Great Guitar Solos – BB King

You thought I was just gonna skip over the Blues?

Really?

Come on. I play guitar. Skipping over the Blues is an actual crime, and I’m not looking to go to guitar jail any time soon.

So here’s one of the greatest Blues guitarists of all time, BB King, playing great Blues guitar. Unfortunately, the sound mix here is pretty crap, so you’ll basically just hear BB King and the drums, with the keys adding just some atmosphere that makes it hard to tell what the music itself is, and whether it’s in major or minor… plus, the bass guitar is non-existent.

But don’t let that kill your enjoyment of one of BB King’s amazing guitar performances. Sit back, relax, and enjoy:

Great Guitar Solos – Orianthi Plays Voodoo Child (Slight Return)

Just to prove that I’m not inherently anti-shredding, I present to you Orianthi. She is a mind-blowing guitarist and a great singer. I’ve been a big fan of her work even when she’s played with artists whose music I don’t listen to so much.

Here, she plays the late, great Jimi Hendrix’s Voodoo Child (Slight Return). She only sings the first verse, not the second, but that doesn’t bother me at all because this is all about the guitar, here. The solo is the entire thing. Also, this is a live video, so definitely watch to see her play.

Enjoy.

Great Guitar Solos – Porcupine Tree’s Shesmovedon

Here’s a band that was popular in the 90s, often considered the logical progression of what Pink Floyd started. Sadly, they seem to be relative unknowns today, including the amazing musician, composer, singer, and guitarist Steven Wilson. You’ll be seeing Porcupine Tree and Steven Wilson (with his solo work and other projects) relatively often in this series, because I’m such a huge fan.

Porcupine Tree was even more the quintessential angsty teenage band than Nirvana. Hell, they have an entire album, called Fear of a Blank Planet, that is literally about “two typical neurobehavioural developmental disorders affecting teenagers in the 21st century: bipolar disorder and attention deficit disorder, and also with other common behaviour tendencies of youth like escapism through prescription drugs, social alienation caused by technology, and a feeling of vacuity—a product of information overload by the mass media.” So it’s kind of funny that I discovered, and fell in love with, their music when I was already well into “adulthood”.

Anyways… this one doesn’t come from Fear of a Blank Planet, but from their album Lightbulb Sun. The lyrics are almost sort of nice guy bemoaning, sadly. They’re basically the dude (not necessarily Steven Wilson himself, as the vast majority of his albums are concept albums, so they tell stories with characters) bemoaning the loss of a girlfriend who he thinks was just using him. The lyrics are… fine… but the guitar solo is what makes this song. It’s so powerful, and I adore it.

As usual, there’s no video to this one, just audio. The solo starts at 3:25 and ends at 5:05.

Enjoy.

Great Guitar Solos – Steve Howe “Masquerade”

I don’t like everything Yes, but I do enjoy their more progressive/symphonic stuff. And I consider Steve Howe to be one of the greats. This was first released on the Yes “Union” album, which I own. It’s a full-on instrumental guitar solo… no other instruments or singing or anything. It’s a bit more simple than other solos, but I absolutely love it. Years ago I tried learning how to play it, but I wasn’t good enough then, and I haven’t tried again in years. I think I’d have a much easier time picking it up now if I tried… and I think I very well might.

This video is from Steve Howe’s own Youtube channel. It shows both his fingering hand his picking hand, so you can see exactly how he plays it. I find it really nice, simple, and atmospheric. I hope you like it, too.

Wanna Contribute to Great Guitar Solos?

Many have been doing it already, but now you have a dedicated thread where you can recommend, and link to, guitar solos you consider amazing. They don’t have to be complicated shred fests (hell… I’ll be highlighting Nirvana’s “Come As You Are” in a future post), but they can be if you think they’re incredible.

The one’s I like the best will be highlighted in future posts in the series, and you’ll get credit, with a link to your comment!

Let me know what you listen to and what you love. And don’t worry about the genre… I’m interested in the guitar solo, not the style. You may even see classical and flamenco show up!… if I’m not careful, that is… 😉

 

Great Guitar Solos – Karn Evil 9, 1st Impression, Part 2 by Emerson, Lake, and Palmer

(Quick note about this song: one of the lyrics after the guitar solo is “soon the Gypsy queen in a glaze of vaseline…”. “Gypsy” is, of course, a racial slur. And that’s not up for debate in this post, either, so don’t bother. Just do some research [like reading the link I just posted, and maybe also this one and this one] to understand the history and context for why, and leave it at that. Thanks!) 

So this is actually part of a full 30 minute suite by ELP called “Karn Evil 9“, released on their album “Brain Salad Surgery”. This part is the most famous because they often played just this cut live, and it was played on the radio all the time. The opening line (“Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends.”) is somewhat known, as well, often separate from the song (I actually know people who have no clue who ELP are but recognize that line instantly when I say it).

Honestly, if I were to do a “Great Keyboard Solos” series, this would be the first song highlighted, because Keith Emerson was a god of the keys, in my humble opinion. But the guitar solo is amazing, too, which is why I’m highlighting it here. It’s such an amazing solo, another one that’s simple yet powerful. Greg Lake was an underrated guitarist, partly because of how rarely he played it (sticking more to the bass guitar).

This is the studio recording, so no need to actually watch anything… just listen… the guitar solo, BTW, starts at 2:01 and ends at 2:57:

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The Led Zeppelin Sunshine Woman Controversy

Nope… it’s not about a copyright lawsuit…

(This is another light-hearted post to fill the time while I’m working on the police post. There’ll probably be more light-hearted stuff until I finally have that finished, sourced, and ready to post.)

So… I think at this point it’s obvious that I’m a pretty big fan of Led Zeppelin, and I will generally shell out the absolute maximum limit of what I can afford to purchase basically anything and everything they release officially.

I have a bit of a soft spot for their BBC sessions, from 1969-1971, because that was how I first heard Led Zeppelin. My first Led Zeppelin official release was their 2-disc BBC sessions release, and my very first unofficial recording/bootleg was A Secret History of Led Zeppelin, which was an early compilation of BBC sessions that were not on the official release, plus live tracks from other shows during their 1969 tour (I cannot put into words what it felt like listening to that CD for the first time, but, amazingly, I still feel that every time I put the CD on, and I absolutely love it). Later, Empress Valley, a Japanese bootleg label, came out with The Complete BBC Sessions, which I also have (one of only two “silvers” I ever purchased, and I will never purchase any again because of how guilty I felt [Led Zeppelin should have gotten that money]; I’ve gotten and get all the rest of my bootlegs either for free or, at most, the cost of shipping and blank CDs [for trades]).

So you can imagine how excited I was when an expanded edition of the BBC Sessions was announced. I was all set to preorder it, but then I saw that the music from the Alexis Korner sessions, including the song Sunshine Woman, were included. Now this is interesting, because the official tapes for that show were either wiped or went missing. We only have the sessions because they were recorded off of the radio, so the audio quality isn’t official-level quality. When it was first announced, there were a lot of questions about the music from the Alexis Korner sessions, the main one being the audio quality. And I decided to hold off on preordering the set until more information came out, because, technically, I already have the complete BBC sessions in the Empress Valley release, and the quality is actually surprisingly good for an unofficial release.

Well, Sunshine Woman was recently released online, and I am… unimpressed. If you can get Soundcloud to work, and you’re interested, here’s a link to listen.

Notice anything about the quality?

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So… Podcasts…

(Since I’m still working on my promised post about the US police force [I’m doing tons of research for this, to back up everything I say, so it’s a lot of work and I don’t have that much free time, which of course means it’s taking longer than I expected], I thought this would be a good, fun, light interim post.)

So… I listen to a lot of podcasts. I thought it’d be cool to list and talk about podcasts. As I said… I have a lot here, and I am going to list them all, and include links. However, I’m only going to give details on a select few, so this isn’t overly-long.

So here we are… my podcasts:

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Great Guitar Solos – Dazed and Confused Live @ Earl’s Court

This right here is literally why I play guitar.

Jimmy Page playing his guitar with a violin bow. I don’t know what exactly it was that made me sit up and take notice, but this blew my mind, and made me think of the guitar in ways I had never imagined the guitar before seeing this.

This is live at Earl’s Court on May 24, 1975. Yes, it’s over 30 minutes long. No, that’s not the longest Dazed and Confused has ever gone.

The bow solo starts at 11:33 and ends at 19:00.

Again… this is why I play guitar. This is how I see the guitar.

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