Unusual Rock Trivia?

[roccobass]

The late great Ray Charles’s song “What’d I Say” came from a moment of improvisation at the end of a performance, when he had no songs left to play but 12 minutes left in the concert. Before writing it on the spot, he said the orchestra who was accompanying him, “Listen. I’m gonna fool around. Y’all just follow me.”

 

[roccobass]

Not rock trivia, but cool though. I do love this show.

Was watching The Antique Roadshow this evening. End of the show has the topper. Guy shows up with a 1967 Ansaldo Poggi viola. The guy said his grandpa went to Bologna, Italy and bought it brand new from the maker. The appraiser said only 41 violas were ever made from Poggi. Said in the US market it’s value would be maybe $200k, but if went into the Asia/European markets, at least $300k.

 

[Eli_Kyiv]

IN HIS OWN WORDS
“I took a length of 4 x 4 pine, put an Epiphone neck on it, wound a couple of homemade pickups and mounted them on the wood. Then I added a bridge and a Vibrola tailpiece, strung it up, and I had the Log. It was crude, but when I plugged it into an amp, it worked.
On a Saturday night, I took it to The Sheik, a little club in Sunnyside, where I played the same songs (on the Log) with the same trio I often jammed with, and nobody gave much notice to it. I was getting a very cool, unusual sound with this electric Log... A piece of lumber being played as an electric guitar was something nobody had ever seen before, or even thought of, but it didn’t seem to make a big impression.
So I went back to the Epiphone factory, took the sound box of an old Epiphone archtop, and sawed it in half right down the middle. Then I braced up the halves so they could be attached to the sides... With wings attached, I took the Log back to the same club, and jammed again with the same trio.
And to my surprise, there was a great reaction. Everyone started talking about the unusual sound and asking questions about the guitar and my amplifier. There was a positive reaction to the sound I got that night, which was the same sound the same people had heard before. So I came to the conclusion that people hear with their eyes.”
--Les Paul
Invalid Link Removed

 

[SubHuman]

IN HIS OWN WORDS
“I took a length of 4 x 4 pine, put an Epiphone neck on it, wound a couple of homemade pickups and mounted them on the wood. Then I added a bridge and a Vibrola tailpiece, strung it up, and I had the Log. It was crude, but when I plugged it into an amp, it worked.
On a Saturday night, I took it to The Sheik, a little club in Sunnyside, where I played the same songs (on the Log) with the same trio I often jammed with, and nobody gave much notice to it. I was getting a very cool, unusual sound with this electric Log... A piece of lumber being played as an electric guitar was something nobody had ever seen before, or even thought of, but it didn’t seem to make a big impression.
So I went back to the Epiphone factory, took the sound box of an old Epiphone archtop, and sawed it in half right down the middle. Then I braced up the halves so they could be attached to the sides... With wings attached, I took the Log back to the same club, and jammed again with the same trio.
And to my surprise, there was a great reaction. Everyone started talking about the unusual sound and asking questions about the guitar and my amplifier. There was a positive reaction to the sound I got that night, which was the same sound the same people had heard before. So I came to the conclusion that people hear with their eyes.”
--Les Paul
Invalid Link Removed

Good stuff! It’s at the Rock n Roll hall of fame. There’s also his piece of rail road steel track that has a string and “sustains forever” but too heavy to be if any use!

 

[Bob_Ross]

There’s also his piece of rail road steel track that has a string and “sustains forever” but too heavy to be if any use!

40+ years ago I worked at a recording studio that was buried within the MIT campus and run by MIT students, so they got a lot of engineering geniuses/nerds coming in to show off their musical projects. One guy built a solidbody electric guitar out of machined stainless steel. His intention was to maximize sustain via neck/body density. It may have worked...but nobody could ever confirm it, because that beast weighed over 24 lbs! At the time no one could find a strap that would support that much weight, and if you played it sitting down it would cut off the circulation to your leg!

 

[IMMusicRulz]

The track Peace Of Mind, which closes out the Three Dog Night album, Harmony, released in 1971, also features a poem called Mistakes and Illusions, which was written by Paula Negron, the then wife of lead singer Chuck Negron.

 

[IMMusicRulz]

The original album cover of Three Dog Night's 1974 album, Hard Labor, depicting the birth of a record album was deemed too controversial and was first included with a manila file folder covering most of the cover. This was soon reworked with a huge Band-Aid covering the "birth". Subsequent printings had the Band-Aid printed directly on the cover. The cover also includes an attached "birth record sheet" of the album. The CD reissue by MCA Records in the 1990s restored the cover to its original look showing the record.

 

[tubedude]

40+ years ago I worked at a recording studio that was buried within the MIT campus and run by MIT students, so they got a lot of engineering geniuses/nerds coming in to show off their musical projects. One guy built a solidbody electric guitar out of machined stainless steel. His intention was to maximize sustain via neck/body density. It may have worked...but nobody could ever confirm it, because that beast weighed over 24 lbs! At the time no one could find a strap that would support that much weight, and if you played it sitting down it would cut off the circulation to your leg!

Similarly, in the '80's I wired up a friend's guitar with 2 Pearly Gates pickups.
He built it from a one inch thick Les Paul shaped wood core, to which he added quarter inch stainless steel plates, front and back. Finished weight was about 28 lbs. as I recall. The strap cut into your neck nerves, and sitting, it also cut off leg circulation. It sounded like the voice of God, but was too heavy for more than one tune. I dubbed it the Fowler Gravity Powered Neck Anchor. Turns out 30 lbs. of stainless is the best metal for Metal.
Later I put a Pearly Gates in a build to inject awesomeness into a build and was very disappointed.

 

[roccobass]

At a Chinese restaurant, Paul Simon saw something called “Mother and Child Reunion” on the menu, a dark reference to a chicken-and-egg dish. Having recently experienced the death of the family dog, Simon had death on the brain and connected the reference in the dish’s name to his wife dying. And so “Mother and Child Reunion” was written.

 

[Richland123]

The debut album for the band Mom's Apple Pie had a very controversial album cover. The original cover, designed by Nick Caruso, was banned shortly upon the album's release and an alternative cover was released, making both versions highly sought-after among collectors. The same picture was used for the revised album cover; but, the artist added a miniature brick wall, topped with razor wire and an American flag, policemen looking in the windows, and a tear running down the woman's face.

I cannot post a photo of the original album cover here.

 

[roccobass]

Even Duke Ellington had some idiosyncrasies…

This influential jazz composer and performer played in clubs for over fifty years, but he found the countryside a lot more stressful. Duke Ellington hate grassy fields because they reminded him of graveyards, and the association was strong enough that he refused to even wear the color green.

 

[roccobass]

A mum is a mum is a mum. Ginger Baker’s mum regarding her son.

The world knew him as Ginger, on account of his red hair, but his mother Ruby christened him Peter, and to her he was always “my Pete.” As she told LIFE magazine: “He would bring people over and they would say, ‘You realize your son is brilliant,’ and I’d say, ‘Is he? I wish he was a bit more brilliant at keeping his room tidy.'”

 

[SubHuman]

Badge was a song George Harrison and Eric Clapton wrote for Cream in 1968.

George Harrison took part in a recording session for the British band Cream to record the song Badge. It took place at Wally Heider Studios in Los Angeles, with a further overdub at IBC Studios, without Harrison, in December.

Badge was written by Harrison and Eric Clapton. Its title was adopted after Clapton misread Harrison’s handwriting on the lyric sheet, which contained the word ‘bridge’.

I helped Eric write Badge you know. Each of them had to come up with a song for that Goodbye Cream album and Eric didn’t have his written. We were working across from each other and I was writing the lyrics down and we came to the middle part so I wrote Bridge. Eric read it upside down and cracked up laughing – ‘What’s BADGE?’ he said. After that, Ringo walked in drunk and gave us that line about the swans living in the park.

Badge was produced by Felix Pappalardi, who had worked with Cream since their Disraeli Gears album. The song was credited to Clapton and Harrison on the UK single, but on the Goodbye album it was credited to Clapton alone.

Due to contractual reasons, Harrison was credited as L’Angelo Misterioso on the album. During the 1960s and 1970s it was often hard for artists to perform on songs for groups signed to rival labels, so pseudonyms were commonly used. Clapton received no credit for his guitar solo on ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’, or for his work on Harrison’s 1970 album All Things Must Pass.The song has stood the test of time fairly well! Here's a version without vocals and I love the looseness of the Bass and Drums.

 

[SubHuman]

The coolest thing about Dusty Hill’s reverse Tele bass is that you can see exactly his favorite pocket or notes worn into the fret board!

Dang I’m making it too hard!

Building this mock-up with a new neck! Semi-tribute.

 

[roccobass]

Bonnie Raitt’s 1991 hit “I Can’t Make You Love Me (If You Don’t)” was inspired by a man who was in court for shooting at his girlfriend’s car. The judge asked the man if he had learned anything, and the man replied: “I learned, your honor, that you can’t make a woman love you if she don’t.” But what’s even more fascinating is that the song was written by former NFL lineman, Mike Reid, who was the #7 draft pick in 1970. Between seasons, he was a pianist for various respected symphony orchestras across the U.S. He also won a Grammy for writing a country song in 1984, making him the only NFL player to do so, ever. In all time. Throughout the universe.

 

[SubHuman]

Bonnie Raitt’s 1991 hit “I Can’t Make You Love Me (If You Don’t)” was inspired by a man who was in court for shooting at his girlfriend’s car. The judge asked the man if he had learned anything, and the man replied: “I learned, your honor, that you can’t make a woman love you if she don’t.” But what’s even more fascinating is that the song was written by former NFL lineman, Mike Reid, who was the #7 draft pick in 1970. Between seasons, he was a pianist for various respected symphony orchestras across the U.S. He also won a Grammy for writing a country song in 1984, making him the only NFL player to do so, ever. In all time. Throughout the universe.

She has that sultry, smoky Blues voice too!

 

[roccobass]

The coolest thing about Dusty Hill’s reverse Tele bass is that you can see exactly his favorite pocket or notes worn into the fret board!

View attachment 4927367
Dang I’m making it too hard!

Building this mock-up with a new neck! Semi-tribute.
View attachment 4927368

May all your Hills be as Dusty!

 

[tubedude]

She has that sultry, smoky Blues voice too!

And her slide work.

 

[SubHuman]

And her slide work.

+1!

 

[IMMusicRulz]

Wendy Walters Dio, the manager and widow of heavy metal singer Ronnie James Dio, was also briefly married in the late 1960s to Aynsley Dunbar, who was the drummer for Journey and Frank Zappa.

And for those people who knew about Dio being the lead singer of Black Sabbath, here's some more six degrees of separation for you: the first Black Sabbath album had a closing track called "Warning" which Aynsley Dunbar wrote when was a member of the band The Aynsley Dunbar Retaliation.