By the time I discovered The Beatles and Billy Joel, I was singing and playing bass for a successful cover band in the Little Rock area called The Dreadnaughts. I also played various percussion instruments and sang for a two man group with the very talented Larry Hahs, called Two For The Show. When our happy hour schedule got too full, I started doing solo happy hour gigs, just me and my guitar. With all due respect to the guys I played with those many years, I enjoyed my solo happy hour gigs the most, because I was able to play whatever the heck I wanted. I covered everything from Stevie Wonder, to acoustic versions of Metallica songs. I also got to throw in more obscure stuff, like Kip Winger, Jellyfish, and a few of my own compositions. The one song I never incorporated that I always wanted to do was Landslide by Fleetwood Mac.
Landslide is one of those songs that struck me when I first heard it. It's both beautiful and sad, and stunningly introspective and wise, considering Stevie Nicks wrote it when she was only 28 years old. She wrote the song while, "looking out at the Rocky Mountains pondering the avalanche of everything that had come crashing down on us ... at that moment, my life truly felt like a landslide in many ways." I certainly identified with her when I first heard it, and the song remains meaningful to me now when I feel overwhelmed by circumstances. It's comforting to in a "life goes on" sort of way.
Christie re-arranged the contents of our van about ten times to make room for me to bring my guitar, so I've been pulling it out every few days and learning some tunes that I never got around to adding to the happy hour rotation - Landslide was one of the first that came to mind.
So here's my long overdue rendition of Landslide. My voice and playing are a bit rusty, but you get the idea.
