This is inspired by listening to The Beatles “Octopus’ Garden” on @Dude From Atlantis thread “The Octopus Test”.
George’s intro is just so brilliant – sets up the song, totally memorable. Made me think of Jerry Garcia’s pedal steel intro to CSNY’s “Teach Your Children.
What other fabuloid improvised guitar intros do you love? I’m not talking about a riff that forms the basis of the song (eg “Whole Lotta Love”) – I mean something that is an invention of the guitar player but just sets the scene for the song perfectly.
Great choice there re Jerry Garcia.
George again immediately sprang to mind with this song. On the Scorsese documentary Paul McCartney gives admiring justified credit for him coming up with a riff that defines the song in an instant:
Minor quibble with “improvised” here? Upspeaking? These are composed solos, not improvised in the jazz sense. Or indeed any other.
So this doesn’t turn into yet another squishy”we luuurve The Beatles, us!” thread, here’s Dickey Betts taking us into Blue Sky:
The way Betts constructs this song, building in a long, glorious (and composed) solo over that light, country-sprung beat is a joy to hear.
And here’s Reggie Young finding what he hoped might be a “yeah, that’ll work” intro for Dusty’s “Son of a Preacher Man”.
He pointed out (in a documentary about the “Memphis Boys”) that when he started to do personal appearances a few years ago, because the value of session players’ work was finally being recognised (see recent refs to the Wrecking Crew, etc.), he had to track down all the records and relearn all his intros and riffs from scratch. He’d only ever played them once: during the fifteen minutes or so that it took him to come up with them and record them 40 or 50 years ago. Then on to the next job.
Eat A Perach -discussing this with a mate today as the Allmans album I have never had but the collection has always felt incomplete without it.
that’s it – no more – One Peach ready to eat thanks
fuckin fuckin no edit function
Eat A Peach
Skunk?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7V5-O8Zk2k
Everyone in the band on vocals. I’d seen that clip before, and hadn’t noticed that the drummer was singing too.
Any other bands with that number of members, with all on vocals? Apart from the Polyphonic Spree.
Gabriel/Hackett line-up of Genesis had four out of five.
All the Eagles did/do five-part harmony on quite a few songs (“Lyin’ Eyes”, “Take it to the Limit”…). And four of them – all except Don Felder (one of the reasons he left) – sang/sing lead vocals too.
The Beach Boys. Bri, Carl, Den, Al & Mike. Yay.
Immediately thought of this:
Steely Dan in the glory days before America became interested in good teeth…
Improvised/composed. Yeah. I suppose what I mean is – Janis Joplin once said “I don’t write songs, I make them up”. QED.
Dig if you will the intro/Of a strange little song with no bass…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PavjZt3n0Rw
Both the intro and the solo. Fabulous.
Yep best guitar solo ever… JHS went far too early..
It took me bloody ages and ages to learn that solo. It’s a bit of a bugger but it’s very satisfying when you get it right.
Squeeze – Another Nail In My Heart
Guitar solo at 0:53 – it’s like Glenn Tilbrook couldn’t wait the regulation 2 verses and a chorus before have a pluck, and just threw it in as soon as possible like an over eager child.
Another great Tilbrook solo.
Those Robert Fripp/Bowie and/or Peter Gabriel tracks where he supposedly turned up at the studio, rolled the tapes, played and went home after the first takes are pretty good examples. ‘Fashion’, I believe, is one.
Possibly this. Steve Hunter and Dick Wagner wander around for a while before crunching into the opening riff.
yep that is the greatest intro bar none. Sorry no debate. Game set and match – only its 2 guitars.