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Cover Band is a name that describes a musical group who plays songs written by other artists. You have to start somewhere and newly formed groups are known to cover songs by other groups. Usually, depending on their talent, it's a reasonable copy of the other artist/group. Many classic songs in the 50's were covered on albums by other artists. That seemed to be the normal.
Some actually became famous doing a different arrangement of a cover. A few good examples of those covers would be Vanilla Fudge doing The Supreme's hit You Keep Me Hangin' On. The Byrds covered Turn! Turn! Turn! written by Pete Seeger but they did it so well, Seeger actually covered their version!

In some circles, super talented musicians often looked down on cover bands as though they aren't good enough to write their own music. Maybe they are and maybe they aren't as my opinion is it's BS. Why? The Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix got their start covering songs, many were material from American blues and rock & roll performers.

One of my favorite cover bands of 'tribute band status' is Brit Floyd who have toured doing Pink Floyd covers.

In 1968, guitarist Jeff Beck released an album called TRUTH and the truth was every guitarist in my city wore out their records learning Beck's licks note-for-note. We knew he played with The Yardbirds in 1966, as well as two other famous guitarists Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page.

Forming The Jeff Beck Group he teamed up Rod Stewart on vocals, Ron Wood on bass and Mickey Waller on drums. Blown away isn't credit enough for the album as there aren't any 'B-side' songs on it. All of them were winners!

The original lineup of The Jeff Beck Group were only together a few years as it was reported Jeff may not have been the easiest to get along with, but each version of a new band brought a different set of talent.

Sadly the news came across the internet today that Jeff had contracted Bacterial Meningitis and passed away after a short battle. He was 78 and had finished a tour as recent as November 2022.

The song Shapes of Things was previously recorded by The Yardbirds, but Beck's version has much... much more energy and was the first track on his Truth album.

a perky tune on a sunday morning from a very promising artist

It's a YouTube Thursday that's taking me across some blues rock and I hit a biography about Johnny Winter. What heights would his career have gone without his heroin addiction?
Hi younger brother Edgar followed the 'path of rock' while Johnny leaned toward blues, he often performed rock and roll in live concerts.

Here he is playing the Chuck Berry standard Johnny B. Goode



Of the lyrics "He used to carry his guitar in a gunny sack" I wasn't 100% on the words gunny sack, so I looked it up.

Gunnysack or gunny sack is a large bag of heavy woven material, typically burlap.


There were lots of Southerners living in Miami 60+ years ago when my family moved from New York and they had words that weren't in my vocabulary. I remember going to a store to buy bubble gum. The lady at the counter asked if I wanted to put them in a sack. I hesitate and she repeated herself. Not understanding 'sack' she rephrased the question:
"Do you want me to put them in a 'bag' for you?"
"Yes please"

This is a strange story about a doctor who leaves the hospital on Thursday and disappears. Police were able to access his home surveillance video and see he left on foot Thursdayafternoon, so they searched using K-9's drones and officers on foot.
Nothing was found... but for some reason they decided to drill through the ice of a nearby pond and found the doctor!

Unclear how he ended up in the pond, the medical examiner's office will perform an autopsy with toxicology testing.

I'm speculating he thought the ice would support his weight. When it cracked he slipped in a froze to death.
What a horrible way to go...


Link:

HAPPY CHRISTMAS EVE, EVERYONE!!!!!!!!!!

More than 70 years ago, Gibson Guitar Corporation manufactured their first solid body electric guitar and with the help of musician Les Paul, they released several different models in his name.
Competing with Fender who bulk manufactured basic guitars on an assembly line, the Gibson Les Paul model had more hands-on craftsmanship. Select flamed maple front, decorative binding on the body and glue-in set neck (as opposed to bolting on a Fender neck) were the most significant visual differences. Another difference were the pickups. Fender used single coil pickups that were subject to interference or 60 cycle electrical hum. The Gibson pickups named Humbucker had dual coils inside a metal shielded case. Some of the early pickups were stamped patent applied for, later known as PAF were the most sought out style of that era.
So the combination of design, wood, hardware and electronics, adding limited production has made those models difficult to find and extremely valuable.
Unfortunately, collectors... players or not, scoop up these guitars whenever they can.
Guitarist Joe Bonamassa will go through pawn shops looking for vintage Les Paul guitars in the cities where he is performing.

Last year I saw a video of the guitar collection owned by Rick Nielsen of the rock band Cheap Trick. He's got many different brands and models and remembers every purchase.
According to Wiki, Nielsen has owned about two thousand guitars over the years and currently has about 500 instruments.

I believe he's got a museum for viewing and sometimes does shows of his favorites.

Here's a 5 minute version for an online music company name Reverb:

Relax, this is guitar tech talk and not what you are thinking. Ten years ago I bought a left-handed Les Paul style guitar made in Asia. I paid $250 and it looks much like a $2,500 Gibson Les Paul. Does it sound like a Les Paul... Naah, but who cares?

I'm left-handed and typically, it's rare to find left-handed guitars, so I making a collection.
The workmanship is really nice but the thing I didn't like was the setup that includes, neck adjustment, string height and the nut. It's been played less than an hour and sits in a case under the bed.



The nut is the piece that holds the strings at the top of the fretboard/fingerboard. Depending on the manufacturer, nuts come in all sorts of materials, from plastic, composite, metal and bone. Some guitarists are fanatical about nut material as it helps to influence the sound of the guitar. As the strings vibrate, the nut transfers resonance into the neck giving the guitar more sustain.

Guitar maker Paul Reed Smith is borderline fanatical because it's important in the sound his guitars make. Here's a short video of his explanation of selecting nut material.



So, I'm replacing the nut on my guitar for one with slightly different spacing and lower height. Oddly, the custom work is around $125 or half the price I paid for the guitar!

If you were in a cover band in the late 60's to early 70's Parchman Farm was most likely on your song list.
Written in 1940 by Bukka White, covered by Mose Allison in 1957 and again in 1964, it's been covered by (safe to say) at least a dozen times by other bands and solo artists.
On a previous blog, 'gonelikethewimd' posted a Mose Allison video that lead me to do (more) research.

The version first played was from John Mayall Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton, released in 1966. Often called the 'Beano' album. That's a subject for another blog.

After Mayall, I switched to the 1970's harder version on Parchman Farm recorded by Cactus.
Both Mayall and Cactus credited Mose Allison for the song. It wasn't until today I found out Bukka was the original composer.

From previous research I knew that Parchman Farm was the Mississippi State Penitentiary. It was hell for anyone sentenced there as stories of slavery and working from sunrise to sunset often in 100 degree heat.
Possibly the history of Parchman Farm could be a future blog of mine.