General Music Chat

Just jammed with an accoustic guitarist/lead singer last night. He did a one man act for years in Key West, playing many different genres, all covers. He really has a great voice for blues, reminds me of Huey Lewis. He's interested in collaborating. I also contacted an old musician friend, a harmonica/lead singer who's got an awesome deeper voice (imagine James Earl Jones singing). Our keyboard/lead singer/harmonica player (that's him singing Roadunner on my profile page) is also interested. If we can't find the killer lead guitarist we're going to revamp our approach and feature vocals, vocals, and MORE VOCALS. We will have FOUR bonafide lead singers. All four of us have been the only lead singers in a few bands. Our drummer also sings some lead. This kind of vocal talent is actually scary. There's no end to the possibilities, harmonies. Vocally we'll blow just about any blues band I've ever seen away. The plot thickens...

let me be the first to say good luck, might I suggest your guys who play the harp find ones that play on different sound levels, my dad showed me a few crazy groups from the 50's on youtube that could be interesting, harmonizing vocals and harmonica's holding a bass line and a lead line might be a lil much for blues I'm not real sure its not a genre I'm overly familiar with

I hope it works out for you Bob hopefully you will find that badass geetar player though. 4 part vocal harmonies are so much fun it just tickels my inards when Im singing in one!

Luke, I am your father...in the key of C...a one and a two...

Hey Bob, good luck, sounds like your going to have a fine band. Singing is where it's at....

The best bands I ever heard were the ones that had more than one singer, & they all did great harmonies. With a good blend of voice, you can indeed keep the music very simple, & just let the voices carry it all. I've never been in a band that could have more than three part harmony. Your blossoming new sound will kick some serious butt, bob, & I'm jealous as hell!

Hey Bob, good luck, sounds like your going to have a fine band. Singing is where it's at....

Bob,
Ditto on the first part of what Bobby said!

Bobby,
I don't mean to bust on ya,'Ol Buddy, but what about "The Ventures"?

Howlin'

I went to a Ventures show in the early 80's. I actually didn't really want to go, wasn't really into them too much. The guitarist in my band at the time talked me into going. I have to say it was one of the very best shows I ever went to. I never heard any band sound so FULL. Their bass player (I forget his name) was THE BEST BASS PLAYER I EVER SAW LIVE. They only had one song with any vocals, the rest instrumentals. Anyway I partially agree with Bobby Alan, vocals are extremely important. If you have vocals you may as well have killer vocals. We are auditioning another lead guitarist today. We could end up with a six piece band, electric guitar, rhythm guitar(accoustic), bass, keyboards, harmonica, drums and actually SIX vocalists. We'll have to get a bigger place to rehearse possibly. Later...

Oh yes, the Ventures.. First song I learned to play was, 'Walk Don't Run'..Boy, time sure fly's when your having fun.....
Good luck Fisherman Bob......

Some of Freddie King's instrumentals are a little surfy, so we incorporate Wipeout into Freddie's song Washout. I'd like to actually record that someday. It usually brings the house down when we pull it off just right (it's not easy on the drummer to get the timing changes between the two songs). I must have played nearly every Freddie King instrumental at one time or another. I've also done a few Ventures tunes over the years. Bill Blue had an incredible version of Pipeline slowed down with a full horn section incorporated into it, just awesome stuff really. Instrumentals are way cool, but killer vocals are way cool as well. I've always been in bands that did a few instrumentals every night.

Having been in a couple of bands with 3 or 4 singers, I can tell you it's a lot of work putting all the vocals together, but well worth it. A decent band with 3 good singers doing harmonies all night can blow away a good band with one singer. Every time.

Go for the vocals! That's what the band I played guitar with in Lufkin did, nearly every song we did had some harmony parts, and we had 4 singers who could make it happen. Good harmony vocals get the crowd's attention like nothing else can, they love it. We always pushed the vocals, and when I moved out of state we were starting to work on some really tough songs instrumentally as well, like Styx "Renegade", which we were starting to work on, and we had just put Queen's "Fat Bottom Girls" together but didn't have it fully ready for stage yet. That one's not that tough, but the vocals are not easy. "Seven Bridges Road" was one of our best ones, and I've seen some of the Eagles tunes we did bring tears to people's eyes.

If you have that many singers, and all can handle good harmonies, GO FOR IT...

I'm jealous..

Harmonies are something that will come with time. Our current repertoire really isn't geared towards harmonies so we're going to have to GRADUALLY get into them. I'm more concerned with setting up a repertoire where we can best utilize the different qualities of all the lead singers and keep everyone happy. I'm not an egomaniac front man. I don't have the mentality that I've got to sing every song. I know our harmonica player/lead singer is happy doing whatever. I'm concerned with keeping the new vocalist happy. He's used to being a solo act so I don't know how he's going to do with shared lead singing chores. If we can get our keyboard player to come to rehearsal regularly for a change that's when the harmonies start happening. He played in one of K.C.'s most successful classic rock bands for over a decade and they had a bunch of harmonies in their repertoire. This will be a big change of gears for me. We've got to get everyone up to speed on the originals first which I'm going to try and get them into a pro studio ASAP. Going into this is the most challenge I've had in a long time in this business. I'm looking forward to hitting it HARD this next month. I'm expecting BIG things out of this bunch of pros. NO blues band in K.C. can match us vocally.