Rarely a day goes by when I'm not knocked on my keister by something I see on YouTube. The perpetually refreshed, on-demand video jukebox is a veritable Library of Alexandria of 20th-century music. So why not search for some of the rare videos on the site? Be sure to check out these unexpected treasures.
Arthur Lee and Love are one of the great underappreciated classic-rock acts. Like Jimi Hendrix, Lee was a rare black rocker in a white-dominated field. His music with Love was melodic, baroque, accessibly innovative, and utterly original. The only YouTube footage of the original band is from a 1966 episode of "American Bandstand," when the group performed their hit single "Little Red Book" and "Message to Pretty."
An Internet mystery was solved recently when a writer for the music blog Idolator tracked down Sal Polichetti, lead singer of Christian ska band Sonseed (1978-83), whose wonderful video for "Jesus Is My Friend" had gone seriously viral. The writer's query to Polichetti elicited a testy, colorful, and surprisingly profane response to the suggestion that the video was possibly a hoax. Hoax or not, it's a terrifically uplifting track.
Some of the best live music ever filmed was performed on "The Midnight Special," which ran on TV from 1972 to 1981. Dutch progressive-rock group Focus out-rhapsodizes Queen in this head-spinning, yodel-riffic version of their unlikely Top-10 hit, "Hocus Pocus." "If all prog-rock was even half as good as this we wouldn't have needed punk," observed one commenter.
Charismatic Laura Nyro was only 21 when she appeared on "Kraft Music Hall" in 1969 to perform a solo version of "Save the Country." The New York hippie goddess's glorious blend of rock, gospel, R&B, and musical theater propels a song that sounds more relevant than ever this election year. Nyro's soulful rendition of "He's a Runner" on the same show is a study in emotional intimacy.
Was 1969 the greatest year in music or what? Maybe it's the wild background dancers, but everything liberating about '60s music practically bursts off the screen in this clip of Tom Jones and Janis Joplin shouting, screaming, and generally tearing the roof off the sucker while singing "Raise Your Hand" on his TV show, "This Is Tom Jones."
YouTube also offers computer-savvy rascals a place to comment upon some of our hallowed pop moments. One of the best examples of this is "Birthday Greetings From Joe Cocker," a subtitled and illustrated version of Cocker's epic rendition of the Beatles' "A Little Help From My Friends" at Woodstock. I like the part where he sings, "I gotta get my Fred and Wilma."
Sometimes YouTube is just a place to archive casual audience videos of great musicians in action. Danny Gatton, who committed suicide in 1994, was a remarkably fast and nimble guitarist's guitarist. This video of the Telecaster master performing Joe Henderson's "Mamasita" (with shades of Ray Charles's "What'd I Say") at a Washington, D.C., club in 1988 is a seemingly effortless distillation of rockabilly, country, Chicago blues, Western swing, and jazz guitar into six superbly swinging minutes.
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