Re: Guitar players players?

anything@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

On Mon, 19 Oct 2009 04:05:52 -0700 (PDT), Dar <sheltech@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:


On Oct 19, 4:29 am, anyth...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

On Sun, 18 Oct 2009 22:18:57 -0500, "David Hajicek"

<haji...@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Those of us who play the guitar may have favorite players/performers that
the general public does not appreciate as we do.

In short, as players/performers, do we notice and appreciate things about
the playing.singing that Joe Sixpack (beer that is) does not hear, or for
that matter, even care about?

Also, are there players that you were very impressed with earlier on, that
now have lost their luster?

I'm looking for names here. ;>)

Dave Hajicek

If I'm listening to a song (any song) I hear all the music first,
including the timbre of the vocalist. I simply do not hear lyrics at
all unless I think the song is worth learning.

And I'm hopeless at learning lyrics...

I suspect that any player with a halfway decent ability on any
instrument listens very carefully to what they are hearing. I cannot
have guitar playing as background music (in fact I can't have any
music as background music - I'm either listening to it or it might as
well not be there).

I don't think the general public listen the same way as musicians do.
If you can play, then you can analyse what you're hearing. We all get
the 'wow' factor, and that's a buzz, but I do think that for a
listener who knows what they are doing the 'wow' factor comes in at a
higher level than for the average punter. I've played gigs which I
know were crapola and been congratulated on my playing. Flattering,
but the thought in the back of my mind is "How did I get away with
that?"

As for players who have lost their lustre, Clapton comes top of the
heap by miles for me. The guy has been wasting our time since Cream
broke up - so much talent, so little passion.

Good acoustic guitarists nearly always knock me over - the acoustic is
my second instrument and anyone who can fingerpick a bit knocks me
out.

I even enjoy listening to Hawkins, despite his sleazy addiction to
DUDGAD.

Some players, though, I really don't care what their playing is like -
Deb Cowan springs to mind - All Deb has to do is start singing and all
is well with the world, same for Gillie Nicholls - I always rib her
about her guitar playing but once she starts singing the world is a
better place.

Let downs - not many, there's a few guitarists I would like to hear a
lot more of - Clem Clemson, Ollie Hallsall (both electric players -
won't be hearing any more of Halsall - he's dead).

I think Robert Johnson got it right - record 30-odd perfect songs then
die a blues death....:-)

Jeez -
that's a miserable post, (not surprising - I'm making green tomato
chutney this morning so the house smells so vinegary it might as well
be a mortuary) but most musicians have a peak which inspires other
people to listen and play - at which point, job done. With the
exception of Clapton (and Pierre Bensusan, who I thought was a
stuck-up, self-indulgent twat) there's nothing wrong with re-cycling
their cosy old faves rather than trying to push the boundaries further
- that's work for ambitious young Turks, and so it should be.

Pete

.Hmmm... well, ... randomly...
Hendrix works both ways, from my now-sober, musician perspective,
some has aged well and remains timeless genius , wizardry ,
all superlatives inadequate to describe the level of bitchingness he
jammed with.
Some always seemed rough and musically lacking somehow. from a non-
musician
perspective , stoned and otherwise altered, he was mostly mythical.

Hedges ... similar from both perspectives but to lesser degrees .
slide the whole
scale down a ways. occasional greatness on the top end, embarassing
and grating
self-indulgence on the bottom .

Kottke : consistenly impressive through my own extremes , though he
has attained human status now that I've become a player and been
exposed to the real world of acoustic players.

Bensusan : otherworldly good playing, a lot of the music doesn't work
on me
(most of everyone's music doesn't work on me)

Bill Nelson ... only Pete has heard some of what I hear, knows some of
what I know.
He's (Bill, not Pete ! (^;)the only person with the ability to create
complete electric guitar
(and whatever other palettehe wants to use) universes that rivals
Jimi , and he outshines everyone in his
productive , aging obscurity . same story , not much of it works for
me, but what does work,
works like magic, and the man keeps evolving and expanding . if I had
to pick just one
artist for the desert island , it's Bill by a lightyear .

D (liking what I just read Pete say about some ladies' singing...
concurring...
Tori Amos , some of Sinnead, Laurie Anderson . some voices have
amazing
chemistry with my soul. Jimi comes to mind there as well.)


Hendrix, funnily enough, always insisted he was a crap singer - I wish
I could sing as badly as him...:-)

When he died I refused to buy any of the hundreds of bootlegs which
suddenly appeared, not out of respect for Hendrix but out of contempt
for the people peddliing them. A friend of mine though, bought or
taped everything he could lay his hands on. A lot of it is erratic -
badly played, stoned out, but an awful lot if the smaller recordings
(eg jams in studios rather than stadiums) is very witty - playful, and
a complete contrast to the blow-your-heads-off experience.

Hendix was like the butterfly that sneezed in the rain forest -
sometimes it caused an earthquake and sometimes it just rained and his
wings stuck to the leaves..

Of course, he didn't get the chance to go into a decline, which,
ironically, suits me fine. The last thing I would want to see is a
Jimi Hendrix experience re-union concert at the Albert Hall.

Pete

I had some very interesting recordings of Jimi playing acoustic that I downloaded some years ago, but they dissapeared during one of my many computer crashes before I went Mac.

MJRB
.

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