Friday Guitar Gods

As it happens, two different blogs I read posted mp3's of guitar playing magnificence this week - Girish offers Robben Ford on a Joni Mitchell song, and Bill Frisell backing up the Ambitious Lovers (Arto Lindsey's post DNA group); and Neddie Jingo posts songs and videos featuring Django Reinhardt. Much inspiration and happiness to be found there....

Now I'm not going to try to match that... instead, inspired mostly by Girish's title (Short Sharp Solos), and the fact that the record his post called to mind - the upcoming collaboration between Bill Frisell and Earth, is very unlikely to feature much in the way of short anything - here is a list, not scientific by any means, of songs with short sharp solos - guitar solos (or parts) that don't last long, but that feel (to me anyway) Epic. These songs have short, or just normal solos, but they feel like friggin' Dazed and Confused. (In fact, I'm tempted to include Dazed and Confused, the original version - which though the solo isn't particularly short is quite sharp - it's dense and compact and thrilling, an effect lost when Jimmy and co. started stretching out toward the half hour mark... [though to be honest, other than the violin bow crap, D&C never bothered me much - even the long versions are structured more like medleys, with the segments fairly well constructed, each part a separate solo, which mostly work... it's the "boogies" - their live versions of Whole Lotta Love, crap like that, that makes me want to burn my zep records....]) That digression lasted longer than it should have: much like Dazed and Confused! Anyway - here is a list - 10 short (rock) solos that feel like epics:

1. The Byrd's Clarence White on the version of So You Want to Be A Rock and Roll Star from Live at the Fillmore - actually, while everything White plays is great, it's that one note he plays at the 1:35 point that does it... you could put that 2-3 seconds on permanent loop, and I would be happy...
2. Eddie Phillips' on Makin' Time (Creation) - speaking of dazed and confused... bringing out the violin bow, and putting it to far better use than Jimmy Page did. It's a cool song, but the solo jumps out of it...
3. Johnny Ramone's bit of Black Sabbath riffing on Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue...
4. Almost everything Bob Mould or D Boon ever played would count: both of them could fit more into their 12-15 second solos than most guitar players get in a minute. If I were choosing one example each - I'd point to the version of Hanging On on the live Husker Du record (The Living End)...
5. ...and Sell of Be Sold on the Minutemen's What Makes a Man Start Fires? - it's a simple bit, but perfectly cool, and, like everything they played, built out of the band dynamic, the interplay of bass and guitar, the rhythm.... who was better in the 80s?
6. Jim Jones of Pere Ubu on Memphis, from Raygun Suitcase: it's nothing fancy, just a snarly little riff, but it slices into the song....
7. Tom Morello on Shadow on the Sun (the first Audioslave record) - I almost feel guilty putting an acknowledged guitar god on here (not that Boon or Mould or White [as under-appreciated as they come] aren't guitar gods) - but this solo, some helicopter noises, then 8-10 seconds of soaring sounds - is too good not to mention. Those two audioslave records are mostly disposable, except for Morello's parts - probably RATM for that matter too...
8. Paul McCartney's solos on Tax Man - and Tomorrow Never Knows...
9. Wire's Sand in My Joints - some of my old AOL cronies used to cite this as the greatest anti-guitar solo ever - I can't deny it... and it fits perfectly here....
10. and finally - there are a few notes at the end of the Replacement's Within Your Reach, a little pattern Paul Westerberg (I assume - I think that's all him) plays as it fades... that are perfect. All you need right there. Just enough.

Video - not much way to beat the Reinhardt video and links Neddie Jingo has, but I'll put up something - maybe a fine performance by one of the masters of understatement - Luther Perkins!