Friday 3 May 2013

EVENSONG. MAESTRO COODER AGAIN; A SONG, PERHAPS, FOR STUTTERING ED MILLIBAND, A MAN WHO SHOULD BE THE VERY FIRST CASUALTY OF FARAGE'S REDNECK REVOLT

Maestro Cooder again with a Bobby Womack song made famous by the Rolling Stones. Just a while after they did this Cooder spent an afternoon in the studio with them, and from what he learned, that day - and from clandestine tapes made of the session, Keith Richards forged his entire musical career - slight variations on the open G tuning shown him by Cooder. The Stones' lifetime keyboard player and founder member, the late Ian Stewart, although always on stage, was never made an official member of the band; Brian Jones, the most inventive, multi-talented and creative of the originals was sidelined and Mick Taylor, scorching guitar player on their trio of good albums, was, in the 'eighties, peremptorily denied all royalties due to him for his playing. Cooder calls them larcenous reptiles. Glastonbury will, of course, hosannah their plagiarism, their noncing, their junky posturing and sing along to antique greatest hits made great by others. No business like showbusiness

3 comments:

Woman on a Raft said...

We must be thankful for what he managed to teach them. Can you imagine how it would have sounded if they hadn't managed to rip any of it off?

Please favour me with your opinion: Mr Raft has been listening to Cream playing Sunshine of Your Love, not long before the end of the band. He says it is brilliant, I say it sounds like paint tins falling down a lighthouse stairs, but then I have famously dud ears.

What is the informed view of this?

call me ishmael said...

Mrs Ishmael, too, has a fondness for that album.

You could try what I did. Buy mr raft an anniversary Singer sewing machine, an over locker, a rotary cutter and piping machine to add to her already considerable collection of machinery and then lock her in her sewing room, away from any forms of music reproduction. Not that Messrs Cream are in any way musical, more martial; always sounded like a battle going on, to me; three ghastly smackheads warring with each other, imagine, young readers, a ten or fifteen or even twenty minute drum solo in the middle of an equally tedious display of zonked-out, Glaswegian bass bashing and off to the right, in his own vain, wife swapping world, the unspeakably boring Eric Clapton, media creation, racist and moron. Yeah, I guess that's why they call it the Blues. Fucking rubbish.

You might try guiding mr raft to YouTube, The Last Waltz, Clapton and the Band, Further On Up The Road.
In this clip SlowBrain breaks a string, mid-song and in a second The Band's Robbie Robertson picks up Clapton's version, strangles it to death and replaces it with a scorching, cliche free tour de force of mesmerisingly original reworkings of Clapton's - to this day - stunted, crunching plagiarism.

For pension reasons this noisy trio reformed a year or two back, attracting enough oldies to fill the Albert Hall, although, so, too, might Lady Sir Cliff Richard .

Cream were the creation of Melody Maker, New Musical Express, Disc and Music Echo, all anxious for new product, anxious for Supergroups, God save us, and of the greed, egotism and narcissism of three otherwise pretty dodgy characters, Tales of Bold Ulysses, my arse.

When wiser musical historians prevail Cream will be seen as the one-hit wonders which - Strange Brew-wise - they were.

Woman on a Raft said...

Thank you, I'll look that out for him.