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 November 15, 2007 So Much Guitar In 1973, Belgian artist Guy Peellaert and rock critic Nik Cohn created a sensation with their book Rock Dreams, a collection of paintings featuring pop musicians in various fantasy settings conceived by the book’s creators. The least imaginative painting showed Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck, Pete Townshend, and, if memory serves me, Alvin Lee getting out of a black limousine. Each is dressed like a 1930s gangster and carries a violin case in the manner of a hit man. While the picture might have been a cliché, it did capture how many of us viewed guitarists in the mid-’70s. The electric guitar had been firmly established as the primary instrument of rock’n’roll for some time when Rock Dreams appeared, but had become a focal point in rock music a few years earlier, when Jimi Hendrix, Cream, the Grateful Dead, and other musicians began treating rock as an opportunity for improvisation. While the role of the guitar has changed somewhat in the years since -- guitarists in most cutting-edge bands now don’t much go in for long solos -- it remains the key instrument in rock’n’roll. When Rolling Stone chose the top 100 guitarists of all time in August 2003, it was only confirming the preeminence of the instrument. It was a little surprising that the magazine didn’t follow up with a list of important pianists, since a number of rock’n’roll’s most important figures -- including Fats Domino, Little Richard, and Jerry Lee Lewis -- pounded the keys, but when people think of rock’n’roll, the instrument they think of is probably made by Fender or Gibson, not Steinway or Baldwin. Having grown up in the era of the guitar hero, I realize that it may be only old dudes like me who still talk about our favorite guitar solos. A few months ago, a friend and I exchanged an e-mail list of solos that stand out in our memories; I was surprised at how little crossover there was between the lists, and at how many worthy entries on his list I’d forgotten. I had intended to write about my top ten favorites, but realized the piece would run long; I’ll return later, with a second installment. In the meantime, here are my first five, in no particular order:
Electric Ladyland was the first and, it would turn out, only album over which Jimi Hendrix had complete control (his perfectionism and erratic behavior had driven his original producer, Chas Chandler, to bail out). Hendrix, like Les Paul before him, had learned how to use the recording studio to bring to life the sounds he heard in his imagination, and his cover of Bob Dylan’s "All Along the Watchtower" is the culmination of his studies. Hendrix played so many memorable solos that it seems foolish to pick one as his greatest, but "Watchtower" put all his talents on display. The song actually contains four solos, but it’s the third one, following the second verse, that shows the guitarist’s genius. It opens with a series of blues runs in pentatonic mode, played with precision and elegance -- no empty flash here. Hendrix admired Dylan and wanted to give the song an interpretation that would bring out the qualities that drew him to it in the first place. Hendrix follows the opening with a slide-guitar break that is heavily delayed, reverberated, and phased between channels to create an otherworldly effect. He segues into a series of octave notes using a wah-wah pedal, and then a blues-based wah-wah solo that is very flashy indeed, but as clearly thought out and developed as what has preceded it. It’s the next section of the solo that shows what made Hendrix such a distinctive guitarist. He plays a series of sliding chords, pull-offs, and passing chords that show a debt to Jimmy Nolen, James Brown’s guitarist. That final section shows just how much he’d learned from his days on the chitlin circuit, and how much command he had of the fingerboard. Hendrix was, and remains, the most completely talented guitarist rock ever produced and "All Along the Watchtower" stands among the greatest pop recordings. No small measure of its success is due to Mitch Mitchell’s mighty drumming and Hendrix’s canny arrangement (Dave Mason’s 12-string guitar provides both guitar chords and percussion). But, in the end, the track’s greatness hinges on that astonishing solo.
I was pleased, and not a little surprised, to see that Duane Allman was second on Rolling Stone’s list. Allman didn’t live to enjoy the rock-star status of a Hendrix or Clapton. When he died from injuries received in a motorcycle accident just three months after the release of The Allman Brothers Band at Fillmore East, he and his band were only beginning to receive the recognition they deserved. Although musicians have long held him in high regard, most casual rock fans don’t know him as well as they do the other important guitarists of the classic-rock era. For many of them, Allman’s legacy is Southern rock itself. Luckily, Duane Allman made his reputation playing sessions, most of them for Rick Hall’s Fame Studio in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. While his playing on the first four Allman Brothers Band LPs, along with his work on Derek and the Dominos’ Layla, are enough to secure his reputation, these other performances show the full range of his formidable talents. He appeared on LPs by soul singers, such as Aretha Franklin and Wilson Pickett, as well as on rock and blues sessions for singers as varied as Otis Rush, Lulu, and Delaney and Bonnie. Many of the 35 or so records he appeared on are in print or can be found used on LP. He played countless great solos, each a finely polished gem, but his work on "Loan Me a Dime," from Boz Scaggs’ debut on Atlantic Records, is the one I return to again and again. On "Loan Me a Dime," Allman was fortunate to be backed by the Muscle Shoals house band, which included Eddie Hinton and Jimmy Johnson on guitars, Barry Becket on keyboards, David Hood on bass, and Roger Hawkins on drums. These guys knew only one way to play -- in the pocket -- and here they provide a simple, rock-solid foundation for Allman’s solos. While Allman solos extensively throughout the song, he never wastes a note or overplays. Session work seemed to focus his ideas; he often had to make his point quickly. What’s so striking about "Loan Me a Dime" is how clean and uncluttered his playing is, and how he avoids the showiness and empty displays of speed that plagued so many young blues and rock guitarists in the late ’60s and early ’70s. Allman told critic Robert Palmer that Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue was a key influence on him. I hear Miles in Allman’s refusal to go for flash, choosing instead a clearly developed melody. In addition, Duane Allman had a jazz musician’s finely tuned sense of what was going on around him and what might happen next. He never fell back on technique, though. On "Loan Me a Dime" and many other tunes, he went for deep feeling every time.
Has any other truly great guitarist squandered the good will and high hopes of his early fans more often, and over a longer period of time, than Eric Clapton? He’s lived a charmed life, and he’s sold a lot of records, but I can’t help feeling that fans who have stayed with him all these years have also bought Sting’s sleep-inducing products. Yet there was a time when Clapton was one of the very best guitarists in rock, often and justifiably mentioned in the same breath as Hendrix. At his peak, he was incomparable -- quick, with a searing tone and a deep well of feeling that flowed from his profound understanding of the blues. A Clapton solo could lift a song out of the ordinary and turn it into something worth hearing. In a guest shot on Steven Stills’ first solo album, as soon as he hits his first note on "Go Back Home," the energy level rises. You can almost see the VU meters in the studio jump. Clapton firmly established his standing as a great guitarist with John Mayall, but he solidified it with Cream. "Badge" is the clearest example of how unique and potent his best work could be. Although he often had enough ideas to sustain lengthy improvisations with Cream and with Derek and the Dominos, some of his best work resulted from the brevity imposed on him in the studio. His solo on "Badge" combines finesse with the hard edged, tube-amp-driven tone he’d perfected with Mayall. It begins with a perfectly executed string bend, followed by a series of notes that he plays firmly, striking the strings hard but fluidly. Neither the song nor the solo could be described as blues, but the ways Clapton bends the strings and sustains notes using vibrato are based on blues technique. Clapton doesn’t fall back on any familiar riffs on "Badge," choosing instead to make a statement that expands on the song’s melodic possibilities, while creating a strong emotional effect -- stronger than what the somewhat abstruse lyrics convey. Over the years, many of us have held out hope that Eric Clapton would return to the level of inspiration and conviction he demonstrated on "Badge."
Jesse Ed Davis died in a Venice, California, laundromat of a heroin overdose, an ignominious end for a musician who never got anything close to the fame he deserved. Davis was born in Oklahoma City, where his father had painted the Native American murals in the hallways of the state capitol. Davis began touring in the early 1960s with Conway Twitty before moving to California, where he joined Taj Mahal’s band. Duane Allman caught Taj at a club in Los Angeles in 1968, where Davis was playing slide guitar; Allman picked up slide soon after that. Jesse Ed Davis played on Taj Mahal’s first three albums, then went on to record three solo albums and play on sessions for John Lennon, George Harrison, Eric Clapton, and many other musicians. Davis’s work on Jackson Browne’s "Doctor My Eyes" demonstrates how much a guitarist can add to an already good song. He plays a few short lines, beginning in the second verse, and they immediately add color and depth. Davis used thumb and steel finger picks, which gave his guitar tone a slightly bright edge, but his playing was smooth and often delicate. His solo opens with a firmly stuck open low string and a series of single notes and pull-offs. On paper, the solo shouldn’t be terribly interesting, as it’s built on a fairly simple series of major-scale notes; it’s Davis’s tone, the feeling he invests in each note, and the way he takes these few notes to tell a compelling story that lift the solo into greatness. Davis combined blues and country techniques to create a melodic, deeply moving, enduring moment in rock’n’roll. The millions who have heard "Doctor My Eyes" may not know who Jesse Ed Davis was, but they know the guitar solo.
I had intended to write about Jeff Beck or Amos Garrett (his solo on "Midnight at the Oasis" is one of Jimmy Page’s favorites), but they can wait until next time. The guitar heroes of the ’60s are so dominant that rock guitarists from the ’50s rarely get their due. The early masters of rock’n’roll guitar were known primarily as singers (e.g., Buddy Holly). Only young guitarists bothered to find out that Scotty Moore and Cliff Gallup played the great solos on, respectively, Elvis Presley’s and Gene Vincent’s records. Both guitarists did, however, make Rolling Stone’s list, so perhaps people have longer memories than I think. Cliff Gallup was playing guitar in Norfolk, Virginia, when Gene Vincent’s manager grabbed him for the singer’s band. Capitol Records producer Ken Nelson wasn’t sure Vincent’s band could give him what he wanted in the studio, but as soon as Gallup played the solo on "Race with the Devil," the guitarists Nelson had hired for the session knew they wouldn’t be needed. Gallup’s style shows the influence of Les Paul and Chet Atkins, and his solos are as dexterous and clearly developed as any those two guitarists played. For "Race with the Devil," Vincent shouts "Let’s drag, now!," and Gallup fires off a flurry of quick notes in a riff that Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page would later use, followed by a quick succession of ninth chords, octaves, and note bends. Gallup’s second spotlight signals a key change, and he’s all over the neck with a fast series of melodies that owe as much to Western swing and Charlie Christian as they do to anything in rock’n’roll. Vincent’s records pre-date multitracking and sound spare to our ears. Gallup used that space wisely, placing each note with precision and taste. Jeff Beck told an interviewer, "When I was learning guitar, Cliff Gallup was the biggest influence on my playing." Listen to "Race with the Devil" and you’ll know why. There are plenty of young guitarists now who play well, but the era of the guitarist as gunslinger is, for the time being, behind us. Maybe that’s just as well. For every great solo like the ones I’ve written about here, there were probably ten that were self-indulgent. Guitarists now seem more focused, and no longer dominate bands as their predecessors did. Some of my favorite recent guitarists include Nels Cline, whose work on Wilco’s Sky Blue Sky strikes me as a fresh sound in rock’n’roll; and Chuck Prophet, who uses his considerable skills to serve his equally impressive songwriting. But whatever form it takes, the guitar remains the world’s most popular instrument in pop music. …Joseph Taylor
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Jimi Hendrix: "All Along the
Watchtower"
Duane Allman: "Loan Me a
Dime"
Eric Clapton, "Badge"
Jesse Ed Davis: "Doctor My
Eyes"
Cliff Gallup: "Race with the
Devil"