casapete

Also Big Mama Thornton, who recorded 'Hound Dog' a few years before Elvis. Sister Rosetta was a force to be reckoned with, and did not receive recognition early enough. The clip above is ace! Re Chuck Berry, one of his main influences was T-Bone Walker who Chuck openly admitted he borrowed a lot of stuff from. Interesting little video here to demonstrate!

Thought it was okay - great voice although can't be doing with all that waving the arms around stuff.... Still, better than the George Michael attempt, IMHO opinion of course. As Chris says above, the definitive version of this song is the Bonnie Raitt one, featuring Bruce Hornsby on piano. Apparently she recorded it in one take, saying she couldn't capture the emotion again.

I think I've seen more fights at weddings and functions than I have in pubs over the last 40 odd years! Seen a lot of coked up hooray henrys being silly, and always found I could keep them off the stage with the well placed neck of my Precision. One of the worst I remember was during a function at a Park Lane hotel in London, where the wife of a well known soap opera star allegedly tried to glass someone in the ladies loos. Made the front page of the red tops the next day too. Maybe it was just our band that incited such antics....🤣

Was going to post just this before I read your post. Think the price of new Rays has soared so maybe explains it a bit?

I've had bouts of this over the years, and now have got over it (I think!). Was happily settled on using Musicman basses for ever when an accident made using lighter instruments a necessity. Kept a couple of MM's for a while, but ended up selling them as knew I'd never be able to use them in anger again. Still got my 63 Precision which is reasonably light but don't use it much, as the gigs I do mean that I can't keep an eye on it all the time - so there will always be a bit of guilt there I think. I do like guitars as well, and have a fair few tasty instruments which will rarely see the light of day but any guilt is offset by the pleasure I get from owning them and noodling at home. As I don't have any other expensive pleasures then I'm damned if they're going to be guilty ones. 😄

Sounds great Paul. Saw Hamish Stuart a few years ago in Leeds, great band including the great Ian Thomas on drums and Jody Linscott on percussion. In recent years Hamish rarely seems to gig oop North, unless the gigs have gone under my radar.

Robert Vincent last night at Pocklington Arts Centre. Absolutely superb gig, with his amazing band. Guitar, bass, drums, piano and a multi instrumentalist (fiddle, mandolin, banjo), with all but the bassist singing back up vocals. The harmonies were faultless, as was Robert’s lead vocal. Bassist sounded great, used a 70’s Precision into a more recent Trace head and an old SWR Triad cab. A really intimate gig, with wonderful dynamics and humour too. Thoroughly recommended if you get chance to see them anywhere near you.

Saw those, bargain!

There are currently some good deals to be had at Gear4Music on Gator products. These include the GW wooden bass case at £39 (around half price ) the G-Bone pedalboard / case and power supply for £35 (again around half price) and other various cases for guitars and stuff. https://www.gear4music.com/Gator.html?utm_source=benchmark&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=email-new-200206&utm_content=hero-1-branded I have no affiliation with gear4music or Gator, just spreading the word! Cheers.

If I wasn't short on space I probably would have kept mine TBH, just for nostalgic reasons as I probably wouldn't find a gig where it would be used to it's best! It was 22kg, which is quite heavy for an amp head ( in my world anyway ). Not an easy lift either, all that weight on one handle located on the end of the amp sleeve. Mine was basically two AH250's in one, hence the extra weight. The GK 1001RB head I regularly use is a shade under 10kgs which is far more user friendly for me, without going down the class D route etc.

Well, have sadly had to move my AH500 on. It’s new owner is in a well known space rock band and is hopefully going to enjoy it as much as me. And yes, he does have people to move it around....🙂

Easy - just go to any reasonably sized gig or maybe watch Later with Jools and you'll see loads of 'em…... ( Whether they're just for show of course is another matter 🤣 )

Looking forward to more updates, thanks for posting.

I saw Eric Clapton in Liverpool with Chas and Dave as support. Think EC was a big drinking buddy of theirs at the time. Must admit I wish I could have had a few beers before sitting through them. Clapton wasn’t at his best afterwards either....☹️

Saw Roy Wood with his rock and roll band not long ago. Absolutely brilliant!

Ok, here comes the inevitable love for the Fender Rumble range. My 100 watt version is loud enough for gigs that aren’t crazy levels, is lighter than a light thing and comes in at a very respectable price, currently around £250. 200 or even 500 watt models are both good value too.Whatever your budget, certainly worth a try out.

Will bear this in mind if my Rumble 100 needs a bit more umph - thanks for posting.

I bought an early Squier Strat from Loz out of Kingmaker, nice chap. They were a Hull based band. Wish I still had the Strat. Seen a few great support acts over the years. The Stones always seemed to pick acts who gave them a good run for the money - I remember seeing The Meters open for them at Earls Court in 76 ( I think...) and then Black Uhuru (featuring Sly and Robbie) at Wembley in the early 80’s. Another close one was at Leeds Uni in 76/77 where I saw Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers open for Nils Lofgren. It was their first UK dates and they were amazing, making it very hard for Nils to follow. The support act that I remember most was when seeing Graham Parker and the Rumour play at Bradford St George’s Hall in 1977. I loved this band dearly, but they were blown away by opening act Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes. Amazing 10 piece band in suits and fedoras, cool as f*ck and with a load of great tunes from Bruce Springsteen and Steve Van Zandt. They went down so well that they headlined their own gig at The Rainbow in London and got an OGWTest special too. Over 40 years later probably still my favourite band , seen them many times over the years and always deliver.

You can usually find Duracells on eBay for not much over £1 each , when buying them in boxes of 10. 🙂