Tag: rest in peace

Dickey Betts

I was never an Allman Brothers fan. I went through an At Fillmore East phase the way most guitar players do. I was a huge fan of Duane Allman’s playing on Derek and the Dominoes Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs album and at some point I needed more and that brought me to At Fillmore East. Duane Allman’s playing is other worldly on that record. In between the stratospheric heroics there were the moments featuring the other guy. That other guy is Dickey Betts. When you step back and look at it closely, his playing is just as good as Allman’s. Maybe not equal (because that’s asking too much from a normal human), but close enough.

On top of being a fantastic lead player, he wrote some incredible songs. “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed” is pretty much perfect. I spent a lot of time in my youth sitting in front of my cassette player trying to figure out how to play that song. Just picking up what I could. It’s a twin lead guitar instrumental that to my ear is closer to Fusion than Southern Rock. I’d play along for a while, then stare at the speakers, slack jawed, when Duane’s solos came up, then I’d play along with Dickey’s solos.

Outside of that record though, I never really had much use for The Allman Brothers. Southern Rock as a genre has its moments but generally speaking it wasn’t for me. Respect where respect is due though. Dickey Betts as a song writer, guitarist, and singer is deserving of all of the respect.

He passed away this morning at age 80. Rest in Peace, Dickey Betts. Everyone go give At Fillmore East a spin in his memory.

Four Years Ago

We didn’t know it until a few days later, but on this date four years ago we lost Neil Peart. Easily the most painful moment of my musical life. He had such an impact on me. I’m sure if I ever told him that it would embarrass the hell out of him, so I would never have said anything even if I had the chance… but it’s true. It’s silly that some clown in a rock band that I never met could have such a huge effect on who I grew up to be… but it’s true. You know? It’s true.

Happy Patches Day

On this date in the year 2010 our family adopted a cat for the first time. Her name before she was picked up by the MSPCA shelter was Panic but they changed it to Panache. We changed it to Patches and she was the best neurotic cat who was afraid of everything and who would vomit almost daily you could ever dream of adopting. She was an amazing cat and we all loved her like crazy. She passed away on December 27, 2022 and we were very sad. Speaking for myself, I still am. I miss my little nutjob of a kitty.

Bernie Marsden

Back in the 80’s, the English hairband Whitesnake broke through in the US in a huge way. I was pretty uninterested. Hair bands did nothing for me, even those who have lead singers who used to be in one of my favorite bands.

Whitesnake’s frontman was David Coverdale who from 1973-1975 or so was the frontman and co-lead vocalist in Deep Purple. He made three records with them. The first is an all time classic, Burn. The second is crap, mostly, other than the title song, Stormbringer, which was also the name of one of the bands I played in back in high school. The third record, Come Taste the Band is nowhere near as good as Burn, but it’s still pretty fantastic.

I don’t know the timeline following that very well, but I think David Coverdale made a couple of solo records, one of which was called White Snake… gee… what was he thinking of when he came up with that name? From there his solo career morphed into the band Whitesnake. Other ex-Purple members, John Lord and Ian Paice, played in that band. I guess they were sort of similar to Deep Purple in a bluesy rock kinda way. At some point Coverdale started firing band members (that’s how I heard it at least) and replaced them with people who were more in tune with 80’s corporate rock and eventually that lead to the self titled album that had a ton of hits on it and that was that.

Bernie Marsden was one of the guitar players in Whitesnake before the corporate shuffle happened. I knew him by reputation but I never gave the band a chance. Well, never until the pandemic when one day I found myself on Apple Music listening to Burn and saw Whitesnake as a suggested listen and I gave an old live record a spin. It sounded Purple-esque. It wasn’t bad. I didn’t take to it the way I once took to Deep Purple, but I had to give it credit. It was a good record.

There was one song in particular that I really liked. I didn’t realize it was a cover song until later, but it’s a good song so what can you do?

There were two guitar players in this band so I don’t know for sure which parts were Bernie Marsden, but they both sound pretty good to me. The thing that I really knew Marsden from was actually not his music, or his playing, but it was his guitar collection. Specifically his 1959 Gibson Les Paul Standard, which has the unfortunate name “The Beast”. That guitar is one of those legendary Les Pauls, like Peter Green’s ’59 or Clapton’s ’60. The guitar’s reputation almost supersedes the guitarist’s, if you can believe it.

Bernie Marsden passed away. By all accounts he was a quality guy, a great guitar player, and the proud owner of a classic instrument. He also wrote a couple of those big Whitesnake hits. David Coverdale had a thing for taking songs from the pre-hairband period and re-recording them and releasing them as singles. Marsden co-wrote “Fool for Your Lovin'” which was a good song even to my ears in the 80’s. He also co-wrote “Here I Go Again” which was a mega-hit the second time around. Fortunately the hit version swapped out the word hobo from the chorus, though Coverdale replaced it with drifter which along with gypsy and rock and roll were words that he used over and over and over and over again, constantly.

Rest in peace, Bernie Marsden. I’ll give some of those old Whitesnake records a spin in your honor today.

David Crosby

We lost another one last night. Shit. We lost Jeff Beck last week and I am far from over it and absolutely not ready to move on, but then we lost David Crosby last night. Shit.

Remember back in 2016 where the rock stars seemed to be dropping like flies? Bowie, Prince, Paul Kantner, Greg Lake, John Whetton, one after another. Three weeks into 2023, and it’s starting to feel like that again. Shit.

I have posted this particular song here maybe 100 times. I just really like this song. It’s probably not Crosby’s best CSN/CSNY song (that would probably be either Guinnevere or maybe Long Time Gone) but I really just love this song. I’ve never heard this version though. At least I don’t think so. Comments on the guitar playing, because that’s what I do, Neil Young is a ridiculously good guitar player, but I really don’t like him as a soloist. I could listen to him strum and finger pick all day long, but playing lead… sorry, Neil Young fans. Nothing personal. Stephen Stills however is an animal as a lead player. This particular clip might not show him at his best, but he’s a killer. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen him playing a Firebird, but it does sort of make me want a Firebird even more than I already did… and I really do want to land me a Firebird.

Anyway. Rest in Peace, David Crosby. Thanks for the music, and also thanks for being such an epic smart ass on Twitter. You were one of the best follows ever.