Late Night Music: Mercy Street & Jazz Manouche

I came across a link to this video on an acoustic guitar forum that I’ve been frequenting recently.

There are so many cool things about this video, I’m not sure where to start. It begins with some fabulous rhythm loops that Bon Lazaga creates with his guitar at the beginning.

After watching the guitar loops I urge you to immediately hide your YouTube window and just listen to the song once through without watching. How many vocalists do you hear singing?

Don’t peek, just listen to the song, enjoy it, and make a guess. Then watch the video again.

One vocalist, Happy Rhodes, an American singer, songwriter, instrumentalist and electronic musician with a four octave vocal range, and one acoustic guitar, giving us this heartstopping performance of Peter Gabriel’s “Mercy Street”.

YouTube is changing everything. It’s giving a stage to artists like Happy Rhodes and that old dude in the bar playing the Jazz Manouche guitar. His name is Jean Pierre de Lille, by the way, and he has another video which is worth watching as well.

Five years ago no one would have ever seen this guy.

Enjoy!

Are You Hot For Words?

So that’s what a spoonerism is!

I think I need to get back to work.