Re: Whole Lotta Blues - Songs of Led Zeppelin -Whole CD Preview

[michael gilson <mgilson@xxxxxxxxx>]

REDTHING2@xxxxxxx wrote:

> In a message dated 9/16/99 4:57:41 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
> zepper@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx writes:
>
> << http://www.hob.com/live/cdpreviews/990914songsofledzeppelin/ >>
>
> Holy crap check out Custard Pie version #2.

Yep, not too shabby, even from that li'l cherub Eric Gales.

I mean, it's ironic and everything, bunch of old bluesmen "paying
homage" to Zep, who always claimed they were "paying homage" to the old
bluesmen, while 9/10ths of the Western world (the part that thinks these
things matter in the grand scheme of things, at least) claim Page +
Plant were mere plunderers.

I got through about 2/3 of the album before my modem crapped out on me
(during Otis Clay's SIBLY, which was groovin' up to that point). Some
quick impressions: I really like what Otis Rush did with ICQYB. I also
have a feeling lot of people aren't going to agree with me ("Blecch;
sounds like Luther Vandross!"), but think of it this way: Otis Rush was
the original artist! (Unless I'm very much mistaken--he was one of the
first, anyway, and certainly it was his version that Zep's was based
on.) So he can do what he wants with the arrangement...

HHWCID is quite nice. A million times more listenable than Hootie's lame
version from Encomium. Heart Breaker is a real gas--almost sounds like a
Living Colour Hendrixized version. Never thought you could make that
tune into a funk workout.

What struck me was that, despite the varied arrangements, almost every
track I heard (10 out of 14) has a guitar solo very much in the Page
spirit--sounds like some of the soloists even went out of their way to
approximate his tone.

Another nice touch is that both Gales and Magic Slim, on Custard Pie and
WtLB respectively, do a "before + after" thing: acoustic, "authentic"
blues, then an electrified version--kind of summing up what Zep did with
the genre.

I'm a little worried about HOB's strategy of making the entire disc
available in RA, though. The quality with RA G2 is just good enough that
many people will probably think twice about actually buying the
CD--especially if they're not totally gaga over the songs.

MinM