I don’t know much about Ted’s music, but whenever I hear one of his classic “big hits” on the radio (Free For All, etc.), the guitar work just makes me cringe. It just sounds so - I don’t know – simplistic and unsophisticated. Like something a 16 y.o. garage band guitar player would come up with.
So am I missing something? Is Ted really a good guitar player/writer in your opinion?
He’s definitely not a virtuoso guitar player, that’s for sure. But there’s more to making music than showing off technical talent.
I think he is rated about where he ought to be.
Ted is a “feel” type of player rather than technical so if your a big fan of say, Randy Rhodes and Alex Lifeson type players Ted may come off as “simplistic and unsophisticated”.
I saw him back in 83 with Styx, Sammy Hagar, Triumph and Uriah Heap at the Texas Jam and he rocked his ass off. My ass was sufficiently rocked off as well. The guy has (had at least) attitude to the extreme and solid RnR chops. Those heavy groove tunes like Stranglehold or Great White Buffalo get blasted at you with the energy the guy puts out…yeah he rocks.
Look at guys like Chuck Berry, Jimmi Hendrix, or Eric Clapton. These guys get stomped by any number of guys in the pure skill area. Even unknown 17 year olds with a $200 peavey amp in the garage and a taste for old school Malmsteen & RacerX. Yet they are legends.
It’s true that the skills of a Via, Satriani, Rhodes, and Malmsteen leave a guy like Ted in the dust but a couple of quotes come to mind…
*When we got up on stage and got ready to play everybody listened
There’s only one way to rock.*
You know, its funny: Nuge was known back in is Amboy Dukes period for inviting players on stage for a guitar shootout. I have never quite gotten that.
As a long time guitarist and, back when I was 15, a reasonably big Nugent fan, I can now look back and say - eh, not bad. His contemporaries - Joe Perry of Aerosmith, Michael Schenker of UFO and countless others leading up to Eddie Van Halen, who changed everything - did more notable stuff on guitar.
His first couple of albums - Ted Nugent and Free For All - have songs that I like. But I don’t recall ever once trying to cop his licks the way I did with many many other players…
Yeah, I’d agree with that.
Like a lot of ‘feel’ players where Nugent stands out (and i saw him in 1984(?) as a headliner) is in his rhythm riffs. The bit that underscores ‘Cat Scratch Fever’ is a good example. Good, solid, rocking riff that sets the song up.
But lead? Or virtuousity? Not his thing.
I will always remember him fondly The Amboy Dukes, what a great name. My friends and I used to listen to Ted, The Stooges and MC5 and everyone else hated them. For a while at the end of the 60s he was a few steps ahead of the airwaves.
I just picked up “Loaded for Bear…Best of the Amboy Dukes”
“Journey to the Center of Your Mind” has always been a great song and has now completely dissappeared from the Los Angeles airwaves. There are some excellent songs (insturmentals) on this CD that obviously feature Teds work. I think Ted was more grounded in the '60’s and his head wasn’t the size of Jupiter.
Boston!