Check This Out
I was following some old links in my bookmarks file, and the next thing I knew I discovered this.
Catherine Britt when she was 18.
“But wait,” exclaimed the annoying ad man, “there’s more!”
A few years later, she did this with Max Merritt, who was closing in on 70 at the time and STILL singing so beautifully.
Max Merritt and Catherine Britt – “Slippin’ Away”.
I love her smoky voice. Those viewers who are not brain dead will note Max’s plea to the audience to join in for “Stewie.”
And who the xyz are Max Merritt and Stewie? Let’s set the “Way Back” machine to 1976, when Max was living in Australia and his band was called “The Meteors.”
Yep, that was Stewie on drums. Looks amazingly like a guy I know up here, but Stewie is gone now and Steve is still with us. Stewie was a well-known name on the Australian Blues circuit in the 60s.
And by-the-by, Max is a double transplant. Born in New Zealand, moved to Australia, and then to the United States.
And I STILL haven’t made much progress with my mandolin (The Loar). My fingers are too short, my voice can’t stay in one key (one second I’m with Bowser singing ‘Ghost Riders In The Sky’, and the next with Alison Krause on When You Say Nothing At All), and my fingers don’t move fast enough.
I THINK (really heavy emphasis on THINK) I can sing You Ain’t Going Nowhere, if I have cue cards; you know, the kind of card you want to hold up for stupid people, like me.
For example;
“Breathe in”
“Breathe out”
NO! OUT. Breathe OUT! WAP, WAP WAP.
Good… now breathe in.
You get the picture.
Now class, we discuss music history. Name the band in which Roger McGuinn and Chris Hillman were bandmates?
Jimmy Ibbotson, where the HELL are you? The Nitty Gritty ain’t gritty without you.
In better days when the Nitty Gritty was Jimmy Ibbotson, Jimmie Fadden, Bob Carpenter, Jeff Hanna, of Paint Your Wagon fame, and, a special guest in the person of Jeff’s wife, Matraca Berg. All together now…
