Floyd Cramer - Check this guy out!

[ricoche]

Growing up as a kid I was pretty much into the rock guitar before piano, but I did listen to quite a bit of Country music and the blues. Recently I was watching a Jeff Lorber interview and he mentioned that he applied a lot of stuff from Floyd Cramer to his music, especially in a funk context. I thought "huh" I wonder who Floyd Cramer is...laugh. I then checked on Youtube and was blown away by his "Slip Note" style of playing and definitely could see how any keyboardist could apply this stuff to funk and the blues. In fact, it pretty much IS country blues if correct. A couple of his big hits were "Last Date" and "On the Rebound". Both are awesome and I've already started learning the "Last Date" by ear with "Rebound" to follow.

This isn't a request for Willie to teach "Floyd Cramer" music ( although I certainly wouldn't mind ), but if you are a Funk and Blues player who is open minded about musical genres such as Country, I highly recommend having a listen.

Here is an incredible video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IM2OJZn5Kkw .

The video features Floyd Cramer and Chet Atkins playing live. Floyd is jamming on his hit "On the Rebound". Fantastic! He also plays "Cotton Fields" which is great too later in the video. I play the CCR version on the guitar. It's fun.

Enjoy!

Jim

[ricoche]

Actually after watching the video of "On the Rebound" by Floyd Cramer, it would be cool Willie if you could do a couple of videos showing his style a bit. He has some pretty cool licks and sections in that song that would be a blast to learn. Great jam stuff.

Thanks!

Jim

[leadbird]

I highly recommend Hal Leonards Country Piano by Mark Harrison. It's in the keyboard style book series. I'm currently working on the song First Date, which is very close to Last Date :)

Cheers

Frank

[ricoche]

Thanks Frank for the book recommendation. I'll check it out. In the piano world, I feel like I just discovered Elvis so I feel strange I didn't know about Floyd Cramer. It's funny. In fact, I believe Floyd played with Elvis at some point in his career. As a guitar player I know "Scotty Moore", but never quite checked out the piano player until now. I also found it very difficult to find live performance videos of Floyd as well. I am curious about that. Thanks again!

Jim

[williemyette]

I love that video! I'm gonna add this to the Blues site. If you are a GOLD member, you have probably already seen the first 2 Blues lessons are now online. I have another one going up next week and have yet another one on New Orleans piano. I transcribed some Dr. John licks that will be in the New Orleans one.

I'll add this after the New Orleans licks. So, look for it prob sometime in Feb.

Thanks again for pointing this out. It is a really cool sound!

[leadbird]

I had to listen to the video again, it's great. I think some of the licks in the first song sounds a little like Ray Charles "What'd I Say"? Maybe Ray Charles stole it from Floyd Cramer??? :)

I have the CD The essential Floyd Cramer which is great. Actually he covers the Ray Charles song there. I also highly recommend you listen to Floyd Cramers version of "Java" which I belive is a song originally by Allen Touissaint. There is another gold mine for you "The complete Touissant Sessions" by Allen Touissaint. Only instrumental recordings and lot's of nice piano licks.

I remeber when I discovered Floyd Cramer a couple of years ago aswell, and was thinking why haven't I heard this before? I discovered alot of music after I started playing piano. That's how I discovered my favourite Professor Longhair. Blew me away with the Rock'n'Roll Gumbo album. Was the only record I listen to for almost a year :D

I agree with Jim. Some Floyd Cramer stuff would be nice for some lessons.

Frank