Brian Jones at left with Gretsch 6118 guitar, Rolling Stones 1964
Its a sad thing to reflect on, but will we see the like of ground breaking bands from the 1960's who are now all but retired from the scene?
In those days, these musicians did an apprenticeship of sorts, playing along to records, learning new material and playing techniques. The post war late 1950's had seen American Rock n Roll come in and the British youth wanted a piece of that.
The half-arsed musical art form of skiffle, a sort of acceptable cod attempt at trad American music, was acceptable to a largely square older generation. The young Elvis, gyrating movements et al, were not, nor were leather jacketed creatures aping Gene Vincent.
To the old guard, they were a temptation, a route to trouble. The scenario would repeat itself 20 years later when Punk Rock erupted.
Turn on the radio these days and you get a studio perfect manufactured pop act, the days of the group that evolved and morphed into a credible musical ensemble, often via the pub circuit are pretty much over.
YouTube and the Internet have killed it off with wall to wall mediocrity. In the old days, a band played in a pub, if they chose the right pub where the record company scouts, the A&R men trawled, they might get somewhere, get signed or get good advice.
From that process, the most marketable would get a studio tryout and perhaps a recording contract. Now, it is likely that a viral youtube performance gets them a deal. The problem often comes with the 'difficult' second album, 'difficult' because the act has little talent.
Once the crowd stops screaming and the mayhem subsides, the reality is that even autotune vocals can't hide the one dimensionality. And they're gone in moments.
Television shows finding 'new talent' expose it and a year or so later, the new talent is gone, never to be heard of again.
Back to the early 60's and people like Keith Richards, Brian Jones, Eric Clapton for example were all trawling the obscure records bins for obscure records, in their case, real old down home American blues, recorded by the original artists.
It is ironic that the 'British Invasion' of the USA in the early 1960's actually raised awareness of the largely 'forgotten' black music performers of the Blues genre.
Without the British Invasion, who would have created the Monkees? A sort of Americanised version of the Dave Clark 5 or the Beatles but with a television scripted kids TV series?
But moving on from the Blues, the Rolling Stones explored multi-instrumentalism. Brian Jones was at the vanguard of this evolution, introducing Harpsicord, Sitar, Recorder and Marimba into the music.
One wonders what he could have gone onto achieve had not drugs and an early death ended the promise of his abilities?
Having Mick Jagger freed up to be a main vocalist gave the band a freedom that the others in the music scene, bar Cliff Richard could not enjoy, his Shadows as backing band and band in their own right gave Cliff the option of backing music.
The arrangements of the early pop even to the 1980's was well thought out, nowadays it is mostly musical wallpaper, delivering a sausage factory lyric that the performer never had a hand on nor did their band mates, who may not even be playing on the record.
Today is all about image. The music is not the most important thing, money is the driver, but with the traditional avenues of music play feeling the demand of demand media, what you want, when you want it, then we may slowly drown in manufactured, musical mediocrity. Sadly.
Even the pubs with music licences are dwindling, the pub clientele has changed and a modern media rich world with content vies for our attention.
At least we have through the internet, the videos of the old bands, a reminder of how it was in the heady days of the 60's.
