I have just learned of the death of Gerry Rafferty. Rafferty Was born in Scotland in 1947. He first started out with the band Stealers Wheel who is most known for the hit Stuck in the Middle with You. After he departed from Stealers he had a successful solo career with the album City to City which in 1978 went to one on the charts with the hits Baker Street and Right down the line. After City to City he released seven more albums. Gerry Rafferty died at the age of 63 on 4 January 2011 of liver failure.

The first concert I saw was The Rolling Stones back in 2005 for the bigger bang tour at the Xcel Energy center in St. Paul. My uncle plays with the band in the horn section on trumpet so went back stage to the Rattlesnake Inn. While I was there I met most of the back up band and they signed the large Tongue on my shirt. Then trombonist Michael Davis came up to me because my uncle had told him that I was learning the trombone in school. So he gave me a copy of Brass Buzz a  music book,CD and DVD he made for those learning the trombone. I thanked him. I drank lots and lots of coke that night. A few minutes later  I looked around and saw drummer Charlie Watts. My uncle brought him  over and I said my name and asked him to sign my shirt which he did. Then we shook hands and I thanked him.After that my uncle told us he knew someone who could get us good deals on shirts. When the guy came we picked out are shirts. Sadly I've  out grown mine. But the signed shirt sits on my wall but I had take it down because the sun was wrecking it. Then we said good by to my uncle after he handed us the set list and headed towards are seats.

I was just getting into music so I did not know many of their songs. They started out by playing Start Me Up then some more of there classics such as She's So Cold,Tumbling Dice and Beast Of Burden. They also played stuff from the new album like Infamy,Back of My Hand and Rough Justice. Then after the classic song Miss You they played one more new song Oh No, Not You Again. Then it was back to the classics Satisfaction,Honky Tonk Women,Sympathy For The Devil,Jumping Jack Flash,Brown Sugar,You Can't Always Get What You Want and they finished off the night with It's Only Rock'n Roll. This might be their last tour. Great show!!! They rocked!!!

I have been listing to Paul Revere and The Raiders album Kicks-(1963-1972) The Anthology. Before listing to this album I had only heard two of their songs Indian Reservation and there cover of Louie Louie. This song was covered  by many bands from the Northwest including The Kingsmen,The Sonics,The Wailers and many others. I think that they were trying to copy the sounds of the British Invasion because if you listen to some of there songs they sound like those of The Beatles,The Rolling Stones and The Animals. Some of the songs also have a bit of a Monkees, Steppenwolf and Beach Boys  sound to them. You can really hear the Beach Boys sound in the song Action. Most of their songs are cheerful and upbeat like The Beatles and Monkees. This album also has some very cheesy love songs like Birds Of A Feather,Cinderella Sunshine and Mo'reen. Some of the songs off this album I'd recommend are Kicks,Just Like Me,Ballad Of A Useless Man and Country Wine. Mainly because of the guitar riffs.

Rumors/Fleetwood Mac

The second album I listened to was Rumors by Fleetwood Mac it is a great album because it has many of there best songs such as "Go your own way","Don't Stop","Dreams" and "You make loving fun". All four of these songs made it in the top ten on the U.S. charts with go your own way at 10. don't stop at 3. You make loving fun at 9. and dreams at number 1. Say you love me off of there previous album Fleetwood Mac came in short of the top ten at number 11. Rumors would go on to win the Grammy for album of the year. This album has went on to become the 10th biggest selling album in America as well as the 10th biggest selling in the world. This album is one I would recommend to all music lovers.

CityToCity/GerryRafferty

Over the weekend I listened to 2 albums One was City to City by former Stealer's Wheel member Gerry Rafferty best known for there hit "stuck in the middle with you". The album features the hit Baker Street which has great sax played by Raphael Ravenscroft who has played with such artists as Abba,Pink Floyd and Robert Plant. Another Classic song and the other single from the album Right Down the Line. I found this at my mom's house mixed in with some other gems The smoker you drink the player you get by Joe Walsh and the best of America two really great albums. I would recommend all 3. Here is the original video for Baker Street.

RUSH AT THE FAIR!!!

Last night I went to see Rush at the Minnesota state fair grandstand. It was one hell of a show. All though out the night they played stuff from there new album Clockwork Angels and also stuff from the 1981 classic Moving Pictures such as Limelight and Tom Sawyer. They had amazing videos for most of the songs and awesome pyrotechnics. I wish they would have played my favorite song Fly by Night. But they did play some of my other favorites such as Freewill and a weird version Working Man where it started out more relaxed and mellow but then midway though they burst back into the original version which was really cool. It was also Alex Lifeson's 57th Birthday and as a present the crew and band go him a very long corndog and a porkchop on a stick. The drum solo by the greatest living drummer Neil Pert was incredible because it was 8 minutes long it had a cool video to go along with it and in that video I could see pictures of Big band drummer Gene Krupa. I liked the jazzy solo alot to bad that when I recorded it it did not turn out to well.Then at the end we decided to wait for the fire works because we were not in any rush to leave. During the fireworks I released the Tom Emmer for Governor balloon with the hope of it getting destroyed by the fireworks but sadly it just floated the other way. Here is Geddy early on in the show.

Crossroads

On Tuesday I went to Eden Praire AMC theather to see Eric Clapton's Crossroads guitar festival from Chicago. It had every blues and rock preformer you could think of.Buddy Guy,Sonny Landreth,Ronnie Wood,Jeff Beck,Johnny Lang, ZZtop and of course B.B King. The first act was Eric Clapton and one of my favorite guitar players Sonny Landreth. I can tell about all the acts but I will tell you about my favorites.ZZtop played some stuff from Tres Hombres such as Waitin' for the Bus. There was also Vince Gill and Sheryl Crow plus a few others doing Eric's classic lay down sally which was good. Eric doing Voodoo Child with former Blind Faith band member Steve Winwood was awesome as well. Then Wood,Guy and Lang all did a song on stage which was good.
Then at the end they played Sweet home Chicago with Lang,King,Wood,Guy,Cray,Beck and Winter who is very sick. Here is a picture of ZZtops Bass player Dusty Hill when they were showing still pictures of the festival before the show .