Steve Hackett - There Are Many Sides To The Night (1995)

Steve Hackett live and acoustic, from the Palmero Teatro Metropolitan in December 1994, supported only by keyboards from Julian Colbeck.  Steve's on sparkling form, and in jovial spirits, frequently teasing bits of his old classics (and even tracks from his time in Genesis) before claiming to have forgot them all.  He does open with Horizons, and touches on his earliest solo records (links below) with Kim and a re-arranged Ace Of Wands.  The rest of the set highlights his acoustic records as might be expected, plus a nice bit of Vivaldi, a blues where he drops the guitar in favour of harmonica, and a cover of Andrea Morricone's Cinema Paradiso.

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Previously posted at SGTG:
Voyage Of The Acolyte
Please Don't Touch
Defector

Shuggie Otis - Freedom Flight (1971)

Shuggie Otis' second album was such a huge step up from his debut that it's easy to forget this was still the work of a 17 year old.  With two execptions, he's the sole songwriter, and his already prodigious guitar talent continued to shine as well as showing off his skill at several other instruments.  Shuggie's rising profile also brought guest stars on board for this one: George Duke and Aynsley Dunbar are featured here.

Freedom Flight is perhaps best known for Strawberry Letter 23, the gorgeous piece of baroque psychedelic pop that would later be a funked-up hit for The Brothers Johnson.  That's only one of four superb songs on the first side of the album though, which is filled out by one of the funkiest blues covers ever recorded.  The album's second side was taken up by two lengthy instrumentals: the bluesy Purple, which expands on the template of Gospel Groove from Shuggie's debut, and the beautifully mellow title track.  It's difficult to pick Shuggie Otis' masterpiece between this one and the one coming up next week.

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Shuggie Otis - Here Comes Shuggie Otis (1970)

First in a three-Friday exploration of the slim but awesome discography of Johnny Alexander Veliotes Jr, best known by the pet name his mother gave him, and the shortened surname that his famous father already went by.  Shuggie Otis started performing live with his father's band in the mid 60s when he was eleven years old, where he'd "wear dark glasses and a paint a moustache on" to disguise his age, as he relates on this album.

Here Comes Shuggie Otis was his solo debut as a prodigious teenager, and consists mostly of material co-written by father and son, its standout feature being Shuggie's rapidly developing guitar versatility.  The ten tracks touch on the psych-soul and baroque AM pop sounds of the day, with a bedrock of blues and R&B.

The highlights include Oxford Gray, the longest and most ambitious piece that opens the album, and the slow-cooking Gospel Groove, pointing the way to what was to come.  As mentioned above, Shuggie's Boogie starts out with a potted autobiography of his formative influences, saved from being a bit precious and corny by exploding into another great twelve-bar tearup.  From here, Shuggie's playing, singing and writing would just get better and better.

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George Winston - Piano Solos (1973) (reissued as Ballads And Blues 1972 - The Early Recordings)

Seven years before George Winston became Windham Hill's breakout star, he released his debut album 'Piano Solos' on John Fahey's Takoma label.  Windham Hill reissues, titled 'Ballads And Blues 1972', started from 1981, to make these formative recordings available to the new audiences brought in by Winston's success.

It's a short and sweet, fun little record that packs in all of Winston's early influences on his playing.  The impressionistic, 'New Age' pianism from Autumn onwards is only hinted at here, in a set of bluesy originals, covers (including Fahey's Brenda's Blues) and traditional melodies that cleave more closely to their roots.  Even so, Winston's talents on the piano are clearly fully-formed, and listeners who might not be as receptive to 'New Age' piano music will probably like this better than Winston's later recordings.

Original LP cover

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Previously posted at SGTG: Autumn | December

Ry Cooder & Vishwa Mohan Bhatt - A Meeting By The River (1993)

And an inspired and fruitful meeting it was.  Vishwa Mohan Bhatt, the Rajasthani master of the Mohan Vina - a modified slide guitar of his own creation, with eight sympathetic drone strings added; and Ry Cooder, the eternal journeyman, on regular slide, recorded these four tracks in a Santa Barbara church - shame they didn't record more.  My only minus point for this record is always that I wish it was twice as long, but what was captured, backed up by Bhatt's regular tabla player Sukhvinder Singh, and Cooder's son Joachim, is superb.  A pair of lengthy, exploratory tracks are followed up by a catchy, upbeat jam and then a gorgeous closing ballad, the only non-original, a Fijian folk song.  One for al fresco listening with a long cool drink.

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Van Morrison - Saint Dominic's Preview (1972)

With my trans-Irish Sea parentage, Van Morrison was always going to be part of the musical staple diet growing up - and this album remains a favourite.  Recorded in late '71/early '72 at the height of Morrison's California period, Saint Dominic's Preview is perfectly balanced between short, zippy soul/blues classics (straight off the blocks with the breathless acapella euphoria of Jackie Wilson Said) and two 10 minute+ epics.

Of the latter, Almost Independence Day drifts in a stream of Krause-synth consciousness and two chord 12-string guitar, giving it a striking resemblance to Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here title track from three years later.  But the  definite highlight of this great record is Listen To The Lion - for me, it's simply one of the greatest, most unreserved and fearless vocal performances Morrison ever accomplished.  Gives me chills every time once he really lets rip in the middle section, before things calm down again.

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