No; the high lead guitar hook on Main Street that almost sounds like an oboe.
No discussion of sax hooks is complete without Glenn Frey’s You Belong to the City. Also, David Sanborn’s solo the 32nd of The Sad Cafe by the Eagles.
What about “The One Thing” by INXS? (@1:32)
Hell, what about King Curtis on all those old Coasters records? Back in the day when the saxophone and the piano were as important as the electric guitar in rock n’ roll?
Tenor players used to walk the bar, by cracky! {waves cane in the air}
I don’t think you could substitute any instrument for the sax on this piece, and I don’t think any other instruments are necessary. Sure, it’s sometimes done with the addition of a stand-up bass, but the sax is all you really need.
Tom Waits Small ChangeWait. What’s the lesson here? If you don’t like Sax you won’t like Baker Street. Got it.
Damn phone. It’s David Sanborn’s solo at the end of The Sad Cafe by the Eagles.
I was playing the sax in school when Baker Street came out, and I learned that sax riff and played it so much it made everyone sick of it. I loved that song. That said, I think Gerry Rafferty’s best song is ‘Stuck in the Middle with You’, when he was in Stealer’s Wheel.
I think it’s a damned shame that modern music has largely abandoned the variety of instrumentation we used to get in classic rock / prog rock. Back in the 70’s you constantly heard big hits from bands with horn sections, violins, you name it. Even stadium rock hits like Foreigner’s ‘Urgent’ had big sax parts in them, in this case played by the great Junior Walker. Today, with some exceptions not so much.
I wonder if the decline of horns and string and such in pop music has something to do with the decline of band programs in school. When I was a kid, every school had large band programs. Classical band, jazz band, marching band… A lot of kids came out of school with band instrument skills and an appreciation for band instruments.
Anyway, If you want to hear some great sax playing, pick up any Supertramp album. John Anthony Halliwell is a great sax player, and their music featured him on almost every track.
You can make just about anything better by adding a little Dave Grohl to it.
Except food and drink. Yuck!
Another band with an unexpectedly great sax player is Roxy Music. Andy Mackay contributed terrific work, both live and on albums. He’s normally not the first, or second, name you think of with regards to the band but he’s a big part of their sound.
My favorite bit of Gerry Rafferty information is that he was in a folk band with Billy Connelly.
Have you ever heard Raffery’s wah-drenched demo for “Baker Street”? Thought you might find it interesting. Interesting or not, the sax does make the song.
Definitely. The Logical Song is a great example of Halliwall’s playing.
The late Greg Ham of Men at Work was also a standout saxophone player as well as a flutist.
Hunh. Thanks, no I hadn’t heard it. Interesting. The wah gives that version more of a vocal tone vs the Foos version, but at this point the sax still seems essential to the classic version.
No discussion of sax in rock and roll is complete without mention of Bobby Keys. “Brown Sugar,” “Sweet Virginia,” and especially “Can’t You Hear Me Knocking” just wouldn’t be the same without Keys amazing sax!
Violins, violins, it’s the only thing that will make you see sense!
A few songs which may turn some people off from the sax, but they are classics:
The Streetbeater by Quincy Jones, more popularly known as the Sanford and Son theme.
Yakety Sax by Boots Randolph, commonly heard as the chase music on the Benny Hill Show.
Pick Up the Pieces by the Average White Band, with sax by founding member Roger Ball.
Incidentally, few people realize that Edgar Winter, of Frankenstein fame, is an excellent sax player. I have a recording of Ringo Starr and His All-Starr Band that has Winter playing Pick Up the Pieces along with Hamish Stuart, bass player for the AWB.