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SLOWHAND’S BIRTHDAY 

LAMONT’S MUSIC NOTES-MARCH 30, 2020…HAPPY 75TH BIRTHDAY TO ERIC CLAPTON. CLAPTON’S STORY IS FASCINATING. CLAPTON WAS RAISED BY HIS MATERNAL GRANDPARENTS, JACK AND ROSE CLAPP, BELIEVING HIS MOTHER WAS HIS SISTER (WHAT WHAT WHAT!).  HIS FATHER WAS EDWARD WALTER FRYER, A CANADIAN SOLDIER STATIONED IN ENGLAND FOR WORLD WAR II. HIS MOTHER WAS 16 YEAR OLD PATRICIA MOLLY CLAPP. FRYER RETURNED TO HIS WIFE IN CANADA BEFORE CLAPTON WAS BORN. ERIC’S LAST NAME COMES FROM ROSE’S (GRANDMOTHER) FIRST HUSBAND AND PATRICIA’S BIOLOGICAL FATHER REGINALD CLAPTON.YOU CAN’T TELL THE PLAYER’S WITHOUT A PROGRAM.

CLAPTON’S NICKNAME IS “SLOWHAND” ALTHOUGH HE PLAYS VERY FAST. HIS MANAGER STARTED CALLING HIM THAT WHEN HE STARTED TOURING WITH THE YARDBIRDS IN 1964. CLAPTON WAS FAMOUS FOR BREAKING STRINGS BECAUSE OF HIS RIDICULOUS BENDS. WHEN HE WOULD GO BACKSTAGE TO CHANGE STRINGS THE AUDIENCE WOULD START A SLOW HAND CLAP UNTIL HE RETURNED. “CLAP-MAN” WOULD HAVE BEEN APPROPRIATE BUT COULD HAVE BEEN FATAL TO HIS LOVE LIFE

 

photo thanks-Aaron Warren

FRAMPTON 

LAMONT’S MUSIC NOTES-MARCH 30, 2020…FORTY FIVE YEARS AGO PETER FRAMPTON RELEASED HIS FOURTH ALBUM, THE SELF TITLED ‘PETER FRAMPTON’. THIS ALBUM IS SIGNIFICANT BECAUSE IT WAS THE RECORD HE RELEASED JUST BEFORE HE WENT ON TOUR AND RECORDED ‘FRAMPTON COMES ALIVE’. THE ALBUM CONTAINED TWO SONGS SINGLES ‘SHOW ME THE WAY’ AND ‘BABY I LOVE YOUR WAY’ WENT NOWHERE ON THE CHARTS, HOWEVER , WHEN RELEASED AS LIVE TRACKS FROM ‘FRAMPTON COMES ALIVE’, THEY WERE MEGA HITS.  NOW, I’VE SAID IT BEFORE, AND I’LL SAY IT AGAIN, I’M A FREAKIN’ SUCKER FOR ANY SONG WITH A TALK BOX. I REMEMBER SEEING FRAMPTON PERFORMING ON THE MIDNIGHT SPECIAL AND SAYING TO MY BROTHER “WTF IS HE PLAYING AND DOING WITH THAT TUBE IN HIS MOUTH, MAKING HIS GUITAR SOUND SO COOL ?!!?!”

HERE’S FRAMPTON FROM 1975 ON “THE MIDNIGHT SPECIAL” PERFORMING HIS BIGGEST HIT ‘SHOW ME THE WAY’ 

FORTY ONE YEARS AGO SUPERTRAMP SERVED UP BREAKFAST

LAMONT’S MUSIC NOTES-MARCH 29, 2020…OKAY IF YOU CAN GRADE ALBUMS AS MONSTER ALBUMS FOR BANDS, ‘BREAKFAST IN AMERICA’ WOULD BE THE MONSTER ALBUM FOR SUPERTRAMP. RELEASED ON THIS DAY IN 1979, THE RECORD WENT ON TO SELL MORE THAN 9 MILLION COPIES. IT WAS FUELED BY FOUR HIT SINGLES ‘THE LOGICAL SONG’ GOODBYE STRANGER’ ‘TAKE THE LONG WAY HOME’ AND THE TITLE TRACK ‘BREAKFAST IN AMERICA’. 

HERE’S SUPERTRAMP IN CONCERT CIRCA 1979 PERFORMING A SONG ABOUT ONE NIGHT STANDS ! HERE’S A LIVE VERSION OF ‘GOODBYE STRANGER’

BLOW BY BLOW    

LAMONT’S MUSIC NOTES-MARCH 29, 2020…IF YOU LIKE INSTRUMENTAL GUITAR WORK, THIS IS YOUR ALBUM. ON THIS DATE IN 1975, JEFF BECK RELEASED THE ALBUM ‘BLOW BY BLOW’. THIS WAS HIS FIRST SOLO ALBUM. JEFF BECK MADE HIS NAME PLAYING GUITAR FOR THE YARDBIRDS, REPLACING ERIC CLAPTON. WHEN HE LEFT THE YARDBIRDS, HE WAS (REPLACED BY JIMMY PAGE) HE WENT ON TO FORM THE JEFF BECK GROUP, WHICH INCLUDED ROD STEWART AND RON WOOD. HIS NEXT PROJECT BECK, BOGART, & APPICE FOLLOWED AND AFTER DISBANDING THIS POWER TRIO HE AUDITIONED FOR THE OPEN GUITAR SLOT IN THE ROLLING STONES. REALIZING THAT HE AND THE STONES WERE NOT A GREAT FIT, HE RELEASED ‘BLOW BY BLOW’. TO THIS DAY IT’S HIS HIGHEST CHARTING ALBUM.

FROM ‘BLOW BY BLOW’ HERE’S JEFF BECK WITH A LIVE VERSION OF ‘FREEWAY JAM’

 

GUITAR HERO:METALLICA

LAMONT’S MUSIC NOTES-MARCH 29, 2020…ELEVEN YEARS AGO THE HOTTEST VIDEO GAME ON THE PLANET “GUITAR HERO:METALLICA” WAS RELEASED. THE GAME FEATURED 28 MASTER RECORDINGS SPANNING METALLICA’S CAREER AND AN ADDITIONAL 21 SONGS SELECTED BY MEMBERS OF THE BAND. THE GAME ALSO FEATURED A TON OF ‘EXTRAS’ LIKE BEHIND THE SCENE VIDEOS, TOUR AND CONCERT VIDEOS OF METALLICA, AND POP-UP VIDEO FACTS FOR MANY OF THE SONGS ON THE GAME. HERE’S A 100% SCORE ON ‘ENTER SANDMAN’

ROCK N’ ROLL DOMINATION

LAMONT’S MUSIC NOTES-MARCH 29, 2020…HERE’S WHY I CONSIDER LED ZEPPELIN ONE OF THE GREATEST ROCK BANDS OF ALL-TIME. ON THIS DATE IN 1975, ALL SIX OF ZEP’S STUDIO ALBUMS WERE ON THE BILLBOARD 200 ALBUM CHART AT THE SAME TIME !! THEIR MOST RECENT RELEASE AT THE TIME WAS PHYSICAL GRAFFITI WHICH WAS PERCHED AT #. FOLLOWING WERE LED ZEPPELIN IV AT # 83, HOUSES OF THE HOLY AT #92, LED ZEPPELIN II AT #104, LED ZEPPELIN AT # 116, AND LED ZEPPELIN III AT #124.

HERE’S A TRACK FROM PHYSICAL GRAFFITI, ‘KASHMIR’ PERFORMED LIVE CIRCA 1975

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WOODSTOCK

LAMONT’S MUSIC NOTES-MARCH 28, 2020… FIFTY YEARS AGO TODAY CROSBY, STILLS, NASH & YOUNG RELEASED A COVER VERSION OF THE SONG ‘WOODSTOCK’. THE SONG IS ABOUT THE FAMOUS MUSIC FESTIVAL WOODSTOCK THAT WAS HELD IN 1969. THE SONG WAS WRITTEN BY JONI MITCHELL WHO WAS SCHEDULED TO PERFORM, BUT BACKED OUT ON THE ADVICE OF HER MANAGER WHO WAS CONCERNED THAT SHE WOULD MISS AN APPEARANCE ON THE DICK CAVETT SHOW. CROSBY, STILLS NASH AND YOUNG DID APPEAR.  

IT MAY SEEM ODD THAT THE GREATEST SONG ABOUT WOODSTOCK WAS WRITTEN BY SOMEONE WHO WASN’T THERE, BUT JONI MITCHELL HAS A DIFFERENT TAKE. WHEN JONI MITCHELL APPEARED ON ‘THE NATIONAL’, A NEWS PROGRAM ON THE CANADIAN BROADCASTING NETWORK (THE CBC) SHE SAID:

“I was one of the many who were thwarted, that was the place every kid wanted to be. I got to the airport with CSN and our agent, David Geffen, and our manager, Elliott, on a Sunday night. It was a catastrophe. I had to do The Dick Cavett Show the following day, and it was Geffen who decided we can’t get Joni out in time. So he took me back to his suite where he lived, and we watched it on TV. I was the deprived kid who couldn’t go, so I wrote it from the point of view of a kid going. If I had been there in the back room with all the egomaniacal crap that goes on backstage, I would not have had that perspective.”

THE ‘C,S,N & Y’ VERSION IS FROM THE ALBUM ‘DEJA VU’. IT PLACED AT # 11 ON THE BILLBOARD CHARTS. A DIFFERENT VERSION OF THE SONG FROM ‘C,S,N & Y’ WAS USED ON THE CLOSING CREDITS ON THE 1970 WOODSTOCK DOCUMENTARY

HERE’S ‘WOODSTOCK’ FROM CROSBY, STILLS,NASH & YOUNG

HOUSES OF THE HOLY

LAMONT’S MUSIC NOTES-MARCH 28, 2020…FORTY SEVEN YEARS AGO, THE MIGHTY LED ZEPPELIN RELEASED THEIR FIFTH STUDIO ALBUM ‘HOUSES OF THE HOLY.’ THIS WAS A STELLAR ALBUM AND WAS THE FIRST OF THE BAND’S ALBUMS TO BE COMPRISED OF COMPLETELY ORIGINAL MATERIAL.  ZEPPELIN CAME UP WITH THE TITLE AS A DEDICATION TO THEIR FANS WHO APPEARED AT VENUES THEY DUBBED AS “HOUSES OF THE HOLY.”  THE GROUP BENEFITED FROM ROBERT PLANT AND JOHN PAUL JONES BOTH BUILDING RECORDING HOME STUDIOS. THE RECORD SPAWNED ZEPPELIN CLASSICS LIKE ‘OVER THE HILLS AND FAR AWAY’ THE SONG REMAINS THE SAME’ ‘THE OCEAN’  ‘ D’YER MAKER’ ‘THE RAIN SONG’ ‘NO QUARTER’. AS A MATTER OF FACT, ZEPPELIN HAD SO MUCH MUSIC FOR THIS ALBUM, THE ALBUM’S TITLE TRACK ‘HOUSES OF THE HOLY’ WAS LEFT OFF THE RECORD AND SAVED FOR THE ALBUM ‘PHYSICAL GRAFFITI.’ ‘HOUSES OF THE HOLY’ HAS SOLD OVER 12 MILLION COPIES WORLDWIDE AND ‘ROLLING STONE MAGAZINE’ HAS IT PLACED IT ON THEIR LIST OF “THE 500 GREATEST ALBUMS OF ALL-TIME”

HERE’S THE OFFICIAL VIDEO FOR THE FIRST SINGLE FROM THE ALBUM ‘OVER THE HILLS AND FAR AWAY’

ARE YOU READY 

LAMONT’S MUSIC NOTES-MARCH 28, 2020…ON THIS DATE 29 YEARS AGO AC/DC RELEASED ‘ARE YOU READY’ AS A THIRD SINGLE FROM THE ALBUM ‘THE RAZOR’S EDGE’, AND HELPED PUSH SALES OF THE ALBUM TO OVER 6 MILLION COPIES WORLDWIDE. THE VIDEO FOR THE TRACK IS CLASSIC. IT SHOWS THE BAND PLAYING IN PRISON. IF YOU’RE A FAN OF THE GAME “GUITAR HERO III:LEGENDS OF ROCK” THE PRISON STAGE IN THE GAME IS NEARLY IDENTICAL TO THE STAGE IN THIS VIDEO.

HERE’S AC/DC AND THE OFFICIAL VIDEO FOR ‘ARE YOU READY’