Guitars and Life

Very often these days I'll hear something the radio or the TV and when my daughter says "I really like this" I'll say "You should listen to the original" and then dig it out of either my collection, Spotify, YouTube etc. to show her the difference between a performance with the passion of the writer often in it vs one just cleverly produced by the pop music factories that churn these things out constantly these days. However the other day I was listening to a cover of Dear Prudence by folk band Lau.  Now I really like Lau but this one didn't cut the mustard as a cover for me.  However one did in the past so I wondered about my top list of covers, where I feel the cover is better in some way... Here it is... Starting with - Dear Prudence by Siouxsie And the Banshees.  I just love the guitar sound on this her vocal this really works so much better than any other version for me.  Next - Mr Jimi Hendrix.  Ok I struggled and gave up - dear Jimi i...

There was quite a good Jimi Hendrix on the BBC the other night that I recorded and got around to watching. It did a good job of showing a little bit behind the image - the flamboyant showman on stage grinding his guitar into the Marshall stack or smashing it up after setting fire to it.  The famous scene from Monterey where he did just that with his psychedelic painted Strat was shown again for the millionth time.  But one good thing was showing the reaction of some in the crowd - he really shocked a lot of Americans that day.  I suppose from England where The Who and others had made obliterating your gear a bit of a angry young man statement a few years before it wasn't so shocking, in mainstream America then I guess it was. Like I say though a few glimpses of the shy quiet man behind the image.  Also some great bits with Eddie Kramer talking about some of the recordings he did with the man.  Of course the legend lives on due to his untimely death due to a...