By Chip Lovitt
I recently had the pleasure of seeing Larry Carlton and Robben Ford playing together in front of a crowd of devoted guitar fans, freaks, and fanatics. Early in the show, Larry Carlton asked how many people in the audience played guitar. He might as well have asked who didn't. Except for a few small children and wives, most of us raised our hands.
While the Carlton Ford show did have some vocals, most of us were there to hear guitar playing--the licks, tone, the taste…maybe scope out the amps and equipment, but I think we were all there for instrumental side…the guitar virtuoso thing.
That got me thinking about the state of instrumental guitar music today. I think it’s amazingly healthy, but at the same time it has to be among the most limited genres in the musical marketplace. Without vocals, guitar virtuosity doesn't really fit into the commercial mix. It sometimes seems that the only people who buy this stuff are guitar players. In reality, there are plenty of non-players who enjoy instrumental guitar music. You don’t have to be a guitarist to love it, but it helps.
A lot of guitar players make a joke when confronted by their favorite guitar virtuosos. They say they're gonna cut off their fingers and quit playing guitar forever. I know how they feel. I usually react differently. I just go out buy their CD. I just can’t get enough of the stuff.
If you haven’t guessed by now, I am a huge fan of instrumental guitar music. So are a lot of my guitar-playing friends. Our record, CD, and tape collections span the alphabet, A to Z, from Chet Atkins to Frank Zappa’s Shut Up and Play Yer Guitar. Me, I can’t even get out of the A’s—Johnny A, John Abercrombie, Jan Akkerman (remember Focus?), Mike Auldridge if you count Dobro players.
Moving into the B’s, there’s James Burton, Jeff Beck, Julian Bream, Kenny Burrell, Jimmy Bryant, Lenny Breau (whose five-CD set on Randy Bachman’s Guitarchives label reinforces—for me at least—his reputation as one of the all-time greats.) Don’t even get me going about Charlie Christian, Danny Gatton, Grant Green, Jim Hall, Johnny Hiland, Albert Lee, Brent Mason (and all those other Nashville cats playing “clean as country water”), Pat Metheny, Wes Montgomery, John McLaughlin, Joe Pass, Howard Roberts, and all the acoustic wizards, just to name a few.
For me, this obsession began with those classic 1960’s surf instrumentals—“Wipeout,” “Walk Don’t Run,” “Pipeline,” three mainstays of any self-respecting garage band circa 1964-66. There was also this LP, The Ventures in Space, with the cut “Out of Limits.” The intro fused the four-note Twilight Zone riff with an E, G A C chord progression. I was hooked. Any fool could play it, and I did. A lot. I still slip into it when an E-based jam goes on too long.
In the early ‘70s, I would discover the acoustic side of instrumental guitar via fingerpickers like Mississippi John Hurt, Reverend Gary Davis, John Fahey, Stefan Grossman, and British folkies like the two guitar wizards of Pentangle, Bert Jansch and John Renbourn. Back then everyone learned to fingerpick the tune Angie. Not the Stones song, but the A minor exercise written by Davey Graham. I learned it off a Paul Simon recording. Steve Howe's live version of the “The Clap” was the next acoustic tour de force that knocked my socks off. From there, it was a short trip to Michael Hedges, Adrian Legg, Tony Rice, Tommy Emmanuel…etc. (Mind you, I don’t try and play ANY of their stuff. I’m a fan, remember.)
In 1974, I heard John McLaughlin and the Mahavishnu Orchestra and it changed the way I heard electric guitar music forever. I’d never heard anything as heavy as that, and I still listen to McLaughlin’s music--whether it’s his Shakti records or the pre-Mahavishnu acoustic stuff he did on early recordings like My Goal’s Beyond. One of my favorite McLaughlin guitar pieces of all time is “Follow Your Heart” off that recording. A couple years ago, I caught Bill Frisell playing the song at the New York’s Village Vanguard. Frisell recorded and released parts of that gig on his East West two-CD set, but “Follow Your Heart” didn’t make it onto the CD, much to my disappointment.
John Jorgenson is a guitarist I first heard when he played in Chris Hillman’s Desert Rose Band in the mid-‘80s. Later I got to see him with his fellow Hellecasters, Will Ray, and Jerry Donahue. (Don’t even get me going about Jerry and all the other Masters of the Telecaster. I have all their CDs, too.)
Last week I heard Jorgenson and his excellent quintet play two hours of swinging Django-inspired gypsy jazz in support of his Franco-American Swing CD. Except for one vocal, it was all instrumental. Jorgenson put on a great show, a master at work—and yet a humble Django disciple at the same time. At one point, Jorgenson explained how Django’s third and fourth finger of his fretting hand had been burned and scarred together in a caravan fire, so he couldn’t play with those fingers.
“It’s amazing what you can do with these two fingers,” John said, referring to the first and second fingers of his fretting hand. Over the next three or four minutes, he played every solo at breakneck speed with just those two first fingers. Even the non-guitar playing members of the audience loved the display, and they clapped enthusiastically after each solo. They were probably with, or married to a guitar player though.
I understand when great guitar players include vocals on their recordings so they have more commercial appeal. For most music fans, it’s all about the song, the beat, the lyrics, and/or the vocals. And some guitar virtuosos can “sing.” I always liked Leo Kottke’s attitude. His first Tacoma LP 6 and 12 String Guitar was an instrumental one. On a follow-up recording, he included some vocals. In the liner notes, he compared the quality of his vocals to “geese farts on a muggy day.” Go for it, is what I say.
But in the right hands, the guitar is capable of singing (and swinging) a song all on its own. That’s what I love about instrumental guitar music. Pete Townshend once sang, “there once was a note, pure and easy, playing so free like a breath rippling by.” Or maybe a lotta notes, played at lightning speed, I dunno. I like both styles.
In the next few weeks I will be hearing Jeff Beck, Laurence Juber, and Bruce Cockburn, who may be best known as a singer-songwriter, but is also an accomplished acoustic guitar instrumentalist. He recently put out Speechless, a compilation of his thirty years worth of solo guitar pieces. Did I mention I can’t get enough of this stuff?
There is a unique sound, spirit, and focus in guitar instrumental music, whether in a solo setting or in an ensemble. It’s a special pleasure hearing what great guitarists can do with a guitar, with or without an amp, as they explore the sonic possibilities and potential of this instrument that we love.
I guess my point is that while instrumental guitar music may be a limited genre in the marketplace, there certainly is no shortage of riches. Check it out. Support your local guitar virtuoso. It’s a dirty job, but someone has to do it.
Contact Chip - [email protected]
Good story. For more things Mahavishnu- please visit www.myspace.com/mahavishnubook
Posted by: Walter Kolosky | December 05, 2006 at 10:11 AM
You were blessed to see that show,
wish I was there also.
I think it's great to see guitar players from all walks of life.
Thanks G.W. Williams
P.S. If you have time come by my website and say hi....
http://jordanriversguitarforum.blogspot.com/
Posted by: G.W. Williams | April 17, 2008 at 09:02 PM