Truth: I would rather listen to the people Robert Johnson has inspired than listen to the man himself. Also true: Keith Richards makes me want to dust off Johnson and give him another listen. I saw Under The Influence on Netflix.
"Rock and Roll had nothing on these guys" -- Keith Richards on American Country Music in general and Johnny Cash and Carl Perkins in particular.
Yeah , but there was a time when The Rolling Stones were particularly scary. Read Sway for some idea. And Keef is big on going straight to the source. Robert Johnson didn't record much, so The Centennial Collection should do you. Plus you get a spiffy essay by Jimmy Page. If you can find it I recommend The Sun Years by Howlin' Wolf. And I recommend the recently rebuffed Damn Right, I've Got The Blues by Buddy Guy -- the album that turned everything around (for Buddy Guy, of course).
Beautiful ...
ReplyDeleteI don’t yet know the music — have never purchased a Stones recording, say — and guess I will never manage to, though the idea of indeed getting to know it a bit gets more interesting for me as I get older. I’ve never owned a guitar, for that matter. One of the things I find myself resorting to pretty regularly for mental calm in the last few years, though, for whatever reason, is stuff about guitars on YT. (A resource more abundant than the sun’s energy, as I don’t have to tell you.) Been meaning to ask here at some point if you’d come across the Five Watt World channel. This post led me to rewatch Williams’ recent episode on Richards’ early-career guitars late last night. As a non-aficionado it’s hard for me to evaluate a 20-min. ramble like this as history, musical or other, of course. It’s good nodding-off fare in any case, and I have the feeling of learning something. Tales of the British invasion’s boy terrors it ain’t particularly.
ReplyDeleteOh, Mick and Keef were DANGEROUS, man! So were John and Paul. This was the era before video games so we had a long time to think about it, and they returned the favour. Now John is dead and Paul's a joke. As for Mick and Keef, well, the record speaks for itself. Do read Lazar's novel, if you get the chance.
ReplyDeleteI keep running into Five Watt World. I'll have to stop and give it a look.
Fun thing: Google News put this Guitar Magazine article in my feed today under their ‘For You’ heading, presumably because the media-engineer geniuses operating Google News did expensive math that tells them I want to read articles bearing relation to things I watch YouTube videos about. Or maybe they’re just looking in on our conversation here, who knows. Anyway, seemed like something to pass along!
ReplyDeleteOf course that's how these old geezers REMEMBER it!It was a very different time...
ReplyDeletehttps://www.bookforum.com/print/1801/more-than-forty-years-after-its-initial-release-donald-cammell-s-lurid-film-continues-to-haunt
Oof, wow.
ReplyDeleteWikipedia says Cammell killed himself with a shotgun, but I suppose Howard’s account with the mirror and quoting Borges as he pulls the trigger works just as well for me. Cammell grew up — again according to Wikipedia — with Aleister Crowley hanging around as a family friend!
Alright, so yeah, I think I’ll probably never feel any great impulse to see this flick.
Most wonderful is to learn that James Fox — who I remember best as the limp aristocrat Harrison Ford saves from smoldering Irishman Sean Bean in Patriot Games (and who I now discover to be father of TV actor turned nativist-nationalist cringe political figure Laurence Fox!) — apparently on account of his experience on Cammell’s film left his profession and gave a significant chunk of subsequent years to mission to evangelize the American serviceman the Navigators, an org very familiar to me in early life, that same decade or so, growing up in churches catering to nearby base personnel.
Hey, I memorized all those Bible verses, man! And I still use The Navigators to read the Bible from cover to cover. (Although since the stroke reading -- anything! -- has gone by the way. That's okay. Read Nick Cave at The Red Hand Files if you must.
ReplyDeleteI don't know why Alistair Crowley is such a big deal, especially the Brits, of all people (he adorns the cover of Sgt Pepper's thanks mostly to John, who wanted to put Hitler there -- which kinda makes sense).
ReplyDeleteI have to confess to having never looked very closely at the Sgt. Pepper album art until you mentioned this. (Don’t believe I’ve ever listened to the whole album for that matter.) Was able to spot Crowley in the crowd pretty quickly without help. … And ah, for all the stuff I do need help with there, Wikipedia has a dedicated page, naturally.
ReplyDeleteROBERT JOHNSON, KEITH RICHARDS, ALISTAIR CROWLEY and THE NAVIGATORS -- what other blog gives you that? I'll tell you -- none other, that's what. None other blogs!I
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