Sunday, July 19, 2009

Johnny Guitar Watson

Lot of complications in my life right now. I don't know if this means good change, but it's change. Nothing to do but post a video of a trailblazer.

JGW never really got his due, and the fact that he played without a pick was certainly different, given his showboating style cuz you'd think he'd want a harder attack. He nonetheless "stressified" his strings, which is a country way of saying he played the shit out of them (see Wiki link which follows). At any rate, while Jimi, Funkadelic and Sly were whoopin' it up back in the day, here's a cat who was blazing trails before them. His Wiki is entertaining; Etta James pays homage, and when I read that, I really could see the similarities. Zappa of all folks also bowed to him, calling out Three Hours Past Midnight (a great title if ever there was one) as one of the tunes that inspired him. It was funny how his grandpa (I think) made a deal to buy him a guitar, on the condition that he not play any of "that devil music." So JGW agrees but admits that the first thing he did....

Here's his devil music classic, from the later 70's era of his career.