Willie Simpson

Tag: willie simpson

  • Pink Floyd, Money, Live 8

    As we have been progressing with chronological normality through Pink Floyd’s career during “Pink Floyd Week,” the video clips have matched the time in which the songs were produced.  Now that we have reached the seminal Pink Floyd record, Dark Side of the Moon, an album about madness and time, I figured we’d jump ahead…

  • Pink Floyd, Echoes, Live at Pompeii

    Pink Floyd has some lengthy songs.  I think most of the time, it sounds like they rode in on a long traveling cosmic wave from Neptune.  They made sure to reflect the journey accurately with long gentle harmonized verses and guitar solos that surge and bend like celestial orbits.  “Echoes,” from the 1970 album Meddle,…

  • Pink Floyd, Cymbaline

    So, despite their love for the man, Syd was barred from entering Abbey Road studios when Pink Floyd was recording.  Syd went on to do a few slapped together solo records, with Roger and Dave actually helping with the production, and then Syd entered oblivion, thus propelling his cult like status to mythic proportions.  In…

  • Syd Barrett, Pink Floyd, Jugband Blues

    Welcome to the unassuming beginning of Pink Floyd Week here at williesimpson.com.  My good friend Andrew Lee turned me on to this fantastic early Pink Floyd video of Syd Barrett’s last major contribution to the bands creative identity, “Jugband Blues,” from 1968’s A Saucerful of Secrets.  It makes sense that Barrett, now driving head first…

  • The Sex Pistols, God Save the Queen

    At last we get to see Sid Vicious performing with the band.  In my last Sex Pistols post, it was Glen Matlock in the promo vid for “Anarchy in the UK.”  It’s probably not Sid playing bass on the actual track, but its cool to see the icon of the group thrashing about in this…

  • AC/DC, High Voltage

    High Voltage is my favorite AC/DC album, and the song “High Voltage” is one of my favorite songs on there.  I think its a near perfect rock and roll song, the only thing nicking it up for me is the pre-chorus when Bon Scott chants, “HIGH…HIGH…HIGH…”  Always sounded a bit cheesy to me, but goddamn…

  • Bob Marley, Three Little Birds

    It’s always easy to return to the master of reggae, one Mr. Bob Marley, and this time I have his timeless classic “Three Little Birds” from Exodus.  I always think of this song when trying to convince somebody of Bob’s overall songwriting genius.  I’ll put it simply; this song is as good as anything the…

  • Eric Clapton, Have You Ever Loved a Woman

    The incredible and sweaty bluesman you see in the beginning is Freddie King.  Don’t be confused, this is a Clapton video, but its culled from a never released Martin Scorsese PBS documentary on Clapton’s heroes called, “Nothing But the Blues.”  Well, it was shown, but never released on DVD, one of the mysteries of modern…

  • Chet Atkins, Mr. Sandman, Mrs. Robinson

    So one day, on a crummy radio in the 1940s, Chet Atkins was listening to Merle Travis play guitar.  He thought for sure that what Merle was doing was picking with his thumb and two fingers, because if he was just using his thumb and index finger, it would have been impossible.  It turned out…

  • Les Paul and Mary Ford, The World Is Waiting for the Sunrise

    I thought it appropriate to segue from one guitar god to another, this time to Les Paul.  For those who don’t know, old Les was one of the pioneers of electric guitar rock, inventing his own solid body guitar in 1940, arguably the first ever.  He tried selling the design to Gibson, but they rejected…