Electric guitar was used more in 60's R&B than today

Cafe Society
1

Today’s music, especially urban pop music, is not very musician-oriented as I hear it. The drummer has been replaced by a beat box. Electronic effects have replaced orchestras. Guitars are de-emphasized or not there. Am I wrong about this? Maybe I just don’t listen to enough pop music.

Assuming I am correct, it wasn’t always this way. Electric guitars used to be used not only for rock ‘n’ roll but for soul, country, folk-rock, rhythm and blues, straight-up blues and everything in between. That’s only natural, since rock ‘n’ roll got the electric guitar (and everything else!) from R&B. But even well into the rock era, soul and R&B guitarists were laying down key riffs for hit records.

Recently I was listening again to some old 60’s soul standards, and I was struck by how many guitars I heard. The guitar is the key musical part in Smokey Robinson’s “Tracks of My Tears.” (The guitarist, Marv Tarplin, even co-wrote the song.) Under the very famous bass line of “You Can’t Hurry Love,” you can hear an electric guitar. No brass, strings, piano or synthesizers on either one of those, just bass, guitar and drums (with a little tambourine.)

I think I can also hear an electric guitar on “Heard It Through the Grapevine” and “Dock of the Bay.” Not all of the 60’s standards used guitar. “My Girl” has bass, strings and brass. The Supremes’ “Back In My Arms Again” has some kind of low brass (trombone? tuba???). Aside from the human voice, the most frequently used instrument on soul records seems to be the bass. Guitar is next.

If you know of some more examples, or counter-examples to prove me wrong, please post them here.

Motown guitar is great! An old folkie like me can strum a Diana Ross tune!!!

:slight_smile:

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I hear you, tclouie. I guess kids today favor crotch grabbing thugs, lip-synching dance troupes and effete knob-twiddlers to actual musicians. Which is just what the label execs want, because they can crank out a bunch of fake crap without having to actually pay real musicians.

…which brings up a related question…

Are fewer young people learning musical instruments these days, since a lot of their favored music doesn’t feature them as much?

Will the next generation have a dearth of musicians?
Like Nick Cage said in Valley Girl…“that technopop you listen to is GUTLESS!”

3

There’s a lot of music out there today that is popular but not on TRL. Quite a bit of instrumentation in that, at least as far as electric guitars and drums go.

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I would say, based on conversations with my father, that there are not less kids learning instruments like that guitar these days.

5

I hear ya, tc. I get excited nowadays when I hear a live drummer on pop radio (on the rare occasion I am listening to pop radio).

An Arky nails it on the head with his observations. However, rest assured that I am one of this generations geniune musicians, and am working to help preserve the Good Thing We Had Going That Got Painfully Interrupted With The Advent Of MTV.