red house & lou marini - directo burlada 6 - 8 - 2010

habria que decir red house con lou marini ? o quiza lou marini con los red house...yo despues de lo visto lo diria del segundo modo y es que lou marini brilla en este formacion no solo como estrella invitada si no como lider diria yo.

no me parece mal ya que a este soplador de 65 años le tengo un aprecio desde siempre, antes incluso de conocerle hace ya unos cuantos años en uno de sus conciertos por este pais, es la 3ª vez que lo veo, las dos primeras fueron con los blues brothers band, banda que por fin le dio la fama que nunca hubiese tenido ya que es un autentico musico de sesion,de esos que mas de media vida la an pasado en un estudio grabando sin parar a tanto la sesion.., asi pues sus blues brothers lo an llevado hasta burlada, un pequeño pueblo unido a pamplona donde organizan un buen festival de blues con mas ganas que dinero como suele ser,eso si..todos los conciertos gratis y al aire libre..un lujo de otros tiempos....aun asi como decia la cabeza de cartel eran los red house con lou marini que el viernes dia 6 de agosto se subieron al escenario para dejar su musica buen numero de gente que los esperaba.

antes del concierto puede cenar con los musicos y cruzar una palabras con lou marini que vi que habia mejorado su castellano notablemente..habia hablado con el no se..quiza 10 años antes o quiza mas y entonces ni una palabra..pero es que esta casado con una española en estados unidos, el no me lo conto lo he sabido despues..y es una maravilla que un tipo como este te cuente cosas..o al menos las entiendas...me conto que su vida y union con los blues brothers es perfecta que valora mucho poder tocar ante 50.000 personas como ante 1.000 que le encanta tocar y viajar..lo cierto es que uno a conocido algunos musicos y tipos asi no son comunes..alguien con la carrera de el y todo lo que a vivido y que cuenta las cosas con esa emocion es algo a valorar mucho.

el concierto quiza no fuese lo que la malloria de la gente esperaba, creo que la gente esperaba escuchar los temas de blues brothers, esa mezcla de humor y musica, blues, soul y temas conocidos sobre todo.

nada de eso ocurrio o casi nada..si hubo algun tema del repertorio en la mitad de la actuacion pero el comienzo con ese solo de lou marini lo anunciaba, el concieeto estaba claro hiba a girar sobre el y ya adelanto que este tipo de concierto donde la banda toca lo que le apetece sin concesiones a lo previsible me gustan, los he vivido en otras ocasiones y me agrada que me sorprendan y que como en este concierto suene mucho jazz a la vez que en varios temas compuestos por el propio lou suenen los ecos mas que claros de frank zappa,sobre todo el ultimo tema que el propio zappa podria haber firmado, con quien tambien colaboro.

seguro conoceis a jeff espinoza y a francisco simon que son la esencia de red house junto a un bajista y un bateria.

todos esperabamos muchos mas solos de francisco simon, un especialista es esas descargas de segundos que lo hicieron famoso con el caiga quien caiga o mas alarde de voz del ex javier vargas jeff espinoza..pero no fue asi y como os cuento la cosas fueron por otros derroteros..incluso un tema de johnny guitar watson para mi nada acertado..pero la banda hizo todo lo posible..el sonido muy malo y las luces aun peor,y la colocacion del escenario justo al reves.., siento decirlo pero es que yo a 5 metros del escenario no pude ver a los musicos por el deslumbre de los focos, el sonido eran sin ningun brillo,monotono y parecia que no hubiesen ecualizado los instrumentos ..pero todo eso se perdona a la organizacion que deveria de tomar nota con quien se encargo del tema..y que seguro fueron de los pocos que cobraron en el evento, un concierto al aire libre es imperdonable cagarla de ese modo y deslucir una actuacion de ese calibre.

asi pues animo y a seguir el año que viene, el blues vive ya en burlada..no tenemos el mississippi pero si el arga!!

zeppelin

Muere Ben Keith, guitarrista habitual de Neil Young

El guitarrista Ben Keith, uno de los instrumentistas más habituales en la trayectoria del rockero Neil Young, murió ayer a la edad de 73 años, de un ataque al corazón. Nacido en Texas y residente habitual de Nashville, capital de la música 'country', Ben se especializó en la modalidad de guitarra 'pedal steel', fue músico de sesión en los años 50 y 60 y debutó con Neil Young en el influyente disco 'Harvest', del año de 1971. I. Z.


On stage in 1973, the Canadian singer-songwriter Neil Young introduced his collaborator Ben Keith with the words: "I swear to God, I love every sound he makes. No matter what the fuck it is." Keith, who has died of a suspected heart attack aged 73, played alongside Young for nearly 40 years. He was primarily a steel guitarist with a distinctive touch – his playing once likened by Young's bassist Tim Drummond to the way "fingertips of fog crawl in from the ocean" – but he was also a gifted multi-instrumentalist and producer.

Keith was born Bennett Keith Schaeufele in Fort Riley, Kansas, and brought up in Bowling Green, Kentucky. Such was his unstinting dedication to the guitar as a teenager that one of his fingers required surgery. The lap steel guitar – played while placed across the thighs – became his instrument of choice and, by 1956, he had joined the Nashville musicians' union. A year later he was enlisted by the honky-tonk star Faron Young for his Country Deputies band, alongside Tom Pritchard (double bass) and Odell Martin (guitar).

Keith remained a top session player for the next few years, his most famous recording being the memorable steel backing on Patsy Cline's I Fall to Pieces, a huge hit in February 1961. He continued to play and produce throughout the next decade, explaining later that "growing up in Kentucky, so close to Nashville, gave me some country roots. I was also really lucky to get to work with some great producers – Chet Atkins, for example."

The union with Young was a serendipitous one. When the latter breezed into town for Johnny Cash's TV show in 1971, he opted to stay in Nashville to record his next album. The producer Elliot Mazer suggested the drummer Kenny Buttrey and Drummond, who in turn recommended Keith. The band, dubbed The Stray Gators, were packed off to the nearby Quadraphonic Sound Studios to record what became the classic Harvest. Keith, who did not even know who Young was, told the film-maker Jonathan Demme in 2005: "They were already recording [Harvest] at the time. I set up my steel and kind of snuck in there and started playing and we did five songs before we ever stopped and introduced ourselves."

Keith's contributions were both luminous and elegant, bringing a sweeping sadness to tender songs such as Out On the Weekend and Old Man. On its release in February 1972, Harvest became Young's biggest-selling album, spawning his sole US No 1, Heart of Gold. He then took Keith on the road for the tour that saw the recording of Time Fades Away in 1973, and retained him for Tonight's the Night, recorded the same year but not issued until two years later. These two albums became part of what was eventually known as the Ditch trilogy, in which Young eschewed the middle-of-the-road success of Harvest for a rough ride through the margins of his own tortured psyche. With Young mourning two recent deaths, Tonight's the Night was described by the bassist Billy Talbot as "a drunken Irish wake". Keith's spooky steel accents helped define the album's mood, particularly on songs such as Albuquerque and Tired Eyes.

On the Beach (1974), the third part of the trilogy, found Keith and Young playing off one another on For the Turnstiles, a spectral country ballad that had them trading strange, almost impossibly high vocal harmonies.

Keith was by then an integral part of Young's band as well as being an in-demand session player for the likes of Bob Dylan, Emmylou Harris, Crosby, Stills & Nash and Todd Rundgren. In 1995 he even produced the singer-songwriter Jewel's debut album, Pieces of You, which sold millions in the US. He received his first co-production credit with Young on Comes a Time (1978) in a country style, and did so again in Old Ways (1985), in a similar idiom.

In 1992 it was Keith who was largely responsible for reuniting the Harvest band for Young's Harvest Moon, inevitably seen as a sequel, his steel and dobro (resonator guitar) licks investing the album with a wistful feeling of rustic nostalgia. The same sepia tones flooded Prairie Wind (2005), produced by Keith, the songs making up most of Demme's subsequent concert film, Heart of Gold. Demme said of him: "With Ben on board, there were no limits."

• Ben Keith (Bennett Keith Schaeufele), musician, born 6 March 1937; died 26 July 2010