John Coltrane,
Pete Seeger,
Staple Singers,
Ali Akbar Khan,
Hamza El Din,
Scottish Bagpipes,
Handal,
Bach,
Thelonious Monk,
Charlie Parker,
Billie Holiday,
King Floyd,
James Brown,
George Jones,
Joe Cuba,
Johnny Pacheco and Celia Cruz,
Milt Jackson,
Leadbelly,
Woody Guthrie,
Ornette Coleman,
Don Cherry,
Luis Bonfa,
Before there was "world music" or "fusion," there was Sandy Bull.
Bull was immediately established as the ultimate eclecticist, whose albums combined a wild assortment of genres and traditions, from Chuck Berry to Bach, from fourteenth-century ballades to salsa and samba to Indian, African, and Middle Eastern music. His instruments eventually included oud, sarod, six-string bass, pedal steel, and drums as well as guitar and banjo. But the core of Bull's genius wasn't versatility, virtuosity, or even his eclecticism; it was his rage to synthesize. Bach on banjo, bossa nova on oud, and especially raga on guitar: It was imaginative transgressions such as these, with their intermixing in works like "Blend," that made him a true original and a seminal influence on far more famous musicians who followed, among them Jimi Hendrix, Steve Winwood, Patti Smith and Bob Dylan. His style was a precursor to those of Leo Kottke, John Fahey, and Ralph Towner; his groundbreaking use of open tunings foreshadowed Joni Mitchell, Stephen Stills, and the power chords of Keith Richards.
After 1964, Bull was taken down by a heroin habit. He didn't return to the style and tuning of "Blend" and "Blend 2" for twenty years, and by that time he was all but forgotten as a musician. His performances became notorious nonperformances, incoherent, stumbling, and solipsistic. Patti Smith wrote, "It was the strangest thing I ever saw. His sense of space and time was slightly science fiction. A leftover junk space." In 1968, an outraged Grover Sales wrote a devastating piece entitled "Goodbye Sandy Bull" and soon rumors began to circulate that Bull had died. Patti Smith again: "Some said he was dead, car crash. 3 notches under James Dean. Some say his end was more decadent. More Paris in the twenties. Slain in some alley. A fizzled goofball brain." Ben Fong-Torres wrote a piece on Bull in Rolling Stone in 1970 entitled "Hey, I Thought You Were Dead."
Sandy Bull was not dead. He kicked his habit in 1974 and made a comeback of sorts playing oud in Dylan's Rolling Thunder Revue in 1975. But after recording his last album for Vanguard, aptly called Demolition Derby, in 1972, he didn't release another recording for sixteen years. He remained a restless and innovative outsider on the music scene, eventually moving closer to his Americanist roots and settling outside Nashville in the early nineties. But his early recordings went out of print and his later ones were largely ignored. The impact of those first two albums, which he recorded between the ages of twenty-one and twenty-three, would never be repeated, and scarcely remembered.
-Bill Wadsworth
Great Pattie Smith Article: http://www.sandybull.net/patti.html
Stopping by to say hello and say I hope you have a great weekend, both Rose and I love Sandy's music and always have one of his CD's in our car player, many times Blend is the only song I'll play when driving, it's a wonderful song to travel to. Be well, Ebin-Rose
Thanks for the add. I used to have that first record, wonder where it vanished to? Anyhow, here's some contemporary eclecticism of a sort by Jeff's protege, Lex Browning.
Thanks so much whoever you are!! btw do you take requests? Any chance of you posting Sandy's version of Ray Charles "What I Say"? All my CD's are in a locker in CA. Thanks agin in any case!
The slingers and I are currently in the planning stages of a fall euro tour for GR, fall euro tour for the slingers, and an early spring US slingers tour. Currently looking for other acts to join the tours; shoot me a message via the contacts below if interested. Mammoth Wave is also always looking for new artists to work with so get in touch if we can be of assistance.
best,
Shawn Glover Mammoth Wave Media 237 E. 11th Ave. Columbus, OH 43201 (419)-205-7377 shawnglover@gmail.com mammothwave@gmail.com twitter.com/MOTCA
