Roses was the department store at the Knollwood St. end of Thruway Shopping Center, my childhood hang. I paid probably $2.49 for each album.They both killed me.
Antithetical style. Albert's long slow phrases. Johnny's hyperactivity. Albert's got his Flying V. Johnny is playing a Fender Mustang, I think. Albert's got Booker T and the MG's backing him up. Johnny has his longtime bassist and drummer, just as jacked as him.
I wanted to sound like both of them, fast like Johnny and soulful like Albert, but probably came nowhere close at twelve to either. What I heard them play, I liked and tried to emulate but never really sit down and learn note-for-note. I was of a mind that you couldn't do that with the blues, that it had to be emotion-driven immediacy. That attitude cost me a lot of shitty sounding solos in off-the-cuff situations. Still does, sometimes, but I'm a better planner after forty years.
Today, I'd say bank on the Albert and check out the Johnny to get if you like.
1 comment:
I totally remember buying albums at Roses, before I discovered Reznick's, or probably before Reznick's made it to Thruway! Yes, they were very inexpensive, and well worth the $, but, then again, that was a LOT of money to a teen/preteen in those days...thanks for the memories, Peter.
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