Dear Mom - Letters to Heaven
Showing posts with label guitar. Show all posts
Showing posts with label guitar. Show all posts

Saturday, November 25, 2023

New Song Alert: Waiting On Abigail

New Song Alert: Waiting on Abigail
Written: 9/8/2023
Lyrics:
Swinging on a tree swing
Down by the river
Flying in the air no despair
Breeze in your hair
 
Down by the old fishing hole
Paddling on the lake
Given all my old friends a hug
Not one half baked
 
Plowing up the old cornfield
Running behind the barn
Looking for Abigail
Without fail
 
Giving all the laughter a shrug
All alone here with you
Counting time looking in your eyes
Nothing new nothing better to do
 
Swinging on a tree swing
Giving my life a fling
Save that I’m not sure oh well
Goodbye and farewell
Cotton skies and Hawks sing
Watch them fly and sail
 
Hanging on the old brick wall
Waiting for Abigail
Singing an old river song
Swings without fail
Swinging on a river song
Waiting for Abigail
All Rights Reserved ©2023 Paul Burke DiMarco

Thursday, November 24, 2022

Acoustic Session 11-23-2022

Two Hour Set from last nights live broadcast - get your gear out and jam along - covers and originals
Radar Love, Honky Tonk Women, Caravan, Hold Me Now, Come and Go Blues, Stairs to the Mayan Sky, River of Joy, The Valley, Show Me Time, Diamond Girl, Crazy Girl, Black Water, Bertha, Deal, Don't, Coffee Blues, Just My Imagination, Don't Stop Believin, Thank You, Just Like Heaven, Friend of the Devil, Heroes - if you don't recognize the title - it's one of mine.  

Wednesday, November 23, 2022

Live Stream tonight starting at 6:30pm EST.

 

Show featuring acoustic covers and originals. Highly recommend breaking out your Guitars, Banjos, Fiddles, Cellos, Harmonicas, Flutes and Drums. Approximately two hours of music perfect for accompaniment and/or background music for your pre-holiday gatherings. 
 

Tuesday, August 01, 2017

Allman Brothers Band - Brothers and Sisters


Brothers and Sisters has taken up residence in my player. Bill put together a beautiful "Super Deluxe Edition" and Scott wrote a beautiful essay with Kirk and many others including EJ contributing. There is a ton of music.

And so now the band's sound has changed. Of course it has how could it not? You cannot take the human element away from the creation and not have that creation change in a profound way. No gear or person can substitute step in for another and have it be the same. It’s a physical impossibility. It doesn't matter if you have the licks down, it doesn't matter if you have the gear, it doesn't matter if you have the throat. The human factor, the heart, the hands, the journey, the affinity for the music, the vibe, the understanding, the knowledge, the study, the dedication, the humility, the ego, the upbringing all speak to the particular individual the intent, the focus, the clarity it’s all a part of the mix. Remove something as dynamic as one human individual and it changes. It's in the blood.

The beauty of the ABB is that they knew this quite clearly as Duane and Berry were their own men. And so they forged ahead without their brothers and created a new version of themselves as a band, a group, but more than that they stayed on the mission to stay as pure to the music as they could. They were still listening to each other both on and off stage.

Time doesn't stand still it morphs and changes as we do as well. Along the way it informs us as we mold the clay that is ourselves with our decisions, intentions, actions, thoughts, words and deeds. That is who we are and that is what comes out after we plug in. It sounds like you because it is you and you are who you are and what it is, what it becomes depends on those very factors, those points, that DNA that road you traveled and no one else has – hopefully it’s a good one and you are the hero of your own story. The guy on the left sure as hell was.

Duane Allman - Little Martha/Ain't Wastin' Time No More

Little Martha - whether Duane was referring to an old girlfriend or not is irrelevant. The fans have designated this young soul as Martha. How could we not? After all she stands watch forever forlorn in Rose Hill Cemetery just the way we feel after the smoke has cleared and the show has ended. And the fans do get a say about all of this the ABB fire and passion, life and journey, the gothic southern novel of it all and the revelation of the music.

Little Martha: Two minutes and seven seconds is never going to sound so complete and pastoral. When I finally arrived at performing a facsimile of this song I was there. It was one of my goals to try and learn it and it takes time. There are so many moving parts and I'm not a full time musician but a labor of love and love is after all what it is all about. Of course my version pales to the original I’m only two hands but when I get it moving and it starts to transcend and I follow the melody and inspiration where it takes me well the muse is floating there smiling and I feel as one feels when they get after it and hit the note, take the journey and feel the vibe. That’s why we play isn’t it and why we share of ourselves to bring it all out and bring it all together?

And so we have the closing of Eat a Peach but what about the opening?

What better tune than Ain’t Wastin Time No More expresses lyrically each of our precarious positions in this reality? It’s as much of a lyrical touchstone as Little Martha is an instrumental touchstone. Both are gigantic in their beings complete and resounding at once effortless and complex. A lyrical milestone Ain’t Wastin Time No More covers the whole realm of existence in stanza after stanza. That’s right its poetry and more than a song. Gregg has composed words to live by. I had a friend once say to me, "you can always make money but you can't make time." I fully encourage everyone to play hooky as often as you can. Life is so much more than punching the clock, collecting a pay check and paying a bank. Listen to Ain't Wastin Time No More back to back with Little Martha and hit repeat it's kind of a revelation of juxtapositions with Gregg's lyrics sitting beautifully next to Duane's acoustic poetry.

If you do run the tunes together back to back after Little Martha ends the intro to Ain't Wastin' Time No More is an acoustic piano. There seems to be some righteous acoustic symmetry to that and righteous was the way the brothers – all the brothers in the band - treated their music their creation and that’s why the payoff was so huge.

There’s a lesson in that for all of us in how we choose to live our lives, what we say, how we act and what we do. The lesson is quite literally in the lyric of Ain't Wastin' Time No More and that feeling embodied by that lesson is in the song Little Martha as it translates those words into a painting of notes awakening across the sky of your soul. One preceded the other so perhaps we have Gregg translating for us what Duane was trying to tell us in his music and all you really need to live a life well fulfilled with joy and happiness and prosperity brothers and sisters is to bring some righteousness to what you do and how you live and breathe.

Allman Brothers Eat A Peach - Deluxe Edition Appreciation

Eat a Peach - the Deluxe Edition with the second disc devoted to the closing of the Fillmore in June is a freakin' tour de force. Scorching through the stratosphere Hot Lanta is just fantastic. The mix is stellar and I've been listening to it on crappy car and desk top speakers as well as my treasured Polks. Berry is clearly heard and of course the tone of the guitars is so vintage, biting, just the right amount of fuzz not overwhelming to distort the true tone of the notes just scorching. The twin drums are settled in so nicely and everything is heard with the Hammond B-3 building slowly to a crescendo and then punctuating the soul groove.

The way the band and Berry jump out on Whipping Post is serious. Whether it’s my imagination or not it sure sounds up tempo to me. Berry is more than ready to bring it and it feels like he catches the band by surprise as he furiously launches into the opening... so great to hear and it’s a pace that doesn't let up.... as the boys just go with it - oh my the little touches on the guitar twin attack. I have to stop myself right now or I'll spend the next twenty minutes celebrating every note, turn, phrase, sound and riff just beautifully rendered together. I mean the tone of that band and tighter than tight. Gregg’s vocals are heard beautifully just right above the mix.

When they slow it down you can hear that B-3 just stalking the band the chords sustaining like wind through your hair. Their gentle segues arrive tear inducing as they reach for the heavens follow. If you don't get a lump in your throat you don’t know how to listen to music.

Get Eat a Peach back out and it will seduce you with its magic so passionately. I’m so happy that it was captured in real time for all time just a blistering messianic journey to the soul of creation.

It's mind boggling how a band can sound this excellent, the drive and the power, the determination. Music wasn't a distraction it was a mission.

Stand Back I’m laser locked on that tune the way it jumps out and grabs you with that riff. The Allman Brothers knew what they were doing and the lyrics “a dagger in my back while she's calling me honey" just fantastic. Look a lot has been written about the jazz influence on the ABB - granted – and it’s all good and true but don’t forget the funk. They can authentically bring that swing and swagger just funkin, funktastic. Funkified freaks every funkin where they funkin can the ABB throw that groove at a very righteous magnitude with Berry and Butch as far into the pocket with Gregg grinding the soul foundation and Jaimoe painting over the top.

“Hey have you seen my copy of Eat a Peach” wait I can hear it blaring upstairs in my sisters room. As I open the door Amy and her friends are moving to Les Brers as if their lives depended on it – “just don’t scratch it” as the door slams back in my face.