Influences
Mike Brown
thought that it might be interesting to look at the subject again.
I have often wondered what sort of music played a part in influencing
what, and how, we play now.
In my case I can identify a lot of them, but I suspect that there are
others that I am not aware of.
As a child, Edmondo Ross, Glen Miller, Tommy Dorsey, and Bing Crosby and
The Andrew Sisters.
Thats what my mother liked, and I still like that sort of music.
Early teens are harder, I "liked" some pop music, but I don't think that
it had any great lasting effect on my tastes, it wasn't until quite late
in my teens that I started collecting jazz records, at first a mixture
of old 78s from somebody at work who was selling his collection. Bunny
Berrigan, Fats Waller and His Orchestra (what a line up that was), Jimmy
Lunceford, Ellington, oh the list goes on. Most of these have had a
lasting influence on me.
Then I "got into" Trad Jazz, starting with one who is still a great
favourite, Kid Ory, then the early Hot Fives and Sevens, others too of
course, but they are the main ones.
Then for some reason that I don't now remember, I switched to Bop.
Charlie Parker, Dizzy, early Miles (though I still don't care for his
later, more experimental stuff), and many others. This love was shared
with my Wife, and we collected a lot of very fine recordings, and saw
some wonderful live shows. Met quite a few of the English jazz players
too, and called a few of them friends.
During my National Service in the RAF, I started playing skiffle, and
the guitar came into my life (I was about 22), then I met Ramblin' Jack
Elliott, and heard Woody's stuff, and the rot set in.
Then I found "The Blues" in the form of Sonny Terry & Brownie McGee,
Lightning Hopkins, Little Walter & the Jukes, Leadbelly, you get the picture
Then came Rock (I'm always confused between Rock, and Rock and Roll,
they tell me that these are two different animals), anyway, I discovered
Canned Heat, Jethro Tull, very early Rod Stewart, James Taylor, Leon
Russell, John Mayall, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Maggie Bell, Billy
Joel, and again, lots of others.
The names are just put down as I think of them, so the chronology (and
even the category) may be all over the place, and of course I must have
missed some important ones.
The stuff that I play now comes from most of those places (except Bop,
which I, unfortunately, don't have the skill to play), and most of my
favourites are now what is known as "Standards", even a lot of the rock
stuff, after all Leon, Billy, James T, and the others have written songs
that are certainly "Standards" in my judgement.
So, my songs and influences come from a great range of sources, from Tin
Pan Alley to Woodstock to - - - well who knows where.
Just reminiscing and ramblin', but it may stir some thoughts in other
posters heads.
MJRB
Tony Done
"Mike Brown" <rock...@chariot.net.au> wrote in message
news:4b3fe62e$1...@news.comindico.com.au...
Mine is fairly simple. We didn't have much recorded music at home, but my
father played the piano a bit. It wasn't very memorable, just pop songs from
before I was born. I never have spent much tome listening to music, except
when it is something I want to learn; if I have the radio at work, it is
generally RN talk shows or oddities like Planet Earth.
My first real influence was my childhood mate buying and electric and
starting off on Shadows stuff. I never got into electric at that time, but
the folk/blues boom was really gathering momentum by the time I was in 12th
grade, and as a consequence I learned alternating bass fingerpicking. <g>
Not very good, but enough to pull the chicks at uni. During the blues
revival the old timers went on tour, and I saw one of their concerts, maybe
1965 when I was 20. This was undoubtedly the standout event in my whole
musical history, and has determined the path I have taken ever since.
Playing the guitar was pretty much on the back burner until the mid 80s,
when I bought a reso and became more actively interested in playing prewar
blues. The next major leap was in the early 00s when I discovered other
kinds of music on the internet and acquired a sound editing program (Cool
Edit Pro) that allowed me to learn by ear. I've become more slide-oriented
over the past 10 years or so, but it now includes lap steel and electric.
Some post-war influences would be Dylan, especially the "Hard Rain" era, the
Stones, and Duane Allman and recently Sonny Landreth.
Tony D
Misifus
as well. My maternal grandmother's family were in show business, and
she played piano and organ for the silent movies in her early days. My
father played the same baritone horn that had been my grandfather's (a
Conn), and I still have that horn today. Both of my parents loved
classical music and broadway show tunes. My grandmother lived with us
and we always had a piano. Both of my folks sang in church choirs and in
local musicals.
At an early age, I recall a teen-aged aunt asking me in all seriousness,
whether I preferred Blues, or Rhythm and Blues. (I hadn't a clue) This
would have been in the late 1940s, well before Rock and Roll. As rock
and roll emerged, my musical awareness emerged with it. With the
proceeds of my newspaper route, I bought my first record, a 45, "Earth
Angel" by the Penguins.
I followed all the early rock avidly, hurrying home from school to watch
American Bandstand in the 1950s. While I listened to the early rock, I
still heard classical almost daily. My father's favorite composer in
those days was Bach, which I heard a lot of. I still listen to Bach as
often as any.
I was never quite as taken with Elvis as many were, and by the time the
Beatles hit, I was nearly out of college. I was interested in what the
fuss was about, but I never put them up on a pedestal as some have.
I suppose the early influences I recall would have been Dion and the
Belmonts, the Platters, and, of course, the Four Seasons. Although, I
must say, I was living in New Jersey, not far from Newark, at the time,
and I had no idea the Four Seasons were from Jersey. I don't recall
Alan Freed mentioning it on WINS. I think the "Jersey Boys" thing is a
new thing. That Francis Sinatra was from Jersey, there was never any
doubt. :)
By the early sixties, Folk was on and that's when I began to play
guitar. The Kingston Trio was early, and not really an inspiration, but
the Lamplighters, the Tarriers, PP&M, Buffy Saint Marie, Ian and Sylvia,
Baez, Dylan were all strong influences. Brownie Terry and Sonny McGee,
Doc Watson, Gordon Lightfoot and Judy Collins had their impact on my
musical taste.
Then the Beatles hit, Dylan discovered electric guitars, and I promptly
headed out of the country for three years. Three critical years, 65-68,
during which I felt I had missed a great sea change in popular music.
In some ways, I never caught back up. I feel that, since then, music
has scattered in some many directions, I can never keep track of them.
There are whole strands of music, I am only now discovering. Now, after
many of the protagonists are gone.
And so, I stumble along - a blind hog finding the occasional acorn. �Basta!
-Raf
--
Misifus-
Rafael Seibert
Photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rafiii
home: http://www.rafandsioux.com
persisten...@yahoo.com
wrote:
I don't know if I had any real influences. I knew about music a long
time before I started playing the guitar, so I had a lot of favourite
bands, but never went out of my way to learn to play their stuff.
The closest I can think of in terms of how I sound is probably a
mixture of Hendrix, Clapton and Keef, but the player I listened to
hardest when I was a kid was Bob Fripp - and there's no way I was
going to put the work in to play like him.
I play off the band I'm with at any given time and hope I can add some
funk to it.
Pete
Mike Brown
Yes, "Court of the Crimson King" is still in my collection, and a couple
of others.
MJRB
Cliff
> On Sun, 03 Jan 2010 01:05:00 GMT, "Tony Done" <tonyd...@bigpond.com>
> wrote:
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> >"Mike Brown" <rocko...@chariot.net.au> wrote in message
I thought your biggest influence was Jack Daniels....??
What was that big hit he had in the '70's....?...'The Devil Went Down
To Shepton Mallet ' ?
C.
persisten...@yahoo.com
wrote:
Nothing wrong with missing a bit, Raf. There's so much culture out
there. One can hope to know something about a bit of it, no-one gets
close to hearing everything. Same with art or drama.
I like listening to Bach, for instance, but if I really tried to work
it out I'd go crazy. Beethoven, OTOH, I can read like a book, and he's
no less sophisticated than Bach. Handel and Purcell I find
unlistenable (or boring - choose one).
My musical journey has always been findig the one who defined the art.
Bach for counterpoint, Mozart for using opera as a means of using
music to convey emotion indstead of a distraction from the piece,
Beethoven for his complete mastery of sonata form, Wagner for
greatness, Elgar for Elegy...there's loads more as you can imagine,
but there's really only about a dozen composers I can put on a new (to
me) piece by and know not only what I'm likely to get, but know that
I'll understand it as well.
As far as popular music is concerned, There's Hendrix, Clapton, Keef -
all the rest are copyists apart from Santana (myself included - and I
know that's an arrogant thing to say but if I was left to myself in a
studio for a week I'd come up with an albums worth of stuff
competently played but those three would come through on every tune).
Then there''s Garcia, of course, but I knew all about farting around
with rhythm and scales before I even knew he existed. People like
Satriani - I'd be bored to death trying to play like them. Good fun
for two minutes - deadly as a practising option.
The above, of course, puts me at a considerable distance from the
older guys on the group. I grew up as a flat-out rock & roller (still
am) apart from Sonny Terry & Brownie McGee, Robert Johnson, Joni
Mitchell, Dylan, John Lee Hooker.. I know none of the great American
stylists at all. Never listened to Charlie Christian, Les Paul or any
of those guys. Bits of Woody Guthrie here and there, Pete Seeger -
nada. Never heard the Kingston Trio (not sure if I want to), Elvis -
just two songs I'd put on an I-player.
I haven't taken any notice of the British folk tradition either. I
guess my serious enchantment with the guitar starts with the Kinks,
but the enchantment with music goes back to about 1685.
Pete
persisten...@yahoo.com
wrote:
Heh - I drink Daniels about twice a year. I like it so much I daren't
buy it....keep an eye on my facebook page - there's a funny shot going
up when I get round to editing it.
Pete
Tom from Texas
news:4b3fe62e$1...@news.comindico.com.au...
Well, Mike et al, I spent my early years in the foothills of the Ozarks in
Northeast Oklahoma. There I was exposed to real mountain music that my
family played at family gatherings, such as old-timey folk and country (not
the commercial stuff of today) with what was to develop into bluegrass.
Then on weekends sometimes, my folks would haul us to the barndances and
occasionally I'd here western swing at the dances.
As I got older, I'd catch the Chicago stations and would hear early rock and
roll, blues, and jazz. In the sixties, I was living around Dallas and heard
all sorts of commercial C & W, pop, folk, and rock. Late sixties, there was
the underground FM stations and hard rock.
In college, I bartended and hung out with degenerates (musicians). I got to
hear all sorts of music from folk to jazz to hardrock to blues to country.
Electric or acoustic or mixed, I heard it all.... if it was played by
competent and serious musicians, I gave it a listen. Still do.
Got drowned in Irish, old-timey and folk music cause close friends of mine
were playing it. Then I started helping put on the North Texas Irish
Festival and really got saturated. Still, do that.
I was playing guitar off and on during that time and seriously took up
mandolin in the late '70s. Consider myself more a mandolin-player than a
guitar-player.
The one influence I wish I could forget was being talked into subbing for a
rhythm guitar-player in a disco group for a night. That night seemed to go
on for weeks. Never do that again (unless the money is good).
So there ye have it for me.
--
Tom from Texas
(The Tom Risner Fund for Deserving North Texas Guitarplayers is not liable
for any slander, hurt feelings, pointless moaning, or achy-breaky heartache
any post under this name should cause. Yall want easy cash or sympathy...
ye can kiss my grits!!)
persisten...@yahoo.com
<tris...@aol.com> wrote:
(shit loadsa snippage - sorry Tom)
>
>As I got older, I'd catch the Chicago stations and would hear early rock and
>roll, blues, and jazz. In the sixties, I was living around Dallas and heard
>all sorts of commercial C & W, pop, folk, and rock. Late sixties, there was
>the underground FM stations and hard rock.
>
I never really got the hard rock thing - too 4x4. Nothing wrong with
4/4 as a time signature, just that the heavy bands bash yer head out
with it. Deep Purple? Good fun, but too easy.
I like stuff where people like a bit of syncopation.
Pete
Ed Edelenbos
<persisten...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:0bd2k5d7o5s5d4hnf...@4ax.com...
I always like hard rock like King Crimson.
Ed
persisten...@yahoo.com
wrote:
Strange - never thought they were particularly hard - heavy, maybe.
You can't listen to a drummer like Mike Giles and think of hard rock
in the same parsec - far too delicate.
Pete
Ed Edelenbos
<persisten...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:g8l2k5doh71huak6j...@4ax.com...
You're thinking Giles, Giles, and Fripp. In the Court, and Catfood, etc...
plenty hard. And Bruford (in the later incarnations) could do hard as good
as the best of 'em. The difference was he could turn the corner on a dime
and have as much finesse as was called for. Ahhh... them was the days.
Ed
persisten...@yahoo.com
wrote:
Bruford just blew my head off...There was an amazing gig at Knebworth
with Roy Harper supporting the Pink Floyd.
Harper walks onstage for the first half of his set with a string
orchestra seated behind him, throws something large and smoking into
the audience and says "Anyone fancy a joint?".
Does a bit with the string band then comes back with a backing band,
jokingly called "Roy Harper and Trigger", plays an absolutely knockout
set with Chris Spedding on lead, John Wetton on bass, Bruford on
drums.
Now THAT was a power trio...not a note wasted...well, apart from the
players, that is...:-)
Pete
Ed Edelenbos
<persisten...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:prp2k55g66o7asv0f...@4ax.com...
If you find a "power trio" that'll beat; Fripp, Wetton, and Bruford... let
me know. Throw a little oboe (Miller) and./or fiddle (David Cross) in there
and damn... I'm as close to heaven as I get. (Unless I go into Canterbury
mode with Fred Frith and the Henry Cow/Gong crowd.) The lineup for Red
(King Crimson) is just killer, in my book. Does it get better? Starless
and Bible Black is awfully close. A few years ago I saw a show with David
Torn (a nutcase in his own right), Bill Bruford, and Mark Isham which just
blew me away. Bruford is in a class all by himself. He may be one of the
best musicians I have *ever* had the chance to see. The combo of him on
drums and Wetton on vocals pretty well guarantees the show.
Ed
Mike Brown
I always though their music was "alternative" (whatever that means), it
disn't really fit into any of the boxes.
MJRB
persisten...@yahoo.com
wrote:
Hendrix famously described it to Fripp as 'Groovy'..:-)
Pete
Cliff
> On Sun, 3 Jan 2010 22:01:54 -0500, "Ed Edelenbos" <e...@spookeasy.net>
> wrote:
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> ><persistent_offen...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> >news:g8l2k5doh71huak6j...@4ax.com...
> >> On Sun, 3 Jan 2010 21:19:48 -0500, "Ed Edelenbos" <e...@spookeasy.net>
> >> wrote:
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> >>><persistent_offen...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
My luthier pal, John Marlow, made a guitar for John Wetton:
http://www.jmarlowstringedinstruments.co.uk/frameset.htm
c.
Mike Brown
Anything good was "groovy" then.
MJRB
JD
Now it's "most abundantly excellent, Dude" or it's "da shizzle"
Ed Edelenbos
"JD" <jdblac...@gstringmail.com> wrote in message
news:00be396f$0$17140$c3e...@news.astraweb.com...
LOL... we Netflixed (hmmm.... is making "Netflix" a verb going too far?)
"Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure" for the girls the other night. It was
as dumb as I remembered it. There are a couple hilarious scenes in it,
though.
Ed