#8625  by ded1hed
 
katie mae. no time(not the original title) are both hopkins tunes, two women i was thinking was blind willie mctell but that may be wrong, but tracing blues tunes is hard to do as they all do some form of hand me downs. just look at samson and delilah"if i had my way i would tear this old building down" thats straight from blind willie johnson, later done by rev. gary davis.

also my interpretation of composed is kinda like arranged, you know amazing grace arranged by dedhed. obviously i didnt write it but if i come up with some funky new way of playing it then i arranged it, maybe thats just my messed up interpretation.

and to jimkkc yea obviously if i want blues then im gonna turn to my skip james, lightning, tampa red, john hurt, bo carter, gary davis, muddy, wolf, buddy guy, jimi, roy buchanan , srv's of the world. but when you slide down that slope be careful because its slippery.

if we're gonna start disqualifying people because of musicianship, then bobby and jerry and the rest of the band for that matter wouldnt be able to fit into anybodys playlist. they dont write as good as dylan dont play as good as anyone mentioned above , much less some of the great jazz guys like wes montgomery, or classical guys like segovia . and dont harmonize like say the beatles or the beach boys. so why would you ever listen to the dead?

energy and emotion , plain and simple.

something pig had in boatloads, his guitar playing to be frank isnt any better than mine, maybe not as good, and im self taught for about 5 yrs now. but when you hear him sing some of those blues songs, you can Feel it. like jimi hendrix once said the blues are easy to play, but hard to feel.

 #8631  by Jimkkc
 
Did I say I was "disqualifying" Pig as a musician? I think I just said that I prefer to listen to different and perhaps stronger blues players - as far as the slippery slope? If you truly believe that you don't discriminate as a listener, then it follows that there is no difference between Kenny G. and John Coltrane or even no difference between Esteban and Jerry - in short, it is utterly ridiculous - from my perspective - to use emotion as the soul factor to determine what is good music - For example, just last night I was at an jam session playing with a guy who had plenty of emotion, but absolutely refused to tune the D string on his guitar - so should I continue to play with him? hell no - why, because even after being told he was out of tune, he didn't tune up and because there are plenty of players who have emotion and care enough to play in tune (read play "correctly").

Garcia himself said in a 1989 interview with Relix he couldn't listen to the early stuff - why, because it is out of tune, the wrong tempo, and the wrong feel. To my ears, I have always agreed with Jerry's statement - with the exception of the Dark Stars and St. Stephens etc. the blues stuff from the early days just does not stand up to other blues - even other blues bands from that period -

Garcia and Weir - in their solo incarnations - are much better blues players than they are with the GD -Why? b/c there in their solo bands there is a more traditional blues rythm section - keep in mind that with the Dead, nobody was actually playing the one - if you listen to the blues "greats," the rythm section always has the one. Likewise, in JGB and Ratdog, the rythm section clearly articulates the rythmic one - in the GD, the "one" is not always present but implied.

But hey, if you like Pig, more power to you - I happen to like 1987 dead and go out of my way to listen to the sources of the blues. What I find interesting is why the knee jerk reaction - who is jumping down a slippery slope?

 #8633  by ded1hed
 
not saying you in particular.

just that if you judge who you listen to strictly on chops or talent , whatever you get the point, then i think your missing out on alot of stuff out there.

and its not that im that crazy about pigpen, he's alright. just explaining to you why i like him and why others may as well.

as for the emotion thing , its obviously not the only factor, but why do you think that these old black players are much more appreciated than some of these guys like stefan grossman or jorma(both are great just not usually put up there with the robert johnsons, etc.) i mean there are alot of people out there who are easily better musicians than those old guys, but i know who id rather listen too if forced to choose only a few.

i have a feeling im not alone in that feeling, but why is that? some people may just have romantic ideals about the old days, but in many cases i think its the soul or feeling that those guys put into their music, you can feel their pain.

and in most cases the older guys are technically inferior to the newer ones, but i know what i like when i want to hear blues.

regardless didnt mean to ruffle any feathers to each his own i guess.

 #8635  by Jimkkc
 
Hey - it sounds like we are actually in agreement. I mean as much as I love Leo Kottke's playing - at times, I hear only incredible technical proficiency and not a whole lot of emotion. Likewise, for reasons unknown to me, many swear that Steve Vai is the guitar god - (i.e. worlds of technical precision but to my ears lacking in the emotion/soul department.)

Some of the old players though, there is more technical ability than perhaps we often admit - take Elmore James - to really play his style requires a bunch more rhythmic technique than say Pig's version of the blues. I think my original post wasn't aimed at anyone in particular - just expressing "frustration" at our ability to sometimes listen to anything the dead recorded without very critical ears. I mean hey, I still swear the St. Louis '95 shows were not all that bad!

 #8914  by grateful4booze
 
I have this cd at home. It is called Bring Me My Shotgun, but I'm pretty sure it is a boot and not legit.