"CRAZY" instrumental

Here's a live version of Willie Nelson's "Crazy," with my band Chicken Fried Swing. This was the first gig, in baking heat outside at a Del Ray festival in 2008. Matt Tebo is on drums, Jerry Del Rosso is on bass, and Ira Gitlin plays some tasteful lines on a Gretsch.
http://www.karlstraubmusic.com/Crazy.mp3

and an August 08 version with Honky Tonk Heart at JV's.
www.karlstraubmusic.com/crazyjvaug08.mp3
Howard Parker played a tasteful western swing solo with a lot of chord stuff, and Bob Adamcik was on rhythm guitar, Jimmy Gapinski on drums, stretching out a little more than usual. Ira Gitlin showed up, straight from another gig, and sat in. He played some nice stuff here, including some chromatic double stop ideas that I'll have to steal when I get a chance. I think we played better than usual because we wanted to impress Ira. I'm in a "Django with slapback" mode (does that make it a Les Paul mode?) with a little Roy Buchanan on the second break.

I've been working on this tune for a while, playing it initially with Honky Tonk Heart, then with my Karl Straub Combo. The Chicken Fried Swing version here is my favorite of the ones that got recorded-- it's still not everything I'm trying to do with the tune, but it's getting there. I take the first break, in a trashy Django/western swing mode, with a Roy Buchanan harmonic thing here and there. Ira takes the middle chorus, very nice; then I come back in for the "crazy" chorus. Here's where I crank up the raunch. I like what I'm doing here, but I hope to get better at integrating jazz and trash for a more interesting blend. Stay tuned! If you come a live gig of any of the above-mentioned bands, you can watch me developing this approach.
The Honky Tonk Heart version I put up here after writing my comments above-- I thought it had some interesting different approaches, so it should be heard. Maybe for the fanatics I'll keep putting more versions up-- we'll see.

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"JUST WALK ON BY" guitar solo sketches

I have an upcoming demo session with the country band Honky Tonk Heart. I need to work up a solo for "Just Walk On By." Here are a few sketches.

1. CHORD MELODY. This is the melody of the tune, more or less, with chords voiced under it. I like to start out by working up chord melody, because it usually sounds pretty good, and you can develop in just about any direction from there.
www.karlstraubmusic.com/just walk solo chord melody.mp3

2. SINGLE NOTE. This take has its moments. Here I'm playing in my default "Ray Price shuffle" style, where I try to play long lines, high up, with kind of a floating quality.
www.karlstraubmusic.com/just walk solo single note.mp3

3. SINGLE NOTE, MOTIVIC. On this take, I tried to reuse short ideas and vary them, giving the solo more cohesion. I also tried to work in a bit of the melody, and a couple string bends. (There's a tiny bit of Django Reinhardt flavor in there somewhere also.)
www.karlstraubmusic.com/just walk solo motivic.mp3

4. DUET. Here I combined my two favorite takes, just for the hell of it. When you're making a record, this approach is something of an indulgence, but sometimes you get something great this way. I doubt I'd go with something like this at the session, because after all it's a country band demo, mainly for the purpose of getting gigs. (If it were my own band, I might go with something a little odd like this. It's a good idea to go with your instincts on a record, if you'd prefer to gig less rather than more.)
www.karlstraubmusic.com/just walk solo duet-01.mp3

At this point, I'll take some time to listen to these, and think about what to keep and what to ditch. I'll also try to figure out why the tone was so different from the warmer sound I had the other day at the gig, even though I used virtually the same gear and settings! (Dead strings might account for some of the brittle sound I got today-- after a three set gig, especially in a sweaty and smoky bar, my strings never sound as good. )

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DUO-LECTAR, 1960

Here's a crazy clip of Dave Bunker from 1960, playing the Duo-Lectar which he designed and built. This instrument was an early example of the "touch" method of playing guitar, where you have enough sustain on your instrument that just touching or tapping the neck will give you the sound. With this method, you can play two parts like a pianist. After the clip (it sounds like the Wills tune "Right or Wrong") I'll include some thoughts of mine about the pros and cons of this approach, which tends to polarize listeners. You may or not want to read my blather about it-- that's okay with me. (thanks to Charlie McCardell for sending me the Dave Bunker clip.)

"Tapping" and "touch" playing tend to polarize listeners. Here's where I stand, if anyone cares. I like to hear a variety of articulation and attacks on guitar-- originally the guitar was technically a percussion instrument, at least in part. Electricity has moved the instrument away from that, and I like to try to keep at least some percussiveness in my playing; if you work at it, you can develop a variety of attacks and keep some snap and bite in your sound. The touch approach takes all the edge off your attack, and for me the monochromatic result is less than thrilling. I remember when Stanley Jordan was hot years ago, and in a Blindfold Test in some magazine Leslie West (I think it was Leslie West) said he thought Jordan sounded like two lame players playing a duet. Jordan's hard work and virtuosic technique deserve credit, certainly, but I thought Leslie had a point.

I like Dave Bunker's sound. He essentially is playing in a Chet Atkins style, but the two-handed approach enables him to play a Chet backup part with chords and bass while he adds slides and double/triple stops in the melody. It sounds nice, but arguably has the same pros and cons of Chet's work. Don't get me wrong; I love Chet, Merle Travis, Mose Rager, et al. but they fall into the category with Stanley Jordan, Johnny Smith, and everyone else who uses a complex and unorthodox system to get more out of the guitar at one time than most players can get. These approaches, which often sound very beautiful and musical, mostly involve heavily practiced patterns and little or no improvising. There's nothing wrong with that, obviously, and I've stolen what I can from some of these guys, but I'm generally more excited by the improvising players. The placid quality of most of these maverick players loses me after a while. I feel the same way about the many whizkids you can find on youtube, playing heavy-metal two-handed versions of classical pieces, Queen songs, etc. For me there's a staleness about this kind of music-- it's fun watching someone play two or more parts at once, but ultimately it seems more a circus trick than creative art.

For anyone who feels that these are "fightin' words" I would encourage everyone to check out the late genius Ted Greene. Greene blended Bach-inspired counterpoint with jazz vocabulary, improvising in this style. I think there's a lot more going on musically in Ted's work than in that of the touch and tap guys. Check out the tribute site for Ted's music and teaching--

tedgreene.com/default.asp

The site has killer video and audio clips, plus many lessons for anyone serious or crazy enough to try to play this way. I have a few lessons on my guitar blog
karlstraubguitar.blogspot.com/2008/12/bach-counterpoint-exercise.html
karlstraubguitar.blogspot.com/2008/12/improvising-counterpoint-two-voices.html
about counterpoint playing; my stuff is pretty crude compared to Ted but it can get you started.

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