The Vagabond Musician

A Note From The Future (2008)

2008-03-08T18:29:00.000-08:00

I find it curious that Indian culture has found its way into the aspects of American culture that I encounter most frequently. I credit the Beatles and in particular George Harrison with this. Kirtan and Raga have made their way back to me via my study of tantra. In fact, on my recent trip to Boulder, CO I found the Maharishi's teachings to be alive and well. Again, it is curious that he passed recently. Blessings be upon his soul. Thank you, India.

More Of 1968 Music

2008-01-24T10:55:00.000-08:00

Even though seeing the Jimi Hendrix Experience live was the highlight of 1968 as far as I was concerned, there was quite a bit more that happened that year musically:

The Beatles traveled to India to visit the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi at Rishikesh and released The White Album.
The Rolling Stones released Beggars Banquet
Simon and Garfunkel released Bookends
Big Brother and the Holding Company (with Janis Joplin) released Cheap Thrills
Jefferson Airplane released Crown of Creation
The Jimi Hendrix Experience released Electric Ladyland
Donovan released The Hurdy Gurdy Man
The Moody Blues released In Search of the Lost Chord
Bob Dylan released John Wesley Harding
Aretha Franklin released Lady Soul
Traffic released Traffic
The Doors released Waiting For The Sun
The Mothers of Invention released We're Only In It For The Money
Cream released Wheels of Fire

...but I was a bit behind the times, living in Hawaii

Next Installment: What I was into in 1968

Jimi Hendrix For Real - 1968

2007-12-27T08:01:00.000-08:00

Every February Punahou its annual Carnival , and 1968 was no exception. In addition to all the rides and booths, there is always a White Elephant tent where donated items are sold to raise money for the scholarship fund. While looking through the 45's I found a promotional copy of Jimi Hendrix's Foxey Lady with The Wind Cries Mary on the flip side. Score! I took it home and played it fairly frequently.

The Vietnam War was heating up, and the Tet Offensive kicked off in January. The My Lai massacre happened in March. The Civil Rights Movement was gaining power and Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated. In Honolulu, students staged the Bachman Hall Sit-In when professor Oliver Lee was denied tenure for his anti-war views.

My buddy Brian and I showed up at the sit-in. We found a roach and went to nearby Andrews Amphitheater to smoke it. (Berkeley residents think, The Greek Theatre, only smaller.) When we returned, I found someone with a stereo playing LP's and I sat down and asked if I could browse her collection. By that time I was a fan of Jimi Hendrix but had never heard the whole Are You Experienced album, so when I ran across it, I asked if she would play the whole thing through and she obliged.

Listening to Are You Experienced stoned WAS an experience:

"Purple Haze" – 2:46 (on Youtube)
"Manic Depression" – 3:30 (on Youtube)
"Hey Joe" (Billy Roberts) – 3:23 (on Youtube)
"Love or Confusion" – 3:15 (on Youtube)
"May This Be Love" – 2:55 (on Youtube)
"I Don't Live Today" – 3:55 (on Youtube)
"The Wind Cries Mary" – 3:21 (on Youtube)
"Fire" – 2:34 (on Youtube)
"Third Stone from the Sun" – 6:40 (on Youtube)
"Foxey Lady" [sic] – 3:15 (on Youtube)

I was definitely a convert after hearing the album all the way through. Naturally, it was a dream come true when the Jimi Hendrix Experience showed up to play at the Honolulu International Center Arena on October 5th later that year. I was not disappointed.

Quite a bit happened in 1968 besides Jimi arriving in Honolulu, but that was the crowning event. So now for a little backtracking.

Next Installment: More Of 1968

Using The Blues Box

2007-12-14T08:10:00.000-08:00

The Blues Box is the reason why lead guitarists are a dime a dozen. It is a pattern on the guitar neck where any note you play fits the key you are in. In music theory terms it is a pentatonic (5-tone) scale. Here is how it works:

Assume you are playing in the ever-popular key of G major. The scale-related chords for that key are A minor, B minor, C major, D major, E minor and F# diminished. this means you can also get away with using the same chords to play in the relative minor key of E minor. (Although you may need to throw in a B major 7th on the turnaround to take it back home, especially with the Blues.)

Well it turns out that all the open strings fit and so do notes on the first five frets. (Which makes it easy to do without getting your hand stretched.) Here's the pattern:

So in no time at all, even a beginner can jam in the key of G major or E minor. They might even get curious about the rest of the guitar neck.

Have at it!

Next Installment: Jimi Hendrix For Real

Jimi Hendrix Live (sort of)

2007-11-30T09:11:00.000-08:00

It took a while to actually notice Jimi Hendrix. He didn't get frequent airplay. One experience that was very helpful was a performance given by Rudy Pacarro, Jr. at one of our high school (Punahou) assemblies. Rudy was the lead guitarist for a garage band called Sagittarius and the Vegetable Confusion. He played a Fender Stratocaster with the Andy Warhol banana decal from the Velvet Underground and Nico's album applied to the front.

Rudy played several of the cuts from Hendrix's Are You Experienced? album. I have to say that hearing Jimi's music live (even at the hand of a cover artist like Rudy) brought out the power of the music.

Even though all I owned at the time was an acoustic guitar, I realized I needed to learn how to play like Jimi. (No, duh. Me and every other guitarist!) The first step was learning the Blues Box. In its most basic form, it works very nicely over the key of E minor and its relative major, G major. This meant that with very little effort I could do a lead accompaniment to songs in both of these keys, and with a little adaptation, do the same for songs in the keys of A minor and C major. That actually covers quite a bit of material.

Next Installment: Using the Blues Box

All The Basic Guitar Chords

2007-11-21T11:50:00.000-08:00

One of the reasons guitar is such a popular instrument is that a person can sound decent after only a week of study. A 2 or 3 chord accompaniment to a folk tune has even a rank beginner sounding reasonably good. It is mainly a matter of strength, toughness and agility in the the fingers.

Follow this link to a diagram of common guitar chords. Print it out and then use a highlighter to mark the chords you know.

Rather than playing through all of them as a boring exercise, it is much easier to learn them as part of learning songs. House of the Rising Sun, maybe?

Am C D F Am C E E Am C D F Am E Am E

Discovering Dylan

2007-11-17T04:48:00.000-08:00

My interest in Bob Dylan arose naturally out of a combination of revolutionary romance and my interest in guitar. His music was fairly easy to cover if you were a rudimentary acoustic guitarist with a second-rate voice. 1967 was the year Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits came out, and my buddies and I worked out how to play about half of the tunes on it. *

The really cool thing about Dylan was that he was folky without being ornate. While there was a certain amount of skill involved in replicating the finger-picking patterns heard in music by The Byrds or Peter Paul and Mary, this wasn't necessary to cover Dylan tunes. Since the essence of Dylan was in his lyrics, all one needed to do was to sing the lyrics with conviction and minimal accompaniment and one could pull it off. It helped that the accompaniment itself consisted of basic chords.

Blowin' in the Wind

G C G Em
How many roads must a man walk down
G C G D
Before they call him a man?
G C G Em
How many seas must a white dove sail
G C D
Before she sleeps in the sand?

G C G Em
How many times must the cannon balls fly
G C D
Before they're forever banned?

C D G Em
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind
C D G
The answer is blowin' in the wind.

G C G Em
How many years must a mountain exist
G C G D
Before it is washed to the sea?
G C G Em
How many years can some people exist
G C D
Before they're allowed to be free?

G C G Em
How many times can a man turn his head
G C D
And pretend that he just doesn't see?

C D G Em
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind
C D G
The answer is blowin' in the wind.

G C G Em
How many times must a man look up
G C G D
Before he can see the sky?
G C G Em
How many ears must one man have
G C D
Before he can hear people cry?

G C G Em
How many deaths will it take till he knows
G C D
That too many people have died?

C D G Em
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind
C D Em
The answer is blowin' in the wind.
C D G Em
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind
C D C G (C G)
The answer is blowin' in the wind.....

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Next Installment: All The Basic Guitar Chords

1967 Revolutionary Romance Part I

2007-11-12T07:32:00.000-08:00

It was about this time that I became aware of "The Establishment" and knew that to be a part of it was a bad idea. Consequently, my taste in music tended to accompany this anti-establishment stance. Not all the music was particularly militant, but if it seemed to carry either a certain kind of feeling then it was "my" music. This taste was irrespective of genre. Some of the songs from this collection included:

It was also the year Jimi Hendrix put out Are You Experienced? The songs didn't get a whole lot of airplay at first, except for Purple Haze and The Wind Cries Mary. When I first heard his music, I recognized that Jimi was already way out in front of all the other musicians I admired.

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Next Installment: Discovering Dylan

1967 Continued - High School

2007-11-07T21:13:00.000-08:00

The year of the Summer of Love was the same year I took a paper route, and became a freshman in high school.

Having a paper route had a number of secondary implications. All of the paper boys smoked and had bicycles with banana seats. We explored the storm drains and could navigate more than a mile underground all the way from Manoa Stream to a manhole cover within half a block of my house. Having a paper route also meant I had more independence. Since it was the morning paper and I needed to wake up before dawn, I slept in a converted workshop space off of the garage so as not to awaken the rest of the family. It also meant I had a little money and could come and go as I pleased. It was also the year the shit hit the fan both societally and in my family life.

We got a new Chaplain at school, and he was a bit of a romantic revolutionary. Although he had been at the top of his class at divinity school, he idolized the courage and convictions of Daniel Berrigan protesting the Vietnam War. The Chaplain's Discussion Group turned from bible study to something that would sometimes resemble an encounter group and at other times resemble multimedia immersions. (These were slide shows and movies running simultaneously with music and commentary in the background.) It was the same year I went to Catechism class and got confirmed as an Episcopalian.

I had a scholarship job in the audiovisual center and as a consequence discovered and managed to watch a substantial amount of the films in the library.

There was a picnic table under a tree in the quad and taking a cue from Arlo Guthrie's song, Alice's Restaurant, my non-conformist friends and I affectionately dubbed it the Group W Bench. Between classes we could be found there, trading guitar licks and trying to get around to doing our homework.

All of this fueled what I could refer to as a romantic notion of the hippie counter-culture. At the tender young age of 14 I romanticized everything about it; marijuana and LSD, the revolutionary fervor, the clothing, the movies and the jargon. I hadn't the chance to experience it for myself at that point, but I was hungry for it, and so were my friends. On the home front, my stepfather was growing progressively more abusive and consequently I felt justified and even self-righteous about breaking rules.

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Next Installment: 1967 Revolutionary Romance Part I

The Summer of Love 1967

2007-10-30T15:03:00.000-07:00

The Human Be-In of January 14th started 1967 with a bang that grew into the Summer of Love. The emerging counter-culture could no longer be ignored. Music was blasted wide open.

Scott McKenzie's San Francisco came out in May, which set the stage for the Monterey Pop Festival in June. The Beatles also released Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, further placing LSD-driven psychedelic counter-cultural values on the world stage. Of the lineup at the Monterey Pop Festival, several bands had an immediate impact on my tastes: Johnny Rivers, The Animals, Simon and Garfunkel, Canned Heat, Big Brother & The Holding Company, Country Joe and The Fish, Al Kooper, The Butterfield Blues Band, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Steve Miller Band, The Electric Flag, The Byrds, Laura Nyro, Jefferson Airplane, Booker T and The MGs, Otis Redding, Ravi Shankar, Buffalo Springfield, Scott McKenzie, The Who, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, The Grateful Dead and The Mamas & The Papas.

All this was enough to want to play guitar. So I picked up my brother's acoustic steel string guitar and started to learn from friends. The first set of chord changes I learned was a version of the theme from The Endless Summer. (D Major to C Major in the 1st position, over and over again, in even thought the actual song is played with barre chords as C# Major to B Major).

Actual Tab:

e| -------9--9---9-----------7--7--7----|
B| -------9--9---9-----------7--7--7----|
G| ----10----10--10--------8----8--8----|
D| -11-------11--11------9------9--9----|
A| -------------------------------------|
E| -------------------------------------|

What I learned:

e| -2-2-2-------------|
B| -3-3-3----1-1-1----|
G| -2-2-2-------------|
D| ----------2-2-2----|
A| ----------3-3-3----|
E| -------------------|

A decent start for a beginner, since the first thing to deal with about a guitar is finger strength. The second thing to deal with is the fact that transcriptions are not always accurate, since in those days there wasn't an internet tab archive, and you might be learning live and then forget part of what you learned. Case in point: The second tune I learned the chord changes to was House of the Rising Sun. It was a good tune to learn since several of my favorite musicians played it, including Bob Dylan and The Animals and so after learning it the simple way, an aspiring student could add layers of complexity. Anyway, the following example from http://www.guitaretab.com/a/animals/538.html illustrates the difficulty with versions. With guitar, approximations exist all over the place, but accurate renditions are rare. So I started to listen for accuracy.

House of the Rising Sun -Animals
                          
        This is the picking pattern thru-out with chords.

    Am           C             D               F           E
 e|-----0-------------0-----------3--3------------1-1----------0--------
 b|---1-^-1---------1-^-1--------2---^-2---------1--^-1--------^--0-----
 g|--2----^-0------0----^-0-----3------^-0------2-----^-0-----1---^-0---
 d|-2-------^-----2-------^----0---------^-----3--------^----2------^---
 a|0-------------3------------------------------------------2-----------
 e|--------------------------------------------------------0------------

    Am               C               D           F            E
 e|------        e|--0---        e|--3---     e|--1---     e|--0---
 b|--1---        b|--1---        b|--2---     b|--1---     b|--0---
 g|--2---        g|--0---        g|--3---     g|--2---     g|--1---
 d|--2---        d|--2---        d|--0---     d|--3---     d|--2---
 a|--0---        a|--3---        a|------     a|------     a|--2---
 e|------        e|------        e|------     e|------     e|--0---


                   House of the rising sun - the Animals

                  Am C D F Am C E E

                 Am         C        D     F
                 There is a house in New Orleans,
                 Am            C      E    E
                 They call the Rising Sun
                 Am            C       D           F
             And It's been the ruin of many a poor boy
                 Am         E         Am    C D F Am E Am E
                 And God, I know, I'm one

                 Am        C     D     F
                 My mother was a tailor
                 She sewed my new blue jeans
                 My father was a gambling man
                 Down in New Orleans

                 And the only things a gambler needs
                 Is a suitcase and a trunk
                 And the only time he's satisfied
                 Is when he's all a-drunk

                 I've got one foot on the platform
                 The other foot on the train
                 I'm going back to New Orleans
                 To wear the ball and chain

                 So mothers, tell your children
                 Not to do what I have done
                 Spend your life in sin and misery
                 In the house of the Rising Sun

                 Repeat First Verse


___ Blue Wave/QWK v2.12


I think this is an improvement over the tab you have for the Animals'
version of House of the Rining Sun. This version has the descending bass
that really makes their arrangement.
I play the F# in the D/F# chord with my thumb; the chord could also be
fingered like this:

--2--ring finger
--3--pinkie
--2--middle finger
--0--
--0--
--2--forefinger

I generally use a full barre for the F, but that could also be done by
stopping the low E string with the thumb.



House of the Rising Sun
The version roughly follows the Animals version, but it's
been a while since I played it, and I may have muffed a few
notes. Anyway, this gives you the general idea.
It's my second try at writing and posting tab; if anyone can give
a helpful suggestion to make it better next time, I'd appreciate
the advice.

Am              C/G             D/F#           F

e--------0------|--------0-------|-------2-----|--------1-----|-
B------1---1----|------1---1-----|-----3---3---|------1---1---|-
G----2-------2--|----0-------0---|---2-------2-|----2-------2-|-
D---------------|----------------|-------------|--------------|-
A--0------------|----------------|-------------|--------------|-
E---------------|--3-------------|-2-----------|--1-----------|-



Am              E            Am             E7
                                                             |
e--------0------|-------0-----|-------0-----|-------0-----|-
B------1---1----|-----0---0---|-----1---1---|-----3---3---|-
G----2-------2--|---1-------1-|---2-------2-|---2-------2-|-
D---------------|-------------|-------------|-------------|--
A--0------------|-------------|-0-----------|-------------|--
E---------------|-0-----------|-------------|-0-----------|--

                                                    there



Am              C/G             D/F#           F

e--------0------|--------0-------|-------2-----|--------1-----|-
B------1---1----|------1---1-----|-----3---3---|------1---1---|-
G----2-------2--|----0-------0---|---2-------2-|----2-------2-|-
D---------------|----------------|-------------|--------------|-
A--0------------|----------------|-------------|--------------|-
E---------------|--3-------------|-2-----------|--1-----------|-

 is        a     house      in   New        Or leans     they



Am              G              E            E7
e--------0------|-------1------|-------0-----|-------0------|---------
B------1---1----|-----0---0----|-----0---0---|-----3---3----|--------------
G----2-------2--|---0-------0--|---1-------1-|---1-------1--|--------------
D---------------|--------------|-------------|--------------|------
A---------------|--------------|-------------|--------------|------
E--0------------|-3------------|-0-----------|-0------------|----------

call      the   ri        sin   sun                    it's


Am              C/G             D/F#           F

e--------0------|--------0-------|-------2-----|--------1-----|-
B------1---1----|------1---1-----|-----3---3---|------1---1---|-
G----2-------2--|----0-------0---|---2-------2-|----2-------2-|-
D---------------|----------------|-------------|--------------|-
A--0------------|----------------|-------------|--------------|-
E---------------|--3-------------|-2-----------|--1-----------|-

been     the    ruin       of   many    a poor   boy      and


Am             E7              Am              E7
e-------0------|--------0------|--------0------|--------0-------|-
B-----1---1----|------3---3----|------1---2----|------3---3-----|-
G---2-------2--|----1-------1--|----2-------1--|----1-------1---|-
D--------------|---------------|---------------|----------------|-
A-0------------|---------------|--0------------|----------------|-
E--------------|--0------------|---------------|--0-------------|-
me       poor   boy       am    one                     ...my..

....into next verse


"House of the Rising Sun" as covered by the Animals
transcribed by Thom A. G. II

Of the versions I have seen so far, none seem quite right to me.  After
reviewing the others I listened to it and here's what I got.

standard tuning, 6/8 time (six beats per measure)

intro: A E7 A C D F A E7 A E7 A - i think, but it is
somewhere in the middle of the regular progression:
A C D F | A C E E7 | A C D F | *A E7 A C D F A E7 A E7 | repeat thru out

RYTHM:/   /// / / | /   /// / / | ETC.
BEATS:1 2 3 4 5 6 | 1 2 3 4 5 6 | ECT.
                |             |
e||-------0-----|-------0-----|-------2-----|-------1-----|
B||------1--1---|------1--1---|------3--3---|------1--1---|
G||-----2-----2-|-----0-----0-|-----2-----2-|-----2-----2-|
D||-------------|-------------|-0-----------|-3-----------|
A||-0-----------|-3-----------|-------------|-------------|
E||-------------|-------------|-------------|-------------|


 e|-------0-----|-------0-----|-------0-----|-------0-----|
 B|------1--1---|------1--1---|------0--0---|------2--2---|
 G|-----2-----2-|-----0-----0-|-----1-----1-|-----1-----1-|
 D|-------------|-------------|-------------|-------------|
 A|-0-----------|-3-----------|-------------|-------------|
 E|-------------|-------------|-0-----------|-0-----------|


 e|-------0-----|-------0-----|-------2-----|-------1-----|
 B|------1--1---|------1--1---|------3--3---|------1--1---|
 G|-----2-----2-|-----0-----0-|-----2-----2-|-----2-----2-|
 D|-------------|-------------|-0-----------|-3-----------|
 A|-0-----------|-3-----------|-------------|-------------|
 E|-------------|-------------|-------------|-------------|


 e|-------0-----|-------0-----|-------0-----|
 B|------1--1---|------2--2---|------1--1---|
 G|-----2-----2-|-----1-----1-|-----2-----2-|
 D|-------------|-------------|-------------|
 A|-0-----------|-------------|-0-----------|
 E|-------------|-0-----------|-------------|


 e|-------0-----|-------2-----|-------1-----|
 B|------1--1---|------3--3---|------1--1---|
 G|-----0-----0-|-----2-----2-|-----2-----2-|
 D|-------------|-0-----------|-3-----------|
 A|-3-----------|-------------|-------------|
 E|-------------|-------------|-------------|



 e|-------0-----|-------0-----|-------0-----|-------0-----|
 B|------1--1---|------2--2---|------1--1---|------2--2---|
 G|-----2-----2-|-----1-----1-|-----2-----2-|-----1-----1-|o
 D|-------------|-------------|-------------|-------------|o
 A|-0-----------|-------------|-0-----------|-------------|
 E|-------------|-0-----------|-------------|-0-----------|


I heard mention of the bass notes for the guitar being instead of
mine as A down to G down to F down to E.  I deffinitely do not hear
that in the animals recorded cover of this song.  If there is something
I just dont know, and you do please make it known.

tgrubbs@pilot.infi.net

Also, this peice is a exellent one to sing Amazing Grace to. ":p

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Next Installment: 1967 Continued - High School

Everything is about to change - 1966

2007-10-29T08:06:00.000-07:00

Something was stirring in 1966. The British Invasion was going strong. I was still into the Young Rascals, but my tastes began to broaden.

The previous year, all I had known of the Rolling Stones was Satisfaction, but in '66 they came out with Aftermath: Mother's Little Helper, Stupid Girl, Lady Jane, Under My Thumb, Dontcha Bother Me, Going Home, Flight 505, High and Dry, Out Of Time, It's Not Easy, I Am Waiting, Take It Or Leave It, Think and What To Do.

The Beatles came out with Revolver: Taxman, Eleanor Rigby, Love You To, Here, There and Everywhere, Yellow Submarine, *She Said She Said, Good Day Sunshine, For No One, I Want to Tell You, Got to Get You into My Life, Tomorrow Never Knows. The UK release had some amazing cuts: And Your Bird Can Sing and Dr. Robert (banned no doubt because it was a veiled critique of Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara)

*Interesting note about She Said She Said: Peter Fonda was visiting the Beatles (who were on an LSD trip at the time) and talking about the time he shot himself and was clinically dead for several minutes. John remembered "I know what it's like to be dead" and "when I was a boy" and made them part of the song.

It was also the year that John Lennon wryly commented on the pervasiveness of pop culture saying, "We're more popular than Jesus now," which was promptly taken out of context by many fundamentalist groups in the United States as a slur against their Saviour. (Never mind that John was a Christian and was actually speaking about the irony that a pop group was known even in places where the Bible was banned). Later that year he apologized saying, "I didn't mean it as a lousy anti-religious thing."

Other memorable tunes that hinted at what was to come were, California Dreamin', Eight Miles High, Wild Thing, Walk Away Renee.

Although it hadn't hit the papers just yet, LSD was making its way through the academic community and around the music circuit.

At school, I was a lonely and somewhat troubled teenager and attended the Chaplain's after school discussion group. It started out as Bible study, and I befriended some of the Jewish kids and we started and Israeli folk dance club. I already had some ears for it since I recognized hava nagilah. I soon learned others such as Mayim, Mayim.

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Next Installment: The Summer of Love

Memorable Movies 1965

2007-10-24T22:01:00.000-07:00

What do A Hard Day's Night, Help!, Goldfinger, Thunderball, Mary Poppins, The Sound of Music and Dr. Zhivago have in common? They are all movies I saw in Hawaii in 1965. Yeah, yeah, I know they aren't live performances (technically) and I know some of them came out in 1964, but Hawaii is a little slower. But the fact is, all of them impacted my musical world.

Naturally, I liked the music from both of the Beatles' movies enough to get the albums. Curiously enough, this interest resulted in purchases of both previous and future albums. The collection was by no means complete, but did contain several important albums:

Download mp3s of Beatles songs from Amazon.com

Meet The Beatles

I Want To Hold Your Hand, I Saw Her Standing There, This Boy, It Won't Be Long, All I've Got To Do, All My Loving, Don't Bother Me, Little Child, Till There Was You, Hold Me Tight, I Wanna Be Your Man, Not A Second Time

The Beatles' Second Album

Roll Over Beethoven, Thank You Girl, You Really Got A Hold On Me, Devil In Her Heart, Money, You Can't Do That, Long Tall Sally, I Call Your Name, Please Mr. Postman, I'll Get You, She Loves You

A Hard Day's Night Original Soundtrack

A Hard Day's Night, Tell Me Why, I'll Cry Instead, I Should Have Known Better (Instrumental),
I'm Happy Just To Dance With You, And I Love Her (Instrumental), I Should Have Known Better, If I Fell, And I Love Her, Ringo's Theme (This Boy) (Instrumental), Can't Buy Me Love,
A Hard Day's Night (Instrumental)

Something New

I'll Cry Instead, Things We Said Today, Any Time At All, When I Get Home, Slow Down, Matchbox, Tell Me Why, And I Love Her, I'm Happy Just To Dance With You, If I Fell, Komm, Gib Mir Deine Hand

Beatles '65

No Reply, I'm A Loser, Baby's In Black, Rock And Roll Music, I'll Follow The Sun, Mr. Moonlight, Honey Don't,
I'll Be Back, She's A Woman, I Feel Fine, Everybody's Trying To Be My Baby

Beatles VI

Kansas City/Hey Hey Hey Hey, Eight Days A Week, You Like Me Too Much, Bad Boy, I Don't Want To Spoil The Party, Words Of Love, What You're Doing, Yes It Is, Dizzy Miss Lizzy, Tell Me What You See, Every Little Thing

Help! Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

Untitled Instrumental, Help!, The Night Before, From Me To You Fantasy (Instrumental), You've Got To Hide Your Love Away, I Need You, In The Tyrol (Instrumental), Another Girl, Another Hard Day's Night, (Instrumental), Ticket To Ride, The Bitter End/You Can't Do That (Instumental), You're Going To Lose That Girl, The Chase (Instrumental)

Rubber Soul

I've Just Seen A Face, Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown), You Won't See Me, Think For Yourself, The Word, Michelle, It's Only Love, Girl, I'm Looking Through You, In My Life, Wait, Run For Your Life

(Interestingly enough, given that Hawaii is an international port of call, it was possible to obtain UK releases, if you knew who to ask).

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Next Installment: 1966: Everything is about to change

Memorable Performances 1965

2007-10-23T07:26:00.000-07:00

I suppose the first of the really memorable performances I saw was when I saw Herman's Hermits and The Animals.

Herman's Hermits opened and I got the sense they were there for the girls. They played a relatively tame set of sweet tunes including:

The last one was significant because it was a Yardbirds cover. (More on them in another installment).

The Animals played their standards which included:

The difference was striking. Whereas Herman's Hermits was sweet and popish, The Animals were definitely the bad boys. That music had bones. (Of course as a 7th grader I had no clue at the tender young age of 12 that half their material was covers of American black blues masters of the 50's. I just knew there was something about it that I liked.)

Meanwhile, back at school, we had regular canteens featuring mainly top 40's cover bands. I had not yet picked up a guitar. We had a piano at home, and when a music teacher gave us an assignment to write a tune, I made one up from scratch only to find out that it "sounded like Moon River" much to my embarrassment. "Never Again!" I told myself, and began to wonder how to make sure the stuff I wrote was truly original.

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Next Installment: Memorable Movies 1965

Culture Shock

2007-10-22T16:50:00.000-07:00

That cool new group on the Ed Sullivan Show was none other than the Beatles. Little did I know it at the time, but it was the first wave of the British Invasion...and that convention that I rode out to with my Dad? The upshot was that we were all moving to Hawaii. Dad was a Geophysicist, which had taken him to Antarctica and the data collection point for the IGY had been the University of Wisconsin. Now the focus had shifted to mapping the ocean bottom, and the new headquarters was the University of Hawaii. To top it all off, Mom had remarried.

We arrived in Hawaii; new family, new school (Punahou), new music and new culture (where white folks were a minority). The only other place I had been punched just for being a white guy had been Chicago, IL. Beneath the veneer of tourist-oriented artificial Aloha there exists a sort of abiding antipathy between the various ethnic groups. Some get along better than others, but one thing is certain: until you master the fine points of Hawaiian Pidgin, you are definitely regarded as an outsider, no matter what your ethnicity. No single ethnic group is a majority, although considered together Japanese Americans and transplanted U.S. Mainlanders (Haoles) far outnumber everyone else.

I mention the ethnic demographics of Hawaii because they dictate what music is played over the airwaves. Two types of music predominate: Top 40's and Hawaiian Music. Consequently, trying to find music that appealed to my tastes consisted of radio roulette, where about 90% of the airplay consisted of songs that didn't appeal, but you loved it when they played the other 10%. I didn't know it at the time, but my preferences were all based around the blues, whether it was British guys covering American blues cats from the 40's and 50's, or rock or rhythm & blues.

In high school I picked up a guitar and my buddies and I shared musical tidbits we had learned from Bob Dylan's Hey, Mr. Tambourine Man (Bob Dylan live on YouTube) (The Byrds & Dylan live on YouTube) to incorrect versions of Eric Clapton's Sunshine of Your Love. (Live performance on YouTube) (Correct way to play on YouTube).

But that was all at a distance. What really made the difference for me was the live performances.

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Next Installment: Memorable Performances

Childhood Musical Influences

2007-10-21T06:40:00.000-07:00

I feel fortunate that my parents had good musical taste, hence I was exposed to a variety of musical styles as I was growing up.

Mom sang me Brahm's Lullaby when I was a baby
Dad had a hi-fi and made sure to tell me about Hank Williams, Andres Segovia and that Greensleeves actually had secret bawdy lyrics
I remember discovering Igor Stravinsky's Le Sacre du Printemps (The Rite of Spring) when I was 6 and whirling in response to the music
We got a black and white television and I was lucky enough to catch some of Leonard Bernstein's Omnibus music series in among the cartoons, ad jingles and movie theme songs
Somewhat later Mom picked up a recording of Duke Ellington's Concert of Sacred Music, Harry Belafonte at Carnegie Hall and Alan Sherman's My Son the Folksinger (Which parodied many of the cuts on the Harry Belafonte album)
I distinctly recall particular tunes coming out of jukeboxes. These included Maria, I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry, Alley Oop, Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini and the Theme from A Summer Place.
I learned the usual spate of children's tunes in school but for some reason the only one that really stuck were O Tannenbaum and Edvard Grieg's Spring.

These recollections were from experiences in Wisconsin, where I was born. I was not yet a vagabond. When I was 10 I sat shotgun in my Dad's VW when he attended a convention in California. As we rolled past hundreds of miles of cornfields I buried my nose in science fiction by Edgar Rice Burroughs, oblivious to the tunes on the radio. Shortly after my return, our downstairs neighbors told us about a cool new group on the Ed Sullivan show.

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Next Installment: Culture Shock

Quality vs Taste in Music

2007-10-20T06:09:00.000-07:00

Aging Boomers will remember the Whole Earth Catalog from the 1970's. In The Last Whole Earth Catalog there was a great article by Danny Sugerman , ex-manager of the Doors (if I recall correctly) about the pitfalls of managing rock bands. He advised prospective band managers to consider that bands became popular because they made decent music that was in time and in tune and NOT because it fit the tastes of a prospective manager. He warned against judging music on the basis of what amounted to differences in values rather musical merit.

I took that to heart and began to discover the difference between good music and music that expressed values I believed in. Often they showed up together, but not always.

Case in point: Bob Dylan
Here was an amazing lyricist and songwriter who was forgiven for the sound of his voice because he expressed values certain people held dear. This becomes all the more interesting because he was booed offstage at the Newport Folk Festival when he "went electric" and was seen as a traitor to his original fan base, who had felt him to be a folk singer / poet in the traditions of Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger.

I listened to the radio quite a bit in those days. In retrospect I find that quite a few of my musical preferences were governed by whether or not I could "own" a particular song through the ability to sing it (Beach Boys tunes), play it (Gloria by Them), dance to it (Young Rascals tunes) or identify with the attitude (The Rolling Stones) or the perspective (The Beatles).

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Next Installment: Childhood Musical Influences

The Vagabond Musician's Debut

2007-10-19T20:09:00.000-07:00

I used to teach music appreciation. I thought I'd start a blog to teach the world what I have learned from music history to songwriting.

My serious study of music began when I began to wonder why I grew tired of some music while other music seemed to improve the more I listened to it. What were the essential qualities that made certain music timeless? This was the question that drove my explorations. I will do my best to let you know what I turned up.

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Next Installment: Quality vs Taste in Music