The "Greatest Unknown Guitar Player"

Cafe Society
21

It’s brilliant, and it led me to buy a lot of albums. I was in the right space at that time to delve into the connections and history of those artists (compared to a year earlier when I traded in the Muddy Waters and Bo Didley Chess box sets because I didn’t really get them :o).

And a brief eulegy for the independent record store. It got to the point, as I mentioned, where I would just walk in and tell them what I had to spend. The owner and his right hand man had watched, mentored, and molded my taste in music, exposing me to things I never would have stumbled across on my own. There were only one or two missteps over the course of 15 years. When I expressed an interest in a new genre, they were ready with the classics.

One example: I walked in and said “I have X to spend” (I have no idea what it was that time). Mike (the right hand) walked me around the store and piled CDs into my arms. Then he walked me to a rack and asked “How much Eva Cassidy do you have?” I said “Who?” He looked at me, paused a beat, and then took every CD that he’d handed me out of my arms. He loaded me up with Cassidy albums and said, “Friend, you’re in for a treat.”

He is only one of two non relatives I visit when I’m back in the home town. Unfortunately, the store is long closed, as many independent music stores are. Over the years, it’s been a real pleasure of mine to introduce him to some new music. A small return on the investment he put into me. RIP, GB Records.

22

I meant to respond to this earlier, my apologies. “Hey Joe” is at 18:10 in the linked video.

That cover was the first song to grab me off of the “Sweet Dreams” compilation. “Drowning on Dry Land” taught me that a guitar could really cry. “Hey Joe” taught me that a guitar could express elemental pain, rage, sadness, and anger (starts at 21:00). Even as a teen, I could hear the anguish, the confusion, and the shifting emotional states.

Unfortunately, life has given me a touchstone for the subject.

I listen to the song now and I can hear when the narrator is weeping, when he’s literally seeing red, when he’s confused, when he’s enraged, when he’s sad, when he’s contrite…

I don’t believe I’ve ever heard so much emotion conveyed in such a short span–musically or otherwise. It’s the ‘five steps of grieving in four minutes or less’, as told instrumentally.