MetaFilter posts tagged with Guitar and rock

Sister Rosetta Tharpe

nebulawindphone — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 10:51:03 -0800

"She was a rock star," recalls Ira Tucker Jr., who grew up watching Tharpe with his father's gospel group in the 1940s and '50s. "You know, like Beyonce today and people like that. That's what Rosetta was to us." Sister Rosetta Tharpe wasn't the first one to bring black popular music into the church. (Here's the great Arizona Dranes playing barroom honky-tonk piano on the gospel side I Shall Wear a Crown in 1927.) But her fierce stage presence and her original blend of gospel, boogie-woogie, swing and smoking hot blues guitar was a crucial forgotten influence on what we now recognize as rock and roll. (Many more recordings inside. Enjoy!) If you're here for the electric guitar action, you'll want the Red Foley duet and the '60s TV appearances. My personal favorites are the stunning acoustic duets she recorded a decade or two earlier with the Sanctified gospel shouter Marie Knight — try "Up Above my Head" and "Daniel in the Lion's Den." But her range was incredible, everything she recorded was excellent, and comparing her late electric recordings with the earlier versions is a hoot if you're into that sort of thing. Early success with Lucky Millinder's big band: The Lonesome Road (scantily clad dancing girls at 0:45!), Four or Five Times, Trouble in Mind Mid-40s boogie-woogie gospel mega-hit: Strange Things Happening Every Day With Marie Knight in the late '40s: Up Above My Head, Beams of Heaven, My Journey to the Sky, Daniel in the Lion's Den [scroll down to the 7th set] With jubilee singers The Dependable Boys: Everybody's Going to Have a Wonderful Time Up There, My Lord's Gonna Move This Wicked Race, Down By the Riverside Her SCANDALOUS! return to blues in the '50s: Don't Leave Me Here to Cry Duet with country and rockabilly star Red Foley: Have a Little Talk with Jesus Straight-up church choir gospel from the '60s: I Do, Don't You, Seeking for Me, Lily of the Valley TV appearances from the '60s blues revival: Didn't It Rain, Trouble in Mind, Up Above My Head, Down By the Riverside Bonus — the Harmonizing Four singing at Tharpe's stadium-concert-slash-wedding in '51: Mighty Long Way. Sadly, no video. But how rock-star is that?

guitar player

nicolin — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 01:46:30 -0800

Sometimes you've got a song or a tune but something's missing : call Mike Stern, he could add some stuff.

"Put your boob in my scotch. Come on, put your tit in my drink."

6am — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 02:44:03 -0800

Bob Log III plays distorted trash grimey blues slide guitar with his hands, he drawls through a telephone attached to the bubble face of the motorcycle helmet he wears, and he drums with his feet. He is known to ask women to stir his scotch on stage with their breasts, which is sadly Not currently Safe for Work. Sometimes he asks them to sit on his knee, bouncing up and down on the blue glittery jump suit he wears whenever he plays. Bob Log III has an official site. The official site has officially NSFW videos. Of course Bob Log III has a wiki, some content of which is pretty amusing. Bob Log III is just generally not safe for work, and as such is absolutely fantastic.

Rocking Out

empath — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 12:09:55 -0800

Rock and Roll, Baby! (video)

guitar gods from the 60s

madamjujujive — Wed, 27 Dec 2006 18:31:54 -0800

Yardbirds documentary part 1, part 2, and part 3. Bonus: Jimmy Page, age 14.

It was raining the day mama picked me up from prison

Miko — Thu, 02 Feb 2006 07:11:16 -0800

So You Think You Hate Country Music? Then listen to this. The roots of American country music may surprise you. In this series of NPR programs, trace the gradual development of real country music through the first half of the 20th century. Learn how a woman's instrument of the late 1800s, the parlor guitar, became the the central symbol of country and rock; see how African-American musical forms like gospel and blues meshed with the development of country and early rock and influenced the traditional forms in turn; listen to German-Mexican hybrids of accordian style; find out why women had so many honky-tonk torch songs to sing in the late 40s. The series contains hours of content (narrative, interviews, music tracks), and a multitude of excellent links for deeper digging.

SuperDork Guitar Techniques

spock — Wed, 22 Jun 2005 09:14:16 -0800

Learn to Play Guitar like a SuperDork . Can't. . . not. . . look. Don't miss the links in the comments.

bjgeiger — Sun, 01 Jul 2001 05:04:34 -0800

Guitarist, musical icon Chet Atkins dies at 77 Chet Atkins, whose guitar style influenced a generation of rock musicians even as he helped develop an easygoing country style to compete with it, died Saturday. He was 77. "And another bites the dust."