A commenter asks if I’m serious about one of my favorite song picks at Normblog. One hundred percent serious. Video below. Check the Wurlitzer comping at the start of the B section. The way the backing vocals outline the ravishing modulations. The guy rocking the tambourine. But let’s also admit the clarinet is sharp on the intro and the bass player makes a mistake before the last A.
In the last couple of months I’ve rediscovered my love of guitar, and more to the point, I’ve salvaged my ability to play the thing. My policy, as I told a friend, is “all fun, all the time.” And fun to me right now is ’70s pop and R&B. (You haven’t lived until you’ve played rhythm guitar along with the Average White Band’s “Work to Do.”) I’m not interested in reviving my jazz chops, to the extent I had jazz chops. I’m dealing with the great songcraft of Paul Simon, Laura Nyro, the Stylistics, the Isley Brothers, the Spinners, the Little River Band, Chicago, America, Todd Rundgren, James Taylor, the two beautiful performers in the following video and many more. The criterion is solely music that inspires me enough to learn it (by ear, always), songs that have left a personal imprint and lend themselves reasonably well to six strings and my semi-sucky vocals. Actually, my James Taylor is pretty good, in just the right range. And working on voice-guitar coordination seriously is a departure. It’s connecting me to music in a new way.
Peter Bernstein, the master jazz guitarist, once told me that every time you learn a song, it’s a music lesson. He had the songs of the jazz canon in mind, but the same holds true of the ’70s material in which I’m slopping around — songs with a weird and incredibly specific blend of jazz and rock harmony, carefully voiced and easy to get wrong on the first attempt. Lots of piano harmony that can sound awkward on guitar. It’s a challenge, a lesson, and above all, a sound I’ll always love.
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