Bell Bottom Blues

As promised in my last post about Derek & the Dominos' Layla & Other Assorted Love Songs here is a more in depth look of the song that is second in command (behind only the epic title track), "Bell Bottom Blues."

"Bell Bottom Blues" is simply Eric Clapton at his best. It is some of his best work on guitar, vocals, songwriting, and the emotion simply flows through his deliverance of all these aspects of the song. A simple descending chord progression, sounding like a descent into the depths of his soul (a little corny I know, but listen to the song and you'll agree) coupled with background double-tracked blues fills that increase in power as the song goes on and sound like he is releasing frustration that keeps building up higher and higher.

All this leads into a fantastic chorus section, with Clapton delivering fantastic vocals that in my opinion he could never duplicate, probably due to his unwillingness to sink so low into himself to be able to grab the emotions he expresses. Bobby Whitlock again comes in at the chorus with his vocal performance that perfectly accents Clapton's singing as he begs not to let him fade away.

The guitar solo is tasteful, beginning with a short ascending intro accompanied with Clapton singing the notes his guitar is playing, and continues with a slow-paced, softly played guitar melody until bringing us right back to the chorus and final verse with Clapton's guitar crying out, finally closing by repeating over and over not to let him fade away.

I was completely blown away by this song the first time I heard it. Its rare to find a song that is this powerful, in terms of its musical craftmanship, mood, and performance. It, like the rest of the album Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs is so accessible that anyone can relate to what he's feeling, a sense of desparation and heartache that every facet of the song adds to.

Layla & Other Assorted Love Songs, Derek & the Dominos

This is the quintessential album about unrequitted love and the emotional distress that comes with being in love with a woman who can't or doesn't love you back. On top of this universally accessible and relatable theme, it also boasts the unbelievable blues guitar of Eric Clapton, the incredibly tasteful slide guitar of Duane Allman, the soulful combination of vocals by Clapton and Bobby Whitlock, and fantastic song selection of originals and completely reworked covers to create one of the most emotionally powerful albums I've ever heard.

I'm guessing that a lot of people know the story of the title track, "Layla," that Clapton was in love with Patti Boyd, the wife of his Beatle best friend, George Harrison. In fact, pretty much the entire album is about his emotional turmoil in living with this situation, but I'll talk about this track first because it will be the one people will know best, and although it is probably my favorite song of all time I want to discuss the other tracks that people don't know as well. "Layla" has an easily recognizable guitar riff leading into Clapton's lyrics about stupidly falling in love with another man's woman. Following this is a slide guitar solo and of course, the juxtaposed instrumental outro coda written by Jim Gordon. Overall this song's power speaks for itself leaving me with not much else to say about it, and if you happen to be the one person in 1000 that doesn't know the song, stop reading and listen to it now and tell me you've never felt was Clapton is feeling at some point in your life.

The album has a very strong opening, specifically the first two tracks, "I Looked Away" and "Bell Bottom Blues," that are musically interesting to keep the listener involved and capture the upcoming mood of the entire album perfectly, although the lonliness and longing expressed in "I Looked Away" is almost disguised in a fast upbeat tempo. I will talk about "Bell Bottom Blues" in a separate post later because it is such a fantastic song that I will have a lot to say about it.

Although the entire album is rooted in blues as most of Clapton's work from this era was, the true straight blues tunes are his covers of James Cox's "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out," Big Bill Croozy and Charles Segar's "Key to the Highway," and "Have You Ever Loved A Woman" by Billy Myles. These songs demonstrate Clapton's skill as a blues guitarist and will remind you of his days with The Yardbirds and John Mayall's Bluesbreakers.

Duane Allman's slide guitar work on this album is top notch. He joined up with Derek and the Dominos during recording but is present on the majority of the tracks. His slide playing is the perfect complement to Clapton's blazing leads and licks and seems to serve as a catalyst (along with how emotionally distraught Clapton was while recording) to push Clapton's playing to heights that arguably he never got too again. One track where his slide guitar is in the forefront, or at least easily separable for anyone without a real musically critical ear is "I Am Yours."

Another strong point in the album is his cover of Jimi Hendrix's "Little Wing." The original version is amazing, as is the G3 (Joe Satriani, Yngwie Malmsteen, Steve Vai) live performance of the song on their Rockin in the Free World album. Clapton, however, makes this song his own with a intro completely different from any other version of the song, so much so that you won't know its a version of "Little Wing" until later in the song. Also instead of the 2 min and change version from Hendrix, Clapton repeats the lyrics twice, doubling the length of the song. There are guitar leads before the first instance of the lyrics, in between the two sets, and following the second occurance of the lyrics. They are all incredible leads, demonstrating Clapton's versatility and ability to create solos teeming with soul. They grow in intensity going through the song creating a very cool increasing dynamic until Clapton's final fiery solo and repeat of the intro brings the song to a close.

There are of course two other tracks that some people might know, "Why Does Love Got to Be So Sad" and "Tell the Truth." These are solid songs as well, but I won't go too far into depth here.

The final song I want to touch on is the closing track, "Thorn Tree in the Garden," an acoustic song written, played, and sung by Bobby Whitlock. This is a song that somehow manages to capture the mood of the album as well as any other song, despite being the one that Clapton has no part on.

Layla & Other Assorted Love Songs is a fantastic album. It reaches the musical highs and emotional lows that Clapton, in my opinion, never duplicated, although it is hard to blame him for not wanting to sink this emotionally low again. If there was ever a set of songs that perfectly captures and expresses human emotions of longing and loneliness, its this album, which I recommend for absolutely anyone regardless of musical taste (although Clapton and blues fans will probably enjoy it more), because I guarantee that you will find something on this album that you like or relate to, even if its the rock classic track, "Layla," itself.

Sloe Gin

I'm going to start off discussing one of my favorite albums by one of my favorite new artists, Sloe Gin by Joe Bonamassa.

Bonamassa is a 20-something blues/rock guitarist born in Utica, NY. He's influenced by Stevie Ray Vaughan, opened for BB King at 12 years old, and released his solo debut at age 22 in 2000 after a stint as Smokin' Joe Bonamassa with the band Bloodline. His guitar skills are top notch...one of if not the best new guitarists I've heard lately, and his songwriting and vocal skills are steadily improving.

Most of his albums are collections of blues covers of artists like John Mayall, and even Jethro Tull and Led Zeppelin (some of my favorite artists, look for discussions about these guys later), with some originals scattered throughout.

Sloe Gin is his most recent release (2007). While most of his other albums tend to rock more, this one is very rooted in straight blues and some acoustic numbers, with Joe focusing on his singing as well, which previously had been often overlooked, although he does rock out on some tracks.

"Richmond," "Inda," with a sitar-like guitar sound and an actual sitar thrown in, and "Around the Bend" (a rework of a Bonamassa original tune on a previous album Had to Cry Today (2004)) all demonstrate his softer acoustic side. His opening track Chris Whitley cover of "Ball Peen Hammer" does its job, serving as a fantastic hook to set up the rest of the album. The Bad Company cover, "Seagull" was an interesting choice as well, but definitely not a bad one

"One of These Days" and Joe's dobro work on "Jelly Roll," a John Martyn cover are the more blues-rooted tunes, although "...These Days" has a nice instrumental interlude, complete with pianos and a slower guitar solo.

The harder rocking tunes, such as "Black Night" and "Another Kind of Love" (both covers as well) complement the acoustic one to help create a full diverse album.

Finally, the title track "Sloe Gin," originally appearing on a Tim Curry (yes, the actor) album from 1978 is just incredible. I had seen a clip of Bonamassa performing it live on YouTube before the release of the album and was fortunate to see him perform live last year and was blown away by his intensity of his performance. It starts off slow and deliberate, with somber lyrics about drowning sorrows and loneliness in alcohol, going home alone (yet again), and being left bleeding in the street, but what Bonamassa really brings to the song is his two guitar solos, the first played with such emotion that, to take a line from the Beatles, make it sound like his guitar is weeping, and the second going from slow to faster and rockier, without losing the sorrowful mood of the song.

This album is my favorite of all his releases, although as a blues fan I haven't been truely disappointed by anything he's done yet. I probably listened to it 20 times straight through the week it came out, and it is still toward the front of my most played lists almost a year later. Smokin guitar playing, improved vocals, diversity in his song selection, and another strong showing from his backing band make it a musically interesting release, and highly recommended for fans of artists like SRV, John Mayall, BB King, Gov't Mule or similar artists, or anyone interested in blues.

I would also recommend any of his work for people who love to listen to great guitarists. He has a nice blend of technicality, originality, diverse styles, a great tone, and lightning fast fingers. One of the best young guitarists out there today.

If you like this check out his other albums, specifically A New Day Yesterday (2000) and You & Me (2006)

I want to take this chance to say that I get a lot of information from allmusic.com, which I found to be a reliable source of music reviews and where I look first to try to find new music to check out (they have a nice recommended artists feature). I should never take any material directly from them, but I will cite them when I do. If looking for more information I would recommend consulting their site as well.

About this blog

I'm Matt, a 22 year old engineering student at RIT.

I love all kinds of music. I listen to and play music constantly, and recently started recording some as well.

I'm setting up this blog to discuss music of all genres. My goal here is to write about whatever music I am listening to at the time, make some recommendations for people like me that flip through their music collection but don't know what to listen to or are just looking for something new to check out.

I'm sure there are people going "well what does he know." Well let me start by saying that I am not a classically trained musician, although I am pretty well versed in music theory and have my share of music history and discussion classes of all levels under my belt. I also have been playing guitar for 12 years or so (about 8 years of lessons), taught myself some piano and drums, and mess around with pretty much any instruments with strings (mandolin, balalaika, etc), and recently set up a small recording studio in my apartment where I work on my own minor projects. However, I listen to music all the time, but leisurely and critically, and love to talk about it.

You will rarely find me criticizing negatively. I plan on talking mostly about what I like and what I think other people will like. There is a difference between music that is "good" or "interesting" or just "catchy." I try to distinguish these, so don't be surprised if some music that I discuss is not easily accessible or listenable to those that aren't musicians and mostly listen to catchy, radio-friendly songs, but somewhere along the line I'll stumble onto something that you will like. I also won't be going "this is good, this sucks." I want to discuss and will try to back my opinions up with arguments. I hopefully will talk about music of all genres, but I tend to listen to classic rock, blues, alternative, acoustic/folk, and things like that, so there might be more of this kind of stuff, but I do reach out to other stuff too.

I also know that I don't know everything, but I always want to know more, so if you disagree about something let me know and we'll discuss. Like I said I'm always looking for more music to listen to so if anyone has anything they think I should check out or write about let me know about it.