STUDENT NEWSLETTER 5 Jamuary 2009 
Happy New Year everybody. I hope you are excited as I am about the prospects this year offers. Music is the best.
Here are a few of my favorite videos of 2008 that demonstrate the power and magic of music.
This first video features homeless people from all over the world playing the standard; Stand By Me with so much feeling and soul it will bring tears to your eyes.
Check out this video of Sam and Dave doing Hold On live. See how they work the audience and get them eating out of their hand by using dynamics. They get quiet and build up. Then Dave yells; "STAND UP" and the crowd SNAPS to attention. Watch for it. Good example of what you can do on stage to control the audience. You can also have them sit politely and yawn. The band backing up Sam and Dave in this video is Booker T and MGs featuring Donald "Duck" Dunn on bass and Steve Cropper on lead guitar. This is obviously the group that the Blues Brothers copied. Looks like Belushi and Ackroyd dance moves huh? Both Dunn and Cropper are in the Blues Brothers Band.
Notice Steve Cropper's rig.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_juH0AHvwk
The next video is a John Prine song from
1971; Paradise. About the strip mining in Kentucky
that has only got worse over the years. Very
powerful tune that I have been doing for 35 years. Still gets to me.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEy6EuZp9IY
This next video is of my favorite living guitar player. Jeff Beck playing my favorite song that Stevie Wonder wrote specifically for him; Cause We Ended As Lovers on a Telecaster through four Super Reverb amps. Fantastic performance right up to the second the funky bass player slips and pops off one of them non contributing self indulgent burp fart sounds and wrecks the song. Watch for it and how Beck abruptly ends the song and does not look very happy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsfL6ATX1i4
We lost one of my biggest influences Mr. Jerry Reed last year. The original Guitarman. Most folks think of him as the Snowman in the Smokey And The Bandit movies and don't realize what an amazing guitar player he was. Very close to Chet Atkins in many ways. Jerry and Chet had a very long history together.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOGiW-y-Vhs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ni8KBhnebwE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04RJyFCg7ks
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ng__WbaFVz4
Even when Chet and Jerry got old they still sound fantastic together:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcnvRC7sJVk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8L65FH1gGR0
Keep up the good work everyone.
Best wishes for 2009.
Peace and Love.
Rock On,
Joe "TheGuitarman" Pacciano, C.G.P.
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