- what exotic fish I caught in the ocean of music -

Uriah Heep was great. April 7th 1973 a bunch of us piled into a few cars to see them at Eastern Michigan University at Bowen Field house. Warm up bands were McKendre Spring, and Billy Preston.

Our seats were 1st row just right of center. We got there early and were watching the Roadies setup the stage, and this black dude with a huge afro walked down to our seats and asked us if we could spare a joint. (which of course we did) It was Billy Preston, and he put on an absolutely incredible and high energy show. He looked and smiled at us several times during the show, and at the end, stood in front, pointed at us and gave us the “thumbs up” and walked off.

Uriah Heep came on and started the set with the hard driving Easy Living . People went nuts, and was an unbelievable concert. Still remember it like it was yesterday, and one of the best I’ve ever been to.

Bonham - That festival is amazing - I didn’t know there were so many Uriah Heep disciples in Bulgaria!

RobertB - I chuckle at your story…

1973 was my first year out of school and my friends and I sound just like your bunch.
Billy Preston was brilliant, playing with the Beatles and the Stones. I loved his songs “You are so Beautiful” and “Circles”
I grew up in South Africa, before moving to Australia, and none of the good overseas bands ever toured SA there back then.
A lot of their records were banned on the radio, and some in the stores.
We had no television in the country and radio was government controlled and censored.
We had to learn about the good bands by word of mouth, and go to good record stores where they imported new music.
There were a lot of really good musicians though, who played covers of the overseas bands.
We spent most of our spare time hanging around night clubs and pubs watching bands.
Some of my friends and my brother played in some of the top bands.
A lot of the good musicians left the country and some made it big overseas:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_John\_"Mutt"_Lange
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manfred_Mann\_(musician)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duncan_Mackay\_(musician)
Duncan was British born but lived and played in SA in the 70’s - we used to go and see him play in a pub all the time
There were many black jazz musicians who left the country in exile like Hugh Maskala, Miriam Makeba, Dollar Brand.

I saw the Woodstock movie while still at school, but all the nudity and drug use scenes were cut out.
Still, the performers like Jimi, Janis, Joe Cocker, Santana, The Who, CSNY, really knocked me out.
Also saw “Mad dogs and Englishmen” which had one of the best bands ever assembled.
We had to watch rock movies like this to see overseas bands.
Those were good days though, with lots of memories.

I also had friends in SA who were looking for a suitable country to establish at this time…

In the past, some of us really had a difficult access to this type of information, what is happening in world music, etc…
Well, the difficult access to such info caused the corresponding reaction and we found the right radio station, we knew the exact hours of the music rubric/news, etc…, so the possible information to be collected.
I always had my small Telefunken radio near me. :+1:

From that time I know that the hardly obtained information is remembered the longest.

As I guess, all of you remember only good things from the past time. :slight_smile:


Two Bee Gees songs before their disco era:

Melody fair - soundtrack of excellent movie Melody (1971), (–18) written by Alan Parker.

and Massachusetts.

Ah Yes… The Bee Gees

They were played on the radio a lot because they were considered safe for teenagers to listen to.
I liked them a lot before their disco days.
They grew up and recorded their first songs in Brisbane, Australia.
They council where they lived dedicated a mall to them which opened a few years ago called “Bee Gees Way”.
I visited that while on holiday 2 years ago.

I loved the Bee Gees up until they sold out to Disco. I have all their early albums.

I love this tune

Good. We share the same opinion on the Bee Gees career.

For me surprisingly/strange was the change of ZZ Top also.

Can you believe that the performers of these wonderful songs:

Brown sugar

Blue Jean Blues

Tush

and the bearded boys and the chicks on the highway are the same?

(very good video an song also)

I think the fish you RobertB find is pretty good. :wink:

My favorite ZZ Top album. Seen them several times, and always loved how they did this blues song live

Good for you!
In the right place at the right time…

Personally i find that if you dont have a few of the old ZZ top albums, well they you should go get them.
As elwood Blues say, i suggest you buy as many blues albums as you can.

My personal blues collection reach back as far as 1928

So many fish in the Ocean!
Can’t catch’em all…………
Lately I have been fishing for “Blues” fish :laughing: What has been of interest to me lately is the obscure groups that are not or not yet in the main stream. Here is one from “The Nortons”
Disbanded now, but they were great! What a shame, I was so traumatized by this that I resorted to The Wayback Machine to try and hunt done more of their stuff.

The Nortons…
What a catch!
I learn something every day here.

Here are some more exotic fish, Tedeschi, Trucks with Warren Haynes:

Joe Bonamassa:

One of Ginger Baker’s followers, I found:

and

an unforgettable Irishman:

Wow, first you offer the Tedeschi Trucks band doing I’d rather be a Blind Girl
Then you offer Joe Bonamassa performing Stop at the Royal Albert
Just wait ’til you hear Beth Hart and Joe Bonamassa do I’d rather be a Blind Girl, at the end of this post.

But first, here is my Joe Bonamassa story.

Back when Netflix was renting DVDs by mail, I was ordering all the music concert DVDs I could find on their site. After I had run out of search key words like “concerts”, group name etc. I started doing a search for Royal Albert Hall
After all, only the best groups play there :wink:
One concert that popped up was “Joe Bonamassa live at the Royal Albert Hall” When that result came up, I just sat there and said to myself who is Joe Bonamassa???
Then I thought to myself “well you must be good he played the Royal Albert!”
So I ordered it.
I’ll never forget watching the intro of his nerdy youth and then the beginning of the concert and holy cow what a guitar player!!!
I immediately ordered the Blu-ray off of Amazon :+1:
Weeks later my wife and I were at a concert, can’t remember the group, but at intermission at the concession stand there was a guy in front of us wearing a Joe Bonamassa black leather jacket. I said to him I see you are a Joe Bonamassa fan and told him I had the Royal Albert Blu-ray. He asked me if I had Live at the Beacon Theater. I told him no and he said well you should get it because it’s even better than the Royal Albert.
And wait ’til you hear Beth Hart.
He was right it was even better.
Now fast forward to three or four years later.
To last weekend.
My wife had a childhood friend over for the weekend and Sunday before her friend was getting ready to go home the subject of the Blues came up. Turns out her her girlfriend, from Ireland, is a blues fan So we got in front of the TV set and started starting casting YouTube videos of different blues artists. Then she mentioned Etta James and “I’d rather be a blind girl”
I asked her had she seen Joe Bonamassa and Beth Hart do it, and she asked who is Joe Bonamassa and who is Beth Hart???
So I cast the 10 minute version of Joe Bonamassa and Beth Hart doing I’d rather be a Blind Girl live in Amsterdam.
After the performance I looked over to my wife’s friend and she was crying uncontrollably! She couldn’t go on, no more Blues for her…………

Here’s that video.

Be sure to play the whole video, because just when you think Beth Hart is at the end, You find out she was just getting started!!!

Hi dchomak,

A few years ago I also got told about Joe by 2 of my workmates.
That’s when I bought the Royal Albert Hall DVD.
When the Beacon Theater DVD was released I got that as well…once again Beth Hart is on that.
I must find more time to watch these again!
Your Beth Hart video is brilliant.
BTW, I see the other guitarist is Blondie Chaplin from South Africa, who I mentioned earlier in this post.
Joe’s drummer Anton Fig, was also one of the South African musos who was around in my youth.
Have you ever seen any of the Eric Clapton “Crossroads” DVD’s?
They feature some of the world’s greatest guitarists. Well worth getting.

Yes I have! In fact I own them all, in blue ray when possible. You’re right, those are the best examples of the old time and up and comer blues performers.
A great set of discs to have, great place to start a blues collection.
The festival was every 3 years, but I’m afraid we have seen the last one. EC seems to have gotten to old to put it on anymore. I’m depressed about it.

After I played that Beth Hart doing I would rather go Blind in front of my wife and friend, I wanted to order the Blueray of the concert in Amsterdam
I didn’t because I thought my wife would surprise me with it, but she didn’t.
She is amazing that way, but some how that one got by her :slight_smile:

So I guess there’s no birthday present for your wife this year!

There’s just one more band I think I should mention before having my last beer for the night, and that’s TOTO.
One of the great groups who were session musicians individually on many records for a few decades.
I have many of their DVD’s and I’m sorry to have never seen them play live.
Steve Lukather is a guitar legend!

Thanks you mentioning Toto. For me, they are always in one group with Chicago and Boston. All they with their a bit enthusiastic and cheerful style (missed some English here… :).
Asia is also close to this group.

My daughter told me about a joke in her company:
If you hear a really good old song and you do not know who performs it, be sure that you listen Boston. :wink:

The Alan Parsons Project - Eye in the Sky

And for vodka lovers :person_facepalming:
Вика Цыганова-Русская водка: