Word: guitarists
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DIED. Bill Haley, 55, singer and guitarist who combined blues, country and pop influences into a pioneering rock-'n'-roll style on such hit records of the 1950s as Rock Around the Clock, Shake, Rattle and Roll and See You Later, Alligator; presumably of a heart attack; in Harlingen, Texas. Haley and his band, the Comets, continued to tour the U.S. and Europe during the '60s and early '70s, but he was overshadowed by later rock performers whom he had influenced, including Elvis Presley and the Beatles...
Gaucho, its newest release, is typical Steely Dan. It sports a hit single, and Becker and Fagen once again play bass and sing, and co-write all the songs. The "finest studio musicians around," including Dire Straits' guitarist Mark Knopfler and veteran hornmen the Brecker Brothers, Tom Scott and David Sanborn again make appearances. Steely Dan isn't a band, it's a conglomerate. On one cut, sixteen musicians are listed. The result, which lacks the breadth of most big band music, sounds neither spontaneous nor energetic...
Then Bruce and the E Street Band tore into Springsteen's own anthem, Born to Run, making it clear that playing was the best thing to do. Guitarist Steve Van Zandt let the tears roll down his face, and Organist Danny Federici hit the board so hard he broke a key. By the second verse, the song turned into a challenge the audience was happy to accept: "I wanna know love is wild, I wanna know love is real," Springsteen yelled and they yelled back. By the end, it sounded like redemption John Lennon knew that sound...
...Talking Heads album is called Remain In Light. There's a nice computer graphic on the back, showing Russian warplanes over a mountain range. You can tell that the original members of the band--Byrne, guitarist and keyboard player Jerry Harrison (late of Harvard), Bassist Tina Weymouth and Drummer Chris Frantz--met in art school. They're joined on this album by Adrian Belew, Jose Rossy, Jon Hassel, Nona Hendryx and the omnipresent Eno. Robert Palmer is among the many given credit for percussion but he probably just hit a bottle with a spoon on one song...
That particular address may be way across town from where the best rock dwells, but the Doobies are flourishing anyway. Guitarist Pat Simmons, the only surviving original Doobie, keeps the group together and resents the oft-repeated criticism that the Doobies are a band musically at war within itself, between the raffishness of the old days and the calculated worldliness of McDonald's songs and his goose-down singing voice. "The Doobies are one band!" he shouted from a concert stage last year. Now, instead of yelling at the audience, he jumps down into the crowd, Springsteen style...