While My Guitar Gently Weeps
While My Guitar Gently Weeps
Artist: Various Artists
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If you like guitars, buy this!What an absolutely stunning album. Not a single track that I didn’t like. Never before has so much guitar playing talent been assembled on one album, its just a shame they missed Hank Marvin off. With a Fender Strat (admittedly cream in colour not Fiesta Red) on the cover you almost expect something from the great man himself or The Shadows!?! Other than that minor gripe the only other flaw in my opinion is the inclusion of Texas’ ‘I don’t want a lover’. Don’t get me wrong, I like Texas a lot (I’ve got several of their albums) but this track just doesn’t seem to fit in the playlist. Can’t help but think it should have been ‘Wondeful Land’ or ‘Apache’ in there. No input from Brian May or Status Quo either but I guess the mood is more chilled out than they would cater for. Still, don’t let this stop you from buying what is a magnificent collection of tunes. Stand out tracks for me are Santana’s ‘Samba Pa Ti’, Peter Frampton’s ‘Show Me The Way’, Robert Plant’s ‘Big Log’, Lynyrd Skynyrd’s ‘Sweet Home Alabama’, Boston’s ‘More Than A Feeling’ (the reason I bought the album!) and J.J.Cale’s ‘Cocaine’. Amazingly I had only heard one of these tracks before - honest! I did recognise around half of the album. Seriously, if you want to drift off with purely magical tones and riffs this is where it’s at - buy it, you won’t be dissapointed if you’ve bothered to read all through this! I’m so inspired, I’m off to buy a guitar.
Eclectic and indifferent
Wile several tracks on this album are excellent examples of guitar work, most are not. It is an eclectic mixture spanning several popular styles, but most of the ‘classic’ guitar tracks are from the world of heavy rock. As a fan of that style, it’s rather nice to see such tracks being included, but there are much better examples than many of those exampled here… I’m wondering why there is nothing from Deep Purple, for example, or Steppenwolf? Where are The Rolling Stones, who certainly knew how to put a great R&B riff together. Why is there nothing from the world of country in this collection? John Denver could make an acoustic guitar sing, Joni Mitchel’s Big Yellow Taxi is absent yet is one of the liveliest pieces of acoustic work on record, and Bachmann Turner Overdrive’s You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet is noticeable by its absence.
So it’s a strange and limited mixture of tracks with no real theme to hold it together, despite its title. And if you’re going to call an album While My Guitar Gently Weeps, at least the title track should be by the late, great George Harrison himself (even if Eric Clapton did play it on the recording).
Footnote: it’s JOHN Lodge with Justin Hayward on Blue Guitar..
Shines Silently
What, “While My Guitar…” without George Harrison? The answer is a resounding YES as Jeff Healey’s version is far superior to all other versions of this song I have heard, including the original.
As for the rest of the album, it’s a bluesier collection than most compilations, featuring corkers by Prince, Big Country and Dire Straits. It has a lot more soul than most collections and in my opinion is perfect for night time listening. Yes, there are omissions (such as Stevie Ray Vaughan and Albert King), but songs by Robert Cray, JJ Cale and Snowy White more than make up for what’s not there.
I personally recommend it whole-heartedly.