ADVANCED BLUES: 101: GOIN' DOWN TO THE DELTA

"BLUE" JIMMY:  LOWDOWN BLUESMAN

BLIND DOG OZZY:  NEUROTIC CHIHUAHUA
"Ain't but one school for The Blues and that's down in the (Mississippi) Delta" - Blind Dog Fulton ( From the 1986 film, "Crossroads").

"BLUE" JIMMY:  I bin posting a lot of critical reviews and commentary on the Internet about bands, guitar, music and musicians in general.  People have angrily written to me and asked, "Do you even play?"  Oh yeah I play and I do it well, thank you.  This lesson is about improvising The Blues in such a manner that you don't look foolish in front of people.

BLIND DOG OZZY:  You done that many times!

"BLUE" JIMMY:  The other day, I heard a band called Five Finger Death Punch on the radio doing a cover of the song, "Bad Company" by Classic Rock Legends, BAD COMPANY.  Nice try, but I considered this sacrilege.  This is a song I would like played at my funeral because it says it all  about the life of a musician in a hard rockin', bluesy manner.  But this version was cold and stiff and sounded like typical 90's - influenced , Alternative Rock.  The lowdown is, young musicians today didn't grow up listening to The Blues like 60's and 70's bands such as: BAD CO. ;  ZEPPELIN; DEEP PURPLE; HUMBLE PIE; FOGHAT; GRAND FUNK RAILROAD; ZZ TOP and AEROSMITH.  Before going onstage in huge arenas with Marshall Stacks and blinding light shows all these bands at one time, sat down in their bedrooms and picked acoustic guitars trying to copy their Blues idols. 

BLIND DOG OZZY:  Today's musicians think The Blues is a color you tint your hair!

"BLUE" JIMMY:  The Blues is a simple, some say even primitive, form of music that originated in the Southern United States in the early part of the 20th century.  Early practitioners of this music such as  Leadbelly, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Blind Blake,  Blind Willie Johnson, Big Bill Broonzy and others made a name for themselves playing the Gospel, Ragtime and Jazz music popular at the time and adapting it to Blues guitar which was a lot more difficult than it sounds.  Some pieces, such as those by Blind Blake, have never been duplicated ... by anyone!


BLIND DOG OZZY:  F**k that!  Don't even try!


"BLUE" JIMMY:  Then the Great Depression hit in the late 1920's and everyone had to go from listening to swingin', uptown, big city Blues to hearing primal, plantation field hollers played by dirt poor sharecroppers who often played on cheap and sometimes even homemade instruments.  Experts of this style included Charlie Patton, Son House, Muddy Waters and the mythical Robert Johnson who some say couldn't play s**t, then disappeared for a few years and when he reappeared, was playing a unique form of Blues so advanced that when he recorded, people thought there were two guitar players on the record! His myth seems to parallel great spiritual leaders of  history such as Buddha and Jesus Christ who left mainstream life and then returned later with great wisdom.  Mississippi Delta legend has it that Robert Johnson went down to a country crossroads where he met The Devil and made a pact where he had to sell his soul in return for incredible talent and success.  Again, this idea of selling your soul to The Devil in return for musical virtuosity, goes back to at least the time of the great Italian violinist, Niccolo Paganini (1782 - 1840)  who, rumored to have sold his soul to The Devil, was denied a proper burial by the Catholic Church.

BLIND DOG OZZY:  Others say Robert Johnson most likely went away for a few years, loaded up on bootleg whiskey and practiced his ass off!

"BLUE" JIMMY:  Whatever happened, it is the spirit of Robert Johnson, Charlie, Son and Muddy that I try to capture in this video.  Keep in mind that I grew up listening to Classic Hard Rock and Heavy Metal as well as The Blues and in the middle of this example, you'll hear me step on the Tube Screamer and the Crybaby simultaneously and do things to a Telecaster that you best not allow your young children to see!

BLIND DOG OZZY:  At least PG-13 for sure!

"BLUE" JIMMY:  I start off in the key of E in the first position, using an intro and various Blues turnarounds that are typical of the Delta Blues, leanin' heavy on the open strings.

BLIND DOG OZZY:  The guitar seems to play itself like this ...

GUITAR PLAYING ITSELF

"BLUE" JIMMY:  Then I do some heavy choking with my thumb over the top of the neck that allows me to sound some low E- string rumbles that sound like Delta thunder!  If you ever took a Classical Guitar class, they will tell you that this is absolutely wrong, forbidden, lazy guitar technique and you will have to stay after school and "correct" this ...

CHOKIN' THE NECK

BLIND DOG OZZY:  ... But it feels so good!

"BLUE" JIMMY:  The Blues is all about breakin' the rules and you will see Bluesmen using unorthodox technique, bad fingering, slurs, string noise and especially, string "bending" which is considered "cheating" in Classical Guitar ...

BLIND DOG OZZY:  ... Because those guys are fags!

"BLUE" JIMMY:  But every once in a while, a Bluesman will surprise you and throw in some big -city, fancy-ass, Jazz runs or chords in the style of T Bone Walker, Gatemouth Brown or Pee Wee Crayton and you will know that they did their homework at one time or another!

BIG-CITY, FANCY-ASS, JAZZ CHORD

BLIND DOG OZZY:  From about the 1920's to about the 1980's Bluesmen did what I remember doing when I was a kid and played phonograph records over and over to learn how to play, lifting the phonograph needle back and forth to learn how to play a certain part.  This was an inexact, torturous, frustrating process and resulted in only limited results.


BLIND DOG OZZY:  You old f**k!

"BLUE" JIMMY:  I'm not even that old and I remember when I started learning to play the guitar, there was no CDs that you could just pop in and out and pause and fast forward and rewind, no videos, no computers, no Internet, no YouTube, no programs, no apps, no talking phones or Skype or devices that tune up the guitar for you, there was only this ...

BLIND DOG OZZY:  What the Hell is that ... a licorice pizza?

"BLUE" JIMMY:  But those records got me where I needed to go and to tell you the truth, I even miss the hiss and the crackles and the pops and the skips because I know I'm in the last generation of Bluesmen to learn how to play the way Robert done it ... slow an' easy an' right!

BLIND DOG OZZY:  As Hound Dog Taylor once said he wanted put on his gravestone, "He couldn't play s**t but he sure made it sound good!"

"BLUE" JIMMY:  Sake's Alive! 

BLIND DOG OZZY:  Wow!  Wow!  
bluejames61@hotmail.com

HEAVIER THAN GOD: THE ALMIGHTY BLACK SABBATH

"BLUE" JIMMY:  SLEAZY ROCK JOURNALIST

BLIND DOG OZZY:  NEUROTIC CHIHUAHUA 

"BLUE" JIMMY:  We just saw the final California performance of the legendary BLACK SABBATH last Sept. 24, at the 2016 OZZFEST at the San Manuel Aphitheater in San Bernardino, CA.  Tomorrow night is their final performance ever at the Genting Arena in (appropriately) their home town of Birmingham, England. They say it's THE END for them.  In fact, the name of this final tour is called THE END tour.  Because of issues with Tony Iommi's health after a struggle with lymphoma, they say this is it!

BLIND DOG OZZY:  No way!!!

"BLUE" JIMMY:  Seeing them up there onstage for the final time and seeing a video of them on the big screen from the 70's when they were young and evil and high and dangerous, I got tears in my eyes.  It suddenly hit me that this band had composed the soundtrack for a huge chunk of my life.

BLIND DOG OZZY:  And attendant hearing damage!!!

"BLUE" JIMMY:  I discovered the band known as BLACK SABBATH one Summer vacation in the early 70's when my big brother David told me not to touch his new "Stereo" radio/record player or his "Stereo" albums.  "Stereo" was an important designation back then.  Before "Stereo," everything was known as "Hi-Fi." To this day, I don't know what the f**k either of those things mean but I knew that "Stereo" was like, better than "Hi-Fi."
BLIND DOG OZZY:  ???

"BLUE" JIMMY:  When my big brother told me not to touch his player or his albums, I took that to mean to not touch them when he could catch me touching them.  It somehow didn't register that I wasn't actually supposed to touch them at all.  So there were the first three BLACK SABBATH albums that my brother had borrowed from a friend:  "Black Sabbath" "Paranoid" and "Master Of Reality."  I had already heard some great, classic hard rock albums by bands like CREAM, IRON BUTTERFLY, JIMI HENDRIX, GRAND FUNK RAILROAD and DEEP PURPLE but these were different ... these were f**king scary!!!  I picked them up and they smelled like patchouli incense and strawberry oil and they all had those little cut marks all over the back of them that suggested they had been used to chop up buds of weed and roll joints during many a stoned and decadent listening session.  

BLIND DOG OZZY:  Nice!

"BLUE" JIMMY:  When I put them on the turntable, my ears were stunned to hear impossibly heavy, loud, Apocalyptic Rock music that rattled and vibrated my insides in a way that most people will describe in a manner similar with their first encounter with pornography.  It was so wrong ... but why do I like it so much?

BLIND DOG OZZY:  Carpe Diem!!!

"BLUE" JIMMY:  I was addicted and BLACK SABBATH became my personal cult with their musical and lyrical themes which were part Book Of Revelation, part Dante's Inferno and part Process Church in an era of Cold War doom played by a bunch of stoner hippie f**ks who looked like they had recently been kicked out of the Manson Family!

BLIND DOG OZZY:  Basically, good lads! ...

"BLUE" JIMMY:  BLACK SABBATH IS:  Tony Iommi; Blues and Jazz-influenced left-handed guitarist who plays with plastic tips on his right middle and ring fingers due to the tips being chopped off in an industrial accident.  Some say this handicap contributed to the development of his ultra-heavy sound.  But it was really his use of downtuning, his frenzied, high register runs and his evil-sounding, atonal riffs that made his music sound like you were at Alestair Crowley's funeral on a dark, rainy night. Whatever the case, most people agree that Iommi invented Heavy Metal guitar.  Terence "Geezer" Butler; bassist and in the early SABBATH days, was their main lyricist, relying on the occult, science fiction and horror for the words to much of their songs.  He is also supposedly, one of the first electric bassists to use a wah pedal.  If you've ever been to a SABBATH show, it was his bass lines that you felt vibrating your balls all the way up in the cheap seats.  Bill Ward; Gene Krupa and Buddy Rich influenced drummer who has been in and out of the original lineup in a truly Spinal Tapish manner due to health, weight and substance abuse problems.  But in his heyday, he was one of Metal's great drummers who could bang out a drum solo with the best (e.g. "Rat Salad").  He was reportedly set on fire twice by band members as a prank which resulted in serious burns and was once covered in gold paint by them which caused his body to nearly "suffocate" and he had to recover in the hospital ...

BLIND DOG OZZY:  ... It's always the fat kid that gets picked on!

"BLUE" JIMMY:  Then we come to one John Michael "OZZY" Osbourne;  singer, songwriter, actor, raconteur and multi-media personality ...

BLIND DOG OZZY:  ... What kind of stupid, f**ked up name is OZZY?

"BLUE" JIMMY:  OZZY,  as an entity, is as recognizable as Coca Cola, Apple, Mc Donald's and Nike in popular culture.  Simply type "OZZY" into any search engine and you will get only one result, his.  Despite this renown, it is sometimes easy to forget he is the lead singer in the heaviest Metal band of all time!  Never one to rely on distorted screaming or studio effects, his clear, air raid siren of a voice will haunt my consciousness forever ...

BLIND DOG OZZY:  "Oh no, no, please God help me! "... ("Black Sabbath").

"BLUE" JIMMY:  So there it is.  They say this is THE END and I have to take them at their word.  But what an incredible, heavy ride it has been.  BLACK SABBATH as a band, has outlasted Psychedelic Rock, Disco, Punk, New Wave, Alternative, the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal, Glam Metal, Thrash Metal, Death Metal, Black Metal and everything in between.  Through it all, they have never "gone commercial" or changed their crushingly heavy sound.  And in a music world full of bands with "Black" in their name, none were blacker than BLACK SABBATH.  To quote the immortal Nigel Tufnel of SPINAL TAP, "It's like, how much more black can this be?  And the answer is none.  None more black."

BLIND DOG OZZY:  THE END!

"BLUE" JIMMY:  Sake's Alive!

BLIND DOG OZZY:  Wow!  Wow!
bluejames61@hotmail.com

I'M CHUCK BERRY, F**K YOU VERY MUCH!!!

"BLUE" JIMMY:  ROCK JOURNALIST

BLIND DOG OZZY:  NEUROTIC CHIHUAHUA

"BLUE" JIMMY:  Before there was Keith Richards, Hendrix, Jimmy Page, Joe Perry or Slash...

BLIND DOG OZZY:  ... There was Chuck F**king Berry!!! 

"BLUE" JIMMY:  Chuck Berry invented Rock 'N' Roll guitar attitude and every axeman who has ever strapped on a six-string and put on a show has stolen something from  Mr. Berry.  The argument about who invented Rock 'N' Roll will rage on forever but no one can deny that Chuck Berry was the first Rock Guitar Hero in an era that was rife with pretty boy singers and Gospel-influenced piano players.  Borrowing from Charley Patton, T-Bone Walker and others who liked to put on a show, Chuck Berry was the brown-eyed, handsome man with a process and a slick suit who made middle-class white girls touch themselves under the covers.  He didn't go up onstage like Elvis or Ricky Nelson with the guitar acting as a silly prop, he actually played the motherf**ker ...

BLIND DOG OZZY:  And did it well, thank you!!!  His guitar riffs, intros, outros, turnarounds, slurs and bends are part of every Rock guitar player's bag of tricks, whether they know it or not!

"BLUE" JIMMY:  He did time in prison more than once for various offenses and nasty habits and spent much of his life as a bitter, mean old f**k who felt the music business screwed him over.  He once punched Keith Richards in the face without getting stabbed in return, was known to play shows with bands put together at the last minute, play sloppy and out of tune, hit on everyone's old lady and leave without even meeting the band.  He was the consummate Rock 'N' Roll asshole, was Punk before before people wore mohawks, and was heavy before there was Metal and oh, did I forget to mention ...  

BLIND DOG OZZY:  He ain't dead yet!!!

"BLUE" JIMMY:  He turns 90 years old today and he's still playing that big, Gibson guitar in your face ... too bad for you!!!

BLIND DOG OZZY:  Hail, Hail, Rock 'N' Roll and HAPPY BIRTHDAY CHUCK BERRY!!!

"BLUE" JIMMY:  Sake's Alive!

BLIND DOG OZZY:  Wow!  Wow!

bluejames61@hotmail.com

ADVANCED BLUES 101: PUTTIN' THE "UNK" IN FUNK! NASTY RIFFS YOUR MAMA DON'T ALLOW IN THE HOUSE!

"BLUE" JIMMY:  GUY WHAT PLAYS FUNKY

BLIND DOG OZZY:  NEUROTIC CHIHUAHUA

"BLUE" JIMMY:  These riffs took me a lifetime to learn properly and the only reason I'm sharing them with you is 'cause I don't hear them much anymore in today's music! 

BLIND DOG OZZY:  And when you do hear them they've been sampled (stolen) by some DJ trying to make people think they came up with that s**t on their own!

JIMMY NOLEN

"BLUE" JIMMY:  Long before CREAM, HENDRIX, ZEPPELIN, AEROSMITH AND ZZ TOP started playing funky blues riffs, there was JAMES BROWN.  JB is a legend in his own right but he also had a guitar man in his band named Jimmy Nolen who practically invented the Funk riff in the mid-60's as part of Brown's band.  I ain't no music theory expert but people have told me this "chicken scratchin'" sound was created by using partial 9th and 7th chords and doing inhuman play and mute sequences against the fretboard which nobody can teach you ... you just have to Feel The Funk!  Other funky, soulful cats what played this kind of guitar included, Cornell Dupree, Curtis Mayfield and Steve Cropper.  Also, when not using crushing distortion, fuzztone and wah pedal, Jimi Hendrix was a total master of this style and you can hear it all through his legendary recordings.  In the 70's,  there was a slew of bands that used this technique to great effect:  TOWER OF POWER; EARTH WIND AND FIRE; THE COMMODORES; THE AVERAGE WHITE BAND; THE OHIO PLAYERS; KOOL & THE GANG; THE ISLEY BROTHERS; PARLIAMENT/ FUNKADELIC and a whole lot of booty shakin' others!

BLIND DOG OZZY:  Get The Funk Out Ma Face!!! ( BROTHERS JOHNSON).

"BLUE" JIMMY:  Modern Bluesmen have incorporated this technique with great success into their music and you can hear it in the recordings of guys like Robert Cray, Bernard Allison and the great Stevie Ray Vaughan.   I started using this technique when I started messing around with chord chart books (there was no Internet or online lessons back then) and found that you could make things sound all sorts of funky by throwing in these chord shapes instead of using simple barre chords.

BLIND DOG OZZY:  Don't try to get all technical ... you only know three chords!!!

"BLUE" JIMMY:  Three chords will get you there and back!  Here's one funky chord:

  

Here's a 'nother chord:

Here's an octave run where you play the same note an octave apart on adjacent strings (used a lot in Funk music):

BLIND DOG OZZY:  Oh, S**T!!! Trying to get all Wes Montgomery on us!!!

"BLUE" JIMMY:  Since video examples never play right for me on Blogger, I will put a link here to my facebook page where you can see me go head-on and play two funky riffs first in normal song mode and then in hyperspeed, James Brown nuclear breakdown mode.   https://www.facebook.com/jim.cota.92/videos/1762651204003171/The first example is played in the key of C but could easily be played up and down the neck in any key.  The second example is played in the key of E and is best played in that key to take advantage of the whole neck and some open strings.

BLIND DOG OZZY:  Dude!  Don't pretend you know that theory s**t!

"BLUE" JIMMY:  The guitar is an '89 Fender American Standard Strat with the pickup switch set to neck/middle position although at a certain point you hear me bump the switch to middle position and the Strat starts quacking like a duck.  The amp is a 100 watt Marshall MG Series combo amp on full gain but with the volume just barely cranked so you hear all kinds of pick and string noise and was recorded on my Dell tablet so I don't want to hear all kinds of audiophile a**hole comments about EQ.  The idea was to demonstrate the technique and I think I did that ... in yo' face!

BLIND DOG OZZY:  Dude!  Why don't you clean that Strat?

"BLUE" JIMMY:  If I got time, I can either clean it or play it ... I choose to play it!

BLIND DOG OZZY:  If you got a studio we can record in, contact us and let's get it on!

"BLUE" JIMMY:  Sake's Alive!

BLIND DOG OZZY:  Wow!  Wow!

bluejames61@hotmail.com

THE '83 US FESTIVAL: THE LOUDEST DAY IN HISTORY

"BLUE" JIMMY:  '83 US FESTIVAL ATTENDEE:

BLIND DOG OZZY:  NEUROTIC CHIHUAHUA

"BLUE"  JIMMY:  The 33rd Anniversary of the '83 US FESTIVAL is this Memorial Day Weekend.  I was there and all I got was a lousy T-shirt!  Come to think of it, I didn't even get a T-shirt!  

BLIND DOG OZZY:  I got a case of the s**ts!

"BLUE" JIMMY:  But unlike some folks, I got clear memories of that day and I can share them with you here.  Of course, when I say '83 US FESTIVAL, I'm talking about Sunday, May 29, 1983 (Also known as HEAVY METAL DAY).  My first memory is that it was hot.  Like, Africa hot.  You wanna know how hot it was?  In the 2003 DVD release of Triumph's performance at the festival, you can see me in the crowd scene when the front gates open and I'm running towards the stage trying to get a good spot wearing mirror shades, no shirt and daisy dukes!

BLIND DOG OZZY:  What a fag!!!

"BLUE" JIMMY:  That's how hot it was.  First up on the bill was QUIET RIOT.  I remember early ads had Joe Walsh opening the show but someone must have decided he wasn't METAL enough so they switched him to rock day and added QUIET RIOT at the last minute.  QUIET RIOT sent their prize guitarist Randy Rhodes to play with OZZY a few years earlier, played the Sunset Strip under the name DU BROW for awhile, and then snagged former SNOW guitarist Carlos Cavazo to reform QUIET RIOT.

BLIND DOG OZZY:  And he don't Google that info ... he knows that s**t from memory!

"BLUE" JIMMY:  Yes, they rocked!  And ironically, after barely making it to opening band status, they were the first Heavy Metal band in history to have a #1 album and a #1 single on the charts simultaneously, with "Metal Health."

BLIND DOG OZZY:  "Bang Your Head ... "

"BLUE" JIMMY:  Next up was MOTLEY CRUE!  Sorry, but my keyboard doesn't allow me to use umlauts to spell their name properly.

BLIND DOG OZZY:  Now everybody is looking up the word "umlaut" ...

"BLUE" JIMMY:  I had seen MOTLEY CRUE on the Sunset Strip many times in their early days and I thought they were great but I doubted a band with that look, attitude and sound could really make it past The Whiskey in an era of post "Saturday Night Fever" and new wave teen idols.  But when I saw their shameless, Satanic, S&M imagery and heard songs like "Shout At The Devil" and "Looks That Kill" from their yet-to-be-released second album, I thought, "Oh, f**k! ... This band is going to be huge!"  I was right.

BLIND DOG OZZY:  OZZY!  OZZY! OZZY!

"BLUE" JIMMY:  I love the sun, but it was around this time that I noticed there was no shade ANYWHERE in this godforsaken cow pasture in San Bernardino.  Unlike Woodstock, where there was plenty of mud for filthy hippies to frolic in, here there was dirt and a feeble attempt by the promoters to plant grass which by concert day, had turned into pathetic piles of scarecrow stuffing which people were trying to sit on to avoid the hot dirt.  I didn't have money to go sit it the nice, cool, beer garden so seriously, the only place you could escape the sun was behind the port-o-johns where there was a few feet of shade behind each sh*tter!  

BLIND DOG OZZY:  Nothing like 100 + degree heat and a tank full of fragrant raw sewage to make your day!

"BLUE" JIMMY:  I knew OZZY was about to come on but without Randy Rhodes who had recently died in a plane crash, I thought I would sit this gig out and stay in the shade.  How good could they be without Randy and who was this Jake E something who was trying to take his place?  Yeah well after two songs, I had fought my way to the front, mesmerized by Jake E Lee and his attempts to rip the frets off a modified Strat like no one I had ever seen.  At one point, I was crushed against the retaining wall and had to press my feet against it and push the headbangers back like a dude using the hack squat machine in the gym.  The only thing that made it worth it was getting blasted in the face by OZZY with a water cannon! 

BLIND DOG OZZY:  OZZY!  OZZY!  OZZY!

"BLUE" JIMMY:  After surviving that, I had to endure a set by JUDAS PRIEST!  Yes, there is that legendary entrance onstage by Rob Halford on a Harley Davidson but also an incredible set list that was heavy on songs from recent albums like "British Steel" and "Screaming For Vengeance."  All done in scorching heat dressed in black leather.  I don't usually have "exotic" tastes but to this day, I have fantasies of Rob Halford jumping off stage and stepping on my balls with those big, black boots!  

BLIND DOG OZZY:  Ok, that's just ... weird.

"BLUE" JIMMY:  By this time, the favorite pastime of all the dudes in the festival was to squirt fine chicks with spray bottles and "cool them off."  Of course, when their tube tops and little running shorts were drenched with water you could see ...

BLIND DOG OZZY:  Everything! 

"BLUE" JIMMY:  When the sun was just starting to set on this loud and magical day, we got TRIUMPH!  Some say that TRIUMPH was not as crushingly heavy as the other bands on the bill but I remember that hearing inspiring songs like "Fight The Good Fight" and "Magic Power" right at sunset made me get chills and tears in my eyes.  

BLIND DOG OZZY:  Me too but I think it was the "ceremonial herbs" that were being smoked!

"BLUE" JIMMY:  What can you say about SCORPIONS?  Drawing on albums like "Lovedrive," "Animal Magnetism" and "Blackout," they destroyed the crowd with an energetic and acrobatic stage show, sexy Euro charm and an in-your-face sound which had many saying they stole the show.    

BLIND DOG OZZY:  "Blackout ... I really had a Blackout ..."

"BLUE" JIMMY:  That leads us to the mighty VAN HALEN!  Never in my life have I heard such passionate, divergent opinions about what happened on a concert stage.  Some say they were drunk, sloppy, disrespected their audience and disgraced themselves.  Others say they were drunk, sloppy, disrespected their audience, disgraced themselves and put on the best Rock 'N' Roll Show they've ever seen and heard ... I tend to subscribe to the latter opinion.

BLIND DOG OZZY:  "F**k the concert, let's go across the street and get a drink!" -  D L  Roth.

"BLUE" JIMMY:  There you have it.  Close to 400,00 people, (a single-day record at that time), oppressive, nudity-inciting heat, 100 arrests, 35 drug overdoses, reports of abductions and Satanic rituals (seriously!), only one murder and me almost taking a dump in my shorts waiting in line for the restroom during Edward Van Halen's guitar solo!  

BLIND DOG OZZY:  Let's do it again!!!

"BLUE" JIMMY:  Sake's Alive!

BLIND DOG OZZY:  Wow!  Wow!
bluejames61@hotmail.com

ADVANCED BLUES 101: HOW TO COP THE EARLY CLAPTON / PAUL KOSSOFF / LESLIE WEST SOUND

"BLUE" JIMMY:  GUITARIST

"BLUE" JIMMY'S SWEET, TRANS-BLACK LES PAUL

 

BLIND DOG OZZY:  NEUROTIC CHIHUAHUA

"BLUE" JIMMY:  The history of Rock and Blues is full of classic guitar tones and today we're going to explore the sound of three Les Paul destroying legends named Eric Clapton, Paul Kossoff and Leslie West.

BLIND DOG OZZY:  OH, S**T!!!  I'm not worthy!!!

"BLUE" JIMMY:  Eric Clapton of course, is in the pantheon of Guitar Gods, along with Hendrix, Page, Richards, Beck, Santana, SRV and a few select others who made millions of young boys leave home and forsake a normal life in search of guitar nirvana.  He played with The Yardbirds, John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, Cream, Blind Faith, Delaney & Bonnie and Friends, Derek and the Dominos and has had an extremely successful solo career.

BLIND DOG OZZY:  Paul Kossoff is more of a cult hero for guys like us who would scour the cutout bins for obscure records that other people were too stupid to notice!

"BLUE" JIMMY:  Dude!!!  Paul Kossoff was a British guitarist who played on countless studio recordings by totally forgotten artists, but was best known for his playing in the Blues infected Hard Rock band known as Free.  Their hits such as, "All Right Now," "Wishing Well" and "Fire and Water" are still covered by Hard Rock bands to this day and their long, bass-heavy jam, "Mr. Big" knocked many stoned, festival-going hippies to the mud.  After Free, he formed his own band called Back Street Crawler ... 

BLIND DOG OZZY:  Nice! ...

"BLUE" JIMMY:  ... And played some scorching guitar but sadly, produced no real hits and he died from heroin-related medical problems in 1976.  That brings us to Leslie West ... 

BLIND DOG OZZY:  Make some room!!! ... 

"BLUE" JIMMY:  Leslie West says he was inspired after doing Acid and watching Eric Clapton and Cream play at the Filmore East in 1968.  In 1969, he did Woodstock with his band Mountain playing a legendary performance that saw him making a Les Paul Jr. look like a toy in front of his massive frame, playing riff after riff of primal, loud-as-hell, Hard Rock. Legend has it that at some point, West was asked to join the Rolling Stones but bowed out of the offer.  After Mountain, West formed West, Bruce and Laing which featured Cream bassist and singer, Jack Bruce.  Afterwards, West started a long solo career that continues to the present.  His precise, gut-wrenching string bends and vibrato have been imitated by many but never equaled.

BLIND DOG OZZY:  What was behind the killer sound of these three gentlemen?

"BLUE" JIMMY:  All used firebreathing, powerful amps like Marshalls, Sunns or Oranges cranked up to pain-inducing levels through Gibson Les Pauls or any guitars with high-output humbucking pickups.  Any stompboxes or effects they may have used (such as Clapton's use of a Dallas Rangemaster treble booster) is inconsequential -- all three guitarists could have gotten their signature sound on a cheap, pawnshop acoustic if they wanted.  

BLIND DOG OZZY:  It was all in the fingers!!!

"BLUE" JIMMY:  If you wanna know the real secret -- all three were influenced by pure Blues guitarists like Albert, B.B. and Freddie King, Otis Rush, Buddy Guy and Albert Collins and musta spent hundreds of hours putting the phonograph needle down in the grooves trying to cop those incredible bends and soul-stealing vibrato.  

BLIND DOG OZZY:  Hey, hey! ... The Blues is alright!!!

"BLUE" JIMMY:  Sorry, young boys!  There ain't no shortcuts to getting this kinda sound!  You gotta feel it in your soul and there ain't no way to fake it.  There's no software you can download or app on your phone that can give you this sound ...

BLIND DOG OZZY:  You can't buy The Blues on Amazon!!!

"BLUE" JIMMY:  Sake's Alive!

BLIND DOG OZZY:  Wow!  Wow!

bluejames61@hotmail.com

KILLED BY DEATH: THE LONG AND BOISTEROUS LIFE OF LEMMY

"BLUE" JIMMY:  MOTORHEADBANGER

BLIND DOG OZZY:  NEUROTIC CHIHUAHUA

"BLUE" JIMMY:  I was on my way to the liquor store when a friend called me and told me that Lemmy had died.  Needless to say, I grabbed a little more adult refreshments than I had planned.  Not because I was so sad, but because I wanted to celebrate the life of a man who had given me so many blown stereo speakers, so much irreparable hearing damage and so much joy in my life.

BLIND DOG OZZY:  Thanks,  Lemmy!

"BLUE" JIMMY:  I don't need to write any kind of long biography here.  The life of Ian "Lemmy" Kilmister has been well documented in books, film and the truckload of recordings he left behind.  He played in a few groups in his early days but it was as the voice and bassist of the band Motorhead that he and his bandmates took Hard Rock/Heavy Metal to another level in the late 70's and early 80's.  Sounding like Blue Cheer jamming with Iggy and The Stooges in the MC 5's garage, they scared the s**t out of a lot of people who thought Loverboy and The Cars were exceedingly hard rock.  They later opened the gates for New Wave Of British Heavy Metal bands like Iron Maiden, Saxon, Venom, Raven, Angelwitch and any others who dared to be heavy at a time when musical tastes were leaning toward more commercial sounds.

BLIND DOG OZZY:  When I heard the song, "Overkill" I thought the record player was stuck on the wrong speed!

"BLUE" JIMMY:  But Lemmy was a one-of-a-kind rocker even in an era of colorful personalities.  His voice was more Neanderthal Man than pretty boy pop idol and he was unique in that he played a Rickenbacker bass through a distorting Marshall amp and often played "lead" bass that often overpowered his guitar playing band members.  

BLIND DOG OZZY:  And you couldn't hear s**t except ringing in your ears for hours after the show!

"BLUE" JIMMY:  Some memorable Lemmy moments I remember:  Watching  the original Motorhead open for Ozzy with Randy Rhodes on his first tour of America and blowing the first few rows off the face of the earth; Lemmy playing with a ripped speaker cone at the Santa Monica Civic and stopping the show and threatening to punch misbehaving skinheads and punkers at The House Of Blues.  He was older, wiser, uglier, nastier, meaner yet nicer, than any of his contemporaries.  He had a sense of style that everyone in Rock has imitated.

BLIND DOG OZZY:  And he made it cool to have warts on your face!

"BLUE" JIMMY:  But what I really respected about Lemmy was that unlike Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, Kurt Cobain and others, he was no Rock 'N' Roll Casualty.  He had many women, smoked, drank, did hard drugs and hard tours yet paced himself, handled his fame, did what he wanted, lived a simple life and lived to be 70 years old while still recording and touring until the end of his life.  The only thing that could kill Lemmy was Death itself and he probably lived exactly as long as he was supposed to.  We will never have to see a video on YouTube of an old, fat, gray-haired, pathetic Lemmy trying to do a "reunion" tour!

BLIND DOG OZZY: Thanks, Lemmy!

"BLUE" JIMMY:  Sake's Alive!

BLIND DOG OZZY:  Wow!  Wow!

bluejames61@hotmail.com