The whole reason I write this blog is because I am a guitar geek. There are different kinds of guitar geeks and I love them all but I'm not particularly a gear head. Don't get me wrong. I love guitars and great amps and pedals and accessories but once I'm set up and have my sound I don't need to read about every new piece of gear constantly. But I am a total geek when it comes to the guitar players I love, the guitars they use and the sounds they make. I never get tired of listening to guitar based music and I never tire of reading about guitarists and their adventures touring, recording and living with the guitar and the places it has taken them in life. That said, this past weekend was a guitar geek's heaven of a weekend here in Nashville on Saturday night and on national television on Sunday. 
     An old high school friend was in town last weekend and of course he wanted to go out and see some Nashville music. Our first choice was to try to score tickets for the Drive By Truckers show at The Cannery Ballroom but that was sold out. Our next choice was a benefit show for Brandi, one of the employees at Nashville club 3rd & Lindsley. The line-up of Nashville talent looked stellar, particularly the guitarists slotted to play. The afternoon and evening featured sets from artists like Lee Ann Womack, The Wooten Brothers, Josh Hoge, Bekka Bramlett, Johnny Neel, Kentucky Thunder and Gary Nicholson. But the highlight of the evening for me was when Ashley Cleveland and her husband the incredible guitarist Kenny Greenberg came out to play a gospel rockin' set that morphed into an A-list blues rock jam between Greenberg, Pat Buchanan, Tom Hemby, Brent Mason and eventually Rob McNelley, Jack Pearson and Bob Britt joined in too. These guys are the cream of the crop and it freaked my friend out that he was an arms distance from the stage. This happens to him every time he comes here. No matter what night of the week it is he just picks something out and it is almost always a great and unique experience. You can't do that in most towns and cities.

  
     So we spent the next evening at home watching a Grammy Awards show that was a bit dampened in spirit by the death of superstar diva Whitney Houston. It's not my intention to review the Grammy show overall but after what I would call a relatively weak show, at the very end Paul McCartney came out with his stellar band of several years and played Golden Slumbers, Carry That Weight and The End from Abby Road and was joined by Bruce Springsteen, Joe Walsh, Dave Grohl, and his own guitar slingers Rusty Anderson and Brian Ray for a six-way killer guitar jam that raised the roof and the spirits of everyone watching. You knew you were watching a classic rock moment in the making. The coolest thing about it was that Paul was ripping it up on his Les Paul as good or better than any of them. 

Check it out on YouTube.
 

      But... I have to say, I'm not sure it was any better than our own local nashville guitar heros. Happy riffing guitar geek friends!