Whisky Online Blog

The idea of the blues is one that has been taken in many directions by countless players over the course of the last century. It has been defined in many technical ways in terms of its musical structures and disciplines but for me its definition is in the idea of the blues, the blues feeling. A feeling that is expressed through the music, not necessarily defined by the technicalities of the music itself, but communicated through its writing and performance. What is communicated is, more often than not, pain. To truly play the blues requires the kind of ragged existence that most of us are fortunate enough not to know, I certainly don’t and I wouldn’t want to. I selected a couple of songs by two of the greatest white ‘bluesmen’ of the last fifty years to try and illustrate this. They are not well known songwriters but they have a left their mark with music that transcends their own, often tragic, lives.

Townes Van Zandt is technically a country singer by generic definition but his music was of such power, and filled with the pain and beauty of his often tortured life, that it goes beyond these kinds of labels. He was a great songwriter plain and simple, he was not technically a good singer or guitarist, he simply played enough to write and then serve his own songs in performance. Here he plays ‘Waitin’ Around To Die’, a song that perfectly encapsulates the idea of the blues, he pours all his fears, pain and life into this song, it is a song that could only be written by someone who has lived those lyrics. He is still not as well known as he maybe deserves to be, those that know often cast him as one of the greatest lyricists, even songwriters of all time, including Bob Dylan. He lived his whole life recording and playing his music but rarely had any money. Like so many truly lost souls he was susceptible to the clutches of drugs and alcoholism. Most of his adult life was spent on the road, playing small dives, living out of motels and friends couches. Everything about this lifestyle is sketched out in bleak, deep lines in this song. It is a true expression of the blues feeling.

Just as Townes Van Zandt is considered more a country artist, Jackson C Frank’s genre is technically folk. He visited London in the mid sixties and played in the folk clubs there where he met Paul Simon, the man who was to produce his first album. Blues Run The Game is perhaps his most famous track, popularised by Simon & Garfunkel and covered by Nick Drake, Sandy Denny, Counting Crows and Colin Meloy amongst many others. His influence runs deep beneath the surface of many songwriters. His music was charged with a heavy sense of melancholy and sadness, naked melodic songs of devastating expressiveness. He was the victim of a freak fire in his youth during a music lesson at school, the fire killed eighteen of his classmates and left him with serious burns to over 50% of his body. It was during his long stay in hospital that he passed the time learning a guitar. Like Zandt he is not a particularly great player or singer but it was his ability to find expression on his instrument that sets his songs apart. His life was characterised by manic depression, loss and tragedy, he lost his son, spent time being homeless in New York, went blind as a result of being shot at indiscriminately with a bb gun. His music was driven by the trauma of his youth but he never escaped that initial pain, instead it took hold and dragged him down. His lasting legacy is one of the most simple and beautiful songs of the twentieth century. Blues Run The Game is so perfect in its execution, the way the melody complements and offsets the lyrics, it is one of those songs you could listen to with no knowledge of the english language and still understand its message. It is this blues feeling again, this idea of a life communicated by a song. There are many covers of these songs but the originals, though sometimes overlooked or unknown, are the ones to seek out.

The Rare Malts Glenury. An all too often forgotten distillery.

Glenury Royal seems to be neither here nor there in many whisky lover’s eyes. A closed distillery from which there are many beautiful examples available (if anyone has a sample of the OB 50yo they would like to share I’d be eternally grateful by the way) and a few mundane bottlings, it seems to me to be a rarely lamented loss. I suppose the nature of the distillery matches very well that of the musicians, something beautiful yet a little obscure, with an air of tragedy about it. The whisky inside this RM release is appropriately therefore very suited to the music. It is a complex spirit, grassy and leafy on one hand yet peppery and subtly peated on the other, it runs a deft balancing act and shows different sides of its personality to those willing to give it time. It rewards a contemplative moment but does not detract from the extra-olfactory stimulants of music or conversation. The Rare Malts series is such an interesting one because over the course of ten years and many releases I think we became complacent about quite how many beautiful and understated whiskies were bottled under its label. I suspect in years to come we will realise more and more what a treasure trove of drams it was, how it gave us beautiful naked examples of so many lost and otherwise forgotten distilleries. The idea of lost distilleries and the blues music feel so right to me, it feels better than blues and bourbon, it feels like things that have come, grown old and gone, leaving a fading mark and a beautiful echo in their wake that we can only be grateful to enjoy while we still can. Whisky is such a wonderful illustration of the transient nature of life, while we may save things for a special occasion or a rainy day, what good does hoarding do in the end. All things must pass and there will come a time when you realise you missed your moment. These great whiskies will one day be gone, just the same as you or I, maybe its worth orchestrating a collision between man and malt while its still possible to do so.

A 1968 Yamaha FG 180. Aka: the 'Martin Eater' or, my favourite Guitar.

The Guitar can be a frustrating instrument to play. If you are happy to learn a few chords and strum away at Blowin’ In The Wind then you can probably have a simple, carefree and joyful experience on the instrument. But the Guitar is a seductive mistress, those six strings shimmer and wink at you, they speak of unknown aural glories and, ultimately, leave you hungry for more. The problem, that most guitarists quickly realise when they begin on the instrument, is that Guitarists are ten a penny, every man and his iguana can knock out a few Oasis covers at the open mic night in their local boozer. Beyond that there is no shortage of more advanced players, people can quickly progess to learn basic fingerpicking styles, some blues licks, maybe a bit of slide and any number of other styles. The idea of actually finding a new angle on Guitar playing or becoming a true master of the instrument is utterly mind boggling. What can you play that hasn’t already been done so beautifully and majestically by others? Of course this is a stupid attitude to take, if everyone thought like that we’d never hear any new music but speaking as someone who has spent many years being enslaved by Guitars, lets just say I understand. I can spend many hours happily playing away, lost in a world a steel string doodles, but then suddenly I might take a notion to listen to Isn’t It A Pity by George Harrison or perhaps a track by Peter Green, maybe Little Wing by Jimi Hendrix or some Richard Thompson. Listening to such players can have a dual effect on me, the beauty and wonder of their playing hits first but there is also an undercurrent of frustration, how can you ever hope to achieve the quality of sound and feeling these players captured? The problem though is not my, or anybody else’s, lack or endowment of ability, its just that these guys were/are masters of their instrument. By master I don’t mean that they we’re really really good, I mean that they took it to a new place. They were writers of music as well as players, they understood that the guitar was just an extension of their own voice, it was a universal communicator. They didn’t just play fast, they made every note count, they could say more with three notes than most of us could ever conjure up with thirty.

Stefan Grossman: an all too often unheralded master of the Guitar.

By these same signatures of mastery I am always keen to point out to people the music of Stefan Grossman. He is one of those consummate and captivating players that leaves you marveling at the effortless virtuosity of his playing. Rooted in a mixture of Ragtime and the Blues, his playing radiates feeling, be it pathos or humour, he is an enthralling musician. He is also nowhere near as well known as he should be. I think this is because he has spent his life teaching the Guitar rather than simply garnering fame and wealth from his skills. Type his name into youtube and a multitude of  his wonderful Guitar tutorials appear, all posted on his own channel. He is one of those rare musicians, unhindered by ego and unrestrained by greed. His purpose is the music, the sharing, teaching, playing and enjoyment of it. He is what so many great musicians are never brave enough to be: not very famous.

That was Stefan playing The Assassination Of John Fahey, slow, brooding in places, dryly witty in others but always emotive. It is the kind of piece that a thousand of us fingerpickers might emulate note for note but never really play. You cannot play with such fluency and grace without some deeper cosmic connection to your instrument, it is the torment that all serious guitarists face: ‘Do I go out and get a real job, or do stay in and fall asleep with my fingers bleeding while the Devil strolls off with my soul in a jar?’ Sometimes you have to just make that choice and once you’ve made it… its unlikely you’ll go back.

Brora, one of the most justifiably lamented lost distilleries.

When I was thinking about whiskies I could match with this music one of the first distilleries I looked at was Brora, as soon I as I did I knew it was right. Its one of the most perfect fits. Sure the musical genre is technically blues, which is arguably better suited to a fine Bourbon or Rye whiskey. But its not about labels, when the music is this good, when its played so hauntingly, it becomes about matching beauty with beauty. Clynelish was the name of a distillery in the far eastern highlands, in 1968 its owners created a new distillery, also named Clynelish, next door. From 1969  to 1973 the old distillery produced heavily peated spirit under the name Brora. Although the peating levels gradually reduced, Brora continued to produce this very old ‘highland style’ up until its closure in march 1983. This has led to much anorakious debate about casks labelled Clynelish coming from both distilleries and getting mixed up, about house styles and general geekery and legends. What is certain is there was Clynelish 1.0 and then there was Clynelish 2.0, which remains in production today.

Another great Brora. This one from 1976 from a cask yielding only 109 bottles.

The thing about Brora, you see, is its beauty and tragedy. Of all the distilleries closed in the early eighties it is Port Ellen and Brora that induce the most tears. There is no other spirit like it, the best examples were peated but distinct from the Islay malts, fruity yet austere, big, complex, intensely flavoured and balanced. The 1972s are some of the most mind blowing whiskies out there if you can find/afford any of them. It is an old style highland malt that speaks in such controlled yet powerful and harmonious tones that every glass, every sip makes its loss felt even deeper. It was also a short lived liquid, only made between 69 and 83, and even then later batches were less peated and, although often wonderful, didn’t quite match up with the early peated years. These days it is a scarce dram indeed, Diageo has some left but very little, we hope they will not murder any more casks of it in the dreaded Blue Label. Other independents still bottle it when they get their hands on a cask or two but the stream of bottlings has been noticeably drying up in the last couple of years. It only serves us to wonder ‘how long before its all gone?’ Brora seems so at home with this kind of playing, I say playing because I think the genre doesn’t matter so much, you could easily substitute it with great Jazz, or great blues rock like Cream or Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd or Pentangle as well maybe. Its the majesty of the music that counts, those fleeting live performances that can never really be recaptured, in the same way that Brora’s beauty can only be contained in individual bottles for so long until all we’re left with is videos, tasting notes and memories. Its sad to see Brora slowly disappear but when you do savour a dram it makes it all the more special, just like when you see a truly great player performing at their peak, these moments contain a rare and aching beauty indeed. Maybe something a little more lighthearted to finish, Stefan Grossman doing one of his infamous talking and pickin performances. Pour a Brora!