BAR NONE BAND

 

ZZ Top’s eccentric guitar player Billy Gibbons often uses a peso coin in place of a standard guitar pick.

 

The 1973 Allman Brothers Band instrumental song “Jessica” is titled after guitarist Dickey Betts’ daughter, Jessica.

 

The Eric Clapton Stratocaster, released in 1988, was Fender’s first signature model guitar.

 

Left-handed Jimi Hendrix played right-handed guitars flipped over with the nut and strings reversed.

 

Boston’s Tom Scholz wrote and recorded much of Boston’s 1976 self-titled debut album in his basement studio, pioneering the concept of home recording.

 

The Doors’ guitarist Robby Krieger played folk and flamenco guitar until 1964 when he saw Chuck Berry perform.

 

Queen guitarist Brian May used up to 15 Vox AC30 amps, often called the “Wall of Death” due to the sheer volume it produced.

 

The lead vocalist on many of the songs on Ted Nugent’s 1976 solo album, Free-For-All was a then unknown Meatloaf.

 

Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page is reported to own more than 1,500 guitars. 

 

Rolling Stone guitarist Keith Richards nicknamed his blonde 1953 Telecaster “Micawber” after a character in the Charles Dickens novel David Copperfield.

 

During an appearance on the Steve Allen Show in 1962, Frank Zappa demonstrated how to play a bicycle as a musical instrument.

 

Carlos Santana began playing the violin when he was five years old before taking up the guitar at the age of eight.

 

Legendary guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan chose music as his career after falling into a vat of grease while working at a Dallas, Texas restaurant.

 

Sugarloaf was a 1970’s Denver, Colorado-based band best known for their hit “Green Eyed Lady”.  Originally known as Chocolate Hair, they changed their name to Sugarloaf, a Colorado mountain range, when they received their first recording contract.

 

The primary amplifier behind Neil Young’s enormous distorted tone is a tweed 1959 Fender Deluxe combo with an output of less than 20 watts.

 

Rock and Roll Heaven (Part II)

Keith Moon was an English drummer for the rock group The Who.  He gained acclaim for his exuberant and innovative drumming style and notoriety for his eccentric and often self destructive behavior.  Moon died on September 7, 1978 of an overdose of Clomethiazole, prescribed to relieve symptoms of alcohol withdrawal.  He was 32 years old.  His cremated remains were scattered in the Gardens of Remembrance at Golders Green Crematorium in London, England.

Warren Zevon was an American rock singer songwriter and musician noted for including his strange, sardonic opinions of life in his musical lyrics.  He is probably best known for the song “Werewolves of London”.  Zevon died on September 7, 2003 of lung cancer.  He was 56 years old.  His cremated remains were scattered into the Pacific Ocean near Los Angeles.

Jeff Buckley was an American singer-songwriter and guitarist.  His only studio album “Grace” produced Buckley’s rendition of the Leonard Cohen song “Hallelujah”, which is included on Rolling Stone’s list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.  Buckley died on May 29, 1997 while swimming in Wolf River Harbor, a slack water channel of the Mississippi River.  He drowned when he was caught in the wake of a passing boat.  His body was found on June 4, 1997.  Buckley was 30 years old.

Barry White was an American record producer, singer-songwriter and five-time Grammy Award winner known for his rich bass voice and romantic image.  White’s greatest success come in the 1970’s as a solo singer and with his Love Unlimited Orchestra.  Plagued with chronically high blood pressure which resulted in kidney failure in the fall of 2002, White suffered a stroke in May, 2003, forcing him to retire from public life.  He died on July 4, 2003 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles the result of renal failure.  He was 58 years old.  White’s ashes were scattered by his family off the California coast.

Ronald Wayne “Ronnie” Van Zant was the lead vocalist, primary lyricist, and a founding member of the Southern Rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd.  He was the older brother of Donnie Van Zant, the founder and vocalist of 38 Special.  Van Zant died on October 20, 1977 when a Convair 240 carrying the band from Greenville, South Carolina to Baton Rouge, Louisiana crashed outside of Gillsburg, Mississippi.  He was 29 years old.  He was originally buried in Orange Park, Florida, but was relocated to the more secure Riverside Memorial Park in Jacksonville, Florida after vandals broke into his tomb. 

Marvin Gaye was an American singer-songwriter and instrumentalist with a three-octave vocal range.  Rolling Stone magazine ranks Gaye #6 on its list of The Greatest Singers of All Time.  Plagued with bouts of depression, Gaye threatened to commit suicide on several occasions.  On April 1, 1984, while intervening in an argument between his parents, Gaye was shot and killed by his father.  He was 44 years old.  Gaye is buried in Forest Lawn Hollywood Hills, Los Angeles, California.

Jerome “Jerry” Garcia was an American musician best known for his three-decades with the band The Grateful Dead.  He was named after American composer Jerome Kern.  Garcia was often ill due to weight problems, diabetes, sleep apnea and his struggles with heroin addiction.  He died on August 9, 1995 of a heart attack.  He was 53 years old.  Half of his ashes were scattered into the Ganges River at the holy city of Rishikesh, India, the other half were poured into the San Francisco Bay.

Robert “Bob” Marley was a Jamaican singer-songwriter and musician.  He remains the most widely known performer of reggae music and is credited with spreading the genre to a worldwide audience.  In July, 1977 Marley was found to have a malignant melanoma in a wound reportedly picked up in a friendly football match.  By 1981 the cancer had spread to his lungs, brain and liver.  He died on May 11, 1981 at Cedars of Lebanon Hospital in Miami Florida.  He was 36 years old.  He is buried in a chapel near his birthplace in Jamaica. 

Luther Vandross was an American R&B and soul singer-songwriter and record producer.  During his career, Vandross sold over twenty-five million albums and won eight Grammy Awards.  Vandross suffered from diabetes and hypertension.  On April 16, 2003, he suffered a stroke at his home in Manhattan.  He appeared briefly on videotape at the 2004 Grammy Awards to accept his Song of the Year award for “Dance With My Father”, co-written with Richard Marx.  Vandross died on July 1, 2005 from a heart attack.  He was 54 years old.  He is buried in George Washington Memorial Park in Paramus, New Jersey.

Andy Gibb was a British/Australian singer, teen idol, and the younger brother of Barry, Robin and Maurice Gibb, the Bee Gees.  Riding the success of the Bee Gees’ Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, Gibb became the first male solo artist to chart three consecutive number one singles on the Billboard Hot 100.  Struggling with drug addition, Gibb died on March 10, 1988 from an inflammation of the heart muscle due to a viral infection.  He was 30 years old.  He is entombed at Forest Lawn Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles, California.

 

Quotes About The Beatles and By The Beatles

"The Beatles are not merely awful. They are so unbelievably horrible, so appallingly unmusical, so dogmatically insensitive to the magic of the art, that they qualify as crowned heads of anti-music." - William F. Buckley Jr.

"We thought that if we lasted for two to three years that would be fantastic." - Ringo Starr

"They were doing things nobody was doing. Their chords were outrageous, just outrageous, and their harmonies made it all valid. Everybody else thought they were for the teenyboppers, that they were gonna pass right away. But it was obvious to me that they had staying power. I knew they were pointing to the direction where music had to go." - Bob Dylan

 

"The Beatles will exist without us." - George Harrison

"I'm really glad that most of our songs were about love, peace and understanding." - Paul McCartney

"Lots of people who complained about us receiving the MBE received theirs for heroism in the war-for killing people. We received ours for entertaining other people. I'd say we deserve ours more." - John Lennon

"At the beginning I was annoyed with [John], jealous because of Yoko, and afraid about the breakup of a great musical partnership. It took me a year to realize they were in love." - Paul McCartney

"One of my great memories of John is from when we were having some argument. I was disagreeing and we were calling each other names. We let it settle for a second and then he lowered his glasses and he said: "It's only me." And then he put his glasses back on again. To me, that was John. Those were the moments when I actually saw him without the facade, the armor, which I loved as well, like anyone else. It was a beautiful suit of armor. But it was wonderful when he let the visor down and you'd just see the John Lennon that he was frightened to reveal to the world." - Paul McCartney

"John had his thing, and Paul had his, and together there were two different things all together. But they fit." - Billy Preston

"The biggest break in my career was getting into the Beatles in 1962. The second biggest break since then was getting out of them." - George Harrison

"You can't be greater than Elvis, change things as much as The Beatles, or be as original as Led Zeppelin. All you can do is rip them off." - Billy Corgan

"I was never quite sure whether George Harrison liked me taking pictures of him, because he usually had such a serious face. But one day he saw me pointing my camera at him, and he started hamming it up by putting tambourines on his head, so I guess he didn't mind...I must say I never really got to know George. We talked a lot and I went down to his house in Esher for meals, but looking back I can't remember what we talked about. I suppose I was so busy getting to know Paul." - Linda McCartney

"George is mainly famous for being the quiet one, which of course is a big joke because he never stops talking..." - Eric Idle