Retro Chicken

Humble Pie

admin — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 04:05:37 +0000

Humble Pie was one of those great bands from the late 60s/early 70s. Featuring Steve Marriott from the Small Faces (he was the guy who sang Itchycoo Park) and Peter Frampton (who went on to super-stardom in the mid-70s), Humble Pie rocked.

I couldn’t find 30 Days in the Hole, my favorite Humble Pie hit, but I did find Black Coffee, featuring incredible backing vocals - wow.

Stones with bubbles

admin — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 04:06:52 +0000

I heard on the radio that today is Keith Richard’s birthday – so here we go – happy birthday.

“Only Rock n Roll” is classic Stones, with funky time changes and an acoustic guitar breakdown in the middle. Dig the video, it features bubbles, sailor suits, and the Stones in drag – I mean wow.

Bireli Lagrene/More Jaco

admin — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 05:11:21 +0000

I don’t know why but for some reason I am completely obsessed with Jaco these days. I was searching around You Tube and found an amazing trio version of the Weather Report classic “Teen Town” (it is incredibly fast and Jaco quotes “Third Stone from the Sun” – how can you get any better?), featuring a guitar player I have never heard of - Bireli Lagrene.

I looked him up on Wikipedia and they said he was a gypsy prodigy (learned the Django repertoire by the time he was eight, that kind of thing), and I vaguely remembered seeing him in Guitar Player magazine. But then I found this and wow – why isn’t Bireli Legrene a household name? Listen and be amazed.

More Chicken

admin — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 03:06:40 +0000

I’ve already posted a big band version of the Chicken by Jaco Pastorius, this is a wild trio version with John Scofield on guitar - I don’t know who the drummer is. Scofield is a jazz guitar legend, and he has been around for ever, having played with Miles and everyone else - all the solos in this video clip are awesome.

Teen Town

admin — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 04:16:52 +0000

Teen Town featuring Jaco from the classic Weather Report album Heavy Weather – the band’s mainstays are Wayne Shorter (became famous in the sixties as the sax player with Miles after Coltrane) and Joe Zawinul (from Vienna, also with Miles in the late sixties). The sound quality is not the greatest, but check out the bass parts – wow!

Hendrix - Purple Haze

admin — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 04:30:35 +0000

Jimi was the best. Purple Haze is the first song Hendrix song everyone hears and it does rock. Dig the distinctive E7 #9 (the sound that gives this song its edge).

Jimi is loose in this video and even tunes his guitar himself, something rock stars don’t do any more. (I think someone took this from the Isle of Wright concert – but I am not sure.)

Hush - so groovy

admin — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 03:47:15 +0000

Continuing my fascination with everything Black Sabbath/Deep Purple, check out this extremely early Deep Purple live oh so sixties version of Hush. Ritchie Blackmore, Ian Paice and John Lord are in the band, they sound great (dig the killer organ solo) but the best part is the groovy dance people – how did these fashions ever leave us?

Pre-Sabbath Dio

admin — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 05:23:18 +0000

I am not sure I understand the Sabbath, Deep Purple, Rainbow connection – but it is there. Ronnie James Dio, who went on to a great solo career after replacing Ozzy as the front man for Black Sabbath, started out with Rainbow – the band Ritchie Blackmore formed after leaving Deep Purple. The personnel with these bands was lucid, Ian Gillian also sang for Sabbath, other members of Deep Purple would join Rainbow, as would guys from Ozzy’s solo bands. Other bands also got in the loop, most famously Tony Iommi’s brief gig with Jethro Tull.

Rainbow was classic, featuring Ritchie Blackmore’s great guitar playing, great songs (some of which even became hits), and a host of great lead singers and sidemen. I found this old live clip of the “Man on the Silver Mountain” – I think it was their most famous song (though not their biggest hit).

Old Sabbath

admin — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 03:56:08 +0000

In an earlier post I mentioned what I think is common knowledge, Ozzy made his name as the front man for Black Sabbath. Black Sabbath were the first and certainly most famous of the proto-heavy metal bands that hit the scene in the late sixties and early seventies. Although they sound nothing like Led Zeppelin, they are often lumped together and presented as the ying to Zeppelin’s yang. Whether or not this is true I guess is up for debate, personally I couldn’t care less – each band is amazing and I have both their catalogues on vinyl - can anyone beat that?

I found this wild old clip of Paranoid from English TV – the first two minutes have nothing to do with the music, but are pretty funny.

Ozzy and Randy Rhodes

admin — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 04:12:02 +0000

I am sure it is common knowledge that Ozzy got his start as the lead singer for Black Sabbath and after leaving Black Sabbath went on to mega-superstardom as a solo artist. What people probably don’t know is that Ozzy discovered guitar legend Randy Rhodes, who was responsible for changing heavy metal guitar.

Randy Rhodes, besides from being a virtuoso, invented a new approach to rock guitar and made classical music cool. He borrowed harmonically from the classical world and very rarely relied on the standard pentatonic blues riffs that are germane to the rock world (and made Ozzy famous). He was a new and innovative voice in a world dominated almost exclusively by Eddie Van Halen until his untimely death in a plane crash while on tour with Ozzy. (After his death, the Ozzy guitar spot became the most coveted gig for heavy metal guitar players.)

I am pretty sure this clip is from an early 80’s late night rock show and the band is playing live to the cameras. The bass player is Rudy Sarzo from Quiet Riot – after Randy’s death he left Ozzy to return to Quiet Riot (they had a few hits and then disappeared) – Randy Rhodes also played in Quiet Riot before landing the Ozzy gig.