GARY MOORE Essential Montreux (Eagle) ****
This five-CD box set, which features over six hours of music, captures Irish blues-rock guitarist- Gary Moore’s five Montreux appearances, in 1990, 1995, 1997, 1999, and 2001, and features over six hours of music. Disc one pulls largely from his standout album Still Got the Blues, which had been out only three months when he took the Montreux stage that July. Highlights include the fiery uptempo “Texas Strut,” in which he blows out some scrumptious Billy Gibbons–style licks and pinch harmonics; guest vocals and solo from the late Albert Collins on “Cold, Cold Feeling”; and Moore’s monster rock tone on the Cropper-esque 6ths licks and trademark singing sustain on “King of the Blues.”
Moore’s second Montreux gig, in 1995, came on the heels of his tribute to his hero Peter Green, Blues for Greeny. Four of the disc’s first five songs come from that album, and like Green did before him, Moore holds nothing back. It’s a ferocious display of screaming bends and timeless licks (especially the subtle nods to Clapton’s classic “Crossroads” solo in “Long Grey Mare”). Still, Moore shows he’s quite aware of the power of dynamics when he reins it in “I Loved Another Woman” and “Merry-Go-Round.”
For his 1997 appearance on the Lake Geneva shoreline, Moore tacked a notably different direction, leaning heavily on the more contemporary rock sounds from his album Dark Days in Paradise. Leadoff track “One Good Reason” kicks off with electronic beats, and “One Fine Day” could be mistaken for a heavy R.E.M. song. The sequenced keys and acoustic guitar of “Business as Usual” presage Coldplay’s sparse, moody sounds, while follow-up track “Out in the Fields” showcases Moore’s fling with ’80s hard rock.
Disc four sees Moore return to his blues roots, the set including takes on Sonny Thompson’s “Tore Down,” Otis Rush’s “All Your Love,” Elmore James’s “The Sky Is Crying,” and Moore’s own “Still Got the Blues.” But this night’s highlight belongs to set closer “Parisienne Walkways,” a tune Moore co-wrote with Phil Lynott and which features an incendiary outro solo kicked off by the guitarist’s famed “money note”: a bent E (from D) that he holds—almost comically—for a whopping 30 seconds!
The final disc, recorded at Moore’s 2001 Montreax performance, captures once again Moore’s estimable blues mojo, including covers of B.B. King’s “You Upset Me Baby” and T-Bone Walker’s “Stormy Monday.” Unlike the more analogous version on disc four, Moore’s cover of Hendrix’s “Fire” in this set is raw and untamed—just the way Jimi would like it.
CDs
COUNTRY
BRAD PAISLEY American Saturday Night (Arista) *****
Country guitar god Brad Paisley sowed his six-string oats on his last album, Play, which included the smash hit “Start a Band” and the Grammy-winning instrumental “Cluster Pluck.” So how do you follow it up? How about a more traditional vocal record to appease your mainstream fans while including enough barn-burnin’ Tele licks to keep guitar geeks like us happy till the cows come home. The title track alone contains enough fire to sound four alarms, and the brief but finger-twisting solo to anthemic single “Welcome to the Future” will simply give you fits. And that guitar tone? Fuhgeddabahdit!
Highlights: “Welcome All Again,” “Dig,” “My Days”
WALTER TROUT Unspoiled by Progress (Provogue)****Highlights: “They Call Us the Working Class,” “Goin’ Down,” “Sweet as a Flower”
ANA POPOVIC Blind for Love (Eclecto Groove) ***Highlights: “Wrong Woman,” “Steal Me Away,” “Get Back Home to You”
Books
Greg Koch GUITAR LICKS DVD $19.99 [HL00697393]
Guitar Edge columnist Greg Koch is one twisted soul—in a good way. He’s also one of the most incredible pickers on the planet, whose stylistic breadth and depth is nearly peerless. So when the folks at Hal Leonard decided to do an instructional DVD featuring guitar licks from 25 of the greatest guitarists of all-time across all genres, guess who they called. In this Guitar Licks DVD, Koch commands the camera and plays with utter confidence whether performing the B.B. King butterfly vibrato, Gypsy jazzing like Django, slip-sliding á la Duane Allman, or tearing through the strings like the Texas Tornado Stevie Ray Vaughan. All told, Koch presents 50 licks and phrases—each with onscreen tab—over the course of nearly two hours. If you’re thinking that this content seems a little all over the map, well, it is. So if you consider yourself strictly a jazzbo, bluesman, metal-head, or a polka influenced punk folkie, it may not be for you. But, if like Koch you prefer the tasting menu approach when dispensing delicious morsels of six-string skullduggery, this is a must-have video.
MOTLEY CRUE: A VISUAL HISTORY 1983–2005DVDs
JETHRO TULL Living With the Past (Eagle Vision) ****of their game during their 2001 tour. The performance, which also offers interview footage with band members interspersed between songs, includes all of the expected hits like “Cross Eyed Mary,” “Thick as a Brick,” “Locomotive Breath,” and, of course, “Aqualung,” but for casual fans, some of the more enlightening moments will come with the progressive track “Roots to Branches,” the band’s now-classic take on Bach’s “Bourée,” or their blues-rocker “A New Day Yesterday,” famously covered by guitar god in the making Joe Bonamassa.
Highlights: “Roots to Branches,” “Thick as a Brick,” “Budapest,” “Locomotive Breath”
BLACK CROWES Warpaint Live (Eagle Vision)****Highlights: “Goodbye Daughters of the Revolution,” “Movin’ on Down the Line,” “God’s Got It,” “Hey Grandma”
The Digital Edge
thegearpage.net
TRUTHINSHREDDING.BLOGSPOT.COMDo you crave shred guitar? Does the thought of too many notes played at insane speeds get your blood pumping? If so, the Truth In Shredding blog is for you. The site doesn’t offer so much original content as it aggregates from sources all across the Web. Still, with a list of artists several hundred names long, there is plenty of fretboard-melting material to keep your mouse busy.
truthinshredding.blogspot.com
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