Frank Gutch Jr: They Shoulda Been Contenders… And, Per Usual, Notes…

Funny.  We always remember the stars, the champions, and we always place them at the head of the class even if they were no more than a part of one.  This last weekend I spent an inordinate amount of time pondering what the music world would have been like if, say, Led Zeppelin had not become gods to so many and Hendrix and Clapton and Beck had not headed the infamous “best guitarists” lists outfits like Rolling Stone Magazine always roll out when they have nothing else to capture readers’ attentions (seriously, how do you compare Tommy Emmanuel, Eric Clapton, Christopher Parkening, and Phil Keaggy— all exceptional guitarists, all deserving of attention from most who really love the instrument and yet living in completely different worlds.

Doug Thompson: ROLLING STONE MAGAZINE MISSES THE MARK…..AGAIN!

Rolling Stone Magazine recently released their latest ‘list’, “The 100 Greatest Songwriters” rollingstone.com).  Let me repeat that title, “The 100 Greatest Songwriters”.  Their descriptive line states “From Brill Building tunesmiths to Punk poets, from Woody Guthrie to Max Martin, the visionaries who defined music history.”

Frank Gutch Jr: The Pac Northwest— Redux….. In the Way of Explanation

When I wrote this past week’s column about the Pacific Northwest music scene (read it here), I left it feeling as if it wasn’t quite done.  You may have gotten an idea of what it was like but unless you lived it, you don’t.  I knew my little corner of the Willamette Valley and I am sure that Seattle people my age knew Seattle and Portland people knew Portland, but if you weren’t there it was a different planet.  I came to that realization while re-watching the documentary which highlighted the aforementioned column— the one laying out EJD Enterprises and the part Ed Daugherty played in the lives of so many musicians and teens back in the sixties’ Willamette Valley of Oregon.

Frank Gutch Jr: My Love Affair With the 45, Susan James (A Lady You Really Need To Hear), and Notes (The Door To the Music and Music News You May Be Missing)…..

I look back on my life and understand why music has taken up most of my life, though few others do.  I am an anomaly to them– an outcast in a world of careers and families and politics and so many other things so more important and I can see that like Red Green and all of the excellent male role models on The Red Green Show, they accept me like I am, even if it’s not what they usually accept, and only if they have to.  They have had to, I suppose, for I am who I am and that is not said as pure statement but with the realization that over the years I have tried to change.