Boomerwang hurt his hand and needs advice on how to play with a cut on the pinky finger.
A thread on Punk Rock books
And Wordman found some Telecaster porn.
Thanks E-Sabbath. Although the cut is on the hand, roughly under the pinkie.
Update: Gibson has published their list for the Top 50 Guitar Albums of All Time.
As I have stated many times on the 'Dope, I place no weight on lists like this other than they are fun to discuss. I will make one comment: Listing John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers Featuring Eric Clapton (aka, “the Beano album”) at #36 pretty much invalidates the list for me, especially with Van Halen at #1. Just like VH launched Eruption, whammy bar acrobatics, heavily modded parts-o-guitars, the Brown sound, etc. - Beano launched Hideaway, a Les Paul through a Marshall and all the tone that that implies, use of thinner-gauged strings to get easier bends, etc. Beano was VH for its generation 15 years earlier and just as influential. For them to be rated so far apart…nah, doesn’t work.
[guitar geekery]
By the way, in response to a PM I received: It is referred to as “The Beano Album” because Clapton is reading the UK comic book Beano on the cover– and the real title is too freakin’ long!
Clapton legendarily played a 50’s sunburst Gibson Les Paul - he wanted to because his heroes like Freddie King and Michael Bloomfieldplayed them (watch that clip!!)…and Keef had already brought one across the Atlantic - and Andy Summers, pre-Police, found two at a music store and turned Clapton onto the other one.
Then Clapton’s was stolen - and he bugged Andy until he bought his. But that first one was the one he used on Beano and is referred to as the legendary “Beano Burst” - which I discuss in the thread I linked to in terms of how rabidly folks have been trying to hunt it down and its collectibility/value if ever found…
[/guitar geekery]
I thought the distribution of that list looked a little skewed so I plotted a histogram. Looking at this list you would have thought that guitarists became an endangered species after 1983 and extinct in 2003.
And, what…does nobody at Gibson realize that there are jazz guitarists? Wes Montgomery, George Benson, Charlie Christian, Pat Martino, Birelli Lagrene, those cats have had some monster guitar albums that just wipe the floor with some of those “Top 50.”
It’s interesting, though - it’s an illustration of how guitar-centric Rock Music is. Jazz could exist (albeit in a less interesting form, IMHO) without all the brilliant guitarists because Jazz is based around many different instruments, all of which have contributed to the history of the music.
Could Rock Music have survived without guitarists? I submit that it could not; it would have eked out a meagre existence based solely on the works of Stevie Wonder, Jerry Lee Lewis, Ray Charles and Elton John. Outstanding works, I grant you, but that’s not the mainstream of Rock’n’Roll. Whereas countless landmark jazz albums have no guitarist on them - Kind of Blue, A Love Supreme, Time Out, Saxophone Collossus (Sonny Rollins), Out to Lunch, anything with Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers…
That being said, I’ll see you on everyone on your list, and I’ll raise you some Lenny Breau, Joe Pass, Bucky Pizzarelli, Gene Bertoncini, Joao Gilberto, John Scofield and John Abercrombie.
Not to mention Chet Atkins, Merle Travis, Julian Bream, Andres Segovia, Manuel Barrueco for other non-rock based guitar players…
Very good points.
Well, at least they could have included Neck and Neck 
And I am guilty of overlooking classical music myself though I have recordings by Segovia, John Williams, and Jason Vieaux.
I’m struck by the versatility of the guitar - there are individual players of just about any instrument who have become ‘the’ jazz bassoonist, ‘the’ Classical bagpiper, ‘the’ country and western harp player, ‘the’ jazz harmonica player/guitarist/whistler, I grant you. But of how many other instruments can you truly say that they have been adopted into every genre of music that has been imagined, while retaining their characteristic voice and even causing the more typical instruments of that genre to sit up and take notes? Piano and its electric cousin the Keyboard Synthesizer, Bass and Drums are the only ones that really come to mind…
And the interesting cross-fertilizations - the fact that Gene Bertoncini is recognized both as a jazz guitarist and a classical guitarist, that Manuel Barrueco and Steve Morse can find enough common ground to do projects together, that Lenny Breau and Ed Bickert both started out in Country and went on to revolutionize jazz, that Classical composers can write things that like ‘Hommage to Jimi Hendrix’ (Carlo Domeniconi), ‘Hommage to Frank Zappa’ (Roland Dyens), an hommage to Ritchie Blackmore and John Denver (Leo Brouwer, when interviewed about Estudios Sencillos number 11), that Bucky Pizzarelli and Doug Jernigan could put together a killer album of jazz guitar and pedal steel… We’re the salt and pepper of music!
The guitar lives in the trailer park of music history, and we’re like some species of ant or cockroach that will adapt and go on long past every other instrument. Even when someone rigs up some kind of Isaac Asimov brain-MIDI interface, some guitarist is going to drop in and jam with it and do something that makes the brain in a box say ‘What was that? Play it again…’
Great post, Le Ministre. If you take into account the fact that the guitar:
- occupies the same range - with a bit more above - as a human voice
- can function in a chorded and single-note melodic way
- can be interpreted in a seemingly-infinite variety of ways - materials, uses, electrification, modulation with effects
- enables the player to sing if they choose as well
- enables mobility when performing - the BIG advantage over keyboards (I know, except for keytars…oy)
- is extremely portable and cheap
It is no wonder it took over the world. It’s the better mousetrap of musical instruments…well, except for the computer itself. There, you can make sounds with little-or-no training, the one barrier that remains with the guitar: it is hard to get started with…
PS: if you don’t see my geeking out for a bit starting tomorrow, chalk it up to a summer vacation…talk to y’all at the end of August…
I saw Squeeze in concert a couple of weeks ago and decided to learn Black Coffee in Bed. I have got most of it down by watching Tifford’s fingers on YouTube videos but the solo eludes me.
Any suggestions on where I might find a tab of it? The usual sources only have the chords and the tab for the riff. I have paid for sheet music in the past only to find that the juicy bits are missing but I would be delighted to pay for a version that has the bit I am looking for.
I have a private tradition that I don’t really know a song until I can record it without errors in GarageBand. But I can’t record it without the solo!
And Jerry Reed, Brad Paisley, Tommy Emmanuel, George benson, Wes Montgomery, Laurindo Almeida, Roy Clark, Earl Klugh, Django Reinhart, etc.
I… found a thing.
It’s an electronic bow for guitars. Seriously. Frampton uses it for his cover of Black Hole Sun.
E-sabs - I’m stuck on BBerry - but yeah; e-bows have been around for 30 years. Kinda like talk boxes - cool toys.
Are e-bows useful, or at least as useful as a talkbox? I’m guessing they have pretty stifling limitations or we’d have heard more about them. Having said that, I can’t say I’ve heard a track where an e-bow was used. What’s the straight dope?
[quote=“squeegee, post:774, topic:527172”]
I tried one once. It’s an interesting effect, but it’s a bit tricky to keep under control. You have to hold it just right, otherwise the sound will either die or take off and just about deafen you. It’s not a very precise tool.
Amazing Grace on EBow. It’s… interestin.
I’m not sure but I think Kim is right - both talkboxes and eBows impose themselves on your playing - with an eBow, you hold with your picking hand over the strings. So you give uo pixking and strumming for the duration, but if you use it right, yu can generate notes and partial chords with infinite sustain.
Its cool and interesting more than useful - I would have to point to the lack of standout hit songs as one key data point - at least talkboxes have a few huge hits identified with them from Jeff Beck, to Frampton to Bon Jovi…
…Hard to geek out on BlackBerry!
Can anyone tell me the exact difference between an e-bow and the Infinite Guitar? I always thought that the e-bow was like plugging in an extra speaker to the aux out jack on your amp and holding its magnet next to the pickup so that the induction fields overlapped. I always meant to try that out when I was doing terrible things to amps in the 70s, but I never got around to it…
Sorry, my friend, but you’re past me in terms of electronics stuff…
Aceplace wants to know about acoustic guitar string technology changes of the last decade or so.