[ANALYSIS, OPINION and FUN]
NOTES
Of course the biggest news is the upcoming 2022 mid-term elections, which most poles have the Republicans seizing control of the House, with the Senate still being somewhat of a toss-up. Naturally, the war in Ukraine rages on. Aside from that, however, the top 10 stories on MSN and the top 8 on Yahoo are just a rehashing of old talking points, political attacks, speculative voting trends and of course endless Trump stuff. Everything is just click bait.
Yesterdays news. N. Korea has been firing missiles into the sea showing its displeasure at S. Korean and US military exercises. They even flew 150 warplanes at one point and the conducted a large scale mock air attack. The US and S. Korea by putting B-1 bombers and advanced F-35s into the air. There has been a recent and somewhat alarming trend of increasing missile tests and tension on the Korean penninsula
There will be an important UN Climate summit meeting in Egypt held by COP27. Things may get a little heated. There is great concern especially from developing nations about the failure of developed nations to come up with sufficient cash to honor pledges made in 2015 in Paris to combat climate change.
TUNES
Okay now we get to the kind of stuff I love
I’m talkin about
Inter-relationships… the musical kind
And history
But just so you know what I’m talkin about
You may want to watch this short video
It discusses what is known as a “B-bender”.
Don’t ya love that B-bender (BB) twang
Country music fans certainly should
And one advantage of course is
That a BB eliminates
At least some of the need to have
A steel guitar player in your band
.I’m sure steel guitar players have a different opinion though
Anyway…
Here’s an absolutely tremendous performance
By a guy who I think of as a young buck
But he’s actually now a member of the Country Music
Hall of Fame
His roots go all the way back
To Johnny Cash
And he’s a great musician as well
He’s MS
Of interest here is MS’s
Rather beat up looking old TELECASTER
….but unlike mine
(…which I’m sure y’all agree
From the pic I showed you a few weeks ago
….it is absolutely GORGEOUS !!)
and which, despite
It’s beautiful
Black-beauty good looks
is an everyday
“ordinary” Tele
–at least in terms of musical
Design architecture
Anyway
By contrast,
MS’s beat up old Tele
In this next video
Has a BB
Not only that but
Of great interest here is that
he’s playing what really is/was
The VERY FIRST ever BB that was ever made.
But MS here bought it from the widow
Of the guy who originally co-designed it
(along with Gene Parsons)
I’m talking here about Clarence White
(He was a blue grass artist
Who later joined the Byrds)
So, I guess we need to pay our
Respects to Clarence White before
We go much further
Here’s Clarence and the Byrds
With Clarence on the BB
But back to MS
Here MS is
Along with his band
Playing Clarence White’s BB Tele
[Big time credit here goes to
The superlative regular guitar work on (another Tele)
By Kenny Vaughn (in blue) in what is really
Kind of a dual lead with MS]
[It’ s kind of a shame but you really can’t
Hear the BB too well.
Anyway
The BB allows the “B” string to be stretched
Via pressure on the front fastener of the neck stap
To create a steel pedal twangy (very country) type of sound.
(the sound is slightly out of sync in the video
But it has great
Sound quality)
Incidentally, MS is a great Mandolin player too.
Okay, for the sake of our sanity
And so no one falls asleep
Let’s take a short break
With a change of pace
In doing so
We continue our quest
To totally round out RDs
International record collection.
So….
Here’s a tune
Named as one of
New Zealand’s all-time greatest !!
The band is officially
and facetiously named
Otara Millionaires Club
But for stage purposes
They shorten it to a
simple acronym
Why facetious
Otara is a very poor suburb of
Auckland New Zealand
Okay back to the point of this post
The BB.
So, to conclude
If you recognized the artist in the above
Video giving us the basics of the BB
And guessed that he’s Albert Lee
….YOU”RE RIGHT !
I’ve already done a post on Albert way way back
I first saw AL play with Eric Clapton
Right after I took the Bar Exam
(I didn’t know who he was at the time
…but I kept thinkin’
Man he’s better than Clapton !)
But that was
Back in dinosaur days
(RRG I think you were at that concert too)….
…at the Mosque.
But you may ALSO recognize AL
Because he was the lead guitarist for the
Everly Brothers in their reunion video
That I posted last time.
AL is clearly one of the most respected
Big time guitarists there is.
He never ceases to amaze me.
AND
Here he is
Playing the BB himself
And singin
[if you look super carefully
You can see the slot
Where the neck strap fastener
Connects with the guitar
When he pushes down on the guitar
That’s when he is using the BB]
Thanks for joining us. See ya soon!