Best Songs
Mon, 10/01/2012 - 16:01
What are some of your favorite chromatic tunes?
Here's one of mine, "Leaving Chicago" by George Smith
(George can bring down the house with just one or two notes)
http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=b_D-56WY57s
Little Walter's work behind Muddy stilly kills me. Some special favorites:
I Just Want to Make Love to You - http://youtu.be/RnlvHP1AXPo
Walter plays third-position diatonic against this great groove until his solo, where he switches to chromatic (listen to where he drops out momentarily behind the repeated "Love to you" chant and comes back in on chromatic playing the same line but with a different sound). In his solo he exploits the huge organ-like tone of the 64 for al it's worth but also constructs some magnificently freely-phrased lines. Then he switches back to diatonic for the vocal bridge (but then sneaks back to chromatic again during the last verse).
I'm Ready - http://youtu.be/VrKHz94rGpk
Here Walter shows how less can be more on a solo and shows how to comp on third-position chromatic. Note the shimmers/rakes on the stop-time part of the verse, and how tightly he integrates with the lead guitar behind the vocal. Also note how he uses splits - mostly covering four holes with the middle two holes blocked.
Ooh Wee - http://youtu.be/yw2yje-X8EQ
This is Walter in a more single-note mode, and not even playing a solo. He just hangs back with the relaxed groove that plays backdrop to Muddy's intense vocal.