Okay - here’s a few:
Rolling Stones, Sympathy for the Devil, featuring Keith Richards: an uncommon lead for Keith, but jeez is it perfect. Sharp, biting stabs of standard blues licks, but the sneery arrogance you hear in Keef’s attack matches Mick’s vocal perfectly. And the lead is perfectly constructed, but sounds spontaneous - to use my lingo, it has a clear Mount, Arc and Dismount (i.e., intro, main part, outro). It just sits in its spot perfectly - a lesson on How its Done.
John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers, The Super-Natural (or: Supernatural), off of A Hard Road: Green had subbed for Clapton for a few months when EC skipped to Greece for a bit, then took over for good when EC left to form Cream. The album A Hard Road was subjected to intense scrutiny - I mean, who could replace God? - and was overshadowed to a certain extent by God, in the form of Cream’s work, which not only had bluesy goodness but broke new boundaries musically. However, A Hard Road was received well at the time and has aged wonderfully - if Peter Green hadn’t ended up an acid casualty of the 60’s he would be held up with the other Brit blues greats - instead he is a deeply beloved almost-cult figure, very similar to Paul Kossoff of Free - another Les Paul-playing, slow-lead master, who left the scene way too early (in his case dying by overdose).
Back to the song - an instrumental that is, in effect, the entire lead. And omigod, what a lead - long, liquid lines of notes (listen via headphones to hear the trippy panning from left to right). Peter Green was a master of “infinite sustain” - having the amp cranked to the right spot and using a combination of firm finger pressure and vibrato to coax a note to lengthen and bloom into a glorious sound of main note + musical feedback, dripping with vocal qualities and emotion.
What’s fascinating is that if that sounds like I might be describing Carlos Santana’s lead style - you’re right; Carlos is pretty much Green’s biggest fan (along with Gary Moore, who actually owned Green’s Les Paul when Greeny went off the deep end, and just sold it in a notorious deal a couple years ago). Carlos totally emulates Green - and does a masterful job, to be sure - but hearing Green lay the blueprint out in The Super-Natural, I can’t help but give the nod to Green. This is truly a Missing Link piece of essential listening if you haven’t heard it but like electric blues or Santana. Link to a Youtube version with sound but no video here
The Knack, My Sharona, featuring Burton Averre on lead - a guitarist’s guitarist’s lead woven into a piece of pure pop confection. The lead is a tightly structured, technically precise lead - if I had to point to a comparison, the most obvious would be a Randy Rhodes’ Ozzy leads like on Flying High Again or Crazy Train - both guitarists are very technical and can repeat the lead note-for-note in a live setting with nary a slip-up. But coming in the middle of a boppy little tune like Sharona, the lead transformed the song to a true crossover smash, similar to EVH’s lead in Beat It - it is so cool that guys could listen to the song and feel like the main hook was okay - and NOT like, say “oh mickey you’re so fine” which has a similar riff but was verboten to any self-respecting dude back in the day.
Chuck Berry, Johnny B. Goode or Roll Over Beethoven, or Carol, or…, Chuck Berry on Lead Not acknowledging the work of the Master would be foolish, short-sighted and missing out on important stuff. Okay, Chuck is not Yngwie - and aren’t we all better for it? He played stuff *we could play * even if we just started. What’s truly brilliant about Chuck is that he made lemonade out of lemons - he wanted to write story songs in a jump blues/country vein - check out Saturday Night Fish Fry or Caledonia by Louis Jordon and you will hear the blueprint for a story song like Chuck’s Maybellene (which was actually a re-write of an existing country tune). But Chuck was in a chitlin’ circuit band - itty bitty and playing small venues - he didn’t have Jordan’s horn section to play the fills between vocals. So what did Chuck do? He made up two-string (“double stop”) riffs to sound like a horn section. What was cool is that not only does the guitar play that role nicely, but the simpler arrangements and sparser instrumentation enabled the music to get more stripped, accelerated and rhythmic - so it was central to the evolution to rock and roll.
Freddie (or Freddy) King, Hide-Away, Freddie King on Lead Freddie was the most commercial of The Three Kings of the Blues (along with BB and Albert) - Freddie’s stuff was the most pop-melodic, and he regularly played instrumentals where the guitar lead was framed as a true, almost-vocal, lead line. But what truly cemented his status was the fact that Clapton did a near-note-for-note emulation of King on Hide-Away on the seminal “Beano album” (so nicknamed because while it is named “John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers Featuring Eric Clapton,” Slowhand is reading a Beano comic in the cover photo). But King is the originator - both of the style of lead played there and as the driver behind Clapton and other players wanting to get a Les Paul, because King has an old Goldtop LP on the cover of his album. Fun, innovative and profoundly influential on subsequent electric blues players.
Pink Floyd, Comfortably Numb (or others), David Gilmour on lead - Gilmour and CN are mentioned a lot here so I think we all get the respect that is accorded to his playing and this particular lead. I guess as a player what I am most struck by is the knowledge that Gilmour fully-constructs his leads - there is virtually NO spontenaity or improvisation going on - and yet they sound so natural, organic and emotional genuine. They are not technical flights of fancy like a structured lead by Randy Rhodes (or Burton Averre from The Knack, see above) - but damn if they don’t evoke the perfect emotional response. I deeply respect that.
The Jeff Beck Group, Let Me Love You off of the album Truth, featuring Jeff Beck on lead - disclaimer: as far as I am concerned, Jeff Beck is the best lead guitar player - ever. No one comes close - not Hendrix, Santana, Gilmour or any of the usual suspects in blues, jazz, etc. Ask any remotely proficient guitarist who has paid a few dues and they can only discuss Beck in hushed tones. You know how some folks master their craft by simple brute force repetitive practice and some seem like divinely-inspired magicians? Well, Beck is magic - remember when Michael Jordan was charging the lane vs. the Lakers, went up, and in mid air shifted the ball from his right to his left hand and rolled it in? That is what Beck does with guitar and (huge generalization) every other player regards him the same way other ballers regard Jordan.
And Let Me Love You is a first step into understanding why. It is beyond easy to play - I was copping licks off of it after playing for less than a year. But the note choice and the phrasing is consistently interesting, melodic, emotional and innovative. I play his licks, see their obviousness and how they fit into scales, etc. - and I still can’t figure out where he came up with them - no one can. And while you may hear it and think “well, okay, it’s a decent blues lead” you may not appreciate how authoritative his attack is - you can’t stand and deliver the licks he does easily - there is a lifetime of learning in there - or how influential his lead work is. The lead sounds familiar because it is the pebble that got tossed into the pond and it’s ripples are felt to this day…
All for now - I just needed to geek out for a bit…
