from the LP Second Helping, MCA Records, 1974It’s incredible to me what a fucking swindle most classic rock-n-roll really was, a true & thorough pillaging of every last recorded blues note that had ever been plucked, and not a single one of them (Page, Clapton, Townshend, Richards, Beck, Lennon, Davies, et al.) ever had to pay those visionary brothers (or their families) a dime for getting butt-rich off of their lives’ harrowing truths & hardships. I suppose that alone wouldn’t be such a big deal in & of itself (past is prologue, and all that…), but those same bands were then so quick to turn around and sue the fuck out of (mainly) black men in the ‘80s & ‘90s (and they will still sue anyone to this day) who were merely sampling a few seconds of their already ripped off licks, hypocrisy of the highest order if you ask me. In actuality, those rock heroes owe much of their surreal privileged lives to brave and oppressed gentlemen like the one depicted in this essential cut by Skynyrd, cats who knew full well that their musical talent would never be enough to change their status in the culture which they then lived, resigned to the therapy of strum…and some wine…word.
