Johnny Marr: “There are things that can be done with an acoustic guitar and a voice that I find more interesting and more expressive than standing on stage with four geezers in leather jackets.”
Johnny Marr: “There are things that can be done with an acoustic guitar and a voice that I find more interesting and more expressive than standing on stage with four geezers in leather jackets.”
I wonder if that means he’s working on a more stripped down, folky sort of album? I’d love to hear something like that.
Yeah, his acoustic version of that Dylan song on that Uncut comp (or whatever) was really cool. I wonder what he’ll do next…
that is weird that he did a Dylan song because it sounded like he was slagging Dylan in the article. “using a large vocabulary to say nothing”… maybe he was referring to MUSICAL vocabulary and not LYRICAL vocabulary.
I’d love to hear him take a stripped down folky approach too. I would love to hear what he wants to communicate in taking that approach. Obviously he has hit what he has aimed for before, many a time, just like that analogy where he said he was aiming for the spirit of that Del Shannon song.
I just hope he can still write good songs, from what I have heard the songs on the Healers album just weren’t good songs.
This really makes me want to hear some Pentangle, Incredible String Band, and particularly that Sunburnt Hand of Man record. Read a review of that on Pitchfork that made me think it would be up my alley.
On the folk rock tip, I think Fred Neil has a pretty interesting sound and some good songs. A lot of people have covered “The Dolphins”. That there is a song wiht a message!
“On the folk rock tip, I think Fred Neil has a pretty interesting sound and some good songs. A lot of people have covered “The Dolphins”. That there is a song wiht a message!”
Johnny Marr even…The the covered “Dolphins” on the Shades of Blue EP.
“I just hope he can still write good songs, from what I have heard the songs on the Healers album just weren’t good songs.”
Maybe that’s what Marr realized. His strong point has been his pop-centered songwriting and guitar work, which unfortunately I think he lost a little bit of with The Healers. I’d be really interested to see what he could come up with, with a more stripped down kind of set.
He’s still the greatest guitarist who ever lived. Period.
“He’s still the greatest guitarist who ever lived. Period.”
I used to feel that way. But I don’t anymore. He came up with a lot of great parts and everything, sure. But Mississippi John Hurt was doing all that great fingerpicking magic (my fave JM stuff, like on the live version of “Some Girls Are Bigger”) forty-some years before Marr was even born. It took me years and years to realize that Mississippi John Hurt was the source of all my favorite guitar styles from Johnny Marr to Jeff Tweedy to Tom Waits’ early years.
Yes, but Johnny Marr does have an amazing ability to weave multiple melody lines with his finger picking. While he’s not the first to try the style, he’s left his mark on it.
Yeah, I agree with that. I’m just saying how surprised I was the first time I listened to Mississippi John Hurt how this old “blues” guy had been doing that same multiple-melody “I can’t believe that’s only one guy with only ten fingers” thing way back in the day.
Everybody who loves that style of guitar playing should go out and pick up [url=http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000009NLR/gloriousnoise-20]Rediscovered[/url] today!