Music Genius
Went to see Steve Winwood in Wolverhampton on Tuesday night. Excellent gig, band as tight as a gnats chuff, and two hours of great music covering the full range over 40 years from Spencer Davis, Blind Faith, Traffic and solo stuff.
Seems to me he's a bit of a music genius, forgotten or ignored by most, but with a fantastic heritage. Not only that but he looks in pretty good nick for 60 as well.
The only downside was the muppet who slowly sidled across in front of me but I soon cleared him off with some loud clapping in his left ear which he didn't seem to take too kindly to!
But, hey, still a great night out. And an interesting demographic amongst the audience too. It's not often I go to gigs these days where I look and feel quite young. My mate, at 40, was pretty much a baby in the room.
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Definitely agree...
...one of our greatest talents, who has bizarrely somehow slipped under the radar over here. I bought his latest album after a great review in Word, actually, and it's very good indeed. Have since filled in the gaps with most of his other albums.
I "rediscovered" him
with the album before last, About Time. See this from You Tube which is the opening track on that album and the opener from the other night. On the album it is around six and a half minutes long, but live stretches to about a quarter of an hour. Not watched these, but the guy filming it seems to have got bored about halfway!
Possibly apochryphal Stevie Winwood story
Apparently he was at a party in London in the 60s when Jimi Hendrix turned up. He was telling Jimi about this great song by Bob Dylan called All Along the Watchtower which the guitar burning legend said he had not heard. Stevie played the song to Jimi, who dumbstruck by the amazing composition, immediately gathered a crack troop of musicians and hangers on from the party, headed out into the night, broke into a recording studio and recorded his own famous version before the sun rose.
It may be apocryphal but
it's a bloody good story. They don't make them like that any more etc etc etc.
Makes you wonder who the legends will be in 40 years time doesn't it?
Clue:
it won't be Snow Patrol.
I wouldn't be so sure...
... I was shocked to read this the other day:
"...Sinatra's My Way is the only song ever to have spent longer in the UK charts than Chasing Cars, which stayed there for 85 weeks. It has also outperformed the best efforts of Coldplay and Radiohead in the US charts, been named best song of all time by listeners to Virgin Radio and propelled the album Eyes Open to seven-times platinum status.
Perhaps the most remarkable Snow Patrol statistic, however, is that Eyes Open sold more copies in the UK in the year it was released, 2006, than Dire Straits’s Brothers in Arms did in 1985 or Madonna’s True Blue in 1986. To shift more units in today’s download-happy culture than two ubiquitous, MTV- dominating, hit-packed mega-albums managed back in the pre-digital days, when people actually paid for music, is an astonishing achievement."
Ah but...
Album sales count for nowt when it comes to cultural legacies. Did Hendrix actually sell that many records when he was alive?
Nana Mouskouri and Andy Williams sold tonnes more albums in their careers than all of those enigmatic and impossibly cool people whose biographies stuff the shelves of the Waterstones music section, Nick Drake, et al.
Still doesn't make Snow Patrol any less shit
If I never hear Gary Lightbody's moaney tomes again it will be 10 billion billion years too soon. Give me Girls Aloud any day. In fact just give me Girls Aloud.
We've started playing Chasing Cars...
...with the covers/function band I play bass in. Dirge-tastic! I swear one of these days I'm actually going to fall asleep while playing it!
As a bassist in a no doubt similar covers band...
I stood up for our rights when the lead guitarist and singer wanted to do yet another U2 song in the set (With or Without You - and believe me it's a turgid mundane 5 minute bore fest to play those same notes). That would've been the 4th one. Both myself and the drummer physically downed tools and told him to fcuk off.
We came to a compromise in dropping that and "Streets" whilst retaining the rather good Out of Control and I Will Follow AND allowing the inclusion of one of mine (White Man in Hammersmith Palais) and the drummers (Led Zep's Rock n Roll) songs of choice.
Rhythm sections of the world. Unite and takeover!
Could you not...
...compose a more interesting bass line that doesn't affect the overall song but improves your part?
Apparently apocrophal;
according to Andy Johns, the engineer on Electric Ladyland, Hendrix arrived at the studios with the tapes for Dylan's new album that he'd been given by Dylan's publicist and listened to it for the first time in the studio.
Oh well
What about Richard Gere and the hamster? Surely that one's true?
And I did mention before
Sheena Easton's dildo in the lobby of Le Meridian Piccadilly. A true story and a very funny one.
I believe he's discussing that
in The Metro, this very day. Bear with me....
[reads world's worst newspaper]
...that's so disapointing.
The age of the audience.....
I know what you mean; I caught him on his last tour and the audience was the most elderly* I have been in, and, as Mrs Path will testify, she has been with me to a fair few old codgers. I had assumed, as it was in Brum, his home turf, Spencer Davis Group-wise, at least, that all those from those days, and his family, were present........
Yes, 'tis true, older than a bloody Fairport audience, and that is saying something.
(Pardon?)
I SAID THATS SAYING SOMETHING.
CONVENTION.
YES.
NO, NOT YES.
O NEVER MIND
Went to see him last Friday
Fantastic. The band were tight. Loved the funky version of Can't Find My Way Home and Flying version of Gimme Some Lovin'. Covered all the bases from Spencer Davis Group, Traffic, Blind Faith and onwards. And yes at 43 I just might have been the baby in the room too.
He was the best guitarist in....
Blind Faith.
Not on this he isn't
But when you see the fuss over Pete "the hat" Doherty and realise that Steve had just turned 21 at this gig, well Indie Shmindie Landfill I say. No contest.
Agree
Anyone that can write "Gimme Some Lovin' " at an age when most of us are still figuring out how to do our maths homework is pure musical genius.....
Winwood...
...was the same age I am now when he'd been in Spencer Davis Group, Traffic and Blind Faith. Pretty startling stuff, and it really humbles me!
We have produced literally nothing within British rock that compares to people like Winwood for many years, however much the likes of NME may try and tell us how much of a genius the aforementioned Mr. Doherty is.