Two of the greatest professionals in the history of show business.

Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra singing the Isham Jones and Gus Kahn classic The One I Love Belongs To Somebody Else.

Thanks to the little wiffer for this one.

Way high on my list of all time favorite albums is Absolute Torch and Twang by k.d. lang and the Reclines.

Featuring long time Canadian sideman and producer of Absolute Torch and Twang, Ben Mink playing lead guitar, famed steel and slide guitarist Greg Leiz along with a way tight and accomplished group of musicians none of whom I've been able to identify, this is the band lang took out on the road in the early 90's to promote that record.

Everytime I play it, I regret having missed this group.

It's pretty nice to have video.

One of the great voices in the history of popular music, this is k.d. lang and the Reclines.

Big Boned Gal.

And because I couldn't choose between them.

Didn't I.

Sorry about the hiss.

Anybody else ever noticed that you never see k.d.lang and Wayne Newton together?

The following are photographs of water drops taken by Markus Reugels with his high speed camera.

I'm pretty sure I'd be buying some of this stuff if I had an empty wall somewhere.

Click any of the photos below to link up to more of Markus' beautiful work along with a photo essay on how he does it.

You don't have to worry, we'll probably be pulling out the soapbox soon enough.

Enjoy.

One of our favorite sites, Space.com or "Dobb's Folly" as it is known around here, offers up a nice photo essay of this years Quadrantid Meteor Shower along with a little science about meteor showers in general and the yearly Quadrantid Meteor Shower in particular.

The following photo by Robert Porto taken in the Canary Islands will link you to the entire piece.

Pretty hard to argue.

Conceived by German jazz publicist Joachim-Ernst Berendt, The American Folk Blues Festival was an annual fall tour of Europe by American blues musicians. 

Jazz having become very popular in Europe, and with rock and roll just beginning to gain a foothold there, the fact that both genres drew influences from the blues caused Berendt to think that European audiences would jump at the chance to see live performances by American blues artists.

Promoters Horst Lippmann and Fritz Rau brought Berendt’s idea to fruition by entering into a relationship with the great Willie Dixon that would enable them to book the greatest and most influential of America’s blues musicians.

The first festival was held in 1962.

It continued mostly annually until 1972.

After an eight year hiatus it was revived in 1980 and ran until 1985. 

During the course of these tours, Lippman and Rau were able to arrange very high quality, live in the studio performances by these great artists for German television.

One of which follows here. 

Famed German poster artist Gunther Kieser did the poster art and show bills for the 1964 tour from which the following performance was taken.

Click on the poster to link up to Amazon’s offering of Reelin in the Years Productions’ DVD collection of these historic performances.

Outstanding stuff.

Here’s the great Chester Burnett, also know as Howlin' Wolf on vocals and accoustic guitar, the equally great Hubert Sumlin on the electric guitar, Sunnyland Slim on piano, along with Willie Dixon (who you never see) playing bass, with an introduction from what appears to be a fairly well buzzed Mae Mercer.

Shake for Me.

 It seems we've just completed our second unpaid product endorsement.

Huron County Michigan Deputy Sheriff Ryan Swartz was dispatched to the scene of an accident between an automobile and a deer.

The deer evidently having failed to look both ways.

When he arrived he found the deer standing in the middle of the road, frozen from fear.

The following video is about what happened next.

Thanks to the little wiffer for sending this in.

If you are a Detroiter of a certain age, you have very distinct memories of hustling home after school to catch your favorite musical group lip sync their newest hit on Detroit's version of American Bandstand, Swingin' Time hosted by WKNR then CKLW disk jockey Robin Seymour.

They were all there as all of Motowns greats appeared, Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels, The Amboy Dukes, Question Mark and the Mysterians, Parliment, The Stooges and I'm pretty sure the MC5 along with most of the national acts that came through town.

Dick Clark was wishing his show was so cool.

Long before the Silver Bullet Band was even a glimmer in Bob Seger's eye there was Bob Seger and the Last Heard and then the Bob Seger System.

This is a very young Bob Seger on vocals and cheesy organ, Pep Perrine on drums, Dan Honaker on bass and I'm pretty sure that's Carl Lagassa on guitar, performing what is in my opinion one of the greatest stories in the history of Rock and Roll and Bob Seeger's first local hit record.

Bob Seger and the Last Heard.

East Side Story.

When somebody posts or comments at our Facebook page, I usually go over and skulk their page.

I found this photo over at Tina C's page and thought it was just the best thing I've seen in a long time.

A couple of the minions hail from Southern California.

You may not be aware of this but for Southern Californians of a certain age, when it comes to Halloween there is only one band and only one tune that truly satisfies, Oingo Boingo and Dead Man's Party

So ... from 1985, here's Danny Elfman on guitar and vocals, Steve Bartek playing an exceptionally tasty lead guitar, John Hernandez on drums, John Avila on the bass synth, Michael Bacich (I think) on keyboards, and the horn section of Leon Schneiderman and Sam (Sluggo) Phipps on saxaphones with Dale Turner on the trumpet.

Oingo Boingo.

Dead Man's Party

No minions ..... thank you.

Just in case you've been wondering what to get for your Uncle Roany.

Just click on the above photo in order to reserve your/my/our Icon A5 today.

Delivery in 2015.

Thanking you in advance.

I knew in advance I'd be posting this.

I also thought I knew between two people who it was that would call and explain it to me in no uncertain terms how it is that Pearly Gates could not possibly be the most famed guitar in the history of Rock and Roll when it was indeed Brownie that sold at auction in 1999 for what was then a record price of $450,000 and Blackie that subsequently shattered and still holds the record for the highest selling guitar of all time, having also sold at auction, this time in 2004 for $959,000.

I was so sure ..... I had it typed in advance.

I simply left a space open just up ahead a bit in order to insert the name.

As it happened I only had it about half right as it turned out that it came via email from our good friend Richie (don't call me Dickie) V. a better than average non pro picker and a for sure Strat guy rather than a D. brother.

So, ok Rich, I was layin' for ya.

This is Brownie. 

Fender Stratocasters sound nothing like Gibson Les Pauls, as they use mostly different woods, different body types (sollid vs chambered), pickup construction/configuration, set up, the list goes on and on.

To most people they're all guitars, but to a picker (which as previously disclosed I am not) the one is nothing like the other.

And that's before you get into the charactor of individual guitars as different pieces of wood from the same tree will display differing personalities.

As mentioned in the Gibson post, for me it's Tush that best defines that crunchy Gibson humbuckin' thing.

And it's Eric Clapton and Brownie's Layla that comes to mind when I think about that sweet, reedy Fender single coil sound.

And while I couldn't find any early 1970's Derek and the Dominoes performances of Layla, I did find this little treasure.

Live in the studio, this is Eric Clapton and Brownie along with three of the finest sidemen/hired guns in all of popular music, Bobby Whitlock on piano and vocals, Carl Radle on bass, and Jim Gordon on drums, together with Johnny Cash and the magnificently coiffed Carl Perkins.

Derek and the Dominoes.

It's Too Late and Matchbox.

This is Blackie.

To quote Eric Clapton from the book The Stratocaster Chronicles,

"My first Strat was Brownie, and I played it for years and years, a wonderful guitar. Then I was in Nashville at a store called Sho-Bud, as I recall, and they had a whole rack of old '50s Strats in the back, going second-hand. They were so out of fashion you could pick up a perfectly genuine Strat for two hundred or three hundred dollars — even less! So I bought all of them. I gave one to Steve Winwood, one to George Harrison, and one to Pete Townshend, and kept a few for myself. I liked the idea of a black body, but the black one I had was in bad condition, so I took apart the ones I kept and assembled different pieces to make Blackie, which is a hybrid, a mongrel."

Among Clapton and Blackie's hit records were were Lay Down Sally, Cocaine and I Shot the Sheriff.

Here's Eric Clapton and Blackie along with Tim Renwick on guitar, Duck Dunn on bass, Chris Stainton on keyboards, Jamie Oldaker on Drums, Shaun Murphy and Marcy Levy singing backup.

Layla.

Just to make things clear, Clapton recorded Layla with Brownie, but is playing it here with Blackie.

Unfaithful bastard.

You might have missed Duane Allman, I know I did.

Still, pretty good stuff.

Having lost the use of two fingers on his fretting hand in a fire at age 18, Django Reinhardt literally played the guitar like nobody had ever played it before.

 Along with the great Stephane Grapelli, Reinhardt fronted one of the greatest bands in the history of popular music, Quintette du Hot Club de France.

This is the certainly the most well known and probably the best version of the band.

It features Django Reinhardt on Guitar, Stephane Grappelli playing Violin, bassist Louis Vola, and rhythm guitarists Roger Chaput and Joseph Reinhardt. 

J'attendrai

People always get real crabby when I say this out loud, so I usually mumble it or type really, really small.

The first great Western Swing band came from Paris, France.

Ever wonder what's the big deal about Steve Marriott anyway?

Since we did Ronnie Lane a week or so ago, we figured we might as well do the Small Faces other founding member/principle songwriter Steve Marriott.

You really, really want to click this little gear here for an outstanding four song set from the very young ... and tiny ... Small Faces.

When Steve Marriott left the Small Faces, two great live bands were born.

Ronnie Lane, Ian McLagan and Kenny Jones brought in Ronnie Wood and Rod Stewart to form the Faces, and Steve Marriott, the some might say incredibly cute Peter Frampton, Greg Ridley and Jerry Shirley came together and became Humble Pie.

The first time I got to see Humble Pie was a huge deal as Donny W. of the Joe Cocker debacle, somehow got us on the guest list.

I think he was friends with someone in Mount Clemens' own The Frut who along with The J. Geils Band  opened the show, although it could have been the sound guy as Donny liked to hang out near the board. 

This time I had the presence of mind to not mention to my mother that I was heading down to the Eastown and thus avoided the embarrassment that I had experienced as a result of the above referenced Joe Cocker debacle.

Live in the studio from The Old Grey Whistle Test, here's the less well-known version of Humble Pie that includes The Blackberries as pretty much full-fledged members of the band.

Introduced by Bob Harris, this is the great Steve Marriott on lead vocal and guitar, Clem Clempson on slide guitar, Greg Ridley on bass, Jerry Shirley playing drums, and The Blackberries, Venetta Fields, Sherlie Matthews and Billie Barnum on backup vocals.

Black Coffee.

Not the greatest mix I've ever heard, but you get the idea.

The Artful Dodger reference in the introduction has to do with the fact that Marriott's first professional gig at the age of 13 was in the London stage production of Oliver where he played both The Artful Dodger and Oliver ..... although not at the same time .....  and sang on the original cast album.

Steve Marriott was lost to the world in a house fire at the age of 44.