Love Merle's custom whammy bar shaped for easy access with the finger loop is just brilliant .. I listened to Merle growing up in the fifties as he was my father's favorite guitarist .. My father never played much lead as he sang in the groups he played with and his rhythm was always spot on . Love these vids , thanks Elwood2911 for your posts.. They bring back great memories...
It always makes me feel good to know I've made the right choice in what to upload ... I'm glad you and others enjoy these . I have more stuff equally as good, ... by other artists ... even a couple back in the 60's when I was singing. TIME is probably the biggest component in the equation,though ... never enough. Many thanks.
I never knew about this 3-foot-long whammy bar until today. I can't believe I've been making do with my little stunted whammy handle for all these years.
Beautiful!!! Masters at work. I can't stand jamming with someone that only knows 1 style. I jammed with this punk rocker last month, the dude couldn't play anything but punk style. OMG. I was playing rhythm and setting him up for leads on Latin style, boogie woogie, blues, Chuck Berry chords then metal chords... all in the key of A and E and he was just lost. He just wanted to play punk music.
I was sitting here watching this for the zillionth time and just noticed how, at 1:38, when Ed goes into his break, the nice,rhythmic chords that Merle puts behind Ed ... evidence of just great Travis' talent was. No one else has ,especially you guitar players, has ever mentioned that.
Ed Bickert: "Hey, how do you know that? You're too young to know that!" Randy Bachman: "Well, in my early early days, the first two albums I got were a Merle Travis album and a Chet Atkins album!" ...NOTE: Randy's proof is in two parts: 1) he's using a thumbpick; and 2) his delightful chorus of compound harmonics on "By the Light of the Silvery Moon". ...and who knew Ed Bickert had some country roots?
Yup, but "gator mouth" doesn't know these facts. He likely ain't qualified to tune a fucking guitar. He has a tin ear as well as being blind. QUALIFIED MORON.
*@ Viejotrueno* Re: " Randy Bachman studied with Lenny Breau" Are you fuckin' kidding me ? Randy still (after all those years of "studying" with Lennie Lol...) can't tell the difference between altered & bebop scales, let alone to use them in his playing. He was, and still is, a musical impotent and intellectual dummy . Perhaps, that was one of many reasons why he kicked his wife out of his weekly gig on CBC Radio... (She was making him look like total ignorant in musical matters and complete asshole as a human being) P.S. I still have a hard time to believe that Ed Bickert (a jazz guitar genius) agreed to participate in this farcical video... Watch this: th-cam.com/video/PAtzWN8gFeM/w-d-xo.html
@@JulioLeonFandinho If Randy studied with Lenny Breau he must have studied doing heroin. I love BTO, but never because of Bachman's guitar virtuosity. He's an average to middlin' guitarist on his best day. I can't hear anything even slight reminiscent of Lenny in Bachman's playing.
@@mohamedisapedophile7230 same old pedi trying his best.. and oooh yes another great canadian guitarist ...what's his name??? breau .... maybe lenny...
The telecaster that Ed Bickert is playing is not the one I am familiar with: always seen him play a model with an humbucker at the neck. Great players and great guitars.
Its the other way around hopefully Ed learned from Merle, remember Merle invented thumbpicking, aka Travispicking, look it up and educate yourself.....
The most moronic and puerile of all statements is "so and so is the GREATEST GUITAR PLAYER". Truth is, no one will ever know. There are THOUSANDS who will never know "fame" as they are content to play at home on the porch swing with mutant banjo pickers.
I couldn't agree more, "mo". I've said the same things on numerous sites. "Greatest" this, "best" that ... is the outporing of a self-limiting and unappreciative mind.
I hate to think hes out of tune so maybe its the tape.. but somethings a little disonant in merles ax . The mans a legend so no disrepect sir, maybe its me
Instead of Jagger's lips, ... you should go to a BIG Ear. I think you might be right. Merle's top string does sound like it's a hair out. We can allow that in a television studio, the temperatures from the bright lights can sometimes cause the wood to warp a hollow body like Merle's ... not so much for the solid bodies the other two are playing. Nylon strings,too,can cause anomalies ... that's not the case here. That said, the end results are still damn good.
@@paulmoore3712 He's friggin' almost ninety here. Like Les Paul, try listening to Merle when he was in his prime instead of hearing him on death's doorstep and finding fault.
@@williamhedrick5950 "He's friggin' almost ninety here. " Merle Travis died at 65 in 1983. He probably is still in his 50s in this clip. Travis, and Lefty Frizzel were well known as party animals way before No-Show Jones.
Thumbpicking he invented the style, and merle designed the first tailpiece tremolo, merle was a cartoonist, he could draw a picture of anyone as a cartoon......and the list just goes on......
Randy isn't tapping here, he's using artificial harmonics. Watch: th-cam.com/video/RnkydL33U38/w-d-xo.html But what's the slam on EVH? For one, it's not true, since they were only 12 yrs apart. Regardless, some people are still in diapers when others are adults, that's just how it is.
Strange grouping of guitar players for a jam. Ed Bickert was known for not liking rock. He was a master of chording, melody and harmony - a much more knowledgeable musician than the other two. Travis was a self-taught early icon amongst early hillbilly guitarist, evolving a style that created a steady rhythm on the bass strings while picking out melodies and some harmony with his forefinger. It inspired Chet Atkins who became much more polished as a musician, delving into classical pieces. Bachman was an accomplished rock guitarist who was opened up his mind to many influences, but he isn't on the level of Ed Bickert. In this situation, Travis, the elder statesman is allowed to run the show, ... and he was a real showman. So Travis played the stuff he knew and had done countless times in front of people. Bachman, with his experience learning from a varied sources, steps in to "play lead," and he finds it somewhat easier to to work with Travis because he's already studied some of those renditions. Bickert, for me, ... is the best musician, but he stays out of the way. When the others are playing, you can see him playing chords softly in the back ground, and his guitar tone is round and not as present as the bright sounds to his right. These guitar songs are not in Bickert's repetoire and he looks to play some chords and lines that will not distract from the main attraction, Travis, ... or Bachman, the show host. Bickert has always seemed very shy to me, but if you have ever heard him play his own gigs, he is masterful, ... his instrument almost sound like it has the range of a piano. But, ... this jam session was just a situation where he would stay out of the way of the other egos and support their success. I just think it is a dumb idea to just have these guys sit down and make up what they are going to play - they come from different musical worlds.
Randy knew about Merle, as he had heard(and been amazed by) Lenny Breau playing Chet Atkins stuff; Randy took Chet Atkins-style guitar lessons from Lenny before he was famous. About the same time, he played in a studio band much like David Letterman's Late Show band, on a Canadian TV show, and this band later turned into the Guess Who. I have to agree with you though, this is some network executive's idea and Ed Bickert doesn't get to shine here. And Randy and Merle are BOTH used to being emcees and talk-show hosts, so this is mostly a schmaltz-fest.
Who came up with this strange mishmash? Bachman doesn't belong in the same room as Ed and Merle and Ed was in a universe occupied only by a handful of the most exceptional jazz guitarists in history.
In the first instance, the CBC put them together. Not one of them would trash the other , ... because they all know what it takes to achieve any proficiency on the instrument that they exhibit at the time this video was recorded. Travis has left us, ... and I can guarantee Bickert and Bachman have progressed over the past forty odd years by working their derrieres off, ...such is the addiction of the musician to his craft. Respect that.
@@paulmoore3712 You entirely missed my point. Bachman is playing at the top of his game here. Ed Bickert is playing at the bottom of his because he has to dumb down his brilliance to play this unchallenging music or Bachman would be left in the dirt. Travis and Ed could have done some marvellous things together around old jazz standards. Travis knew that material well and it was of course Ed's meat. Throwing three-chord Bachman into the mix held Ed and Travis back and made this clip a snoozefest when it could have been fascinating. Clear enough for you? Hope so because I can't put it anymore simply. And btw, I've been a professional musician for forty-five years. I've worked with some of the greatest jazz musicians in Canada and the US (including Ed) so I don't need to be lectured by some self-righteous, pontificating, cliche-loving dink on TH-cam about how musicians progress or about the "addiction of the musician to his craft."
@@paulmoore3712 Don't bother. Engaging with you is like trying to play chess with a pigeon but I'm sure you've had that expressed to you in one way or another many times during your life. Now run along and listen to Takin' Care of Business.
@@beverlyducharme433 Jeez man. You sound like you were having a bad day. Those guys signed on for the gig and do what professionals always do - make lemonade out of lemons (if necessary). Do you think Ed came away from that thinking "Damn, I didn't get to bury those guys with my chops!"? Ed played appropriately for the gig and was all smiles. What's ironic is that for all the chops that Ed had, he was a master of understatement and never sounded like he was trying to impress. Be happy man! You're a jazz musician who has, by the sound of it, lead a charmed life. Cherish it - I know I do.
i chuckle when watching this.. ed bickert is a guitar god watching to fumbling idiots hack away and yet they have ignored him...LOL...maybe he needs a long chrome wammy arm or something to gain attention...
Merle's invention of the thumbpicking has nothing whatsoever to do with his inability to play like Ed! Mere is a good player, but not comparable to Ed! They should have rehearsed this segment so it would be a little more cohesive!
Merle is almost ninety in this clip. It's likely he can hardly make a fist due to advanced arthritis. While Bickert is an exceptional player, he's neither an innovator nor an iconoclast. Merle Travis is both.
I'm sure they're not showing their best... a bit amateurish... Randy Bachman was great playing Blue Collar.. but I've jammed with guitarists much better than this...
You've not jammed with guitarists better than Merle Travis- without Merle Travis there would be no Chet Atkins, no Scotty Moore, no Eddie Cochran- you've not jammed with musicians who invented a style of playing guitar that has been copied, manipulated, and worshipped on the level of Merle Travis.
So cool to see these three together.
Love Merle's custom whammy bar shaped for easy access with the finger loop is just brilliant .. I listened to Merle growing up in the fifties as he was my father's favorite guitarist .. My father never played much lead as he sang in the groups he played with and his rhythm was always spot on . Love these vids , thanks Elwood2911 for your posts.. They bring back great memories...
It always makes me feel good to know I've made the right choice in what to upload ... I'm glad you and others enjoy these . I have more stuff equally as good, ... by other artists ... even a couple back in the 60's when I was singing. TIME is probably the biggest component in the equation,though ... never enough. Many thanks.
I never knew about this 3-foot-long whammy bar until today. I can't believe I've been making do with my little stunted whammy handle for all these years.
appreciated even more when you've tried to do it !! love this skill of their craft
Great music- I love all 3 guitar Greats☺
Beautiful!!! Masters at work.
I can't stand jamming with someone that only knows 1 style. I jammed with this punk rocker last month, the dude couldn't play anything but punk style. OMG. I was playing rhythm and setting him up for leads on Latin style, boogie woogie, blues, Chuck Berry chords then metal chords... all in the key of A and E and he was just lost. He just wanted to play punk music.
that dude sounds sick af
Two Pop music Guitarist' & One Monster
Guitarist'.....Fact! RIP EB
I was sitting here watching this for the zillionth time and just noticed how, at 1:38, when Ed goes into his break, the nice,rhythmic chords that Merle puts behind Ed ... evidence of just great Travis' talent was. No one else has ,especially you guitar players, has ever mentioned that.
typical 7th root to 9th fourth blahh blahhh. a beginner can do this chording...
@@billgator2005 yes indeed, there's a reason why 'us guitar players' didn't mention it...
12th Fret Pro Shop estimates the humbucker put in Ed's guitar at about 1979, so this would be about 45 years ago!
That sounds like a reasonable guess to me. Time rolls by so fast, ... it becomes increasingly difficult to place when I recorded
it.
Jammin’ on live tv! Nice. These Canadians know a thing or two.
Randy smelling things up as usual.
LOL
Three masters at play!
WOW Ed Bickert great )
Real talent !
Simply Brilliant!!!!
Not nearly enough Ed in there, although there never is enough Ed anywhere!
If you don't think Randy can play jazz, listen to 'Blue Collar'.
Great !
Obviously, three great guitarists.
Only one though has a style named for him.🎸
the Stink Bomb Trio
Ed Bickert: "Hey, how do you know that? You're too young to know that!"
Randy Bachman: "Well, in my early early days, the first two albums I got were a Merle Travis album and a Chet Atkins album!"
...NOTE: Randy's proof is in two parts: 1) he's using a thumbpick; and 2) his delightful chorus of compound harmonics on "By the Light of the Silvery Moon". ...and who knew Ed Bickert had some country roots?
And because Randy Bachman studied with Lenny Breau
Yup, but "gator mouth" doesn't know these facts. He likely ain't qualified to tune a fucking guitar. He has a tin ear as well as being blind. QUALIFIED MORON.
*@ Viejotrueno*
Re: " Randy Bachman studied with Lenny Breau"
Are you fuckin' kidding me ? Randy still (after all those years of "studying" with Lennie Lol...) can't tell the difference between altered & bebop scales, let alone to use them in his playing. He was, and still is, a musical impotent and intellectual dummy . Perhaps, that was one of many reasons why he kicked his wife out of his weekly gig on CBC Radio... (She was making him look like total ignorant in musical matters and complete asshole as a human being)
P.S. I still have a hard time to believe that Ed Bickert (a jazz guitar genius) agreed to participate in this farcical video...
Watch this: th-cam.com/video/PAtzWN8gFeM/w-d-xo.html
@@JulioLeonFandinho If Randy studied with Lenny Breau he must have studied doing heroin. I love BTO, but never because of Bachman's guitar virtuosity. He's an average to middlin' guitarist on his best day. I can't hear anything even slight reminiscent of Lenny in Bachman's playing.
@@mohamedisapedophile7230 same old pedi trying his best.. and oooh yes another great canadian guitarist ...what's his name??? breau .... maybe lenny...
The telecaster that Ed Bickert is playing is not the one I am familiar with: always seen him play a model with an humbucker at the neck. Great players and great guitars.
Same guitar, just put a humbucker in it later.
I've been a Bachman fan since I heard the Guess Who, massive BTO fan. I've never seen him with that model of Fender before - Coronado?
Looks like a Fender Starcaster
Randy is a great picker to bad he was nuts.
@@crazycat1345
What makes you say that? Info please.
Merle liked Ed's Playing!
... he better likes Ed's playing. Hopefully, he has learned a thing or two from that encounter Lol...
Its the other way around hopefully Ed learned from Merle, remember Merle invented thumbpicking, aka Travispicking, look it up and educate yourself.....
@@jenniferyowell3381 youre so right, alot guitarists learn from Merle
@@jenniferyowell3381 now that staement is f'd up...
@@billgator2005 let's just put it this way, Chet Atkins learned from Merle Travis, how do you like that statement?
The most moronic and puerile of all statements is "so and so is the GREATEST GUITAR PLAYER". Truth is, no one will ever know. There are THOUSANDS who will never know "fame" as they are content to play at home on the porch swing with mutant banjo pickers.
I couldn't agree more, "mo". I've said the same things on numerous sites. "Greatest" this, "best" that ... is the outporing of a self-limiting and unappreciative mind.
Crazy Pluckin Harmonics
I can hear Joe Pass giggling! :-)
Groaning
I hate to think hes out of tune so maybe its the tape.. but somethings a little disonant in merles ax
. The mans a legend so no disrepect sir, maybe its me
Instead of Jagger's lips, ... you should go to a BIG Ear. I think you might be right. Merle's top string does sound like it's a hair out. We can allow that in a television studio, the temperatures from the bright lights can sometimes cause the wood to warp a hollow body like Merle's ... not so much for the solid bodies the other two are playing. Nylon strings,too,can cause anomalies ... that's not the case here. That said, the end results are still damn good.
@@paulmoore3712 He's friggin' almost ninety here. Like Les Paul, try listening to Merle when he was in his prime instead of hearing him on death's doorstep and finding fault.
He had the flue and i still loved it
@@williamhedrick5950 "He's friggin' almost ninety here. " Merle Travis died at 65 in 1983. He probably is still in his 50s in this clip. Travis, and Lefty Frizzel were well known as party animals way before No-Show Jones.
100%
ol Merle the legend.
"The Legend" of what ???
Thumbpicking he invented the style, and merle designed the first tailpiece tremolo, merle was a cartoonist, he could draw a picture of anyone as a cartoon......and the list just goes on......
And he wrote Sixteen Tons
Randy was tapping years before Van Halen. Eddie was crawling around the floor loading his diaper while Randy was tapping and writing hit songs.
Randy isn't tapping here, he's using artificial harmonics. Watch:
th-cam.com/video/RnkydL33U38/w-d-xo.html
But what's the slam on EVH? For one, it's not true, since they were only 12 yrs apart. Regardless, some people are still in diapers when others are adults, that's just how it is.
@@fretbuzz59 Exactly.
Randy copped the artificial harmonics trick from Lenny Breau.
@@effsixteenblock50 Evidently. Though Lenny didn't invent that.
Strange grouping of guitar players for a jam. Ed Bickert was known for not liking rock. He was a master of chording, melody and harmony - a much more knowledgeable musician than the other two. Travis was a self-taught early icon amongst early hillbilly guitarist, evolving a style that created a steady rhythm on the bass strings while picking out melodies and some harmony with his forefinger. It inspired Chet Atkins who became much more polished as a musician, delving into classical pieces. Bachman was an accomplished rock guitarist who was opened up his mind to many influences, but he isn't on the level of Ed Bickert. In this situation, Travis, the elder statesman is allowed to run the show, ... and he was a real showman. So Travis played the stuff he knew and had done countless times in front of people. Bachman, with his experience learning from a varied sources, steps in to "play lead," and he finds it somewhat easier to to work with Travis because he's already studied some of those renditions. Bickert, for me, ... is the best musician, but he stays out of the way. When the others are playing, you can see him playing chords softly in the back ground, and his guitar tone is round and not as present as the bright sounds to his right. These guitar songs are not in Bickert's repetoire and he looks to play some chords and lines that will not distract from the main attraction, Travis, ... or Bachman, the show host. Bickert has always seemed very shy to me, but if you have ever heard him play his own gigs, he is masterful, ... his instrument almost sound like it has the range of a piano. But, ... this jam session was just a situation where he would stay out of the way of the other egos and support their success. I just think it is a dumb idea to just have these guys sit down and make up what they are going to play - they come from different musical worlds.
Randy knew about Merle, as he had heard(and been amazed by) Lenny Breau playing Chet Atkins stuff; Randy took Chet Atkins-style guitar lessons from Lenny before he was famous. About the same time, he played in a studio band much like David Letterman's Late Show band, on a Canadian TV show, and this band later turned into the Guess Who. I have to agree with you though, this is some network executive's idea and Ed Bickert doesn't get to shine here. And Randy and Merle are BOTH used to being emcees and talk-show hosts, so this is mostly a schmaltz-fest.
Ed is great and holds his own. Hes obviously your favourite, but remember Merle has a whole style named after him.
Randy Bachman resembles David Harbour of Stranger Things.
What is
stranger things?
And who is David Harbour?
@@t4texastom587 Davis was also the Boston cop in "The Equalizer".
He got questioned by Denzel in his car via Carbon Monoxide...
Suck an oddball grouping, but wonderful..
Who came up with this strange mishmash? Bachman doesn't belong in the same room as Ed and Merle and Ed was in a universe occupied only by a handful of the most exceptional jazz guitarists in history.
In the first instance, the CBC put them together. Not one of them would trash the other , ... because they all know what it takes to achieve any proficiency on the instrument that they exhibit at the time this video was recorded. Travis has left us, ... and I can guarantee Bickert and Bachman have progressed over the past forty odd years by working their derrieres off, ...such is the addiction of the musician to his craft. Respect that.
@@paulmoore3712
You entirely missed my point. Bachman is playing at the top of his game here. Ed Bickert is playing at the bottom of his because he has to dumb down his brilliance to play this unchallenging music or Bachman would be left in the dirt. Travis and Ed could have done some marvellous things together around old jazz standards. Travis knew that material well and it was of course Ed's meat. Throwing three-chord Bachman into the mix held Ed and Travis back and made this clip a snoozefest when it could have been fascinating. Clear enough for you? Hope so because I can't put it anymore simply.
And btw, I've been a professional musician for forty-five years. I've worked with some of the greatest jazz musicians in Canada and the US (including Ed) so I don't need to be lectured by some self-righteous, pontificating, cliche-loving dink on TH-cam about how musicians progress or about the "addiction of the musician to his craft."
@@beverlyducharme433 Beverly, your ego and pettiness is boundless. I will indulge you if it makes you happy .
@@paulmoore3712 Don't bother. Engaging with you is like trying to play chess with a pigeon but I'm sure you've had that expressed to you in one way or another many times during your life. Now run along and listen to Takin' Care of Business.
@@beverlyducharme433 Jeez man. You sound like you were having a bad day.
Those guys signed on for the gig and do what professionals always do - make lemonade out of lemons (if necessary).
Do you think Ed came away from that thinking "Damn, I didn't get to bury those guys with my chops!"?
Ed played appropriately for the gig and was all smiles.
What's ironic is that for all the chops that Ed had, he was a master of understatement and never sounded like he was trying to impress.
Be happy man! You're a jazz musician who has, by the sound of it, lead a charmed life. Cherish it - I know I do.
i chuckle when watching this.. ed bickert is a guitar god watching to fumbling idiots hack away and yet they have ignored him...LOL...maybe he needs a long chrome wammy arm or something to gain attention...
hey they are all having a good time
+ LorneDeline Yup, and they are all great. Note the lack of ego just the fun of it all.
hummmmmmmmmm.......
Merle Travis and Randy Bachman hacks? You obviously don't play, if so please post your stuff! also it's "two" not "to" you bumbling idiot!
No, Travis and Bachman are thumb pickers and Bickert is a flatpicker. One is not better than the other.
YEAR ??????????? 👎
I'm guessing mid 80's ...
Merle died in 1983. I would say early 80s or late 1970s.
Merle's invention of the thumbpicking has nothing whatsoever to do with his inability to play like Ed! Mere is a good player, but not comparable to Ed! They should have rehearsed
this segment so it would be a little more cohesive!
Merle did not "invent" thumb style. he learned it from Mose Rager and Ike Everly
Merle is almost ninety in this clip. It's likely he can hardly make a fist due to advanced arthritis. While Bickert is an exceptional player, he's neither an innovator nor an iconoclast. Merle Travis is both.
@@williamhedrick5950 Merle was great, no doubt. But he died in 1983, a month short of his 66th birthday. This clip is seven years prior to his death.
WTF Randy "the musical impotent" is doing in this video ???
@@W5AWG hahahaha....
the video i mean hahahaha...
I'm sure they're not showing their best... a bit amateurish...
Randy Bachman was great playing Blue Collar.. but I've jammed with guitarists much better than this...
You've not jammed with guitarists better than Merle Travis- without Merle Travis there would be no Chet Atkins, no Scotty Moore, no Eddie Cochran- you've not jammed with musicians who invented a style of playing guitar that has been copied, manipulated, and worshipped on the level of Merle Travis.