Adrian Belew: Lion Tamer Extraordinaire

There are players who wow us with great feats of speed and endurance. There are those who blind us with their melodic erudition. Then there are those whose musical outpourings of pure emotion knock us for ten. Finally there are those who make us giggle by making funny noises with their guitar. Adrian Belew falls into the latter category. That is not to take away from Mr. Belew's obvious instrumental talents. However, any person who can make elephant noises on their guitar is eh-ok in my book.



In 1960s Kentucky, Adrian Belew was a teenage guitar obsessive listening to the experimental rock sounds of Hendrix, Beck and The Beatles. He began to emulate their studio-created sounds on his solitary electric guitar, soon developing a very personal and eccentric style. In the late 1970s, he was spotted by Frank Zappa playing covers in a bar band. Zappa offered him a place in his touring act, which the eager Belew accepted. He describes his short tenure with the notoriously demanding Zappa as a crash course in music theory.

The experience he gained from Frank served him well when he joined David Bowie's band for the Heroes tour of 1978, subsequently added demented lead guitar and backing vocals to Bowie's Lodger album of 1979, the last of his Berlin Trilogy. Here is a select cut from that album, a perfect encapsulation of Belew's freaky noise workouts.



Talking Heads were the next legends to come knocking. He joined them in the midst of the arduous recording sessions that produced Remain In Light. Tracks like The Great Curve are taken into another rhelm thanks to Belew's heavily-processed solos and led to his addition to the expanded touring version of Talking Heads. He also featured on the band's off-shoot project, Tom Tom Club.  



In the early 1980s, he joined the act with whom he is most recognised. Belew and Robert Fripp had both worked on albums by Bowie, but never met. They eventually bumped into each other at a Steve Reich concert (why doesn't this surprise me?). They hit it off, and began a new project together, Indiscipline. This would eventually morph into a new lineup of Fripp's legendary prog godfathers, King Crimson. This new lineup would resemble some bizarre Talking Heads tribute act rather than the heavy-riffing art rock monsters of the mid 1970s. Here is sample of this new direction, complete with Belew's animal noise guitar.



As well as serving as King Crimson's frontman for nearly three decades, Belew has been a popular session man. Pau Simon, Joe Cocker, Cyndi Lauper and even Captain Kirk himself, William Shatner have requested his services. He has also released a steady stream of Beatles-inspired solo albums and noise experiments.

 As you have seen from these clips, Belew is naturally drawn towards bizarre noises and outlandish sounds. He seems to take great glee in washing over conventional pop songs with his distinct guitar style, the weirder the better. To finish, some more animal noises. I never get tired of this.

Recommended Listening: King Crimson - Indiscipline
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Some Choice Belew Craziness: Oh Daddy (Solo Hit), Flakes (Frank Zappa - Sheik Yerbouti), I'm Down (Beatles Cover)

John Cipollina: Quicksilver’s Whammy Bar King

The psychedelic era produced it’s fair share of remarkable guitarists. Jimi Hendrix invigorated the blues with a cosmic twist. Jerry Miller of Moby Grape injected some country licks into his band’s early power pop masterpieces. Jerry Garcia and The Grateful Dead captivated the hippy generation with seemingly endless jamming marathons in legendary auditoriums like The Fillmore. One of the most singular talents and instantly recognisable players to emerge from this era was Quicksilver Messenger Service’s John Cipollina.

John Cipollina and Quicksilver Messenger Service were one of the house bands of the San Francisco acid rock scene. Their music is indubitably linked with this period, with flower-child lyrics and extended space-blues jams. The guitar playing of Cipollina was what really set them apart from the crowd though. The best phrase to describe his playing is left-of-centre. His style was a striking amalgamation of blues, jazz, classical and thumb-picked rock, all delivered with extensive wiggling of his Gibson SG’s whammy bar. His intense vibrato style would influence many future guitarists like Tom Verlaine, Nels Cline and Richard Thompson. Check out this video from Cipollina’s solo career. Please excuse the mooners near the start of video, they mean no harm. 

Quicksilver is not one of the more celebrated bands from this period. This could be down to their inconsistent recorded legacy. Having said that, the band did produce some interesting music that is worth a listen. What makes most of their stuff interesting for me is Cipollina’s idiosyncratic guitar style, incorporating jazz and classical licks with a unique blues-rock vocabulary. He is one of Quicksilver’s signature tunes, Gold and Silver. The use of unusual time signatures and elongated instrumental sections make it an early example of jazz-rock.

Recommended Listening: Happy Trails – Quicksilver Messenger Service
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Some Top Quicksilver Moments: Who Do You Love, Mona, Gold and Silver.

Funky Cuts, Pt. 1: Eddie Hazel: P-Funk’s Fuzzmeister

I turned to my sibling Declan for our next entry. He’s the funk fan amongst us and has chosen that acid-fried Strat freak, Eddie Hazel.

The P-Funk collective, consisting of Funkadelic & Parliament, was bandleader George Clinton’s distilled concept of the ultimate funk act. Clinton believes that a life without “The Fonk” (I am using the vernacular here) is a life not worth bothering with. “The Fonk” is the answer and the solution to all of life’s worries and strife. The P-Funk universe has played host to a number of colourful and talented individuals over the years. These include bass legend, and permanent inhabitant of “The One”, Bootsy Collins, keyboard maestro Bernie Worrell, and nappy-wearing musical director Garry Shider. For guitarists though, the mysterious man in the bug-eye shades and occasional cape manhandling his Fender Stratcaster is the focal of our interest. Dear cats and kittens, I give you Eddie Hazel.

Eddie first came in contact with George Clinton in the late 1960s, when the young guitar hotshot joined Clinton’s Parliaments, an up-and-coming soul combo based in Plainfield, New Jersey. This act eventually morphed into Funkadelic, losing the matching suits and dance routines along the way and gaining a more psychedelic rock sound and look. Combining the spaced-out rock of Jimi Hendrix and Frank Zappa with the burgeoning funk of James Brown and Sly Stone, Clinton had created an outfit that could jam like a rock band, as well as lay down the groove like no one else.

Eddie Hazel was key to the early Funkadelic sound. He co-wrote legendary P-Funk tunes like Free Your Mind And Your Ass Will Follow, Standing On The Verge Of Getting It On and Ret Hot Mama. His screaming, echo-drenched fuzz guitar solos washed over these tunes like a psychedelic blanket of stars. His signature tune is, without a doubt, is Maggot Brain, the title track of Funkadelic’s 1971 magnum opus. The track is, basically, a ten-minute guitar solo, with only sounds of wars and a lightly plucked rhythm guitar to accompany it. The legend goes that Hazel was locked into the studio and told to play like his mother just died. Did he achieve the desired effect? You be the judge.

Eddie, as well as recording a fine solo album “Game, Dames and Guitar Thangs”, continued to contribute to various P-Funk related recordings throughout the 1970s and 1980s until his untimely death in 1992. What I like most about his playing is that he seems to be taking a great sound (In my opinion, Hendrix’s Band Of Gypsies record) and running with it. That is not to say Hazel was a mere Hendrix copyist. Rather he took up the torch of insane funky guitar soloing for a new generation, putting his own stamp on the sound as he went. He influenced near contemporaries like Ernie Isley of The Isley Brothers and Ron Asheton of The Stooges, as well as modern funksters like Prince. If you are a fan of rock music, give Eddie and Funkadelic a try. Consider them a gateway drug into the murky world of “The Fonk”

Recommend Listening: Funkadelic - Maggot Brian (1971)

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Some Choice Hazel Grooves: I Wanna Know if it’s Good to You, Red Hot Mama, Funky Dollar Bill (All Funkadelic tunes)

Please do check back soon for some more Funky Cuts.

Barney Kessel: The Wrecking Crew's Chief Axeman

Barney Kessel (1923 – 2004) is one of those players that millons have heard, yet few would recognise. At least they think they don't recognise him. You know the intro to Wouldn't It Be Nice, right? Y'know, "jingle, jingle, jingle, etc"? That's Barney. Those cool licks in Julie London's Cry Me A River? That's Barney. The riff on I've Got You Babe by Sonny & Cher? That's Barney.

Barney Kessel was one of the first post-Charlie Christian bebop guitarists to make big waves on the jazz scene. He appeared on records by Charlie Parker, Ella Fitzgerald, Sonny Rollins and Billie Holiday. He also held the notoriously high-tempo guitar chair in the Oscar Peterson Trio during the early 1950s. In parallel to this, he recorded albums under his own name, featuring selections from the Great American Songbook reworking in his own unique style.


In the 1960s, he found steady work as an in-demand session guitarist in the Los Angeles recording world. It is there that he worked on dates for The Monkees, Phil Spector and The Beach Boys. In the 1970s, he presented seminars on the art of guitar playing and even ran his own guitar shop in L.A. for a time.

What I really like about Barney's jazz playing is that, while it is sophisticated and complex, he stills retains a great respect for the melody. This is especially true of his intrepretations of popular tunes, where he combines piano-like block chords and elegant single lines into an original presentation of the standard. By doing this, he keeps the songs fresh with inventive embellishments. Listen to his version of that old chestnut, Misty.



While Barney should be remembered as an innovative jazzer, his contribution to the popscene of the 1960s is worth considering too. He is a class act, worth further investigation.



Recommend Listening: The Poll Winners (1957)
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Some Standout Barney Tracks: Satin Doll, A Foggy Day, Love Is Here To Stay

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Welcome to the blog.

This the first of, what I hope, are several millon posts highlighting those guitarists the general public seldom consider. Rarely considered in those 100 greatest lists, these players still warrent further investigation by the curious music fan.

I will be posting two to three different entries each week. Some of these entries will hopefully be feature guest contributions, so if there is a particular player that you feel needs a bit of exposure, let me know.

Right, on with the blog.