OK, I'm old. Does anyone remember Phil Keaggy?

Love Phil Keaggy and I've heard of the album, but I haven't heard the album.

Do you like his more recent stuff, that is, music he has made within the last 20 years?

 

*Gina hands She-eagle the Gentle Gray Away hair coloring and hopes she'll start speaking modern English again soon. *

 

I was never a fan of Phil Squeaky..er..Keaggy. Then I heard his version of Be Thou My Vision on a CD my brother has, after that I never will be a fan of his

A bit later I picked up a couple of his guitar videos because they were going cheap. I can handle the bloke as long as he doesn't sing, and doesn't come within a 500 mile range of Be Thou My Vision again

Pete

 

Oh, I'm a HUGE Phil Keaggy fan. I've got lots of his recordings...from "How the West was One", with 2nd Chapter of Acts back in the 70's, all the way up to his most recent instrumental release.

But as much of a fan as I am, I was completly unprepared for what awaited me when I saw him live about 3 years ago. He had no band, just him and his guitar. He had a processor with him that inabled him to stretch out and improvise to his own backup.

He would hit a foot switch and record the chords during the song he wanted to loop, then when it was time to start he would hit a footswitch and what he played earlier started looping seemlessly for as long as he wanted.

Then he started tapping on his guitar top, putting his own percussion into the loop. Then, he pulled out a triangle and put one "ding" on it into the loop, on every 4th beat.

Then...he takes off, as long as he cared to, with the most incredible lead improvisation to his own, just created, rythmn section! It was awesome!

Phil Keaggy is an incredible guitar player, for sure. I play the guitar, and I know that in the guitar "world", he is thought of as one of the best living.

Mike

 

Phill Keaggy: One of the greatest guitarist alive on planet Earth today. I really enjoy "Wind and the Wheat".

He should not sing though. I agree with that. It is kinda like Phill Driskoll. Great trumpet player, but terrible singer.

Joseph Botwinick

 

I agree that the Phills are not great soloist. But Driscoll had seemed to do a great deal of work on his voice and appears to sing from the heart. They are both great musicians. I think it would be awesome if Keaggy & Driscoll were to hookup for an instrumental.

 

Some have said that about Bob Dylan! Anyway, I've got a lot of his CD's. Someone told me that once, Eric Clapton was asked who he thought was the greatest guitar player, and without batting an eye, he said "Phil Keaggy."

 

Saw him years ago, back in my wild & crazy days.. I was dragged to one of his shows. The guy I went with said, "let's go see an awesome guitar player,". So I dropped some L.S.D. and went. "This was '82, in Virginia.

Sorry, but any religious teachings escaped me, but he was a real good player.

Now that I'm saved, his music still kinda falls flat with me.

 

Acid will do that...

Try going to a show... I don't care that much for many of his albums, but his live shows are amazing.

My favorite Keaggy album is "Find Me In These Fields" (1990). "Crimson and Blue" and "Sunday's Child" are also good.

 

Jude,

Thats close to it! That actual story has become legend. It was back in the late 60's, when Phil was with Glass Harp, up in the Cleveland area. They were good...opened up for Cream once, I believe.(Clapton!)

Regarding the legendary quote, it was actually Jimi Hendrix. Someone said to him "People say you are the worlds greatest guitar player..." and he said "If you want to hear the worlds greatest guitar player, go listen to Phil Keaggy."

Mike

 

Thats close to it! That actual story has become legend. It was back in the late 60's, when Phil was with Glass Harp, up in the Cleveland area. They were good...opened up for Cream once, I believe.(Clapton!)

Regarding the legendary quote, it was actually Jimi Hendrix. Someone said to him "People say you are the worlds greatest guitar player..." and he said "If you want to hear the worlds greatest guitar player, go listen to Phil Keaggy."

Mike </font>[/QUOTE]Actually, it was neither. Keaggy has said several times that that's just an urban legend.

The same story also has Hendrix (or Clapton, or Eddie Van Halen, depending on which version you hear) saying that Dana Key was the greatest guitar player he ever heard.

Here's a piece from rumor busters, http://snopes.com:

Claim: During a "Tonight Show" appearance, Jimi Hendrix proclaimed Phil Keaggy to be the greatest guitarist of all time.

Status: False.

Example: [Collected on the Internet, 1999]

Jimi Hendrix was on the Tonight Show one time in the late 60s. Johnny Carson turned and asked him how it felt to be the greatest guitarist ever. Hendrix quickly responded: "I don't know. You'd have to ask Phil Keaggy."



Variations:


The musician who offers up the name of Phil Keaggy as "the world's greatest guitarist" is also said to be Eric Clapton or Eddie Van Halen.

Sometimes the praise is offered in a magazine interview rather than a television appearance.
Origins: If you said "Phil who?" you've captured the essence of this legend. Phil Keaggy may be revered by legions of guitarists for his superlative instrumental artistry and appreciated by millions of fans worldwide who enjoy his Christian-based recordings, but he's still far from a household name, even after his more than thirty years as a professional musician.

The irony in this legend applies on multiple levels:


That not only was there a greater guitarist than Jimi Hendrix, but that Hendrix himself would publicly acknowledge it on national television in such a humble, matter-of-fact fashion.

That the person Hendrix named was so obscure that hardly anyone watching the show would have recognized his name.

That the king of acid-drenched, heavy metal psychedelia would have anointed a purveyor of songs about God, love, faith, and family as the "greatest guitarist of all time."
One of the first questions most people consider is whether Hendrix, who died in 1970, could even have heard (or heard of) Phil Keaggy, who was then still plying his trade as a member of the band Glass Harp. We'll assume for argument's sake that he had, and that, true to the Hendrix legend, one listen was all it took for him to recognize Keaggy as the world's paramount guitar virtuoso.

The most important question here is, of course, whether Hendrix ever actually appeared on the "Tonight Show." He did, once, on 10 July 1969, performing the song "Lover Man" (which he dedicated to Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones, who had drowned a week earlier). It's likely not possible to determine exactly what transpired on that show, as nearly all the tapes of the "Tonight Show" made before the program's move to Los Angeles in 1972 have long since been destroyed, but Rolling Stone did report on Hendrix's "Tonight Show" appearance and said nothing about any "world's greatest guitarist" question or answer (nor could Johnny Carson have put any question to Hendrix, as a guest host was filling in for him that evening):


When Hendrix appeared on the "Tonight" show a couple of weeks back, neither Redding nor Mitchell was with him. The appearance was a disaster, by the way. First, he giggled his way through a rap with guest host Flip Wilson, who tried to hip-talk himself onto Hendrix's level while patting a huge watermelon on his desk. Then, just as Jimi was getting into a good number on his axe, his amp blew and he sauntered off stage, leaving a hapless session drummer (with pasted-on sideburns) and bass player in an impromptu jam that had no chance of ever gelling.

Hendrix apparently did sing the praises of a pre-ZZ Top Billy Gibbons (then a little-known guitarist with a band called Moving Sidewalks) during a "Dick Cavett Show" appearance at about the same time. We doubt that was the origin of the Phil Keaggy legend, but who knows?



Personally, I believe that the rumor started from a joke Randy Stonehill told (which, evidently, was taken as fact rather than the joke that it was) while introducing Keaggy during the live recording of the Compassion All Star Band album.

 

Speaking of Randy Stonehill, I just bought his new CD, and LOVE it!

 

I told my old apprentices that guitar players can't sing...Hendrix, Clapton, Knopfler, Keaggy...I rest my case

Jude mentioned Bob Dylan..he can't sing OR play guitar!

Pete

 

Course, he can go to go to an ATM as many-times as he wants!

 

and does anybody remember Chuck Girard or Larry Norman or 2nd Chapter of Acts??? And whatever happened to Norman Greenbaum??

 

Jude, true, we all just wish he would invest some of that into singing & guitar lessons

Pete

 

I recently saw Dallas Holm on TV. I hadnt heard anything from him in a long time. The 1st "contemporary christian" song I learned to play after my conversion was his "Rise Again".

Mike