Eclectic ShadyLand

Rory Gallagher Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame Petition



>

You are the visitor.







"All I write is what I feel...I don't round it off too good. I just keep it almost naked. What I was trying to do was doing three things at a time, which is my nature. I hate to be in one corner, I hate to be put only as a guitar player, or only as a songwriter, or only as a tap dancer. I like to move around." - Jimi Hendrix, Sept. 11, 1970, London.



Robert Christgau on Hendrix, Summer of 1967

"...But their performance was quickly obscured by The Jimi Hendrix Experience. Hendrix is a Negro from Seattle who was brought from Greenwich Village to England by ex-Animal Chas Chandler in January. It was a smart move. England, like all of Europe, thirsts for the Real Thing, as performers from Howlin’ Wolf to Muhammad Ali have discovered. Hendrix picked up two good English sidemen and crashed the scene. He came to Monterey recommended by the likes of Paul McCartney. He was terrible.

Hendrix is a psychedelic Uncle Tom. Don’t believe me, believe Sam Silver of The East Village Other: “Jimi did a beautiful Spade routine.” Hendrix earned that capital S. Dressed in English fop mod, with a ruffled orange shirt and red pants that outlined his crotch to the thirtieth row, Jimi really, as Silver phrased it, “socked it to them.” Grunting and groaning on the brink of sham orgasm, he made his way through five or six almost indistinguishable songs, occasionally flicking an anteater tongue at that great crotch in the sky. He also played what everybody seems to call “heavy” guitar; in this case, that means he was loud. He was loud with his teeth and behind his back and between his legs, and in case anyone still remembered The Who, Hendrix had a capper. With his back to the audience, Hendrix humped the amplifier and jacked the guitar around his midsection, then turned and sat astride his instrument so that its neck extended like a third leg. For a few tender moments he caressed the strings. Then, in a sacrifice that couldn’t have satisfied him more than it did me, he squirted it with lighter fluid from a can held near his crotch and set the cursed thing afire. The audience scrambled for the chunks he tossed into the front rows. He had tailored a caricature to their mythic standards and apparently didn’t even overdo it a shade. The destructiveness of The Who is consistent theater, deriving directly from the group’s defiant, lower-class stance. I suppose Hendrix’s act can be seen as a consistently vulgar parody of rock theatrics, but I don’t feel I have to like it. Anyhow, he can’t sing." Anatomy of a Love Festival Esquire Magazine June 1967 - Robert Christgau


We were reminded of the greatness of Steve Winwood during his phenomenal October 2003 performance on Austin City Limits. Handed a recent-model Stratocaster he began his classic "Dear Mr. Fantasy" and proceeded to blow away the Vaughan brother cobwebs from the capital city (and everywhere else)...no one who witnessed that blistering, amazing eruption doubts they saw and heard one of the most exciting guitar performances of all time, worthy of Hendrix, Clapton or any of the other in the pantheon of greats. One wonders at the talent of this Steve Winwood...there's an old saying, "Nobody gets it all." Wrong. Steve Winwood got it all. (The Winwood performance was taped May 2003 and aired Oct. 11 2003 to kick off ACL's 29th season.)


Great Rory Gallagher link: Rory On!


Tony with Jeff Martin at Studio Tempo in Montreal
for the CD release party of The Interzone Mantras

"NAT & STRAT"

a photographic essay on and tribute to my 1962 Strat and 1932 National Duolian.





My Big Moose Walker page

Some of my favourite guitarists

Jimi Hendrix, Hell Drivers, Steve Winwood, Rory Gallagher, Ellen McIlwaine, Gord Lewis, Peter Green, Johnny Littlejohn, Steve Marriott, John Lee Hooker, Mickey Baker, Duane Allman, Chuck Berry, Lowell George, B.B. King, Freddie King, Scotty Moore, Frank Marino, Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, Dickey Betts, Keith Richards, Sam "Lightnin" Hopkins, Slim Harpo (James Moore), Weldon "Juke Boy" Bonner, Kim (Savoy Brown) Simmonds, Otis Rush, Larry Coryell, John McLaughlin, Ry Cooder, Kurt Winter, Mick Taylor, Johnny Winter, Jim McCarty (Cactus, Detroit Wheels), Johnny (Offenbach) Gravel, David Hidalgo, Jeff Beck, Leslie West, Gino Scarpelli, James Burton, Steve Tibbets, Jimmy Page, Mike Bloomfield, Albert King, Mick Ronson, Alan "Blind Owl" Wilson, Ed King, Marty Stuart, Al Kooper, Son House, Leslie Weinstein etc!

The Official Jimi Hendrix pageA "National" Holiday
with Rory Gallagher (June 1985)		The Hell Drivers
Jimmy McCarty's current band
My 1982 Jinx ReviewRory Remembered (March 1997)Jimmie Vaughan/Kim Wilson Interview
"Strat Cats" page(BRAND NEW APRIL 13, '07) Peter Green websiteClone Bands Suck. Period.

Tony with Rory Gallagher, June 7, 1985.

Tony on the air at CKCU-FM (photo of Tony by "Mitch" Beaudoin)

Memphis Mojo


Remove "NOSPAM" for email, it is there to deceive email harvester bots.

My MoPar racing/parts/cars page. My politics and public affairs page.

Updated Feb. 12, 2010 What a long strange trip it's been: illness, robbery, homelessness, fire, homelessness, I'm on the way back though people. This is going to be my "Summer of George!"