The Best 60s Surf Band You Never Heard

The Jokers were a great Belgium instrumental group that played a lot of surf music but much more. They were on a par with The Ventures, and truth be known, they were probably a little bit better. The band formed in 1959, but it was when the great 15 year old guitarist, Ronny Sigo, joined the band in 1962 that things really took off. All of these guys were really young actually, but Ronny Sigo simply had no peer when it came to the 60s surf guitar sound. It's a shame that he's almost completely unknown outside of Belgium (and Japan) where he still performs as Ronny Sigo and The Jokers. (He's the only original member left.)

Something very original that Ronny Sigo did was his use of a volume pedal to do swells with. He was doing this extensively as far back as 1964 long before any other guitarist was using one or manipulating the knob on their guitar. What's more, he used it very melodically. (You can hear him using one in the video of Tabou listed below, but you never see it in the video since they're just faking it, playing along with a recording.)

They're playing Sabre Dance here circa 1964:



Here they are performing Hully Gully.



Here they play Tabou.

The Other Elvis

One of Elvis' biggest songs was Polk Salad Annie, but do you remember who wrote the song and had the first hit recording of it? I didn't think so. It was Tony Joe White, who also could have passed for Elvis brother back in the day.



This made me think of a yet to be fully developed genre of music I like to call Swamp Rock. Other Swamp Rock songs would be Amos Moses by Jerry Reed:



And of course there's a couple of well known Swamp Rockers by Creedence Clearwater Revival (still one of my favorite names for a band) like Green River and Born On The Bayou:



And one of my favorite guitar pickers, Roy Buchanan, had a great Swampy version of Haunted House:



Can you hear the funky Cajun string that ties all these songs together? These songs were born of the Swamp I tell ya.

Pokey Lafarge - "Central Time"

A St. Louis 30s French type dance band on David Letterman's show about a month ago. Good fun.

Derek Trucks

Derek is, oddly enough, the son of Allman Brothers drummer Butch Trucks. I say "oddly' because he's a slide guitarist who plays like the second coming of Duane Allman rather than his drummer father. Here he is at only 13 years of age playing like a man of 50:



Derek is 34 now and married to singer/songwriter Susan Tedeschi. (A more perfect match I've never seen.) They perform together most of the time these days, but Derek still plays with the Allman Brothers Band quite a bit too. Here they both are with the ABB backing them on the old Bob Dylan song, Don't Think Twice. Derek's solo starts at 3:17. He gets better every year.

Junior Brown (The Jimi Hendrix of Country)

Doing "409" with the Beach Boys Backing Him


"Freeborn Man" (Live)

"If Jesus Was Like Me"

This is without a doubt the saddest song I know. It's by Pat Terry, who was one of the pioneers the music that spearheaded the Jesus Movement during the 1970s. (I saw him in concert around 1979.) This song is from a CD he came out with in 2009, his first in over 20-years. Boy he hasn't dropped a beat. He might be a little more country-ish these days because he's a Nashville songwriter now who's written dozens of hit songs for other people. But "Jesus Music" is still what he does best. From one of the greatest songwriters I ever heard:



If Jesus was like me, he'd seem like an alright guy
Till the first time he healed someone, or turned some water into wine
Then he'd talk too much, act way too proud
They'd say, "There goes that Jesus again running off his mouth."
How sad would that be, if Jesus was like me?

If Jesus was like me, he'd be all merciful and meek
Till the first time you made like Judas and kissed him on the cheek
Then he'd act all hurt, point out all your sins
When you ask, would if he forgive you, he'd say, "Well that all depends."
How hopeless would we all be, if Jesus was like me?

If Jesus was like me, he'd mean well but he might not follow through (when you needed him to)
If Jesus was like me, love might be the one thing he'd try but couldn't do

If Jesus was like me, he'd be your closest friend
Till the first time you nailed him to the cross for all your sins
Then he'd pull the shades, take your number off his phone
Let you pound all night on Heaven's gate while he pretends he isn't home
How lost would we all be, without one prayer or hope for anything
Imagine where you'd be, if Jesus was like me
You might as well just get up off your knees, if Jesus was like me

My New Favorite Group

Carolina Chocolate Drops - "Country Girl" (Live)

Carolina Chocolate Drops - "Ruby Are You Mad At Your Man?"

Barefootin' To Some Drum And Fife Music

Rhiannon Giddens sings Mercedez Benz

Carolina Chocolate Drops "Jackson"

"Lagrima" Done Right

I uploaded this tune to YouTube last week but decided the sound wasn't very good and that my playing was also a tad fast, so I redid the piece yesterday. This is the best I know how to perform this piece of music. It may not satisfy everybody. Everyone thinks their own way is the best way of playing music, but this is as close to perfect as I know how to do it, and I'm darn happy with it.

The Foundling Goes Home

The Foundling Goes Home is a romance for guitar and orchestra. I've not yet written the orchestrations for it, but I think it stands on its own as a solo piece quite well.

The title was inspired by the character, Shasta, in—The Horse And His Boy—a children's novel by CS Lewis and part of the Narnia collection.

Hilaire Belloc - "The Night"

I have some audio clips of Belloc singing his own songs at YouTube, and a man by the name of Jude Galbraith left a video response to it that's a choral work he wrote and sang all the parts to with the words taken from one of Belloc's poems--"The Night." He's got a style of vocalizing that's unlike anything I've ever heard. Check out some of his other songs too at his YouTube Channel.