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Post subject: Need some suggestions for tunes...
Posted: Sat Feb 07, 2009 6:56 am
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Hey Folks,
Alrighty, I've been rackin' my brain here and I'm having trouble coming up with ideas. I'm in a classic rock band and I'm the only guitar player so I need some ideas for classic rock tunes that have only -1- guitar. In other words, tunes with defined lead and rhythm parts such as BTO's "Taking Care of Business" is NOT what I'm looking for. We're already doing quite a bit of Stevie Ray Vaughn and Clapton/Cream so we don't really need any more of that and we're already doing quite a bit of acoustic stuff as well ("Horse With No Name", "Pink Houses", "Wish You Were Here", etc) although I might be open to more. We might have a keyboard player, which would open up some more possibilities, but he hasn't committed to the band yet. While not absolutely necessary, the tunes should be (mostly) upbeat and danceable as well as this is going to be a "bar/club" band. Also, the tunes should be relatively "easy to throw together"...in other words, I'd like to avoid stuff like "Round About", "Stairway to Heaven" etc., that would require a lot of work on everyone's part.

This is really something rather new for me. I've certainly been in plenty of "working bands" over the years, but I've always been either the rhythm or lead guitarist (and/or drummer or bass player)....we've always had two guitars, so I've never had to fill the sound out by myself.

While I may not use each and every suggestion, please know that I'm grateful for any ideas you wonderful folks can provide! Thanks!

Peace,
Jim


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Posted: Sat Feb 07, 2009 7:37 am
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I also play in a band as the only guitarist , but we generally dont discard songs which have originally more than one guitarist unless it does nt work

An example is 'Sweet Home Alabama ' - one of the most famous songs of all times . How many guitarists play on this in Lynerd Skynerd 3 perhaps?
I play this as the only guitarist and it always goes down a storm, and thats not because Im brillient because I am not . The general public dont miss or notice theres only one guitarist .

Others songs we ve done which have worked fine are ' Are u gonna go my way ' ( Lenny Kravitz ), Paranoid ( Sabath ) , Any Led Zep ( Whole Lotta Love , Heart breaker ) - only one ( but brillient ) guitarist anyway ,

We also play a lot of Indie - Oasis, Killers ,The Strokes, I dont know if that is your cup of tea or not

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Posted: Sat Feb 07, 2009 8:03 am
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Ronnie Robinson wrote:
I also play in a band as the only guitarist , but we generally dont discard songs which have originally more than one guitarist unless it does nt work

An example is 'Sweet Home Alabama ' - one of the most famous songs of all times . How many guitarists play on this in Lynerd Skynerd 3 perhaps?
I play this as the only guitarist and it always goes down a storm, and thats not because Im brillient because I am not . The general public dont miss or notice theres only one guitarist .

Others songs we ve done which have worked fine are ' Are u gonna go my way ' ( Lenny Kravitz ), Paranoid ( Sabath ) , Any Led Zep ( Whole Lotta Love , Heart breaker ) - only one ( but brillient ) guitarist anyway ,

We also play a lot of Indie - Oasis, Killers ,The Strokes, I dont know if that is your cup of tea or not


Yea, we've done some Skynard including Sweet Home Alabama...actually we've rather beat that horse into the ground, LOL!!! Kravitz and Sabbath are both a little too "heavy" for what we're doing but Zep is possible...I'm not a really big Led fan so I tend to forget about them.

I also probably should have mentioned that we have a female lead vocalist as well. That's not really an issue in itself as long as a given tune doesn't have any specific "gender references" (such as Skynard's "Give Me Three Steps") but we are trying to avoid stuff like "80's Rock"...no Heart, Pat Benatar, Journey, etc..

To tell you the truth, I have no idea at all what "Indie Rock" even is...so no...definitely not my cup of tea there. Besides, the clubs and such that we will be playing at, the clientele tends to prefer "familiar" stuff, preferably stuff they can dance to for the most part. For example, we've played Chuck Berry's "Johnny B. Goode" to the point that I practically hate that tune, but when you play it at a bar, people get up and dance.

Mostly what we're doing is classic rock, oldies and some blues. We're doing stuff like Pink Floyd (if we get the keyboard player), John Mellencamp, Chuck Berry, Fleetwood Mac, SRV, Clapton, Steve Miller, ZZ Top, Grand Funk, The Who and maybe even some Doobie Brothers...pretty much "standards" that you'd hear on a Classic Rock or Oldies radio station. Right now we have between 20 and 30 tunes, but I'd like to get that up to between 40 and 50 before we start looking for gigs (aka 3 full sets with "extra").

As you say, we're not really discarding tunes per say unless they "don't work" but that's the problem...there's a lot of stuff where if you don't have a rhythm guitar (or other rhythm instrument), the "bottom tends to fall out during a lead". I'm trying to find tunes that sound nice and full without that happening.

Any more suggestions?
Thanks
Jim


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Posted: Sat Feb 07, 2009 8:18 am
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Ok well what about Credence Clearwater Revival - Proud Mary , Bad Moon Rising . The Kinks - all day and all of the night, Ram Jam - Black betty and even if I darte say it Bryan ADAMS - Summer of 69

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Posted: Sat Feb 07, 2009 8:35 am
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You can never go wrong with ZZ Top. But you should consider your vocalist first because she can only do so much with her voice like any singer. Please ask her what she would like and try and work with her. There are some great female singers out there besides Pat Benatar or Nancy Wilson. Although Heart wouldn't be a bad idea.

Have fun!


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Posted: Sat Feb 07, 2009 9:04 am
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If you have a good selection of covers to perform then write some original stuff to intersperse into the set. It will serve the band better in the log run. As a following grows you can replace covers with more originals. I always play 2 covers a set, just to keep new listeners interested. I've always viewed covers as a point of mutual interest between band and audience and used that to its fullest.

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Posted: Sat Feb 07, 2009 10:40 am
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all good! i'd love to hear a band with a girl singer do "son of a preacher"-Dusty Springfield version(there may be more doable songs on that album too).

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Posted: Sat Feb 07, 2009 1:10 pm
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No Heart or Pat Benatar and you have a girl singer? Not gonna be doing any requests, then?

Keep in mind a Song is made of Parts. Riffs, hooks, verses, choruses, breakdowns, stops, vamps, segues, key changes and "what have you". You have to arrange these parts to fit your band. A recording is just a snapshot of how that song was arranged on whatever day it was recorded by whoever recorded it. Just listen to ZZ Top Cheap Sunglasses Studio vs Live, or Zep's Rock-n-Roll on The Song Remains the Same, Page covers the Main Rythm figure and the over-dubed dissonant little fills on one guitar.

I'm the only guitarist in a Cover Band. We cover anything from the 60's to Double-Ought 8. We have a girl lead singer, and I sing too so we can cover just about anything from the Doors to Evanescence. We do Berlins "Metro" without a Keyboard, No Doubt "Hella Good" without a Guitar Synth, and we never shy away from any song or group just 'cause one of us doesn't care for it. The only goal of a Cover band is to keep the audience happy, dancing, and Drinking.

It helps that our Bassist is a Monster that really fills the rythm section.

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Posted: Sat Feb 07, 2009 10:09 pm
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G'day.

Don't know if you've heard of them over there but there's an aussie band Wolfmother who are like a re-incarnation of Led Zep. They are a 3 piece (guitarist/vocalist, drummer, bass player/keyboardist) and have a real retro 60s heavy rock style. They have an awesome classic heavy rock sound so you might want to check them out for ideas. What they tend to do is during the main parts of the songs they play rythm and bass, and when the guitaist does his lead / solo stuff, the bass player switches to keyboards or engages a truck load of effects (delays / loops etc) to beef up the bottom end until the guitarist comes back down to earth!

Also a good song for your repertoire could be "all right now" by free. You only need one guitar for that. I walked into a music store yesterday and the dude was playing that with nothing more than a G-Dec amp to back himself up and sounded real good.

Could even throw in a bit of classic Santana.


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Posted: Sun Feb 08, 2009 5:43 am
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Wolfmother are a crackin band. They need a lot more exposure.

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Posted: Sun Feb 08, 2009 5:48 am
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hey any thin lizzy you like and any song from johnny winters vinly rock n roll masterpiece Still Alive N Well


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Posted: Sun Feb 08, 2009 7:10 am
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mhainz wrote:
Also a good song for your repertoire could be "all right now" by free.
...there ya go. also may want to consider throwing in a bit of Bad Company. :wink:


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Posted: Sun Feb 08, 2009 4:57 pm
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How about some Neil Young?

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Posted: Sun Feb 08, 2009 6:51 pm
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Solid Body Love Songs wrote:
all good! i'd love to hear a band with a girl singer do "son of a preacher"-Dusty Springfield version(there may be more doable songs on that album too).

+1


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Posted: Sun Feb 08, 2009 7:29 pm
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The Who and ZZ Top only had one guitarist who did all the leads, didn't they? Would that not be a place to start? :)


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