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StonesTod

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71Tele

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StonesTod

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71Tele
The hysteria of the Dead fans here is hilarious. They cannot accept that someone would objectively listen to the joyous wonder that is the Dead and take a pass. There must be something wrong with me, right? Or I must simply be ignorant? Frankly, you sound like the cult people accuse Deadheads of being. If you don't like it, you must just not "get it", as if it's not possible to simply not like their music or their scene.

hysteria? what hysteria, tele? i thought we were having a reasonable debate.

i discount the whole "scene" business as I think you'd like the scene just fine if you could enjoy the music itself.

you indicated you're not much into jazz. i think most "deadheads" are very much into jazz and that's where we depart in our tastes. no harm, no foul. but to keep beating the drums on the supposedly rabid jerry-worshipping and cultness aspects is really ridiculous. i love the dead for their music; plain and simple. and that, i believe, goes for most of those who are into the band. you don't and that's fine. can we just leave it there?

Well, maybe not hysteria...I thought there were some silly comments directed my way which seemed to imply that not liking the Grateful Dead was some sort of personal weakness. I never asked anyone else to justify their love for the Dead or to stop loving them - just to accept that I don't. You seem to downplay the fact that there is a social scene around the Dead - much more so than other artists. I am not saying there is anything wrong with it, or that you personally are in it. Just that it doesn't speak to me, like Star Trek conventions or Scientology.

Jazz is fine, but jeez talk about "noodling" (as we often do here). Jerry was the King Of The Noodlers. In fact I have a very good friend who plays like him, he just starts noodling over whatever you're doing. His name is Mike but we call him "Noodles".

you seem to object as much to the "scene" as the music. does that mean the scene, the costumes, and all the other non-musical things have to work for you to like an artist? i'm sure the answer is no...yet you continue to use those elements in your arguments about the grateful dead. you don't like their music, fine...it just cheapens your arugment, though, when you bring these other elements into it as though they have ANYTHING to do with the price of eggs.

jerry brought noodling to an art-form, yes. so did john coltrane and miles davis and thousands of other improvisational geniuses (genii?).

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StonesTod

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KeefintheNight82
Even considering that he does cocktail or 'sophisticated' blues, there were others that were just as good or better at it. Lowell Fulson comes to mind. But Fulson never achieved anywhere near the level of success that BB King has.

fulson was great, but in the fifties, bb WAS king and guys like fulson were considered second-stringers....

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KeefintheNight82

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StonesTod

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KeefintheNight82
He had several R&B hits in the 50s but I don't know how much of a 'legend' he was in the mid 60s. I think you are overstating.

not overstating one bit. for a self-described blues fan, you have a little history to learn, i think....

b.b. was headlining venues like the fillmore in the mid-to-late sixties...headlining rock festivals, even....

this idea that he became a darling of the blues in later years cos of rolling stone and ec is just blatant hooey....the man earned his place in blues history the hard way. of course he's not out of the same school as the muddy's and the hound dogs...he's "cityfied" like bobby blue bland...but it's an equally compelling and important strain of the blues.

That's not exactly what I'm saying and you know it. I don't think BB's entire career is based on Rolling Stone magazine.

I do think him being a watered down blues act with mediocre mainstream vocals that are pretty much blues cliches now and his constant lauding by big names has greatly contributed to his mass appeal.

He took something and watered it down for the masses in musical terms as well as vocal delivery so it will appeal to the largest number of people, then he became a representation of the genre for most people. The way that Bob Marley WAS reggae.

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StonesTod

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KeefintheNight82

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StonesTod

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KeefintheNight82
He had several R&B hits in the 50s but I don't know how much of a 'legend' he was in the mid 60s. I think you are overstating.

not overstating one bit. for a self-described blues fan, you have a little history to learn, i think....

b.b. was headlining venues like the fillmore in the mid-to-late sixties...headlining rock festivals, even....

this idea that he became a darling of the blues in later years cos of rolling stone and ec is just blatant hooey....the man earned his place in blues history the hard way. of course he's not out of the same school as the muddy's and the hound dogs...he's "cityfied" like bobby blue bland...but it's an equally compelling and important strain of the blues.

That's not exactly what I'm saying and you know it. I don't think BB's entire career is based on Rolling Stone magazine.

I do think him being a watered down blues act with mediocre mainstream vocals that are pretty much blues cliches now and his constant lauding by big names has greatly contributed to his mass appeal.

He took something and watered it down for the masses in musical terms as well as vocal delivery so it will appeal to the largest number of people, then he became a representation of the genre for most people. The way that Bob Marley WAS reggae.

i don't know that he watered anything down. and what era are we talking about now? in the fifties sand sixties, when he carved out his territory and became an icon in r&b circles? he watered WHAT down, exactly. He was one of the instrumental CREATORS of the very genre that he helped popularize.

and if bb king is a mediocre singer, then i'd argue he's one of the greatest mediocre singers in the biz. sheesh.

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71Tele

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StonesTod

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KeefintheNight82

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StonesTod

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KeefintheNight82
He had several R&B hits in the 50s but I don't know how much of a 'legend' he was in the mid 60s. I think you are overstating.

not overstating one bit. for a self-described blues fan, you have a little history to learn, i think....

b.b. was headlining venues like the fillmore in the mid-to-late sixties...headlining rock festivals, even....

this idea that he became a darling of the blues in later years cos of rolling stone and ec is just blatant hooey....the man earned his place in blues history the hard way. of course he's not out of the same school as the muddy's and the hound dogs...he's "cityfied" like bobby blue bland...but it's an equally compelling and important strain of the blues.

That's not exactly what I'm saying and you know it. I don't think BB's entire career is based on Rolling Stone magazine.

I do think him being a watered down blues act with mediocre mainstream vocals that are pretty much blues cliches now and his constant lauding by big names has greatly contributed to his mass appeal.

He took something and watered it down for the masses in musical terms as well as vocal delivery so it will appeal to the largest number of people, then he became a representation of the genre for most people. The way that Bob Marley WAS reggae.

i don't know that he watered anything down. and what era are we talking about now? in the fifties sand sixties, when he carved out his territory and became an icon in r&b circles? he watered WHAT down, exactly. He was one of the instrumental CREATORS of the very genre that he helped popularize.

and if bb king is a mediocre singer, then i'd argue he's one of the greatest mediocre singers in the biz. sheesh.

It can be argued that BB went for a kind of Vegas-y formula, with the horns and all, decades ago, which was more commercially palatable but put some distance from the likes of Muddy and Wolf stylistically, as well as his own roots. One can say the same thing about Elvis, of course. Takes nothing away from the guy's talent, but he made certain commercial stylistic accommodations.

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StonesTod

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71Tele

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StonesTod

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KeefintheNight82

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StonesTod

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KeefintheNight82
He had several R&B hits in the 50s but I don't know how much of a 'legend' he was in the mid 60s. I think you are overstating.

not overstating one bit. for a self-described blues fan, you have a little history to learn, i think....

b.b. was headlining venues like the fillmore in the mid-to-late sixties...headlining rock festivals, even....

this idea that he became a darling of the blues in later years cos of rolling stone and ec is just blatant hooey....the man earned his place in blues history the hard way. of course he's not out of the same school as the muddy's and the hound dogs...he's "cityfied" like bobby blue bland...but it's an equally compelling and important strain of the blues.

That's not exactly what I'm saying and you know it. I don't think BB's entire career is based on Rolling Stone magazine.

I do think him being a watered down blues act with mediocre mainstream vocals that are pretty much blues cliches now and his constant lauding by big names has greatly contributed to his mass appeal.

He took something and watered it down for the masses in musical terms as well as vocal delivery so it will appeal to the largest number of people, then he became a representation of the genre for most people. The way that Bob Marley WAS reggae.

i don't know that he watered anything down. and what era are we talking about now? in the fifties sand sixties, when he carved out his territory and became an icon in r&b circles? he watered WHAT down, exactly. He was one of the instrumental CREATORS of the very genre that he helped popularize.

and if bb king is a mediocre singer, then i'd argue he's one of the greatest mediocre singers in the biz. sheesh.

It can be argued that BB went for a kind of Vegas-y formula, with the horns and all, decades ago, which was more commercially palatable but put some distance from the likes of Muddy and Wolf stylistically, as well as his own roots. One can say the same thing about Elvis, of course. Takes nothing away from the guy's talent, but he made certain commercial stylistic accommodations.

i'm not so sure i can detect much in the way of commercial accommodation from where he cut his teeth originally, to be honest. it's a different brand of blues - perhaps more of an r&b orientation than the chess school - that doesn't make it necessarily more vegas-y or commercial. if audiences FOUND that more appealing, that's another matter altogether.

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71Tele

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StonesTod

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71Tele

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StonesTod

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KeefintheNight82

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StonesTod

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KeefintheNight82
He had several R&B hits in the 50s but I don't know how much of a 'legend' he was in the mid 60s. I think you are overstating.

not overstating one bit. for a self-described blues fan, you have a little history to learn, i think....

b.b. was headlining venues like the fillmore in the mid-to-late sixties...headlining rock festivals, even....

this idea that he became a darling of the blues in later years cos of rolling stone and ec is just blatant hooey....the man earned his place in blues history the hard way. of course he's not out of the same school as the muddy's and the hound dogs...he's "cityfied" like bobby blue bland...but it's an equally compelling and important strain of the blues.

That's not exactly what I'm saying and you know it. I don't think BB's entire career is based on Rolling Stone magazine.

I do think him being a watered down blues act with mediocre mainstream vocals that are pretty much blues cliches now and his constant lauding by big names has greatly contributed to his mass appeal.

He took something and watered it down for the masses in musical terms as well as vocal delivery so it will appeal to the largest number of people, then he became a representation of the genre for most people. The way that Bob Marley WAS reggae.

i don't know that he watered anything down. and what era are we talking about now? in the fifties sand sixties, when he carved out his territory and became an icon in r&b circles? he watered WHAT down, exactly. He was one of the instrumental CREATORS of the very genre that he helped popularize.

and if bb king is a mediocre singer, then i'd argue he's one of the greatest mediocre singers in the biz. sheesh.

It can be argued that BB went for a kind of Vegas-y formula, with the horns and all, decades ago, which was more commercially palatable but put some distance from the likes of Muddy and Wolf stylistically, as well as his own roots. One can say the same thing about Elvis, of course. Takes nothing away from the guy's talent, but he made certain commercial stylistic accommodations.

i'm not so sure i can detect much in the way of commercial accommodation from where he cut his teeth originally, to be honest. it's a different brand of blues - perhaps more of an r&b orientation than the chess school - that doesn't make it necessarily more vegas-y or commercial. if audiences FOUND that more appealing, that's another matter altogether.

You're just going to have to agree with me one of these days, if nothing else than to keep things interesting.

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StonesTod

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71Tele

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StonesTod

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71Tele

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StonesTod

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KeefintheNight82

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StonesTod

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KeefintheNight82
He had several R&B hits in the 50s but I don't know how much of a 'legend' he was in the mid 60s. I think you are overstating.

not overstating one bit. for a self-described blues fan, you have a little history to learn, i think....

b.b. was headlining venues like the fillmore in the mid-to-late sixties...headlining rock festivals, even....

this idea that he became a darling of the blues in later years cos of rolling stone and ec is just blatant hooey....the man earned his place in blues history the hard way. of course he's not out of the same school as the muddy's and the hound dogs...he's "cityfied" like bobby blue bland...but it's an equally compelling and important strain of the blues.

That's not exactly what I'm saying and you know it. I don't think BB's entire career is based on Rolling Stone magazine.

I do think him being a watered down blues act with mediocre mainstream vocals that are pretty much blues cliches now and his constant lauding by big names has greatly contributed to his mass appeal.

He took something and watered it down for the masses in musical terms as well as vocal delivery so it will appeal to the largest number of people, then he became a representation of the genre for most people. The way that Bob Marley WAS reggae.

i don't know that he watered anything down. and what era are we talking about now? in the fifties sand sixties, when he carved out his territory and became an icon in r&b circles? he watered WHAT down, exactly. He was one of the instrumental CREATORS of the very genre that he helped popularize.

and if bb king is a mediocre singer, then i'd argue he's one of the greatest mediocre singers in the biz. sheesh.

It can be argued that BB went for a kind of Vegas-y formula, with the horns and all, decades ago, which was more commercially palatable but put some distance from the likes of Muddy and Wolf stylistically, as well as his own roots. One can say the same thing about Elvis, of course. Takes nothing away from the guy's talent, but he made certain commercial stylistic accommodations.

i'm not so sure i can detect much in the way of commercial accommodation from where he cut his teeth originally, to be honest. it's a different brand of blues - perhaps more of an r&b orientation than the chess school - that doesn't make it necessarily more vegas-y or commercial. if audiences FOUND that more appealing, that's another matter altogether.

You're just going to have to agree with me one of these days, if nothing else than to keep things interesting.

that wouldn't be any fun. i don't think we're far off here, actually, but i was waiting for you to comment on bb's "commercial" attire or the "scene" surrounding a bb show.

but, seriously, i don't think bb has compromised his artform at all - he's streamlined his show a bit over the decades, but he's holding very true to his blues tradition. and as a guitarist, he may not have the most amazing chops, but nobody's ever done more with 3 notes than bb - and his peers have nothing but admiration and praise for him.

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71Tele

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StonesTod

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71Tele

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StonesTod

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71Tele

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StonesTod

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KeefintheNight82

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StonesTod

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KeefintheNight82
He had several R&B hits in the 50s but I don't know how much of a 'legend' he was in the mid 60s. I think you are overstating.

not overstating one bit. for a self-described blues fan, you have a little history to learn, i think....

b.b. was headlining venues like the fillmore in the mid-to-late sixties...headlining rock festivals, even....

this idea that he became a darling of the blues in later years cos of rolling stone and ec is just blatant hooey....the man earned his place in blues history the hard way. of course he's not out of the same school as the muddy's and the hound dogs...he's "cityfied" like bobby blue bland...but it's an equally compelling and important strain of the blues.

That's not exactly what I'm saying and you know it. I don't think BB's entire career is based on Rolling Stone magazine.

I do think him being a watered down blues act with mediocre mainstream vocals that are pretty much blues cliches now and his constant lauding by big names has greatly contributed to his mass appeal.

He took something and watered it down for the masses in musical terms as well as vocal delivery so it will appeal to the largest number of people, then he became a representation of the genre for most people. The way that Bob Marley WAS reggae.

i don't know that he watered anything down. and what era are we talking about now? in the fifties sand sixties, when he carved out his territory and became an icon in r&b circles? he watered WHAT down, exactly. He was one of the instrumental CREATORS of the very genre that he helped popularize.

and if bb king is a mediocre singer, then i'd argue he's one of the greatest mediocre singers in the biz. sheesh.

It can be argued that BB went for a kind of Vegas-y formula, with the horns and all, decades ago, which was more commercially palatable but put some distance from the likes of Muddy and Wolf stylistically, as well as his own roots. One can say the same thing about Elvis, of course. Takes nothing away from the guy's talent, but he made certain commercial stylistic accommodations.

i'm not so sure i can detect much in the way of commercial accommodation from where he cut his teeth originally, to be honest. it's a different brand of blues - perhaps more of an r&b orientation than the chess school - that doesn't make it necessarily more vegas-y or commercial. if audiences FOUND that more appealing, that's another matter altogether.

You're just going to have to agree with me one of these days, if nothing else than to keep things interesting.

that wouldn't be any fun. i don't think we're far off here, actually, but i was waiting for you to comment on bb's "commercial" attire or the "scene" surrounding a bb show.

but, seriously, i don't think bb has compromised his artform at all - he's streamlined his show a bit over the decades, but he's holding very true to his blues tradition. and as a guitarist, he may not have the most amazing chops, but nobody's ever done more with 3 notes than bb - and his peers have nothing but admiration and praise for him.

I have nothing bad to say about BB - except that I don't usually care for guitarists who cannot sing and play at the same time, sort of what happened to Keith Richards at some point.

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KeefintheNight82
StonesTod,

You need to brush up on YOUR history then. BB has stated many times that he can not play and sing at the same time.

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StonesTod

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KeefintheNight82
StonesTod,

You need to brush up on YOUR history then. BB has stated many times that he can not play and sing at the same time.

he's prolly just being humble...

can he walk and chew gum at the same time?

his style doesn't require him to play and sing simulaneously. i can't think of many who do, actually. thinking to myself here...muddy, freddie, albert king, albert collins...the list is practically endless. unless the job is to hold down a rhythm part (typically done by a side player), it would make no sense to be playing while singing....the playing IS part of the story, as i said....

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ineedadrink
nobody plays a solo and sings at the same time. that's just ridiculous.

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71Tele

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StonesTod

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KeefintheNight82
StonesTod,

You need to brush up on YOUR history then. BB has stated many times that he can not play and sing at the same time.

he's prolly just being humble...

can he walk and chew gum at the same time?

his style doesn't require him to play and sing simulaneously. i can't think of many who do, actually. thinking to myself here...muddy, freddie, albert king, albert collins...the list is practically endless. unless the job is to hold down a rhythm part (typically done by a side player), it would make no sense to be playing while singing....the playing IS part of the story, as i said....

BB is one of those players who refuses to play rhythm. Again, it's not really a criticism - he's a beautiful player, I just prefer players who use more tools.

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StonesTod

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71Tele

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StonesTod

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KeefintheNight82
StonesTod,

You need to brush up on YOUR history then. BB has stated many times that he can not play and sing at the same time.

he's prolly just being humble...

can he walk and chew gum at the same time?

his style doesn't require him to play and sing simulaneously. i can't think of many who do, actually. thinking to myself here...muddy, freddie, albert king, albert collins...the list is practically endless. unless the job is to hold down a rhythm part (typically done by a side player), it would make no sense to be playing while singing....the playing IS part of the story, as i said....

BB is one of those players who refuses to play rhythm. Again, it's not really a criticism - he's a beautiful player, I just prefer players who use more tools.

like bob weir?

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71Tele

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StonesTod

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KeefintheNight82
StonesTod,

You need to brush up on YOUR history then. BB has stated many times that he can not play and sing at the same time.

he's prolly just being humble...

can he walk and chew gum at the same time?

his style doesn't require him to play and sing simulaneously. i can't think of many who do, actually. thinking to myself here...muddy, freddie, albert king, albert collins...the list is practically endless. unless the job is to hold down a rhythm part (typically done by a side player), it would make no sense to be playing while singing....the playing IS part of the story, as i said....

BB is one of those players who refuses to play rhythm. Again, it's not really a criticism - he's a beautiful player, I just prefer players who use more tools.

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KeefintheNight82

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71Tele

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StonesTod

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KeefintheNight82
StonesTod,

You need to brush up on YOUR history then. BB has stated many times that he can not play and sing at the same time.

he's prolly just being humble...

can he walk and chew gum at the same time?

his style doesn't require him to play and sing simulaneously. i can't think of many who do, actually. thinking to myself here...muddy, freddie, albert king, albert collins...the list is practically endless. unless the job is to hold down a rhythm part (typically done by a side player), it would make no sense to be playing while singing....the playing IS part of the story, as i said....

BB is one of those players who refuses to play rhythm. Again, it's not really a criticism - he's a beautiful player, I just prefer players who use more tools.

BB has said he can not play chords. Of course nobody plays solos and sings at the same time but BB doesn't play rhythm because he can't.

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71Tele

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StonesTod

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71Tele

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StonesTod

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KeefintheNight82
StonesTod,

You need to brush up on YOUR history then. BB has stated many times that he can not play and sing at the same time.

he's prolly just being humble...

can he walk and chew gum at the same time?

his style doesn't require him to play and sing simulaneously. i can't think of many who do, actually. thinking to myself here...muddy, freddie, albert king, albert collins...the list is practically endless. unless the job is to hold down a rhythm part (typically done by a side player), it would make no sense to be playing while singing....the playing IS part of the story, as i said....

BB is one of those players who refuses to play rhythm. Again, it's not really a criticism - he's a beautiful player, I just prefer players who use more tools.

like bob weir?

BB has tools. Weir is a tool...I wasn't going to take the bait, but you know me...

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71Tele
Prefer Muddy doing microtones on that pinky slide to anything fancy BB does. You can hear the Mississippi mud in his playing.

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StonesTod

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71Tele
Prefer Muddy doing microtones on that pinky slide to anything fancy BB does. You can hear the Mississippi mud in his playing.

love 'em both. both masters without peer.

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71Tele

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StonesTod

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71Tele
Prefer Muddy doing microtones on that pinky slide to anything fancy BB does. You can hear the Mississippi mud in his playing.

love 'em both. both masters without peer.

I was fortunate to stand right in front of Muddy at a club gig once and meet him after. Amazing man, and speaking of underrated guitarists...

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71Tele

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StonesTod

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dewlover
I saw the Dead on their own, and w/Dylan, and also FURTHUR at MSG a few months back, and their music is as awesome as ever...

It would appear that 71Tele has totally missed the bus!!!

the furthur bus is not to be missed even if you don't like the music.

the dead are an acquired taste, but well worth spending the time to acquire. it doesn't happen for everyone. as others have suggested, where the stones are a blues band disguised as a rock band, the dead were a jazz band, dressed up as a rock band. not every rock fan likes jazz, so it makes sense many stones fans wouldn't like the dead.

my prob with so many is that they make outlandish statements that suggest that something "sucks" just because they don't like it. ridiculous and it's a probably a reflection of their own insecurity more than anything else to make such an assertion.

sol sucks, of course, and the comment is immune from the above proposition. something has to suck, after all....

Good points about the Dead and jazz. I tend to not like jazz in my rock & roll (like I don't like mint in my chocolate) but my objections to the Dead are also that I don't resonate with them aesthetically or stylistically. I can't get past Bob Weir in those cut off shorts. It just makes me angry. I completely acknowledge that that part of my dislike for the Dead is completely subjective and non-musical. I also never resonated with the whole SF summer of love thing, that whole scene, or any of those bands. But I consider myself a fairly sophisticated consumer of music, and I think it is possible to not like the Dead without having it being caused by a character flaw.

It does not mean I missed any bus. It means I quite clearly saw the bus, who was in it, and decided there were other buses that would take me to my destination more pleasurably. OK?

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StonesTod

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71Tele

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StonesTod

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71Tele
Prefer Muddy doing microtones on that pinky slide to anything fancy BB does. You can hear the Mississippi mud in his playing.

love 'em both. both masters without peer.

I was fortunate to stand right in front of Muddy at a club gig once and meet him after. Amazing man, and speaking of underrated guitarists...

had the same pleasure (sans the meeting). one of the best experiences of my life.

had the displeasure of seeing him a few months later after he fired his band. didn't even plug in his guitar. played maybe 20 minutes.

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StonesTod

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71Tele

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StonesTod

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71Tele

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StonesTod

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KeefintheNight82
StonesTod,

You need to brush up on YOUR history then. BB has stated many times that he can not play and sing at the same time.

he's prolly just being humble...

can he walk and chew gum at the same time?

his style doesn't require him to play and sing simulaneously. i can't think of many who do, actually. thinking to myself here...muddy, freddie, albert king, albert collins...the list is practically endless. unless the job is to hold down a rhythm part (typically done by a side player), it would make no sense to be playing while singing....the playing IS part of the story, as i said....

BB is one of those players who refuses to play rhythm. Again, it's not really a criticism - he's a beautiful player, I just prefer players who use more tools.

like bob weir?

BB has tools. Weir is a tool...I wasn't going to take the bait, but you know me...

i know. i love your passion, tele. you love what you love and hate what you hate with equal passion.

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sweetcharmedlife
Bruce Springsteen