Who is Josh Smith? Wonder no longer. This cat has the vibe, the tone, the feel, the groove . . . all of the above. Wish I could of been sitting in the corner of this club taking it in. Josh’s website
Philip Sayce playing to a small crowd at the 100 Club in London just last week. Great SRV-ish playing and killer strat tone. When he’s not tearing down some slow blues Philip plays sideman to Melissa Etheridge.
I have no problem with religion, and I grew up with a strong curiosity about spiritual matters, but my searching took me away from church and community worship to the internal journal. Before my recovery began, I found my God in music and the arts, with writers like Hermann Hesse, and musicians like Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, and Little Walter. In some way, in some form, my God was always there, but now I have learned to talk to him.
If you’ve ever been on the fence about Robert Cray just watch this great take of his track Time Makes Two. Recorded amongst a who’s who of guitar players (John Mayer, Eric Johnson, Jeff Beck, Santana, Buddy Guy et al) at Eric Clapton’s Crossroads Guitar Festival in June 2004 Cray outshone every other performer there. He digs so deep. I can’t think of any other modern blues performer who could touch this.
Stunning performance of Sweet Sixteen by BB King in 1974. He plays and sings every note like he means it and the band burns the track up like a bonfire. Also keep you eye out for Muhammad Ali jumping out of his chair and bowing to the King at 6:50. Love it.
A classic interview with Eric Clapton at the height of his powers in 1968. The formal tone of the interviewer is a bit awkward but he gets Eric to cover some good stuff including how he works his tone controls, dynamics, vibrato, the infamous “woman tone”, stock phrases and music as an outlet of emotion. Somebody please tell EC to play an SG again.
