00:21Hi, this is Damien from Guitar World.
00:24I'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
00:34a 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
00:50first appeared, and 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
01:03Mary Hadle of the Lamb, which goes a little something like this...
01:08The End
01:08The End
01:57So I learned that back in 83 or so, and it's still kind of the first thing I play every
02:02time I pick up a guitar.
02:04I don't know, it's fun to play.
02:05It's kind of a self-contained melody when you think about it.
02:08It's got a little bit of lead bits and pieces, and they've got the rhythm thing.
02:12It's great when demoing a guitar, actually, and it's a nice mixture of lead bits and rhythm
02:19bits.
02:42If you're familiar with either of the songs I've played, you'll know that I'm not playing
02:46them like the record.
02:48And the reason is I've been playing them for years and years and years, and they just developed
02:52into their own things over the decades.
02:55And I don't even know how to do it like the records anymore.
02:58I 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?
03:05It's already been done.
03:07Always add your own stuff to it.
03:08So that's what I do.
03:10However, that tends to work mostly for blues and jazz and country, those really like rootsy
03:17American types of music.
03:19But I noticed, I find that if you're in a cover band, or if you're going to see a cover
03:24band, you want to hear the riffs.
03:26You 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
03:36with blues, it's more fun to do your own thing.
03:40Good example of the kind of riffs that I'm talking about that you try to stick with the script
03:43is like this kind of thing.
03:58That's trying to talk spilled by the monkeys.
04:00That's a good one.
04:00Which reminds me of something else.
04:02When I was thinking about the riffs I was going to do in the video, I was thinking how it
04:05seems as though I like riffs that have a droning note, or a note that kind of stands in for
04:13the drone, and then it's surrounded by notes that are either descending or ascending, like
04:19that one that I just did, or on the same era.
04:43Batman, or let's see, what else?
04:46How about this one?
04:54Secret Agent Man, which is similar to Honey Don't by Carl Perkins, or this one by Cream.
05:28You 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.
05:40A quick one.
05:56I love playing that song.
05:57And 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.
06:04I don't care about the picking.
06:05Right now, at this moment, just leave me alone.
06:22There 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.
06:49Okay, the tuning wasn't perfect, but you get the idea.
06:51So now I'm going to magically go back to normal tuning.
06:56So this next one, wow, gets us into the 90s.
06:59Imagine that.
07:00It's by Paul Weller, and it's a song called Sunflower.
07:31There you go.
07:33So once again, pedal point.
07:36And that always reminded me of...
07:45Which gets us into the world of the Beatles.
07:48I'm into a couple of bands that does a lot of songs by the Beatles.
07:51Have been since I was a wee one.
07:55And I'm thinking about what is my favorite George Harrison thing to play,
07:59or 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,
08:13Till There Is You.
08:14And I don't know what he would have based the solo on,
08:18except 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.
09:13And sticking with the Beatles thing for a little while,
09:16something by the Beatles from the Ivy Road album.
09:18In the olden times, I used to play it exactly like the record, which is...
09:26But in the past couple of years or so, I've decided to play it a bit fancier,
09:32based 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,
09:45because once again, people want to hear the real thing.
09:48But I think when you're coming out of the solo,
09:50that'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,
09:56it's not like it's come out of the blue, like George did it.
10:00So it counts.
10:01So, yeah.
10:03I'll do it one more time, because it's so nice.
10:10Sticking with the Beatles, let's go into Paul McCartney land.
10:14Here's one that I love from late 1973.
10:16Three, three, three.
10:18And the hits just keep on coming, coming, coming.
10:20Good night.
10:54Bend 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 see it bending.
11:05I got this guitar in 2015.
11:07This 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 Byrds
11:16to install this B-Bender.
11:17I love it.
11:18No, really, I have like four B-Benders.
11:21I love it.
11:22They're little secret weapons.
11:24They're handy and 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 Byrds in the later versions of the band, Clarence White.
11:37He's one of my favorites.
11:38And unfortunately, he died back in 73.
11:41He was so young.
11:42But he was just amazing.
11:44He's been compared to Jimi Hendrix by Roger McGuinn.
11:47Just listen to some of the stuff that he did.
11:50Getting back into the way I don't do anything like the record, here's sort of my version
11:54of 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.
12:29And voila.
12:32It just gives you like a secret weapon.
12:34No one's expecting it.
12:35This 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.
13:13It's got this thing under the hood.
13:16Farewell, blues, and I will say my farewell.
13:19Thanks for watching.
13:20Be sure to pick up the Guitar World magazine
13:21or visit guitarworld.com.
13:23Guitar World, Guitar World, Guitar World.
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