Improvisation

 

I would rather listen to Stevie Ray Vaughn! He could fly a lot better and take a piece of music further than Clapton. And I got to see him in a duet with Robert Cray that lasted 20 minutes, and not separate, but together the whole time, and it was supreme, and will never appear on record or cd! That's how good it was, to the point where it can only be "experienced"! Are you "experienced"? Which is its true meaning, by the way!

 

Other than that, Ax Gernrich and a couple of other guitarists that appeared with Guru Guru, and then John Weinzierl from Amon Duul 2 in the early days, ending with "Apocaliptyc Bore", the last worth while "jam" on his guitar! Folks that were not afraid to improvise and experiment, and Ax even created the washing machine sound on his guitar, that made a couple of the early things stand out like the LSD March and other things. But we "rockers" don't get "noise" too good, do we?

 

On another note, record companies were making 9 dollars of an album sale , while the artist made a dollar. All your promotion/funding was taken off the royalties anyway and your future depended on your audience regarding if you would be dropped from the label after a 2 year record deal or if you would be in fact signed again. Record companies made these barriers that couldn't be broken by the musician. Freedom of expression in Pop music and mainstream Rock music no longer existed. Ann and Nancy Wilson were pressured to dress up like models with 80's teased hair styles , wrote more commercially viable songs fitting to the 80's genre, and lost their true "down to earth" presentation as the Heart band until the 90's when they decided their investments in the business should revolve around being an honest Rock band again.

 

When the industry followed the racist attitude in the 50's, , Fats Domino, Little Richard and a long list of Rock n' Roll performers were replaced by Fabian, Ricky Nelson and other pretty boys who disgracefully stoled the original rock n' rollers music. Chuck Berry went for the Sinatra crowd and figured if he could play music that was toned down a bit , he might hopefully appeal to the high white society or at least of all...their kids...but!..he was still hassled over taxes and black-balled from venues. So..you see?..even though he wanted to conform to their moronic ideas, they still found yet another way to make him vanish for a while. That's why people like Keith Richards, Mick Jagger, and Brian Jones invested in Chuck Berry and Muddy Waters, supporting them after the Rolling Stones hit the "big time".

 

Brian Jones was angered and frustrated over the realization that Motown was not popular in England in 65'. He often exposed the dirt in the music business and rubbed other members of the Stones the wrong way...because he felt that honest talent was the key to an audience loving an artist and that the color of someone's skin should have never entered into the subject whatsoever. The Stones were huge, but Brian Jones was outspoken like John Lennon and willing to cut off his nose to spite his own face just to make a worthy point. That pretty much explains why he didn't like the state of Texas when he visited there in 65'.

 

 

Eric Clapton was not responsible for the hype...although he towed the line after Layla....many of the great guitarists from his generation like Peter Green, Mike Bloomfield, and so on were purposely wiped out due to a business move to represent the 60's in a kind of false image. Not everybody was talking about Eric Clapton day and night in the 60's while dismissing all the other outstanding players. People seem to have the impression it was all about Clapton and it's simply not true. That's why depending upon what has been written in publication over certain decades, historically and in the present, will not give you a clear and true representation of the 60's music. Mike Bloomfield was famous for his playing in the popular cities of the U.S. and he played all the same venues that Cream played. So...the industry made a mistake by choosing a list to give the next generation the impression that a band like Canned Heat had 2 hits and that the rest of their material was lack-luster when compared to someone like Jimi Hendri or Janis Joplin...and! they did the same God awful thing to  Jefferson Airplane. By early 70's...albums like Bark and Long John Silver produced a kind of Space Rock with violin and a bit progressive like Crown of Creation...however, it was too late by then to be taken seriously when the radio insisted on programming everyone to remember "White Rabbit" instead. Tell me why?

Brian started out as a total blues purist, even adopting the stage name Elmore in honor of his blues guitar hero Elmore James.  I've also read that Jones absolutely hated the "Satanic Majesties" album and wanted to get back to playing the blues.  Further, he was genuinely excited about the material coming out of the "Beggars Banquet" sessions...though if you've ever seen the crazy French documentary "Sympathy for the Devil" (aka "One Plus One") by Jean-Luc Goddard, the studio footage of Brian is embarrassing.  He's so far gone, he can't even just strum the backing chords to Sympathy.  I've read a sympathetic account of Brian at the time and it claims that he was emotionally distraught/destroyed about losing Anita Pallenberg to Keith and control of the Stones - which was actually HIS band in the beginning - to Mick & Keith.  Marianne Faithful even confided to a friend when Brian died that "Mick & Keith have finally broke him" (paraphrasing there).

I don't think that it was "improvisation" that got them to Morocco. It was good dope. There is no secret in that.

 

The music, was incidental, and all of a sudden, made rock/radio stuff sound and feel quite meaningless, compared to what they were seeing.

 

Morocco, were not the only ones. Both the National Theater and Royal Shakespeare Company were also fooling around with native groups, and you can even find Eberhard Schoenner doing his first album with Bali folks.  It was just all so "different" from our "thinking" ways. And all of a sudden, you are heaing music that has no "thinking" but it's still very musical, which to a western mind, does not make sense. We are way too logical to accept something else at times. We think everything has to be didactic in the way we designed it! And refute it when it isn't that way, though sometimes we let it pass as "art".

 

It was no different, than the "Missa Luba", that also had folks going ... what the heck is this?

Speaking as someone who nearly drowned at the age of 13, you don't "allow" yourself to drown...it's just pure adrenaline panic and wild thrashing.  I suppose there are other drowning situations where you're physically trapped below deck on a sinking ship or the like.  In those cases, there must certainly be a moment when you decide all is lost and holding your breath is hopeless and you "decide" to swallow the water and end it all.  Of course, if Brian was out of his head on some substance and entered the pool foolishly, it could be as you said and he just lost awareness...either way, drowning is a miserable way to go. and not my first choice for a suicidal impulse.

I agree with your take on Alexis' read of Brian finally being happy.  No one really knows what's in the head of another and their behaviour is often deceiving - especially if they're trying to put on a brave face after being thrown out of the world famous band they actually founded.  The thing though that leads me to believe his happiness was genuine, was the plans he was making for future musical activities with Lennon/Mitchell/Alexis etc.  If all is lost, you usually aren't looking forward to positive future activities but are drowning in your misery - there's that drowning thing again