Friday Influences Thread! 06-22-12 HAH!

[ido1957]

ZZ Top is an American rock band from Houston, Texas. Formed in 1969, the group consists of Billy Gibbons (guitar and vocals), Dusty Hill (bass and vocals), and Frank Beard (percussion). ZZ Top's early sound was rooted in blues but eventually grew to exhibit contemporary influences. Throughout their career they have maintained a sound based on Hill's and Beard's rhythm section support, accentuated by Gibbons' guitar and vocal style. Their lyrics often gave evidence of band's humor and thematically focus on personal experiences and sexual innuendos.

 

ZZ Top formed its initial lineup in 1969, consisting of Anthony Barajas (bass and keyboards) and Peter Perez (drums and percussion). After several incarnations, Hill and Beard joined within the following year. Molded into a professional act by manager Bill Ham, they were subsequently signed to London Records and released their debut album. They were successful as live performers, becoming known to fans as "that little ol' band from Texas", and their 1973 album Tres Hombres, according to Allmusic, propelled the band to national attention and "made them stars". In 1979, after returning from a one-and-a-half year break of touring, the group reinvented themselves with their hit album Deg

[ido1957]

Paul Bernard Rodgers (born 17 December 1949, Middlesbrough)[1] is an English rock singer-songwriter, best known for his success in the 1970s as a member of Free and Bad Company. After stints in two less successful bands in the 1980s and early 1990s, The Firm and The Law, he became a solo artist. He has recently toured and recorded with another 1970s band, Queen. Rodgers has been dubbed "The Voice" by his fans.[2][3] A poll in Rolling Stone magazine ranked him number 55 on its list of the "100 Greatest Singers of All Time".[4]

 

Rodgers has been cited as a significant influence on a number of notable rock singers, including David Coverdale, John Waite, Steve Overland, Lou Gramm, Jimi Jamison, Eric Martin, Steve Walsh, Joe Lynn Turner, Paul Young, Robin McAuley, Jimmy Barnes, Richie Kotzen and Joe Bonamassa. In 1991, John Mellencamp called Rodgers "the best rock singer ever." [5] Freddie Mercury of Queen in particular idolized Rodgers and drew inspiration from Rodgers' aggressive style.[4]

 

[video=youtube;HR-bhIWB9k0]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HR-bhIWB9k0

[ido1957]

"Space Truckin'" is a song by British hard rock band Deep Purple. It is the seventh and final track on the Machine Head album. Its lyrics talk of space travel and it showcases the vocal abilities of singer Ian Gillan and powerful drumming of Ian Paice. According to Ritchie Blackmore, the main riff is based on the Batman Theme.

 

[edit] Live performances

 

When it was first performed live, the band appended an instrumental that was originally part of the song "Mandrake Root" on their first album but gradually evolved into a showcase for Jon Lord's Hammond organ and Ritchie Blackmore's guitar solos. This usually took the length of the overall song to over twenty minutes, and was always performed as the last number of the main set. A good example of this arrangement can be found on the Made in Japan album, wherein Blackmore also quotes the "cello" solo of "Fools" off Fireball.

 

Jon Lord played his solo through a ring modulator or played some of it on an ARP synthesizer. Meanwhile, Ritchie Blackmore usually split the guitar solo into two halves, a quiet section with just drums, then a loud section with the full band. The second half was often when Ritchie would smash his guitar, play it with his feet or throw it into the air. One of the most infamous incidents where this happened was at the California Jam festival in 1974, where he dropped one guitar over the edge of the stage, smashed a second against a TV camera, then set his amplifier on fire which subsequently exploded.

 

When Deep Purple reformed in 1984, this extended arrangement was reworked, and later included snippets of other songs.

 

During the Rapture of the Deep Tour, the final part of the song, which originally featured much high pitched screaming by Gillan (now 65), featured high pitched guitar in the same key as his original vocals.

 

The intro was featured on the TV show WKRP in Cincinnati on the episode "The Airplane Show" (later issues of the episode replaced this track with generic music).

 

The song is featured as a downloadable track for the Rock Band series of music video games as of December 30, 2008.

 

It was also featured in the movie Lords of Dogtown when the main characters are sneaking into pools to skate.[1]

 

On the remastered version of their 1982 album Live in London album, there is a 31 minute long live version of the song. It consists a lot of improvising from the band members and in one part of the song they play the main riff from "Child in Time".

 

[video=youtube;KZ-lSTlUnfA]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZ-lSTlUnfA

[ido1957]

Yngwie Johann Malmsteen (/???ve? ?m??lmsti?n/ ING-vay MAHLM-steen; born Lars Johan Yngve Lannerb

[ido1957]

"Hot for Teacher" is a song on Van Halen's album 1984.

 

The sexually suggestive song was best known for its long opening drum solo, near motorcycle-like drum fills and its music video featuring the band as both adults and young students in a high school. The Parents Music Resource Center protested it, calling for it to be pulled from both the radio and television, due to the song's sexually suggestive lyrics referring to sex with a teacher, and a female teacher stripping in the video, among other issues. In 2009 it was named the 36th best hard rock song of all time by VH1.[1]

 

The ending of this song comes from a studio outtake from the band's club days, entitled "Voodoo Queen".

 

[video=youtube;nT7XOlPWsN8]

[ido1957]

"Purple Rain" is a song by Prince and The Revolution. It is the title track from the 1984 album of the same name, which in turn is the soundtrack album for the 1984 film of the same name, and was released as the third single from that album. The song is a combination of rock, pop, gospel, and orchestral music. It reached #2 in the U.S., and is widely considered one of Prince's signature songs. It was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America, shipping 1 million units in the United States

The song was recorded during a benefit concert for the Minnesota Dance Theatre at the First Avenue nightclub in Minneapolis on August 3, 1983. The performance was guitarist Wendy Melvoin's live debut with The Revolution, at age nineteen. City Pages described the 70-minute performance as Prince's "sweatiest and most soulful hometown concert yet", and drummer Bobby Z stated, "it certainly was one of the best concerts we ever did".[2]

 

The concert was recorded by David Rivkin using a mobile recording unit brought in from the Record Plant in New York City, staffed by engineers Dave Hewitt and Kooster McAllister.[3] The basic tracks for three songs were used on the Purple Rain soundtrack: "Purple Rain", "I Would Die 4 U", and "Baby I'm a Star". Prince performed overdubs and re-recorded the vocals while working at Sunset Sound in Los Angeles from August

[ido1957]

The Time (now The Original 7ven) is a funk and dance-pop ensemble formed in 1981. They are close Prince associates and arguably the most successful artists who have worked with him.

Prince, Formation and Success

 

The band was assembled under a clause in Prince's contract with Warner Bros. that allowed him to recruit and produce other artists for the label. Inspired by the 1980 film The Idolmaker, Prince decided to put together a pop-funk group that would serve as an outlet for material in the vein of his own early albums, while he explored other genres and styles in his own career.[1]

 

By 1981, he had built The Time out of an existing Minneapolis funk unit, "Flyte Time" (from the Donald Byrd song), which featured Jellybean Johnson on drums, Jimmy Jam and Monte Moir on keyboards, and Terry Lewis on bass. To this base were added Jesse Johnson on guitar and a lead singer and childhood friend named Morris Day, and Jerome Benton who was a promoter drawn from another local band called "Enterprise", who became Day's comic foil. Prince had used an Enterprise song, "Partyup", on his Dirty Mind album, and his selection of Day was essentially a reward; he had originally tapped Alexander O'Neal - yet another player in the Minneapolis Uptown funk scene - for the vocalist slot, but O'Neal wanted too much money, himself being quoted as saying, "I basically didn't see no point in being a superstar with no money."

 

The band went on to release four albums (mostly performed by Prince + singer Morris Day alone) during the course of their main career, each a solid slice of jammy, rock-infused 1980s funk, generally light and humorous in tone, strongly influenced by Parliament - and, of course, Prince. Although they scored numerous hits (including "The Bird", "Jungle Love", "777-9311", "Get It Up", "Gigolos Get Lonely Too", "The Walk" and "Cool", mostly on the R&B charts) during the early 1980s, they never approached superstardom.[1] But as good as they were, they weren't allowed to play a note on their debut album. Prince recorded all the music himself, crediting the production to Jamie Starr and Morris Day, who at least was allowed to sing on the record, but was required to follow Prince's guide vocals note-for-note.

 

A growing rivalry began to develop between the two groups, as The Time toured with Prince and his band during his 1982 Controversy Tour. Frustrated with their lack of input on the albums bearing their name and being underpaid, The Time would take to the stage with the purpose of showing up Prince, much the same way Prince and his band undermined Rick James when they toured with him as James' opening act. (Unlike what happened during Rick James' Light it Up tour, no one was leaving before the headliner, Prince, finished his set.) The tension came to a head on the final night of the tour in Cincinnati during the Time's set when Prince and some of his cronies egged their supporting act from off stage. Things further escalated after The Time's performance when guitarist Jesse Johnson was handcuffed to a wall-mounted coat rack and further humiliated. Prince, of course, demanded no interruptions during his performance, but as soon as he left the stage, a food fight erupted. When the battle continued at the hotel, Prince made Morris Day pay for all damages, claiming that he had started the whole thing.[2]

 

During the 1983's 1999/Triple Threat tour, The Time were forced to play as Vanity 6's backing band from behind a curtain, before playing their own hour-long set with only a small pay increase. Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, who had begun writing songs and production work of their own (working with SOLAR to produce Klymaxx and with Tabu Records to produce the S.O.S. Band), were stranded in Atlanta by a blizzard and failed to make it to a Time concert in San Antonio, for which Jerome had to mime playing bass guitar on stage while Prince played Lewis' part off stage, and Lisa stood in for Jimmy Jam. Subsequently, the duo were fined and then fired, although Prince would state in a 1990 Rolling Stone's interview that "I didn't fire Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. Morris asked me what I would do in his situation. Remember, it was his band." Whether their firing was due to the incident or to their increasing independence has never been clear. Monte Moir took the opportunity to leave as well, and would also work with Jam and Lewis. The three were replaced with Mark Cardenas and Paul Peterson on keyboards and Jerry Hubbard on bass. This new line up were featured in Prince's Purple Rain film. The Time rode the wave of popularity created by the movie and hit singles "Jungle Love" and "The Bird" and were household names in 1984.

 

It was Day who left next after arguments with Prince, choosing to pursue a solo career in 1985 after a successful acting turn in Purple Rain. Soon thereafter, with Jesse Johnson also opting to go solo (taking other Time members Cardenas and Hubbard with him), the band disintegrated; the remaining members (Benton, Jellybean Johnson and Peterson) were reformed into a new short-lived project called The Family. Meanwhile, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis went on to become one of the most successful songwriting and production teams of the 1980s and 1990s.[1]

 

In 1990, the original seven members of the band reunited for the Graffiti Bridge movie and soundtrack, as well as a new album, Pandemonium. The project was originally called Corporate World and was set to only feature Morris and Jerome, but Warner Bros. demanded that the original line-up be brought in if Prince wanted the company's backing for the movie. This spawned their highest selling single, "Jerk Out" and the album featured more input from the band than any other Time album. The reunion was short-lived, however - infighting within the band caused them to disband once again. Morris and Jerome have since remained a team, with both trying out some small acting roles over the next few years.[1]

 

Several members of The Time reunited in 1995, added a few new recruits and have remained together since. This version of the band can be seen in the Kevin Smith film Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back and tours frequently to this day. The band is usually billed as "Morris Day and The Time".[1]

 

A fifth Time album is rumored to have been completed in the late 1990s, recorded with the new lineup but production and coordination with Prince has prevented its release. The title Old Dogs, New Tricks was the working title. A 2004 album attributed to Morris Day called It's About Time contains a few new tracks written and performed by Day and a number of live performances by The Time.

[video=youtube;UrkP7OrrjNU]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrkP7OrrjNU

[ido1957]

"The Power of Love" is the title of a 1985 single by Huey Lewis and the News written for and featured in the 1985 blockbuster film Back to the Future. It gave the band their first number-one hit on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100,[2] their second number-one hit on the U.S. Top Rock Tracks chart, and was a top ten hit on the UK Singles Chart, where it appeared on UK editions of the band's fourth studio album, Fore!. The song was nominated for an Academy Award at the 58th Academy Awards.

[video=youtube;tBI5h5N-Nfo]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBI5h5N-Nfo&feature=fvst

[ido1957]

SOME OF THE GREATEST ROCK BALLADS EVER. The Best Of Slow Rock, Power Ballads & Acoustic Ballads, IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER.

 

1. Led Zeppelin - Stairway To Heaven (1971)

2. Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here (1975)

3. Scorpions - Wind Of Change (1990)

4. Def Leppard - When Love And Hate Collide (1995)

5. Cutting Crew - (I Just) Died In Your Arms (1986)

6. Toto - Africa (1982)

7. Foreigner - I Want To Know What Love Is (1984)

8. Survivor - The Search Is Over (1985)

9. Thunder - Love Walked In (1991)

10. Extreme - More Than Words (1991)

11. The Stranglers - Golden Brown (1981)

12. Kansas - Dust In The Wind (1977)

13. Eagles - Hotel California (1977)

14. Bryan Adams - Heaven (1984)

15. REO Speedwagon - In My Dreams (1987)

16. Starship - Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now (1987)

17. Heart - Alone (1987)

18. Firehouse - Love Of A Lifetime (1991)

19. Metallica - The Unforgiven (1991)

20. Skid Row - I Remember You (1989)

21. White Lion - You're All I Need (1991)

22. Soul Asylum - Runaway Train (1993)

23. John Waite - Missing You (1984)

24. Dire Straits - Sultans Of Swing (1978)

25. Guns N' Roses - Sweet Child O' Mine (1988)

26. Bad Company - Feel Like Makin' Love (1975)

27. Whitesnake - Here I Go Again (1982)

28. Alias - More Than Words Can Say (1990)

29. Chicago - You're The Inspiration (1984)

30. Bon Jovi - Always (1994)

31. Black Sabbath - Changes (1972)

32. Bonnie Tyler - Total Eclipse Of The Heart (1983)

33. Scorpions - Always Somewhere (1979)

34. Deep Purple - Soldier Of Fortune (1974)

35. Kiss - Beth (1976)

36. Bryan Adams - (Everything I Do) I Do It For You (1991)

37. Europe - Carrie (1987)

38. Journey - Open Arms (1982)

39. Richard Marx - Hold On To The Nights (1988)

40. Michael W. Smith - I Will Be Here For You (1992)

41. Cyndi Lauper - Time After Time (1984)

42. U2 - One (1992)

43. REM - Everybody Hurts (1993)

44. Phil Collins - Against All Odds (1984)

45. Queen - We Are The Champions (1977)

46. Rolling Stones - Angie (1973)

47. ELO - Midnight Blue (1979)

48. Aerosmith - I Don't Want To Miss A Thing (1998)

49. Eric Clapton - Wonderful Tonight (1977)

50. Boston - More Than A Feeling (1976)

51. 4 Non Blondes - What's Up (1993)

52. Creedence Clearwater Revival - Have You Ever Seen The Rain (1971)

53. Procol Harum - A Whiter Shade Of Pale (1967)

54. Fleetwood Mac - Albatross (1969)

55. The Beatles - Hey Jude (1968)

[video=youtube;wRqa6eQaqYY]

[Sensible_Heart]

My contribution is one of a handful of artists I just keep coming back to, one who never ceases to amaze and inspire with his gift for the craft. The amount of raw, undistilled emotion present in all of his songs is something many writers aspire to, but few are able to communicate with at such a young age (his incredible debut solo album was released when he was 26 years old). His unique vocal style and deceptively simple acoustic guitar work - his guitar being the centrepiece of all but a couple of his songs - combine to create a sound which, although most readily classified as folk music with elements of rock, transcends any genre boundaries with which you try to limit it with the universality of the themes of the songs; of love lost and found, and of the universal human desire to connect, and to be recognised.

 

For your consideration, three selections from the two album catalogue of Irish singer-songwriter Damien Rice.

 

Volcano:

 

[video=youtube;259uK-4OqWA]

 

Older Chests:

 

[video=youtube;_ogVor9uZoo]

 

Elephant:

 

[video=youtube;-Jzr7NlDllo]

[rsadasiv]

 

 

 

I love this song.

[rsadasiv]

 

 

 

The perfect continuation...

[rsadasiv]

 

 

 

I hadn't heard that before. Great song.

[rsadasiv]

 

ZZ Top is an American rock band from Houston, Texas....

 

 

I think it's interesting the way that ZZ Top can use synthetic sounding instruments and studio production techniques and still come off sounding live and authentic.

 

[video=youtube;C62-5oPcusw]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C62-5oPcusw

[rsadasiv]

SOME OF THE GREATEST ROCK BALLADS EVER. The Best Of Slow Rock, Power Ballads & Acoustic Ballads, IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER.

 

This is a very confusing list, in any order.

[Mark Blackburn]

I'm a sucker for "Groove" -- and a tight band (think Edgar Winter's White Trash and Tower of Power horns). So when a friend said to me "Come see Huey Lewis & The News" at our Winnipeg arena . . . I went. And was blown away by this. Just had to say thanks to the black Strat owner in Alberta for posting. I close my eyes and I'm there. I'd get up and dance if I knew how.

 

[video=youtube;tBI5h5N-Nfo]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=tBI5h5N-Nfo

 

p.s. Thanks too for the reminder that this was written for BACK TO THE FUTURE and nominated for "Best Original Song" at the Oscars that year. It should have won.

 

p.p.s. Two minutes 30 seconds into it -- the completely unexpected bridge-release: That was the moment I said, Holy Moses this is good!

[Mark Blackburn]

According to ANSWERS.com (

[Oswlek]

Rice's elephant sounds like he is trying to marry these two songs:

 

[video=youtube;bOmw8qhuJ7g]

 

[video=youtube;4jUVp243_g0]

[Oswlek]

This is a very confusing list, in any order.

 

Absolutely. Between the bad selections and non-ballads, I haven't the foggiest idea what they were going for there.

[Mark Blackburn]

The very next offering at YouTube by someone else (still my favorite of theirs, 'for sentimental reasons,' to coin a song title; 5.2 million "views" by kindred spirits).

 

"Bermuda, Bahama, come on pretty Mama . . .

That's where we want to go! Way down to Kokomo . . . "

 

[video=youtube;9ChADh1zt5I]

[bee3]

 

 

I saw them perform this last week... Mike Love butchered it. I was so disappointed because he sounded stellar on all the early 'surf' hits. But Good Vibrations and Kokomo... not so much.

[bee3]

Really great version of God Only Knows.

 

[video=youtube;4EgAhLs1Epg]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EgAhLs1Epg&feature=related

[LCK]

 

 

 

It's great to hear the song sung so simply.

 

LCK

[LCK]

 

Jimmy Buffett and his unique 'Gulf & Western' style music . . . besides introducing many of us to what would become our new favorite Tequila drink, it kindled my wife's life-long love of Buffett:

 

 

My favorite Jimmy Buffett song, from 1974 -- pre "Margaritaville."

 

[video=youtube;x_lL046m1Is]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_lL046m1Is

 

LCK

[Mark Blackburn]

Good one, Lee. Thanks for the reminder that Jimmy had a life BEFORE Margaritaville: "Come Monday" was the best song on his first album!

 

I've told my wife I have two favorite Jimmy Buffett songs