[Slowhand] Eric rants and raves continued

[sam mangano]

I for one do not want another blues cover album. I would love to hear a 
contemporary record like Buddy Guy just put out called "Bring 'Em Home". I 
was listening to it for the first time in almost a year since I bought it on 
my way to his show at the house of blues last nite in cleveland. It has a 
mix of original blues tunes, slow songs, up tempo rockers, etc., and the 
guitar was up front in the mix with magnificent soloing and rich vocals!

by the way, buddy's show blew away the detroit EC show i went to a couple 
weeks ago. buddy came out resplendant in an electric blue satin jogging suit 
with bowler hat. he came out swinging for the fences with a new plain 
white/cream colored strat (no polka dots) and prowled the stage like a 
tiger! the man is 8-10 years OLDER than EC for godsake. he has cut back on 
his gimmicks and plays a lot more guitar now than he has the last 5 times i 
have seen him.

i had seats in the balcony. buddy did his usual stroll through the crowd, 
went behind the bar for a drink, etc. i went downstairs to get an upclose 
view. he proceeded to follow me up the steps to the balcony, and sat down in 
the seat in the row in front of me, and soloed for a bit! he totally 
reworked and performed an understated "hoochie coochie man", did a couple BB 
King covers, his EC/Hendrix impersonations, new songs, story-telling, the 
works. now that's what i call entertainment! he played about 80 minutes, but 
odd though that he didnt do an encore? i paid forty bucks for my ticket and 
felt like i was stealing from him....

out
sambo8

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Scott Wallenberg" <scottw at racerxill.com>
To: "EC Slowhand Digest" <slowhand at planet-torque.com>
Sent: Wednesday, April 18, 2007 5:49 PM
Subject: [Slowhand] Eric rants and raves continued



> If Eric did another  From the Cradle   what do you think it would sound 

> like?

>

> In my opinion it would sound just like a repeat of From the Cradle. or Me 

> and Mr. Johnson

> He is not going to re-invent the wheel...his blues playing is what it is. 

> I happen to love it but more covers of Blues tunes would get a kind of 

> redundant.

>

> FTC and the accompanying tour had Lee Dixon trotting out endless varieties 

> of guitars which certainly helped to provide lots of nice tonal changes 

> but in the end it was still Eric's fingers and there really aren't any new 

> "blues" licks coming.

>

> There is a fascinating interview in Vintage Guitar magazine Feb 2007 issue 

> interviewing Eric and JJ together which details almost every track on 

> Escondido.

> Interestingly on  Don't Cry Sister Eric actually did all the guitars and 

> taught himself the JJ Cale parts, the harmonizing lines and overdubs.

> That's probably one of the coolest things on the record to me and shows 

> that if Eric wants to learn something new he can.

>

> JJ also mentions how he plays After Midnight different almost every night 

> to change things up and Eric counters that he likes to keep the 

> arrangements the same and just let the solos vary.

>

> Eric also mentioned about playing in a trio again with Cream  "If I were 

> to do it again, I'd learn to play in a way that wasn't so manic.There must 

> be better ways to do the trio thing"

>

> JJ says that Eric was sitting on his porch playing licks that he has never 

> ever heard Eric play. When JJ said Eric should record that, Eric replied 

> "there are somethings that should just go in the air"

>

>

>

>

> Scott

>

>