Squonk wrote:
Steve Morse
Alan it must have been quite something to talk to Steve, although his playing doesn't inspire me to play, he is most probably my favourite guitarist. I love the textures he puts in eg. "Highland Wedding"
But how was Uriah Heep and Purple live? Is Mick Box still doing his thing?
The Collective age must be quite scarey!
Age doesn't have to be a factor. Last year I got to see the Richard Thompson Band in Wolverhampton. Richard Thompson is pushing 60, bass player Danny "no relation" Thompson is nearly 70. But these guys can play! OK... the show doesn't rely on songs about groping up young girls or teenage rebellion, on looks, on having to strike ridiculous poses with guitars, or on having to look great with a blown hairstyle and tight leather pants with studs in them. They just have loads of chops. Over a 2 hour show with no intermissions. Youngest guy in the band is drummer Michael Jerome - and he doesn't have a lot of hair left.
I think there are broadly speaking 3 factors that contribute to the "problem"
1) Not much talent to start off with.
2) No longer give a stuff (see my remarks elsewhere about the Stones)
3) Band hate each other. In a lot of cases the band members aren't friends, they just happen to belong to the same band. So differences can arise and are not easily resolved. The Police reunited this year, went on tour and then half way through remembered why they broke up originally.
Squonk wrote:
IN the UK I did go and see John Martyn, and I couldn't hear what the freak he was singing about. Even when he spoke during the songs, the audience were laughing. But I didn't get it.
Vocally he's an accquired taste I think. Very jazzy singer with unpredictable timing and an affected slur in his voice. It's part of what he does. He must be getting on now. He's had a tough time of it. You may have noticed that he plays sitting down these days. That's because he lost a leg a while back - had to have it amputated after a bad infection set in.
Legendary hell-raiser in his day - industrial quantities of booze. I'm not a big fan, but he is an excellent player.
I also think that sometimes it's hard to be a performing artist. I have heard that Joni Mitchell could be a pretty unpredictable live performance. Her songs are often personal and have a lot of emotional content. Perhaps it gets hard to sing those songs over and over. Richard Thompson once observed that it's OK being a painter or a sculptor because you can pour everything you're feeling at the time into a piece of work, and then it goes to a gallery and you never have to deal with it again. But singer-songwriters have to recreate the same work over and over - often for years.
And maybe (oops! I'm on at least factor 5 by now) there's the problem of having "hits". How many times can Paul Simon sing "Sounds Of Silence" and mean it or at least not get bored by it. Perhaps it becomes the same old same old and it's hard for the artist to invest any passion in some songs anymore.
And see my earlier observations about some bands having done what they've done with the help of brilliance in the recording studio. I'm not saying that's wrong or not art, but it's not easily reproduced live and sometimes (most notable example The Beatles) just plain impossible.
That's factor how many now? I guess there's no easy answer to the question, no rules about how to be good or bad in concert. Depends on the artist and the art and what's going on in their lives.
There's also the old difference between "that's good" and "I like that". I might go see a really poor performance, but enjoy it for other reasons - memories, nostalgia for the songs, met a really cool girl, was for whatever reason in a good personal space.
