[Harp-L] Re: How We Do Summertime Blues/Desert Island Songs

[Bob Loomis <miltloomis@xxxxxxxxx>]

"Splash"wrote: 
"That's a pretty wide-ranging style set.  From The Dead, Janis, and Blue
Cheer to The Everly Bro's, The Beatles and John Prine with some Credence,
The Byrds and some bluegrass thrown in to the mix. I wonder how you do Summertime Blues.  Psychodelic style with that maximum fuzz and sustain on the guitar, new heavy metal, or more country blues style?  BTW Blue Cheer has been back on the road minus a hiatus due to Dickie Peterson's surgery. The Beast Is Back!  Once Dickie gets well.
We've done that tune any number of ways.  From max 60's psycho, to
bluegrass, to Raggae.  Cool tune that lends itself well to any style you can
dream of."
----

We're pretty much an acoustic band these days so we do an acoustic version (though we used to have an electric guitarist and I would pay electric uke and put lots of reverb and chorus on it) (That version of our band lost its coffeehouse gig because we'd gotten too loud for the clerks to hear the customers' orders) ... it's my own take based on all the versions I've heard in my life, from Eddie Cochran to Blue Cheer. I love Blue Cheer's take on it, by the way, but of course ours is closer to Cochran's. We've also done it C&W style and sort of a Hawaiian style (since we have ukulele and Dobro in our instrumentation capabilities). We've done it fast, medium and slow ... sometimes all in the same rendition! ;^) When ur harper is in the right mood to really play, I love the honking sound he gets during the little repeated riff at the end of each verse ...

I still put this on my desert island song list ... and that brings us to the possibility of a new thread: What Are Your 10 Desert Island Songs? The ones you'd never tire of playing if you were marooned, etc. I'll have to think about that one as I have instrumental favorites and singing favorites and favorites for particular instruments. Hmmm, maybe two lists ... ? Well, this is a harp list, so we'd better make it one list of favorite songs that either can be harp instrumentals or go well with featured harpo solo breaks. My list on that basis, not necessarily in order of preference:

1. Dead Skunk
2. Jambalaya
3. Dance to The Saint Anne's Reel
4. Blackbird
5. I Shot The Sheriff
6. Buffalo Gals
7. John Hardy
8. Put Your little Foot
9. Jamaica Farewell
10. I Fought The Law

There are lots of others, but these came readily to mind ...

Bob Loomis
Concord CA USA