Tippaporn

Peter, Paul & Mary with 500 Miles off of their '62 self-tilted debut album. This was part of our repertoire in music class during my middle school years. Imagine that . . . music class for 12~14 year olds. Nowadays? Nah, I won't go there.

Judy Collins and chorus with Amazing Grace recorded in '70.

Pete Seeger performing Goodnight Irene as a sing-a-long live in Australia in the early 60's. Smoking was still allowed, even with kiddies in the audience. Ah, the good old days.

Bob Dylan performing Blowing In The Wind live on TV in March '63.

Leonard Cohen with Suzanne off of his '88 self-titled album.

Woody Guthrie with This Land is Your Land, recorded in '44.

Jesse Winchester with The Brand New Tennessee Waltz, co-written with Robbie Robertson. Also off of his '70 debut album. Tennessee is a beautiful state, especially during the autumn when it's stunningly vibrant with orange, red and yellow foliage everywhere you look. Birth home of President Andrew Jackson, who heroically killed America's second evil central bank.

Canadian artist Jesse Winchester with the lovely Yankee Lady. Hauntingly wonderful lyrics that seem to bring back memories I've forgotten. Off of his '70 self-titled debut LP.

Jessi Coulter, the Lady among the Outlaws, with I Was Kinda Crazy Then. Off of the same '78 That's The Way A Cowboy Rocks And Rolls LP. It's a tune that's reminiscent of Emmylou Harris.

Speaking of J.J. Cale, here's Lonesome Train of off his '92 Number 10 album.

That tune immediately reminded by of Waylon Jennings' wife Jessi Colter's cover on her '78 That's The Way A Cowboy Rocks And Rolls. I had bought that LP back then and listened to it many times, which is why it kindled my memory. J.J. Cale was one of the guitarists on the album.

Thanks for the heads up, bendejo. Downloading it now myself. Here's Hold Back The Tears off of that new release.

Robbie Robertson jamming with Bob Dylan recorded at the North British Station Hotel in Glasgow, Scotland on May 13, '66. - I Can't Leave Her Behind - On a Rainy Afternoon - If I Was A King - What Kind of Friend Is This

The Band with the title track of their '70 Stage Fright LP.

One of my favourite tracks off of their '69 self-titled LP, Whispering Pines.

Should I be reviving my "Bring out your dead" themed series, bannork? Or is it too depressing? Robbie Robertson, d. August 9, 2023. I don't know how this tune ranks on the greatest songs of all time list but I would bet it's definitely way up there. The Weight off of their '68 Music From Big Pink album. Thanks for all the wonderful music.

You've put up some classic old blues numbers from the great blues musicians lately, Mutt Daeng. All of them should have rated as 'popular posts.' I'd up vote you more if I could.

RIP Otis Rush who died September 29, 2018. He was a true blues legend. I Can't Quit You Baby, famously covered by Led Zeppelin.

From the moment that Sylvester Weaver recorded for the first time with a slide in 1923, the technique of using a metallic object to press the strings of a guitar has gradually been perfected. The house of Blind Willie Johnson burned down in 1945, and that same night he returned to experience what he had masterfully left engraved almost 20 years previously, Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground. Johnson slept on the ashes of one of the few roofs he had known in his life, poor, and with nowhere else to go he decided to stay in what was the ruins of his house until his death, a few months later. He was buried in a tomb without a name, without the world crying for one of the greatest talents that popular music of the first half of the 20th century has given. 32 years after that, Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground left Earth aboard the Voyager Gold Disk, the spacecraft that Carl Sagan launched into space with the purpose that if there is intelligent life elsewhere in the galaxy they will have an idea of what humans were like. Along with works by Bach, Beethoven and Chuck Berry, Johnson will make us proud when some being listens to the languid notes of his slide on his Stella. Ry Cooder has no doubt that it is "the most moving and transcendent piece of all American music."

And the best cover is . . . Hands down, Steve Miller. Recorded live at Tower Theater, Philadelphia in '72 and found on the '73 The Joker album. No slide but wonderful acoustic guitar work.

It is impossible to separate the figure of Robert Johnson from his legend; we do not really know much about one of the most legendary 'bluesmen' in history but we could say that it is unlikely that he sold his soul to the devil, at some crossroads, to be the best blues guitarist. What does seem clear is that his technique seems supernatural for the time. Listening to his incredible slide on the hypnotic Come On In My Kitchen, one understands that people would start crying in their concerts when he played it. The devil himself may never have appeared to him, but Robert Johnson fought against his own inner demons to give us some of the most visceral and heartfelt music of the twentieth century.

And my favourite cover is by Fleetwood Mac. Peter Green : guitar, vocals Jeremy Spencer : slide guitar, piano, vocals Danny Kirwan : guitar John McVie : bass Mick Fleetwood : drums

Elmore James is the most important electric slide guitarist of all time. On August 5, 1951, he decided to play in a recording session Dust My Broom, one of the songs from Robert Johnson's repertoire. The owner of the company decided to record it and the blues was changed forever. To the fierceness of his voice he added his aggressive use of the slide with the famous riff that would give him a place in posterity. It was recorded live through a single microphone and there were no more takes or songs. It did not matter, the rural blues had turned into an electric thunderstorm and the direction of popular music had changed forever. If you want to make the parallelism, this is the Johnny B. Goode of the slide guitar. There is a 99.9% chance that if you put a slide on one of your fingers you will play this riff ... One of my personal all time favourite blues numbers.

Krieger is one of the most original guitarists in history, and so it is normal that his slide sounds totally his own; something that was one of the first things that caught the attention of Jim Morrison. In 1965 the first song they played together was a composition by Morrison entitled Moonlight Drive. On it Krieger began to improvise several things with the slide, with a style so unique and far from the blues masters that the singer asked him to play on all the songs. When finally they recorded it, on their second '67 Strange Days album, Krieger returned to recover the magic of those first sessions.

Mike Bloomfield was one of the first white guitarists to use the slide. In his work there are a number of examples but I am left with this excellent single from the '69 album I Got Dem Ol 'Kozmic Blues Again Mama! from his friend Janis Joplin, who he helped, along with Nick Gravenites, to form a band after leaving Big Brother & The Holding Company. It is a great example of his mastery with the slide, which he had been playing since the time of Dylan's Highway 61 and, once again, his telepathy with the singers is proved again, perfectly accompanying Janis' blues lament.