Monte Montgomery & Little Wing cover versions

It's been quiet over here way too long. It's not that I didn't had things to write or post about, on the contrary I would say, but for many reasons I couldn't find the time and energy to post.

Anyway, let's not whine too much, count my blessings and move on and post.

This reason for this posting is caused by a performance we saw about three months ago at Parkpop 2008 by Monte Montgomery. Before the festival I never heard of this guy, but he was one of the big musical surprises from the past year. Besides the first pic here I also posted about him on my photoweblog BrownNoisePhotos here and here, including some pics that I shot during the festival.

Monte Montgomery is an excellent guitar player, who plays electric acoustic guitar, but in a way and with an technique where a lot of electric guitar players only could dream off. Only accompanied by bass and drums he gets all the space to show his excellent style and technique, but without showing off or musical freaking.

Listening to some of the soundclips on Monte Montgomery's website from some of his (studio)albums made me realize that this is the type of band that comes out best in a live setting. It's not that the studiotracks are bad, but somehow something got lost from the live energy during the studiorecordings.

At his performance at Parkpop 2008 he also did a really great instrumental version of Jimi Hendrix' "Little Wing". I don't have have any video from that performance, but I found a video from another perfromance. It's the first embedded video after the picture.

During my search for the "Little Wing"-version of Monte Montgomery I also bumped into some other versions. The second video is also awesome. This one is done by a guitarist called Carlos Vamos. He does an amazing tapping version.

I guess the third YouTube video isn't a big surprise. It's a version done by Stevie Ray Vaughan, who of course was heavily influenced by Jimi Hendrix.

The fourth video is quite a different cover version done by The Corrs. Some might find this a sappy version or even call it blasphemy, but I can appreciate this Irish folk version. I like the sound of the tin whistle and the Dobro guitar solo a little after 3 minutes.

The last video is not a cover version of "Little Wing", but a video from Monte Montgomery shot at the Parkpop 2008 festival with a compilation of his performance. It gives a good impression about what we saw and experienced.

Enjoy the videos and if you ever have the chance to visit a concert of Monte Montgomery I surely would recommend to go!

click on the pic for a bigger image

Monte Montgomery

Jimi Hendrix

Carlos Vamos

Stevie Ray Vaughan

The Corrs

Little Wing

R.I.P. Jeff Healey

I just heard that just a few weeks before the release of a new album Jeff Healey died at the age of 41 from the effects of a rare form of cancer, called retinoblastoma, which he fought his entire life. He lost his eyesight from the disease at the age of one.

For the general public he was known as a blues-rock guitarist with his typical style of playing the guitar flat on his lap, but in a smaller circle he was also acknowledged as jazz musician. Besides the guitar he also played trumpet and clarinet and played in a jazz formation called the Jazz Wizards who played vintage jazz from the 1920s and 1930s.

It's a shame most of the good musicians die young. May he rest in peace. And if there is a Rock Walhalla I hope and I'm pretty sure he will be jamming with George Harrison, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Jimi Hendrix.

I've added three videos from Jeff Healey. In the first one he's performing George Harrison's "While my guitar gently weeps"

The second one is a live performance with former Deep Purple vocalist Ian Gillan playing Deep Purple's "When a blind man cries"

And finally a performance with his jazz formation the Jazz Wizards in which you can see a less known Jeff Healey playing the trumpet.

Unfortunately with the last video embedding was disabled so you have to check it at You Tube at the following link.

Official website of Jeff Healey

Happy New Year

Happy New Year to everybody. A happy, healthy and in many ways prosperous 2008.
The past December have been crazy with no postings, but I'm going to make that up to you. The next week and maybe the week after that I'll post some stuff I'm preparing now both here as on my photoweblog BrownNoisePhotos.

Hopefully this is the first of many postings this year.