So, what have you been listening to lately?

[patman]

Why does Derek intermittantly hit the open low strings with his thumb while playing?

When I first heard this on a live recording, I thought it was a faulty recording...but apparently it is an accurate representation of the performance.

[uwe]

I think it's both a fingerpicking remnant in his slide playing (he only plays with his fingers) and a percussive/drone effect, he always uses - just like his role model Duane Allman - an open E major tuning (E B E G# B E), regardless in what key he solos or the song is in. And he has a strong sitar influence which is why some peole say his style is "Mississippi Delta meets Ganges Delta".

You can see the thumb working here at 09:50:

[uwe]

Same goes for the high squeals Glenn Hughes keeps/kept belting out every third line in his songs, for years. Somebody should have told him to stop it and just sing.

To his defense: He has toned that down a lot with The Dead Daisies because they actually asked him to!



Of course, with Glenn some falsetto gyrations are always part of the package, but if you listen to their last singles, he only reverts to his upper register sparingly:

[Pilgrim]

I'm down on Bonamassa since his Red Rocks concert was a wankfest with him as the star.  It doesn't make a great set when every tune is unending solos by the same guy.

[Basvarken]

I'm down on Bonamassa since his Red Rocks concert was a wankfest with him as the star.  It doesn't make a great set when every tune is unending solos by the same guy.

Exactly! I saw him live once. He had this amazing rhythm section of Eric Czar and Jerry Gaskil. But he didn't use their musical talents at all.
Each song -that was originally three minutes- was extended to a ten minute wankfest of Bonamassa diminishing his band members to repeating the blues pattern over and over again.
A very disappointing evening.

[Pilgrim]

Exactly! I saw him live once. He had this amazing rhythm section of Eric Czar and Jerry Gaskil. But he didn't use their musical talents at all.
Each song -that was originally three minutes- was expended to a ten minute wankfest of Bonamassa diminishing his band members to repeating the blues pattern over and over again.
A very disappointing evening.

You summed it up nicely.  And it's a shame, because he's  great player.

[Dave W]

Agree with the comments about his singing, and about his yes men. But the video I posted was a tribute to Freddie King, not one of Joe's self-promoting wankfests.

[Dave W]

Last month in Los Angeles. Good to see even though their voices aren't what they were in 1976.

[uwe]

Agree with the comments about his singing, and about his yes men. But the video I posted was a tribute to Freddie King, not one of Joe's self-promoting wankfests.

It was worth being posted for the Trucks solo alone who btw is also a case in point for vocal self-restraint, he lets his wife do it (well).

I also found the vid interesting because it shows that playing skimpy string gauges comes at a price: Gibbons' solo sound doesn't - in comparison - have the attack and directness of either Bonamassa or Trucks, it actually sounds pretty feeble (and he is after all playing his standard rig because I assume it is a ZZ Top show).

In Germany, that track is incidentally best known in the version of Berlin soul rock funksters Karthago who featured Glenn Cornick in their ranks for a while. It used to be quite a rock disco dance floor stomper in their Doobie Brothers'ish treatment of it:



Freddie King sure had his fans everywhere (sorry Dave, I couldn't resist, you know where all threads end here):

[uwe]

LOL I, they were never this tight in the 70ies!  I actually saw them in that line-up, it was redeeming as I never had the chance to see them in the 70ies. (Not that they always went down well as you can see by the puzzled to reserved look of the audience in the following vid.)



LOL II, that 'solo' Johnny Thunders plays, no one would ever have mistaken him with Jeff Beck, but it still was genius.

[gearHed289]

Two bass players in the Midnight Special clip?

[uwe]

Good eyes, Tom, you unlovely meter maid, and a TBird player (in the far left corner) to boot - when else have the two most Fender-iconoclastic basses, Ric 4001 and TBird Rev, shared the same stage?!



But the explanation is plainly visible too, Killer Kane's Kast so to say, which has a somewhat illustrious bacckground:



In 2005 the documentary, New York Dolls: All Dolled Up, was released on DVD. The directors, rock photographer Bob Gruen, and his then wife, Nadya Beck, owned an early video camera and shot many hours of footage of the Dolls in the early 1970s. Edited down to 95 minutes, the black and white film shows the Dolls in different locales, such as backstage or at an airport, and documents several of the Doll's live performances in New York City and California. Kane appears in some of the footage wearing a plaster cast on his left arm. This was the result of his volatile girlfriend Connie Gripp (1947 - 83) attempting to cut off his thumb so that he would be unable to play bass anymore. In his autobiography, fellow bass player and Dolls fan Dee Dee Ramone mentioned Kane when discussing Connie, whom he himself later dated. Dee Dee and Connie's similarly violent and tumultuous relationship would inspire the 1977 Ramones song "Glad to See You Go".

The TBird II played by the stand-in bassist must have been his though judging from the above pic. At some gigs Kane even just sang backing vocals as long as he wore the cast,



possibly for that Midnight Special performance he just pretended to be able to play and they didn't even send his signal through. If you watch his fretting hand and listen closely, you notice that there is a bass playing rock'n'roll lines in eighth notes/quavers at times, but that it isn't Arthur who is just hitting quarter, half and full notes and changing the root with the guitarists' chords due to his hands forced immobility. From the audio and over my laptop I'm unable to discern whether you can hear a bit of him or not.

Honorary feature: Culprit Connie the Thumb (G)Ripper with yet another bassist victim!!!



No idea who the guy playing the TBird is though, but at least they put him on stage and did not hide him behind the amps, though obviously with the stage directions: "No boots, no glam (a no less than legendary phrase here after all!) and dontcha ever move either!" He looks like they nicked him from a Foghat gig. 

[doombass]

No idea who the guy playing the TBird is though, but at least they put him on stage and did not hide him behind the amps, though obviously with the stage directions: "No boots, no glam

That ought to be their roadie Peter Jordan. He would fill in for Arthur Kane if he was cut in his thumb or too drunk to play.

[uwe]

Uhum, do we have a closet Dolls fan among us, even one who - gasp! - likes Morrissey?!

I actually like him too.

[Dave W]

Listening to the Feelgoods do Riot in Cell Block Number Nine reminded me of this. I loved it at the time.