The Steel Guitar Forum

Tony Glassman wrote:The steel guitar was the only truly good thing about that performance. Mike and the Show-Pro sounded beautiful. JW's voice and PS's accordion were terrible


....overall score 5/10. (All 5 points earned by Mike).

Barry, no reason for confusion - stay with me here - the "hammering" to which I referred was Tony's take (just prior to my earlier post) on Webb and Shaffer's contribution to the performance, nothing to do with my MacArthur Park posts.

I was just wondering that as the thread went on, because the longer a thread goes just about every kind of opinion shows up and perhaps someone would take issue with Mike's steel playing, but I was being facetious...I don't see a little emoticon guy for "facetiousness," and I don't really expect anyone to hammer Mike for his beautiful playing.

Mark Eaton wrote:

Tony Glassman wrote:The steel guitar was the only truly good thing about that performance. Mike and the Show-Pro sounded beautiful. JW's voice and PS's accordion were terrible


....overall score 5/10. (All 5 points earned by Mike).

Barry, no reason for confusion - stay with me here - the "hammering" to which I referred was Tony's take (just prior to my earlier post) on Webb and Shaffer's contribution to the performance, nothing to do with my MacArthur Park posts.

I was just wondering that as the thread went on, because the longer a thread goes just about every kind of opinion shows up and perhaps someone would take issue with Mike's steel playing, but I was being facetious...I don't see a little emoticon guy for "facetiousness," and I don't really expect anyone to hammer Mike for his beautiful playing.

Mark, I wasn't being facetious.

Jimmy Webb, albeit a great songwriter, was off pitch and had a grating quality to his voice IMHO. Paul Shaffer's (sp?) accordion playing was just plain annoying and sounded like microphone feedback. Don't get me wrong, I don't have anything against accordion (I could listen to Flaco Jimenez all day). I just get tired of Paul's "hipper than thou" snideness.....especially when he insists on playing an intrument with which he has no skills.

Mike's steel was the only redeeming thing about the whole performance. As ususl, he plays beautifully

Barry, no reason for confusion - stay with me here - the "hammering" to which I referred was Tony's take (just prior to my earlier post) on Webb and Shaffer's contribution to the performance, nothing to do with my MacArthur Park posts.

Mark, the "hammering" I perceived happened several posts before Tony's, when you took issue with the 'puke-worthy' MacArthur Park, and then later turned around and lamented that Webb was getting "hammered." That's what confused me.

Tony, I know you weren't being facetious, I took what you wrote literally.

As I wrote, sooner or later opinons from just about avery angle will show up.

Apparently Barry is calling me on the carpet for possibly playing "the-pot-calling-the-kettle-black" card, and I'll give it to him that he has a point. Or, is it like this: you can't have it both ways, you're either with Webb or against him? That strikes me as being simplistic.

I think I'm going to purchase the new Webb CD with all the guest stars and killer pickers on it, I've listened to some of the sample tracks, and I'm pretty sure I'm gonna like it - and I'm also thankful that I won't have to hit the skip button when MacArthur Park comes on because it isn't included!

Mark......Let me ask you a question.

If you heard that exact perfomance w/o a steel guitar and didn't know that it was Jim Webb singing, would you still have liked it?

Tony, I have a recording on my iPod of Webb singing Lineman, and it is just him and a piano, and I like it. As far as not knowing it's him, that's a tough one to answer. That one sort of falls under the category of a thread where Paul Franklin wrote something to the effect that part of what you perceive in your enjoyment of the tone of a given pedal steel is visual along with aural.

Jimmy certainly is not always on pitch in the performance like say Glen Campbell, but then it leads to the larger question of the following:

Do performers like Jimmy Webb, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Tom Waits and a host of others have good singing voices?

Probably not to a college vocal performance professor, but isn't there a difference between having a good singing voice and being a good singer?

A friend of mine many years ago said he had a hard time with Bob Dylan's recordings where he is backed up by The Band, because he thought The Band was "too musical" for Dylan. I could see his point, and that example probably has something in common with the Webb/Johnson duo.

Maybe I liked the performance on Letterman because as I wrote earlier, Jimmy's voice is "rough around the edges." I liked the contrast or juxtaposition between the sweet steel playing of Mike and Jimmy's vocals.

Burt Bacharach was mentioned earlier. In terms of technical skills, Burt couldn't sing his way out of a wet paper bag, but I have always kind of enjoyed his singing.

In my own musical endeavors I do quite a bit of lead singing, and I was fortunate to have a number of lessons from a woman who is a professional voice coach that was for several years a member of the San Francisco Opera. I always try to sing on pitch, and I wouldn't be very good at trying to pull off the Tom Waits thing, but it works for Tom, and it seems to me anyway, to work for Jimmy Webb.

Apparently Barry is calling me on the carpet for possibly playing "the-pot-calling-the-kettle-black" card, and I'll give it to him that he has a point. Or, is it like this: you can't have it both ways, you're either with Webb or against him? That strikes me as being simplistic.

Forgive me, Mark, I calls 'em like I sees 'em. I'll agree that a large majority of writers don't sing that well and maybe that's why, first and foremost, they're writers. Paul Williams is another one that comes to mind here. In spite of that, I still enjoy getting the opportunity to listen to the writer interpret his/her own material for all the obvious reasons, good singer notwithstanding.

"hipper than thou snideness"!!! Did Paul not play enough notes for you, Tony? Ick!

John Neff wrote:.... Did Paul not play enough notes for you, Tony?...

No........he played exactly too many!.

I have read that he had singing lessons after his first record, and on the following albums he was much more confident in his singing. This shows that he didn't think of himself as the world's greatest singer.
Me, I always liked his voice.

Hi y'all, for those of you that don't live in the U.S. (because CBS limits its access to US dwellers), I got this from YouTube with the Jimmy Webb part.

Very neat,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ArQK3eggre8

ayp

John Macy wrote:quote:

"That was some steel guitar playing my wife would enjoy."

It's not that she doesn't like steel guitar playing, it's that most of it gives her vertigo.

I once had Vertigo for 5 months,It was like looking thru a Leslie Tone cabinet.

Thanks for posting

I googled the Letterman Show and watched the clip.

A WELL DESERVED plug for the PSG and for one of the World's Bbest Players

JR

Herby Wallace wrote:I just watched this and it was great as I knew it would be. I hope some of the people in my area watched this that think steel guitars are old fashioned and a thing of the past. This just proves that steel guitar is alive and well and more people need to become aware of that fact.

Herby Wallace

Like I have always said, Herby. The steel guitar is not just for breakfast anymore. The steel guitar is such a beautiful instrument, I have hared played in other genres of music.Whoever said they are old fashioned, does not know what they are talking about.