| « | December 2009 | » | ||||
 |
||||||
| S | M | T | W | T | F | S |
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | ||
| 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 |
| 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 |
| 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 |
| 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | ||
Jerry Doucette's debut album Mama Let Him Play (1977) was an unqualified succes, quickly reaching platinum status in Canada. Interest was generated outside of Canada as he toured behind the album, opening for acts such as Eddie Money, Meatloaf, and Bob Welch. Singles from the disc included the title track, "All I Wanna Do", and the song whose Intro is tabbed here, "Down the Road", the album's opening track.
The video below of Doucette playing the song was helpful in getting the opening rhythm part of the Intro down. The tab is of the studio version of the song (linked to below), so the lead part is tabbed differently from the way it's played in the video. On the studio version, I'm pretty sure it's separate guitars playing the harmonized lead lines.
DOUCETTE - "Down the Road"
https://www.angelfire.com/planet/zerofret/annesblog/canriffs.txt
Audio/studio version (temporary link):
https://www.angelfire.com/planet/zerofret/audio/doucette_downtheroad.mp3
In keeping with the Christmas theme, "A Spaceman Came Travelling" is a re-telling of the Christmas story with a sci-fi twist. The song is from Chris de Burgh's second album, Spanish Train And Other Stories (1975). It's had good success, particularly in the UK and Ireland, where it's been released as a single multiple times, reaching the Top 40 in its 1986 release.
I've seen Chris de Burgh in concert twice, at Hamilton Place (theatre) in Hamilton and at Maple Leaf Gardens (arena) in Toronto. The Hamilton Place show was set up to be filmed for TV, and when I went looking for a video of this song on YouTube, I was surprised to find footage from that very April 1983 show. It appears below.
Video shows that de Burgh plays this song various different ways. It's in the key of D minor, and in the video below he plays it with his guitar capoed at the fifth fret, with the chords transposed to the key of A minor. In more recent video, he plays it without a capo on the guitar (and playing it in D minor, of course). Here's an example of that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SowmY4C_naQ I've transcribed it the second way, to be played without a capo. It's really the same key either way, just two different ways of playing it.
The chord chart:
https://www.angelfire.com/planet/zerofret/crd/deburghc-aspacemancametravelling.txt
Audio (studio version): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=By9128_X_bQ
) are all posted on their appropriate various pages on the main site, but it seemed like a good idea to also gather them together in one spot. That makes it easier for anyone who might come by looking for Christmas tabs; they won't have to search the whole site to see if there are any. That's a temporary page for December; the link to it will be removed after Christmas.
The Pretenders' Christmas-themed song "2000 Miles" was released as a single in 1983, in advance of Learning To Crawl (1984), the album on which it appeared. The single had its best success in the UK, where it charted at #15. Upon its release, the album went gold and platinum in the UK and the US respectively, peaking at #4 on Canada's album chart.
Most-viewed tabs for the month of November 2009 (w/ view numbers):
33 - Doucette - Mama Let Him Play
32 - April Wine - Just Between You And Me
24 - Honeymoon Suite - New Girl Now
21 - Honeymoon Suite - Burning In Love
18 - Harlequin - I Did It For Love
16 - A Foot In Coldwater - (Make Me Do) Anything You Want
15 - Max Webster - Battle Scar
14 - Harlequin - Thinking Of You
13 - Harlequin - Sweet Things In Life
12 - April Wine - Cum Hear the Band
12 - Blue Rodeo - Lost Together
12 - Headpins - Don't It Make Ya Feel
Total Tab Views For November: 737
By section: Canadian-525 Girlschool-53 Various-69 Chords-90
Most-viewed tabs overall (up to Nov. 30/09):
338 - Harlequin - Thinking Of You
316 - Honeymoon Suite - Burning In Love
278 - Doucette - Mama Let Him Play
254 - The Kings - This Beat Goes On
217 - A Foot In Coldwater - (Make Me Do) Anything You Want
201 - The Kings - Switchin' To Glide
200 - April Wine - Cum Hear the Band
184 - Honeymoon Suite - Stay In the Light
172 - Max Webster - Battle Scar
170 - Harlequin - Innocence
Tabs reaching 100 overall views mark this month:
Devil's Deck, High Class In Borrowed Shoes
*Only tab views made by people (excluding my own views) are counted here. Webcrawler/bot views are excluded.
"Strange Magic" was the second single (after "Evil Woman") released from ELO's 1975 album Face The Music. The album went platinum in the band's native UK (gold in the US), launching a string of internationally successful multi-platinum albums for the Birmingham septet. Tabbed here is the Intro, a nice harmonized guitar part, ending on a cool little descending chromatic run.
Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Swamp Music" appeared on the band's second album Second Helping (1974, pictured). This double-platiunum selling album is most noted for featuring the band's biggest hit, "Sweet Home Alabama". The album peaked at #12 on Billboard. "Swamp Music" has also been featured on many Skynyrd compilation/greatest hits albums, such as Skynyrd's Innyrds (1989), What's Your Name (1997), and The Essential Lynyrd Skynyrd (1998).
