I’m not a regular in this Topic, neither poster or listener, and here I am sharing a second before I take a look and listen at the Haynes and Trucks clip.
YT served this up to me after checking out a reference from @tony’s Learning Log.
As regulars here who know me know, my two favourite musicians, if forced to raise my colours, would be Neil Young and Keith Richards.
This is a new release on the occasion of the 30 year anniversary of his second solo album with the X-Pensive Winos. Man, how time flies, I remember buying the CD in the early 90s. Not as good as the first ‘Talk is Cheap’ or the third ‘Cross-eyed Heart’, but still an enjoyable listen.
Apart from being a pretty cool song, I think it is a fine show case of arrangement, use of drums, space, how the song builds adding layers as it progresses, and the use of panning.
Hey Darrell brings back good memories of when I first started out playing. My boss at the time played in the band The Levi Set Blues Band in the 60s with Jeremy Spencer and they were pretty much an Elmore James cover band. In my early days of dodgy open chords we used to get together and I’d mess up some rhythm while he played over the top and used that signature EJ riff all the time. When on a weekend night shift, nothing really got going on the Sunday night until midnight, so we used jam in one of the conference room for a couple of hours beforehand. His health and my life got in the way and all fell by the wayside but fun while it lasted!
I have heard the Elmore James, Albert King and SRV versions, but not the Thorogood. That one surprised me, I associate Thorogood with the driving party-rock/blues style and haven’t really heard him do anything like this. I’m glad you included the Elmore James here. Always great to go back to the source for the blues standards.
Do some more YT searching, there a few other videos shot from that same session. His One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer live party-rock is great but the man can play and does a passable John Lee Hooker solo.
It’s always kind of fun to make a joke about “Keef” but stuff like this is a great reminder that all kidding aside the man is a seriously great musician. I agree with what you pointed out about how this showcases drums and space really well. I think that had to be a very conscious choice to leave it a little bit sparse, and I think it was a great choice.
We used to listen to the X-Pensive Winos pretty often when I worked night shift in a computer room in the 90s.
What a great band. And I think space is a key part of how they performed. Wish I’d had the chance to see them live … no frills, no over-the-top show, just great music.
Funnily enough we were IT Ops and that Sunday night jamming was at the Data Centre (Center) we were based and prior to bringing services up for Monday mornings. It would all have turned to rats anyway, as by the late 90s 24x7 services were being rolled out and all that “down” time was gone for ever. Such is life.
Such tone, Hubert Sumlin. I think he is one of the major bridges that carried the blues from the early Delta style to Chicago and forward to modern rock and roll and blues.
