Blue Bones September 2007.
October 1st, 2007
We played the Royal Oak and the County Hotel in September and want to thank Darel and her partner Ian for coming along to both gigs. She is real sweet - a lovely girl and Ian is one powerhouse blues singer with a gutsy performance. Your support is really appreciated Darel. Its great to have a fan club - even if there is only one person in it!
Thanks to Vintage for filling in for Blues on Tap at the County Hotel. Kenny invents limitless fantastic riffs and Tony eases out a mean slide. Thanks lads - it was a great nite. We also played the Nags Head at Keelby again - thanks to the dear landlady Joyce - and travelled to Bridgnorth in Shropshire to play the Blue Boy. Shropshire is a beautiful county with exquisite scenery and of course all you literate individuals will know it foremost as the home of A.E.Houseman’s A Shropshire Lad - notorious for being the late Enoch Powell’s favourite tome.
Recently listening to the early Stone’s recording Got Live if you Want it which was recorded live at the Albert Hall in 1966, reissued by ABKCO records in 2002. It’s a raw and primitive performance when the Stones’ blues roots were absolutely uncompromised, and before they became a parody of their authentic earlier selves. I have got the original EP released by Decca and was always fascinated by that great track ‘It’s Alright’. Here’s a driving, simple and monotonously repetetive Richards guitar riff which is so bluesy and unforgettable. It locks into your mind and stays there. Again, it is reminiscent of that Buzzcocks number ‘E S P’ to be found on their Lovebites CD of 1989. Likewise a riff repeated over and over again monotonously but which really whips up the emotions.
Another example of this is by the great Johnny Marr playing with the Smiths on that fabulous track What Difference Does it Make? You can see a live performance of this from an early Smiths Top of the Pops appearance, on the DVD: ‘The Smiths - the Complete Picture’.
Those early raw blues guitarists who cannot be emulated knew how to grind out a riff in such a way that slight changes become massively important. All the great classical composers could do this too. Beethoven for example would introduce a haunting melody line early in a work, repeat it at intervals, but then withhold it for long tracts of the piece, denying the audience access to it whilst building up expectations of it. Early elements of the refrain would be hinted at without full realisation ot the melodic line which the audience would sort of crave for. Then in a kind of consummation, the composer reintroduces the full effect of the melody - or riff.
Just to finish back with the Stones - their early live heavily blues influenced gigs are great to behold. Charlie Watt’s always half a beat behind and Keef’s lazy, late dragged out guitar lines. Their LP ‘Beggar’s Banquet’ has that fantastic blues track ‘That’s no way to get along’. Try and listen to the original of this by the Rev Robert Wilkins on ”The Original Rolling Stone’, Yazoo 1077.