John Lee Hooker - Tupelo

This is a live performance by blues legend John Lee Hooker playing his classic song "Tupelo" live on acoustic guitar. The song is about an actual flood that occurred in the Mississippi Delta around 1936 and destroyed many homes and killed many people. The song captures the desperation, describes the mood and tension of the situation and tells of people turning to religion to save them from the flood.
It's a great sad and tragic song by Hooker. It shows just how powerful simple guitar playing and a voice like his turns out to be artistic and beautiful.
Floods, hurricanes and bad weather are often the subject of blues songs. As is also the case with "Hurricane Beulah" and "Texas Flood".
It's a really good song inspired by the tradition of self-accompanied Delta blues which Hooker mastered to perfection. This is a man in his element doing what he does best: Singing and playing the blues.

Enjoy ; )

Stevie Ray Vaughan - Testify

This is a live performance from blues guitarist extraordinaire Stevie Ray Vaughan playing the instrumental song Testify live from the El Mocambo venue in Canada.
The song originally consisted of two different recordings of the same song, but with different lyrics. They have been dubbed the names Testify Parts I and II. The song was recorded by The Isley Brothers in 1964 who at this time had Jimi Hendrix on guitar. Embeded below is a short clip of the original recording (or at least one of the original recordings with Hendrix on guitar). It sounds different and has lyrics, but you can recognize the riff that Stevie did a take-off on.

Stevie's version was released on the 1983 album Texas Flood and it was the fifth track on this record. It starts out with a stand-alone guitar riff and on the 7th bar the bass and drums kick in and play with the guitar for the rest of the song.
I think it's a very good song, and without Hendrix's version we wouldn't have had Stevie's. Hendrix just seems a bit like he's holding back, he was playing with a group and hadn't branched out as a solo artist at this point. Remember we were still four years away from Voodoo Chile (Slight Return), but he definitely shines on this as well. Stevie's version just sort of became the famous one, and is in my opinion the superior version.
Especially from The El Mocambo gig which is one of the best gigs ever recorded. It's so good, and if the DVD "Live at The El Mocambo" isn't in your collection, it ought to be!!

Enjoy ; )

David Bowie - Let's Dance

This is a music video for the title track of Bowie's album "Let's Dance" released in 1983, and digitally re-mastered in 1999.
This is a great album by Bowie, it experiments with many different genres of music, it has a lot of funk influences, but also draws on more traditional rock and blues, and of course also the pop sound of the times.
The album is also famous for helping blues guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan getting discovered. Bowie had heard Stevie's 1982 Montreux performance, and was impressed. They met up backstage and chatted, and it turned out they were in to some of the same weird things musically. Bowie admired Stevies sound, and hired him to play lead guitar on his next album which was "Let's Dance".
Stevie only plays lead guitar, the rhythm guitar on the album is Nile Rodgers. And Stevie's lead playing is very toned down, and not a huge part of the album, but still helps increase the sound and the experience.
The album cut of the song Let's Dance is 7:37, much shorter than what is used in the music video which I assume is also the radio edit of the song. They still left in all of Stevie's parts however which shows how much his lead playing helped the album.
Stevie was also offered a spot in David's live band that was going to tour for the album, but he turned it down, and went onto recording his first solo record with Double Trouble "Texas Flood", and got the massive career in the 80's.
It's a great song, and a pretty good looking music video for the times. Stevie isn't in the video, and Bowie pretends to play a Stratocaster looking guitar while wearing white gloves, perhaps a nod to Stevie and the fact that no one could play like him, who knows? Or maybe just David being odd.

Enjoy ; )

Stevie Ray Vaughan - Mary Had a Little Lamb

This is from one of Stevie's classic shows, it's from the 1983 show at El Mocambo (a DVD of the show exists). This version of Mary Had a Little Lamb was first performed by blues man Buddy Guy, and covered by Stevie on his "Texas Flood" album.
Mary Had a Little Lamb is an English nursery rhyme and dates back to around the 1830's. It's a great and funky performance.

Enjoy ; )