I ran across the second vid via Open Culture through the Gazetteer’s blog roll. I missed a certain amount of the Guns ‘n Roses stuff because I was preoccupied with other music. It’s always interesting to see how a piece can be reworked in a different context.
Of course, this is pretty much what Busketeering is all about, and the Gazetteer would be the one to know.
John Kessler, over at KPLU.org, does a Saturday and Sunday show called All Blues between six and midnight and, at eight o’clock, dials up the Blues Time Machine, wherein he traces songs back to their roots through three or four different versions. It’s gotten hokier and more formalized over the years, but still an interesting look at the evolution of some of the tunes that have become blues standards, or classics, or just favourites. He used to do different songs on Saturday and Sunday, but I guess it got too onerous. There are a bunch of podcasts on the site:
Speaking of New Orleans jazz, I recently discovered Aurora Nealand and really a couple of collections I got through eMusic.
All good fun.