John Lee Hooker - Boom Boom

This is a performance from the 60's by blues legend John Lee Hooker. He performs it with an electric guitar accompanied by himself. It's a great performance, and the foot tapping is just excellent and done with perfect timing. It's a nice throw back to the roots of the blues, artists like Robert Johnson who would also tap the rhythm with his foot as he was recording. Now it's just done with an electric guitar instead.
The song also gained some notoriety when featured in "The Blues Brothers", John himself cameos in the film as a South Side Chicago street musician.
A great song, and a great performance.

Enjoy ; )

Rory Gallagher - Too Much Alcohol

This is a live performance by blues and rock legend Rory Gallagher performing his classic slide blues composition "Too Much Alcohol". It's a song done in open E with a slide.
The performance is from and Irish TV-show called "Me & My Music" which was broadcast in 1977. It's great to see Gallagher on his own just performing and accompanying himself, it's a tough thing to do, and only true blues men master that ability. Gallagher's great, love how he really works the crowd and gets them pumped. Just a great performance.

Enjoy ; )

Lightnin' Hopkins - Goin' Down Slow

This is an old recording of blues legend Lightnin' Hopkins performing the classic blues song "Goin' Down Slow". The first release of the song was in 1941, but the song gained notoriety when it was recorded by legendary blues artist Howlin' Wolf in 1962 (for Wolf version click here).
Wolf's recording made the song a blues standard, and it has since been covered by a lot of artists including; Jeff Beck, Ray Charles, Eric Clapton and Aretha Franklin, to name a few.
I like Lightnin's version because it is everything that I love about the blues, a man and his guitar just playing, it's soul, it's fantastic and no one has been able to replicate that today, it's unique.
Lightnin' was also a huge influence on Stevie Ray Vaughan, but more in terms of Vaughan's song "Rude Mood".

Enjoy ; )

Keith Richards - You Got the Silver

This performance is from the Martin Scorsese documentary/concert-film "Shine a Light". It's Keith Richards singing on stage on his own. Richards occasionally sings lead on songs by The Rolling Stones, but for the most part Mick does it, and Keith sticks to backing vocals, or they do the vocals as a duo.
Normally during a show Keith takes over for two songs, as is also the case with "Shine a Light". On this song Ronnie Wood accompanies him, but it's a simple set-up, and a beautiful song.

Enjoy ; )