Heartland Rock part IV - Influences and bi-products

I'm gonna keep this short, 'cause I gotta work on some piano arrangements later tonight and I'm going to London in the morning. To me it started like many a tales, with Bob Dylan singing a song...

And Dylan’s early work came from Guthrie, who was also singing a song. The song he sung was probably written by someone else, a slave in the fields or a bum on the freight trains. And then along came Elvis of course, incorporating blues rythms and hips. Heartland Rock comes all the way from that, shifted through the yellowed camera lense of The Band and other Americana just to end up where we left it last time, with people doing Heartland Rock without even knowing they did it.

If you use Heartland Rock only as a filter you can find see its influence in the weirdest places. Like in Billy Joel. But I'm not gonna post his stuff here, I don't want to.

Instead I will give you a certain Heartland Rock classic that my friend "Manic" Melvin introduced me to back in the days when we played dual Telecaster Customs.

Then here is an example of a band who unknowingly incorporated a lot of Heartland in their music; Swedish locals Eldkvarn. Listen to the synthezeisers, I think it's OBX (Oberheim) used in both this and the Seger song.

Oh, and I can't play that song without showing you this ol' gem. I discussed it the other night with my editor Boba, and I am sure the bastard will post it if I don't. So here it is, Swedens finest punk rocker Joakim Thåström performing "Flyktsoda" as a guest on the same tour. Pete Doherty had the same look a couple of years back.

Pete probably stole it, the bastard.