Ain't Complaining is brilliant even without the Horn section I envision will be in the final Cut. @EasyAce
@corbe I
did think about horns for that song, but there's a problem where I live---too many horn players here like to bleat, squeak, shriek, honk, bellow, blast, or fart their instruments. And that's just the saxophonists! (Don't get me started on the trumpeters or trombonists.) You can count on half a hand how many of them don't and those guys are all tied up in five bands at a time.
There's also another problem---too many people insisting you try copying this or that or the other thing before they'll even give you the time of day, never mind play with you. I actually had one guy who was going to play harmonica with me a few years ago come over to my place to start working out some music and he looked me dead in the eye and said, "You ought to listen to this or that and copy what they're doing." That was the
end of our association right there, because I told him, "Son, there already
were those guys, and I'm not those guys, I'm me."
I have my influences, everyone does, and mine aren't strictly guitar players, but if I wanted to just copy them I'd have "XEROX" stamped on my neck and I don't do tattoos. Or costumes. Or that ersatz-Blues Brothers/Stevie Ray Vaughan look. Or wandering onto a bandstand looking like I'd been thrown
out of a crack house for violating their dress code. I like to look human on a bandstand even if I also agree with something Duane Allman once said:
You wanna play in my band, you better come to pick, not show off your clothes, this ain't no fashion show. (Or, a wild animal act with instruments.)
