In this stupendously rare video, Damian Fanelli — Guitar World's editor-in-chief — plays and discusses some of the riffs, licks and solos that changed his bipedal life. He's playing a Palir Titan with Lollar pickups (Lollar Royal T in the neck position) and a B-bender installed by the Byrds' Gene Parsons. Get ready for some Beatles, Byrds, B-benders, Bobby Bare and Batman!
00:23I'm here at Guitar World's secret lair in New York City.
00:30To play a few of the riffs that I like and that meant a lot to me as I was a young'un,
00:35when I was learning guitar, and the things that have brought me
00:39to this magical spot in this room, this stool and this couch.
00:44So anyway, I was a wee one in 83 when Steve Ray Vaughan first appeared,
00:51and you know the album that came out that year by Stevie was called
00:55Texas Flood. So I didn't have YouTube or anything, so I just,
00:58I gravitated to the easiest thing on the album, which I always thought was
01:02Mere had a little lamb, which goes a little something like this.
01:06A little lamb, or something like that.
01:10Don't you think you'll see that, if you were like me
01:14as a young man, as a young man, who's a young man, who's not a young man,
01:18who lives in a young man, who's not a young man who comes to me,
01:23I'll talk a little bit loud, but there's a beautiful way to see that,
01:26and I'm a young man who lives in the world.
01:57So I learned that back in 83 or so, and it's still kind of the first thing I play every time I pick up a guitar. I don't know, it's fun to play. It's kind of a self-contained melody when you think about it. It's got a little bit of lead bits and pieces and the rhythm thing. It's great when demoing a guitar, actually, and it's a nice mixture of lead bits and rhythm bits.
02:27If you're familiar with either of the songs I've played, you'll know that I'm not playing them like the record.
02:47And the reason is I've been playing them for years and years and years, and they just developed into their own things over the decades. And I don't even know how to do it like the records anymore. I don't even attempt to do it.
03:01Eric Gales here was here a few months ago, and he said, why do it like the record? It's already been done. Always add your own stuff to it. So that's what I do. However, that tends to work mostly for blues and jazz and country, those really like rootsy American types of music.
03:19But I notice, I find that if you're in a cover band, or if you're going to see a cover band, you want to hear the riffs. You don't want to hear some guy's interpretation of the riffs.
03:29So I think with pop music, rock, you want to kind of stick with the script a bit more, whereas with blues, it's more fun to do your own thing.
03:40A good example of the kind of riffs that I'm talking about that you try to stick with the script is like this kind of thing.
03:49That's trying to talk about the monkeys. That's a good one.
04:00Which reminds me of something else. When I was thinking about the riffs I was going to do in the video, I was thinking how it seems as though I like riffs that have a droning note, or a note that kind of stands in for the drone.
04:13And then it's surrounded by notes that are either descending or ascending, like that one that I just did, or on the same era.
04:21Batman. Or, let's see, what else? How about this one?
04:47Secret Agent Man, which is similar to Honey Don't by Carl Perkins.
05:05Or, this one by Cream.
05:17You know, that kind of thing.
05:30So I talked about the drone note that's surrounded by the ascending or descending notes.
05:34The note that stays the same is called the pedal point.
05:37Just a few more of the pedal point things.
05:39Here's one by The Who.
05:41A quick one.
05:41I love playing that song.
05:58And that kind of reminds me a bit of Dear Prudence.
06:01I know my picking isn't right.
06:03I just want to play the notes. I don't care about the picking.
06:05Right now, at this moment, just leave me alone.
06:07So...
06:08There you go.
06:23This is an old song by Bobby Bear from the early 60s.
06:26I don't know who the guitar player was, but it fits the pedal point thing that we're talking about.
06:31As you'll see, it goes a bit like this.
06:32Okay, the tuning wasn't perfect, but you get the idea.
06:51So now I'm going to magically go back to normal tuning.
06:55So this next one, wow, gets us into the 90s.
06:59Imagine that.
07:00It's by Paul Weller.
07:02And it's a song called Sunflower.
07:04There you go.
07:32Um, so once again, pedal point.
07:36And that always reminded me of...
07:38Which gets us into the world of The Beatles.
07:48I'm in a couple of bands that does a lot of songs about The Beatles.
07:51Have been since I was a wee one.
07:54And, um, thinking about what is my favorite George Harrison thing to play, or which one do I appreciate the most.
08:01And I think it's this next one.
08:02I think about him being 20 years old when this was done.
08:06And once again, this is the time before YouTube and all that stuff.
08:08And he's just this kid from Liverpool, and he's playing this pretty sophisticated thing, Till There Was You.
08:14And I don't know what he would have based the solo on, except for just from his own head.
08:20Like, there's no recording of the song from before their recording that had a beautiful guitar solo.
08:25So, this is done by George, and it goes a little something like this.
08:29And I'll see you next time.
08:59And sticking with The Beatles thing for a little while.
09:15Something by The Beatles, from the Ivy Road album.
09:19In the olden times, I used to play it exactly like the record, which is...
09:22But in the past couple of years or so, I've decided to play it a bit fancier, based on how he played it on the Live in Japan album from the early 90s.
09:37He got fancy with it.
09:43Now, I wouldn't go starting the song like that, because once again, people want to hear the real thing.
09:47But I think when you're coming out of the solo, that's the perfect place to just insert that.
09:52It's like, oh, that's nice.
09:54And the cool thing about it is, if you love The Beatles, it's not like it's come out of the blue.
09:58Like, George did it.
10:00So, it counts.
10:01So, yeah.
10:03I'll do it one more time, because it's so nice.
10:05Sticking with The Beatles, let's go into Paul McCartneyland.
10:14Here's one that I love from late 1973.
10:16Three, three, three.
10:18And the hits just keep on coming, coming, coming.
10:20One, two, three.
10:50Bend on the run, and the part was played by Paul on the record.
10:56You might notice I'm doing this business.
10:59That's a B-bender, which you can see right here.
11:02And there's a little bit of it right here.
11:04You can see it bending.
11:05I got this guitar in 2015.
11:08This is a Paler.
11:09They're made in Louisiana.
11:12Three years later, I sent it out to Northern California to Gene Parsons from The Birds to install this B-bender.
11:17I love it.
11:18No, really.
11:19I have, like, four B-benders.
11:21I love it.
11:22They're little secret weapons.
11:24They're handy.
11:26And dandy.
11:27But I guess the cool thing about that is it's a segue to bring me into B-bender territory.
11:33The guitar player that came into The Birds in the later versions of the band, Clarence White.
11:37He's one of my favorites, and unfortunately, he died back in 73.
11:41He was so young.
11:43But he was just amazing.
11:44He's been compared to Jimi Hendrix by Roger McGuinn.
11:48Just listen to some of the stuff that he did.
11:50Getting back into the way I don't do anything like the record,
11:53here's sort of my version of a solo that he did in 1969 for a song on the Ballad of Easy Rider album.
11:59The song is called Tulsa County, County, County, County.
12:02Et voilà.
12:32It just gives you, like, a secret weapon.
12:34No one's expecting it.
12:35It just looks like a regular Telecaster.
12:38But look, it's got this thing under the hood.
12:40I don't play this one very often.
12:42I haven't played it since I was a top.
12:45But we'll see how it goes.
13:02So that song is called Farewell Blues, and I will say my farewell.
13:18Well, thanks for watching.
13:20Be sure to pick up at Guitar World Magazine or visit GuitarWorld.com.
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