Month: December 2020

Bad Reputation: The real beginning and the real end of Thin Lizzy

December 27, 2020 webcatt_admin

Looking back now, 40 years on from its release, it’s impossible not to see Bad Reputation as both the peak of Thin Lizzy and the beginning of a long, drawn-out end. Brian Downey walked out not long after Gary Moore rejoined. “I was burnt out,” he says. “My health was really suffering. I needed to get away.”Enticed back for the Black Rose album in 1979, only to see Moore walk out for the third and final time halfway through the subsequent American tour, Downey looks back now on what he calls “the Thin Lizzy curse” with the admirably balanced perspective that only time and space can bring.“I try to forgive the bad and focus on the good times. In the studio, we never did 25 fucking takes of anything. On albums like Bad Reputation, if things weren’t happening, Phil would always come up with a master plan to save the song. ‘Okay, this is the new arrangement I have an idea for.’ And the new arrangement would normally work. That just shows you how talented Phil was.”

Read the whole sorry mess at Source: Bad Reputation: The real beginning and the real end of Thin Lizzy | Louder

Music, People

Fiona Apple on How She Broke Free and Made the Album of the Year | Pitchfork

December 26, 2020 webcatt_admin

“I have spent many years wondering about that photo of you and Bob Dylan together at the Grammys in 1997.I was at the Grammys, I think, and [longtime manager] Andy [Slater] said, “Fiona, c’mere c’mere, Bob Dylan wants to meet you.” And I was like, “What?” I went over and stood with him and told him that story, and somebody took a picture. I’m wearing a brown dress with apples on it, and I got that from Ella Fitzgerald’s estate sale. It was a skirt of hers, and I wore it as a dress. So I’m in Ella Fitzgerald’s skirt made into a dress, standing with Bob Dylan.”

Source: Fiona Apple on How She Broke Free and Made the Album of the Year | Pitchfork

Music, People

Mick Taylor interview: A Rolling Stone in exile

December 16, 2020 webcatt_admin

So there you have it, for today at least. Taylor insists his time with the Stones was a great experience, with Exile On Main St particularly fresh in the mind. For 2010’s deluxe reissue, he added a new guitar part to one of the bonus songs, Plundered My Soul.

“Mick had to construct a vocal line,” he explains, “which I played to once it was done. It was very sparse and unfinished, but in the end I think it fits. More importantly for me, it was great fun to see Mick again, to be in the studio, playing guitar with him singing. It felt very comfortable and familiar. In a musical sense, it was almost like I’d never left the Stones.”

This feature was published in Classic Rock issue 153

Interview: Keith Richards and Charlie Watts on the making of The Rolling Stones’ Exile on Main Street

Music, People

Isolated Track: Keith Richards Guitar Solo On “Sympathy For The Devil”

December 2, 2020 webcatt_admin

The song was recorded for the Beggars Banquet album in early June of 1968 at Olympic Studios in London. It clocks in at a long 6 minutes and 18 seconds, although Keith’s solo track is only a little over 2 minutes long. Keith also played bass on the track as well.

Parts of the recording were captured live in the Jean-Luc Godard film of the same name, so we can see it all actually going down. You can see the edited music video from the sessions at the bottom of the page.

It looks like Keith is playing his 1957 Les Paul Custom into what looks to be a Vox AC-30.

What you’ll hear on the isolated track is a lot Keith’s playing that didn’t make the final version (rightfully so), but it’s all there for the listen.

Source: Isolated Track: Keith Richards Guitar Solo On “Sympathy For The Devil” – Bobby Owsinski’s Music Production Blog

Music, Review