ONCE MORE, THE MUSIC DIES AWAY ...
Our cultural lives are like a marathon. We run along shoulder to shoulder with our inspirational heroes. Then, to our sudden shock, find that whilst we are surprised by the fact that we are still running, albeit increasingly short of breath, one by one our fellow joggers have fallen by the wayside. All we can do is pause, stop back and give them the nod of approval and the gratitude they always deserve. Such is the case this week with the passing of two vastly different yet culturally related musicians.
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Bert Weedon was never one to set a would-be blues guitarist on fire, yet without this solidly nice man behind us many of us would not have known one end of a guitar from the other. I seem to recall I learned my first bits of guitar from an Alan Lomax book, or by carefully watching Lonnie Donegan on TV, but when it came to getting those chords down properly, then my extremely tenuous link to Hank Marvin, Eic Clapton and Brian May was validated by my purchase, at the age of 14, of Bert's seminal classic, Play In A Day. Rest in Peace, Bert, and thank you for being around all those years. Even today, if you want to know which three chords can set you on the road to stardom, Bert's your man.
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A further tragic loss is the talented multi-instrumentalist Levon Helm, the man behind the drums with the great voice which made so many of The Band's records treasured aural icons. This probably only leaves Robbie Robertson as sole survivor of the original outfit who gave us the classic Big Pink. In 1969 they released The Band, which is for me their pièce de résistance, packed with utterly impressive, rugged musicianship and brilliant songs, both uplifting and poignant, a 20th century chronicle of American folklore and civil war history.Rockin' Chair was a song any lad who'd ever been to sea could sing with a lump in his throat, and the gruff, down-home harmonies and emotion of songs like The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down, and King Harvest (Has Surely Come) will never be far from a true music fan's turntable. So again, thanks for it all, Levon, and thank the Gods for the invention of sound recording. We may not know what Aristotle or Abraham Lincoln sounded like, but the Band will exist as an echo of true Americana for ever.![]()
Our cultural lives are like a marathon. We run along shoulder to shoulder with our inspirational heroes. Then, to our sudden shock, find that whilst we are surprised by the fact that we are still running, albeit increasingly short of breath, one by one our fellow joggers have fallen by the wayside. All we can do is pause, stop back and give them the nod of approval and the gratitude they always deserve. Such is the case this week with the passing of two vastly different yet culturally related musicians.
Bert Weedon was never one to set a would-be blues guitarist on fire, yet without this solidly nice man behind us many of us would not have known one end of a guitar from the other. I seem to recall I learned my first bits of guitar from an Alan Lomax book, or by carefully watching Lonnie Donegan on TV, but when it came to getting those chords down properly, then my extremely tenuous link to Hank Marvin, Eic Clapton and Brian May was validated by my purchase, at the age of 14, of Bert's seminal classic, Play In A Day. Rest in Peace, Bert, and thank you for being around all those years. Even today, if you want to know which three chords can set you on the road to stardom, Bert's your man.
Levon Helm
A further tragic loss is the talented multi-instrumentalist Levon Helm, the man behind the drums with the great voice which made so many of The Band's records treasured aural icons. This probably only leaves Robbie Robertson as sole survivor of the original outfit who gave us the classic Big Pink. In 1969 they released The Band, which is for me their pièce de résistance, packed with utterly impressive, rugged musicianship and brilliant songs, both uplifting and poignant, a 20th century chronicle of American folklore and civil war history.Rockin' Chair was a song any lad who'd ever been to sea could sing with a lump in his throat, and the gruff, down-home harmonies and emotion of songs like The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down, and King Harvest (Has Surely Come) will never be far from a true music fan's turntable. So again, thanks for it all, Levon, and thank the Gods for the invention of sound recording. We may not know what Aristotle or Abraham Lincoln sounded like, but the Band will exist as an echo of true Americana for ever.