It was around a year ago that I launched the music blog you're reading right now. It was intended to give a little exposure to musicians and music both known and unknown, to songs new and old -- songs that have been widely popular and tunes that deserve to be heard by more than they have been.
It was last Labor Day that I posted my first article in this blog, with notes and photos from a local jazz festival. Now, a year later, I'm in the middle of a series looking at some of the people I've come to know personally, or more likely just gotten to know a bit about through common friendships online.
Garth Webber
The jazz music and the common friendships brings me to Bay Area guitarist Garth Webber. He's played with the likes of jazz great Miles Davis in his fusion era, along with artists like Gregg Allman and Boz Scass to name a couple more.
These days, when he's not playing and recording himself, he's recording others or teaching some of the secrets of his craft to students who'd like to be "the next big thing" on the guitar scene.
For me, it's watching Garth Webber play with Miles Davis that brings the biggest smile to this jazz fan's face.
Finally, I've set aside some time to watch a video from 1979 that a guitar-playing friend loaned to me a couple of weeks ago after we'd been chatting and sharing videos about favorite guitar players, just in time for me to return it to him later today.
The video was recorded in 1979, featuring some legendary members of "The Guitar Trio" (not to be confused with my friends from the California Guitar Trio, featuring Utah's own Paul Richards whose flying fingers have been featured in this blog's main photo above since Day One of this blog). This guitar trio was formed by jazz fusion pioneer Larry Coryell, also featuring another jazz fusion pioneer in John McLaughlin as well as Spanish flamenco guitar legend Paco De Lucia.
Larry Coryell (left), John McLaughlin (middle), and Paco De Lucia
The video is titled "Meeting of the Spirits." It's a remarkable blending not only of guitar giants, but of guitar styles. It's heavy on that marvelous Spanish style that De Lucia has helped to revolutionize, but the highlight for me is the extended interplay between the three men on the title song -- taking McLaughlin's Mahavishnu Orchestra classic "Meeting of the Spirits" and giving it a whole new feel, minus the keyboards, drums, bass and violin that helped make the song so memorable.
It's also memorable when three players at the top of their game rip into it, either with flying picks from Coryell and McLaughlin to De Lucia's amazing finger picking style. The fretboard work is jaw-dropping as well.
I'd long been a fan of the trio that came after this one, featuring McLaughlin and De Lucia playing with Al Di Meola. This was my first exposure to the trio in this formation.
To borrow some lyrics from John Mellencamp, I was born in a small town, and I was raised in a small town. It was out in the middle of nowhere. It had one AM radio station that signed off at sundown every day. In the morning, it would play either country music or easy listening/show tunes. During the noon hour, it was polka time.
No, I'm not kidding.
In the afternoon, it was time for rock 'n' roll. While that one radio station would play some great songs, it was still a bit limited in what it could/would play.
In my hometown, Woodstock was a universe away in 1969. We might have seen glimpses of it on the nightly news, we might have heard a few songs from it on the radio but only the studio versions, not the festival recordings.
I don't think I knew about the band Ten Years After until around 1971, when I picked up a "greatest hits" 8-track tape from a local store for a couple of bucks. I immediately fell in love with the song "I'd Love To Change The World."
The years went on, and my exposure to the songs from Woodstock finally came to light through the soundtrack album and film. Alvin Lee's guitar playing on "I'm Going Home" blew me away. I know I haven't been alone.
This is a week for music so powerful, it has a kind of force that can
knock you out just thinking about it. It's relentless. It can stick
with you for a lifetime.
And here's where this week of "kickin' tail" was inspired. It came to me last Sunday, as I was driving that morning to do a few hours' worth of work. I was just in one of "those moods," with my beat up pair of cowboy boots on, and as I was finding a radio station to listen to as I was driving my pickup truck, I came across the familiar strains of a scorching guitar.
My favorite classic rock station was doing one of its "weekend blocks" of songs by artists, and I came across George Thorogood and The Destroyers doing "Bad To the Bone," along with a couple more tunes from them.
I was happy to come across that. It set the tone for my whole week.
So, who do you love? For me this week, it's been those "tail kickers."
And it all started for me with George and The Destroyers.
This is a week for music so powerful, it has a kind of force that can
knock you out just thinking about it. It's relentless. It can stick
with you for a lifetime.
In the world of progressive rock, there's one name that comes to my mind that fits the mold of a "tail kicker." That would be Frank Zappa.
He was always one to speak his mind and not hold back, whether it was through his recorded music, in a live performance, in an interview, or appearing in front of a Senate committee. Zappa saw the world the way it is, warts and all, and he described it the way he saw it.
Frank could "kick tail" through his lyrics or just strapping on a guitar and letting it all hang out. He wrote music that was insanely challenging, and could kick the tails of the best players on their particular instruments.
Ronnie Montrose would have turned 65 years old today. Sadly, he took his own life on March 3 this year. A whole lot of music fans mourned the loss of a great guitarist.
Montrose was a classic rock guitar hero, but his playing went beyond rock. He played some jazz fusion with the likes of Herbie Hancock and Tony Williams, there was blues with Johnny Winter, he sat in with Johnny's brother Edgar on one of the best known classic rock albums of all time ("They Only Come Out At Night"), there was pop with Nicolette Larson, he played with The Neville Brothers, there was memorable playing with Van Morrison.
And that's just a start.
When you heard the name Montrose, as a fan, you thought of a blazing guitar. He left us all too soon.
They don't celebrate Thanksgiving "down under" in Australia, do they? Well, at least not on the same day we do in America, anyway.
They still know how to say "I Thank You" in a very crunchy, rockin' way when it comes to the band The Casanovas.
This isn't your grandfather's way of giving thanks ... unless your grandfather is into that heavy sound of guitars, drums being bashed hard, a throbbing bass line, and vocals that are sure to grab your attention.
The theme came to me as soon as I turned on the car this afternoon and switched over to a classic rock FM station.
Boston's "Foreplay/Long Time" was playing, and like so many times before I was taken back in time to my teens when I'd "strap on" that air guitar and just start wailing away.
Come on, lots of us have done it at one time or another in our music listening lives. Isn't that pretty much what "Guitar Hero" is all about? And there's a national pizza chain store that has people standing on a sidewalk, dancing away and playing their best air guitar tunes while holding a big cardboard sign in the shape of a very large Fender, or something like it.
Just imagine, making a little dough (the green paper currency kind, not the pizza kind) while putting in some ear buds hooked up to a portable tune player, getting in the mood, stepping away from the safety of that private room where no one else can see you, and playing just like Townshend or Van Halen themselves for the whole world to observe.
Don't be ashamed. Playing air guitar pretty much means that when it comes to being a hard-core music fan, you're basically ... normal.
To be honest, I'd never heard of Gary Clark Jr., until earlier this year when I came across his name in a sidebar story found in a used copy of a Rolling Stone Magazine special edition that listed the 100 greatest modern guitarists.
Even then, I'd forgotten his name until I ran into it again a while later in a search for the names of hot young blues guitarists. Then, I went in search of some examples of his playing and singing.
I won't forget his name again anytime soon.
The raves that I read about in the magazine sidebar were true. The young Texan is the real deal, coming straight out of the place where legends like Jimmie and Stevie Ray Vaughan came from, and playing a lot like SRV himself at times. Then there are the comparisons to Jimi Hendrix. His reputation has grown with the help of festivals and minor CD or EP releases. But now he's got a major release with the album "Blak And Blu." Now, we've got a great opportunity to watch a great young artist take off.
You could call this "introduction week" for The Crossover Music Channel, a bit of a "getting to know you" time. I've introduced you to my musical wife, my musical college roommate/good friend/"bro," musical friends of his that I've come to know since the first of this year, even an online friend of several years from "across the pond" who'd like to make something with his musical talents.
Paul Richards of the California Guitar Trio (Photo By John G. Miller)
Now, to wrap up this "meet week," I'd like to introduce you to the person whose hands are playing the gorgeous six-string acoustic guitar that's shown in the title photo: Paul Richards of the California Guitar Trio.
My introduction to the trio (CGT for short) came early last decade with members of an online progressive rock music discussion site raving about them. They talked about CGT being "disciples" of Robert Fripp, the mastermind behind the trailblazing prog rock group King Crimson -- a favorite of mine. They talked about CGT always putting on a spellbinding live concert experience. CGT got sparkling reviews from those who'd seen and heard them, and the fact that they played with and learned under a genius like Fripp sealed it for me: I had to check them out.
So, in 2002, I went to a well-stocked and locally owned music store, found a copy of the CGT album "Yamanashi Blues," and bought it.
It was love at first listen. The sound of those three guitars together just jumped out of the speakers, thanks to the quality of the trio's playing and the quality of the recording itself. That CD has had a very regular place in the rotation of any 10-disc changer I've had ever since, and it's because the music runs the gamut of my own musical tastes. There's rock, there's classical, there's classic surf tunes, there's a jazziness to it at times ... their musical tastes are boundless. They can change it up at a split second's notice.
That's why I have Paul Richards' hands playing the guitar featured here so prominently -- it's music that crosses over so quickly and effortlessly.
I later went on to add the CGT album "Rocks The West" to my collection. Any CGT release I can get my hands on is treasured.
Hideyo Moriya (Photo By John G. Miller)
But CGT is not about three guys from California playing guitar. Richards is a Utah native, and he still keeps his home base in Salt Lake City. Hideyo Moriya is from Japan. Bert Lams is from Belgium. Each of them has a residence in the United States now, but they're scattered except for the days when they're on tour or recording together.
When you witness the awe-inspiring teamwork that goes into their playing, it makes the fact that they live so far apart even more impressive. But that kind of teamwork tends to happen when you play together for the better part of 21 years and study together with Fripp before that, as CGT has. Since studying with Fripp, they've gone on to open for King Crimson, to play in Fripp's League of Crafty Guitarists, and to play and record and become good friends with legendary Crimson and session bassist Tony Levin.
Even after about 10 years of appreciating CGT's music, I had never had the opportunity to see them play in person. Thanks to being on Richards' Facebook friends list and the fact that we live in the same area, that all changed in early August when I received an unexpected Facebook invitation to a live "private event" the group was throwing together at the "A" Gallery in Salt Lake City the evening of August 11, "thrown together" because a date at Park City that night had fallen through and CGT wanted to do a local show before setting off on a southwest leg of a U.S. tour. I was very pleasantly surprised to see the invitation to the private show at the gallery's outdoor sculpture garden. It didn't take me long at all to accept the invitation.
Bert Lams (Photo By John G. Miller)
If you've never had the chance to experience CGT live, here's a simple suggestion: Do it!
My wife Amy and I arrived early enough to get seats in the front row, just a few feet in front of the trio's effects boxes. I was spellbound for the rest of the night and days later. Questions that I'd had for a long time (for example, "How do they get those electrified sounds out of those acoustic guitars when they play something like Pink Floyd's "Echoes?") were answered just by seeing them play it, up close and personally. I was fascinated by the trio's ability to communicate with each other without them having to speak a word. I was amazed watching them play a complicated Bach piece using a technique taught to them by Fripp himself, "circulation."
If there was a particular point in the setlist that showed CGT's "crossover ability," it was when they played "Ghost Riders on the Storm" -- a flawless mix of the cowboy classic "Ghost Riders in the Sky" mashed up against The Doors' rock gem "Riders on the Storm," and it was performed flawlessly. All I could do as I sat and watched was to shake my head and laugh in amazement.
When the show was over and "Happy Trails" was played, we made our way inside the gallery to look at the paintings and sculptures, and to meet Paul's wife, Stacey Richards. We had a common love for American Eskimo dogs we could talk about with her. She served as a gracious hostess.
We then made our way back to the autograph/merchandise table, where I could meet Paul in person after having introduced ourselves to Hideyo and Bert and chatting briefly before and after the show. Each of the players are very personable, very easy to talk to, more than willing to take as much time as needed for a "fanboy" like me to grab a photo with the group.
Not all groups are that warm and welcoming. It was all part of one very memorable night.
Hideyo Moriya, myself, Amy Miller, Bert Lams, and Paul Richards.
