,,,,,,Dimebag Darrel: Gone But Not Forgotten (continued)
By David Giarrizzo

After entering, Niggemeyer, who had no backup, confronted the gunman onstage, where he observed one victim and Gale holding a hostage by the neck. "The officer was able to strategically gun this guy down before he was able to kill his hostage, and it appeared that he was about to kill his hostage," Mull said at a press conference Thursday (December 9). "The suspect had the hostage in a headlock situation and had his firearm out shooting, and it's believed he was about to take his gun to the hostage."

"But the hostage wriggled out of the way slightly, Mull said, and the officer was able to kill the shooter with a single shotgun blast as the hostage escaped uninjured. Police said Gale, whose arrest record lists him as 6 feet 3 inches tall and 225 pounds, used a Beretta 9 mm semiautomatic handgun and reloaded once during the shooting." Gale's prior arrests were all nonviolent, and included driving with a suspended license and trespassing.

Darrel Lance Abbott (Dimebag Darrel), 38, and his brother, Vinnie Paul Abbott, 40, formed Damageplan after the breakup of Pantera -- a group they formed in the 1980s. Their father is Jerry Abbott, a country and western songwriter and producer and owned a recording studio where Abbott watched many blues guitarists play. This early influence can be heard in many of Pantera's songs. At an early age, Abbott began entering statewide guitar competitions. By the age of 16 he was banned from entering because he had won too often. It was through the prizes he won at these competitions — including the guitar that later become his trademark — that he was able to start Pantera. Lead singer of Pantera, Phil Anselmo, said their intention from the start was to "form the most devastating heavy metal band."

Among his other influences were Eddie Van Halen, Ace Frehley, and Randy Rhodes. In addition, he cited many of his contemporaries among his influences, including Slayer's Kerry King , Zakk Wylde, Metallica's James Hetfield, and Helmet Hamilton.His brother Abbott frequently graced the pages of guitar magazines, both in advertisements for equipment he endorsed and in the readers' polls, where he frequented the top ten metal guitarist spots. He authored a long-running Guitar World magazine column, which has been compiled in the book Riffer Madness
His brother, Vinnie, played drums in Pantera. The brothers teamed up with country singer David Allan Coe in a project called "Rebel Meets Rebel". In the aftermath of the Pantera breakup they started a new band, Damageplan with Patrick Lachman and Bobzilla . Their debut album, New Found Power, reached number 38 on the charts in 2004.
Apparently, Gale had a history of mental illness, and, according to his mother, had "claimed years previous to the shootings that lyrics of Pantera were really his." She also informed the press that he kept loaded weapons around the house and had recently received a dishonorable discharge from the U.S.Marines. No note was left, but rumor has it that he was disgruntled over the breakup of Pantera and the formation of Damageplan. Vincent Paul, brother to Darrel,said, "With all his greatness and accomplishments on the guitar, Dime will be missed more for his giving personality, charisma, carnage for others, and most of all his heart."

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The Merle Haggard Story (continued)
By David Giarrizzo

Even though he had begun to pursue music, Haggard continued to rebel, running away with his friend Bob Teague to Texas when he was 14 years old. A few months later, the pair returned to California, where they were arrested as robbery suspects. After the real thieves were caught, Haggard was sent back to juvenile hall, but he and Teague took off to Modesto, CA. For a brief time, he did manual labor, was a short-order cook, drove a truck, and committed a series of small crimes. Soon after he moved to Modesto, Haggard made his performing debut with Teague at a bar named the Fun Center; the two were paid five dollars and given all the beer that they could drink.

By the end of 1951, Haggard had returned home and he was again arrested for truancy, as well as petty larceny. In the beginning of 1952, he was sent to Fred C. Nelles School for Boys in Whittier, CA; again, he ran away. This time, the courts decided he was incorrigible and sent him to the high-security Preston School of Industry; he was released after 1blishment was still open. Although the trio fled the scene, Haggard was arrested that day. The following day, he escaped from prison in order to make peace with his wife and family; later5 months. Shortly after his release, he and a boy he met at PSI beat up a local boy during an attempted robbery, and Haggard was sent back to PSI.

After getting out of PSI for the second time, Haggard had the first major event in his musical career. He went with Teague to see Lefty Frizzle in concert in Bakersfield. Before the show, he went backstage with several friends and he sang a couple songs for Frizzle.  Lefty was so impressed he refused to go on-stage until Haggard was allowed to sing a song. Merle went out and sang a few songs to an enthusiastic response from the audience.  Yet, even with the acceptance of his idol, Merle continued the path of self destruction .

 While he was working during the day in oil fields and farms, he performed at local Bakersfield clubs. His performances led to a spot on a local television show, Chuck Wagon. In 1956, he married Leona Hobbs; the couple moved into his family's old converted boxcar. Throughout 1957, Haggard was plagued by financial problems, which made him turn to robbery. At the end of the year, he attempted to rob a restaurant along with two other burglars; the three were drunk at the time. Believing it was three o'clock in the morning, the trio tried to open up the back door of the restaurant. However, it was 10:30 and the establishment was still open. Although the trio fled the scene, Haggard was arrested that day. The following day, he escaped from prison in order to make peace with his wife and family; later5 months. Shortly after his release, he and a boy he met at PSI beat up a local boy during an attempted robbery, and Haggard was sent back to PSI. That day, he was recaptured. Haggard was sentenced to a 15-year term and sent to San Quentin prison.that day, he was recaptured. Haggard was sentenced to a 15-year term and sent to San Quentin prison.

Nearly two years into his sentence, Haggard discovered that his wife was pregnant with another man's child. The news sent Haggard over the edge. Soon, he and his cellmate began a gambling racket and brewing beer in their cell. Before long, Haggard was caught drunk and was placed in isolation for a week. During his time in isolation, he had several conversations with Caryl Chessman, an author and a member of death row. The conversations and the time in isolation convinced Haggard to turn his life around. After he left isolation, he began working in the prison's textile plant and took some high school equivalency courses; he was also allowed to play in the prison's country band. At his second parole hearing in 1960, Haggard was given a five-year sentence -- two years and nine months in jail, two years and three months on parole; he left prison 90 days later.

Flash forward. After almost fifty years of playing hit songs in the finest halls, for two US Presidents, receiving 18 awards from the ACM, including male voclalist of the year, and to top that off, had requests for songs on the Apollo 16 mission. He is revered by Rock stars and Country stars alike. His genuine style of singing from the soul reaches out to you. The man is a legend, and he was gracing us with his family and friends for an intimate evening of perhaps the most genuine American music alive, "Old School Country."

The John Van Duzen Theater is a moderate theater, seating a couple hundred people. It was built about the same time Merle was gaining popularity amongst the severely commercialized hippy erea. (They even got Tricky Dick to say "Sock it to me?," on Laugh In) I remember the sixties because I was a pre-teen and the underground psychedelia was surfacing more and more  on television, in the clothing stores, and on the binders of my classmates who, for some un-godly reason, thought Daisies and Smily faces were cool. This small, drafty theater with no lighting booth (just spot lights mounted behind the balcony seats) and barely the capacity to make a trip up here worth while to a 72 year old legend and his family of extremely talented players. But this was just the tip of the iceberg.

The opening act was the Noel Haggard Band, Merle's oldest son and his brother Bennie on lead. These guys were so nice, they didn't even flinch when the vocals were down too low and the instruments mixed loud.  This became a theme for the evening as each act came up to the stage only to battle the evil Feedback monster with the haphazardly placed monitor speakers.  They played some great standards, which is the best way to describe them.  The Haggards were joined by a pair of Elvis clones, clad in black embroidered jump suits, the Malpass Brothers sang as sweet as the Everly brothers. They laughed about the monitors, saying "We really don't like our own voices, so you can turn them (the monitors) down."

Despite the challenges, they put on a good show doing an upbeat version of "Hello Wall" and many others.During the intermission, you might think the sound person would have figured out the problem with the monitors and the microphone placement. But, no. I was livid in my seat as the rest of the evening progressed even worse.  By the time Merle sang through one song with the bats of Micheal Moore Jr's crappy monitor speakers, the man stopped and looks at the audience. "The best sound between Fort Bragg and Crescent City? If I had know it was this bad, I would have brought my own PA! I men, we have been playing together for 30 years and ever since we started using monitors, our sound has gone to hell, Lets just shut them off and see what happens?" From then on, the sound was great, the vocals were heard, the bats were gone.  Merle even gave us an encore with "Okie From Muskogee." The audience was pleased and warmed by his stories , occasionally getting in a pot comment or two. He even put it to a vote whether or not Pot should be legalized. The nays had it. Surprisingly, I saw many young faces in the audience. It seems a new generation is appreciating the classic Country melodies and leaving Billy Ray Cyrus in the dust. Cool.

The Merle Haggard Band is: Merle Haggard-vocals, guitar, fiddle, Theresa Haggard -vocals Biff Adam -drums,     Doug Colosio -keyboards, Bennie Haggard -guitar, Norm Hamlet-steel -dobro, Tim Howard-sings -lead guitar

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Jazz, It All Started Here
Make it Funky/New Orleans
by David Giarrizzo

Make It Funky” is subtitled “…It All Began In New Orleans.” That’s a bold statement to make, especially right off the bat, but the film isn’t really about proving the exact roots of American music. It’s more like a brash statement made by an excited fan, as if in answer to all those other recent concert films that celebrated Philadelphia, Memphis, Detroit. And, unintentionally and coincidentally, the film’s video release date makes that statement all the more powerful, a defiant stand against the devastation, as if to say the city will never die, because you hear all that music around you? It all started here.

New Orleans's culture is a rich and varied amalgam of multiple influences from around the world, and it is here that African, Caribbean, and rhythm & blues meet to form the infectious sounds of Southern funk music. This documentary explores what funk music means to a wealth of luminaries and proponents, including Keith Richards--who extolls the virtues of all things New Orleans--Bonnie Raitt, Earl Palmer, Snooks Eaglin, Allen Toussaint, Irma Thomas, and the Neville Brothers. Live concert footage is combined with engaging interviews, and archive footage that features Professor Longhair and Fats Domino. The climactic, explosive concert, held in New Orleans on April 27, 2004, features a lineup of over 80 artists playing a range of styles, including jazz, brass band, blues, and the music of Mardi Gras "Indians." In another of the program's highlights, Keith Richards covers Fats Domino's "I'm Ready," accompanied by Earl Palmer and Walter "Wolfman" Washington

"Make It Funky: the music that took over the world" is a musical tribute to New Orleans, and while its release a scant month after Katrina may look like shameless exploitation, this project had been in the works for some time. Just as ironically, more than any of the numerous news specials or magazine features about the disaster, this DVD captures the full magnitude of what was lost the day the hurricane weakened levees that flooded most of the city. It also hints at why residents will stubbornly rebuild right where they are, no matter what the national opinion.

While, admittedly, the city's virtual destruction makes this a more powerful and poignant film, "Make It Funky" would be a fascinating and thorough documentary no matter what the circumstances. Director Michael Murphy manages to avoid the scattershot "sampler" feel that many music-centered documentaries have, presenting what feels like a full and rich explanation of how music is an integral part of life in New Orleans, and how different musical styles evolved, blended, and mutated in the cosmopolitan city. It's completely as advertised: "a musical gumbo of New Orleans rock, rhythm, and jazz."
The film is at its best when detailing the history of the city, explaining how the area’s unfiltered fusion of cultures brought in a wide variety of styles, which, when combined with the community’s affinity for music (it seems to be soaked right down to the bone with locals), helped form an indefinable but instantly recognizable sound. We even get Keith Richards explaining how in England, all American music sounded the same - except, of course, for New Orleans music.

The film continues the trend kicked off by such concert documentaries as “Standing In the Shadows of Motown” and “Only the Strong Survive.” Like those films, “Funky” blends electric concert footage with an in-depth retrospective of the featured genre - in this case, it’s the history of music in New Orleans. It’s a hard genre to pin down, really; when one participant calls the city’s eclectic mix of jazz, blues, soul, R&B, funk, and rock a “gumbo,” he may be using a cliché, but he’s also so very right. No single type of music reigns in the Big Easy (in fact, late in the film, we’re reminded that musicians who work here don’t think of themselves as genre musicians; they’re not jazz musicians or blues musicians or rock musicians, they’re simply musicians).

The thread that visually and musically runs through "Make It Funky" is a 2004 concert that celebrates the city's rich musical heritage, pays tribute to aging legends, and draws musical testimonies from Bonnie Raitt and Keith Richards. By itself, the concert is great—and it's an option to watch the concert footage in one lively chunk, separate from the documentary. Musican after musician takes the stage with a simple but colorful backdrop and gorgeous photography that captures the performers from multiple camera angles, including some penetrating close-ups. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then shots of legendary drummer Earl Palmer, who's the most recorded drummer in continental history, speaks volumes. Palmer sits at his drums and misses nary a beat, though close-ups reveal that he has a tube in his nose feeding him oxygen from a bag stashed behind him. That's how big a part music plays in the lives of these performers.

It's tough finding musicians articulate enough to explain not only what their music is about, but also what performers and styles have influenced them. There have been a number of documentaries on the Chicago blues, for example, but I have yet to see one which actually explains what constitutes Chicago blues—what makes it different from Mississippi Delta blues, St. Louis blues, or New Orleans blues. But director Murphy finds people who are able to explain—and in some cases, illustrate—exactly what distinguishes New Orleans "funk" and other styles. The talking heads on this documentary are flat-out fascinating, and to have one of them demonstrate the "triplets" that Fats Domino played, but in a lower register than usual, we're able to understand in a nutshell how a simple shift can result in a distinctive sound. Domino is shown playing "Let the Four Winds Blow," while Professor Longhair is shown performing "Big Chief."

The concert itself is festive and spirited, though the audience—of mixed race, like the performers—takes a while to rise from their reverence of the performers and cut loose in their seats. For the most part, the songs are complete—which, again, is a rarity for documentaries. The concert opens with "Trumpet Kid," featuring a host of trumpeters showing their chops. Then "Skokiaan," with Irvin Mayfield and a number of other musicians, followed by a stand-and-boogie rendition of "My Feet Can't Fail Me Now," performed by the Dirty Dozen Blues Band. After that, it's Mardi Gras time, with Monk Boudreaux and the Golden Eagles Mardi Gras Indians performing the classic "Sew-Sew-Sew." Pianist Allen Toussaint is joined by Jon Cleary and others for "Tipitina," then does "Southern Nights" with his orchestra and "Old Records" with Irma Thomas.While not as jaw-dropping as that of, say, the blues tribute “Lightning In a Bottle,” there are still enough awe-inducing moments to make this well worth your while. The self-proclaimed gumbo of the city is on display, as the concert coordinators work to include as wide a mix as possible. Small bands, large bands, a quiet piano duet, a house-shaking rocker led by guitar legend Snooks Eaglin. The Golden Eagle Mardi Gras Indians bring some native culture to the audience. Archive footage of Professor Longhair allows the movie watcher to taste what local flavor the concertgoer could not.

There is a section in the DVD main menue where you can watch the concert only. But if you watch the entire documentary—and I heartily recommend that you do, in order to better appreciate what these folks are celebrating onstage—you'll see not just a parade of talking heads sharing their insights. You'll also see shots of Mardi Gras Indians performing on the streets, street bands playing at random hours and for no particular reason, showdowns and jams at jazz and blues clubs, shots of the fabled jazz funerals, and stories from residents about the constant music they heard in New Orleans, regardless of the neighborhood. For all of them, music is life, and life is music, you'll come to understand.

Combined with the study of the musical history is a look at the social and racial issues of the past century. We learn how black musicians, denied insurance elsewhere, teamed up to form their own club, who then worked to help each other out. We hear how disc jockeys were fired in other towns for playing “black music” but found a welcoming home in New Orleans. We ache at the memory of bigotry that divided the South, and we cheer at the strength some had to stand up to it.

The musical tour also takes you to landmark sites, such as the J&M Music Shop where the first recording studio opened in New Orleans, and it became a hangout for musicians. You also get plenty of history on race relations, with anecdotes by more than a few musicians attesting that arrests were common if blacks played with whites—but they all gravitated toward each other because they wanted to play with each other, and learn from each other. Segregation be damned, the musicians were going to come together.

The final ingredient here is praise. As the city’s musical history unfolds, we’re introduced to many of its best players, who spend most of their time talking about how great other players are. It’s a back-slapping parade on display, but hey, these folks deserve it. The compliments are endless, but it’s all done in forwarding the history, and so the stories told here act as a friendly introduction to any newcomer to this musical scene, and as a welcome trip down memory lane for the lifetime fans.

The final ingredient here is praise. As the city’s musical history unfolds, we’re introduced to many of its best players, who spend most of their time talking about how great other players are. It’s a back-slapping parade on display, but hey, these folks deserve it. The compliments are endless, but it’s all done in forwarding the history, and so the stories told here act as a friendly introduction to any newcomer to this musical scene, and as a welcome trip down memory lane for the lifetime fans

by David Giarrizzo

Christmas in Frisco, the crowds fill the street, the guy on the corner plays a bass and his brother has a three piece trap to keep the beat. Macy's is packed, the sidewalk is cracked, and there is no shortage of places to eat. Ally, Hawkeye and I step out of the Drake and heed the call of the night. "Taxi!" read more

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This years " Blues By the Bay "festival comprised of some of the
best acts on the circuit. Glen Maxon who has been in charge for the past
few years did a 360 degree turn from last years event...
read more

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This years headliner for Eureka’s Blues by the Bay , John Mayall simply amazed me how agile and witty a man he is for his age. I think he plans to keep the blues alive for many more years to come. read more

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