Word: pedalers
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Garcia's performance on this album is truly superb, as it has seen on every other Dead recording. His playing seems to be more mature, with fewer of the acid pyrotechnics and a much more reserved, flowing style. He is beginning to show the almost lyrical influence of the pedal steel guitar, especially on the country numbers that the Dead...
...beginning, Beck struck down the barriers of traditional blues that Clapton had built around the group, and almost single-handedly raised the Yardbirds to the status of the avant-garde group of the sixties. He was the first English blues guitarist to make extensive use of the wah-wah pedal and the fuzz box (electronic devices for manipulating the sound of a guitar). Beck's first album with the Yardbirds, A Rave Up, contained three rock classics: "I'm A Man," "You're A Better Man Than I," and "The Train Kept A-Rollin...
...real surprise of the evening, though, was Beck's new version of "I Ain't Superstitious." When Beck first did the song on Truth it was performed in a rough, raunchy fashion with plenty of wah-wah pedal added for effect. In the new version, however, the song is performed as a slow blues number. Cozy Powell, the drummer, was good all night, and was brilliant during this number; Max Middleton, the pianist, showed himself to be every bit as good as Nicky Hopkins. Bob Tench, who was troubled by microphone distortion throughout the evening, also seemed to settle down...
...voice is especially fitted for the Riders' kind of wispy, mournful tunes. Dryden's percussion adds to the tone of the songs without obscuring the foreground. Garcia, as always, is Garcia: often out of tune, occasionally absent-minded, but nevertheless, undisciplinedly great. He shoots off long, sinuous strands of pedal steel, especially in "All I Ever Wanted": his guitar turns a semi-Paul McCartney lament into a really moving love song...
...more exciting and clearer than the Stones' live version. While the Stones' studio "Honky Tonk" is sharp and clean and hard (especially Richard's guitar), the track on "Ya-Yas" is notable chiefly for its all-around muddiness. It's not so with the New Riders--Garcia plays the pedal steel with a wicked clarity that sends every audience I've ever seen into paroxysmic ecstasy. Their version of "The Weight" is similarly superb...