Sassy Stylin’ with that Open Tuning

It doesn’t matter how you do it, what comes out is what matters ...

Not quite sure where this is from, but check out this sister’s flamboyant strumming and tapping ... oh the joys of open-tuning! Who needs effects when you can do this. I like her sly attitude. She’s showing off (and knows it), but she’s not getting worked up about it either. Quite a jaunty, sportin’ little tune:

Too Much Is Not Enough

David Byrne makes the case that you can never have too many guitar effects.

Two Legendary Guitarists ... From Opposites Ends of the Spectrum

This month, I finally got a chance to see two renowned 1960’s era English guitarists in concert. Both shows were very impressive, and while there were some similarities – most notably respectful nods to the late guitar legend Les Paul – the differences were more noteworthy.

First up was Jeff Beck and his band at the Bank of America Pavilion on Boston Harbor on June 2. The 5,000 seat amphitheater generally has surprisingly good sound for such a venue and good sightlines. As expected, Beck put on a show of incredible guitar dexterity, coaxing impeccable tone out of his white Fender Strat. In general, the show was not as riff heavy as his albums of the last decade or so might suggest. And while there were some funky moments, he leaned more heavily on the tasteful mellow melodies of the kind featured prominently on his most recent release Emotion and Commotion (not among his better albums, but nevertheless including a few interesting moments).

“Brush with the Blues” from the 6/3/10 Boston show I attended.

Highlights of this Boston show included “Led Boots” from 1976’s landmark Wired l.p.; a funked up cover of blues standard “Rollin’ and Tumblin’,” featured on Beck’s 200o CD, You Had It Coming); the sublime slow bluesy takes on the Celtic tune “Mna na h”Eireann” and “Angel (Footsteps),” from 1999’s Who Else?; the evening’s most hard rock moment, on the automobile ode “Big Block,” from 1989’s Guitar Shop; and a brief romp through Les Paul’s 1951 classic, “How High the Moon.”

I was disappointed by the rather anemic instrumental rendition of “People Get Ready” (historically one of my favorite Beck interpretations), as well as the slightly hurried and disjointed take on The Beatles’ “A Day in the Life,” which Beck has much more impressively executed on record in the past. Not that I really expected it, but it would’ve been nice to hear one nod to Beck’s early career, perhaps a Yardbirds tune or 1968’s “Beck’s Bolero,” which he has been playing in recent years. Alas, that was not to be.

Those complaints aside, Beck can make sounds on guitar unlike anyone else on the planet. His unorthodox fingerpicking, fretting and manipulations of the whammy bar, volume and tone controls are unparalleled. He can riff hard on a groove or make the guitar weep plaintively. What he doesn’t do so much, however, is play songs. Chords and rhythmic playing (aside from the funky riffs) are non-existent. Of course, he has a superlative rhythm section behind him in bassist Rhonda Smith and drummer Narada Michael Walden, and keyboardist Jason Rebello plays a key role, too. But you seldom find Beck rhythmically driving a song the way, for example, his fellow Yardies alums Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page do.

Nevertheless, you can’t help but be impressed – awed, in fact, especially if you’re a guitarist – by Beck’s playing.

That said, I was a little surprised to find myself even more impressed by the other guitar legend I saw this month: Albert Lee, the flashy country-picking Brit who appeared a few weeks later at the much more intimate Showcase Live club in Foxboro, Mass.

To be fair, the different venues created somewhat of an apples-to-oranges scenario between the two concerts. I was 25 yards or so from Beck in the big venue, while I was about 25 feet from Lee in the 500-capacity club. The relatively new club’s sound system is state of the art.

Lee is certainly not the guitar hero that Jeff Beck is, but in guitar-playing circles he’s highly reputed and has been since his days as a session player in the late ’60s. Since then, he has performed with the Everly Brothers, Emmylou Harris and Eric Clapton, among

others. The June 18 gig was his first show fronting a band in the United States in a couple of decades.

I came to hear Lee’s twangy country bends and lightning-quick chicken-picking. I was not disappointed (though he didn’t play a Fender Telecaster, as I had expected, instead invoking his twangy tones from a custom-made, whammy-bar outfitted, red Music Man guitar). What I did not expect, and was pleasantly impressed by, was his confident vocals (must’ve been all those years with the Everlys) and his adeptness on piano (which he played on about six songs). Most notable of all though, and the key point of distinction from Beck’s performance a few weeks earlier, was his focus on the songs – some of his own composition, but mostly covers.

Overall, the tunes were not as countryish as I anticipated. Yes, there was some country hoedowns (“Two-Step, Too,” “Travelin’ Prayer” and “Country Boy”), but also a fair amount of rockabilly (with the Everly Bros. influences never far from the surface) and some tasteful pop (Lee’s own “Song and Dance” and a powerful rendition of The Beatles’ “Oh Darling” ). At times it reminded me of the kind of set George Harrison might play – only with better guitar playing.

Other highlights included the Brian Setzer-esque “Barnyard Boogie,” which opened the second set, Ray Charles’ “Leave My Woman Alone,” which brought to mind Alison Krauss and Robert Plant’s recent work together, and the previously referenced cover of Les Paul’s “The World Is Waiting for the Sunrise.” (Side note: Both Beck and Lee followed up their Boston area gigs with guest appearances a few days later with the Les Paul’s backing band at New York’s Iridium club.)

This old clip offers a brief sampling of Albert Lee’s tasty, twangy chops.

Both guitarists sailed along buoyed by top notch-backing bands. Lee’s cast, dubbed Hogan’s Heroes after pedal steel guitarist Gerry Hogan, fleshed out the songs and added strong vocal support. The liquid twang of Hogan’s pedal steel ensured the country flare was never too distant and gave good chase to Lee’s fancy picking. Keyboardist Gavin Povey added alternately gospel and boogie-woogie embellishments, while drummer Peter Baron proved a formidable lead singer on several tunes.

In summary, June was a good month for guitar. And don’t get me wrong about the Jeff Beck concert, I enjoyed it very much. Perhaps, as a guitar player, I could simply better relate to Albert Lee’s playing. Not that my guitar chops are anywhere near Lee’s, but at least I can imagine (OK, fantasize about) myself playing some of those lines. Beck’s approach, on the other hand, is so other worldly that apart from his occasional forays into straight blues, I can’t even conceive of playing like that.

POSTSCRIPT: The Derek Trucks Band with Susan Tedeschi (Derek’s wife and a long-time formidable blues guitarist and singer in her own right) opened the show for Beck with a very impressive country-tinged blues set that conjured up strong echoes of Delaney and Bonnie circa 1970. I’ve long known about Derek’s stunning guitar abilities, particularly his Duane Allman-channeling slide playing, but I was so impressed with Tedeschi’s bluesy vocals that I half expected her to join Beck for his set, assuming some of the lead vocal parts done by Joss Stone and others on his recent records. That didn’t happen, but it would’ve been a good fit.

SET LISTS

Jeff Beck at Bank of America Pavilion,

Boston (6/3/10)

Eternity’s Breath / Stratus

Led Boots

Corpus Christi Carol

Hammerhead

Mna na h’Eireann

bass solo

People Get Ready

Rollin’ and Tumblin’

Never Alone

Big Block

Over the Rainbow

Blast from the East

Angel Footsteps

Dirty Mind

Brush with the Blues

I Wanna Take You Higher

A Day in the Life

ENCORE:

How High the Moon

Nessun Dorma

Albert Lee & Hogan’s Heroes at Showcase Live,

Foxboro, Mass. (6/18/10)

FIRST SET:

Just Didn’t Understand *

Restless

Song and Dance

Travelin’ Prayer

Runaway Train

Glory Bound

Wheels

I’ll Never Get Over You

The World Is Waiting for the Sunrise

Rad Gumbo

Highwayman

Breathless

SECOND SET:

Barnyard Boogie

Two-Step, Too

I’m Coming Home

Luxury Liner

You’re Only Lonely

The Times We Share *

On the Verge

Let It Be Me

Oh Darling

Leave My Woman Alone

’Til I Gain Control Again

Country Boy

ENCORE:

Skip Rope Song

Tear It Up

* Not sure of title

Strummin’ in the Wind

I got this hand-me-down from my father-in-law eight or nine years ago and managed to repair it back to playability. He bought the guitar in pre-Castro era Cuba while stationed there in the Navy. This is the same model guitar that Bob Dylan used at his first Newport Folk Festival appearance in 1963.

1956 Martin 00-17

(Guitars I Have Known #10 – Photo by Rowena Lindsay)

Telecasting: This Ain’t Fishing!

While the regal Gibson Les Paul may be the King of Electric Guitars, the Fender Telecaster is the wise old Zen Master who pilgrims seek out atop the mountain.

1971 Fender Telecaster

(Guitars I Have Known #8 – Photo by Bill Lindsay)

Mighty and Loud Guitar(ists)

Last night I took my teenage daughter to see the much anticipated and greatly hyped documentary film It Might Get Loud.

As even casual fans of music probably know, it’s the story of the guitar told through the voices and experiences of three rock icons: Jimmy Page (of Led Zeppelin), The Edge (of U2) and Jack White (of The White Stripes, The Raconteurs, The Dead Weather … and, wait, has he come up with any other bands in the last 10 minutes?). Besides having distinctive styles and being marquee “guitar heroes” in their own right, these men are roughly 15 years apart in age – from the 65-year-old Page to the 30-something White. Thus, they represent three generations of rock music.

Like dad, like daughter … both of us are fans of all three musicians.

As director Davis Guggenheim says in the movie promos, it’s “wall to wall music” and “great stories” with these “rock stars actually telling you how they did their stuff.” While certainly appealing to guitar geeks, it never gets too technical or musically esoteric. If you like rock music at all, you’ll find it entertaining.

The film is built around a guitar “summit” at an L.A. soundstage, where the three guitarists are brought together (for the first time ever) to chat about their influences and techniques and do a little impromptu playing. They share some of their famous licks and do a bit of jamming. Each musician’s back story gets ample focus in interwoven individual segments that explore their musical evolutions and revisit some notable locales from their early years. The genuine enthusiasm each man exhibits when discussing his influences is contagious.

The juxtaposition of the three guitar slingers is a big part of what makes the film so interesting. While Page’s heyday was in the late ’60s and the ’70s, The Edge’s punk/new wave-inspired U2 of the late ’70s/early ’80s represented a reaction against the self-indulgent dinosaur rock of super groups like Zeppelin. Subsequently, the Edge carved out his niche based not on virtuoso playing, but on creative use of electronic effects. Then came Jack White in the late 1990s with his pronouncedly anti-technical approach to music, channeling Son House through raw electric instruments in the stripped down sound of the White Stripes. (One might recall that the first four Stripes albums were characteristically retro-sounding recordings made in all analog studios at a time when the rest of the music industry had gone full bore digital.)

Clearly, Page and White share more common ground in their mutual blues influences, leaving the Edge the odd man out at times. Despite his playing with B.B. King on “When Love Comes to Town” on U2’s 1988 Rattle and Hum album/movie, the Edge’s style really doesn’t have any blues roots. Nevertheless, this imbalance doesn’t undermine the shared respect and budding camaraderie evident among the musicians.

This is a richly detailed documentary. So even though I had seen many of the various promo clips floating around the internet before last night, I still found plenty of fresh footage to discover in the film itself. Without fear of completely spoiling it, here are a few of my favorite parts:

• Page playing air guitar (how ironic is that?!) while listening to Link Wray’s “The Rumble.”

• Snippets of two new pieces of music from Page.

• Much has been said in early reviews of the film about the moment when the Edge and White watch in awe as Page plays the iconic “Whole Lotta Love” riff. The delighted look on both of their faces is, indeed, priceless.

• The jam on Zep’s “In My Time of Dying” – with all three playing slide guitar (true to form – the individuality comes through again as each man wears the slide on a different finger).

• The Edge’s self-deprecating humor evidenced on several occasions during his individual segments.

• Page’s bemusement over the chord structure of “I Will Follow” as the Edge teaches it to the other two: “Are you sure about that?” he asks the composer.

• The three stars’ acoustic rendition of The Band’s “The Weight” during the film’s trail out sequence.

All these are things to look forward to – along with much more – if you haven’t seen it yet. Personally, I can’t wait to see it again when it’s released on DVD, probably sometime before Christmas.

I highly recommend this documentary if you [a] play guitar (it’s a must see), [b] like even one of these three musicians and his band, [c] are interested in how guitar-based music (i.e., most rock and roll) is constructed, or [d] you’re just a big fan of music in general.

R.I.P., Renaissance Man, All Around Good Guy

Given his advanced age (94), it’s no great surprise to hear of Les Paul’s passing earlier today, but it does mark the loss of a genuinely gifted and hard-working gentleman who bridged several musical generations, as well as the art and science of recording.

Les Paul was a truly unique guitarist who started out playing country music (under the nom de guitare Rhubarb Red) in the 1930s before really making his mark with a jazzy pop style in the ’40s and ’50s. He played with such innovation and fluidity that not only did he go on to become an outright star in the 1950s (even having a TV show with his wife/singing partner Mary Ford), but he also become a huge influence on many of the famed rock guitarists that followed a decade or two later. He was hip enough to keep up with musical trends and developments even late in his life, and he befriended many of the notable “guitar heroes” of successive generations, as well as continuing to show off his jazzy licks during weekly gigs in New York clubs into the 21st century.

Beyond his guitar playing, Les’ appeal and renown among musicians was also driven by the many technical inventions he was personally responsible for: from being one of the creators of the solid body electric guitar (and later the inspiration for the iconic Gibson Les Paul line of guitars) to his numerous innovations in multitrack recording and production techniques.

But technical, guitar geek accomplishments aside, anyone who appreciates good melody and impeccable phrasing can appreciate Les’ pop hallmarks like “How High the Moon,” “The World Is Waiting for the Sunrise” “Vaya Con Dios,” “Mockin' Bird Hill” and “Nola” to name but a few. Whether they know it or not, virtually anyone who has picked up and played an electric guitar in the last half-century owes something to Les Paul.

The above may seem somewhat old hat now that Boss/Roland et al have cheap and readily available stomp boxes that can do this, but when this clip was recored no company had anything to match the “Les Paulverizer.” Les always seemed to be a step ahead of everyone else on the technical developments. Eventually, he was inducted into the Inventors Hall of Fame, as well as the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame – undoubtedly the only one with membership cards to both of those!

Further:

• Les Paul has a huge catalog of recorded music. A good brief overview of his career-defining 1950’s era hits is The Very Best of Les Paul & Mary Ford.

• I highly recommend checking out a DVD of the documentary film about Les Paul, Chasing Sound, that came out a few years ago. Here’s a brief clip from it: