I really love his smoother performances, when he didn't speed up or shred much but put some damned good mojo into that strat:
This is my favorite voodoo child by him
I really love his smoother performances, when he didn't speed up or shred much but put some damned good mojo into that strat:
This is my favorite voodoo child by him
He's such a wonderful player, but I have to admit that I can't listen to an entire album. I'm not knocking him or anyone's love for him. It's just that his playing is intense, and after a while, I just don't have the concentration for it.
If we'd known we were going to be the Beatles, we'd have tried harder.--George Harrison
Great player, awesome singer, and a great performer, but I always thought his stuff was too derivative and not original. He did serve as a gateway for many players to Albert King and others. Sold a lot of Fenders too. From all accounts he was a wonderful guy.
"No harmonic knowledge, no sense of time, a ghastly tone, unskilled vibrato, and so on. Chuck is one of the worst guitar players I know" -Gravity Jim
There was a time when I liked him a lot. I saw him in Providence in the mid '80s with the Fabulous Thunderbirds opening and he played a few songs with Roomful of Blues' horns at the end. It was an awesome show.
I kinda lost interest in him after a while. I think I heard him too much! I always struggled a bit with what he did for the blues. He helped bring it's popularity back but at a cost- there was a while where you almost had to play like him if you were playing blues. A lot of folks never heard the blues before him and didn't know anything else.
Last edited by Don; 07-21-2017 at 07:43 PM.
Couldn't Stand The Weather was the first SRV album that I bought and for whatever reason, Tin Pan Alley just blew me away. I don't care for anything that winds up saturating the airwaves... including SRV, but some of his songs that have remained very special to me are: Riviera Paradise, Lenny, and Ain't Gone n' Give Up on Love. I also loved Hillbilly's From Outer-space back in the day. I don't listen to him much anymore aside from a few select songs, but he certainly was inspiring... obviously. I've met some great musicians in my time but sadly, Stevie wasn't one of them. News of his death just one day before I moved to Texas, made the already somber departure even more so.
I dig some SRV! He was the King of the Blues! And my #1 best guitar player ever! "life without you"says it all! Sadly i never got the chance to see him either.
I saw him open (OPEN!!!) for Joe Cocker in Manchester NH, got to the show late because I knew he's be the headliner. Missed half his set. He did play an incendiary version of Voodoo Chile, though. 6 weeks later I heard the news of the chopper crash at work. At first they said Clapton was with him and an hour later they came back and corrected themselves. At that time I hadn't seen EC yet so it made me spend what I had to in order to see him ($125 still the most i've ever spend or am ever likely to spend in tickets).
I used to be all about listening to SRV. Maybe I got burned out but I can barely listen to him anymore.
I'm the same way with SRV and Jimi Hendrix--I really appreciate their playing, and in Jimi's case, I'm awed by his inventiveness, but I'm so burnt out on him. I haven't added any of his albums to my Spotify classic rock playlist because of it. I do appreciate that he was a master, and my playing is influenced by him. Again, not knocking Hendrix--I understand why people love him and SRV.
If we'd known we were going to be the Beatles, we'd have tried harder.--George Harrison
Bring him on. I can listen to him for hours and hours at a time. Was listening to "Crossfire" earlier. Gave me goosebumps.
"I got murder in my heart for the judge."
I always thought SRV was a great guitar player but I also thought he was extremely derivative. You can tell he was thinking, "I'll play an Albert King lick here, some Buddy Guy there.......". Hendrix, and even Rory Gallagher, had a spontaneity that SRV did not have. I love SRV's tone, his touch, and his conviction, but I get bored listening to him after a while.
A good, screaming Strat just might be the greatest guitar sound of all..... -Slash