Frank Gutch Jr: It’s Gonna Be a Blues, Blues Christmas; A Look Back at Rich McCulley; Plus Notes

 

I’m not a blues guy, really.  The closest I come to the real blues is B.B. King, maybe— electric guitar a must.  I listened to a little Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee during my college years and there was always John Mayall, who seemed to have the best of the up-and-comers in his band no matter what period.  I accepted Cream as blues on certain songs, which probably tells you more about my non-blues background than anything.  Loved The Blues Project and Paul Butterfield.  Didn’t like Delta Blues.  Stevie Ray Vaughn is pretty much the best blues I have heard.  That should give you an idea of where I am coming from and where I am going because I am going to review some blues albums I enjoyed this year and tell you why.  They will be short and a couple even have stories behind them.

Frank Gutch Jr: Classic Rock— Not As Classic As You Might Think; Plus, In Keeping With the Theme, Notes of a Classic Nature

 

I would love to gather all of the music directors of so-called Classic Rock radio stations in the Roman Coliseum and turn the lions loose.  I was around long before the term Classic Rock was even phrased and as big a fan of rock radio as there was and I learned to hate everything radio tried to do after big money came in with all of their ideas to make radio “better.”  I suffered through a number of formats from the time of “Boss” radio to the present, the only one being worth a shit (to my mind) being Underground.  Ah, the days of underground.  I remember returning from the Army to Eugene and radio station KZEL and being floored with evening sets by The Wasted Potato (I think his name was Gary Parmentier) like War/Four Cornered Room, The Temptations/Masterpiece, and Funkadelic/Maggot Brain, back-to-back-to-back.