Over Easter my nephew showed me his new Guitar Hero game. One of the songs that is included is Carlos Santana’s “Black Magic Woman.” Looking around the Tube, I found this clip, from the Woodstock movie, of Santana playing “Soul Sacrifice.” In 1969, their first album had yet to be released and Santana was a completely unknown band, outside of San Francisco. Bill Graham, rock and roll promoter and operator of the Fillmore Auditorium, got them a place at Woodstock.
Contrary to rumors that have been circulating, I was not at Woodstock. My mother wouldn’t let me go.
Everyone of a certain age remembers watching Hee Haw, which began on CBS in 1969 and lives on in syndication forever. The two hosts of the show were country singer Buck Owens and singer/guitarist Roy Clark. Clark’s versatility on guitar and banjo are often overlooked because of his association with this show and it’s, um, rural sense of humor. The producers of Hee Haw were inspired by Rowan and Martin’s Laugh In and the structure of the comedy sketches were built on that model. The result was quite different.
Here is a clip fo Roy Clark playing Duke Ellington’s “Caravan” on guitar. This is from a Hee Haw episode and there is a bit of Hee Haw humor tacked on the end. Watch Clark’s face. When he is playing a difficult passage his tongue sticks out. This is a sign of high concentration.
These two clips are of a 1963 appearance of a young, clean cut, soft spoken Frank Zppa, who somehow talked his way onto he Steve Allen show to perform a “Concerto For Two Bicycles, Electronic Sounds and Orchestra.” One of my FDP friends alerted me to these gems.
One day I was cruising YouTube, playing videos of various guitarists and I said to my wife " I'm just amazed that I can be sitting here watching Doc Watson's fingers for free." It dawned on me that it would be a valuable service to share these gems with other people. The videos posted here are the ones that really caught my eye.
