Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top, Aleksanterinkatu, Helsinki, Finland

Billy Gibbons strolls up. I offer my guitar. Here is my version using same guitar, amp, and backing track: and check out the rest of my videos Note added : Many have commented that people are not stopping to listen. This took place on the corner of a small pedestrian street and a larger shopping street with nice shops and a tram line. Finns are respectful of personal space and tend to leave people alone, plus Billy had his back toward most people. The whole thing lasted just minutes. At 0:30 a blonde turns and perhaps recognizes him but she keeps on walking. People are just going about their business in the middle of a beautiful sunny day. Billy was out shopping with his wife when he heard me. He walked up to the corner to see who was playing. He talks about it at 1:12 of this interview from Sweden The story was picked up by Finnish media. I never for a moment thought the video would make a stir. I just put it on YouTube like I do my others. I know better now to protect my property. My video was pirated by a bunch of sites that post rock and blues stuff. Joe Bonamassa asked Billy about the episode at 17:20 of this recent podcast The “slow blues number“ was The Thrill is Gone. Billy asked what key I was in. I told him B minor. That was pretty much all the conversation. It was all very natural. I handed him the guitar and he jumped right in. The Thrill is Gone is one of my favorite loops. Here it is again from a video shoot in Copenhagen. This video shows the guitar in great detail. I used basically the same amp, an earlier version of the Roland Micro Cube. This shoot took place next to the Round Tower of Copenhagen (Danish: Rundetårn). -- Apparently, Billy liked my blue guitar and stopped back to make me an offer but I was gone. By the way, the finish on the guitar is Daphne Blue, not Sea Foam Green. It is indeed a great guitar. It’s extremely articulate. It has small vintage 6230 frets and a “ neck radius. The pickups are Fender Custom Shop 54’s. The bridge assembly is Callaham with a full size steel block. The neck is substantial and I have it set very straight with almost no relief. It has soft-V contour and a nitro finish. The whole instrument is vintage spec. You can hear more of it on this video shot by a retired economist in Copenhagen who heard me on the street and asked if he could record me. -- That guitar was assembled by a gifted luthier in Pennsylvania from excellent parts selected by me. Most of the parts were purchased over eBay. You don’t need a name brand instrument today to own a great guitar. I have another excellent parts Stratocaster with a cherry red body by MJ Tele that I won in an eBay auction. It has a somewhat thinner C-shaped neck, 9.5“ radius, and 6105 fret wire, tall and narrow, although I like the fact that they are quite worn down now. The rest of the hardware and pickups are the same as in the blue one. A few videos: -- -- -- -- -- -- -- For anyone who is interested, my PhD dissertation was a psychometric study of musician personality and occupational stress. I collected data from about 1,400 musicians over the Internet using an in-depth survey that contained 60 items measuring the Big Five dimensions of personality as well as items measuring stress and numerous musician-related variables. It’s a free download. -- Nine clusters of musicians emerged using a robust algorithm that sorted musicians based on the similarity of their personality profiles. Each musician’s personality profile consisted of scores for Neuroticism, Extroversion, Openness to Experience, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness. I ordered the clusters by Neuroticism because this personality dimension was the strongest predictor of occupational stress and psychosomatic troubles. It turns out that the cluster highest in Neuroticism and lowest in Agreeableness (cluster 9) had a disproportionate number of jazz and rock musicians. Musicians in that cluster were also low on Extroversion and Conscientiousness. They reported the highest levels of stress and psychosomatic troubles. Best wishes, Emmanuel Angel, PhD