GEORGE BARNES WITH CONNIE FRANCIS, "LIPSTICK ON YOUR COLLAR"

George comes in around :58 with a Burton-like solo. I would guess this is the kind of guitar break Frank Zappa meant when he referred disparagingly to "clean teen" guitar playing. Perhaps so, but if I could play like this off the top of my head, I wouldn't care what Frank Zappa said about it.
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GUITAR TECH VS. LOCAL CREW

This is really great. Enjoy!

(thanks to Howard Parker for sending this along.)
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THE WRECKING CREW

Here's a trailer for the documentary about the Wrecking Crew by Tommy Tedesco's son Denny. It's hard for me to write about this amazing group of musicians without an embarrassing reliance on superlatives-- but a movie about them is an essential document of a little corridor in American pop music history. It was a time when rock and roll was changing pop music, but the old assembly line approach to recording was still in place-- perhaps the last gasp of the Tin Pan Alley golden era. This meant that top-notch old-school players were brought in to play cutting-edge modern pop like Phil Spector's productions and the Beach Boys' "Pet Sounds" album, and the result (in its best moments) was exhibit A for the argument that knowing how to play doesn't have to mean that soulless plastic drivel is all you can do.

My comments here are just the tip of the iceberg-- which you already know if you are watching the clip. Check out their site for more information, and an opportunity to contribute to a historic project.

Thanks to Denny for passing this link along. www.wreckingcrewfilm.com/index2.html
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BOSS TALENT SIMULATOR PEDAL

Thanks to Ed Supple for passing this along.
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DAVID HIDALGO, "ONE TIME, ONE NIGHT"

I've always liked Los Lobos, but have only really heard a cut or two here and there. Hidalgo's playing on this song really floored me-- it sounds like a much better version of what I'm trying to do. I'd guess his lines are influenced by traditional Mexican instrumental styles, but it sounds to my ear like some Scotch/Irish fiddle-tune vocabulary too. (A little ballad-mode Hendrix too, at the top.) I'm not qualified as far as knowing the history of those styles, so I don't know if there was any cross-pollinating going on before the "modern" era, but this need not matter to the player (like myself!) considering stealing from Hidalgo.

I need to listen to this a lot more, but so far I hear a blend of major pentatonic and mixolydian modal approaches, along with a pretty steady stream of 2/4 sixteenth notes. Add to that an excellent example of how a Fender can be trashy and twangy both. Beautiful playing throughout-- he does a great job of shifting from one kind of line to another, which makes a long solo seem short to the listener. The Allmans used to do this kind of thing, too-- a word to the wise!
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