call me ishmael: EVENSONG. Richie Havens "License To Kill"

Friday, 25 February 2011

mongoose said...: Richie is v good. And he's just been doing his warbling since Woodstock unnoticed, unrewarded really. Just warbling his stuff.; 26 February 2011 at 13:42
call me ishmael said...: I don't think it's terribly complex, what he does, it's what Bob Dylan does with his singing, stretching the metre, sqeezing more in than should go in, Richie does that with doubling and tripling up his strokes with the plectrum. I think he nearly gets License to Kill absolutely right, there's just a chord missing here and there, it's because of the open tuning he uses and that weird thumbing-over, there's a minor or a seventh missing here and there. Having said all that, his interpretations of pop classics are uniquely charming. Just Like A Woman is amazing, but you probably know that. I chose License to Kill because I thought it was lyrically appropriate - to all those who feel themselves to be license-holders.

As to the warbling well, we all here could claim that, like the lonesome sparrow, we try to harmonise with song.; 26 February 2011 at 17:33

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