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From: t~n.cheyenne.com (Ted Welter)
Date: Fri, 12 Jul 96 13:22:33 CDT
Subject: Re: Missin's Clapton

>
> [Ironman Mike's appreciation of Clapton]
>
I agree with much of what Mike says about music
(don't need a lot of lightning fast notes; in blues,
simple is better and isn't necessarily simple to
play) if not about his assessment of Clapton in
particular.

From the ages of 10-17 (this was in the mid to late
70s), Eric Clapton was an icon
to me, even though I was even then a harp player.
Played the sh*** out my older sibling's Cream and
Blind Faith and Yardbirds records. Eric Clapton
and Jeff Beck were *it (I didn't like Led Zeppelin,
them being so popular and all when I was trying
to be sophisticated). Then he made all of them
noodling records and I found the Clash and the
Talking Heads and the final blow was going to
see Clapton at some arena nightmare. Guess who
"warmed up:" Muddy. And in his sixties, Muddy
had more energy and soul in his little finger
than Clapton could muster in his entire(d) set.

Admittedly, this was a bad period for Clapton.
I've heard him since and he's playing much better.
(Still nothing as interesting as he was doing when
he was a drug addict in the 60s, in my opinion).
But shortly after seeing him live, I got to be
of drinking age, and got to go see the real blues.
Don't get me wrong...it's not a color thing, it's
a venue thing. And perhaps if I had a chance to
see Clapton in a small club when he was hot, I
wouldn't keep thinking of Buddy Guy (or Lonnie
Mack, for that matter) at our local
Blues Saloon when I think of the greatest blues
guitar set I've ever seen.

But now that blues is more happenin' (again),
Buddy Guy and Koko Taylor don't play the Blues
Saloon for a $4 cover when the come to Minneapolis
(although Lonnie Mack is playing tonight at a reasonable
club tonight). They're more likely to play the Orpheum or the
Guthrie or some other place that you can't dance,
and the tickets will be 18.50 plus the TicketMaster
surcharge...which is great for them, but I liked
'em better in the smaller place with cheap
tap beers and neighborhood types hanging out and
dancing and drinking.

Oh well. Obligatory harp content: I've been
dinking around with a midi file of Low Rider
that I found on the net (I don't have the
WAR recording). Chris M. mentioned that LO
and now Tex use specially-tuned harps. I suppose
that's why I can't cop all of the notes in
second position, eh? (or could it possibly be that
I'm just ignorant?). It's still a very cool
bass line for second position jams. I use
a gated reverb to get (what I think) sounds like
that funky attack on the single. If this is
a standard harp what's the key/position?