Here are two clips from a couple of my personal favorite acoustic guitarists.
First, Leo Kottke does “Taxco Steps”.
As always, wipe off your strings then press pause on the music player in the side bar before playing the YouTube.
I saw Leo a couple of years ago in a similar setting. He walked on with two guitars, 6 and 12 string, laid one on the floor (no stand) and played. He has this deal where he engages in banter while tuning between songs. It comes in handy because he will change tunings from song to song. At one point, while he had the 12 string, he went from standard to D tuning. That’s a weekend job for a lot of guys. Leo is a brave man. A lot of the records that guitar heads refer to when lauding Leo Kottke are the things he did in the 70s when he used finger picks. He abandoned that technique because it caused tendonitis. So, he’s a living lesson in how one needs to be able to adapt to life’s circumstances. His playing now, with just fingers, is maybe not as raucous. It’s more subtle but, now that I’ve become accustomed to the difference, I much prefer what he does now to the old stuff. He’s at the top of his game, I think.
Next, Tony Rice does “Church Street Blues”
So, there’s an entirely different technique with the flat pick. I’ve listened to Tony play with bands a lot. He has a real knack for getting a very liquid lead tone on the acoustic. His vibrato is very sweet. Some people say that he phrases almost like an electric player in that he seems capable of pulling a seemingly impossible sustain out of an acoustic guitar. I like this clip because it shows the solo, flat pick approach which, you hardly see anybody doing these days and Tony…well he just nails it. One thing you will notice is that he has impeccable time which is just one of the difficult things to achieve with this type of playing. See, I think Tony’s time is the real secret behind his lead playing. Time obviously affects your phrasing but, your tone as well. If you are putting the notes in the right place, they sound better tonally. It lets the note breath.
The Relevant Quote:
“And, of course, that is what all of this is – all of this: the one song, ever changing, ever reincarnated, that speaks somehow from and to and for that which is ineffable within us and without us, that is both prayer and deliverance, folly and wisdom, that inspires us to dance or smile or simply to go on, senselessly, incomprehensibly, beatifically, in the face of mortality and the truth that our lives are more ill-writ, ill-rhymed and fleeting than any song, except perhaps those songs – that song, endlesly reincarnated – born of that truth, be it the moon and June of that truth, or the wordless blue moan, or the rotgut or the elegant poetry of it. That nameless black-hulled ship of Ulysses, that long black train, that Terraplane, that mystery train, that Rocket ‘88′, that Buick 6 – same journey, same miracle, same end and endlessness.”
– Nick Tosches, Where Dead Voices Gather
[SOURCE]
What I like most about acoustic, classic guitar is that it can go anywhere. It’s the first “wireless” to find it’s way to Market Street. Yes, in a heavy amped band, acoustic is given the figure head position, or rhythm position in front with the main singer. But, love for the pure solo, like shown in the above youTubes, is undeniable in appeal to all audiences.
At any concert, if the main guys come out and just sit down and play some acoustic with some harmony singing, well it usually is “the crowd pleaser,” the thing most fans come back with to tell those who didn’t see it: “Yeah, man then Schnizzle, Leon and John came out and sat on a stool playing guitars and sang ‘Don’t Let the Sun Catch you Crying…’ really cool.”
If I might contribute another video….
Hedges was great. Just a very musical soul. There are a lot of people wandering around now that are attempting to utilize a lot of the things he was doing but, I don’t get the same feeling from them. One example of how Hedges really impressed me; I have this Pat Martino record where he’s doing duets with an all-star cast of guitarists. It’s one of those discs where some of it works and some of it falls short. See, Pat has a genuine dinstinctive style and tone. And, neither his style or tone rely on outboard gear. It’s pretty straightforward. Now, some of the cats brought all of their delays, choruses, rectifiers etc. and, it doesn’t work so well with Martino’s substance. Odd because it’s Pat’s record. In other words, you should always defer to the guy whose record it is. Anyway, Hedges, who wasn’t above employing any of the gizmos, found a way to blend with Martino and make a wonderful musical statement. That is a musician’s musician.
Man, what a great playing! The second video is a true example of string skipping while playing with a pick, great!
Illegal aliens do this naturally by the time they enter grammar school where I come from.
My catholic case for a Hard-shell Case for The Acoustic Guitar
I realize that most of the persons commenting in here are way too young to have experienced the “introduction” of rock ‘n roll. That is — “When it was beginning” — well truth is it embarrassed almost every music teacher and music student I ever knew. Presbyterian Preachers, Jews, Cubans and Mexican immigrants, plentiful in ’60’s Houston, found Rock ‘n Roll to be “lousy.” Cheerleaders, Baptist Choirs, and most school girls in Pappagallo’s thought It’s musicians and culture was too much for them, or too repetitious.
First was Hootenanny in our white neighborhoods, then there was a switch to electric instruments. First electric equipment was hand made, like speaker cabinets, and strange glowing ovens for amplifiers that buzzed.. you get the picture? Trap sets came out of show band styles. Singing cowboys upfront toting the melody was like Audie Murphy, at least to us Southern Gulf Coast muttley-mish-mash’s Mud Bugs in our deep south nouveau riche yet tasteless bedroom communities. Sing alongs became impossible with amp-ed instruments, and most of my musicians friends thought that was a good thing anyway.
1959 Rock performance was met with real disdain. Elvis’s wiggling made Veterans of Foreign Wars in my neighborhood sick to their stomachs. Stylized, syncopated, synchronous dancing like Motown was a further reason to segregate the neighborhood in Houston… so said founding fathers of Democrat deep south Houston where I lived those years, was ten years behind Detroit. As a matter of fact, my own parents would not drive through old Downtown Houston because they did not like to see black a’capella dance groups singing and moving in unison on the corners of Main Street, by the bus stop in front of the Foley’s Department store. It was so natural to perform and dance there with the captive audience queued up waiting for the buses.
So, when I say it was cozy when the band came forward after intermission, it was the first time anyone did that, because in Houston at that time, Rock concerts were like wrestling, not all that well attended, at first. Also, various performers would show up, mostly Willie Nelson, or Jerry Jeff,.. to add “value:” Ha! but cool too. It was a natural way to figure out their markets… no? So they included several sides of themselves.. no?
There is an historic building that was razed in the ’90’s, 1928 – 1998, called the Houston Coliseum, where most of the first concerts were held. It is where also wrestling started. It is there also where a friend of mine paid $8 to see the Beatles.. the first maniac sell out Coliseum Rock concert.. My friend at 14 years old dropped acid during that concert, and now at 57 still doesn’t remember much after the concert. He mumbles about the security guards did something to him while he was there… he was one of the fortunate sons with enough money to get in and well it changed him forever for the worse. You see Houstonians, we, were so dense back then, we didn’t even know what amount of LSD to drop. Make it up as we go, and if we survive, well we still get drafted. Pretty good quick look at that Coliseum History HERE
My older brother, 7 years older, did not even go to many pre-70’s concerts back then, because there really weren’t any. And $8 was a ton of money then… we weren’t raised as fortunate sons by our Navy Dad; always low on cash… sons. Therefore I settled for Leon Russell, Allman Brothers, BeeGees, Willie, Z-Z, etc… and you know it was a good run for a hapless kid in Houston.
Stadium concerts followed as crowds grew and audiences could no longer be contained, and well then it became a completely different experience. I went to one stadium “mishap” at the Astrodome, and never to return to that venue. Not intimate enough for me… sound system like being inside a conch shell… opposite and totally unlike what I first experienced at the limestone columned Coliseum that had changed my view on Rock and Roll from embarassment to enthusiast.
Context of my old tales are not an embarrassment to others in here I am hoping. One purpose is to really tell how it was for those who might want to know where all this 2% rock ‘n roll self-defeating venue comes from. It doesn’t take much math to figure that stadium Rock is where big money is. In stadium rock, as long as there is a sound system that delivers, a band can get more ticket sales per capita per song. If Keefer strokes his guitar 1200 times in a concert, then he is getting paid more per stroke when he is able to in front of 98,212 fans. I personally cannot think of anything worse than this type of performance. JumboTrons of excitement?
Beginnings are “Not” unlike the tales Pribe’s and San’s, Ovid, Gary, Ron, et al tell about gigs today. That is the tradition I most believe in, and when I ran across old Jack and Ron back when, it is why I and my bride to be followed them around for a year or so. It is a hard shell case for acoustic, buskin’ down under the bridges by the bayous; Making a pleasant noise. Thank you and good morning.
Amazing talent! It’s neat to observe people who have discovered their “true” talents in life.
d2r2 has left a new comment on moopig post “History or Something”:
Well fellows, you are waxing eloquently here. I was hesitant to intrude, but my soul was aroused by your musical discourse.
I was young but I transitioned from the WW II Big Band of my peeps to Elvis at about the time Pat mentioned.
Luckily , we had a sister who danced.
Dancers are the anatomical finish to your “stuff” Jack. You put it in the air and they put it on the ground. Dance schools play the music that makes you move. It was Glenn Miller, Frankie Carl, Duke Ellington, Doris Day, Count Basie, Tommy Dorsey, Rosemary Clooney, Perry Como. Then Phil and Don Everly showed up and Elvis and the Coasters. Dion, Buddy Holly, Ray Charles and the whole group.
At [sister] Sylvias’ dance schools [Patricia Swayze] we got to hear music, lots of music. Nobody minded rock n’ roll too much when cute young girls were dancing to it. So we listened and we liked it. It became a part of life as we knew it.
Today, as we reach senior status, we are all rock n’ rollers, just like our new President will be the first gamer to hold the office. Play Station baby! Mario Brothers and Donkey Kong! It is a revolution of some sort that we have brought on and carried on. The foundations of our society are being shifted and rocked. We are..
“One rock and roll nation, under God, indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for All.”
Remember, if you ever thought about buying land, a home, or real estate, the next few years are going to be your best chance ever.
dd
Yes, yes, yes, that’s a key factor. The men don’t know but the little girls understand.
One of the best things that I ever did was take a social dance class in college. It screwed me — it was Monday and Friday when I was working for a weekly student paper, where Monday until Tuesday at noon is where the editing and layout occurred, and Wednesday is when I recovered, so I flunked it — but at the time I was all about music as a musician listens to it. Bitches Brew and Pangaea and the Ramones. Social Dance showed me line dancing and the like, and it struck me that the music that dancers like is not the music musicians like. Musicians think dance music is too simple. Dancers think complicated music trips them up.
Folks, you want the cute young girls dancing!
Where did you find those videos, must have took some digging.
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