were "Chain" with Phil Manning on guitar and Warren "Pig" Morgan on Hammond organ and Hohner electric piano. They played Blues from Chicago (Buddy Guy, Muddy Water and others) and the sound of Hammond and Phil's wonderful Fender Stratocaster was balm for my ears. The gigs in those days were many and varied : "The Thumping Tum", "Catcher", "Sebastions", "Berties", "Q Club" and so many more ... all selling soft drink to a really "cool" audience (just how cool?, well ....) , but one thing was certain, that the music being played both overseas and here was speaking for my generation, and it moved the World.