I remember in the late '70s a critic from some rag saying that women weren’t good lead guitarists - I’m thinking, have you been living in a cave all your life? That always stuck with me because it pissed me off.
On that line of thought, Alice Cooper often tours with a female lead guitarist. I saw him with Orianthi and she was great (I believe there might have been someone a few years before her, and just after Kane Roberts left in '88, but I can’t recall the name). He now tours with Nita Strauss.
Here’s Orianthi showing that yes, women can kill on lead
I love these little sycronicities (spl?) with music. Very different album, very different circumstances but; Reign In Blood by Slayer is exactly as long as it took for me to walk to an old job I hated (loved that commute though). Perfect combination of music to emotional state!
Some friends of mine went to see AC on tour just pre-COVID and continue to rave about it, specifically the quality of the band. I didn’t go because I baulked at the price, but do regret it now.
Those 70’s AC albums are serious gear. Love them. To death, even!
Oh and since I was kicking myself for not mentioning her after my post, here’s Yvette Young and her band, Covet. She’s developed a truly original sound focused on tapping.
This doesn’t really count as a “Majestic” moment, but I was kind of glad I got the last song on the jukebox before leaving the bar after having a burger and some beers at having played this one:
I know I said somewhere else that I had the roots American piano locked down by age nineteen or whatever, but didn’t have it quite like Chuck Leavell.
Yeah, I know it’s an old tune, way older than the Allman Bros. Band with Chuck Leavell.
There’s a reason Leavell gets to play with guys like the Allmans, and Clapton, and George Harrison, etc. He’s one of the first- call guys for this kind of music.
I thought I was a savant for recognizing the Dr. John influence on his playing throughout the Brothers and Sisters album (the octave walk-ups tipped me off), but, no, I guess he was like seventeen or something playing with Mac’s band for a year or more on the road. Before Allmans, before the Stones, all that.
A true savant at roots piano.
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ETA, yeah, I mean the influence of Mac and the NOLA pianists is obvious on that clip, of EC doing “Nobody Knows/Down and Out”: who’s the other rock pianist who relies on that Dixieland half-turnarounds, sixths-trills, and such…the guy from “Little Feat,” Billy Payne on primarily acoustic pianos.
Thing about that NOLA style is it’s not copying or anything: that’s just the way the music is played, since time immemorial.
So, you can’t just copy a few turnarounds or little fills: it permeates the music.
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/** EETA OK, fine to satisfy my own curiosity, here’s a nice little diversion on a tune probably a lot of people have heard.
Ah, Little Feat… Lowell George playing slide with a spark-plug socket! I tried that- didn’t work good for me.
LF always got lost in the shuffle of all the Southern Rock bands of the time- Skynyrd, Molly Hatchet, .38 Special, etc, and that’s a shame.
And naming all those bands made me think of this song from one of my fav albums, ever. I had my share of adventures as a concert-goer, but never quite one to match the story Patterson Hood tells:
I grew up on a lot of different kinds of music and still quite fond of them like everything from Motown to Bluegrass. The way I dress would suggest that I really only listen to Punk/ Oi/ Hardcore but I listen to many things. I listen to a lot of Goth and Industrial.
Ha! Whether in jest or not, I agree up to a point. What the Beatles did do was kill off a great era of bands in the US doing predominately instrumental music, which produced some amazing hog-wild-to-bat-guano-crazy music. Link Wray at the forefront, but plenty of second and third string one-off oddities to sink your teeth into
Even though I hate the Beatles I’m not going to rag on them for ruining music here in the states because here everyone follows trends and fads. Rockabilly and greasers turned into beatniks then into hippies all within a decade. But the Rockabilly Teddy boy lasted a lot longer in England than here. I guess the UK sticks to their guns compared to the no brained following sheep like most Americans are. I’m just ranting now.
No, I hear you. I think the longevity of those things here was down to the fact they were very closely tied in to class identity, and if you’re from the UK you never really transcend the class you were born into (at least as long as you live here!). So you tend to stick to your guns, because you’ve nowhere else to go! That said things do change and we’ve always had fashion fad cycles, it just works in a different way.
One reporters opinion, of course! Speaking of which
^ probably my favourite lyrics of all time actually. Who writes a diss track about themselves, and then gets someone else to sing it!?
I can’t help but be fascinated by a band that can go from “Love me Do” to “Happiness is a Warm Gun” in less than a decade. They’re like if the Jonas Brothers had become Radiohead and then broken up in a storm of acrimony… all in less time than it takes for Tool to put out one record.
The Beatles die-hards are to popular music what Batman is to comics. ( Jeez go lie fallow for a decade and let someone else have some breathing space in this room already! Not every last thing in this world has to be centered on you! )
[ETA - @TheDoktor Nah. It was absolutely Billy Preston. ]
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