Vanilla Fudge Keeps Me Hangin’ On
I’ve been sitting in with a local classic rock band while their drummer is out, and one of the songs they are working on is Vanilla Fudge‘s “Keep Me Hangin’ On.” At first I thought this is a fairly straight-forward song. It was always one of my favorites as I was growing up.
Straight-forward, except that a few of the transitions seemed a bit off-time, and the bridge section was played extremely odd with quarter-notes on the snare. I struggled a bit, but I figured it out…no big deal. Till I got to rehearsal. The band had learned the full length version of the song (five plus minutes). I apparently learned the radio edit (three minutes tops). So after muddling through it a time or two, and trashing all the changes, we decided to table until I’d had a opportunity to learn the other arrangement.
So when I got ready to learn the other version, I thought, “Lets see if I can find a version of this on YouTube.”
Well I found it. It’s a version of the band on the “Ed Sullivan” show (the same show where I first heard The Beatles). And low and behold the drummer was Carmine Appice. Huh. No wonder I struggled with the timing and bridge. Carmine is nothing short of amazing. Here’s the video, and even though I feel it’s a bit “over-acted,” his performance is nothing short of amazing.
FYI – you can catch the bands live performance on Jimmy Fallon here.
