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April 08 Talking about 10 Life-Changing Degrees--and the Salaries to Match - MSN Encarta
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March 30 The Best Guitar Players and the Guitars They LoveThis article was found at http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=410555
Unfortunately I am not sure how long it and the great photos will be available so I am saving it here. Love on a high note Object of guitarist's affection comes with strings attached By DAVE TIANEN dtianen@journalsentinel.com Posted: March 24, 2006 They are six-string superstars. Not all rock stars are flesh and blood. There are a handful of guitars with names and legends of their own. The most celebrated is probably B.B. King's Lucille, but there are others: Eric Clapton's Blackie, Stevie Ray Vaughan's Number One, Bo Diddley's Big B. They are sort of like movie cowboys and their horses. In fact, Willie Nelson named his battered and storied Martin acoustic Trigger because it was his version of Roy Roger's famous steed. It reflects a special bond when you bestow a name on an inanimate object. Indeed, some famous guitarists have had affection for their instrument that approaches the attachment one might have for a lover. In his autobiography, "Blues All Around Me," King wrote, "With the possible exception of real life sex with a real life woman, no one gives me peace of mind like Lucille." Stevie Ray Vaughan actually called his battered Stratocaster First Wife as well as Number One and would fall asleep with it in his arms. In a 2004 interview, Clapton described his pain when he saw Steven Bishop pick up Blackie and play it roughly in a studio: "This felt as if someone had taken a dagger and plunged it in my arm and was twisting it. It was that painful." Here are the stories behind some of pop music's royal axes: Eric Clapton and Blackie Clapton realized how much of himself was invested in Blackie when he tripped and fell on the guitar during the recording sessions for "461 Ocean Boulevard." "The body and neck were totally gone, but after a few little running repairs, it was playing as good as new within half an hour. That's when I thought: This guitar is my life. It can take as much damage as me. I can pick it up, drop it or bounce it off the wall and it will still be in tune and play with heart and soul. It's irreplaceable." Stevie Ray Vaughan and Number One/First Wife "Stevie didn't have any money back in those early, early days," says Craig Hopkins, author of "The Essential Stevie Ray Vaughan. "He would come in, and every once in a while he would borrow a guitar for a gig. Ray would say, 'Yeah, go ahead, take it.' At one point, Stevie came in and he found Number One hanging on the wall there, and he decided he wanted to take it with him to try it out. So he did. Anyway, he comes back to Ray and says, 'Hey, Ray. I've got this nice, fairly new blue Stratocaster. Would you trade that old beat-up Strat for this nice blue one?' "Ray says, 'Well, sure. Go ahead.' That's how Stevie got Number One. He traded Ray a guitar that Ray already owned to get Number One. Number One was a gift. Stevie never paid anything for it." A "mongrel" with a '62 neck and '63 body, Number One took a beating over the years, and various parts had to replaced from the times Vaughan twirled it by the whammy bar or leaned his weight against the body trying to get more feedback. Of course, Number One also gave as good as it got. Vaughan played with extra-heavy strings, and they would tear up his fingers. "Stevie would get callouses just like any other major guitar player, and if those callouses would start to tear off, he'd just Superglue them back on," Hopkins says. "You think that's kind of outrageous, but that's what Superglue was originally designed to do. It was designed for medical uses in combat." In 1989, gouged, battered and scarred, Number One had gone through numerous repairs, and it was determined that the neck couldn't take another re-fret, so it was replaced with a '63 neck. That neck was snapped in 1990 when some stage scenery fell it on it at the Garden State Center in New Jersey. Another '63 neck was found as a replacement, and Number One ended up missing only one show. It was with Stevie Ray that night at Alpine Valley. In 2003 Fender produced a custom replica of Number One, right down to the gouges and worn finish. Willie Nelson and Trigger Over the years, Trigger has seen extended service, and a large hole has been worn in the body. It's also covered with 100 autographs from famous friends such as Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Kris Kristofferson, Leon Russell and Gene Autry. "Trigger is testament to the idea that you take all the rules and throw them out the window," says Tom Wheeler, former editor of Guitar Player and author of "The Stratocaster Chronicles." "Who would think that a guitar that's been battered to the point that there's a hole in the sound board would not only sound tolerable, but would sound good and be very distinctive. Which it is." It is a sign of his affection that Willie refuses to let anybody tamper with Trigger by trying to repair the body. It is a further sign of his affection that during his famous scrapes with the Internal Revenue Service, Nelson is said to have hidden Trigger at this manager's house to keep the government from confiscating it. In 1999, Martin manufactured a limited edition replica of Trigger to celebrate its 30th birthday. Les Paul and The Log Unlike the other guitars on our list, The Log does not have a long and storied career as a working instrument. It was instead, a working experiment that Paul built in 1937 when he was experimenting with making a solid body electric. Chuck Porter, director of operations at the Memphis Museum of Rock 'n' Soul, explains that Paul took his experiment to Gibson and "They didn't want it, and they laughed at him. The world wasn't ready for it. Then Leo (Fender) beat him to it in the late '40s. Then Gibson came back to Les Paul and said, 'We're ready now.' He said, 'Uh, hah. No. I tried that route already.' My understanding is that Ted McCarty said, 'I'll build them and design them and send them to you.' That's the only reason Les Paul went with Gibson." Since The Log was essentially a block of wood with a neck mounted on it, Paul sawed an Epiphone guitar up and attached "wings" on both sides to give it the semblance of a guitar body. The Log is currently in the collection of the Country Museum Hall of Fame in Nashville. "It's kind of falling apart," says Bill Lloyd of the Hall of Fame. "It's in a box right now. It's not really safe to go out and play and shake around on stage. . . . It's a block of wood. It looks like a railroad tie or something. . . . It's heavier than you would think. "He donated this to the Hall back in '77. . . . He was actually through here a couple of years ago, and there was a Q&A, and he was kind of picking it up and shaking it around. Everyone tells me they were waiting for it to disintegrate while he was on a stage with it. "We haven't tried to plug it in. The last time I looked at it was when Bonnie Raitt came through, and we were showing her all kinds of cool stuff in our archive. We pulled out The Log, and she picked it up and it almost . . . It's just held together by some nails and things. It's not something you'd play at this point." Bo Diddley and Big B Although Big B had some recording limitations, Diddley loved its look and used it as his stage guitar for many years. "Some of those Bo Diddley guitars are fine-sounding guitars, and people can get a good sound out of them," Wheeler says. "They came about during a time in the '50s when it was the jet age and the space age, and these wacky guitars like Gibson's Flying V, and Bo's rectangular Gretsch, all of them visually are novelty guitars. With Bo Diddley you want that." According to Diddley expert and Web master David Blakey, Diddley over the years has had guitars shaped like "triangles, arrows, Cadillac tail fins, rocket tails and spaceships." In 1999 Gretsch reissued a replica of Big B as part of the celebration of Bo's 70th birthday. The original Big B was retired after two rebuilds and 20 years of service and is now in the collection of the Hard Rock Café in New York City. B.B. King and Lucille The original was an acoustic that the young Blues Boy loved so much he almost died for it. It was the winter of 1949, and King was playing a little club in Twist, Ark., outside of Memphis. It was a cold night and to heat the club, the owners filled a large garbage pail with kerosene and ignited it in the center of the dance floor. Unfortunately, two male patrons became engaged in a dispute over a lady, and in the resulting dustup knocked over the pail of burning liquid, setting the club on fire and triggering a panicked stampede for the exits. King made it safely outside but realized he'd left his guitar back in the burning building. He recounted what happened next in his autobiography: "I look at that fire and figure I've got about one second to decide. I go for it, dashing back inside. Someone tries to stop me, but I'm gone. Got to. Got to grab that guitar. Fire all around me. Heat unbearable. Burning like hell. Flames licking my feet, scorching my arms. I find the guitar just as a beam crashes down in front of me. But I got the guitar. Grab it by the neck. Jump back over the beam just as a wall collapses, missing my (behind) and my guitar by a couple of inches. Can barely see the door for the all-roaring fire. Put my head down, cradling the guitar in my arms, and make a mad dash for the exit. The black night is a welcome sight. I'm burned on my legs, but the guitar is fine." It turned out the lady who was the object of the dispute was named Lucille and hence the guitar King nearly died for got its name. Over the years there have been lots of Lucilles. Gibson has built replica tribute guitars, and Northwest Airlines even painted the guitar on the side of some of its jets. Several have been stolen, but they each have a special bond with their owner. King says that nothing but sex gives him more pleasure than playing his guitar, and when he dies he'd like it to happen on stage with Lucille in his hands. From the March 27, 2006 editions of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel November 22 RembrandtHeading to the Rembrandt exhibit in Milwaukee tomorrow. This will be a great experience, I'm sure and it runs with another exhibit we are sure to check out. . . About Face: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the African-American Image. Toussaint L'Ouverture was a former slave in Haiti who led the first successful slave revolt in the Americas in the 1790s. October 17 Been goneWas off to California for a couple of weeks but still managed to publish Fun on the Web. See link at right.
It was amazing how hot it was (up to 100+ a few days) and now its cool and fall back here.
Headed to the punkin patch for fall fun this weekend and plan to get out and see the Reverend Raven this week.
I missed the benefit they held last week at Shank Hall with West Side Andy and Mel Ford
http://www.westsideandy.com/ but Dona Silencio went and she had a great time. October 03 Fun on the Web vol 4 Issue 39No longer going to show each entry for the FUN ON THE WEB blog.
Pretty much every week on Monday it's new at http://more-blues.blogspot.com// unless I have other more pressing issues. Most of those times I will tell in advance when it will be published. So this site is going back to occassional blogging here and some blues picture storage. September 26 Fun on the Web vol 4 Issue 38Fun on the Web vol 4 Issue 38 was posted here: http://more-blues.blogspot.com/ Click here to The Hunger Site - Give with just a clickhttp://www.thehungersite.com/ Donate to Second Harvest http://www.secondharvest.org/ Gain training to respond to local and nation disasters. http://redcross.volunteermatch.org/ September 19 Fun on the Web vol 4 Issue 37Fun on the Web vol 4 Issue 37 was posted here: http://more-blues.blogspot.com/
Click here to The Hunger Site http://www.thehungersite.com/ Donate to Second Harvest http://www.secondharvest.org/ Gain training to respond to local and nation disasters. http://redcross.volunteermatch.org/results/opp_detail.jsp?oppid=153955 September 14 Fun on the Web vol 4 Issue 36Fun on the Web vol 4 Issue 36 was posted here: http://more-blues.blogspot.com/
Click here to The Hunger Site http://www.thehungersite.com/ Donate to Second Harvest http://www.secondharvest.org/ Gain training to respond to local and nation disasters. http://redcross.volunteermatch.org/results/opp_detail.jsp?oppid=153955 September 07 Fun on the Web vol 4 Issue 35Fun on the Web vol 4 Issue 35 was posted here: http://more-blues.blogspot.com/
Click here to The Hunger Site http://www.thehungersite.com/ Donate to Second Harvest http://www.secondharvest.org/ Gain training to respond to local and nation disasters. http://redcross.volunteermatch.org/results/opp_detail.jsp?oppid=153955
August 29 Fun on the Web vol 4 Issue 34Fun on the Web vol 4 Issue 34 was posted here: http://more-blues.blogspot.com/ August 21 Fun on the Web vol 4 Issue 33Fun on the Web vol 4 Issue 33 was posted here: http://more-blues.blogspot.com/ August 11 Major updatesI did major updates on http://bluesbaby.8k.com to the blues artists, local artists, and what's new pages. BTW Fun on the Web was posted to http://more-blues.blogspot.com/ on Monday too.  Things that go bump in the nightI had quite some excitment this weekend
I had something flying around inside the house
not sure if it was a bird or a bat but it just creeped me out totally I had gotten trapped in the front hall at one point when I had tried to open the door to coax it out but the door was blocked by a big package on the front step I sat on the screened porch for a bit gathering my wits again while I talked to my sister Finally I went inside the house turned on ALL the lights looked in the bathroom used the facilities while I was there washed my hands
shut off the light shut the door tight went in the office looked all around shut myself inside called my son and family who were driving back here from Milwaukee they agreed to come here and "rescue" me so along they come and we traipse up and down stairs looking high and low with no luck then my son goes in the bathroom he comes out grinning "didn't you say you went in and used the bathroom before 'locking' yourself in the office?" "it's in there"
"he was hanging right over your head on the curtain" it was a brown bat
OMG I got the neighbor to come and catch it
he has done it before at his house
he had thick leather gloves and cupped his hands around it
I waited outside to open the door for him
so I missed the bat hissing at him when he went out I ducked in
he let it go outside is this one of the joys of country life? July 15 ABC's of MeABC's Of Me
A - Age you got your first kiss: I was 12 B - Band listening to right now: BB King "Let the Good Times Roll - The Music of Louis Jordan" C - Crush on: Nobody D - Dad's name: David E - Easiest person to talk to: Debbie or Anita F - Favorite bands at the moment: Marcia Ball, Belairs, any good blues band really G - Gummy worms or gummy bears?: neither, give me chocolate H - Hometown: Milwaukee I - Instruments: none, unless the stereo counts J - Junior High: My school went from K to grade 8, then a 4 yr high school K - Kind of car: Toyota L - Longest car ride ever: Drove to Texas and back then less than a week later drove by myself to California (well ok my sister joined me in Phoenix for the last leg of the trip). M - Mom's name: Marcia N - Nicknames: Bluesbaby, MOTO, Keeper of the Agenda O - One wish: World peace and the end of greed which I think is cause and effect. P - Phobias: Heights Q - Quote: Wild Women Never Get the Blues! R - Reason to smile: My kids and grandkids. S - Song you sang last: Hoodoo Party at the Belairs concert in the park T - Time you woke up today?: 3AM going back to bed now U - Unknown fact about me: I am the black sheep of the family. V - Vegetable you hate: Cooked carrots W - Worst habit(s): Not exercizing X - X-rays you've had: Just about everything...ankle, knees, hands, back, neck, head Y - Yummy food: Italian, Mexican, Steaks, Seafood Z - Zodiac sign: Libra |
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