Great Live Recordings! (Guitar Rock from the 60's & 70's)

One of the great thrills of music is when the musicians and audience are in the moment. Where nothing else matters other than the next note. Where time stands still as you are covered in the warmth of live music. Usually that feeling is very fleeting but through the magic of recordings sometimes those great evenings are recorded for posterity and go on to define a musicians career. I know there are many horrible rock, pop, metal, etc live records. But what are the really good ones? Which ones put you in front of the stage while the band takes you to another place?

Here are a few you should check out or revisit.

Jimi Hendrix - Band of Gypsys

The band features: Billy Cox on bass and Buddy Miles on drums. The music is on fire here. Every note cuts to the core. The guitar effects are spectacular. The performance of "Machine Gun" is definitive, a radio play, novel and rock opera all in one. One of the greatest live cuts of all time. And unfortunately the message is just as relevant today as it was then.



Allman Brothers Band - At Fillmore East

A 2 LP set recorded with the original line up. This is as much jazz as it is rock, blues and soul. Duane Allman's guitar sounds like a cry from the wilderness, like the wind through the trees, like water crashing onto the beach. His brother Gregg on keyboards and vocals provides tremendous backing. 10,15 and 20 minute tracks fly by as if they just got started. What a show this must have been to see live.



Santana - Lotus

A 3LP that has no excess. The band is starting to change but Carlos Santana is still on top of his game. Latin rock at its finest.



Grateful Dead - Live/Dead

A 2 Lp set. Features terrific performances of "Dark Star" and "St. Stephen". There was lots of life in the Dead at this point.



Osibia - Black Magic Night Live at the Royal Festival Hall

More percussion than guitar driven but fits in nicely with these other albums. Afro-latin, jazz fusion. This is great!



What live albums do it for you?

Happy 4th of July!!!

Happy Independence Day to our friends in the USA. Thank you for the declaration of independence, for Thomas Jefferson, John Steinbeck, Benjamin Franklin, Louis Armstrong, Jesse Owens, FDR, JFK, baseball, jazz, Walt Whitman, James Brown, Henry David Thoreau, Irving Berlin, Martin Luther King Jr, R&B, Babe Ruth, Bob Dylan, John Muir, John Coltrane, Soul, Rosa Parks, Funk, Frank Lloyd Wright, Marvin Gaye, Ralph Waldo Emmerson, Sam Cooke, Helen Keller, Duke Ellington, Jackie Robinson, Aretha Franklin, Jonas Edward Salk, Country Music, Cole Porter, Frederick Douglass, The Carter Family, Sinclair Lewis, Hank Williams, Robert Frost, Frank Sinatra, The Grand Ole Opry, Albert Einstein, Chess Records, Miles Davis, Muhammad Ali, Willie Dixon, Ernest Hemmingway, Cesar Chavez, Robert Johnson, Harriet Ross Tubman, Blues, Mardi Gras, Carl Sagan, Ray Charles, and Harry Belafonte!

Here are a few songs to celebrate the day

Woody Guthrie - This Land is Your Land



Dave Alvin - 4th of July



Jimi Hendrix - Machine Gun.




and finally Nina Simone



What songs do you want to send out to our American friends.

Hidden Music Gems #5

Last one of these for a while but it is probably the best of the bunch. Later on these guys become way too slick but there was a time when they were as good as it gets and that time was 1971. If this record only had "Ohio/Machine Gun" on it, you could not go wrong buying it. Thankfully it also includes 6 other covers. It is a record of its time and it is timeless. The Vietnam war, civil rights movement, environmental issues, were all on fire at the time and throwing gas on the blaze is this superb LP. That opening cut that combines Neil Young's observations on the Kent State shooting with the Jimi Hendrix is spell binding. What really makes this work is that music is terrific. The way they make music by Stephen Stills and James Taylor their own is breath taking. If you know nothing of the turmoil of 71 you will still love this disc it's that good.