Title: Best THREE MAN BANDS Source:
Your Sources URL Source:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K72P09J7un4 Published:Jan 16, 2011 Author:Multiple Post Date:2011-01-16 16:55:34 by abraxas Keywords:None Views:3732 Comments:96
Let's get this ball rolling with the Police and Rush.......mmmmmmmmm
Each to their own. I could never tolerate the screechy vocals.
I would go with Cream and ZZ Top as my favorite two, and if I had to pick one it would be SURPRISE the greatest ever 3 man Rock Band - Cream. Each of the members were capable of making any band they played with. There was no better drummer than Ginger Baker, Clapton - well what do you say about a living legend?, and Jack Bruce was simply superlative on Bass. I don't see how you beat that line up with anything other than a fantasy band.
This comes down I guess to a matter of personal taste. Rush may have been innovative but I never found them to be "musical". I did try because I had friends who were big fans, but as far as sheer musicianship I would still go with Cream as they were innovative in adapting Jazz/Blues standards and placing them in a Rockin' Hard coating. And it was not just that each was among the top players of their chosen instruments but the synergy of the group where the sum of the total is greater than the three individually. It was like their reunion concert a couple of years ago in Madison Square Garden - Jack Bruce summed it up "the magic is still there". When they got together and played there was magic.
But to dis rush in terms of not being "musical" is just plain silly.
Well, it's still not to my taste. It turned me off fast and I just never bothered with them after that. I have a copy of one of their double albums which I think has been played once, but not all 4 sides.
It's like Eddie Van Halen. I can admire the technical skill with which he plays the instrument, but his playing lacks depth and feeling. So, he's a great guitar technician, but not a Jimi Hendrix or an Eric Clapton.
There is an indefinable something which some musicians have and some don't. There are players who, now, are technically as good or better than Jimi Hendrix, but they don't have his soul. Clapton is the same thing. He's not called "Slowhand" for nothing. Ritchie Blackmoore of Deep Purple is twice as fast, and is a great guitarist, but Clapton still has greater emotional depth in his playing.
When I think of someone I consider a great musician it is not merely based upon technical expertise with the instrument. There are pianists who are every bit as fast as Oscar Peterson, but they aren't his equal because they don't have that inner difference that makes an Oscar Peterson or a Count Basie.
Art and music is to some degree a subjective thing and the interpretation varies from person to person as does personal taste. However, the defining difference between a damn good player and a Great Musician is that ability to transcend the instrument and communicate their soul to the audience. They connect on a level we mere mortals can only admire and stand in awe of.
The Yardbirds’ manager, Giorgio Gomelsky, gave Eric Clapton the nickname “Slowhand” in early 1964.
The Yardbirds rhythm guitarist, Chris Dreja, recalled that whenever Eric Clapton broke a guitar string during a concert, Eric would stay on stage and replace it. The English audiences would wait out the delay by doing a “slow handclap”. [The British colloquialism is "to be given the slowhand".]
Clapton told his official biographer, Ray Coleman, in the mid-80s that “My nickname of 'Slowhand' came from Giorgio Gomelsky. He coined it as a good pun. He kept saying I was a fast player, so he put together the slow handclap phrase into 'Slowhand' as a play on words.”
In a June 1999 online chat, Clapton gave a slightly different version of how his nickname came about: “I think it might have been a play on words from the “Clap” part of my name. In England, in sport, if the crowd is getting anxious, we have a slow handclap, which indicates boredom or frustration. But it wasn’t my idea it was someone else’s comment.”
In Clapton - The Autobiography (2007), Eric had this to say, "On my guitar I used light-gauge guitar strings, with a very thin first string, which made it easier to bend the notes, and it was not uncommon during the most frenetic bits of playing for me to break at least one string. During the pause while I was changing my string, the frenzied audience would often break into a slow handclap, inspiring Giorgio to dream up the nickname of 'Slowhand' Clapton."
Interesting, while I don't have a source as it was on the old "American Top 40" with Casey Kasem, his story was that it was given him as a nickname by other guitar players because he was notorious for being slow in changing his hand position on the guitar neck. So, the joke was that he could stretch a note further than anyone else. I can understand why he might not want to give that as a reason for the nickname.
Interesting, while I don't have a source as it was on the old "American Top 40" with Casey Kasem, his story was that it was given him as a nickname by other guitar players because he was notorious for being slow in changing his hand position on the guitar neck.
It all boils down to sources and most of them are not true so I regard them as FWIW. E.g. Through the years I've heard 3 different stories on how/why George Harrison wrote "Don't Bother Me." All 3 may be wrong. And this is not an isolated case at all as I've heard massive numbers of stories about various musicians and say the meaning of a song or whatever and then I hear another story that contradicted the first. So which story do I believe? It's worth the ear tickling that's all. You, or rather your memory, could be right for all I know. But I tend to not believe it as Clapton's speed back in 60's, early 70's was not an issue.