Wait, wha....<puts headphones on, sits at laptop...>
Honky Tonk nighttime man, Lynyrd Skynyrd (Steve Gaines). Bakersfield, baby. You can hear him warming up to it....as hard as you can imagine kicking a rock hard cow pie, imagine you were Lee Majors with a bionic leg and with the paddy on a tee.
Crossroads, cream Clapton, the GOAT of rock n roll solos. The energy packed into this is unbelievable, first solo is the warm up act. The height of the rock and roll power trio. Think this ain't the greatest rock and roll solo..? Come at me bruh.
Hendrix, of course. Watchtower, Little wing, Axis, the inter play of Freedom, Ezy Rider, Straight Ahead from Cry of Love. The lick of Midnight oil, the power of Voodoo child (slight return) et al, but Power for soul from the band of gypsies, is a seminar, a master class. I bow to this.
Peg, steely Dan. For years I thought this was Donald Fagin, but it’s some obscure studio musician I believe. Clean, tidy, if a little short, effing nailed it.
David Gilmore is a genius melodically. Comfortably numb is the crowd fav, I also like Mother, which simply hits the right notes, but if pressed, and I’ve owned nearly every Floyd record on vinyl, I think Time. Among other moments, the simple climb up before the background singers chime in is as as sweet a mood change as as any master could compose.
As a Dead Head, I have to give a nod to Garcia. As a main act that may have played more live gigs than just about any popular working band, there is an over abundance of material, Eyes jams, Playin' jams, Bird song, true improv. To put a stamp on it, I'm to They loved each other as Al Franklin is to Althea. On first listening to this version, I thought, “man, he was on a good one,” but realized it might have gone over my head. Starts out a little slow, but where the second stanza would be is pure genius, tidy, compact, a little arpeggio....perhaps a little too dependent on the chords in the final pass of the chorus.
A second Garcia solo, forward to hey pocky way (Neville bros cover) from 5-6-1989, specifically the first four or so measures (circa 3:10 mark, gravy afterwards). Brent Midland was the most talented keyboardist the Dead ever had and he was at the height of his skills. So much so, that Jerry moved from stage right to stage left to be able to jam with Brent. I can't imagine what slamming liquid morphine and cocaine into my veins would do to me, but I get a sense after this. This isn't a particularly stand out solo, rather representative of the late 80's era, and I had the bootleg tapes for these shows as a youth. That, and I was at the shows in Irvine the previous weekend.
If you talk about pure talent, virtuosity, melody, Angelo Debarre, Entre Amis, live in Paris. For virtuosity, melody, pace, this is the cake, no topping it. This is what Django would sound like it he had ten fingers!
honorable mentions:
Hotel California.
And for nostalgias sake, more Pink Floyd:
Syd Barret, Astronomy Domine, from Umma Gumma
While not a solo, Run like hell, the opening riff, and, well, David is a genius.
Thanks for reading this! Enjoying my new gamer headphones whilst typing 