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Odd little guitar

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The first time that I looked at this picture, of a guitarist playing this one of a kind guitar, I thought it was my eyes at first! I instinctively knew there was something a little off about it.

I understand that some instrument’s are just made to look at and this is no exception. Looks to me that it might be a bit difficult to play while sitting down, standing up it might be not all that bad?!

odd guitar

Have you ever seen a guitar with it’s fret on the wrong end like this? Hmmm Maybe this is some kind of left handed guitar conversion? LOL

Keep on Jammin’





Bruce Cockburn plays Rocket Launcher at Live 8

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The best thing to come out of Canada, acoustically speaking that is, is Bruce Cockburn. The way he approaches songwriting is breath taking. He makes his guitar and two hands sound like a full band.

One totally mind boggling aspect of his playing live, is that Bruce mixes up how the song is executed on stage. One night he plays it one, then the other he performs the song in a completely different position on the guitar. The essence of the song remains the same but, by playing it in contrasting locations, it allows him to add little phrasings to add even more colour to the piece. Damn this guy is GREAT!

The one song that he performs solo and the one I play the most is If I had a Rocket Launcher. Bruce’s thumb acts like both the bass and drums, while the other fingers act like the melody. This becomes very clear, to even most of the non musicians out there, when the song enters the solo part.

He has an incredible amount of independence between the his fingers and his thumb on his right hand. Mr Cockburn basically has a whole band in his right hand.

The best example of this is his performance at the Live 8 concert, held in Barrie 2006. I recall getting ready for work that day while watching it. As the time to leave for work was getting closer, I was sitting at the edge of my seat just hoping to see him before heading off. With the luck of the Irish with me that day, he waltz onto the stage just before I had to go. He did not let me down!

When I perform this song now a days, I use this concert as a reference point. I do his intro, which I’ve never heard him do it quite like this before, along with sections of his solo. The only thing different about my version is that I play it in the first position (I play it at the top of the guitar). This allows me to have more strings that ring out when playing. Filling in the musical holes if you will.

The thing about this show is, every time that I watch this show, it seems that I’ve missed out many subtle changes that he does! Damn this Bruce Cockburn fellow, I will never be able to play exactly like him~!@#$%^&*()_+!

So in case you missed out on this show/version, check out the video and tell us if you think I got it right!

Keep on Jammin’ Bruce Cockburn

The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan missing songs

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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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