BOB QUINE WITH RICHARD HELL, "BLANK GENERATION"

If you're not already a fan of Richard Hell or Bob Quine, this so-so quality live footage probably won't win you over, but for fans like me even a murky snippet of the original Voidoids is a sacred artifact. Quine reintroduced the Lou Reed electric guitar style to an audience that was a little more ready to hear obnoxious noise than the youngsters of 1968 had been. He then kept the faith for years, showing how to play a rude counterpoint to singers of different colors-- barking and monotone drama (Lou Reed, Tom Waits) or bubblegum powerpop (Matthew Sweet). He was something of a thinking man's rock guitarist; hardly academic, in a humorless, ivory tower sense, he was nonetheless almost priggishly intolerant of bullshit and mediocrity. At his best, he resembled Richard Thompson-- another guitarist who plays very beautifully, but without sacrificing passion or weirdness.
Ultimately, Quine reminded us all of something that people too often forget-- the notion that the chief business of rock music is sound, not hair and clothes.
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JOHN C. MCCAIN, "PINK PANTHER" SOUNDTRACK EXCERPT

Here's a little tidbit of solo guitar from my friend John C. McCain. It's a piece called 'Meglio Stasera" from Mancini's "Pink Panther" soundtrack. John used heavy strings, tuned down a whole step, to get this great tone.

and here's the clip from the film.

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CATALOG OF AVAILABLE TRANSCRIPTIONS

AVAILABLE TRANSCRIPTIONS
(All my transcriptions include standard notation as well as guitar tablature.)
NOW ACCEPTING PAYPAL! INTERNATIONAL ORDERS WELCOME.
I sell most of these for $5.00. If no price is given, it's $5.00.
A few are more expensive, due to length or complexity. Prices for these are listed with item. (I can email the files for you to print out. If I mail it using traditional mail, postage and handling fee is $5.00.)
INFO ABOUT PURCHASING TRANSCRIPTIONS IS AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS POST. YOU CAN ALSO CLICK HERE--

karlstraubguitar.blogspot.com/2010/06/ordering-info-for-transcriptions.html


Oscar Moore with Nat "King" Cole.
These are solos from Nat Cole records.
"Straighten Up and Fly Right"
"Route 66"
"Paper Moon" (this includes solo and a "composite" of some riffing he did with Cole. This riffing composite is not an exact transcription; it's an attempt to take elements from Cole's and Moore's twin lines and turn it into a single line for guitar.)

Grant Green.
"The Honeydripper." This is only 12 bars with Jack McDuff, but 12 bars of Grant Green playing bluesy jazz could keep you busy for a while.

Charlie Christian, with Benny Goodman.
"Honeysuckle Rose" (this is from a rare aircheck, I believe.)

Peter Green, with early Fleetwood Mac. Burning blues guitar.
"Jumpin' at Shadows"

Freddie King
"Nickel-plated," instrumental. complete track, key of G. Lots of great licks in several positions and registers. $10.00

"Freddie King sampler"
This is a bunch of excerpts from different solos, "Lonesome Whistle Blues," "I'm Tore Down"

"Manhole" this is not the whole track, but some hot excerpts. Tom Heyman showed me these licks many years ago.

B.B. King
"Let's Do the Boogie" (early B.B. recording)

Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown
"Gate's Salty Blues" intro

Mick Ronson w/David Bowie.
"Eight Line Poem." Not one of the more famous Bowie tracks, but nice twangy string-bending intro from Ronson. It's interesting to see Ronson's string-bending technique with the Marshall stack sound removed. Recommended!

Zal Yanovsky, with the Lovin' Spoonful.
underrated, overlooked guitarist. Yanovsky was one of the few "country-rock" guitarists who used time like a real country picker.

"Nashville Cats" fills. If your country playing sounds too much like a rock guy, these fills could really help. They helped me years ago!

George Barnes.
"Hot Guitar Rag," from the super-rare "Country Jazz" lp.
www.karlstraubmusic.com/07 HOT GUITAR RAG.mp3
FINALLY ADDED! another transcription from Country Jazz album, "Chicken in the Rough," based on traditional fiddle tune "Chicken Reel," which is heard in tons of cartoons, esp. Foghorn Leghorn.
D.C. picker Jim Stephanson told me that Danny Gatton learned every lick from this album. I sell this for $15.00, because it's 3 minutes of all guitar. A guitar lesson in every bar. (for the uninitiated-- Barnes is one of the most prodigiously gifted electric guitarists of the 20th century. He's virtually unheard-of, even in the guitar world, but rarely did a guitarist have more technique and command of the fingerboard. On top of that, he was a beautiful lyrical player. I appreciate his technique, but his invention and creativity are the real reasons to listen to him.)
This track is a fascinating blend of country and jazz guitar, and Barnes was pretty comfortable with all of it.

Phil Spector, with the Drifters.
"On Broadway." Spector was just hanging out at the session when they asked him to play the guitar solo. Classic!

George Benson, with Jack McDuff.
"Rock Candy," excerpt from solo.

Lou Reed, with the Velvet Underground.
"Sunday Morning"
excellent melodic early Reed solo, from the "banana" album.


Ike Turner
"Tore Up" intro. Very crazy playing--
Because of the notorious vagaries of his personal life, people tend to forget that Ike Turner was a great guitarist. Before Hendrix, this was as wild as anyone ever got with a Stratocaster.


Don Rich, with Buck Owens

"Love's Gonna Live Here" on the Buck Owens Ranch TV show.
"Love's Gonna Live Here" from Carnegie Hall album. (very different solo-- classic!)
I've heard rumors that there is a lot of demand for Don Rich instructional material. If you're a big Don Rich fan, let me know-- if I get a lot of feedback about it, I'd love to do more Don transcriptions and maybe even a video lesson.

Jimmy Bryant
"Bryant's Shuffle"
(head only, but great! A medium difficulty intro to Bryant's style.)
"Cotton Picking"
(this one's in progress at this point. If anyone's interested, let me know and I'll get back to work on it.)

Bob Wills guitarists Eldon Shamblin and Junior Barnard.

(These are solos from Bob Wills's legendary Tiffany Transcription recordings. The best western swing I've ever heard.)

Eldon Shamblin
"C-Jam Blues"
"Tea for Two"

I also have a transcription of a three-part arrangement by Eldon from "Brain Cloudy Blues." This includes an essay about Eldon's arranging method. For anyone wanting to learn how to arrange in the Bob Wills style, this is a bargain at $30.00.
(PLEASE NOTE-- this transcription/lesson about Eldon's arranging is not ready to sell at this time-- I need to do a fair amount of editing on it. I'm putting it in here and encouraging any interested parties to email me or leave a comment. If I get a lot of inquiries about it, I'll put other work aside and bang it out. It's gonna be pretty great when it's done-- but right now a lot of it is in my head!)

Junior Barnard
"Blues for Dixie"
"Bring it on Down"
"Ding Dong Daddy"
"Faded Love"
"Girl I Left Behind Me"
"A Good Man is Hard to Find"
"What's the Matter with the Mill"
"Sweet Georgia Brown"
"Keep A'Knockin'"
"Nancy Jane"
"Sentimental Journey"
"My Window Faces the South"
"San Antonio Rose"
"Steel Guitar Rag"
"South"
"Sweet Kind of Love"
"Texarkana Baby"
"Take Me Back to Tulsa"
"Texas Playboy Rag"
"Worried Mind"


Zoot Horn Rollo/Antennae Jimmy Semens (Bill Harkleroad and Jeff Cotton)
This is an electric guitar duet from Captain Beefheart's "Trout Mask Replica" lp.

"Dali's Car"
$15.00.
A nice window into the Beefheart world of sound, a unique blend of Bo Diddley, rhythm and blues, "avant-garde" jazz and chamber music, etc. etc. Not for the squeamish, but highly recommended to fans of weirdness. It's important to clarify that, in an era where a lot of people in different genres (psychedelia, free jazz, etc) were improvising some pretty strange music, Don Van Vliet and his cohorts were actually writing this stuff down! Tom Waits pilfered a lot from this music, and he wasn't the only one.

CUSTOMER REQUEST LIST
(these are recordings people have requested. please feel free to add your own requests in a comment below, and I'll put them on the list.)
"Roly Poly" and "Barnard Blues," solos by Junior Barnard with Bob Wills.
"Nickel-Plated" by Freddie King.
(A NOTE ABOUT THE REQUEST LIST-- at this point, I am taking on fewer transcription request jobs. There are two reasons for this.
The first is that I can't afford to do a transcribing job for peanuts, and people often balk at my rates. I keep the catalog prices low, but sometimes a transcribing job done to order can take me as many as ten hours, or even more. This is because I try to get every articulation nuance in there, and I try to pin down where on the neck the parts were played. With players like Peter Green or Freddie King, the timing and articulation details take a lot of work to pin down.
The second issue is that people sometimes misunderstand my occasional use of "composite" transcribing. This method comes into play when I'm transcribing instrumentals, where certain licks are played multiple times. It's pretty common for a player like Freddie King to play a repeated line with variations each time, and these variations are often incredibly subtle. To save time, I sometimes just transcribe one variation, or write a composite that uses ideas from different variations. In these cases, I'll usually provide some suggestions about how to use the transcription along with the recording so that you can play the music as close to accurate as you desire. Sometimes when I explain this to customers, they think I'm doing a half-assed job. My goal is to provide a transcription that will be as accurate as possible with important subtle details, but slightly less accurate with regard to repeated lines. The finished product should be satisfactory to virtually everyone. I'd describe my transcriptions as 95% accurate, and much better than the bulk of available material.

Please contact me with requests only if the above sounds reasonable to you. I don't mind giving a customer a price quote, even if they decide they can't afford it, as long as they agree not to respond with rudeness. I'm happy to add songs and solos to my request list, and wait until I get a lot of interest in a specific request to do the work. Then I can sell it for my usual catalog rates. I no longer have time available for haggling over my rates and work with people who have special requests, but who don't understand that transcription is serious work. In my view, these transcriptions are like taking a long guitar lesson from a serious teacher. I welcome requests from people who also see it that way.)

A NOTE ABOUT ACCURACY OF TRANSCRIPTION
Aside from human error, and the difficulty of hearing a recording 100% correctly, there is another issue to consider. Our notation system is limited in many ways, but esp. regarding bends. The timing of a bend is difficult to notate correctly, and the "between-the-cracks" notes are indicated by the mismomer "quarter step bend." This term implies a note lying exactly halfway between two adjacent notes like B and C. In reality, there are several notes in there for those that can hear them. I'll confess that I have trouble hearing them precisely-- although I've been studying them for many years. Players like Freddie King (and his white American and British disciples Clapton, Green, Bloomfield, etc.) can mix and match timing and bend subtleties that are essentially unnotatable. I do my best, but there are limits. I basically believe that any notation will be limited by the ear of the reader, anyway, but in the interest of honesty I like to point this out. I suggest that you use your ear along with the transcriptions, and the more your ear develops, the closer you'll get to the sound of masters like Freddie.

To order, please send an email to Karl Straub, address karlstraub@hotmail.com. List the items you're interested in, or request anything not on list. After I get your email, I'll give you a total so you can PAY WITH PAYPAL or mail in payment. (please note-- I can no longer do transcription work for people without receiving payment up front. After I receive your payment, I will send transcription, if it's one I already have done, or I will begin the work and send on completion.
Please send checks to
Karl Straub
406 Cloverway Drive
Alexandria, Va 22314
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BARNEY KESSEL AND JULIE LONDON, "CRY ME A RIVER"

Here's the classic studio version, a high-water mark for sultry jazz-influenced pop. Obviously Julie London is the main event, but this is a guitar site, damn it! So check out Barney Kessel's hip guitar accompaniment.

and here's a TV version from 1964 with the Bobby Troup Quintet. I'm not sure if it's Kessel on this version, but it's pretty much the same arrangement. In fact, it may be Julie lip-syncing to the original. I keep getting distracted by her shiny dress--


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JAMES HONEYMAN-SCOTT, "KID"

I need to study this track to prepare for a recording session; I thought I'd put it here so I could find it quick. It's a hell of a solo, but the intro is great with a totally different sound and approach-- it's in a Hank Marvin vein, but with a trashier tone. As if that weren't enough, Honeyman-Scott layers a bunch of expertly conceived guitar textures as background.

Great record-- if not the absolute best of its kind (as i'm tempted to argue), certainly up there.
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HOWARD ROBERTS, "STAR EYES"

Here's a rare clip of Howard Roberts live, sent to me by Charlie McCardell. This is the tune "Star Eyes," a pretty much forgotten pop song. (Charlie Parker recorded a version of it on his Swedish Schnapps album.) The clip is a little wobbly-- apparently it's one of the few live clips of Roberts.

Live clips of musicians sometimes have little details that provide insight into how they're thinking. Here you can see Roberts moving his right hand in eighth notes even when he's not picking any notes. (In other words, he's keeping time with his right hand even when he's not playing. This kind of thing can help you swing, if you're so inclined. It helps reinforce the idea that time is still going on even when a soloist rests.)
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