Guitar Licks and Tips

For all your Bob Dylan fans out there, here is a neat bit of musical trivia that you may have not known about up until now! It’s all about 4 songs that were not released on his second album The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, that did not make the final cut. They are “Let Me Die In My Footsteps”, “Ramblin’ Gamblin’ Willie”, “Rock and Gravel” and “Talkin’ John Birch Society Blues”

So this album, Bob Dylan’s second one which had the working title of Bob Dylan Blues, was a pure master piece! This album did much better then his debut album titled Bob Dylan, which sold about 5000 copies, just enough to break even at that time. This little known fact about these 4 songs made me sit back and scratch my head to wonder, why?

Can you actually believe that some idiots deemed them unusable for public consumption? This album made it to 97 on Rolling Stones Top 500 albums of all time!
With Blowin’ in the Wind on an album, I guess you can’t go wrong now can ya? Thank God they left that one on it!

So here is what I took out of this fairly long article. If I have misinterpreted any of this or got my info wrong then PLEASE tell us.

So Bob Dylan resumes his work on his second album at Columbia’s Studio A in New York city. This session started on October 26th, 1962. “Mixed-Up Confusion” and Arthur Crudup’s “That’s All Right Mama” were deemed unusable, so out came the scissors and they were cut. A master take of “Corrina, Corrina“, which was not an original, was selected for the final album. I remember listening to this one when I was a young kid at my parents house, what a great tune.

A few copies of the original pressing of the LP — with the subsequently deleted tracks, “Let Me Die In My Footsteps“, “Ramblin’ Gamblin’ Willie“, “Rock and Gravel” and “Talkin’ John Birch Society Blues” — finally turned up for general consumption, against Columbia’s blessings. CBS produced records later on with these four songs, but not the corresponding covers.

Imagine for a second, only 30 pressed copies with these tunes were released, then they stopped the presses, removed the offending songs and finally started the presses once again? Can you say really rare and valuable piece of plastic?

In April, 1992, the first known stereo copy (with the label listing the original four songs) was found at thrift store located in Greenwich Village in New York City. The quality of this valuable piece of music history was used and in not bad condition. It was later fetched $12,345.67. Envision, if you will, this album being in mint condition?

Keep on Jammin’

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I feel that this is the best site for John Mayer tabs, period! I have found it a great source to turn to, if I come up against a mental road block when learning one of his tunes. I can still remember the first time I came across this site! I quickly ran threw the whole site and committed it to memory, just in case the suites wanted to pull the plug on it.

The site is simple and very easy to use. The contents are straight forward and never cluttered.

Not only does this place provide you with some GREAT tabs for playing John’s creations but, it also has a MISCELLANEOUS TABS part that I just found out about while going back through the site while writing this post. They’ve worked on Damien Rice, Cold Play, Ari Heist tunes as well Dave Matthews Band, Radiohead and Jeff Buckley. Check out the Various area and try the Somewhere over the rainbow one, it’s just fabulous! A buddy sent me a link from this guy playing this song on a eukalalee and it sounded so great, I decided to check out the tabs here and sure enough, they were bang on!

Keep on Jammin’

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While searching classicbands.com, I came across some events that stood out on my screen this morning! So here is what I THOUGHT made the grade.

1964
February 23
The Beatles appear on The Ed Sullivan Show.

1965
February 24
The Beatles began filming known as Help!

February 24
The Beach Boys record that great little ditty called “Help Me Rhonda”

1966
February 28
In Liverpool, England, at the original Cavern Club and the home to many of the Beatles’ early performances, it closed its doors for the final time because of mounting debt. Police were called when over a 100 fans barricaded themselves inside the club to protest. Now that would have been a the place to have been on that day!

1969 – ClassicBands.com

February 24
The Jimi Hendrix Experience played their last British concert as a band at the world famous London’s Royal Albert Hall. No that sucks! I was only 4 at the time and I never got to see them because I was WAY under age at the time!

1970
February 23
The Doors’ LP “Morrison Hotel” goes gold.

The first annual Juno Awards, Canada’s version of the Grammys, was held in Toronto. The awards had existed since 1964 under the name The RPM Gold Leaf Awards, which were established by Walt Grealis, editor and publisher of RPM Magazine.

February 27
Jefferson Airplane is fined $1,000 for onstage profanity in Oklahoma City. How dare they!

February 28
After the family of the late Ferdinand von Zeppelin threatens a lawsuit, Led Zeppelin performs in Copenhagen, Denmark as “The Nobs”. Now that, I’ve never heard of before!

“Bridge Over Troubled Water” becomes Simon and Garfunkel’s third US number one hit. Great tune to be able to play on piano, that one I can’t.

1971
February 27
Five months after her death, Janis Joplin began a nine-week stay at the top of the Billboard Hot 200 album chart with “Pearl”. Janis was one of those women that you would love to have gone camping with, just imagine the stories and sing-a-longs!

1976

February 24
The Eagles LP “Their Greatest Hits 1971 – 1975″ becomes the first album in history to be certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America. Really great album, I’ve still got my original vinyl one!

February 28
Paul Simon’s “Still Crazy After All These Years” in named Best Pop Vocal Performance and Album Of The Year at the 18th annual Grammy Awards. Now word of a lie, I’m working on this one right now, really! My wife caught the tale end of it on The Colbert report and taped it for me.

February 27
Keith Richards is arrested in Toronto after police raid his hotel room and seize 22 grams of heroin, 5 grams of cocaine and narcotics paraphernalia. I remember as a kid watching this thing unfold on TV. I was just left shaking my head.

1978
February 23
At the 20th annual Grammy awards The Eagles win Record of the Year for “Hotel California”. Great album.

1979
February 23
On the strength of their hit, “Sultans Of Swing”, England’s Dire Straits kick off their first US tour. I fell asleep many a nights listening to this guitar master piece.

1980

February 27
The Doobie Brothers’ “What a Fool Believes” wins a Grammy Award for both Record of the Year and Song of the Year, while Billy Joel’s “52nd Street” wins both Album of the Year and Best Male Pop Vocal Performance. 52nd Street was one of those musical changing albums for me.

February 29
Mason City Police discovered a file containing Buddy Holly’s glasses and a watch owned by The Big Bopper, that were found in the wreckage of their plane crash in 1959. Holly’s cuff links worn during the crash had already been presented to Paul McCartney back in 1976, when the first Buddy Holly Week was held. Holly’s widow would eventually launch a lawsuit to recover his glasses.

1983

February 26
Michael Jackson’s album “Thriller” rose to #1 on the US album chart, where it would stay for 37 weeks. Only “The Eagles’ Greatest Hits 1971 – 1975″ has sold more.

1984 – ClassicBands.com

February 25
Van Halen enjoyed a US number one smash with “Jump”, after David Lee Roth added lyrics to music that Eddie Van Halen had written two years before. I recall doing a parity on this song with some neighbours called plump, boy they were bent back in the day.

1992

February 25
Eric Clapton wins six Grammys, including Best Record and Best Song for “Tears In Heaven” as well as Best Album for “Unplugged”. This CD helped me get back into guitar again and I am forever grateful for it.

1998
February 25
At Radio City Music Hall, Bob Dylan is handed three Grammys, including one for Best Album for “Time Out Of Mind”. Dylan’s son, Jakob, also won an award, winning Best Song for “One Headlight”, a tune he recorded with his band, The Wallflowers. Also winning awards were John Fogerty, who picked up Best Rock Album for “Blue Moon Swamp”, Elton John for Best Male Vocal for “Candle In The Wind 1997″ and Van Morrison and John Lee Hooker who won for Best Pop Collaboration for “Don’t Look Back”. Bo Diddley and Roy Orbison were cited for Lifetime Achievement. that would have been a show to see. As for the rest of them, I’m not so sure.

2003
February 23
Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel sang together for the first time in ten years as they receive a Grammy Award for Lifetime Achievement. The day I saw them at the CNE one summer was pure magic!

February 23
Ravi Shankar’s daughter, Nora Jones was five-for-five at the Grammy Awards, as she took honors for Album of the Year, Record of the Year (for “Don’t Know Why”), Best New Artist, Best Pop Vocal Album, and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance (also for “Don’t Know Why”). Shankar is the man who taught Beatle George Harrison to play the sitar. I played in a band with Ravi Shankar’s God son for my cousin’s wedding, neat eh?!!

2006

February 24
The Sex Pistols gave a virtual middle finger to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame when they issued an open letter on front man Johnny Rotten’s Website, saying they have no intention of attending the induction ceremony at New York’s Waldorf Astoria Hotel. “Next to the sex Pistols, rock and roll and that hall of fame is a piss stain. Your museum. Urine in wine. We’re not coming.” GD, those guys are way too funny!

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There was this tune called Tears on your Anorak that was not a real big hit on the charts in the 80’s, but I loved it none the less. It was one of those songs that kept on looping through my mine!

I admit that it’s not a very difficult piece to play on an electric guitar but, baby when you try to pull this off on an acoustic, then it’s a whole new kettle of worms! It’s a bit more difficult to let those strings ring out while attempting to play other ones all at the same time. Anyways, it was also the only song from one of those British one-hit-wonders that still ring out in my mind today. Humm, I wonder where they went to?

This song Tears on your Anorak, brings back so many great moments in my life! I use to play this song acoustically with a dear olde friend of mine Allan S. We played it everywhere we played! Bars, backyards, in trees and even elevators! I also played it on electric guitar with Dom., Eddie and Big Jon P. For the life of me, I’m not sure if we played this version live? Hopefully, one of them will get back to us and comment on this post about it.

So over the years from time to time, I’d start a search for these guys and of coarse, I’d go off onto another tangent and never get back. Does that sound familiar to you? Then this afternoon, with nothing else to do, I was eager to find an answer to where The Drivers went to and I found my answer on this particular blog!

Now as it turns out, they transformed themselves into the Cutting Crew! They were a B.C. band that had a couple of hits and disbanded in the mid 90’s. Never to be heard of again … until now!

Keep on Jammin’

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I just LOVE watching bands playing live on DVD or the old TV. It brings an honest approach on how to play a particular song live, without all the comforts that a guitar player has in the studio, not to mention the tricks that are at his or her disposal there! In the studio you can overdub like crazy, not to mention the retakes as well. If your not a musician and your reading this, there are MANY times/songs in ones musical career, that they wish that they had a second chance to play a certain song again, while performing live!

While just sitting back and chilli’n after work, I happened to come across this site that had great live shows from bands that I love to figure out some of their tunes! The site is called Wolfgangsvault and just check out who they have there!

Here, I found a couple of real nice classic tunes. Some of them I have been looking for ages and were only too happy to find them. On a few of them, the camera angles that they used, are not the best for what I need of them. I get the odd little view of what the guitarist is doing and that is great, but it always leaves you wanting more!

The site seems to have it all, in regards to band memorabilia. Posters, copies of back stag passes and GREAT pic’s! I wish that my finances were a bit better because they certainly have some real nice things that I’d LOVE to have.

If your a musician, have you attempted to lift ways of playing a particular song from watching the band in a live performance? Has anyone else been to this site? Have you ever used this site and what do yo think of it!?

Keep on Jammin’

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