0:01

A lot of guitarists use something called the CAGE

0:03

system to, somewhat ironically, unlock

0:06

the fretboard and make it easier to get around. It's

0:09

named for the five common chord shapes, C,

0:11

A, G, E, D, and it really is

0:13

helpful for learning the instrument.

0:23

Welcome

0:23

to Strong Songs, a podcast about music.

0:26

I'm your host Kirk Hamilton, and I'm so glad

0:28

that you've joined me to talk about music played in the C

0:30

position, music played in the A position, and

0:32

music played in the G, the E, and the

0:34

D positions too. Strong

0:37

Songs is an entirely listener-supported podcast,

0:39

which means it's free of the CAGE of corporate

0:41

ownership, sponsor influence, obligatory

0:44

ad reads, or anything else that would get in between me,

0:46

you, and the music. If you'd like to chip

0:48

in and help me make this show, go to patreon.com

0:51

slash strong songs.

0:53

On this episode, it's time for another edition

0:56

of Strong Solos, this time focusing

0:58

on four guitar solos from four different

1:00

eras of the guitar, each of which I've transcribed

1:02

and each of which has taught me a ton about how the guitar

1:04

works. So let's tune it up, let's

1:07

plug it in, and let's get after it.

1:18

Let's do it.

1:29

The electric guitar is perhaps the

1:31

musical instrument that has most defined

1:33

the sound of modern American music.

1:35

I say perhaps, there are other important instruments

1:37

as well, the piano, synthesizer,

1:40

and MPC sampler come to mind,

1:42

but the impact of the electric guitar is

1:44

certainly outsized. As a saxophonist,

1:47

I have always found the guitar fascinating, and while

1:49

I've played for a long time, I taught myself to play

1:51

in the early 2000s, I've

1:53

only been taking guitar lessons seriously for the

1:55

last year and a half, and the more I improve

1:58

on the instrument,

1:59

the more I've come to understand. that it is an

2:01

instrument of contradictions. It's

2:03

one where you can play so many notes in so

2:05

many different ways, but also an instrument

2:07

with a lot of maddening limitations. Six

2:10

strings tuned in fourths across 22 frets is

2:13

a very specific equation. Navigating

2:16

the guitar fretboard is a bit like navigating a

2:18

mirror maze, where each room is

2:20

reflected somewhere else on the fretboard, possibly

2:23

multiple other places each time slightly

2:26

different. You can play an A chord here,

2:29

or here,

2:29

or here,

2:33

and whichever one you choose, you'll wind up with a

2:35

different set of possibilities and limitations.

2:38

Generations of guitarists have built and developed

2:41

a whole navigational vocabulary

2:43

for the guitar fretboard, and masters

2:45

of the instrument have become so adept at navigating

2:47

the maze that they've turned its walls

2:50

and cul-de-sacs into playgrounds and jungle

2:52

gyms, and at times they've even scaled

2:54

its walls and climbed outside the maze

2:56

in exciting new ways. ["The

3:12

and also how many of the fundamentals of

3:17

a great guitar solo has stayed the same

3:20

for almost 100 years, due entirely

3:22

to the interesting and idiosyncratic

3:25

nature of the instrument itself. We'll

3:28

start in the late 1930s, when Charlie Christian

3:30

revolutionized the entire concept of

3:32

electric jazz guitar. ["The

3:35

Great West Montgomery"] And

3:43

we'll hop to the early 1960s, when the great West

3:45

Montgomery added his own flavor to the mix. ["The

3:48

Great West Montgomery"] Then

3:55

to the late 1960s, when Jimi Hendrix

3:57

imagined a completely new, wildly

3:59

expressive wave. is to move the guitar's strings.

4:02

["The T T

4:09

T T T T

4:13

T T T

4:16

T T T T

4:20

T T T

4:23

T T T T

4:27

T T Let's

4:29

start in 1939 when clarinetist

4:32

Benny Goodman added a fresh new voice to

4:34

his sextet, a 23-year-old

4:36

guitarist named Charlie Christian. That

4:38

same year they wrote and recorded 7 Come 11

4:41

and Christian recorded what would become one of the

4:43

first essential jazz electric

4:45

guitar solos. ["The

4:55

T T T

5:01

T T T

5:07

T L

5:13

T T

5:17

T T T

5:23

T T

5:27

T T

5:31

T T

5:35

T T

5:39

T T

5:43

T T

5:47

T T T

5:53

T T T

5:59

T from this era, that

6:01

means there's an A section, it's 8 bars

6:03

long in this case, it's pretty commonly 8 bars

6:05

long though sometimes the A is a little bit longer or

6:07

maybe shorter, then that A section repeats,

6:10

so another 8 bars, then there's a bridge, that's

6:12

the B, and then there's one more A section

6:14

and then the whole thing repeats. I

6:17

talked about AABA song form and

6:19

song form in general on my episode from a few

6:21

years back about the Jazz Messengers

6:23

recording of Monin if you want to

6:25

know more about it. So on this first A,

6:27

which is what you just heard, the band is basically

6:30

just playing an A5 major and Christian's

6:32

whole thing, his whole solo, is

6:34

built out of a single shape. That

6:36

shape is this. Now

6:39

that might just sound like an A5 major chord

6:42

to you, but like I said, there are a few different

6:44

ways to play a given chord on guitar.

6:46

For A5 major, there's that way that you just heard,

6:49

there's also this

6:51

way, or there's this

6:53

way, there's a bunch more as well.

6:55

Each of those is referred to as a shape

6:58

by guitar players because you

7:00

have to make a certain shape with your fingers

7:02

on the fretboard in order to make the chord.

7:05

The important thing to understand about the guitar is that those

7:07

shapes don't just apply to chords, they

7:10

also apply to single note melodies.

7:12

Guitar players tend to think in terms of those

7:14

shapes as they move around the fretboard,

7:17

and whatever shape you're in can greatly

7:19

inform whatever notes you wind up

7:21

playing as you improvise. So if you

7:23

start with this shape, that

7:26

shape lends itself to certain melodies,

7:28

to certain bends and enclosures and

7:30

other stylistic techniques. He starts

7:32

with that shape and he goes straight up an

7:35

A5 major triad, like this. Then

7:40

he goes down the A flat blues scale,

7:43

still in the exact same hand position, and then

7:48

he finishes the line out by going up and

7:50

then back down to the A flat at the bottom.

7:55

If you watched Christian play this, it would almost look like

7:58

his left hand wasn't moving at all because it barely

8:00

is. He's not really deviating

8:02

from this one position. He's not flying all over

8:04

the neck like some modern players do. He's

8:06

sitting comfortably in a single place.

8:09

So listen to him play it again and try to really

8:11

hear his line as it moves up and back

8:13

down again. Another

8:25

wild thing is, there are indeed other ways

8:28

that a guitar player could play the same notes that

8:30

Christian is playing and play a solo

8:32

that sounds more or less the same. This

8:34

shape that he's chosen, the E shape and

8:36

the Caged system for any of you guitarists out

8:38

there, it's sort of a backbend or

8:41

at least it feels that way to me. It climbs

8:43

up the chord so it's moving up harmonically

8:46

but it moves left on the fretboard as it does

8:48

that which generally feels like moving back

8:50

or moving down to me. So it's kind of like someone reaching

8:53

up while bending backward to a high

8:55

shelf or something. You can play the same notes

8:57

while moving right on the fretboard which feels

8:59

more straightforwardly upward moving

9:02

but it involves a very different shape and some

9:04

of the specific techniques that he's doing,

9:06

some of the little bends and enclosures just

9:09

become a little trickier and less intuitive

9:11

which is really important when you're improvising.

9:14

You can transcribe the solo and sit

9:16

down and play it like an etude which is how

9:19

I learned to play it because the recording already

9:21

existed but Charlie Christian was improvising

9:23

and when you're improvising the shape that you're in

9:25

on the guitar makes a huge difference because

9:28

some things are just easier to do and feel more

9:31

natural in a given shape. So

9:36

there's this ambiguity whenever you're transcribing

9:38

the guitar. Is the guitar player playing

9:40

that here in this shape or is he playing

9:43

it here in this shape? And it makes the

9:45

instrument such a fascinating and occasionally

9:47

maddening challenge for me as a

9:49

saxophonist. On an instrument like the saxophone

9:52

or really on most instruments there's really

9:54

just one way to play the majority

9:56

of notes. Yes, you can occasionally use

9:59

alternate fingerings. You can like blow overtones

10:01

or something. There are multiple ways to

10:03

play a lot of notes on the saxophone, but

10:05

for the most part, if you're playing, say,

10:07

an Ab major triad, there's kind

10:09

of just one way that you would play it. So

10:11

it's such a trip to me that on guitar, there

10:14

are two and sometimes three or even more ways

10:16

to play a given melody, depending on which strings

10:18

you want to be using and what shape you

10:21

want to be in. And like I said, that

10:23

shape that you're in, that can make a really

10:25

big difference when you're improvising because

10:27

your fingers will just naturally go to certain

10:29

ideas and certain techniques.

10:41

Incidentally, the harmony in this recording is

10:43

coming from an interesting place. If you're hearing that,

10:45

that is a vibraphone being played

10:47

along with Christian's solo, and that vibraphone

10:50

is being played, of course, by Lionel Hampton, one

10:52

of the greatest vibraphone players of all time,

10:55

and an essential part of the sound of the Benny

10:57

Goodman sex major

11:18

shape, he steps outside it for a second

11:20

when he plays this, and

11:24

then he returns right back to where he started, ending

11:26

with a really quickly arpeggiated Ab

11:28

major chord. And

11:31

then he hits the bridge and things go

11:33

off. 1939, 23 years

11:39

old, and he recorded that

11:41

bridge. Give

11:47

me a break. So 7 Come 11 is a

11:49

close cousin to Rhythm Changes, the

11:51

chord progression for I've Got Rhythms that I'll talk

11:54

about in the future, but it's a very common chord progression

11:56

in jazz. The bridge here starts down

11:58

a half step on a G set. chords,

12:00

that's a G dominant chord, and then it works

12:03

its way around the circle of fourths. So

12:05

it creates this logical sounding cycle

12:07

of chords from the G7 to C7

12:10

to F7 to Bb7, Eb7, and then that

12:12

resolves back around to A-flat major,

12:18

which of course is the key of the A

12:20

section, and I know that's kind of confusing that the

12:22

A section is in A-flat, but anyways that's

12:25

the start of the final eight bars of the song

12:27

and that's A bars of A-flat major. So it's

12:29

basically one big chord progression

12:31

turnaround leading back around

12:34

to A-flat major. So

12:36

Christian's playing here knocks me

12:38

out. When I transcribe this I couldn't believe how cool

12:41

it was and how logically it works

12:43

on the guitar fretboard. It's almost like it

12:46

plays itself. I mean it doesn't, it doesn't play

12:48

itself at all, but it just so beautifully

12:50

comes out of the instrument, which again is closely

12:53

tied to the fact that Charlie Christian improvised

12:55

this solo and that everything he

12:58

was doing was designed to give himself

13:00

a really fluid and easy time moving

13:02

through these chords. So let's just listen to

13:04

that bridge one more time and just really

13:07

pay attention to what he's playing and try to chart

13:09

the course of it in your mind. That's

13:21

it. It's pretty short, but man it packs a lot

13:23

of harmonic information into a short amount

13:25

of time. It's so hip, it's so

13:27

closely tied to the individual shapes that

13:30

he's using on the fretboard.

13:33

So

13:35

let's go through it. For the G7 shape, that

13:37

first chord he's playing this shape

13:41

and he uses that shape to play

13:43

this line. Then

13:48

for C7 he uses two shapes

13:50

actually. He transitions between two of them

13:52

which makes his C7 probably the coolest

13:54

chord of his bridge. He starts with

13:57

this shape which

13:59

he uses to play this. this spiraling downward

14:01

line. And

14:04

then he transitions to this shape, which is right

14:07

next door to it and is a very common C7

14:09

voicing. Guitar players still constantly use

14:12

this one. You thumb your thumb over and

14:14

play the C and then you play those three strings in the middle

14:16

and you get this C7 voicing. He

14:18

just plays right up those three notes in the middle

14:20

at the end of his line and then adds the 13 on

14:22

top. Put those two

14:25

shapes together and this is what you get. Man,

14:29

that's cool. That's

14:34

a really, really fun one to play. Finally,

14:36

on the F7 he plays this chromatic

14:38

thing that feels extremely logical on the guitar.

14:41

He's just sliding from fret to fret and it's because of

14:43

how the strings are laid out on the guitar that

14:46

it works as well as it does.

14:53

Then he ends with this 2-5 turnaround back to

14:56

Ab and he ends right back in the

14:58

shape he started in for a final

15:00

Ab bars that's just right in that safe,

15:02

steady, Ab major shape.

15:05

It's a ridiculous bridge. It's this virtuosic

15:08

tour of the fretboard that works as well as

15:10

it does in part because of his restraint in

15:12

those first 16 bars. He's sitting

15:14

in that one position on Ab, a single

15:17

shape, and then for the bridge as the chords

15:19

change, he changes with them and he flies

15:21

down this dexterous descent down

15:23

the instrument melody's built out of a descending

15:25

series of shapes woven together so

15:28

seamlessly and played so effortlessly,

15:30

it's geometric jazz at its

15:32

finest. So

15:35

let's listen back to the whole solo and I want

15:37

you to just think about that. Try to keep

15:39

an ear out for it and picture it in your

15:41

mind how Christian's choice of shapes

15:44

and fretboard position allow his bridge

15:46

lines to feel like this explosion

15:48

of new ideas spiraling downward

15:50

to a smooth landing back where he started

15:53

at that Ab major shape.

15:55

Ears on, here we go. Alright,

16:02

time for the bridge. It's

16:32

just an incredible solo from an incredibly

16:34

young virtuoso, and an influential

16:36

one as well. Charlie Christian might not

16:38

be quite as well known to some of you as

16:41

the other three guitarists that I'm talking about

16:43

on this episode, but he is a very

16:46

big deal in the world of jazz. Not just

16:48

the world of jazz guitar, but the world of jazz

16:50

more broadly. Charlie Christian died

16:52

tragically young. He died in his twenties.

16:55

Three of the four guitarists I'm featuring on this episode

16:57

died young, actually. It's a depressing reminder

17:00

of how poorly America takes care of musicians.

17:03

But Charlie Christian had an outsized influence

17:05

given his short recording career. His

17:07

playing had an unusual amount of verticality

17:10

and chromaticism for the time period

17:12

that he was playing, and as a result he had a

17:14

big influence on the sound of bebop, which

17:16

itself is a much more vertical and chromatic

17:18

approach to improvisation. Christian's

17:21

playing was recorded and distributed, and a lot

17:23

of young players were listening to what he was

17:25

recording. And one of those young players,

17:27

an Indianapolis man working as a welder in

17:30

the early 1940s and teaching himself guitar,

17:32

would pick up Christian's torch and, in

17:34

the 1950s and 60s, carry guitar

17:37

improvisation to a whole new conceptual

17:39

level. That man, of course, was

17:41

Wes Montgomery. widely

18:00

held as one of the greatest jazz guitarists of all time

18:02

and remains one of the most influential guitarists

18:05

who ever lived. West

18:10

had a particularly prolific 1960s,

18:12

which is all the more impressive given that he died before

18:15

the decade ended of a heart attack in 1968. West

18:18

played a big role in popularizing a number

18:21

of new techniques and approaches to the guitar

18:23

and also to the guitar ensemble, including

18:25

the organ trio, which is a jazz

18:28

group consisting of drums, electric

18:30

guitar, and the organ, covering

18:32

both chords with the organ player's hands and

18:34

with the organist's feet, a bass line.

18:44

You're hearing one of those organ trios right now,

18:46

one of West's greatest organ trio albums, 1963's

18:50

Boss Guitar, which features a number

18:52

of famous West solos, including this one

18:54

on the blues tune, Fried Pies.

19:03

Boss Guitar features West's bandleader,

19:05

along with organist Melvin Rine, and the

19:08

great Jimmy Cobb on drums. Cobb,

19:10

long time Strong Songs listeners may remember, played

19:12

drums on Miles Davis' groundbreaking album,

19:15

Kind of Blue, just a few years

19:17

earlier, and he did some incredibly great

19:19

playing with West in the 1960s.

19:21

But yeah, what you're hearing right now is just three musicians

19:24

with Melvin Rine handling both the chords and

19:26

the bass line. So

19:32

let's start at the beginning of this solo, which actually

19:35

goes outside of the form of the song

19:37

to do its own thing for a little while. Fried

19:40

Pies is a blues, it's a blues in F,

19:42

which means that each chorus is 12 bars

19:44

long and they just repeat over and

19:46

over. The blues is, like I said earlier, the most

19:48

common chord progression in all of jazz and

19:51

really in all of American music, except maybe the

19:53

four chords has supplanted it now, but even then

19:55

I think it'd kind of be an even fight.

19:58

So I've talked a lot about the blues in the past on... strong

20:00

songs just really quickly. 12 bars long,

20:02

the first four bars are the one chord, in

20:04

this case an F7 chord, since we're

20:06

in the key of F. Then there's two bars of

20:09

the four chord, in this case a Bb7

20:11

chord. Then you go back to the one chord, and

20:13

then there's a turnaround from five back

20:15

to one. That turnaround can take on a number

20:17

of different forms, two five one, five

20:19

four one. But it basically goes to the five chord,

20:22

and it goes back to the one, then it goes all the way back

20:24

to the start, and does it again. Jazz

20:26

performers like to complexify the blues

20:29

progression in a lot of creative ways, but

20:31

the form and the basic bones of

20:33

it remain the same. So we'll get into

20:35

that with this solo, but like I said, Wes's solo

20:37

in Fried Pies begins with something a little

20:40

bit different. It breaks from the blues form,

20:42

and just does what's called a pedal tone over

20:44

F for 16 bars. A pedal tone,

20:47

which I have also talked about before on the show, is

20:49

when a single bass note repeats or

20:51

pedals at the bottom of the song, and everything

20:53

else moves around on top of the pedal.

20:56

It's a spacious and more modal approach

20:58

that sounds a bit like, well

21:01

1959's Kind of Blue. It clearly identifies

21:04

this as a 1960s record. You

21:06

just wouldn't hear a band doing something like

21:08

this, stopping everything and going to this much

21:11

more spacious pedal tone for 16 bars

21:13

before going back into the song form. You

21:15

wouldn't hear as much of that in earlier

21:18

eras of jazz. So

21:26

during these 16 bars, Wes is playing with

21:28

a variety of different shapes. He's finding

21:30

interesting sounds in all of them, and

21:33

one thing that he's really emphasizing is the pentatonic

21:36

scale, which I haven't mentioned yet, but which is

21:38

very, very important for understanding the guitar.

21:40

Pentatonic scales are the bread and butter

21:42

for any guitar player, mostly because

21:45

they fit so logically on the guitar

21:47

fretboard. It's very easy to play pentatonics

21:50

over a variety of different shapes. I've

21:52

talked about the pentatonic scale a bunch of times on

21:54

strong songs. The short version of it is, a

21:56

pentatonic scale is five tones

21:59

pentatonic. compared with the seven

22:01

notes that are in a quote-unquote regular scale

22:04

like a major scale or a minor scale. So

22:06

if a major scale goes 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 octave,

22:08

a major

22:12

pentatonic scale removes the fourth

22:14

and the seventh from that scale and

22:16

it goes 1 2 3 5 6 octave.

22:20

It's a very different sound for reasons I don't

22:23

have to explain too much. Basically the fourth

22:25

and the seventh are the two notes in the scale that

22:27

have a half step between them and

22:29

the scale degree next to them and also there's

22:31

a tritone in between them so you're basically pulling the tritone

22:33

out of the scale. The result is that a pentatonic

22:36

scale is a smaller collection of notes

22:38

with less dissonance and less structure

22:40

than a seven note scale so it's more flexible.

22:48

So now let's listen to the first few bars of Wes's solo

22:50

just to get it in our ears. So

23:03

Wes starts here with the F minor pentatonic

23:06

scale on an F blues. Very straightforward.

23:08

He's ably moving around on it before he steps

23:10

outside it. He hits the G, he does

23:12

this augmented thing and

23:16

because he's been floating around on F minor pentatonic

23:19

when he hits that G and especially when he

23:21

hits that B, this kind of augmented chord,

23:23

it sounds like a real raised eyebrow. It's a nice

23:26

contrast to what he's been playing and it fits

23:28

perfectly on the guitar itself. Once

23:31

I actually learned how to play this I could see

23:33

how he just kind of naturally went there and

23:35

got this actually kind of out there sound

23:38

in an intuitive way. Now

23:40

listen to him play it and pay attention for that. He starts

23:42

out just so nice and inside and then you'll hear

23:44

it. It's like his eyebrow raises and

23:47

suddenly he's moved into a very different zone.

23:59

From there he does

23:59

some nice triad stacking which is very

24:02

Charlie Christian-esque. He's moving these two

24:04

shapes back and forth. They're two parallel

24:07

shapes right next to one another, a D minor

24:09

and C minor, and it fits

24:11

beautifully with the line that he can show us out of

24:13

it. He

24:17

wraps up this section with a nice little flutter down

24:20

the F major pentatonic.

24:24

Okay, so now that we've gone through it, let's listen to the entirety

24:26

of that opening section, that F pedal, and

24:29

just listen to how Wes is exploring these

24:31

different textures and these different shapes in

24:34

a very relaxed and effortless way, transitioning

24:37

between pentatonic riffs, which he can move

24:39

kind of quickly through, and more angular

24:41

unexpected stuff that kind of trips up

24:43

the flow in between those faster

24:45

pentatonic riffs. Here we go.

25:08

And with that intro out of the way, it's

25:10

time for some beat-ups.

25:21

So this seems like a good moment to talk

25:23

about something that makes Wes distinct

25:25

as a player. While lots of electric guitarists

25:28

use a pick to hit the strings, Wes

25:30

was a bit unusual in that he never did.

25:32

He played with his thumb. It's

25:34

actually a huge part of his sound and gives

25:37

his attacks that fat rounded

25:39

sound that's just so identifiably

25:41

him. Though he didn't actually do it

25:43

out of some stylistic preference. He

25:46

was working a regular job when he was learning guitar

25:48

so he could only practice late at night and he didn't

25:50

want to wake up his sleeping family so he practiced

25:52

with his thumb instead of a pick and just got used

25:55

to it. It's not uncommon these days for guitarists,

25:58

particularly jazz guitarists, to learn to

26:00

play with their thumb like Wes. I still

26:02

remember when I was in music school, a lot

26:04

of the guys that I studied with would say, oh yeah, I don't play

26:06

with a pick. I'd never play jazz with a pick. And

26:08

it kind of blew my mind at the time because I just

26:11

sort of assumed that all guitarists played with

26:13

a pick all the time. Thumb

26:15

playing is not really something that I've mastered

26:17

yet anyways. I'm mostly focused on a

26:19

pick and that's hard enough for me, so when I learned

26:22

the parts of the solo that I've learned, I commit

26:24

heresy and I play it with a pick. And I

26:26

wind up focusing just on the notes that he's playing,

26:29

even though Wes often played with some pretty

26:31

non-standard technique. What

26:34

I notice when I'm playing along with him is how his

26:36

playing really does feel like an evolution of the

26:38

approach used by Charlie Christian,

26:41

especially on that bridge to 7 come 11. I see

26:43

a lot of similarities between the bridge to 7

26:46

come 11 and this opening blues

26:48

chorus of Wes's.

26:52

So

27:00

let's just start with that line. He starts up on the

27:02

first string and he walks down a series

27:04

of different shapes, ending up eventually

27:07

at the four chord, that Bb7, using

27:09

the same shape that Charlie Christian used

27:11

at the start of 7 come 11. He's up a step,

27:14

he's in Bb, not Ab, but it's a pretty

27:17

similar place to end up. Here's

27:19

me playing that line nice and slow so you can

27:21

just hear every note. And

27:32

here's Wes playing it. Listen to how he's

27:35

swinging with Jimmy Cobb. I mean his time

27:37

is just so good and the way that

27:39

he walks down this line just totally swing

27:41

in. As

27:52

I actually talked about in my most recent

27:54

episode about the Legend of Zelda, articulation

27:56

is such a huge part of any musician's

27:59

sound, and

30:06

I've always thought of Wes

30:08

as treating his guitar a little bit like an ensemble,

30:11

where it starts with a soloist, and then, like

30:13

in a jazz big band, after the soloist

30:15

comes an ensemble shout chorus. It's

30:17

just that in this case the shout chorus is being played

30:19

by a big band of fingers, Wes's

30:22

fingers on the fretboard. It makes sense

30:24

in my head.

30:29

To complete the structural formula, after the octaves,

30:31

he always goes into chords and he starts

30:33

playing these really nice chord melodies

30:35

that are just kind of more elaborate and

30:37

filled out versions of the octaves, almost

30:40

like the octaves were an empty cup, then he fills

30:42

up the cup for the final part of the solo. Back

30:53

to the octaves though, playing octaves on the guitar

30:55

gives them that nice balance where your

30:57

ear focuses on the top note, but you've got

30:59

that bottom octave below it, which

31:01

gives it a nice weight and opens the door to playing

31:04

hits and figures a little bit more

31:06

like a band, which can lead to some nice interactions

31:09

with the drums. This is something that Wes

31:11

and Jimmy Cobb did a lot, where Wes would

31:13

start playing these figures, and

31:19

each time he does that, it gives Jimmy Cobb

31:22

a little moment to

31:22

play off of him, almost like he's playing

31:25

with a big band.

31:33

Here what Jimmy's doing on the drums,

31:36

and he keeps coming back to that, there

31:40

it is again.

31:56

the

32:00

ideas that Charlie Christian had been playing

32:02

with and he adapted some of the new harmonic

32:04

and ensemble arranging ideas introduced

32:06

by the bebop era into something totally

32:09

new.

32:16

I've been listening to a lot of West Montgomery

32:18

since I started getting serious about the guitar and

32:20

really I wish I'd been listening to him more

32:22

and earlier. Just about any record he put

32:24

out in the 60s is so groovy and

32:27

so much fun so I hope that Joel will check him

32:29

out. But of course, West wasn't the only musician

32:31

who spent the 1960s exploring new methods

32:34

of expression on the electric guitar. Rock

32:36

and roll was taken off in the 1960s drawing

32:39

from the blues guitar tradition of bent notes,

32:42

overdriven amps, and other extra musical

32:44

effects on the guitar to make a whole new

32:46

thing. And of all of those blues and rock

32:48

players of the 1960s, one

32:50

guy stands apart, the great Jimi

32:53

Hendrix.

33:06

That's Jimi Hendrix's famous solo on the Billy

33:09

Roberts tune Hey Joe, which he recorded

33:11

with the Jimi Hendrix Experience, Noel

33:14

Redding on bass and Mitch Mitchell on drums

33:16

for the 1967 debut Are You Experienced. And

33:19

it's a great example of so many of the expressive

33:22

tricks that Hendrix used and

33:24

which gave his playing such a completely different

33:26

sound from any other guitar player

33:29

before or since. So

33:31

I've transcribed a lot of solos over the last

33:33

year and a half since I started taking guitar lessons

33:36

and Jimi was one of the first ones that I've transcribed.

33:38

I've transcribed a couple of his solos and I gotta say,

33:40

if you wanted to get good at guitar, like

33:43

just good at soloing on guitar, you could

33:45

probably just transcribe a dozen or

33:47

maybe 15 Jimi solos and just

33:49

really get inside of them. And by the time you

33:52

were done doing that, you'd be really good at guitar.

33:54

I really think that that's all it would take. Chords

33:56

are great, scales are great, theory is great,

33:59

but I don't know. just get a bunch of Jimmy solos

34:01

under your fingers and you're gonna be a really good guitar

34:03

player. So this solo on Hey Joe was one of

34:05

the first solos that I ever transcribed and I worked

34:08

it out, I kinda learned the notes and I was like, okay,

34:10

I got it. So I took it into my lesson with

34:12

my teacher Scott the next week and he was like,

34:14

okay, you're hitting the notes but you're not

34:16

really playing it like him, go back and

34:18

really listen. Slow it down,

34:21

put on headphones, listen closely to all

34:23

the little stuff that he's doing and try

34:25

to sound exactly like him. Don't

34:27

just play the notes, play the whole thing

34:29

the way that he plays it and I did that

34:31

and man, I was missing so much. I spent

34:34

the next like two, three weeks deep

34:36

inside this solo, slowing it down, really

34:39

trying to get inside all of the little bends,

34:41

shakes, slides and crunches that

34:43

Jimmy added to each note. So

34:45

let's start by listening to the solo again and

34:48

then we can get into all of that fun. So

34:50

I bet you were already hearing

34:53

a little bit more in

35:14

that solo than you did the first time just because

35:16

you've got your ears a little bit more tuned to

35:18

listening for vibrato, listening for bending,

35:21

you know, double stops and that kind of thing. But

35:23

once you get down to that granular level, there's actually

35:25

a lot going on there and it can be kind

35:28

of hard to take it all in as it comes. That's

35:30

why if you're gonna be transcribing, I actually recommend

35:32

using one of those apps that can slow down the

35:34

recording and allow you to practice

35:36

a little bit slower than it was originally performed

35:39

and then speed it up slowly so you can get it under your

35:41

fingers. I used one of those apps to slow

35:43

this recording down to about 80% and

35:46

then I started practicing the solo at that

35:49

slower speed and that was where it really

35:51

started to come together. It's

36:05

way easier to hear all of the little flourishes

36:07

that he's doing, all the subtle finger work that

36:09

makes it sound like Jimi Hendrix, and that

36:11

made it a lot easier for me to learn how to do it. Though

36:14

like I said, it wasn't a whole process getting to

36:16

where I could play this, even remotely like

36:18

him. I mean, I've worked out this solo a lot,

36:20

I've transcribed other much more complicated

36:23

solos in the meantime, and I still come

36:25

back to this one and struggle to really

36:27

get it to sound exactly like him, because,

36:30

well I mean, no one sounds exactly like Jimi Hendrix,

36:32

and this kind of thing is why. So let's just

36:34

go phrase by phrase, and I'm gonna keep it at 80% so

36:37

that we can really hear all of the little things that he's

36:40

doing. Let's start with that opening phrase. First

36:47

time that I played that, I kind of just played it like this.

36:53

So you know, a little bit out of tune on that first bend,

36:55

but the problem is more stylistic.

36:58

That's the exact kind of surface level thing that I was

37:00

doing at first, that Scott was so,

37:03

you know, kind of politely unimpressed by. So

37:09

there's something specific going on with every single

37:11

aspect of what Jimi is playing, starting

37:13

with the attack on his note.

37:17

So this solo starts on an E, the whole thing is

37:19

just an E minor pentatonic scale, like

37:22

an E minor blues scale basically, it's really straightforward

37:24

harmonically, but he doesn't just start it on any

37:26

old E. He doesn't just put his finger

37:29

on a high E and then pluck the string.

37:31

He does what's called a rake, or a rake attack,

37:34

which is where you mute the strings below the one that

37:36

you're gonna hit, and then you scrape the pick

37:38

along those strings to give your attack

37:40

more bite. Here's a cleanly picked

37:42

E, and

37:45

here's a raked E. That's

37:48

actually a pretty subtle rake, you can do big deep

37:51

rakes across all of the strings where you kind

37:53

of scratch your pick across all of them before hitting

37:55

the note that you want to hit. That's the kind of things

37:57

Stevie Ray Vaughan does, Jimi does that too, though

37:59

he's... he's not doing it here. So

38:02

that's one little stylistic thing that he's doing, but

38:05

that's definitely not all. So he's actually

38:07

bending to that E. So he's starting down

38:09

on a D on the second string, and

38:11

then he's bending that note up to

38:13

the E, and that gives it the scoop sound that you

38:15

hear. And I'm actually gonna switch to my Gibson now

38:17

because I don't know, I've been playing that a lot more lately and

38:19

I'm more used to it, and you don't have to play the exact

38:22

guitar that someone's playing on a recording in

38:24

order to transcribe it. I know Jimi Hendrix plays

38:26

a Stratocaster, but you don't have to play a Strat to learn

38:28

Jimi Lines. You can play him on a Gibson, you could

38:30

play him on an acoustic guitar, but I'm gonna play him on my 335 because

38:33

I've been using that for every other example on

38:35

this episode, and I like how it sounds. Here's

38:40

a regular E, and

38:42

here it is with the scoop. Then

38:45

there's his vibrato, which is the thing that I had to pay

38:47

the closest attention to because I wasn't really

38:49

mailing it, but it's crucial if you wanna

38:51

sound like Jimi. So he doesn't just hit the

38:54

D and hold it, he shakes the

38:56

note, he bends up to it, and then he shakes

38:58

the note, gives it some vibrato, some

39:00

quick shakes to keep it moving. So

39:02

this becomes

39:06

this. Okay,

39:09

so that's the first note of the solo.

39:11

Listen back to him playing at an 80% speed. And

39:18

now listen at full speed, and really just pay attention

39:20

for all of that, the rake attack, the

39:22

bend, and the vibrato on the note.

39:28

Okay, so we've got the first note basically

39:30

sorted, or at least we know what he's doing, but

39:32

there's still a lot more to go. So if

39:34

you listen closely as he walks down that

39:37

opening riff, try to hear if there's

39:39

anything else going on above the

39:41

main melodic line that he's playing.

39:43

Let's go back to 80% because that makes it a little

39:45

easier to hear what's going on. Listen for anything

39:48

above the main melodic line.

39:53

So some of you out there probably heard that it sounds like

39:55

there's a higher note ringing out as

39:58

he plays the main melodic line. And in fact, there

40:00

is. When the line starts on an E on the second

40:02

string, as he starts to walk down, he

40:04

hits a second E up on the first string

40:06

and lets that ring as the descending

40:09

line descends. So you get a kind of a two

40:11

note thing that starts as a rub when they're really

40:13

close to one another, and then as the main melodic

40:15

line moves downward, the space between

40:17

that line and the E above it expands.

40:23

That move is a mainstay for blues and rock guitar,

40:26

where you get two strings ringing on the same

40:28

note by bending the second string up a whole

40:30

step and then holding the note three frets

40:32

down on the first string. It gives

40:34

you this nice rub that lets you bend

40:37

around that second string and get a really

40:39

cool kind of clashy dissonance between

40:41

those two notes as you move in between

40:43

the tuning, bending that second string.

40:46

You've heard this in a million different guitar solos.

40:48

That's what's going on. It's just two strings ringing simultaneously

40:50

on the same note while one bends around

40:53

and the other one stays poor. Jimmy

40:55

does this kind of thing constantly. This is called a double

40:58

stop on other stringed instruments where you hit two

41:00

strings at the same time. It's not quite a

41:02

triad, which would have three strings, it's not

41:04

quite a full chord, which on guitar typically

41:06

has four strings unless you're using open strings.

41:09

But Jimmy really likes to specifically treat it

41:11

like a double stop where he'll have one line moving

41:14

around and as he's moving around he's

41:16

sort of pressing down other strings on

41:18

the frets above or below the notes that

41:20

he's playing in kind of his main melody. It's

41:23

a way that he adds an embellishment to the melody that

41:25

he's playing and it fits really naturally

41:27

under your fingers. The first thing of Jimmy's

41:29

that I ever learned was his famous introductory

41:32

solo on Little Wing off of Axle's Bold

41:34

as Love and that's just loaded with this kind of stuff.

41:36

The whole song moves between these set positions

41:39

where you basically just plant your hand and

41:41

play little lines around the pentatonic scale

41:44

that works in that position, but he

41:46

does a lot of double stops where he presses down multiple

41:48

strings while one line moves and the other

41:50

string stays put and it gives a lot of nice dissonance.

41:53

And this sound that's now iconic, I mean this

41:55

is just fundamental meat and potatoes

41:57

guitar vocabulary stuff, but at the time

41:59

Jimmy was so innovative in the way that

42:01

he approached it. So this is just a little example

42:04

of that here on Hey Joe. He's just

42:06

kind of letting that E ring as the other

42:08

line descends, and it gives it a beautiful sound.

42:11

It's this kind of lift that goes on an

42:13

otherwise descending line because this higher

42:15

note is ringing out at the same time. It's

42:17

kind of crunchy and crispy. It interacts with the

42:19

amp and the distortion in a nice way

42:22

and gives it this distinct and distinctively

42:24

jimmy kind of a sound. So

42:30

that just leaves the end of the phrase, a little walk

42:32

down the E blue scale, that's so

42:34

much harder for me to play than you would think

42:37

just looking at it in sheet music or

42:39

on the piano. He does another rake bend

42:41

into that first note, the B, then he does this

42:43

very particular combination of hammer-ons

42:45

and pull-offs, which are where you make the strings

42:48

vibrate just by hammering on or pulling

42:50

off your finger on the fretboard with your left hand,

42:52

or with my left hand, jimmy was using

42:54

his right hand because he's left handed, but you know, your fretboard

42:56

hand, you can basically make the strings vibrate

42:59

by pressing down or pulling off without

43:01

using the pick at all. And he doesn't use the

43:03

pick on a lot of these notes, which gives it

43:05

this very particular articulation. He

43:08

picks the final note, that G, which

43:10

feels like a strong landing on the G, and

43:12

then right after he hits it, he digs in with a bunch

43:14

more vibrato and shakes that

43:17

note. This

43:20

opening riff of the solo is the hardest part

43:22

of the solo for me. I'll maybe get it right

43:24

once or twice every ten times that I play it,

43:27

just because it requires such strength and confidence

43:30

and such fluidity with your left hand.

43:32

And on paper, it's the most basic

43:34

E blues riff you could think of. It's the

43:36

jimmy of it all that makes it so distinct and

43:39

cool, and what makes it so uniquely

43:41

him. There's a common saying among guitar

43:43

players that your tone is in your fingers, but

43:46

just like Wes playing with his thumb, this

43:48

is what they're talking about. Sure, his equipment,

43:51

it gave his tone a distinct flavor, but

43:53

the magic of this solo and the magic of jimmy's

43:55

sound is entirely down to how

43:58

expressive his fingers were. So

44:03

that's actually a quarter of the solo, let's keep going.

44:06

The next phrase begins the same way with a rake attack

44:09

E with that vibrato, then it walks down

44:11

as the first string E rings out, he bends

44:13

up to the B much the same way, and he just

44:15

kind of slides between a G and an A, and then

44:17

it ends on an E. So it's the development of

44:19

the first riff, he's kind of doing a theme and

44:21

variations thing here, and then at the end

44:23

of the phrase he gives it this little hip check. This

44:28

is a classic Jimmy-ism where he slides

44:30

up, he hits the G and goes back

44:32

to the E. And when he does that he doesn't

44:34

just hit the G on its own like this,

44:37

he does another double

44:39

stop where he hits the G and the B

44:42

on the second string above it, so you get a fatter

44:44

sound. He

44:47

also puts a quick vibrato shake

44:49

on that G at the end, which is one of those

44:51

subtle things that once I started doing it,

44:53

I just started sounding a little bit more like him.

44:56

So that whole phrase sounds like this. So

45:09

there's a whole musical meal there, it may

45:12

seem like simple blues notes on paper,

45:14

but once you get into the particulars, the

45:16

nitty-gritty of this solo, there's so much

45:19

going on, there's so much technique. And none

45:21

of this is even to mention Jimmy's time

45:23

feel, there's a whole podcast episode just

45:25

in talking about how Jimi Hendrix grooved

45:28

and felt the time he would lay back, he would

45:30

push ahead, his rhythmic conception was

45:32

from another galaxy. So let's go back

45:35

through the first half of the solo, I'm gonna play along

45:37

at 80% and just listen for

45:39

everything that's going on as I do my best

45:42

to kind of match what Jimmy is doing,

45:44

so of course in the end truly doing that

45:47

is impossible. The

46:02

second half of the solo uses a lot of the ideas

46:04

that he introduced in the first half. Each

46:07

one has its own particular spin and it definitely

46:09

develops, but he introduces a lot of

46:11

the framework for this solo with that very

46:13

first riff. He never moves out of the position that he's

46:15

in, sitting right there around the 12th fret.

46:18

He just finds a lot of different ways to

46:20

move through the same few notes. And

46:22

that, I think, is what I want to conclude on for

46:24

this Jimmy solo. He's basically in

46:27

a single position here. He's using a single

46:29

shape for this entire solo, so

46:31

it's not about the notes that he's playing at all, it's

46:33

about the way that he's playing them, but

46:36

there's just as much musical complexity

46:38

in what he's doing as there is in the most

46:40

technical, harmonically advanced solo.

46:43

Take it from me. I spent weeks learning how to kind

46:45

of play this a little bit like him. And

46:48

hey, speaking of technical, harmonically advanced

46:50

solos, let's close out with our fourth solo,

46:53

easily the most complex solo I've ever transcribed,

46:56

Larry Carlton's legendary solo

46:58

on Steely Dan's 1976 single,

47:01

Kid Charlemagne. Larry

47:15

Carlton, studio phenom of the 1970s

47:17

and 80s, is a guitarist I've talked about before

47:19

on Strong Songs. In my episode on

47:21

Joni Mitchell's Help Me, Carlton

47:23

was a regular member of Mitchell's and his

47:26

groundbreaking approach to the guitar fretboard

47:28

added so much to her music.

47:31

Along with Mitchell, he's also known for his work as a sideman

47:33

with Steely Dan all throughout the 1970s. He

47:36

even played a bit on their 1980 album

47:38

Gaucho, though he wasn't on Babylon Sisters,

47:40

which is the Steely Dan song that I did

47:42

an episode on a few years back. Of

47:45

the many great solos that he recorded with

47:47

Steely Dan, his solo on Kid Charlemagne,

47:49

the opening track from 1976's

47:51

The Royal Scam, is probably his best

47:53

known, and that's for a reason, each

47:56

individual melodic idea that he plays

47:58

lands square in the middle of the magical,

48:00

musical triangle. It sounds

48:02

great, it's interesting, and it's

48:04

just a little bit unexpected. I

48:17

could do an entire episode on this song, but we don't

48:19

have time for that. So I will just say this is a typically killing

48:22

Steely Dan Studio Band featuring band

48:24

leaders Donald Fagan and Walter Becker on vocals

48:27

and organ and rhythm guitar respectively,

48:29

along with the typically outrageous Steely Dan

48:31

rhythm section, Chuck Rainey on bass, Bernard

48:34

Purdion drums, Don Grolnick on Fender

48:36

Rose, and a gaggle of backup singers including

48:38

greats like Michael McDonald, Clydey

48:40

King, and Vanetta Fields. Those

48:42

guys really knew how to put together a band.

48:52

The band is locked in, the harmonies

48:55

are on point, the groove is standing at attention,

48:57

and halfway through the recording, Larry Carlton

48:59

steps to the front of the stage.

49:05

So I

49:07

want to treat this as a sort of culmination of all the

49:09

things that we've talked about on this episode. Carlton

49:12

takes Charlie Christian's logical, shape-based

49:15

approach to harmony, West Montgomery's

49:17

extended bebop vocabulary and unexpected

49:19

harmonic elbow throws, and Jimi Hendrix's

49:22

expressive bends and rakes, and

49:24

he combines them all and places that

49:26

over Steely Dan's deceptively complex

49:29

chord progressions to build a solo that's

49:31

just... I mean, I know music can't be perfect,

49:33

but it's basically perfect? So

49:45

let's just go through that a phrase at a time, and I want

49:47

to highlight both how Carlton uses his flawless

49:49

fretboard fluidity to craft some

49:52

unusual melodic lines, and how those lines

49:54

are actually largely placed within

49:56

straightforward pentatonic scale shapes,

49:58

and that they gain their unusual music. hipness because

50:01

of how perfectly they're placed over the

50:03

song's chord progression. Let's

50:05

start with the first

50:05

couple of phrases. He

50:18

begins with

50:18

a raked bend right out of the gate.

50:24

Ironically that's not that exciting, that's just an A

50:27

minor pentatonic riff. You're a million

50:29

guitar players play that in an A blues,

50:31

but Carlton isn't playing that over an A minor

50:34

chord, it's a D minor chord, which is

50:36

one of the many ways that an improviser can take advantage

50:38

of how flexible pentatonic scales can

50:40

be. An A minor pentatonic scale

50:43

played over a D minor chord totally works,

50:45

there's no wrong notes, it just gives you more

50:47

interesting chord tones than if you played a

50:49

D minor pentatonic scale. That's

50:52

what sounds one way on its own,

50:53

sounds

50:57

a lot cooler when you play it over the song's

50:59

chords.

51:05

Same goes for the next riff which is also

51:07

built out of A minor pentatonic up the neck but

51:09

moves through a G major chord to an F

51:12

major 7.

51:17

That's the Larry Carlton thing man, that's why

51:20

he's so great. He took straight forward

51:22

guitar riffs with pentatonic scales

51:24

like everybody else played but he placed them

51:26

so carefully and creatively over

51:28

a given song's chords that you end up

51:31

getting something that sounded richer, fuller,

51:33

and more interesting. Lovely

51:41

right?

51:45

Now listen to him play

51:48

it and pay attention for that, listen to how his

51:50

riffs offset the chords that

51:52

are happening around them.

52:01

And let's keep going. Alright

52:17

now we're cooking. This part of the song moves around

52:19

a lot. This is the most technically demanding part

52:22

of the solo, though really he is just moving from

52:24

pentatonic shape to pentatonic shape. It's not

52:26

really that different from what Charlie Christian

52:28

was doing 40 years earlier. This

52:30

section is in E minor. A lot of the song

52:33

actually moves around between E minor, A minor,

52:35

and B minor. Those are kind of the three planets

52:38

around which Kid Charlemagne revolves.

52:41

And this section is building up to E minor. He

52:43

walks up to it with a really hip and

52:45

kind of technically unusual riff. It's

52:47

sort of the exception that proves the rule. It doesn't

52:49

just feel like a standard pentatonic shape. So

52:52

he's focusing on a B7 chord with those leading

52:54

tones leading to E minor.

53:00

And

53:02

the harmony drops a step and Carlton goes

53:05

up.

53:08

That's another classic Carlton move. He likes

53:10

to move counter to the harmony, so when

53:12

the bassline is descending, a lot of the time he's

53:14

ascending, which automatically just makes his

53:16

line sound a little stretchy

53:18

and interesting. For

53:23

the next riff, he balances high up as the harmony

53:25

drops again, this time to C major 7. And

53:31

just a little stylistic minutia there. He plays

53:34

a bend, but he starts with the bend

53:36

in effect, so it's just a drop. He bends

53:38

the A up to a B, but

53:40

rather than doing what say Jimi Hendrix was doing

53:42

on Hey Joe and starting on the A and bending it

53:45

up a step, which would sound like this. That

53:50

sounds great, but he does something different. He starts

53:52

with the note bent and then just drops

53:54

it. So he starts on a B and it drops down

53:57

to A. It's very cool.

54:01

From there he flies into the next riff as

54:03

the band cycles back around to A

54:05

minor.

54:10

This

54:10

is the most technical part of his solo, and

54:12

when you put it all together and play it a little bit

54:14

more slowly, it's just immaculate.

54:34

Now listen to him do it, it's going to be a lot faster and a lot

54:36

more exciting, but see if he can keep your wits about you

54:39

and just take all of that in.

54:54

From here every pair of bars is like a different

54:56

room that I want to just hang out in. There's

54:58

this slidey thing that he does where he plays an

55:01

open E then goes back and forth around the

55:03

12th fret.

55:08

Then there's this almost metal shredderexque

55:10

pedal riff.

55:15

Again that riff is an A minor riff,

55:17

really straightforward, but it's played over an F6-9

55:20

chord so it has a really different tune.

55:24

Followed immediately by a Lydian dominant bebop

55:26

line that wouldn't be out of place on a West Montgomery

55:29

record.

55:33

Then two ascending triadic patterns following

55:35

the chords of the song.

55:40

It's such a guitar thing, that shape

55:42

approach that I've been talking about this whole episode, where

55:44

you take just basic triads, because you learn

55:47

your triads all up to the neck, and instead of playing

55:49

them like chords, you play each note

55:51

one at a time and use them as melody.

55:58

The melody best had this proof of...

55:59

six-note melody, it's my favorite part of the whole

56:02

solo, it's got this beautiful bend,

56:04

the whole thing just fits over these chords

56:06

so well.

56:11

When he brings it home with this ridiculous

56:13

chromatic line that seems all set up

56:15

to end on the one on an A minor,

56:17

except it doesn't land on the one because the

56:19

band doesn't land on the one, he lands up a half

56:21

step on a B flat, light as the band

56:24

swerves into a C7 sharp

56:26

nine chord. That's so cool, I mean

56:28

the riff, the riff you expect that every

56:30

guitar player knows sounds like this.

56:35

Right, that's what a quote-unquote should be,

56:37

but of course it seems so much cooler

56:39

if you land up a half step.

56:47

And then to run some light finger tapping just

56:49

for good measure. I

56:55

mean what a solo, what a solo! It

56:57

combines so many things, total mastery

56:59

of the fretboard, total technical mastery

57:02

over the instrument, clever repurposing

57:04

of chord shapes and pentatonics, blues bends,

57:07

a sprinkling of bebop vocabulary, and even

57:09

some finger tapping. So let's listen

57:11

to it, first my slowed down recreation

57:13

which should let you really follow the contours

57:16

and colors of the solo, and then the recording

57:18

itself which is all the more impressive for how

57:20

quickly he moves through each two bar

57:23

idea. Ears on, here

57:25

we go.

58:30

Alright,

58:36

and now one more time, let's listen to Larry

58:38

do it.

59:30

And there you have it, a culmination of everything

59:32

we talked about on this episode, if not a culmination

59:35

of the guitar itself, because of course, countless

59:37

guitarists continue to reimagine the

59:39

ideas pioneered by Charlie Christian, Wes

59:42

Montgomery, Jimi Hendrix, Larry Carlton,

59:44

and so many others in new and exciting ways

59:47

even all these decades later. The

59:49

relay race continues with new runners picking

59:51

up the baton, or the guitar, every

59:54

day, why don't they run relay races with guitar

59:56

effects, that'd be pretty cool.

1:00:01

At the end of Kid Charlemagne, Carlton takes another

1:00:03

open guitar solo, this time the kind of peeling,

1:00:06

joyful thing that can really only rightly

1:00:08

take place during a triumphant fade-out

1:00:11

at the end of the song. In

1:00:17

his 2002 book Songbook, author

1:00:19

Nick Hornby actually called out this outro

1:00:22

solo, noting that at the end of Kid Charlemagne,

1:00:24

quote, there's a guitar solo of such

1:00:26

extraordinary and dexterous exuberance

1:00:29

that you end up wondering where it came from and

1:00:31

quite what it has to do with the dry ironies

1:00:34

of the song's lyrics. And

1:00:41

he's right, I'll admit it. The sound of Carlton's

1:00:44

guitar is pure joy and that doesn't

1:00:46

really fit with Kid Charlemagne's subject

1:00:48

matter, but in this case at least, I

1:00:50

gotta give it a pass. I guess it's the guitarist

1:00:53

in me, but give me joy, give me dexterous

1:00:56

exuberance any day of the week. And

1:01:18

that'll do it for this look at four strong

1:01:20

guitar solos. I hope you enjoyed this episode

1:01:22

and that you'll go and listen to each of these four players

1:01:25

after you're done with it. This episode doubles

1:01:27

as a pretty good snapshot of where I'm at in

1:01:30

my own progress on the guitar and

1:01:32

I hope it inspires some of you out there to go and find

1:01:34

a teacher and start practicing. It's

1:01:36

taken a lot of time and work and discipline

1:01:38

this past year and a half, but it's been so satisfying

1:01:41

to finally, slowly start to feel

1:01:44

like I have a handle on the instrument. Thanks

1:01:46

to my teacher Scott Pemberton, himself an incredible

1:01:48

guitarist with a bunch of records that you can go listen

1:01:51

to, as well as old guitar friends Kenji

1:01:53

Shinagawa, Woody Quinn, Dan Nervo,

1:01:55

and Dan Echinski for all that you've taught

1:01:57

me about the instrument over the years.

1:02:00

I was always learning, even if you didn't realize

1:02:02

it. And hey, thanks as well to everyone who supports

1:02:04

Strong Songs on Patreon, and thus supports

1:02:07

me as I continue making this show

1:02:09

for you all. I spend most of my time

1:02:11

in the role of teacher on this show, but it's so important

1:02:13

for me to get to share my own journey as a

1:02:15

student, and it's so helpful to take

1:02:17

the things that I've learned and try to re-articulate

1:02:20

them back for all of you. I'm

1:02:22

only able to do that and to make this show because

1:02:24

of all the folks who support its creation.

1:02:27

So if you like Strong Songs and you want to support the

1:02:29

show, go to patreon.com slash strong

1:02:31

songs, or find a link for one-time

1:02:33

donations down in the show notes. This

1:02:35

episode's outro soloist is me. I

1:02:38

decided it would be fun to record a new outro

1:02:40

solo on the electric guitar to compare and contrast

1:02:42

with the one that I recorded a couple of years

1:02:44

ago, and to get a sense of how I've progressed on

1:02:47

the instrument. It was a great excuse to push

1:02:49

myself a little bit, and I had a good time working it

1:02:51

up. So stick around for that, and I'll see you in two

1:02:53

weeks for more Strong Songs.

1:04:00

you