It’s one of those days when a single hit may be all we need. Have one or see if you can empty this dugout. If anything’s left when you’re through, pass it on!
Are you cool with multi-instrumentalists who play their guitar while standing behind their keyboard?
Failure to launch…Abort mission…Is any artist’s career more in need of a pulled plug than Joss Stone‘s? Can she get transferred to American Idol? Does American Idol have some sort of “amateur status” criteria for contestants? Taylor Hicks had a few albums out before appearing on that show. Anyhow, that Joss Stone kid would kill, don’t you think?
Does anyone actually like the music of B.B. King, or do people simply bow down to his greatness as a reflex?
Are you more likely to trust the testimony of a police officer than you are the testimony of a regular citizen? (This is the question the judge asked me that finally led to me getting relieved of having to serve jury duty on a criminal trial expected to last 6 days.)
Are there songs that you know are cheesy as all hell but that nevertheless represent a special, innocent moment in time and that actually make you tear up a bit? For instance, I get a little misty whenever I hear ABBA’s “Waterloo”, but sometime in the mid-80s it was determined that ABBA was actually cool, so that ruled out that song being my answer. However, to this day, no one would argue that Starland Vocal Band’s “Afternoon Delight” is cool; however, I would argue that the song is its own time capsule of a brief, twisted, sur-innocent time in our nation’s history. Whenever I hear it and really pay attention, I shed a tear for that lost moment in time. I ask that you open your heart when answering this question.
On the flip side, is there a song that you know is cheesy as all hell yet makes you want to kick somebody’s ass (for the hell of it – not to be mean) whenever you hear it? I’d like to answer Steppenwolf’s “Hey, Lawdy Mama”, but I’m sure I convinced you a few years ago, during the epic Steppenwolf vs MC5 debate, that Steppenwolf was actually very cool. So instead, I’ll suggest Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “That Smell”. I ask that you clench your fist when answering this question.
B.B. King’s famous live albums (Regal, Cook County Jail) are justifiably famous for their incredibly vivid and, hate to put it this way, masterful constructions of what it means to play for an audience. Some of his studio songs are fantastic too, though rarely a whole album. To be plain, he’s actually difficult for white guys to like, despite his reputation, since he rarely plays blues with the unrestrained “blooze” abandon that white guys think is essential for the blues. He’s got minimal “whiteface.” You like subtlety? Then play Mr. King again. Not the greatest of the great in those terms–that’s Muddy, hands down–but still, an amazing musician.
porl thompson of the cure
gruff rhys of the super furry animals
stand behind their keyboards with the guitar and i think that’s fine.
bb king is like the last man standing kind of thing. i like him better in trading places than i do on stage or on albums.(“in philadelphia, it’s worth 50 bucks”)
maybe i’d like him better with a keyboard infront of him
guilty by barbara streisand and barry gibb makes me feel good inside despite the cheese.
the boys are back in town by thin lizzy makes me wanna kick somebody’s ass…phil lynott’s
especially when he says”…and they’re hangin out at dino’s”
blind rage.
I don’t recall in particular seeing any guitarists playing behind a keyboard, though it doesn’t bother me when horn players do it. More to the point is that to this day, I can’t get enthused about anybody standing behind those wafer-thin synths and trying to rock in any sense. You can stand behind them to play Kraftwerk, or early Human League or what have you, but either a rock piano or organ, or even heavy synth sound, and trying to get an audience pumped? How can you believe them? It’s like sex on a flimsy folding cot. It cannot deliver what is requiered. When they start playing anything intricate, I expect them to be ringing me up for a Happy Meal®. And there’s the whole aspect of looking through the little stand to see their legs. Like sub-par actors not knowing what to do with their hands, you shouldn’t see a keyboardists legs taking up more visual space than their instrument.
I took out a CD from the library a while back of B.B. King’s very early stuff, and it kicks ass. If you like that sort of thing. Mark’s right about the restraint and lack of histrionics in it. Unlike Muddy, it already has King’s sense of lightness – a kind of levity without jokes or overt humor – even when singing a very heavy blues. He would also rank in my “have a beer” poll.
When I got out of high school, the inescapable song on the radio was, scarily and bizarrely enough, “Feels So Good” by Chuck Mangione. Like many people, and certainly like many musicians, I bought the record. In those days any horn player had to navigate their way through the polluted waters of much fusiony stuff that sounded like scene change music from Baretta, or like syrupy effluvium from a particularly bombastic waiting room. The Chuck Mangione record has a bunch of incredible musicians on it, flailing away pleasantly to not much effect. If B.B. King was happy as an enlightened Buddah with the blues, then Chuck Mangione’s band had the inane good spirits of someone who could crap their pants and literaly not know it. I admit to finding a lot of that album pleasant – less cop-show “horns really CAN be bad-ass – really!” posturing. Did I crap *my* pants and find it soured my mood? I don’t think so, but in any case I can put that music down for both questions simultaneously. I tear up, clench my fists, the works.
Good answers so far. Keep ’em coming!
Hey, Kilroy — sorry to go all pince-nez on you, but the “50 bucks” line was uttered by Bo Diddley, not B.B. King. But you’re right, it *is* a killer line, delivered with panache.
One of these days, we need a Bo Diddley session. That dude was off the hizzane!
What General Slocum said!
Can’t answer regarding AI eligibility rules, but I’d be happy to pull the plug on Stone’s career. Her new video is like a scene from 8 1/2 Weeks minus Basinger.
I think you’re seeing, Mr. Mod, that some folks do. I’m not one of them.
Haven’t you ever watched a cop show? Hell no!
What’s that Bobby Goldsboro song from my childhood?
Billy Squier’s ‘Stroke Me’.
I’ve got the first 2 Bo Diddley records, and they’re really good. The early Stones I love so much did a good job of emulating Diddley’s overall sound, which was more than his legendary beat.
you’re absolutely right Hrrundi…fuck bb king!
I get no passion from BB either live or recorded. I always get the sense that he’s just looking for the guy with his check.
So nice to hear some love for Bo Diddley though. Has anyone else ever thought that Buddy Holly owes a lot to this guy or is that just me. Even the glasses.
Billy Thorpe’s Children of the Sun both brings me back AND makes me want to kick Billy Thorpe’s ass
B.B. may be a professional entertainer now, but he’s recorded lots of great (and enjoyable) stuff. The Thrill Is Gone is so deep, even the strings can’t kill it.
I always dug the way B.B. used vibrato in his guitar playing.
Any ballad by Billy Joel bums me out.
Logistically you probably have to do that, it’s like having that harmonica around your neck. But you have to use BOTH during the song, otherwise you’re just a hot dog and should regress back to wearing the one-man-band outfit and clown shoes.
I’m familiar with a Joss Stick, would this be the other thing you need to break a bone?
B.B. King’s excessive wristy peacock string bends irritate me. That and naming his guitar Lucille, right? Dragline can tell you that his guitar is NOT built like a Lucille even if there’s some similarity in shape.
No, and one trial I was on, there was pretty much unanimity in the jury that two of the three cops were lying.
That Afternoon Delight song is feckin LONG. So cheesy means that it can’t be cool or somehow permissible in someone’s so bad it’s good category? I have a hard time understanding this kind of question. Pick a song off Elvis Costello’s Blood and Chocolate that’s cheesy, that whole album sparks something for me. My brother used to play Feels So Good ad nauseum, so that is not a cherished misty memory for ME.
Whenever Do You Really Want To Hurt Me comes on in a store or someplace, I always think yes.
I may unconsciously clench my fist during Bohemian Rhapsody. Is that cheese or has it been redeemed by Mike Myers? It would be annoying if that guy were responsible for it.
Buddy Holly covered Bo Diddley, so I think he gave him respect.
It depends on the band –I’ve never given it too much thought, but maybe it would bother me if they couldn’t get to the guitar or keyboard parts in time and messed up the song they were playing in the process of just trying to be “multi-instumental” show-offs. My friend Rocky does this at their shows though, and it can be pretty entertaining watching the lineup of instruments he uses because they are always buying new gear to use and then ship back overseas, so you never really know which guitar he’s going to be using during before and after his keyboard parts and he’s only got the drums and a bit of programming to cover his bits while he’s doing the changeovers… I guess I find it amusing to watch mostly. Eef Barzelay “jammed” on a mini toy piano with his feet last time while he strummed his guitar, which was amusing also, but wouldn’t want to watch it EVERY single show.
Never really got into Joss Stone so much. I do like Amy Winehouse’s songs in a big way though.
Both? I like whatever I usually hear on record, but I’ve never really done search outs for his stuff or anything, although the one that I find most often at record stores is his Indianola Mississippi Seeds… the one with the watermelon and the amp…
So you said regular citizen, right? My favourite Uncle was a police detective and actually gets mistaken quite often for Eric Estrada (still). They’re like doubles. It’s scary, and heartwarmingly funny to hear his airport stories, although I’d still trust a citizen as well.
“True Colors” by Cyndi Lauper. Seriously though. My best-friend in grade school and I used to have staring games to see who wouldn’t cry first to that song because we thought it was so melodramatic and hilarious that we could make eachother laugh so hard into crying. My favourite movie was probably still Girls Just Wanna Have Fun. Oh yeah. But um, what’s said in RTH, stays in RTH, right guys? …….Guys?
Most recently, it seems to be songs that I hear on dreaded PlayNetwork CDs at work – sometimes okay, but mostly pure cheese or bad covers updated by stupid chick singers, I can’t tell you who but someone out there does a terrible version of Day Tripper that makes me crazy. I certainly wanted to kick a “music expert”‘s ass yesterday in a very serious way when I had to listen to The Mavericks singing “Here Comes My Baby” for the 4th time while I was finishing “the perfect fold” on a crossover tee. Sometimes I just feel like Janeane Garofalo in The Gap “Oh yeah, fold that right up. That looks great on you!”
I said I’d be more willing to trust the testimony of a police officer who was on the case than a regular citizen. I’ve watched enough episodes of cop shows and movies like The Departed to know that there are dirty, lying cops, but I’ve also watched enough episodes of Hooker and Beretta to know that there are cops who care.
I won’t debate the finer points of this statement, which I tried to explain to the judge was a 51%-49% split in trust (based mainly on the value of assumed professionalism), but my answer did get me out of 6 days of trial time that would be wasted on sending a 35-year-old black guy to jail for some minimum, automatic sentence for selling a joint’s worth of pot within 1000 yards of a school. Poor guy. He might have been a real scumbag, for all I knew, but when they read the amount of pot he had in his possession there was no way I wanted to hear arguments over whether he was innocent or not. Had he not done this in a school zone, I doubt anyone would have been looking at 6 days of trial time. Had he been a white suburban kid, this wouldn’t have come anywhere near the court system.
You grew up in Philadelphia and your only account of crooked cops is from TV? You must not have been trying very hard. I swore my antipathy to the cops up here when I was 16 when they contradicted themselves in contradicting my testimony and the judge believed – well, not what they said, but sort of the sum total of whatever it was they came up with.
If it’s a keyboardist who sometimes plays guitar, yes. If it’s a guitarist who sometimes plays keys, the keyboard should be located to the guitarist’s right.
Oh I’m sure he has his fans, but he does seem to owe his high visibility to well-placed media appearances as much as if not more than his music. But maybe that’s only the case for those of us who haven’t bothered to check out the cream of his work.
If it’s a TV cop like Columbo or Frank Pembleton, yes.
“St. Elmo’s Fire” gets me misty-eyed for the summers of my youth.
Billy Joel also makes me really mad. The Black-Eyed Peas are pretty infuriating as well.
shawnkilroy says:
you’re absolutely right Hrrundi…fuck bb king!
I say: Surely no one else here said that. If you want to argue that he’s overrated, fine. I’ll just disagree. But if you want to say something as gun-rack and bongwater stupid as this, you’ll need to either tell the story of when he got your near relation pregnant and then skipped town with her life savings, or just keep it to yourself. I think a lot of people are waiting for the sledge-hammer blues of Stevie Ray Thoroughgood when they express dissappointment in B.B. King. I find some of his stuff fantastic.
Rick, unlike you, perhaps, I was NOT breaking any laws as a youngster growing up on Philly’s mean streets. Then, when I was a little older and pushing the envelope, so to speak, I did not get caught.
Here’s the deal: Guy gets arrested for selling a joint. Was he holding? If the cop found a joint on him, sure. Was he selling it? If he handed it to someone and received money, why not? What room is there for a copy to lie in this case, as I assumed it to be. Furthermore, if I sincerely hold onto these assumptions, what business do I have being on the jury? I feel I gave an honest answer. They didn’t ask me to give the “right” answer.
I saw a clip of John Lennon doing Instant Karma live, and he took the unusual step of wearing his back-holstered guitar while sitting at the electric piano. He didn’t need it at any point during the song. And Yoko had two free hands. Come on.
Hasn’t BB King released about 70 albums and they all include a version of The Thrill is Gone?
in Re: B.B. King
It’s jut just King who doesn’t do it for me. I’m just gonna come right ut and say it: electric Chicago blues, in all of its forms and permutations, bores the living piss out of me. I don’t care if it’s a vintage Chess side from the 50s or Blues Hammer. I have two words for it: Bo. Ring.
If it’s hard for white people to get into BB King, why do white people make up the vast majority of his fanbase?
I couldn’t agree more. And then there’s rock and roll too: bunch of stupid white guys who look like girls, can’t play their instruments and moaning about why they’re too ugly to get laid. Fifty years and not a single good note, you ask me. Give me my Mozart and let me check out of reality right along with you.
Well, according to Elijah Wald’s book on Robert Johnson — and empirical evidence tends to agree with him — it’s because white folks have been the majority of the blues audience since the mid-50s or so.
Hey, if listening to a night of 10th generation rewrites of “Dust My Broom” sounds like a good tip for a good time, more power to you.
B.B. King is from Memphis, and he recorded mainly there and in L.A. during his prime. His music is electric, but it is certainly not Chicago blues.
And in response to chickefrank, King started recording in 1949 but did not hit with The Thrill Is Gone until 1970.
To clarify, my experience came in the wake of cop overreaching at the breakup of a demonstration.
Well, the cop says he found it. Which could be true. Or could be false. Just like when anyone I can’t personally vouch for asserts something and wants me to deprive someone else of something because of it.
Room? Gobs of room. Motivation? Maybe, maybe not. But there’s acres of room.
That’s what it’s all about – in the courtroom and here.
A few weeks ago, I got called for jury duty. It turns out that for the first time ever, I got picked to be on a jury. Fortunately, the trial was a civil trial and only lasted 3 days. On the form they make you fill out while you’re waiting, I stated that I had moral, ethical or religious objections to being on a jury. I did this so that I could avoid serving on a criminal case. The lawyers for both sides questioned me during the jury selection process and asked me why I marked “yes” and I told them that I don’t believe in the death penalty and furthermore that I don’t believe in the draconian drug laws that are on the books now. Thus, I would’ve gotten out of your case based on that alone and I sure as hell wouldn’t trust a cop’s testimony over anyone else’s! This statement below:
is part of the reason why and it’s right on.
I’m surprised that thus far no one has pointed out that what may bother people on here about B.B. King is his (at least perceived) commercialism. This ranges from the various commercials he’s done for various products to his very bland and almost Hard Rock Cafe like club/restaurant in New York (called BB King’s). This ties in with Stewart’s points about white blues fans and perceived “authenticity” and what not. Plus he may be punished for his relative success here and his lack of a tragic back story as some feel is necessary for the blues.
To be fair, though,I haven’t listened to nearly enough of his music to properly judge it. From what I have heard, though, his stuff just seems bland compared to say, any of the great Chicago blues stuff (how anyone can confuse Howlin’ Wolf with BB King is beyond me) or the earliest acoustic blues (Leadbelly, etc.) and other stuff I have in my collection like Bukka White and what not. Oh and I’ll take Bo Diddley any day of the week over BB King, too. Then again I haven’t heard that early stuff that Andy B. mentioned earlier, so maybe I shouldn’t judge him beforehand.
Good one Matt. Commercial ubiquity can grate on people; on the other hand, it can be the reason some performers are icons and some aren’t. (Blatant name-drop ahead …) After talking with Clyde McPhatter’s son yesterday, this stuff is on my mind.
Oh – and that early ’80s Brothers-Gibb-written stuff, particularly Dionne Warwick(e?)’s “Heartbreaker,” takes me back. 16, high school, does she or doesn’t she – you know the drill.