Charlie Daniels Band - The Devil Went Down To Georgia

This song may be considered to be country, and I'm not really sure where to put it. In my book it's a little fast to be country, but then again not all country sounds like Dolly Parton, some of it is fast and something you can dance to.
The song however has been embraced by the rock community, and the lyrics share a lot of similar things to blues music. The lyrics are about a kid who is challenged by the devil to a fiddle battle against the devil. If he wins he'll get a solid gold violin and if he loses the devil gets his soul. The devil also often appears in blues lyrics.
The song has been embraced by the rock world, and was featured in an updated version in the video game "Guitar Here III: Legends of Rock".
It's a great song and a delightfully energetic performance from the band and Charlie Daniels himself. He plays the fiddle so hard he breaks several hairs in his bow, and needs to switch bow towards the end of the song. That's cool. It's just a great performance.




The band Primus also did a cover of the song. They did a really nice clay-mation video for it, and I thought I'd include that. It's not as good as the original, but visually it tells the story very well.

Enjoy all of it ; )

OutKast - Idlewild Blue (Don'tchu Worry 'Bout Me)

(Haven't been able to find a version of this that is embeddable, so click here to go to the youtube page of the song)
This is the video for the song "Idlewild Blue (Don'tchu Worry 'Bout Me) by the rap duo OutKast. It's a song built around a classic 12-bar blues and it's sung by André 3000. It's nice to see newer artists incorporate blues elements into their songs, and especially when it's done well like this. It's basically the 12-bar in the front with a funky electric beat, and a little synthesizer towards the end.
The subject matter of the lyrics are also very bluesy, it's simple, but tells a story. It tells the story of a character trying to break free and gain independence, by leaving family, friends and the home town which is just classic blues. A lot of blues texts deal with trying to break free and leave, songs like "Dust My Broom", "Crossroads" and "I'm Leaving You (Commit a Crime)", to name a few.
The video displays André 3000 playing the song in an old house in the middle of nowhere that starts to overflow with water. There is debate of the meaning of the video. Some fans believe that the proximity of the video and the flowing water are visual allusions to the flooding that occurred as an aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Other fans see the water as an image of the blues, and that the blues can overflow and choke someone's life.
(Another artist who sung about hurricanes was Lightnin' Hopkins in the song "Hurricane Beulah" click here for that performance)

(A couple of pictures of André 3000, the first one is a capture from the video. Thought I'd at least give some sort of visual aid to this post!)
Any ways.

It's a great song, and it's nice to see talented people like OutKast doing a bit of blues.

Enjoy ; )

Ronnie Wood (ft. Slash) - Stay With Me

This is a performance by guitarist and singer Ronnie Wood. Wood is widely known as being one of the guitarists from Rolling Stones and he also gained fame touring with Rod Stawart and Jeff Beck. He has however besides all of those things always had a solo career. And his new album album "I Feel Like Playing" has just been released earlier this year.
Ronnie co-wrote the song "Stay With Me" with Rod Stewart for the band "The Faces". It became a pretty well known song, and has been featured on several compilation albums by "The Faces". The song has been covered a couple of times for instance by Ronnie James Dio's band Elf and Def Leppard. Through those covers the song kinda kept it's momentum through the 70's into the 80's.
In this performance Wood is also joined by famous guitarist Slash who, for the most part, stays in the background and plays rhythm on the song. He does have a small solo, but it isn't flashy or long. Slash knew this was Ronnie's performance, and stayed in the background, a character trade that only the best guitar players in the world posses.
It's a nice uplifting performance of a really good song.

Enjoy ; )

Train Kept A-Rollin' (Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 2009)

This is an all star performance from the 2009 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. It was the ending act of the night, and it got all of the nominees, winners and presenters on stage for an all star jam on this classic song. The performance features: all members of Metallica (including their earlier bassist Jason Newsted), Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck, Joe Perry, Flea and Ronnie Wood. The inductees of the evening were Metallica and Jeff Beck. It's a great performance, and you can just tell that they're all having a lot of fun with it.
The only drag, and I'm nitpicking now, is the fact that Jimmy Page doesn't get to do a solo, I mean, he's bad ass, so why not give him a solo. I think I know why, Beck, Kirk Hammet and Joe Perry all get to do a solo. Beck and Hammet were part of the main inductees and Perry had done a very famous version of the song with his band Aerosmith. I think it was a call on the producers part in trying not to get into too long of a jam on the show. It's a minor drag, but it really would have been sweet to hear Page do a solo. Well too bad.

Still a great performance and fun performance, enjoy ; )

Led Zeppelin - How Many More Times

This is a very early performance from Led Zeppelin. It's from 1969 in Gladsaxe in Denmark, it's from a teen club, and luckily Danish television decided to record it and broadcast it. They had just published their first self-titled debut-album and this was probably part of a promotion tour.
This song is great because it shows different sides of the band within one song. It especially shows in Page's playing. He starts off showcasing his blues influence and his playing starts out kinda conventional. That doesn't last long however, as he slowly transfers into that rock style he helped from and define. Playing more aggressive. At one point he also brings out the famous string bow which he uses to harmonise with Plant's vocals. He also showcases his ability to go wild and stretch his playing all over the fretboard. This is just awesome playing showcasing all aspects of what makes Jimmy's playing (both lead and rhythm) amazing.
What a lucky audience. It's a very small audience hence this was before Zeppelin made it big and played stadiums. The small audience sits around the stage, and just observes and enjoys the music. How many people can say they've experienced a band like Zeppelin in such short distance, not many, those lucky bastards. Man I was born in the wrong decade.
This is a great performance, all of the band gives 100 % and really entertains. It's a small crowd, and the fact that they just put on a big performance for such a small audience shows just how awesome they are, how dedicated they are and how little their music was about fame. These are true musicians.
Oh and this video is just a two minute excerpt from the performance, I highly recommend watching the whole performance. (Follow the links beneath)
Part 1
Part 2

Enjoy ; )

The White Stripes - My Doorbell

This is the music video for the song "My Doorbell" by The White Stripes. A piano driven simple, well pop song, probably. White Stripes are always hard to place genre-wise, they draw a lot of contemporary influences while still going back to a lot of the old blues hounds as well. This makes for a unique sound that is simply The White Stripes, they can't be put into any specific category of music and that's what make them so good and unique.
The song was released in 2005 on the album "Get Behind Me Satan" and was the second single from the album.
The music video is shot in a vintage black and white style which really fits the song well. The song was also nominated for a Grammy for best pop performance. It's a good video for a song that'll surely bring you in a good mood.

Enjoy ; )

Lightnin' Hopkins - Mojo Hand

This is a solo performance from blues legend Lightnin' Hopkins. He performs his song Mojo Hand which I can only assume is about the magic that lies within his own hands. It's a very short clip, but absolutely worth it. It's fast and good wholesome acoustic self accompanied blues, simple as that.
You can really hear the influence Lightnin' has had on Stevie Ray Vaughan in this clip, I don't think Stevie would have come up with the idea of playing in a fast boogie-woogie style blues were it not for Lightnin', and that's awesome.

Enjoy ; )