#bert weedon

[catgirl-kaiju]

btw there is actually a lot of good country music out there, you just need to know where to look.

here's 10 of my personal favorite country/western tracks in no particular order:

there's plenty more than these that i like, but i tried to interject some that my followers might not be familiar with to broaden horizons

[harrisonarchive]

Bert Weedon and best man George Harrison at Joe Brown’s wedding, 2000; photo courtesy of Shutterstock.

Q: “What did you record with Bill Wyman last month?” george_harrison_live: “:) An old Ketty Lester song called ‘Love Letters’” - Yahoo web chat (February 15, 2001) “George played on one of the Rhythm Kings albums just before he died [2001’s Double Bill]. I phoned him up and said: ‘Can you do a guitar part on this track?’ He went: ‘What are you calling me up for? You’ve got two of the best guitarists in the world in your band — Albert Lee and Martin Taylor. What do you want me for? I only play one note.’ And I said to him: ‘George, that’s the note I want.’ So he said: ‘Alright then. Send me the tape.’ Which I did. And his guitar part was great. Afterwards he wrote me a lovely letter, after I’d sent him a present of the [artist] Marc Chagall book I did [Chagall’s World, with photographs by Wyman], thanking me for asking him to do it. He signed it ‘Bert Weedon.’” - Bill Wyman, Classic Rock (September 2009) “George ended up as my best man and he certainly was an’ all. He was a wonderful friend and I miss him every day. I don’t seem to be able to think about him in the past tense, I always figure he’s still around.” - Joe Brown, Express (October 2016)

[rapturerecords]

Visit Original Link

Song: Forty Miles of Bad Road / Rockin’ at the Roundhouse

Composer: Bert Weedon

Record Label: Fontana Records 6007 012

Released: 1970

Some of you may recognize Duane Eddy’s version of this song on our affiliate station Empire Central Radio.

Though an instrumental, the title apparently originates from a rather glib remark.

This time, Duane Eddy returns the compliment on the back cover LP saying, “Bert is a great guitar man”.

Listen to the flip side “Rockin’ at the Roundhouse” here.

[famousborntoday]

Bert Weedon : Born May 10, 1920 : Died April 20, 2012

Herbert Maurice William Weedon, OBE was an English guitarist whose style of playing was popular and influential during the 1950s and 1960s. He was the first Bri...

Link: Bert Weedon

[allthemusic]

Week ending: 11th June

We're in an instrumental mood, it seems, this summer. Not that I'm complaining, this week. Because the instrumental we've got here couldn't be more different from those of Russ Conway and his ilk. Plus, it's an instrumental with pedigree!

Guitar Boogie Shuffle - Bert Weedon (peaked at Number 10)

I'd never heard of this song, but it's a cover, it turns out, and a surprisingly old one - the original Guitar Boogie was written all the way back in 1929, based on more traditional boogie woogie piano music. It was then turned into something quite different in 1945 by a certain Arthur Smith, at which point it became a huge hit, spawning dozens of sound-alikes with the same so-called "hillbilly boogie" style, whcih sounds by all accounts like it was basically rockabilly avant la lettre, with maybe a stronger emphasis on making a guitar-led version of traditional boogie-woogie piano tunes.

It was enough of a hit that numerous rock and roll covers of it came out throughout the 1950s, leading to this version by Bert Weedon. And indeed, it sounds exactly like you'd expect a 1959 song called "Guitar Boogie Shuffle" to sound. You've got a strummy repetitive 12-bar blues chord pattern, shuffling along apace, while Bert noodles along on the top a bit, with this slightly audible picked style that's very appealing. The whole thing's got that echoey guitar effect that I've been hearing for a while, too - a sound that you do start to get more and more in these instrumental guitar rock songs of the era, and that definitely makes its way into surf rock, as that genre comes together over the pond. You can absolutely hear the roots of groups like the Beach Boys, here, you know?

That said, Bert himself was a Brit, and had grown up in the 1930s, fronting groups such as the Blue Cumberland Rhythm Boys, and then, with an even better name, Bert Weedon and His Harlem Hotshots, before breaking out and embarking on a solo career. In between all this, he kept the lights on as a member of the ensemble in both Ted Heath and Mantovani's bands. So we might actually have heard Bert's work already - interesting to see this new style of instrumental music sort of coming out of the older-fashioned instrumental stuff we were seeing much earlier in the 1950s! Plus, he was a session artist for the BBC, accompanying a bunch of the early British rockers and rollers in their many TV appearances. So yeah, a real chameleon, with fingers in a lot of pies, it seems!

All this experience means he was a good person, in 1957, to write a guide to guitar playing, which he called Play in a Day. In it, he focussed primarily on the importance of tone control, drawing inspiration from American jazz guitarists like Les Paul. You can kind of hear this in his style, and it absolutely influenced the Shadows, too, helping them develop their distinctive style. So we've also got Bert to (kind of) thank for some Cliff hits, it seems. Plus, the guide is also cited as influential by literally dozens of other legendary guitarists, including but not limited to Eric Clapton, Brian May, three out of four Beatles, Pete Townshend, Keith Richards, Sting, Mark Knopfler and Jimmy Page. Not bad going, Bert!

I honestly had no clue. We've got this guitarist who influenced literally a whole generation of British guitarists, and has links to charting artists going back to the Mantovani days. And all of it tied to a song that's fun in and of itself, a nice little slice of boogie woogie guitar work. That said, it's definitely one of those songs where a bit of research into the artist improves the experience - you can't help but listen for traces of of everything else that's linked to it! What a wild find.

Favourite song of the bizarrely influential boogie woogie bunch: Guitar Boogie Shuffle

[julio-viernes]

El gran guitarrista británico Bert Weedon, uno de los verdaderos astros de la guitarra en la Inglaterra rock and roll pre beatle, consiguió colocar en listas ocho temas entre 1959 y 1961. Uno de ellos fue su composición "Sorry Robbie", que llevaba de cara B una magnífica versión de "Easy Beat" de John Barry. Su primer y mayor éxito había sido un año antes "Guitar Boogie Shuffle".

Herbert Maurice William Weedon comenzó a aprender guitarra clásica a los 12 años y decidió convertirse en músico profesional. En los años 30 dirigió grupos como Blue Cumberland Rhythm Boys y Bert Weedon and His Harlem Hotshots y trabajó con artistas como Stéphane Grappelli y George Shearing. También puso su guitarra al servicio de grandes bandas y orquestas como las de Ted Heath y Mantovani. En los 50 empezó a aparecer como solista y trabajó como músico de sesión en muchos de los primeros discos del rock and roll autóctono británico, entre otros singles de Adam Faith, Billy Fury y Tommy Steele, y actuó con Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland y Nat King Cole en sus visitas a UK.

De entre los muchísimos fans y admiradores confesos de Bert Weedon cito sólo unos cuantos: Hank Marvin, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, John Lennon, Eric Clapton, Pete Townshend, Keith Richards, Jimmy Page, Mike Oldfield, Brian May, Mark Knopfler, Sting, Robert Smith. ¿Alguien da más?

[lepartiprisdeschoses]

I've tried both.

[rocksbackpages]

New for RBP subscribers this week

“You won’t catch me driving a motorcycle into a swimming pool or biting off a chicken’s head…”

— Bert Weedon (1976)

PLUS pieces on...

• Animals @ Marquee (1965) • David Bowie (1966) • Ian McLagan (1967) • Nancy Sinatra (1968) • Pacific Gas & Electric (1969) • Marshall Hooks & Co. (1970) • Steppenwolf @ Fillmore (1971) • Mahavishnu Orchestra (1972) • Stevie Wonder's Book (1973) • Eno (1974) • K.C./Jr. Wallker live (1975) • Chet Atkins & Les Paul (1977) • Slaughter & the Dogs (1978) • Heartbreakers @ Max's (1979) • Robert Wyatt (1980) • Prince's Controversy (1981) • Sting (1982) • Cramps @ Country Club (1983) • Jonathan Richman (1984) • Josey Wales' Yard (1985) • Five Star (1986) • 10,000 Maniacs live (1987) • Fairground Attraction (1988) • The The's Mind Bomb (1989) • 2 Live Crew (1990) • Pet Shop Boys in Heaven (1991) • Rage Against the Machine (1992) • Tony! Toni! Toné!'s Sons (1993) • Flavor Flav (1994) • Green Day in Brixton (1995) • Steve Earle (1996) • Radiohead's Computer (1997) • Super Furry Animals (1998) • Pulp's Quiet Revolution (1999) • Curtis Mayfield (2000) • Grandaddy live (2001) • Sand (2002) • R.E.M. @ Brixton (2003) • Byrds on Beatles (2004) • Ashanti's Rose (2005) • P!nk (2006) • Rufus Wainwright's Stars (2007) • The Godfathers (2008) • Foreigner's Slow Down (2009) • Robert Plant (2010) • Kurt Vile's Outta Reach (2011) • Morgan Khan (2012) • The Breeders' Splash (2013) • Sleaford Mods (2015) • Pavlov's Dog (2016) • Bert Jansch's Shadows (2017) • Marc Ribot live (2018) • Boards of Canada (2018) • Hollywood Vampires (2019) • Biffy Clyro (2020)

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