Guest Post Thursday 11: GUITAR!!!

Some time ago (back in March 2018) I started a new series on the blog called Anyone Can't Play Guitar, which was supposed to be an ongoing tribute to my favourite guitar solos. There was only ever one post. I may argue because it couldn't be beaten... although I did intend to follow it with a post about Richard Thompson, the best guitarist I ever saw play live.

The baton may be very dusty, but Rigid Digit just picked it up and ran with it...

RIGID DIGIT’S TOP 10 GUITAR SOLOS THAT DON’T SEEM TO MAKE THE USUAL BEST OF ALL-TIME LISTS:

Not those 9,473 notes a minute shredding solos so beloved of poodle-haired rockers who believe Eddie Van Halen is God.

These are (in my mind) perfectly captured moments of musical brilliance using 6 steel strings and a plank of wood.

And these – brilliant though they are – rarely get the plaudits they deserve.

Well, I am here to right (write?) that wrong.

10. No Regrets – Walker Brothers (Alan Parker)

This song, like many other Walker Brothers tracks is dominated by Scott Walker’s moody baritone.
The arrangement and that vocal would usually be enough, but then the solo arrives and takes the track to another level.

The internet, not always the most reliable of places, cites many options for the provider of this solo, including Big Jim Sullivan, Jeff Skunk Baxter (later of Steely Dan), and John Walker  - who was actually a Walker Brother, but what are the chance of a member of a 60s band actually playing on their own song?

Popular opinion suggests the widdling was by Alan Parker -late of Blue Mink, and whose guitar work was heard once a week for nigh on 10 years as a member of CCS who did the “Whole Lotta Love” version that introduced Top Of The Pops

9. Dead Flowers (Live At The Marquee 1971) – Rolling Stones (Mick Taylor)

Mick Taylor joined The Stones in 1969 replacing Brian Jones, and within a month had provided overdubs and guitars for ‘Let It Bleed’ and was sitting at Number One with “Honky Tonk Women”.
Taylor’s musical chops were never in doubt – he was a member of the Blues Guitarists' finishing school (John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers) at 16, and is a key player on the Stones ‘Sticky Fingers’ album.

“Sway” from that album ranks as a high point, but the solo on the album version of “Dead Flowers”, great though it is, falls just short.  Not when played Live however (as seen here) – Mick Taylor is effectively soloing all the way through the song.  It’s cool, laid-back, laconic even, but fills every gap required to be filled.

With Brian Jones, they were the second greatest pop singles band in the UK.  With Mick Taylor, they were (probably) the greatest Live Rock n Roll Band standing on a stage.

8. Kid - Pretenders (James Honeyman-Scott)

Hereford may not be the Rock n Roll Capital of the World, but it did provide half of Mott The Hoople, and three quarters of The Pretenders.  And it was one of those Pretenders with a blond mane and a Mott The Hoople and Cream fixation that came up with (on the spot in the studio) this sublime solo which elevates the song to one of the finest in The Pretenders catalogue.

James Honeyman-Scott died in mid 1982 leaving a legacy of two very good albums with The Pretenders, containing his intricate guitar work.  We will never know if “Kid” was a one-off, or would there have been more to come?

7. Boredom – Buzzcocks (Pete Shelley)

How many notes does a guitar solo actually need?  More than two is surely just an extravagance.
Pete Shelly obviously thought so, providing a bare-bones “cheeky two note solo”.  Any more than that would surely just inspire boredom in the listener.

Lifted from their first EP, which is held as the first independent single, and the last Buzzcocks outing before Howard Devoto parted for the more progressive sounding Magazine (almost denouncing Punk, and inventing Post Punk before Punk had even got going).  Post-Devoto, Buzzcocks went on to release a string of the finest singles of 1978/79.

6. Reelin’ In The Years – Steely Dan (Elliott Randall)

Although this may be unfair to Dan members in the early days, the band was basically Donald Fagen and Walter Becker, plus a supporting cast.  The parent album (‘Can’t Buy A Thrill’) did feature guitarists Jeff "Skunk" Baxter and Denny Dias as full time members, but the guitar work on this was supplied by session guitarist Elliot Randall – a man who has been offered many full time band positions (The Blues Brothers and Toto to name two) but turned them down to remain a gun for hire.  And with this on your CV, the work may not be thin on the ground.

(I refer the honourable gentleman back to a previous post on this very blog. - Rol.)

5. Wuthering Heights – Kate Bush (Ian Bairnson)

When this track is played on the radio, it always seems to cut before the solo starts – a real shame that.  The solo is an integral part of the song and provides the perfect coda.

Not, as often believed, played by Dave Gilmour (although Gilmour was a key figure in Kate Bush’s signing to EMI), but supplied by a session guitarist (and Kate’s now full time band member) who’d previously appeared on Bay City Rollers records, and would later play with Bucks Fizz.

4. Another Girl Another Planet – The Only Ones (John Perry)

A sublime solo providing counterpoint to Peter Perret’s weathered and withered vocals.
John Perry delivers another solo almost the equal on “The Beast” (from the same debut album), but in the context of this song it lifts it to another level.

They may only be truly known for this one song, but it’s not a bad legacy, is it?

Who said Punk and New Wave should have no guitar solos or standout musicianship?

3. Another Nail In My Heart – Squeeze (Glenn Tilbrook)

Guitar solos usually pop up about 2/3 through the song – either just after the middle eight, or just after the second chorus.

Not this one – Glen just can’t wait to get it out – one verse and chorus, and let it out.  Oddly placed perhaps (55 seconds in), but lets the song grow and tell the story whilst you’re still marvelling at the musical dexterity.  No screaming notes, fretboard divebombs, just pure understated brilliance.

See also “Some Fantastic Place” for another example of Tilbrook’s fretboard dexterity

2. Baker Street – Gerry Rafferty (Hugh Burns)

Think of “Baker Street” and the stand-out memory has to be the saxophone (not played by Bob Holness, but a great urban myth nonetheless).  But vying for attention is the minimal, almost-skeletal, understated, yet oh so powerful guitar solo.  It’s played so cleanly it could almost be a squealing Hank Marvin meets Mark Knopfler affair.  It is also (apparently) a big influence on Slash and the basis of the solo in ”Sweet Child O’ Mine”, and once you know that you can, sort of, hear it.

1. Goodbye To Love – Carpenters (Tony Peluso)

I’m not a fan of the MOR stylings of this lot, and I’m not going to call this a Guilty Pleasure, but that fuzzed-up Guitar solo is a mighty fine thing.

He plays it straight first time round (still fuzzed, but basically the melody line), and then later gives it a bit of welly.

Tony Peluso may not have done anything as notable before or since, but surely he could dine out on this one solo forever.

And (snobbily?) if it wasn’t for the fact it was for The Carpenters, this solo would sit alongside the work of Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton, and (the sainted?) Eddie Van Halen in the list of All-Time Great Widdly Bits.

I've got to hand it to you, RD, that was one fine collection of tunes. Particularly that live version of Dead Flowers. Excellent stuff. 

I wonder if anyone can beat that...?