Well it’s been a wet week out here in the Hill Country, that’s something you don’t hear often as a sentence. Rain! We got rain, like REAL rain. I’m so happy. Oh there’s a leaky spot in the tin roof where they sealed the screw holes after taking the old internet tower down, or it may be where the building got struck by lightning a few years back. I’ll get the caulk out and fix it at some point; for now, I’ve got a bucket for the little drips of life; bring on the showers! We need it more than we have in years out here in the Texas hills. One of my favorite sounds is rain on a tin roof, and all the roofs are tin. In that, I am a blessed man. A blessed man with roofs of tin in a rainy season.
For those not tuned in to the Scott Facebook page (go friend/follow https://www.facebook.com/scott.beckwith.35; it’s where the action happens), SD Curlee has changed hands after many years under the wing of Birdsong! All our best to the new caretakers, who will manage their own announcements in their own time. (UPDATE: The new SD Curlee page is up! https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61553058141920 - please head on over and like/follow to see what the next chapter of SDC will be... and I do appreciate you showing them the same patience & encouragement in carrying it on as you showed me in bringing it back. ~Scott B.)
It was such an honor to be a little part of the legacy and get to know the absolute legends from the original company. I am working on the SD CURLEE INFO BOOK to put some more accurate info out and shine much-deserved light on their contributions. More on that to come! Thank you to all of the SD Curlee fans, I did my best with it but now it’s best it’s with folks who can do more with it. Thanks to these guys - this was the crew in and around Birdsong when I decided a little tip o’the hat to an influence was going to become a revival. ‘Twas a band I could not keep together, but some good times were had and some great instruments got made! I can’t believe this was 12 years ago.
But Jake… Jake is back and we’re tooling up for NEW Birdsong Cortobasses, Corto2s, and 5-strings in two (TWO) body shapes. Check that all out here. As we enter this amazing next chapter of Birdsong, there’ll be other little changes to serve that and serve you, refinements and focus. I’ve been saying this all year, but now more than ever “It’s springtime, baby!” If you’ve been thinking about a Birdsong during the past couple of years of crazyworld, do get in touch because I got caught up during the times I stopped taking orders and the supply chain went nutty, and with much of that sorted out, the wait time on an order right now is the lowest it’s been in almost 20 years. Oh we’re busy, but we’re “busy within our means” and with Jake aboard, our means just increased a bunch. So we’re on it, is what I’m saying. Hop in for half down and have the experience. Life is short.
In general music news, a big rag way more in the “pop culture” end of the biz released a “250 Best Guitarists” list or some nonsense, and that’s always shitty. Everybody’s talking about it, about guitars and bands, and that part is good. But how do you compare “best” in art and craft without missing the point and meaning of such things entirely? How do you make it a competition between, say, Mississippi Fred McDowell and Yngwie Malmsteen? You don’t. Smart people don’t. It’s that simple. Jerry Garcia vs. Ali Farka Toure? Alan Holdsworth vs. Sister Rosetta Tharpe? There is only “best” in specific quantifiable layers of measured technique. This is not a martial arts tournament. And if that’s what music is to you, we’re working from different books. I mean facility is good where necessary, but who is the best singer - Luciano Pavarotti, Steven Tyler of Aerosmith, Eliza Gilkyson, or John Lee Hooker? At what time, for what music, in what context? Let’s be real – I bet my ass I could find twenty singers in any Black church in the south who could move you to your knees in ways the top 100 on the charts in the world can’t even dream about. “Best?” Toward what end, defined by whom?
I don’t read lists like that, even slightly more reasonable ones that debate or numericize “most influential”… I see the beauty in Andres Segovia, Kurt Cobain, Joe Pass, alllll the way over to Cedell Davis in that wheelchair in the Delta, playing slide overhand with a butter knife in his mangled hands. Sure, it’s brutal. But you’re going to tell me any player in the universe is better than that guy given the world he lived in? We may share the planet and some words, but that’s not the same world as yours or mine or the people who made that list. How about the dude that played with his feet for the Pope that time because he has no arms? Is he on there? I’d say that’s pretty good considering he didn’t start on 2nd base like the rest of us. Are we talking best in finish line terms, or in ground covered? Because looked at like that, Hendrix isn’t even in the same league as that dude. I don’t know, man. Context is everything. So here is a list of 15 of my FAVORITE players, in NO ranked order, understanding there are probably 50 more that could shuffle IN here, from Lightnin’ Hopkins to Alvin Lee and Nuno Bettencourt. All absolutely the best Lightnin’ Hopki and Alvins Li and Nuni - and the rest of their own creative selves - in the universe.
R.L. Burnside – find the Lomax videos.
Ed Bickert – tone, touch, and chord voicings for days.
Neal Schon – his soaring notes in Journey still light me up.
John Scofield – his own thing said his own way.
Dickey Betts – start at “Ramblin’ Man” and work into the long fluid jams.
Leigh Stephens – 1st Blue Cheer album = controlled explosions that blew my mind.
Jim Hall – a jazz giant but with taste and class.
Tony Iommi – I learned how to play to Black Sabbath Vol. 4…
Neil Young - …and Neil’s electric, acoustic, and song playing on Rust Never Sleeps
Keith Richards – compositional and comping brilliance.
Mick Taylor – his work on Sticky Fingers defines that genre for me.
Jimmy Lyon - Eddie Money’s right hand man on all the No Control-era classics.
John Williams – the classical guitarist, “Spanish Guitar Music” is a fave.
Eddie Hazel – listening to “Maggot Brain” in headphones as a kid.
Jack Owens – one of my favorite Delta blues cats.
I hope it PURELY turns you on to something new that turns you on! SO many more greatest guitarists, all on their own merits of their own work and their own beauty they spread throughout the world to be parts of our lives and move us; something that just doesn’t happen for music critics and “creators” of such bogus lists. There really aren’t lists of bests one could make for them, but I bet there’d be at least 250 worst competing for the bottom.
Do you and be the best YOU that has ever been. It’s a lot more difficult, but all these years in the workshop have taught me well. I’m making changes in my life, everyone I know is too after coming out of the past few years, Birdsong is striving; pour yourself into your potential, my friends. If not you, who? If not now, when? I’ll say it again, it’s springtime. Bring that to what you do and why, and bring the best of those to IT.
Much love & music,
Listening to: Bill Evans Trio Moon Beams; the Rick Beato interview with Yngwie Malmsteen; lots of car resurrection videos like Vice Grip Garage; my next album; Dred Scott Trio Standards 2000; vintage dub reggae stuff from Scientist; Eclipse Trio Improvised Strings and Percussion.