I’ve been noticing for awhile that a number of soft-rock songs from the early-to-mid-'70s or so have a rather distinctive electric guitar sound that I find hard to describe because I don’t really have much technical knowledge about how guitar is played in general. It tends to have a vague country-crossover twang to it, with a lower pitch and a sharpness to it during the intro and verse, which switches to a higher pitch (possibly via a whammy bar) and longer notes during fills and bridges.
The best examples of it that I can think of are in “When Will I Be Loved” by Linda Ronstadt, “Still the One” by Orleans, and “Sister Golden Hair” by America.
Is there a name for this style? I find myself frustrated by the fact that I enjoy it but I don’t know how to explain in words what it is.
That would define the song, yes, but I’m looking for a term to describe the sound of the guitar in those songs. I feel like there has to be some sort of technical term to describe the way the guitarist is making the sounds distinctive to that style.
Ok, so, there’s one thing consistent about the lead guitar parts in the three mentioned songs: They’re using a chorus pedal. Chorus pedals affect the sound by producing duplicates of the sound and varying the pitch slightly, making it thicker sounding and a bit like a 12 string under mild settings, and some models getting close to an underwater-y sound on extreme settings.
One of the earliest uses of this kind of effect was in Cream’s Badge. The chorus is switched on after “Then I told you about our kid, now he’s married to Mabel”. Is that the kind of sound you’re meaning?
It’s not exactly the same, and Harrison doesn’t have the same rhythm, but now that you mention it, I hear the similarity between Badge and the songs I’ve mentioned. The guitar in those songs sounds a little slicker, softer, and less metallic to my ears, but that could easily be because of improvements in production between the '60s and '70s.
I’m at work and there’s too many people sitting near me to play it right now, but if you’re just looking for the name of the sound, like if you were in a studio and wanted that sound on your track, I’d say Linda and Orleans was twangy and Sister Golden Hair was a slide guitar (with a country twang). You might even be able to work the word jangle into the description somewhere.
However, I’m sure there’s a very specific name for the sound you’re looking for.
You’re going to have to link to a specific part (minutes and seconds) of a specific track. It could be an effect, a pickup setting or just a distinct sounding guitar like a Telecaster.
Both of those passages use “dual lead guitars”, or “dual leads”: two lead guitars playing in harmony.
You hear dual leads in a lot of southern rock. One of the best known is the instrumental by the Allman Brothers called “Jessica”. The dual leads start around here.
Another is “Flirtin’ with Disaster” by Molly Hatchet, starting here.
