skankdelvar

You'd probably like Reba. Unless you don't like country music in which case you probably wouldn't. That's the thing, see. Country is huge in the States and women are very much at the forefront compared to Rock, always have been - but we've never heard of any of them over here.

Reba McEntire's been around since 70's (the only living country artist to have had hits in all four decades) and recorded 28 albums all of which achieved gold, platinum or multi-platinum. 16 albums went to #1. She's also had 32 #1 singles and 56 top ten hits, surpassing Dolly Parton's record in 2009. She's also an actress and had her own sit-com on the WB network for 6 seasons, and performed in Broadway musicals, starring in South Pacific at the Carnegie Hall. In movies she appeared in cult classic Tremors with Kevin Bacon and voiced the cow in Charlotte's Web. This year she fronted KFC's US national ad campaign as the brand's first female 'Colonel Sanders'. So, fairly low profile, then

Maybe. It's just she was one of the best drummers I'd ever encountered either as a player or a punter. Tony Thompson's sense of groove married to Simon Philips technique, yet, when asked, laid down a totally convincing Tommy Ramone. But on the two occasions I could have worked with her she got knocked back by stupid, less talented people because she was a woman. Which would be bad enough except that she was rejected by a couple of SJW's and another woman - who you would think should know better. The only other thing that pi55es me off quite as much was when a 48 year-old, mediocre, munting covers band drummer rejected a brilliant guitarist because he was 60 and supposedly 'too old'. So, would I like to choke the living sh*t out of feeble hypocrites who stop me working with and learning from talented musicians? Damn right I would.

Hendrix doubling his guitar solo in Crosstown Traffic with a comb and paper. Fact. Here's a bloke playing Oh Suzanna on a comb and paper which is obvs not Purple Haze but you get the drift.

In a way, this is kind of like the wheel turning full circle. Just after the war there was a continuation of the Hawaiian music craze in the USA. Fender started out in 1946 selling lap steel and amp combos into retailers who'd then offer lessons to the kids as a way to lock customers in and make more money. Same principle now, just escalated to manufacturer level and offered as a loss-leader. Also, if Fender were really smart, they'd offer a Mustang around £200. The price for a new Bronco (£150-ish?) is just silly. 1940's lap steel guitar 'school concert' with doting parents.

I think it's more likely that the interpersonal dynamics of being in a band will change before new genres appear. For example, one wouldn't sit around the rehearsal studio swigging beers and skinning up enormous chalices if there were women in the room. More likely we'd be handed pinnies and a feather duster and told to clean the place up. Then we could talk about kittens and knitting and feelings. So, most likely, men wouldn't do bands anymore and Fender would have an entirely different problem, serve 'em right I say.

Prove it. You can't. Pwned. Anyway, this drummer. Later on I found myself in a blues rock outfit fronted by a female guitarist and needing a drummer. I mentioned I knew someone but as soon as the word 'she' was out of my mouth the frontperson went right off the idea. 'I don't think so,' she hissed. 'Two women in a band would make people think it was a novelty act'. 'An unbalanced image?' I ventured. She nodded tightly and the matter was closed. Anyway, she fired me later but I think that was when the rot set in.

Despite (or perhaps because of) a lifetime of booze, fags, lard and recreational narcotics I look decades younger than I am. Fact. Anyway, this drummer, she'd have been a perfect image for the intended 'punky covers and originals' but the two cowering little milksops wouldn't have it. Probably thought the audience would be watching her rather than them, which would have been true. FWIW, one of these guys was an American post grad student and the other a junior lecturer, both at Oxford Uni, both mid-late 20's .

Anything that drives interest in making music is fine by me. But while I welcome more guitarists per the linked article I'd prefer to see an upsurge in drummers - that's where the real shortage is. Funnily enough, one of the best drummers I ever auditioned was a woman. Even had a 'Bonham rune' tattoo on her arm. Absolutely stunning player. After she'd left the room we had a chat about her. I was all for hiring her on the spot but the other two were dead against it, claiming it would 'unbalance' our image. Utterly specious bollocks of course; they were just intimidated by her, which I found a bit odd, them being peppy little twenty-something millennial snowflakes and me being then in my mid-50's.

That's possibly because you haven't encountered Epoisses de Bourgogne, a soft cheese so rankly odorous that it is banned from being carried on public transport in France. Speaking from experience, getting within six feet of a sliver of this cheese is an adventure in itself and to consume it is an act of insanity. I nearly died.

A sentiment with which most people would concur, especially certain centenarians eking out their final days in Argentina.

How very true. When he released the execrable Double Fantasy the critics were queuing up to lambast him; the negative reviews were all set to drop when Lennon died whereupon some publishers (inc the NYT, Rolling Stone) either held them back or spiked them out of 'respect'. Of Lennon's 11 solo albums perhaps only two are any good, one being the Imagine album and the other being Rock 'n' Roll which was all covers and a sort-of contractual obligation album. The rest are either un-listenable or drab.

It's always interesting to read stuff by people who were close to the Beatles and who weren't caught up in the wave of mindless adulation. Ray Connolly's always good value; on the other hand we get people like Hunter Davies who - though he's written a lot of other stuff - seems to have made a career out of ceaselessly banging on about the lovable mop-tops. Any time there's a Beatles' documentary up pops Hunter.

Thanks for the link. A very interesting piece.

I'm sure he was. Lovely man, Bert, and always the first to buy a round.

There's an interesting old Lennon interview in Melody Maker about Imagine: MM: So how did Imagine come about? JL: Well I'd just flown back from the States and I was sitting at my white grand piano in my country house, looking out of the window at my Rolls Royce and thinking: 'Do I really need all this stuff? Being rich is such a drag'. MM: How true, how true... JL: ... and Yoko was in the breakfast room, well, the summer breakfast room that overlooks the lake and she was staring at her grapefruit. I said: 'What's wrong with your grapefruit, Yoko?', thinking maybe it had gone off or she'd put too much sugar on it and she said: 'Imagine there's no grapefruit...' and I thought that was really profound, like. MM: So what happened next? JL: Yoko started screaming at the grapefruit in that way she has, y'know, like a Vietnamese woman who's just seen her village burned down by American soldiers so I went upstairs and got really drunk and did some cocaine, some LSD, a few bennies, a handful of Qualudes and a half-pound bag of primo grass. I was lying there on the bed, staring up at the carvings on the ceiling and I thought 'Imagine if there weren't any grapefruits?' (Pauses) The plural of grapefruit is grapefruits, isn't it? MM: I think it's just grapefruit JL: So one grapefruit is a grapefruit and and two grapefruits is two grapefruit? That's a bit ... establishment, isn't it? Bob Dylan would probably say 'grapefruits'. MM: So, Imagine? JL: Yeah, that's right. So, basically I started thinking imagine if there weren't any grapefruits and then I made a long list of things like streetlights and lawns and helicopters and in the end I came up with about four thusand things then I started narrowing it down and ended up with possessions and religion and war. And all the other stuff I left in. Then I went back to the piano and experimented with some chords but it was difficult to concentrate with Yoko screaming at her grapefruit and I went down to the breakfast room and asked her to keep the noise down because I was composing and she wouldn't give it a rest so I gave her a slap or two which shut her up. Then I went back to the piano and knocked the song out in about ten minutes which was quicker than Paul would have done it. He'd have taken about two or three hours. MM: And that's how history was made JL: Yeah, history.

I am grateful both to the OP and to Mr Buckingham's legal counsel for this information. The next time some shonky front-man tells me he's booked the band into a free charity gig I shall sue him for "intentional interference with prospective economic advantage".

Which is probably why the gig-going community of Milwaukee WI tread very gently around you. Audience interaction the Montclair, NJ way

Lots of guitarists of a certain age say this. Here's why. From the Bert Weedon 'Play In A Day' guitar instruction course 1961: 'As you learn your first chords, the day may seem very distant when you might get together with other people to make music; but it's never too early to learn the etiquette of playing in a combo. If there's a bass player present you should wait for the end of the first song then say 'I didn’t notice how good your playing was until you stopped playing’. He'll thank you for it and it will help to break the ice with these most prickly of musicians. Say something similar to the drummer, the piano player and the trumpeter and they probably won't even notice; but the bass player will. Now let's try playing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star in the key of C. It's really very easy!'

Maybe that TV show you were in. They're probably a bit nervous.

Of the many, many covers of Imagine - 4,091,000 at the last count - I would nominate the version by Richard Cheese as being most faithful to the humanitarian core of the song: