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Alvin Lee, RIP


mjzee

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I remember jumping around, playing air guitar when I was 11 to my sister's Woodstock album. One of those songs featured Alvin Lee playing a burning solo on Goin' Home. At the end he plays a final chord and his guitar is soooo out of tune. RIP Alvin Lee!

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Wow. This is sad news.

I was just reading bigbeatsteve's post mentioning the album 'recorded live'.

He'll be forever remembered for 'the Woodstock moment'.

I also remember a quote in an interview with someone in a guitar magazine, waxing lyrical about the first time someone told him about John Mclaughlin...

The guy said to him 'you've gotta hear this guy McLaughlin...he's faster than Alvin Lee :D

Not really the point though is it?

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I was just reading bigbeatsteve's post mentioning the album 'recorded live'.

Yeah, "I'm Going Home" on "Recorded Live" is a killer track .

Almost my #1 reason for going for that album, though the rest ain't bad at all either. But considering tha musical context of that period of the 70s, this tune showed that some still could do some straight ahead kick-ass stuff that really MOVES.

RIP.

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Lester Bangs on 10 Yr After @ Woodstock: 'Alvin Lee, grimacing like he was being jerked off with steel wool.' Sounded like that too, IMHO, YMMV, etc. Yes, I know, that makes me AH of the day, but I had to say it!

Nah. it's funny.

I was just reading bigbeatsteve's post mentioning the album 'recorded live'.

Yeah, "I'm Going Home" on "Recorded Live" is a killer track .

Almost my #1 reason for going for that album, though the rest ain't bad at all either. But considering tha musical context of that period of the 70s, this tune showed that some still could do some straight ahead kick-ass stuff that really MOVES.

RIP.

Someone gave me a copy of that back in the day, I always remember those little 1 minute 'interludes' on that album. One of them was like a jazz chord melody vignette. I thought it was cool.

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I used to have a cat who always reacted to the squawk at the beginning of "Bad Scene" from the Ssssh album. I'm a little spooked about what "routine surgery" he had, although I get that bad reactions to ordinary events happen. He was the best Alvin Lee player there ever was. :)

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Although I hadn't listened to him in years, it still came as a surprise.

Sadly, his demise was similar to how Tony Williams died. Like they say, 'there's no such thing as a "routine" surgery'

That's what I was thinking also. We lost the great Tony Williams way too soon. I remember watching the Chicago Jazz Festival on public TV just months before William's death with Hancock, Shorter & Carter and Williams really tore it up.

TYA's "Undead" lp shows what these cats were really capable of.

I like what Alvin said in '73 about TYA shows,

from the LA Times . . .

"Sudden fame from the film (Woodstock) meant jumping from cozy performances in clubs to big arenas and the band started sounding like a "traveling jukebox," Lee said as early as 1973.

"We sort of auditorium-alized" was how Lee once put it as he explained the stylistic move away from the group's British blues-jazz-rock roots."

From the NY Times . . .

More successful tours and albums followed, including “Cricklewood Green” and “Watt.” Then, during a break in 1971 intended to provide time for musical exploration, Mr. Lee wrote the band’s only Top 40 hit,

The song’s more commercial sound was a departure, and Mr. Lee later said he was not sure it had been a wise one.

“I hated it because it was a hit,” he said in 2003. “By then I was rebelling, and I never played it live. To me it was a pop song.”

Right On Alvin!

Edited by Cactus Bob
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