Four Faces/SRV

["Jim Sigel" <drjimmy_mrjim@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Andy:

>The song "Four Faces" from the Quad movie soundtrack. What an infectious
>little ditty that one is, eh?

A cigar for the gentleman.  I love this tune, and Keith's drumming is
jubilant.  "I got four hangups I'm trying to beat..."  I can see why this one
was left off the album (it just doesn't gel with aural continuity), but I'm
VERY glad it's on the soundtrack.  I wonder how many other little gems from
the Quad sessions we never heard...

AEB Harvey Osward Wilkes Booth:

>Y'all oughta  see the flack I get when I comment on the *fact* that Stevie
Ray Vaughan
>was a non-original thinking and playing guitarist

Nah, you won't get too much flak from me.  Even though I thought he was great,
SRV was still primarily blues riffs and there's only so much you can do with
blues.  But I still think he was awesome.  Let me tell you a story.  Gather
'round kiddies and listen...  Once upon a time, there was a white-boy blues
guitarist named Stevie...

I used to think the exact same thing about SRV that you did.  Unoriginal, old
blues riffs stolen from the very same list you provided in the other post.
Anyway, I went to a triple bill at Alpine Valley, Wisconsin:  Robert Cray,
SRV, and Eric Clapton.  At the time I was into Cray, and well, it was always
good to see Clapton now and then, but I wasn't excited about SRV one tiny bit.
He was second on the bill, so I immediately pegged his set to sample the wares
of the beer garden.  At the time, you couldn't bring beer out of the beer
garden to your seat; you had to drink your beer in the designated area.  So
the perfect time for me to start drinking like a Viking, was obviously during
SRV's set.

Cray finished his set (an uninspired lot that was) and my fellow Vikings and I
headed up to the beer garden, for some tasty refreshment.  In a few minutes,
we were elbow to elbow with fellow drunks in the beer garden, enjoying our $45
beer and soaking up some late summer sunshine.  I was content.  (Note:  At
this period in history, our narrator was quite the beer drinker; putting away
a dozen beers at such a concert event was not unheard of.  In fact, I had
spent several other concerts at Alpine Valley that summer in the same beer
garden as the fun there was more enjoyable than some of the bands.)  When
double-fisted drinking was to be done, there wasn't much of ANYTHING that
could pull me away from it.

But then, something sonic and wonderful befell my ears.  The opening riffs of
Hendrix's "Voodoo Chile" had pulled my face out of that soggy cup of beer, and
tilted my ears towards the wonderful sound.  Entranced, I turned away towards
the stage just as the rest of the band exploded into the song.  Within minutes
I was back at my seat, forgetting all about my beer, and getting blown away by
one of the finest guitar performances I've ever seen.  SRV blew the doors off
the house.  He was electric, flashy, exciting... and that sound.  That wasn't
the SRV I had come to know from FM radio.  This sound was positively
explosive.  By the time SRV finished, I was screaming like a Beatle-chick and
yearning for more, all during Clapton's set.  I was converted on the spot.
And I couldn't wait to see SRV again and again and again.

However, the very next day, SRV's helicopter crashed in the very fog I had
been partying in at the lakeside cottage of a friend which was a few miles
away from where the crash took place.  We didn't hear about it until the next
day when we got back to Chicago.  After seeing SRV that night though, he was
more than what his recordings reveal.  Much more.  His death really was a
shame, it really was.  He was after all, only a blues player, but great diggly
damn, what a great blues player he was.

Jim in Colo Springs