[Slowhand] FW: Ragging, Whining, And Stainton

[Jon Maclean]

One keyboard player not so far mentioned, and who deserves a mention in
my view is Joe Sample. Joe was brilliant on the Legends tour, and on
Eric's tour of Japan, both in 1997. As you would expect, he added a jazz
feel to Eric's repertoire which I thought worked very well with both
those lineups, and also fitted the Pilgrim material he was including
back then.

I'm not so anti other band members taking solos, but prefer that to be
restricted to the extended songs, such as in Old Love and Little Queen
Of Spades. Doyle added a great deal to the overall performances early
this year, and his solos complimented Eric's well. But it stands to
reason that Eric is the guy we all expect to take the bulk of the solos.

Cheers,
Jon


-----Original Message-----
From: Richard Batty [mailto:rickbatty at gmail.com] 
Sent: Monday, 1 June 2009 2:49 AM
To: Slowhand Digest
Subject: Re: [Slowhand] Ragging, Whining, And Stainton

I agree completely with Nick on this.  I want to hear EC play guitar -
not
DB, AF-L or even Derek Trucks, although I did like his slide
accompaniment
on the "Layla" songs on the last tour.

I'm ok hearing a Chris Stainton solo after an EC one on songs like
Badge,
Cocaine etc.  But to have to listen to Doyle, Derek and Chris solos in a
long version of Little Queen of Spades when we could be listening to EC,
no
thanks!

I think the EC-SW shows were as good as one could get in terms of EC's
playing.  I think EC was energized by basically doing Blind Faith the
way it
could have been in 1969 and by the very interesting set list.  At the
MSG
shows, I think the only Chris Stainton solo was on Cocaine.  He, Ian
Thomas
and Willie Weeks were there to support EC and SW, not share the stage as
CS,
DB and DT do in EC solo shows.

This was also true with the Cream reunion shows.  EC had to work really
hard
as the only guitar (or keyboard) on stage.  I remember he made a comment
about how hard he had to work without a rhythm guitarist or keyboardist.
It
seems he doesn't want to work that hard anymore, which is a shame.  I
wonder
if that is the main reason behind his refusal to play more Cream shows.
At
least with SW he doesn't have to work as hard with another great lead
instrumentalist on stage.

As far as keyboard players, I do like very much the 4-piece shows with
Greg
Phillinganes - he doesn't get quite as far out there as Sancious or
Carmon.
(I still like Steve Ferrone's drumming better than any EC drummer apart
from
Ginger.)  I think Chris Stainton's playing works well with EC.  He was
great
on the 1993-95 blues shows and I like his playing on shows like Hyde
Park
1996.

As far as Tim Carmon goes, he absolutely ruins "Old Love", one of my
favorite EC songs, for me with those very weird sounding solos.  I have
yet
to read a Slowhander saying she or he liked them.

Rick




***************************************************************
This message is intended for the addressee named and may contain confidential information. If you are not the intended recipient, please delete it and notify the sender. Views expressed in this message are those of the individual sender, and are not necessarily the views of the Department of  Lands. This email message has been swept by MIMEsweeper for the presence of computer viruses.
***************************************************************
Please consider the environment before printing this email.