Shamanzarek
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Posts posted by Shamanzarek
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Gordon Lightfoot is my all-time favorite singer/songwriter. Back in the 60s I heard Peter, Paul, and Mary's version of "For Lovin' Me" which I liked but knew nothing about who wrote it. Then I bought a 45 single by Chad and Jeremy called "Teenage Failure". On the flip side was a song called "Early Morning Rain" which I liked better than the A-side but didn't know anything about the writer. I really got hooked in the late 60s. In Portland, OR there was a radio station KINK that played lots of Gordon Lightfoot before he had any big hits. Also, a favorite album at the time Wheatfield Soul by The Guess Who has a homage to Gordon called "Lightfoot" that name drops several of his songs. Every time I sit down with an acoustic guitar I play some Gordon. Last week I added "Carefree Highway" to my repertoire.
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Keith Emerson originally used a screwdriver for holding keys down. Here is a quote regarding his switch to daggers:
Emerson's style of playing on the L-100 changed dramatically after he saw the virtually unknown organ player and entertainer, Don Shinn at the Marquee Club in August of 1966 (Emerson 2003:54). Shin would dress like a schoolboy and drink whisky from a teaspoon. During a performance, the back of his Hammond fell off and caused Shin to break out a screwdriver in an attempt to fix it. While the crowd was busy laughing, Emerson thought, “There’s something there” (Prasad 2015). Emerson notes:
"I realized from watching Don that you could sustain notes on the Hammond by sticking things in the keyboard. At first, I started doing it with a screwdriver when I was with The Nice. Then I thought, rather than stick a screwdriver in it, I’ll get a knife. We had a roadie, who was none other than Lemmy from Motorhead. He said “If you’re going to use a knife, use a proper one.” He then gave me two Hitler Youth daggers. That was the start of that" (Prasad 2015).
The knives were first used around November of 1967 while the Nice were opening up for Jimi Hendrix (Emerson 2003:79-80). The next task Emerson was faced with, was what to do with the knives after he finished using them. At first he would just drop them on the floor, but “that was a bit dangerous for the keyboardist” (Prasad 2015), so the inevitable thing to do was to learn knife throwing. Emerson wasn’t very good at first, as he ended up hitting the drummer, but eventually worked out the kinks. Both Emerson and Hendrix learned a lot from each other, and even considered working together when the Nice disbanded in 1970 (Milano 1977:24).
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World War II likely put an end to Novachord production as American manufacturing was redirected to the war effort. Since the Novachord wasn't a commercial success production wasn't revived after the the war. It seems a couple of Novachords were shipped to the UK before World War II. Here is Vera Lynn singing "We'll Meet Again" backed by a Novachord.
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I recently came across an interview with a famous guitarist (whose name escapes me at the moment) who uses a RAT as more of a boost pedal. If I read it right he keeps the distortion setting all the way down and adjusts the level and tone. I will try this with my early 80s RAT next time I have need to get my electric out. I also have a 65 Twin RI which I have been using for keys but will try it with the RAT.
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Lucky Hank - Sounds like a Farfisa doing the melody. Like it better than the show maybe.
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John Sebastian can barely croak out a song anymore. He began losing his voice in the 80s.
Ian Anderson started sounding different in the 80s. He can still hit the notes and in concert I can get used to the way he sounds after a few songs.
John Lodge was never a great lead singer and was better known for his falsetto harmony singing. The last time I heard him his voice was pretty ragged and they ran recorded vocal tracks on some songs.
Billy Joel sounds okay but he sings a lot of songs a step lower than recorded.
Bob Seger still sounds good but he was also transposing some songs down a step.
Brian Wilson doesn't always sing perfectly on pitch but he gets by all right with all the backup singers he has..
Eddie Brigati still sounds pretty good but struggles with the high notes.
Robert Plant has trouble singing the high notes so some of his old repertoire is avoided.
Elton John still sounds good. Some of his later material is sung in a lower range but that was his producer's idea according to his autobiography. Had an operation for cysts on his vocal cords.
Phil Collins is in bad shape and can't stand up on stage let alone sing as strong as he once did.
Ringo sings about as well as he ever did. The songs were written for his limited range.
John Fogerty still sounds great like he did in the 60s.
Ozzy Osborne has Parkinson's which has a negative effect on his vocal performance.
Linda Ronstadt also has Parkin's which forced her to retire.
Neil Diamond is also retiring due to Parkinson's.
Maurice White also has Parkinson's but is still able to sing well.
Celine Dion has lost some of her vocal strength due to viral infection.
John Mayer had vocal granuloma which required surgery and a two year break from performing.
Roger Daltrey had an operation for a pre-cancerous growth which affected his vocal cords.
Rod Stewart had nodules removed.
Other singers who had nodules include:
Adele
Mariah Carey
Shirley Manson
Justin Timberlake
Björk
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Dave Smith didn't invent the polyphonic synthesizer. Yamaha and Oberheim preceded Sequential. What Smith did was develop the first fully programmable polysynth. The analog synth section of the Prophet 5 was designed by Dave Rossum of E-mu who was also involved in the design of the SSM sound chips used in the rev. 1 and rev. 2 Prophets. Rossum's scanning keyboard design was licensed for use in Oberheim polysynths prior to his involvement with Sequential.
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I just got this Crosley stand today. The record storage feature was a big factor in the decision as I have over 600 albums. Holds an Audio-Technica turntable and Sherwood receiver nicely. Will need to get stands for my Wharfdale speakers.
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I was at a furniture and appliance store in Beaufort, SC today. They had Crosley electric and gas ranges, washers and dryers, and refrigerators. On the Crosley website there are some vintage ads showing refrigerators as well as radios and other items.
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I recently passed on joining a band mainly because this and a few other Little Feat songs were on the list. Although it is a great piano piece I didn't feel the hours of effort vs. questionable financial reward would be worth it.
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I think the Casio XW-P1 came close. With some improvements it could have been a Nord killer. Also Casio's WK-3XXX series from the 2000s could have been a great do-it-all instrument with some upgrades. Its organ section has capabilities that no other keyboard has yet to come close to at any price. I don't know if these capabilities were an intentional design decision or was just simpler to implement the way they did. It seems Casio often doesn't realize what they have and how to take it to a professional level.
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I saw them when they were opening for Steppenwolf. They hadn't had any hits yet but the local AM Top 40 station was playing "Nobody" and "Try a Little Tenderness". TDN stole the show and were immediately booked for a return date as headliners by which time "One" was a big hit.
Several years ago I got to open for TDN in Connecticut. Jimmy Greenspoon and Cory Wells were still with us then. Jimmy was playing a Roland VK-88 through a Motion Sound Pro 3 and used a Kurzweil PC3 for the various EP sounds. They sounded great and did a new piece with very impressive vocal harmonies on which Cory played bass. In our show we played "Elenore" by The Turtles which sounds like "One" on the intro.
A bit of trivia: In 1966 Paul Revere and the Raiders tried to get Cory to join them as bass player while he was still in The Enemys and both bands were playing at the Pussycat A-Go-Go in Las Vegas..
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There are many degrees of veganism. You could eat potato chips and other junk food and still call yourself a vegan. I became vegan in 1977 strictly for health reasons. For the first few years I ate only raw uncooked food. I grew wheatgrass, various sprouts, some vegetables, and collected fruits that a lot of people overlooked at the time like persimmons, pomegranates, avocados, and loquats. That is a rather difficult discipline to maintain unless you live alone which I did at that time. Gradually I started incorporating some cooked food and prefer to do my own cooking from scratch as much as possible. I still eat a good amount of uncooked food, mostly fruit in the morning and leafy greens at dinner time. I consider it important for health reasons to eat a significant amount of raw food every day.
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The "other" keyboard player for The Stones was Jack Nitzsche who also worked extensively as orchestrator and conductor for Phil Spector. From 1964 t0 1966 he was their primary keyboard player on all recordings done at RCA Studios Hollywood.
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Don't forget "Afternoon Delight" had three Grammy nominations in 1977. It won Best Arrangement for Voices over "Bohemian Rhapsody" and "Can't Hide Love" by Earth Wind and Fire.
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Never knew much about Bobby Caldwell but from 1985-1992 the southern California band I was in played "What You Won't Do for Love" as part of our first set five nights a week.
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In 1961 Leon filled in on tour with Paul Revere and the Raiders when Paul Revere was drafted into the Army. At this time they had a top 40 hit with the piano instrumental "Like, Long Hair".
Russell was also involved with The Ventures usually playing organ. He can be heard on their version of "Telstar". A few Ventures instrumentals feature a trademark organ-like sound which is actually a soprano sax played through a Leslie. It wasn't just any Leslie. It belonged to Leon Russell. Hear it on "Walk Don't Run "64".
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I don't know if it was coincidence but one of the cable channels showed Encino Man (1992) the same night as the Oscars which co-stars Brendan Fraser and Ke Huy Quan.
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I am reading a borrowed copy of Phil Collins' Not Dead Yet: A Memoir. Offers some interesting insight into the inner workings of Genesis over the years. Tony Banks would sometimes make fun of Phil's songs for having only three chords.
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The original Renaissance band was formed in 1969 by former Yardbirds vocalist Keith Relf and drummer Jim McCarty. Former Nashville Teens pianist John Hawken , former The Herd bassist Louis Cennamo, and Keith's sister Jane were the other founding members. This line-up started changing in 1970 until no original members remained and the band went on to greater success with Annie Haslam on vocals and John Tout on keyboards. The surviving founding members of Renaissance did get back together from 1977-1979 and 2001 under the name Illusion.
The original Renaissance live on German TV:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrSCU_3hK34
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I recently discovered Proto-Kaw Kerry Livgren's band before he joined Kansas. I think this band would have succeeded if they had stayed together. The have a very good singer and a sax/flute player. They evoke a bit of King Crimson or Tull at times. Kerry reformed the band after leaving Kansas and the later version is still very good.
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The Venus Flytrap plant is native to a small area that overlaps two American states. Few people seem to know that it is even native to North America and I found out because I now live in one of those states.
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The Alesis QS has the added benefit of Release Velocity which can be very expressive and is not often found on other keyboards these days. Release Velocity allows you to vary the sustain of a sound by how quickly a note is let off. A quick let off will sharply cut off the sound and a slow let off will produce a longer sustain.
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I played this with a band for several years. In addition to the keyboard parts I had to do the bass. It is not a busy bass line and sits well on one octave of bass pedals leaving both hands free to do the the synth parts. It was a bit difficult to do all the higher parts at the same time so I would play single note low synth in the left hand and do the right hand parts incorporating each part starting from sparse double and single note lines and then going to chordal parts building to a crescendo into the chorus with heavy low notes and high notes. If I didn't have to do the bass too I could have done the low synth parts on pedals and had a free hand for the higher parts.
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Sentimental about Gear
in The Keyboard Corner
Posted
I had to sell my Hammonds and several other keyboards to make the move from New Jersey to South Carolina. I tried to sell several others but they were a hard sell so I brought along four Vox Continentals, a Super Continental, Gibson G101, Fender Rhodes Piano Bass, RMI 300A, Oberheim OB8, Matrix 12, Roland Jupiter 6, Prophet 5 rev. 2, Yamaha CS70M, and some newer keyboards I use on stage when a gig comes up. It was tough letting it all go but there is less room in the new place so I had to make some hard choices but I don't dwell on it too much.