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Post by Lonnie on May 19, 2015 20:16:10 GMT -5
I do the website for my friend John Ganapes... Blues You Can Use. He's a teacher and author. Each week we post a new mini-lesson and a couple of videos... Here's B.B. in Paris, 1973... the guitar work is simply astounding...
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Post by Deleted on May 19, 2015 20:22:24 GMT -5
Nice post, Lonnie.
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Post by Deleted on May 19, 2015 20:35:47 GMT -5
I threw my panties at the computer. (As a signal of approval).
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Post by billhammond on May 19, 2015 20:46:54 GMT -5
Love the Paul Revere and the Raiders shirt cuffs, and the Fender Showman as amp of choice (must have been a BIG hall).
Great post. I miss John Ganapes and all the other cool dudes we would run into routinely on Saturdays and Anydays at Podium's World HQ in Dinkytown, sigh.
On another matter, a technical question: When you have all those pearl inlays on the fingerboard, don't you have to grapple with different bend resistance on frets where there is slippery inlay vs. grippy wood on frets where there is no inlay?
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Post by Deleted on May 19, 2015 20:51:46 GMT -5
What a terrific performance. Is that the original Lucille he's playing?
Thanks for posting this, Lonnie.
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Post by Village Idiot on May 19, 2015 21:20:31 GMT -5
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Post by aquaduct on May 19, 2015 21:27:44 GMT -5
On another matter, a technical question: When you have all those pearl inlays on the fingerboard, don't you have to grapple with different bend resistance on frets where there is slippery inlay vs. grippy wood on frets where there is no inlay? No. If you're using that much pressure that you can feel the difference you're doing it wrong.
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Post by billhammond on May 19, 2015 21:30:04 GMT -5
On another matter, a technical question: When you have all those pearl inlays on the fingerboard, don't you have to grapple with different bend resistance on frets where there is slippery inlay vs. grippy wood on frets where there is no inlay? No. If you're using that much pressure that you can feel the difference you're doing it wrong. OK, that makes sense -- the bend is gliding laterally over the fret, not the fingerboard, right?
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Post by aquaduct on May 19, 2015 21:53:14 GMT -5
No. If you're using that much pressure that you can feel the difference you're doing it wrong. OK, that makes sense -- the bend is gliding laterally over the fret, not the fingerboard, right? Right, sort of. You press down hard enough to fret cleanly but not hard enough to really catch the surface of the fretboard. And the inlays and bare fretboard don't really feel that much different unless you're really working hard at it.
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Post by Deleted on May 19, 2015 21:58:55 GMT -5
Showman Reverb amp. There have been several Lucille's, I know he had one stolen from the trunk of his car after a performance in NYC. He told a good story about how his guitar came to be called Lucille. It had to do with a lady named Lucille and a bar burning down and taking his guitar with it. That guitar, as I heard the story, was a Telecaster. I've seen film of him as a young man playing a ES-350, thin, full hollow body. I like how he keeps messing with the bridge pickup volume knob even though the pickup selector is up, meaning he is using the neck pickup. His ES-355 is wired stereo and if you use a regular mono guitar cord the only pickup that works is the neck. Gibson ES-350
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Post by Lonnie on May 19, 2015 22:01:45 GMT -5
as the story goes, all his guitars since the night of the bar fire have been named Lucille.
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Post by dradtke on May 19, 2015 22:20:56 GMT -5
That was cool.
He looks pretty young in the video, but when we thought of him as a pretty old guy when we saw him in 74.
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Post by Deleted on May 19, 2015 22:37:50 GMT -5
I was wrong, it's not a ES-350, it is a L-5 CES.
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Post by billhammond on May 19, 2015 22:50:00 GMT -5
Forerunner of the Canadians in Florida look with the shorts, socks and shoes.
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Post by RickW on May 19, 2015 23:07:32 GMT -5
Fabulous. What a tone. And to have that voice as well.
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Post by Deleted on May 20, 2015 8:00:23 GMT -5
All the equipment I can see is 1950s. A L-5 CES was probably the most expensive guitar Gibson had so he must have been doing alright.
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Post by lar on May 20, 2015 20:27:09 GMT -5
Thanks for posting this Lonnie. B.B. was one of a kind and even in his later years and he had slowed down some he could play. And, unlike a lot of contemporary musicians, he understood the value of dynamics and what they could add to a song. There are some great examples of that in this video.
I got to see B.B. here in Milwaukee about 5 years ago at Summerfest. In an outdoor venue that was meant to accommodate about 2,000 people he managed to squeeze in close to 5,000. The crowd that assembled to see him spilled out of the actual venue and down to the where the various concessions and vendors were. I thought it was an astounding tribute to a man well into his 80s.
What I remember most about that night, aside from the fact that the man was all about tone, was his personality. About midway through the show he stopped and just talked to the crowd. What he was doing was actually introducing a song and the monologue was his set-up. I'm sure he had made that same speech thousands of times. But he made it sound like it was the first time and that he was speaking to each of us individually. As he talked the crowd got very quiet and the enormity of B.B.'s personality and his personal magnetism settled over us like a blanket. By the time he was done I don't think there was a woman who wasn't in love with him or a man who didn't want to be him. I've never seen anything like it before or since.
B.B. had always been one of my musical heroes and I had wanted to see him for a long time. I thought that night might be my only chance and it turned out that I was right. When I went I felt badly because I had not had an opportunity to see him in his prime. I came away thinking that if this was what he was like at 84 I'm not sure I could have survived seeing him in his prime.
It was a helluva night and one I'll never forget.
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Post by billhammond on May 20, 2015 20:36:44 GMT -5
A lovely tribute, Lar, thanks for sharing so eloquently.
I am not that huge of a blues fan, to be honest, but there are people like BB King and Duane Allman and Robben Ford that I could listen to all night and all day and never get tired of their grooves.
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Post by Marshall on May 21, 2015 8:36:58 GMT -5
Yeah. Sweet clip, Lonnie. And a great remembrance Lar.
HA, ha, ha. Good call on the knobs Marty. I noticed he fiddled with the knobs about 25 times and the volume never went up.
His sound on the the ES-335 humbuckers is signature. It would have been interesting to hear him on those dirty P90s.
I could see Hammond in the shorts and jacket.
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Post by Deleted on May 21, 2015 8:40:40 GMT -5
Yeah. Sweet clip, Lonnie. And a great remembrance Lar. HA, ha, ha. Good call on the knobs Marty. I noticed he fiddled with the knobs about 25 times and the volume never went up. His sound on the the ES-335 humbuckers is signature. It would have been interesting to hear him on those dirty P90s. I could see Hammond in the shorts and jacket. His sound on a 355 was unique. The 355 had a Varitone switch and you can't see if he is using it because he set it and then took the knob off.
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