So I followed Jim's link and found this. David, as our resident Bo Diddley expert, do you have any idea when the version of "Who Do You Love" provided was recorded? Did I miss something in the blogger's description? I was expecting the original. He links to a compilation which contains the original but provides an mp3 that sounds like it's from the eighties or nineties.
Also enjoyed this from the description of the Mahavishnu mp3:
with McLaughlin himself on his trademark Gibson twin-necked SG guitar (something he had in common with Jimmy Page, to whom he had given jazz guitar lessons to in England and to whom is attributed the legend of teaching Jimmy the intro chords to 'My Funny Valentine' from which he supposedly extrapolated the 'Stairway to Heaven' chord sequence).
I'd never heard that. As a non-musician I can't comment on its plausibility -- i.e., the extrapolation; it's certainly plausible that Page learned it from McLaughlin. There's a lady who's sure all that glitters is gold... and that's why the lady is a tramp (Jimmy Page rips off Richard Rodgers & it prompts me to sully Robert Plant and Larry Hart. I'm just a bad person.)
And if that joke's not arcane enough I really really want to make a crack about our head spook being the guy in the middle. But the nexus of people who know that (a) John McLaughlin is a great & semi-famous guitarist, (b) the former director of the CIA was named John McLaughlin, and (c) who recognize the guitarist is rather limited. In fact I may be all by my lonesome at the nexus. Which means I need my silly obscure jokes to keep me company. -- Signed, Strange and Off-Putting
