50 Years....

WHAT WILL THE FUTURE, 50 years hence, think of us (in music and art) today?

I don't know, but 50 years ago saw HUGE songs like "Whiter Shade of Pale" and "All You Need is Love", and "I'm a Believer", and "Strawberry Fields Forever", and "Light My Fire". It saw music from Phillip Glass and from Steve Reich. Album releases like The Doors and Between the Button and Sorcerer and Are You Experienced and Surrealistic Pillow and Patsy Cline's Greatest Hits and Magical Mystery Tour and Waylon Sings Harlan and Sgt Peppers and many, many more...from Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan and Merle Haggard and Miles Davis and the Rolling Stones and the Beatles and the Beach Boys and Dione Warwick and James Brown and the Monkees and Willie Nelson and Elvis and Bowie and Jimi Hendrix, and Otis Redding and Johnny Cash and the Yardbirds and the Temptations, and Dean Martin and Aretha Franklin and Zappa and Stevie Wonder and Smokey Robinson and Pink Floyd. And so many more besides.

Albert King's Born Under a Bad Sign and Merle Haggard's Branded Man and Frank Sinatra's The World We Knew and of course Big Brother and the Holding Company's debut (that introduced Janis Joplin to the World) and Cold Sweat by James Brown and Frank Zappa's Lumpy Gravy all came out in August of '67.

The final 2 months saw Disreali Gears and Amboy Dukes and Axis: Bold as Love and the Who Sell Out and Dusty Springfield's The Look of Love.

1967 saw the Summer of Love and BB King and Burt's Bond epic Casino Royale and George Benson and Julie London to Ritchie Havens.

I don't know what we'll look like in 50 years, but I know 50 years ago has set a very high bar.

Happy New Year!

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'Steve Kukather & Friends: Santa Mental''

- David "Skinny Devil" McLean
originally published at Tinfoil Music
Date: Friday, November 11 2005 @ 15:33:41 GMT
 
Steve Lukather, 7-time Grammy Award winner and Guitar Gods interviewee, has released a incredible collection of Christmas songs for Favored Nations called "Santa Mental". The disc features Lukather performing every song along with an incredible list of special guests that reads like a who's who of guitar greats.
 
That list includes Larry Carlton, Eddie Van Halen, Slash, Steve Vai, Jeff Babko, Mike Landau, and Luke's son, Trevor. The disc also features some other great musicians like Edgar Winter, Gregg Bissonette, Simon Phillips, and more.

"Insane Guitar: Merry Christmas"

- David "Skinny Devil" McLean
originally published at Insane Guitar, 2003

One of my favorite pieces of Christmas music is “Do You Hear What I Hear?”. No only is it a gorgeous piece of music, but it’s a helluva lesson in composition and a great structure from which to practice multiple techniques.

Below is a very simple version (primarily melodic, so the harmonic options are completely open for you to interpret individually) arranged for guitar. It makes heavy use of harmonics – both natural and tapped – and touches on compositional ideas of both theme & variation and call & response. I also like playing it with a long delay to get those cool “rounds” (like “Row, row, row yor boat”).