Frank Gutch Jr: It’s Gone, Man… Real Gone; Plus Notes That If You Blink, You Might Miss

 

I know, I know.  I was the one screaming the loudest and the longest about local news hyping first the Microsoft system upgrades and the the latest iThing of the moment, but this ain’t no news program and I am promoting this for a reason.  I try to get you guys interested in music, which isn’t always easy, and the I have to listen to the “there ain’t no good music anymore” and “it’s all been done before” excuses.  Well, here we are, then.  I have some music for you which not only precludes the music that was good before good became bad, but it’s on sale.  That’s right.  Until October 2^nd, Real Gone Music is pumping some of my favorite music, this time not of the day but of the past.  Sale items are CDs, folks.  Whether you like them or not.

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.

Frank Gutch Jr: Tracy Nelson (Mother Earth) Talks Sixties San Francisco, The Music Biz, Racism and The Counterculture’s View Toward Women!!! Plus Notes…..

I’ll be a sonofabitch!  I was on page ten of this post when the goddamned computer decided to start a new document from that point, shredding the old one into etherdom.  For a minute, I was pissed, I tell you, because that was two days of work, but the couple of hours trying to retrieve said document made me realize how much I really don’t care.  It may be time and work lost, but this interview, graciously granted by Tracy Nelson, a monumentally talented vocalist, was lost to the ages (computer crash) until I came upon a hard copy I had printed for just that reason.  I cannot begin to tell you how happy I was to find it.

Frank Gutch Jr: Redefining (Or Maybe Taking a Closer Look at) Concept Albums… and Notes (as few as there are)!

Over forty years in the record business and I’m still agog at the conception of the industry from the outside.  People think musicians are rich (or if not rich, well off, because otherwise they would not be able to support themselves, right?).  People think stars are talented without demanding that it be proven (I hate to use the guy as an example, but the Bieber’s music will last no longer than the lives of his current fans because, and we all know this, his music is contrived crap).

Frank Gutch Jr: Lighthouse Revisited, Wilderness Road, What Were the Odds (Game & Ratchell), and Notes…..

“I have to tell you, New York is just like a chick.  When she hates you she beats you to death, but when she loves you you know you’ve been loved…”  I don’t know exactly who said that but it was a member of Lighthouse and is but one line of many out of a radio documentary on that bandyou need to hear (assuming, of course, you have any interest in the history of rock and/or jazz music at all).  It was recorded during the band’s very first live gig at, of course, New York’s Carnegie Hall, a gig so impressive that fans and critics alike thought that this was the beginning of something incredibly huge.  Huge it became— in Canada, at least— but the States had better things to do than to listen to the new and the odd and, to the American mainstream, horns and this jazz/rock fusion was both new and odd.  Skip Prokop and crew, you see, took it further than Blood Sweat & Tears and Chicago ever did.  Way further.