His reimagining of the song as “Crossroads” further cemented a legacy that by then had earned him the nickname God.įamously recorded at San Francisco’s Fillmore West venue for supergroup Cream’s Wheels of Fire album, Clapton’s arrangement retains the soul and spirit of Johnson’s original but updates it for a contemporary audience raring to cut loose and be entertained by dazzlingly quick, passionate musicianship. It started as a blues tune called “Cross Road Blues” by Robert Johnson and became one of the finest examples of natural ability, soulfulness and showmanship from a virtuosic 22-year-old guitarist named Eric Clapton. The finest rock and roll cover of an acoustic blues song. “I put the record on and listened to it with my wife, and at the end of it I said, ‘I don’t know. “When the record came out, there was a wonderful review of the tune in Billboard and they raved about the solo,” he says. Perhaps more has been written about his solo than of the song itself.ĭespite the acclaim, Carlton was, and remains, nonplussed. It was straight improv, and it worked.” Very well, in fact. “People think I’m kidding when I say that, like I had worked the solo out beforehand, but I didn’t. “I was pretty familiar with the tune, so I just improvised,” he tells Guitar Player. Carlton strings together a series of tasty phrases that follow the underlying chord changes with a blend of inside and outside playing that is technically mind bending and emotionally satisfying. Steely Dan’s catalog is filled with remarkable guitar solos, but Larry Carlton’s brilliant work on The Royal Scam’s “Kid Charlemagne” remains the most celebrated. These cover you for the entire opening 30 bars, which, let’s face it, is a lot of music, so this is a good reason to learn a couple of shapes if ever there was one. But how should you tackle them yourself? First, there are two essential scales you’ll need to know: the B natural minor scale and the B Phrygian mode, both shown below. That’s a great tip from the man who plays the solos. I use my middle finger just to anchor my position on the neck.” “And that was what the vogue was at the time in the 1980s, so I have been playing those for a long time. “When guitar players first started incorporating arpeggios into their playing, before the whole Yngwie sweep-picking thing, arpeggios were played on two strings – not three or four strings,” he explains. And then I just slide right into those arpeggios.” And they are arpeggios played on two strings, Hammett specifies. “For the very last solo, I know how I want to start it, but then I am in an area where I can improvise for 16, 18 or 24 bars, and then Lars will hit a certain fill, which means that it’s up and it’s time for the arpeggio part. “I have been playing that song for so long now,” Kirk tells our sister publication Total Guitar. And the signature element he employs for the last solo is arpeggios. But it is the song’s timeless melodic solo that most vividly signals a stylistic shift in guitarist Kirk Hammett’s playing. That change is evident on “Fade to Black,” which features acoustic guitars and a nonstandard structure more akin to the “Stairway to Heaven” school of songcraft. Recorded at Flemming Rasmussen’s Sweet Silence Studios in Copenhagen in February and March 1984, Ride the Lightning, Metallica’s sophomore album, was more progressive and stylistically greater in scope than the all-out thrash assault of their debut, Kill ’Em All. Metallica’s first ballad features some of Kirk’s most epic playing.
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