Music videos that feature EB0 to EB4 and SG variant basses...

[uwe]

The one Sex Pistols bassist who knew how to play with his OTHER band and a banjo tuners Junior shape EB0 (+ a very young Billy Idol in the studio audience) ...

[Dave W]

Sid was a Sex Pistols bassist in name only. He was a stage prop.

[uwe]

Ouch!

Or as Herr Lydon once mischievously observed on the subject of the original bassist’s departure: "Glen was actually secretly starting to become pretty good … I mean you just you can’t have that with people!" 

Re Sid, in fairness I've heard worse ...



... though not with a professional band. But people were coming to see the legend, not Jack Bruce.

[Dave W]

There was probably someone hiding in back playing the actual notes.

Johnny said Glen played too many B7 chords.

[Ken]

Ouch!

Or as Herr Lydon once mischievously observed on the subject of the original bassist’s departure: "Glen was actually secretly starting to become pretty good … I mean you just you can’t have that with people!" 

Re Sid, in fairness I've heard worse ...



... though not with a professional band. But people were coming to see the legend, not Jack Bruce.

That's serviceable.

[uwe]

Minority program, affirmative action, wokeness! A leftie whose day job is usually with Uriah Heep (Dave Rimmer) on an SG Bass. Though what you hear on audio is actually Rex Brown playing, possibly with his Signature TBird. It sure sounds like it.





Let's do get back to righty bassists though after this sociological detour.

[Dave W]

[uwe]

I knew the Eric Burdon, Edgar Winter and David Lee Roth versions, but not this. Not a bad rendition (nice harmonies) though they look and move like a bunch of stiffers!

[Dave W]

This was the only hit version.

[uwe]

That doesn't surprise me, it's the most commercial, pop-shiny and 45 rpm/7"-suitable one by a stretch.

In the late 60ies, early 70ies, Eric Burdon's status in Germany was thus that his percussive version with a fledgling War was the most widely known. Never a single, it was, however, a popular dance floor stomper in rock discos and widely identified with him.



And the Winter Brothers crowd (back then, people were interchangeably Johnny and Edgar Winter fans) of course swore by this here:



I think all three versions have merit. Little Winter's feverish sax playing (he learned his Charlie Parker well!) basically emulating his big brother's frantic guitar is a treat, but hardly singles material!

And then there is this here ...



Now we all know, David Lee Roth can't sing, but here he actually does a decent job considering his inherent limits and that it is live.

[ilan]

Ooooh nice Barney Kessel. Rich man's Höfner Ambassador 

[gearHed289]

I grew up with Edgar Winter's White Trash live album and loved Tobacco Road. I like Roth's version too.

[uwe]

DLR's version isn't awful, but I wouldn't call it sensitive. Nor refer to Steve Vai as the progenitor of Delta Blues.

Let's give the man credit who actually wrote it:





Will you still speak with me if I confess that until a few seconds ago I would have sworn that John D. Loudermilk was a black man? 

But then I wouldn't have envisaged that a band called The Nashville Teens would stem from Surrey. Or one called Sir Douglas Quintet coming from San Antonio either!

[Pilgrim]

Uwe, thanks for the Eric Burden cut - I hadn't hear it before.  That a great cut and is indeed a stomper, and I can hear the beginnings of War in that music.  I can also hear a relationship to BS&T and other bands of the era.

But what was in my memory was the slower more traditional versions. I'd have been surprised to hear what the tune actually was after hearing the Burden version.

[Dave W]

...
Will you still speak with me if I confess that until a few seconds ago I would have sworn that John D. Loudermilk was a black man? 

But then I wouldn't have envisaged that a band called The Nashville Teens would stem from Surrey. Or one called Sir Douglas Quintet coming from San Antonio either!

John D. was a cousin to the Louvin Brothers (whose family name was also Loudermilk) so I knew he was white way back in the 50s. If you had heard any of his country releases back in the late 50s to mid 60s, you would have thought so too.

I'm always pleased when people know him at all. Despite all the hits he wrote, he's still largely unknown.

Until I saw this some years ago, I never knew of his association with the Allmans, or that Break My Mind, a country hit for George Hamilton IV in the 60s, was originally written for the Allmans.