clarkspicks.com

I just got home from a gig running sound at a local venue, The Mainstay, where I am lucky enough to get work every month or so. The artist this afternoon was Jonathan Edwards, a singer songwriter that persons of a certain age may remember for the song “Sunshine,” recorded back in 1970. Edwards has recored ten albums of his own and produced I don’t know how many for other musicians. He tours and performs regularly. I understand that he is making plans to do a tour, traveling entirely by sailboat, in 2010.

Let me tell you something, Jonathan Edwards is the real deal! He brought a band consisting of his constant sidekick Stuart Schulman on piano/fiddle/bass, Taylor Armerding on mandolin & Cheryl Prashker on percussion. For nearly three hours these guys rocked Rock Hall.

One of the songs performed this afternoon was “One Day Closer,” the title tune to an album he recorded in 1996. On the record his daughter sings a descant part. I’ll let Jon tell the story. This video was made at The Center for Arts in Natick, Massachusetts on March 15, 2008, just a few days ago. Stewart and Cheryl are there, too, off camera.

In 1972, Commander Cody and his Lost Planet Airmen recorded a song written in 1955 by Charlie Ryan and W. S. Stevenson. A young guitarist named Bill Kirchen was in the band at that time and played the lead guitar part on the song . “Hot Rod Lincoln,” a rockabilly song from the fifties, became a top ten hit for Commander Cody at the dawn of of the disco era.

Here is a clip of Bill Kirchen playing “Hot Rod Lincoln” at the Philadelphia Folk Festival. Bill has added a few things to the song along the way.

Charlie Christian, guitarist with Benny Goodman’s swing band in 1939, was a pioneer, playing the electric guitar in a professional setting early in the 1930s. Charlie was able to play single note solos and be heard over a large band because of the amplifier and created a new jazz style “playing like a horn” on the guitar. He was a master improviser from whom guitarists are still learning.

There is no known film of Charlie Christian playing guitar. This video is a Ken Burns like slide show of black and white photos of Charlie shown over a recording made in 1941 at Minton’s in New York, after hours, on October 12, 1941. Charlie is playing in a pick up band with Joe Guy on trumpet, Kenny Kersey on piano, Nick Fenton on bass and Kenny Clarke on drums.