Joe Satriani - ...and on guitar (2020)

Joseph Satriani was born in Westbury on 15 July 15 1956 and raised in Carle Place, and he started playing guitar at 14, after being inspired by hearing of the death of Jimi Hendrix, and later taking lessons from jazz musicians Lennie Tristano and Billy Bauer. He enrolled in Five Towns College and also began teaching guitar, taking his first notable student in Steve Vai, a musician who would soon be credited with "stunt guitar" on Frank Zappa records. Satriani headed out to Berkeley, California in 1978, supporting himself through teaching, and beginning to gig with local bands, and over the next few years he racked up what would prove to be an impressive roster of pupils, including Kirk Hammett (who would join Metallica), jazz fusion guitarist Charlie Hunter, Larry LaLonde (later of Primus), Kevin Cadogan (who joined Third Eye Blind), and David Bryson (Counting Crows). During this period he started to be noticed as a musician himself, landing his first notable steady gig in The Squares, and then joining the Greg Kihn Band in 1986, just as the hits started to dry up for the power popper. Satriani has said that as Kihn was desperate for a replacement guitarist, he was paid far too much money, and he used that, along with his credit cards, to finance his full-length debut album 'Not Of This Earth', released on the Relativity label in 1986. At the same time, his student Steve Vai was hired by David Lee Roth, pushing him into the national spotlight, and Vai often tipped his hat to his old guitar tutor. This helped set the stage for the 1987 release of 'Surfing With The Alien', which received rave reviews from guitar publications, and it rocketed Satriani to mainstream stardom almost overnight, eventually being certified platinum, which was an almost unheard-of feat for an instrumental album. 

As a result of this notoriety, he was offered the chance to play with Mick Jagger on his solo tour of Japan in 1988, which he readily accepted, and he was also asked to guest on 'Blue Öyster Cult's latest recording. The following year saw the release of his next album 'Flying In A Blue Dream', which included a couple of cuts where he sang lead vocals, possibly at the request of his label, but it did help propel the album into the upper reaches of the charts. Before he started work on his next album, he played on four tracks with Alice Cooper, and appeared with Spinal Tap on the 'Break Like The Wind' album. 1992's 'The Extremist' was his highest-ever chart position on Billboard, and a year later he joined Deep Purple, taking over the lead guitar slot from the absent Ritchie Blackmore on a Japanese tour, after which he was offered a full-time position, but he turned it down and the gig went to Steve Morse. The next big event in his career arrived in 1996 when he teamed up with Steve Vai and Eric Johnson for G3, a tour designed to showcase the three guitar virtuosos, and it was captured on the 1997 live CD/DVD set 'G3: Live In Concert'. More solo albums followed, with 2003/2004 being particularly productive, not only for him personally, but he also guested on tracks from the reformed Yardbirds, Stanley Clarke, and Jordan Rudess. Satriani's next project was the supergroup Chickenfoot, with ex-Van Halen rockers Sammy Hagar and Michael Anthony, plus Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith, and they released their self-titled debut in 2009, while at the same time he was keeping his solo career afloat with 'Black Swans And Wormhole Wizards' appearing in 2010. A year later Chickenfoot released their second album 'Chickenfoot III', while an overview of his work was issued as 'The Complete Studio Recordings' box set in 2014, followed by yet another new release with 'Shockwave Supernova' in 2015. A couple times a year Satriani joined other artists in the studio to add his blistering guitar runs to songs by artists such as Frost*, Don Felder, Todd Rundgren, and just last year on the latest release by Ayreon. This collection shows the huge variety of artists that have benefited from Satriani's fiery guitar-work over the years, and if you aren't already a fan then I hope in inspires you to check out his many solo releases.  

Track listing   

Disc One
01 Love And Rock And Roll (from 'Love And Rock And Roll' by Greg Kihn 1986)
02 Montery (from 'Aquamarine' by Danny Gottlieb 1987)
03 The Siege And Investiture Of Baron Von Frankenstein's Castle At Weisseria 

                                                                                (from 'Imaginos' by Blue Öyster Cult 1988)
04 Flow My Tears (from 'Radio Free Albemuth' by Stuart Hamm 1988)
05 Burning Our Bed (from 'Hey Stoopid' by Alice Cooper 1991)
06 Break Like the Wind (from 'Break Like The Wind' by Spinal Tap 1992) 
07 Ellipsis (from 'All Sides Now' by Pat Martino 1997)
08 Labios De Fuego (from 'Soy' by Alejandra Guzmán 2001)
09 Train Kept A Rollin' (from 'Birdland' by The Yardbirds 2003)

Disc Two
01 Hair (from '1,2, To The Bass' by Stanley Clarke 2003)
02 Screaming Head (from 'Rhythm Of Time' by Jordan Rudess 2004)
03 Hang Me Out To Dry (from 'Gillan's Inn' by Ian Gillan 2006)
04 River Of Longing (from 'Collection' by Jason Becker 2008)
05 Nail Grinder (from 'Clean' by Martone 2008)
06 Hold On To The Vision (from the soundtrack of the 1986 film 'No Retreat No Surrender' 2010)
07 Falling Awake (from 'What Lies Beneath' by Tarja 2010)
08 Gaia Tribe (from 'Elemental Journey' by Sonny Landreth 2012)

Disc Three
01 Closer To The Sun (from 'Falling Satellites' by Frost* 2016)
02 This Is Not A Drill (from 'White Knight' by Todd Rundgren 2017)
03 The Healer (from 'Borrego' by Marco Minnemann 2017)
04 When Did Men Rock (from 'Smalls Change (Meditations Upon Ageing)' by Derek Smalls 2018)
05 Power Drunk Majesty (Part II) (from 'Volume II: Power Drunk Majesty' by 

                                                                                                              Metal Allegiance 2018)

06 Rock You (from 'American Rock 'n' Roll' by Don Felder 2019)
07 Tears From A Glass Eye (from 'Old Lions Still Roar' by Phil Campbell 2019)
08 Get Out! Now! (from 'Transitus' bu Ayreon' 2020)

Leslie West - ...and on guitar (1993) R.I.P.

Leslie Weinstein was born on 22 October 1945 in New York City to Jewish parents, and after his parents divorced, he changed his surname to West. His musical career began in 1966 with The Vagrants, an R&B/blue-eyed soul-rock band influenced by the likes of the Rascals, who had two minor hits in the Eastern United States with 'I Can't Make A Friend' in 1966 and a cover of Otis Redding's 'Respect' the following year. Some of The Vagrants' recordings were co-written and produced by Felix Pappalardi, who was also working with Cream on their album 'Disraeli Gears'. In 1969, West and Pappalardi formed the pioneering hard rock act Mountain, which was also the title of West's debut solo album of that year, and which Rolling Stone described as a band who were a "louder version of Cream". With Steve Knight on keyboards and original drummer N. D. Smart, the band's original incarnation saw West and Pappalardi sharing vocal duties and playing guitar and bass, respectively. New drummer Corky Laing joined the band shortly after their appearance on the second day of the Woodstock festival, and they had success with their single 'Mississippi Queen' in 1970, which reached No. 21 on the Billboard charts and No. 4 in Canada, and later with 'Theme For An Imaginary Western' in 1973, which was written by Cream bassist Jack Bruce. After Pappalardi left Mountain to concentrate on various production projects, West and Laing produced two studio albums and a live release with Jack Bruce under the name West, Bruce and Laing. West and keyboard player Al Kooper of Blood, Sweat & Tears recorded with The Who during the March 1971 'Who's Next' sessions laying down a cover of Marvin Gaye's 'Baby Don't You Do It', as well as early versions of 'Love Ain't For Keepin'' and 'Won't Get Fooled Again', as well as adding guitar to albums by Mylon, Bobby Keys and Felix Cavaliere during the early 70's. Mountain reformed in 1973 only to break up again in late 1974, after which West played guitar on 'Bo Diddley Jam' on Bo Diddley's 1976 '20th Anniversary Of Rock 'n' Roll' all-star album. Since 1981, Mountain has continued to reform, tour and record on a regular basis, while in 1991 West teamed up with Deep Purple's Ian Gillan to co-write and play guitar on 'Hang Me Out To Dry' on Gillan's 'ToolBox' album, and in 1993 he played guitar on three tracks from Billy Joel's last studio album 'River Of Dreams'. West suffered a heart attack in his home near Daytona, Florida, on December 20, 2020 and was rushed to hospital in nearby Palm Coast where he never regained consciousness, and died shortly afterwards. He was 75. 

Track listing

01 A Sunny Summer Rain (single by The Vagrants 1967)
02 Hellhound On My Trail (from 'Maverick Child' by David Rea 1969)
03 Gray Afternoon (from 'Home' by Jolliver Arkansaw 1969)
04 Blue Suede Shoes (from 'Over The Influence' by Mylon 1972)
05 Key West (from 'Bobby Keys' by Bobby Keys 1972)
06 Love Ain't For Keeping (recorded 1971, from 'Odds And Sods' reissue by The Who 1999)
07 Hit And Run (from 'Destiny' by Felix Cavaliere 1975)
08 Masquerade (from 'Our Pleasure To Serve You' by Stanky Brown Group 1976)
09 Hey Bo Diddley (from 'The 20th Anniversary Of Rock & Roll' by Bo Diddley 1976)
10 Let Me Out'a Here (from 'Guitar Speak' 1988)
11 Hang Me Out To Dry (from 'ToolBox' by Ian Gillan 1991)
12 No Man's Land (from 'River Of Dreams' by Billy Joel 1993)

Thanks to Fredrick for the suggestion.

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