Votes - Headbang 8 Nov 24

 All 9 votes in and the results are:

Quite a disparity in voting here. The opening 2-track theme getting just one third of the votes that the the 3 most popular themes got. Septuagenarians was in 3rd place with a creditable 53 points. Autumn was 2nd with 55 and was just pipped by Hammond Organ with 56.

Our broad church once again displayed disparity in voting - Septuagenarians received as many as 4 first places (8 points) but one last place (1 point). Passed Masters had 2 Headbangers voting it as best theme and 2 others as worst. Go figure.

There were 14 nominations for the Top 3 tracks:

The winning track was a bit of a break from convention as it was a made for TV video rather than the preferred live performance. It was difficult to find a suitable video where Chris Difford was prominent rather than Glenn Tilbrook.

Interesting to see that 3 of the more unusual, slightly offbeat tracks were nominated - Ketty Lester, Willie Dixon and Neil Young.

The only theme that didn't have a track nominated in anyone's Top 3 was the Jukebox. All other themes had at least one track nominated with Octogenarians + having the most - 4 in all, which is slightly surprising given that it didn't rate well in the votes for the best themes. Again, go figure.

Virtual Headbang - 8 Nov 24

Insufficient numbers available to go and disturb Dave's house meant a return to lockdown days with an all-virtual Headbang last night. Andy, Steve and Malcolm sent their apologies but 9 others logged in to Teams OK - albeit CK was either camera-shy or technically challenged:

A gentle 2-track starter theme - TODAY'S BIRTHDAYS:

Bonnie Raitt was the popular choice here.

SEPTUAGENARIANS were next. First we played brief excerpts from 5 "mentionables" but not "notables":

Then fuller tracks from the "notables" with voting in play:

The Squeeze video was the winner here.

Others who recently achieved the biblical three score years and ten - un-notable and unmentionable:

 The next theme was AUTUMN:

Led Zep's brief re-formation at the O2 in 2007 was the clear winner here.

Now for the OCTOGENARIANS +. The plus sign indicates the presence of Nonogenarians and even a Centenarian, but first, brief excerpts from the mentionable but un-notable Octogenarians:

Definitely notable were:

A narrow victory for Jimmy Cliff's performance at Glastonbury in 2003 but good to see a few votes for Ketty Lester's wonderful Love Letters.

The Centenarian was Barbara Parritt from The Toys - remember Lover's Concerto?

A brief 4 track featuring the HAMMOND ORGAN:

It was commented how vital the role of the Hammond Organ was in Bob Marley's classic.

OBITUARIES next - and there were a few. First off, brief excerpts again for:

Then the more prominent ones who recently passed:

The vote here is for the "Most Missed" so it was pretty inevitable that John Mayall would win.

Others who had left us recently were noted:

There were 8 nominations for the JUKEBOX this time and some of the tracks were pretty long so I decided to split it into 2 sections:

Rob D's nomination from Edinburgh Blues Club clearly won the first section but it was a tie between David Byrne and local loon Calum  Bowie in the second section, so all 3 played off in the final vote which was again tied - this time between Rob D's and my selection.

That led to the final theme - the second time for PASSED MASTERS. To qualify for this, the acts have to have been born over 100 years ago and now long gone. Brief excerpts again:

The legend that is Willie Dixon had a landslide victory here.

U.S. Music Road Trip 2024 - 3rd leg - CLEVELAND

Our next drive was less than 200 miles, leaving Michigan behind for the state of Ohio and the city of Cleveland - home of the ROCK AND ROLL HALL OF FAME.

It's a huge operation - 6 floors of music. We spent 5 hours there - and could have done even more:

The first (basement) floor is the biggest and best:

Lots of memorabilia, videos and interactive stuff:

This is what was on the other floors:

On level 2 - if you had any kind of musical skill, no matter how small - you could join in with a live garage band. Jo and I confined ourselves to posing with the guitars:

The soundproof rooms for the drums were fun:

Headphones on and you get a lesson in how to play along - We Will Rock You was as technically challenging as we could muster.

There was a separate section for Women in Rock:

A couple of interesting exhibits of instruments:

John Paul Jones' 8-string bass - never seen one before

Steve Winwood's piano on which he wrote his US no.1 Roll With It

There was a large display devoted to Pink Floyd's The Wall:

Well worth a visit. This was the end of our Musical Road Trip for 2024 but there was still a bit of driving and sightseeing to be done - on to Niagara then Toronto before flying back west to our daughter's in Oregon, from where this post comes. 

U.S. Music Road Trip 2024 - 2nd leg - DETROIT

We drove 300 miles east from Chicago through Illinois to the state of Michigan and what they used to promote as the Motor City, then Motown, but now they're trying to label it as the Renaissance City. Just one target here - MOTOWN, of course! We travelled over from our hotel to 2648 West Grand Boulevard - HITSVILLE USA for our 11 am tour. It was pretty busy with tours round the 2 small houses every half hour:

Our tour guide took us round various wall exhibits and we watched a short film (not available elsewhere) featuring many artistes who passed through this famous location, including one Michael Jackson whose estate had just loaned his famous fedora and jewelled glove to the Motown Museum:

Motown operated many record labels and in the very early days the album covers didn't show any of the artistes in those days of racial discrimination - plus ça change:

We were treated to a demonstration of one of the two echo chambers and then we were led next door to the original building (Hitsville USA) and the famous Studio A where most of the magic happened:

The Andantes, a group of 3 session singers who allegedly featured on 20,000 recordings (as Rob D commented in his RDR show a week or two ago), were highlighted but nobody else in our group of roughly 20 had ever heard of them. Even more obscure were the Underdogs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Underdogs_(American_band) - reportedly the first white band signed by Motown.

Naturally, the Funk Brothers (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Funk_Brothers) were mentioned several times. Here's Dennis Coffey's guitar and wah-wah pedal, as featured on the Temptations' Cloud Nine (and others):

Our final "treat" of the tour was for us all to sing the first verse of My Girl while doing the Temptations' Walk (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vg_kmPPSMfQ).

Stepping outside, there was a gig setting up - in honour of the legendary Funk Brothers' bass, James Jamerson, whose widow was present. It was Motown's annual Bass Day and an amazing 65 bass players were present, ready to do their thing:

Next stop Cleveland.

U.S. Music Road Trip 2024 - 1st leg - CHICAGO

1. CHESS STUDIOS

Jo and I flew in to Chicago and checked in to our hotel on the famous South Michigan Avenue, original home of the historic Chess studios which may have first come to the attention of many of us when the Rolling Stones recorded much of their second album there in 1964-65 - and also an instrumental track named after the studio's address - 2120 South Michigan Avenue (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQQUFW_yfCg).

The studios were owned and run by the Chess brothers, Leonard and Phil. They sold the business in 1969 but the studios were designated as a Chicago Landmark in 1990 and were acquired by Willie Dixon's widow, Marie, in 1993 and turned in to a museum which opened in 1997. It's now designated as Willie Dixon's Blues Heaven Foundation (https://www.bluesheaven.com/)

I had arranged a tour of the studios and we were extremely fortunate to be given a personal tour by Janine Judge, the Executive Director of the Foundation. Here's some of the photos I took of the various exhibits there:

Muddy Waters

Chuck Berry

Bo Diddley

Janine took us in to Leonard Chess' office - just as it was

Willie Dixon's bass

"The" studio

Willie, Muddy & Buddy

Wall of face masks of musicians who recorded there

2120 South Michigan Avenue

2. BUDDY GUY'S LEGENDS CLUB

We had been here a couple of decades ago but, on that occasion, we were too jet-lagged to enjoy it. There were no famous names on when we were there - although Buddy himself - at the age of 88 - apparently turns up fairly regularly and when he does, they can't get him off the stage again!:

We opted for the early evening semi-acoustic slots and listened to Carlos Showers the first night and he was joined later on by Ron Simmonds, a vocalist who gave an uncanny impression of Louis Amstrong:

The second night we saw Matt Hendricks, who was excellent and he was joined by a superb harmonica player whose name I have forgotten:

Here's some of the wall exhibits:

Of course, we can't forget that Chicago is the start of the most famous road trip in USA:

(Detroit and Cleveland to follow)