Procol Harum 1968 @ the Grande Ballroom, co-writer of A Whiter Shade of Pale; Matthew Fisher
Linda Haney photo
Linda Haney photo
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Cool rock n roll photos
- Thread starter Chad-Chicago
- Start date
RIP Kim Simmonds
Kim Simmonds on Jimi Hendrix; By Harvey Kubernik
"I had an older brother and the first thing I remember was that he bought the single “Cry” by Johnny Ray, I was age 6. And then Mario Lanza records, within a few months Bill Haley hit the scene and so that was a big explosion, it started with rock ‘n’ roll and then graduated to blues and jazz. Los Angeles was a city that always supported the blues, the record labels in the area released blues albums I collected, it’s all part of the L.A. DNA. When I did my first tour with Savoy Brown I saw Slim Harpo at the Whisky a Go Go! I saw Albert Collins when he played a club for a whole week in L.A., I saw Howlin’ Wolf with Hubert Sumlin. We did venues Hendrix played: The Fillmore West and East, Royal Albert Hall, Promoter Bill Graham in San Francisco booked the real blues artists on his bills and in New York, the FM radio in the States 1967-1972 played our music and the blues artists. There is a commitment factor with me, I have the patience to be a musician and that is what has kept me going all of these years, my love for the blues. I had a difficult upbringing as a child, Welch as well, gave me some melancholy to my personality. The overriding fact now when I think about the blues is that it is totally honest and that is what attracted me to the blues, I also found it when the Beatles came out, I then realized blues was an infinite music. What could I say within the blues framework and get into that head space? But then I broke through the barrier to keep going and use your imagination. I don’t think you start off thinking it is a mission. I am not big on publicity, and I think that’s never really figured in my life, that kind of helps me stay the course a bit more. Had I been more interested in those kind of things that might have taken me in a different direction, the fact that I’ve shunned that kind of approach has enabled me to stay. Jimi Hendrix arrived in England when a lot of the listening music public had never seen anybody like that before. I was aware that Jimi had taken some things from Buddy Guy, you know, the playing behind the head and before that T-Bone Walker, it was a time honored thing that I recognized. When Jimi hit the scene, ‘what is this?’ and of course, he was very very dangerous, a dangerous look about him, you know. All of a sudden on Tops of the Pops like you see him doing ‘Purple Haze’ amidst the other thing, this guy was like John Lee Hooker untamed, it was something that most of the public had never seen. In 1967 I was very involved with Savoy Brown, I was working seven nights a week, I got to hear his first LP, certainly back then I was so focused on playing the blues and my focus on what that meant I didn’t have that much time to absorb Are You Experienced. I was already doing my own thing. I saw one of his first appearances on TV and he was just astonishing, I was a big fan straight away. Right away ‘Purple Haze’ stuck with me. Suddenly we have this great guitar with a fabulous blues lick, we had it in our stage repertoire in the late sixties in ‘Savoy Brown’s Boogie.’ It left an indelible impression. Now I look back now, and I realize that’s the nice thing about getting older, all the pieces of the puzzle start to fit together. I have a very first impression of the Beatles. I have a very first impression of Howlin’ Wolf, I was in Los Angeles in 1969. I heard Jimi was living in L.A., I had a jam with him. It was ships passing through the night, really at Thee Experience on Sunset Blvd. We were all hanging out, suddenly Jimi gets up and walks on stage and starts playing guitar. And I’m watchin’ this. ‘Wow!’ I wasn’t as shy as I thought I was because, OK, I had already done a lot of jamming with different artists that year, Bobby Bland, and I took the guitar off the other guitar player and I joined. Fantastic time. I’m pretty sure Eric Burdon was there. We played and after the show, I went up to Jimi, there were booths and he was sitting with a girl, I sat down and talked with him. And then I was astounded with his humility, it reminded me of all the blues guys I had met, they were all incredibly humble and can’t remember any of ‘em having an attitude. I assumed that Hendrix hadn’t a clue who I was, I was age 21, we spent the night chatting a bit. I also realized I wasn’t a part of that ‘Laurel Canyon hip scene.’, I was more downtown L.A. Kent, Modern, and the record labels drummer Earl Palmer played with. I still thought of Jimi as competition and one thing that did formulate my style, actually, could be derived because of the fact that I stayed in this purist mode and could be derived from Hendrix. I remember thinking at the time there is no way I can get a wah-wah pedal and do massive distortion, it was ludicrous, he was just too good. And I wanted to be a star myself. How do I do it? Well I’ve got to go the other way, so I had no pedals, I just plugged into the amp and I tried this purist approach. That was me anyway, I figured out who I was. There was a time period where I had to separate myself from Hendrix in particular, it was like, ‘What am I gonna do here?’ OK, I’m gonna stick to a guitar and amp, there will be no theatrics. Deliberately. I was gonna stand with a guitar and drag people into me, I was never gonna go out and grab them, I was gonna stand and create an aura and they would come to me. OK. And at the same time that’s the physical side, what am I gonna do on the music side? I had the blues thing, but nobody was playing jazz at all and I was listening to a lot of jazz and it occurred to me I am gonna bring in certain jazz elements. I’m not going to go out of the blues scale because I would be going outside of the pocket, so I was gonna stay in the pocket. And what I liked about Kenny Burrell and Grant Green in many ways there’s a lot of blues in them, I listened to a lot of Kenny Burrell, but Grant Green in particular I liked the tone. It had this mid-range tone the kind I wanted, it was all about tone. And if I’m gonna be standing there it better be the right tone, the right notes where they have to tumble together poetically. That was the whole thing, so I just brought in a little bit of jazz into my playing. Not a lot, just enough to color it, and again trying to separate myself from people why were way better than me doin’ what they were doing. Grant Green and Billy Butler with the Bill Doggett band were my influences. I had to find my own voice. People come to my shows because they can tell it’s about the music, it’s not about myself. It’s very nice I hear that. As for the trio lineup, what happens is I’m a better guitar player if I play with a keyboard or organ, but my tendency is to become a wallflower, especially if there is another guitar player. It’s in my personality to lay back. The biggest factor in having a trio, like I have for the last decade, is that I can’t lay back, I can’t be a nice guy but I want to. ‘You take the solo.’ Before I know it I have cut my own throat in bands in the past and suddenly I’m not playing the guitar and suddenly not being the leader, or the band went somewhere else all together because I hadn’t been strong enough, so I find with the three piece I can’t do that. I’ve gotta go out there and play and lead the band, and even though I’ve had great vocalists and musicians in the band, and I say this without ego, it’s the guitar. If my guitar is working you can feel it, the guitar leads everything and I and the band follow. Everything works together, with a three-piece that’s exactly it. It was the Jimi Hendrix Experience. A trio which might have had something to do with it. I can’t compare myself to Jimi Hendrix, he’s a complete icon, like Marilyn Monroe, it’s an image that will go on forever and his music of course as well. And I think the reason I’ve survived is because I never got to that position where I put myself in a compromising position, not Hendrix’s position, but I mean where you are so successful you compromise yourself that the music gets diluted and that your principals get diluted. So I’m at the other end of the spectrum, somebody who is completely difficult to find, where I don’t have much profile has enabled me to live my life exactly like I wanted."
Kim Simmonds on Jimi Hendrix; By Harvey Kubernik
"I had an older brother and the first thing I remember was that he bought the single “Cry” by Johnny Ray, I was age 6. And then Mario Lanza records, within a few months Bill Haley hit the scene and so that was a big explosion, it started with rock ‘n’ roll and then graduated to blues and jazz. Los Angeles was a city that always supported the blues, the record labels in the area released blues albums I collected, it’s all part of the L.A. DNA. When I did my first tour with Savoy Brown I saw Slim Harpo at the Whisky a Go Go! I saw Albert Collins when he played a club for a whole week in L.A., I saw Howlin’ Wolf with Hubert Sumlin. We did venues Hendrix played: The Fillmore West and East, Royal Albert Hall, Promoter Bill Graham in San Francisco booked the real blues artists on his bills and in New York, the FM radio in the States 1967-1972 played our music and the blues artists. There is a commitment factor with me, I have the patience to be a musician and that is what has kept me going all of these years, my love for the blues. I had a difficult upbringing as a child, Welch as well, gave me some melancholy to my personality. The overriding fact now when I think about the blues is that it is totally honest and that is what attracted me to the blues, I also found it when the Beatles came out, I then realized blues was an infinite music. What could I say within the blues framework and get into that head space? But then I broke through the barrier to keep going and use your imagination. I don’t think you start off thinking it is a mission. I am not big on publicity, and I think that’s never really figured in my life, that kind of helps me stay the course a bit more. Had I been more interested in those kind of things that might have taken me in a different direction, the fact that I’ve shunned that kind of approach has enabled me to stay. Jimi Hendrix arrived in England when a lot of the listening music public had never seen anybody like that before. I was aware that Jimi had taken some things from Buddy Guy, you know, the playing behind the head and before that T-Bone Walker, it was a time honored thing that I recognized. When Jimi hit the scene, ‘what is this?’ and of course, he was very very dangerous, a dangerous look about him, you know. All of a sudden on Tops of the Pops like you see him doing ‘Purple Haze’ amidst the other thing, this guy was like John Lee Hooker untamed, it was something that most of the public had never seen. In 1967 I was very involved with Savoy Brown, I was working seven nights a week, I got to hear his first LP, certainly back then I was so focused on playing the blues and my focus on what that meant I didn’t have that much time to absorb Are You Experienced. I was already doing my own thing. I saw one of his first appearances on TV and he was just astonishing, I was a big fan straight away. Right away ‘Purple Haze’ stuck with me. Suddenly we have this great guitar with a fabulous blues lick, we had it in our stage repertoire in the late sixties in ‘Savoy Brown’s Boogie.’ It left an indelible impression. Now I look back now, and I realize that’s the nice thing about getting older, all the pieces of the puzzle start to fit together. I have a very first impression of the Beatles. I have a very first impression of Howlin’ Wolf, I was in Los Angeles in 1969. I heard Jimi was living in L.A., I had a jam with him. It was ships passing through the night, really at Thee Experience on Sunset Blvd. We were all hanging out, suddenly Jimi gets up and walks on stage and starts playing guitar. And I’m watchin’ this. ‘Wow!’ I wasn’t as shy as I thought I was because, OK, I had already done a lot of jamming with different artists that year, Bobby Bland, and I took the guitar off the other guitar player and I joined. Fantastic time. I’m pretty sure Eric Burdon was there. We played and after the show, I went up to Jimi, there were booths and he was sitting with a girl, I sat down and talked with him. And then I was astounded with his humility, it reminded me of all the blues guys I had met, they were all incredibly humble and can’t remember any of ‘em having an attitude. I assumed that Hendrix hadn’t a clue who I was, I was age 21, we spent the night chatting a bit. I also realized I wasn’t a part of that ‘Laurel Canyon hip scene.’, I was more downtown L.A. Kent, Modern, and the record labels drummer Earl Palmer played with. I still thought of Jimi as competition and one thing that did formulate my style, actually, could be derived because of the fact that I stayed in this purist mode and could be derived from Hendrix. I remember thinking at the time there is no way I can get a wah-wah pedal and do massive distortion, it was ludicrous, he was just too good. And I wanted to be a star myself. How do I do it? Well I’ve got to go the other way, so I had no pedals, I just plugged into the amp and I tried this purist approach. That was me anyway, I figured out who I was. There was a time period where I had to separate myself from Hendrix in particular, it was like, ‘What am I gonna do here?’ OK, I’m gonna stick to a guitar and amp, there will be no theatrics. Deliberately. I was gonna stand with a guitar and drag people into me, I was never gonna go out and grab them, I was gonna stand and create an aura and they would come to me. OK. And at the same time that’s the physical side, what am I gonna do on the music side? I had the blues thing, but nobody was playing jazz at all and I was listening to a lot of jazz and it occurred to me I am gonna bring in certain jazz elements. I’m not going to go out of the blues scale because I would be going outside of the pocket, so I was gonna stay in the pocket. And what I liked about Kenny Burrell and Grant Green in many ways there’s a lot of blues in them, I listened to a lot of Kenny Burrell, but Grant Green in particular I liked the tone. It had this mid-range tone the kind I wanted, it was all about tone. And if I’m gonna be standing there it better be the right tone, the right notes where they have to tumble together poetically. That was the whole thing, so I just brought in a little bit of jazz into my playing. Not a lot, just enough to color it, and again trying to separate myself from people why were way better than me doin’ what they were doing. Grant Green and Billy Butler with the Bill Doggett band were my influences. I had to find my own voice. People come to my shows because they can tell it’s about the music, it’s not about myself. It’s very nice I hear that. As for the trio lineup, what happens is I’m a better guitar player if I play with a keyboard or organ, but my tendency is to become a wallflower, especially if there is another guitar player. It’s in my personality to lay back. The biggest factor in having a trio, like I have for the last decade, is that I can’t lay back, I can’t be a nice guy but I want to. ‘You take the solo.’ Before I know it I have cut my own throat in bands in the past and suddenly I’m not playing the guitar and suddenly not being the leader, or the band went somewhere else all together because I hadn’t been strong enough, so I find with the three piece I can’t do that. I’ve gotta go out there and play and lead the band, and even though I’ve had great vocalists and musicians in the band, and I say this without ego, it’s the guitar. If my guitar is working you can feel it, the guitar leads everything and I and the band follow. Everything works together, with a three-piece that’s exactly it. It was the Jimi Hendrix Experience. A trio which might have had something to do with it. I can’t compare myself to Jimi Hendrix, he’s a complete icon, like Marilyn Monroe, it’s an image that will go on forever and his music of course as well. And I think the reason I’ve survived is because I never got to that position where I put myself in a compromising position, not Hendrix’s position, but I mean where you are so successful you compromise yourself that the music gets diluted and that your principals get diluted. So I’m at the other end of the spectrum, somebody who is completely difficult to find, where I don’t have much profile has enabled me to live my life exactly like I wanted."
D
He was a true artist. Bad case of insomnia. Often awake for days at a time, creating in one art form or another. He'd been suffering from heart-related health issues since 2017. I think the breakup of the final Rascals reunion about that time may have been a contributing factor. He'll be sorely missed.
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D
Dayam. Lost another great. Kim WAS Savoy Brown. Still love Hellbound Train. Never grown tired of it.
Charlie Gracie on the streets of London, 1958
Charlie was a South Philadelphia force of nature, you wouldn't know it by his best-known pop songs Butterfly, and Fabulous, but Charlie was one of the true originators of Rock 'n' Roll music. In the early '50s Charlie saw Bill Haley and the Saddlemen performing around Philly, and another band called The Treniers, by 1952 he was cutting records like Wildwood Boogie and Boogie Woogie Blues that were dangerously close to Rock 'n' Roll music before it was called that by name. In 1957, flush with success of Butterfly, Charlie bought a pair of Guild X-350 archtop guitars, a blonde one and a sunburst one, and remained associated with the instruments for the rest of his career. He was completely underrated as a monster guitar player, he would always play a frighteningly fast Guitar Boogie at his shows, demonstrating well into his 80s that he could fly around the fretboard with the best of them. he's just been introduced into RnR Heaven.
Charlie was a South Philadelphia force of nature, you wouldn't know it by his best-known pop songs Butterfly, and Fabulous, but Charlie was one of the true originators of Rock 'n' Roll music. In the early '50s Charlie saw Bill Haley and the Saddlemen performing around Philly, and another band called The Treniers, by 1952 he was cutting records like Wildwood Boogie and Boogie Woogie Blues that were dangerously close to Rock 'n' Roll music before it was called that by name. In 1957, flush with success of Butterfly, Charlie bought a pair of Guild X-350 archtop guitars, a blonde one and a sunburst one, and remained associated with the instruments for the rest of his career. He was completely underrated as a monster guitar player, he would always play a frighteningly fast Guitar Boogie at his shows, demonstrating well into his 80s that he could fly around the fretboard with the best of them. he's just been introduced into RnR Heaven.
The guy should have been bigger(I had only the most basic knowledge of him), but he certainly kept active throughout the years, and had some very notable friends and fans…
Charlie Gracie - Wikipedia
Ray Anthony will be 101 years old in January!
Kudos to him.
That must be his ex, Mamie Van Doren(she’s still alive, soon to be 91). Ray had the first big hit with the “Peter Gunn” theme, and how would we know which foot to put in and pull out without him.
D
REM is the strangest band to ever achieve superstardom. Change my mind.
Here they are in 83 or so.
Mills with his Rick. looks like he replaced the bridge like Geddy did, but a closer look reveals what looks like a strat pickup in the mute route, and an extra toggle switch.
Mills has been a Fender guy for decades now. Here he is with a P Bass in Washington DC for a show celebrating the 50th anniversary of Big Star's #1 Record.
He also did a fair bit of singing this night as well. His vocal harmonies were always an REM secret weapon. That's Chris Stamey of the DBs on the Strat (he also sang, played bass, and keys), and Pat Sansone of Wilco on bass (and on guitar, vocals, and keys), obscured by Mills. The show also featured the last surviving member of Big Star, Jody Stephens on drums and vocals, and John Auer of the Posies on guitar and vocals. The amount of talent on stage this night was unreal. Simply a fantastic show!
Here they are in 83 or so.
Mills with his Rick. looks like he replaced the bridge like Geddy did, but a closer look reveals what looks like a strat pickup in the mute route, and an extra toggle switch.
Mills has been a Fender guy for decades now. Here he is with a P Bass in Washington DC for a show celebrating the 50th anniversary of Big Star's #1 Record.
He also did a fair bit of singing this night as well. His vocal harmonies were always an REM secret weapon. That's Chris Stamey of the DBs on the Strat (he also sang, played bass, and keys), and Pat Sansone of Wilco on bass (and on guitar, vocals, and keys), obscured by Mills. The show also featured the last surviving member of Big Star, Jody Stephens on drums and vocals, and John Auer of the Posies on guitar and vocals. The amount of talent on stage this night was unreal. Simply a fantastic show!
Ann Wilson, Nancy Wilson and Howard Leese backstage at the “Japan Jam”
on the island of Enoshima in Japan, 1979. Ann has that "C'mon, Hurry up and take the dang picture before I fall down" look.
on the island of Enoshima in Japan, 1979. Ann has that "C'mon, Hurry up and take the dang picture before I fall down" look.
