1970 -- Janis Joplin, The Beatles and The Doors
In 1970, I was 8 years old. I have an older sister who is 11 years older than me, and who graduated in 1969. She has good taste in music and often gave me her old albums to listen to. Up to that point, I had lots of 45's, as our uncle had been a disc jockey in the mid 60's, and had lots of for-promotion-only discs to share. Many of the 45's were surf music -- Dick Dale, The Astronauts, Beach Boys, The Hondells, The Ventures and so on. There were British groups, like The Shadows (with Hank Marvin) and of course, The Beatles. We had almost all of the original Capital Records Beatles 45's, all lost to time, with the lone survivor being an open-ended interview with the DJ inserting his voice into the spaces to make it appear he was doing the interview.
My sister gave me her Big Brother and the Holding Company LP, Cheap Thrills, with the late great Janis Joplin.
For some reason, I just loved this record. I had no idea who Janis was, nor did I know anything about hippies,
the summer of love, or who Jimi Hendrix was – you get the idea. I was only 8 years old and did not pay any attention to the news.
My head, like most boys my age, was wrapped up in the Apollo space program. But music like this got my attention.
You had never heard any rock singer doing what Janis was doing. We were listening to light rock, like The Mamas and
The Papas. Mama Cass didn't sing like Janis. She poured her soul into the songs, and all that pain of a troubled
childhood came out in an explosion of song. I wished I remembered what drew me to this music. Unfortunately, one of
the things I remember is my sister telling me that Janis died.
At the same time, I got in to the Beatles big time. I wanted to be a drummer, so I spent a lot of time looking at Sears and Montgomery Wards catalogs, wanting the silver swirl drum set that Ringo used. Guitars were not much of a thought, even though I tended to prefer guitar rock, like Duane Eddy and The Shadows. My most prized possession was a piano and guitar songbook of The Beatles music. I would make dioramas of a stage, with each member in his own spot. And if I behaved, my sisters would let me watch "Help", which we never did see, since the reception on the TV was so poor. I think I was tricked with that one.
Later, along with the Beatles, my sister gave The Doors to listen to. Jim Morrison must have made an impact on me, as
I would go around the neighborhood yelling "We want the world and we want it now!" from When the Music's Over. That got some attention!
The whole point of this rambling goes back to Janis, though. I was watching her on YouTube, where at a concert in Germany, she invited members of the audience up on stage to sing and dance. They crowded around her, singing "Piece of My Heart", and the end, she took a bow and had a huge smile on her face. Janis was a household-name rock star, who led a very lonely life, but at that moment, she just seemed to be on top of the world.
I was lucky to have found this music early in life, as I was a fan -- a young one at that -- at a time when she was still alive. Now she is a music legend.
This music, along with many other songs to be discovered later, is the soundtrack of my life.
Thank you to my sister, who took the time to give me this music to discover and explore. Also, thanks to my parents, who never paid any attention to what I was listening to!
YouTube Music Explorations
I had the idea to put in a year in the search at YouTube, just to see what would come up. I was amazed at the music videos that I found. I started on 1978, which is the year I bought my first Gibson Les Paul, set a school record in the high jump and got my driver's license. I had hair almost to my shoulders and looked rather -- interesting. Links are to the YouTube page.
First up was AC/DC. There are lots of the Bon Scott-era videos up here. I was not into them much, but now I am amazed that they have survived all these years. They are a testament to the longevity of rock and roll. I don't think there is a guitarist that even comes close to Angus Young's energy onstage.
If you are a fan of Adrian Belew, you will find him on tour with Davie Bowie this year.
I was a casual fan of the Little River Band, thanks to my brother. This one, Reminiscing, was a trip down memory lane.
Tom Petty shows up on the Midnight Special, singing American Girl. I was not a fan of his at all, but today, I have a great appreciation for his music. He has grown on me over the years. I thought his Super Bowl appearance was excellent.
Fans of Allan Holdsworth can see him with UK, along with Eddie Jobson, John Wetton and Bill Bruford. What a line up of talent! I have this LP and listen to it every now and then. Allan did not last long with UK, and other videos show that he was not replaced. The band did not have a guitarist.
I found a progressive band called Gentle Giant. The guitarists are using a 50's era sunburst Les Paul (which sounds fantastic!) and a pre-CBS Stratocaster in this video. The keyboardist has at least 8 keyboards, too, but seems to only use the Minimoog here. I like this band. I have never heard of them before this. Here is a link to them: official site
I discovered Cheap Trick this year, and here they are doing Surrender. Cheap Trick is another one of the few to survive and thrive over that last 30 years. They are still out there touring. Good for them. I love this song.
UFO is here with one of my favorites from that year, Lights Out. There was an older kid in my school who had an incredible album collection. He let me take quite a few to copy, and Strangers in the Night was one of them. Michael Schenker was great, although he seems to be plagued with personal problems. Now I want a Flying V after seeing this!
From Top of the Pops comes The Pretenders, with Talk of the Town. James Honeyman-Scott was a great guitarist, who died way too young. The Pretenders were never the same without his distinctive style. Chrissie Hynde is still an important figure in rock, and is the ultimate survivor of a band that lost two of its members to drugs within a year.
My favorite band of that year was Heart, here with Straight On. I saw them in concert in November of this year, at the Met Center in Bloomington, Minnesota. It was my first concert, and the sights and smells around me were interesting. This video was taken from that tour. For me, this concert was an fantastic experience, as I was a huge fan of Roger Fisher, the lead guitarist. Later on the tour, which was supporting the Dog and Butterfly album, he stormed off the stage after smashing his guitar. He was fired after that. I am glad that did not happen when I saw them.
Dire Straights hit it big that year, Here they are with Sultans of Swing. Mark Knofler was a one of kind guitar player then. His fingerpicking technique and the clean, pure Stratocaster sound was unheard of in my world. This songs was very popular among my friends, and was being played everywhere. This is the one song that really reminds me of that year. I recommend guitarist drop the pick every once and awhile and try to play like Mark. I have started to play this was over the last few years, and find it gives me more versatility and tone. It has also helped my improve my slide playing.
1978 was a great year for music. I was soaking all of this in, trying to apply it to my own still emerging guitar style.
I could go on and on, but I won't. Put in a year and explore.
Fake Chinese Guitars
Word is starting to get around the internet that there are many fake electric guitars, branded with Gibson and Fender logos, flooding the marketplace in America. These guitars are offered at ridiculously low prices, and to the uninformed, look like the real deal.
These guitars have been selling through e-bay for quite some time. Only recently has there been any kind of publicity about it. One hates to think of any young guitarist loosing all their money, thinking they bought a real Les Paul, only to find out it was a plywood fake.
It is not always easy to tell by looking at a small picture if the guitar is fake. To me, the first thing I notice on a modern Gibson is that the fret ends are always covered with the neck binding. Not so on a fake one - the frets go right over the binding and to the edge of the neck. Also, Gibson uses two screws on the truss rod cover. The fakes use three. Most often, the control covers on the back of a real Gibson are brown. Fakes are white or cream.
The links below go into detail about spotting the fakes. I would imagine that the biggest problem is Americans who buy these in bulk, and sell through Craigslist or other classified ads to unsuspecting adults and kids who just want to own the real thing, be it a Fender, Gibson or PRS. E-bay does not seem to be doing anything about it yet, although I suspect that will change in the near future.
Here are a few links to read about: Modern Guitars, Vintage Rock, Sonic State, GuitarSite.com, and Free Republic.com
Epiphone Dot 335
I have been going back and forth on this guitar. I really liked them at first,
then discovered that the upper fret access was not working for me. It seems that whenever I go
into the local Guitar Center, I seek them out, trying to convince myself that it would work for me if I just gave it a chance.
Well, yesterday I sat down with a beautiful natural maple Dot, plugged into a reissue Fender Twin Reverb, and discovered that, yes, I could get used to this guitar.
These guitars are currently being made in the Epiphone factory in China. Previously, they were made on Korea, at times in different factories, by multiple companies. Now that Gibson is overseeing everything in their own factory, the quality, at least on the samples I looked at, was superb.
The sound through the Twin was excellent, warm and full, at the clean setting. I have no doubt that the guitar would sound great distorted. The thing that I really like about the Dot is that it is a tremendous value, at around $399. They are all over e-bay for less than $300. The Dot is very well thought of on the guitar forums such as Fender Forum and The Gear Page. In fact,many professionals use this guitar as part of their performing arsenal. A popular mod is to replace the pickups with vintage-style humbuckers, to come close to the famous Gibson 335 sound of Larry Carlton and Eric Clapton.
I am looking forward to the day when I bring one of these home.
My Stratocasters
Speaking of guitars, here are my Stratocasters. You can't have just one.
I have owned a few others in the past, including an Ibanez copy from about 1976, a silver 25th Anniversary from 1979 and a 1957 reissue made in 1983. They were all good guitars, but at the time, I just could not get along with them for very long. Now, I am so used to them that is is hard to play anything else.
Currently, I have switched the necks on the sunburst 1994 with the candy apple red 1997. It has improved both guitars considerably. I am not sure why, but the sunburst sounds better this way.
The 1979 Silver Anniversary was my first real Stratocaster. This guitar was a limited run of 10,000! Not a small number. The guitar
is somewhat remembered as a failure at first, as the white finish on the first run quickly cracked and started to flake off. Fender used a
water-based paint, which did not work. Original white models are collectors items. I had a friend who was preserving one back then. I have seen
others turn yellow. Fender changed to the silver paint, which did not crack or flake off. Many of the necks have turned a shade of orange, though.
I am not sure if they are really collectable yet. although I have seen the prices of all 1970's Fenders go up. Fenders made then were generally
not very good, and are going up only because they are old, and guitars from the 50's and 60's are out reach for most people.