Gil Lamont
Mon, 04 Mar 2002 10:44:54 -0800
Kakki wrote: >"Unknown Legends of Rock and Roll - >Psychedelic Unknowns, Mad Geniuses, Punk Pioneers, Lo-Fi Mavericks and More" > >"You could not, by most stretches of the imagination, call Davey Graham a >rock guitarist. But the fact is, you couldn't really call him a blues, >folk or jazz guitarist, either. He's all of those things and none of those >things. What Graham did in the 60s was bring an unsurpassed eclecticism to >the craft of guitar virtuosity. He both anticipated and influenced the >British psychedelic rock, blues-rock, and folk-rock scenes to an extent that >is woefully underappreciated to this day.... Like [John] Fahey and [Sandy] >Bull, Graham was one of the first Western guitarists of any sort to >incorporate middle eastern modes and Indian ragas into his music. Unlike >Fahey and Bull, however, Graham is mostly unknown in the U.S., even on a >cult level, as most of his records were never released stateside....Paul >Simon, who met Graham in the mid-60s during a residency in England,even >asked Davey to join him as an accompanist at one point.
And copped his "Angie" for an early Simon & Garfunkel album. >When you hear Jimmy >Page play intricate acoustic guitar leads in Led Zeppelin's quieter moments, >or Richard Thompson genre-hopping between folk, blues and more, you're also >hearing Graham's legacy, British songwriter Pete Brown, who co-wrote >several Cream classics with Jack Bruce, calls Graham 'one of the first world >musicians.' and sees him in the start of 'a whole kind of genre of people,' >extending through Renbourn, Jansch, and Thompson in particular..... And John Renbourn or Bert Jansch covered "Angie" or "Anji" as well, and demonstrated a technique surpassing Paul Simon's. Odd that "Angie" wasn't mentioned in the passage you quoted. And while we're on the subject of Pentangle, their debut album was no slouch, either. Gil