Songs you never knew you wanted to play

[OHIOSTEVE]

This kid is a friend of mine. Probably the most humble nice guy you will ever meet. Born with health issues that should have killed him by now . Years ago his parents and my wife and I were at a business convention in Gatlinburg. Him and I were setting in the lobby of the hotel playing guitars and singing. Suddenly people started coming out of their rooms....people started coming out of the pool area. Before long the lobby was packed...the stairs were packed. The second floor balcony was packed. Someone asked for a gospel song. I handed my guitar off to another friend and the whole crowd began singing (it looked like something out of a movie) all of a sudden you could hear one voice out of all of those. Some random guy, in his swim trunks dripping water everywhere, absolutely singing his ass off. One of the coolest things ever and not one video of it anywhere that I know of.

 

[OHIOSTEVE]

Rolling (Scruggs style) is only one way... There is also the older traditional clawhammer approach...

I always liked the sound of that,, sounds like something I could do.. you know... clawhammer something!

In my short college stint in KY. There was a kid that played clawhammer style. I liked it.

 

[El Pablo]

Soewhere Over The Rainbow comes to mind. Jeff Beck's version really inspired me to ape the same style with a lot of other standards.

 

[bulletproof]

This kid is a friend of mine. Probably the most humble nice guy you will ever meet. Born with health issues that should have killed him by now . Years ago his parents and my wife and I were at a business convention in Gatlinburg. Him and I were setting in the lobby of the hotel playing guitars and singing. Suddenly people started coming out of their rooms....people started coming out of the pool area. Before long the lobby was packed...the stairs were packed. The second floor balcony was packed. Someone asked for a gospel song. I handed my guitar off to another friend and the whole crowd began singing (it looked like something out of a movie) all of a sudden you could hear one voice out of all of those. Some random guy, in his swim trunks dripping water everywhere, absolutely singing his ass off. One of the coolest things ever and not one video of it anywhere that I know of.

Outstanding brother!

 

[OHIOSTEVE]

Outstanding brother!

Like I said, he may be the nicest guy I have ever met. I have played music with him several times although I am not even close to his level. Had dinner with his family and Larry Sparks. Got to play guitar with Larry. Tyler has health issues (if you will notice his shoes in the video. One built way up) that cause some serious troubles . Bad infections that mess with his mind if they get real bad. Just a fantastic human being though.

 

[DarrellV]

Like I said, he may be the nicest guy I have ever met. I have played music with him several times although I am not even close to his level. Had dinner with his family and Larry Sparks. Got to play guitar with Larry. Tyler has health issues (if you will notice his shoes in the video. One built way up) that cause some serious troubles . Bad infections that mess with his mind if they get real bad. Just a fantastic human being though.

Thanks Steve!

 

[NorlinBlackBeauty]

hungry like the wolf.

there, i said it.

I learned that on bass back when I played bass. That and Rio. Fun songs.

 

[bulletproof]

Like I said, he may be the nicest guy I have ever met. I have played music with him several times although I am not even close to his level. Had dinner with his family and Larry Sparks. Got to play guitar with Larry. Tyler has health issues (if you will notice his shoes in the video. One built way up) that cause some serious troubles . Bad infections that mess with his mind if they get real bad. Just a fantastic human being though.

Well he sure ain’t letting it stop him from the music......music and the human spirit. Just beautiful....

 

[Pennyman]

hungry like the wolf.

there, i said it.

You are not alone.

 

[KSG_Standard]

Anything bluegrass. I LOVE to play Uncle Penn, Rocky Top, Foggy Mountain Breakdown, Ole Slewfoot, Duelin Banjos etc...... can't stand listening to it. Funny how big any of them go over at the local bars though.

It's worked for Johnny Cash, Chris Ledoux, James McMurtry and many others!

 

[Roberteaux]

Do you have a song that surprised you with how much fun it is to play?

Yes... a whole bunch of 'em, really. But the first one to spring to mind was a BTO song, "Let It Ride".

Another song that is great fun to play is the Hollies' "Long Cool Woman".

Do you have a song that you would probably never listen to but play all the time?

There are a couple of them, too. The first thing I thought of was Clapton's "Tears in Heaven", though.

Weird how that one hit me. You know, I never cared much for the song as Clapton recorded it. But my guitar instructor treats that song as if is a mandatory piece of music that all his students must learn to play-- or they must die.

And because I respect the guy both as a player and as an instructor, I just kind of shrugged inwardly and started working on it...

It was really hard at first, especially since he decided to get me crackin' on that one pretty early in the game. To make matters even more vexing, he substituted two C-shaped barre chords for the partials that Clapton actually used-- an Emaj and a C#maj that occur on fret 4 and fret 1 respectively. He did that simply to introduce me to C-shaped barre chords, and what a bummer it was-- took me almost five years before I could play C-shaped barres cleanly, reliably, and without any particularly great effort.

I play that song every time I pick up the guitar now... it's a kind of warm-up song I play before I start hitting other finger-picked material. But I still never listen to Clapton's recordings of it.

***************​

"The Rain Song" by LZ is another song I almost never listen to, but do play a lot. This one was also a mandatory bit of music that I had to learn to keep that tyrannical guitar instructor of mine happy. Though I do like it, I don't generally wish to listen to the original recording because at almost 8 minutes in length it's kinda too long. I'm also not incredibly fond of all the mellotron and synthesizer "string music" that LZ stuck in there. Basically, it sounds a bit overdone to me.

To be perfectly honest with you, I don't even care to hear the vocal accompaniment, even though Mr. Plant has opined that this was one of his best performances on any LZ studio recording... and I do agree that he did a beautiful and rather compelling job of it.

But still: there's something so hauntingly arcane and ineffably recondite about that song when it's delivered as a solo instrumental that I'd rather listen to myself playing it than to listen to the original recording.

I was taught to play two versions of that one... one version with an open tuning of Gsus4-- which is the original method Page used-- and then a second method using standard tuning. Overall, I think I like the original version better as an unaccompanied instrumental, though you have to monkey with the turnaround a bit to flesh it out in Gsus4 because there's more than one guitar track (and other instruments) going in there. As a guitar duet, it works out very well... but playing just one guitar part or the other in a solo instrumental arrangement leaves that portion of the song sounding a bit empty.

 

[Pop1655]

Somewhere Over The Rainbow comes to mind.

One of my old bass boat buddies:

 

[meatball]

I rediscovered this gem from aways back when I was a youngin. Never appreciated it then,however,that’s changed.....

And this one as well....

LAst Saturday night in Greenville , we played our version of “Baker Street “ and a guy sitting at the bar came up to us at the stage and said that nobody attempts to play that one because of not having a Sax in the band . We actually love playing that tune ,, All I do is the rhythm on it and I have a blast playing it ,,, great tune for a one hit wonder ,,,

 

[Tim Fezziwig]

When I got married I played acoustic only for several years. I played After The Lovin, What the World Needs Now.....70's Love songs in a Jazz way, I learned a lot about melody. I couldn't serenade Mrs. FEZZ with FleshEater.

 

[Frogfur]

The stuff i play to warm up, or for myself are songs i'd never play out. I'm living in the past.