Like most Gretsch type people, I'm a huge fan of Duane Eddy, so don't take this as a criticism of the man or his music.
But...
I was recently asked to play 'Rebel Rouser' at a party. Now I can play the guitar part, but I was on my own... And there's only a really small guitar part. When it starts to get interesting, a wailing sax takes over.
Then I was asked if I knew 'Forty Miles of bad Road' and exactly the same thing happened. And it happens all the time!
I went to YouTube thinking someone would have a guitar based solution, but everyone there plays over a backing track - along comes the wailing sax neatly wrapped up in a little black box! (I don't play with backing tracks).

So... Does ANYONE in Gretschland play Duane Eddy stuff on their own, and if so, how do you go about it? I reckon about the only way I can figure is to learn all the Duane Eddy themes and do a medley, but that's a bit of a cop out.

I can play the guitar parts no problem.
What I do have problems with are the
vocals. Sorry, I just couldn't resist.

The thing that came to mind was, DE
was on Letterman one night, and he
asked Duane what he thought his
greatest contrabution to Rock & Roll
was, Duane replied, 'Not singing."

Wish I did have an answer for you,
unfortunetly, I don't.

=================================

<><> Raspy <><>

Like most Gretsch type people, I'm a huge fan of Duane Eddy, so don't take this as a criticism of the man or his music.
But...
I was recently asked to play 'Rebel Rouser' at a party. Now I can play the guitar part, but I was on my own... And there's only a really small guitar part. When it starts to get interesting, a wailing sax takes over.
Then I was asked if I knew 'Forty Miles of bad Road' and exactly the same thing happened. And it happens all the time!
I went to YouTube thinking someone would have a guitar based solution, but everyone there plays over a backing track - along comes the wailing sax neatly wrapped up in a little black box! (I don't play with backing tracks).

So... Does ANYONE in Gretschland play Duane Eddy stuff on their own, and if so, how do you go about it? I reckon about the only way I can figure is to learn all the Duane Eddy themes and do a medley, but that's a bit of a cop out.
It's an age old problem because most of us don't have the band-assets to match studio productions, even straightforward ones like Duane Eddy's classic recordings. While I've copied many a solo over the years it's actually pretty rare for me to cover a song verbatim. I make take elements from it that are a perfect copy of the record but the overall arrangement usually has to be tailored to the band and its instrumentation.

The band to which I belong doesn't do any Duane Eddy material but we do a lot of Surf and, believe you me, we take some liberties with the arrangements. If not we'd blow through most of the songs in 2 minutes or less. What I usually do is play the entire tune straight through like the record, then improvise a couple of verses, come back to original recordimg for the chorus and go out with the last verse straight from the record.

For the improv' I've learned to played an early '60s Rock 'n' Roll style that seems to fit the era of the music; think Beach Boys. The improv' takes the place of the sax solos, etc. I don't try to cover the song verbatim but strive to give the audience as much content and variety as the original recording.

I always maintained that the best bands to work in were three piece bands because you didn't have the pressure of trying to sound like the record unless you were doing Stray Cats. The audience doesn't care as much as you do. They just want to have fun and dance. Do a good job, make a good sound and they'll love you. They won't even notice that the orchestra is missing in Nights in White Satin.

I always maintained that the best bands to work in were three piece bands because you didn't have the pressure of trying to sound like the record unless you were doing Stray Cats. The audience doesn't care as much as you do. They just want to have fun and dance. Do a good job, make a good sound and they'll love you. They won't even notice that the orchestra is missing in Nights in White Satin.
To me, half of the fun is playing a complex arrangement with but three pieces. Seeing Brian Setzer live helped me because I was able to witness first-hand his method for keeping the sound adequately full without simply strumming rhythm chords to fill in the gaps. He does a lot of single line stuff on the lower strings and it really does make for a full sound.

On non Stray Cats material I tend to borrow some ideas from Jazz players, chord melody fills, etc.

I think the key to the issue is pretty simple: make sure that you never lose sight of the rhythm, since Tony above is right about people just wanting to have fun and dance. Improvise with single note lines, use some chord melody, mix and match, but hang it all on a strong sense of rhythm with your picking hand and people think you're magic!

I feel your pain, fletch! The guys in my present 4-piece band are mostly younger than me and didn't grow up listening to every one of his records like I did! I'm the rhythm player and vocalist, but I've been working on getting them to let me play some Duane Eddy favourites, since I've been jammin' on D E guitar licks since I started playing when I left school way back in '58. Last private gig we played at (for a group of over 50s) I did manage to put together an ad hoc improvised medley of Deep in The Heart of Texas, Detour, Forty Miles of Bad Road and You Are My Sunshine. The guys picked up on it straight away (but haven't quite forgiven me for springing it on them). Anyhow, it went over pretty well and now we're working on arrangements with the lead guitarist playing improvisations of the sax lines. Seems to be working out, so maybe you could try it too?

So I listened to both of these songs (as I wasn't familiar with them)
For the song - Rebel Rouser, you could play (most of) the sax part on the guitar as it does allow enough time to go back and forth. It is basically a 2 chord sax part. Learn the chords behind the song and you will see how easy the part will play in.

40 Miles of Bad Road is different. It would call for you to be in 2 places at once so unless you are Chet or Tommy Emmanual, you might as well forget about it.
However, something that you might find very usefull would be a Looper Pedal.
I don't know if you are familiar with those but they are quite easy to use, Kick the pedal down and it records the line that you are playing
(some of them record up to a couple of minutes long)
Kick it again and the recording stops.
Depending on what model you get - You kick another button and it will play back over and over, all day long if you wish. You can then play accompanyment along with your piece. If you wish, you can record a second "layer" and even a third and fourth if you want.
These are generally really quite simple to run. Even a dummy like me can use one and there are lots of tutorials on YouTube to show you how the different models work.

These are great for helping you with timing and learning to play along.
I hope this helps.

When Classical Gas came out I worked to get it note perfect. The first time I played it
(solo in a lounge) a guy came up and told me I had left out the best part, the orchestra!
I never played it again.

Guitars are all well and good — but learn to play rock'n'roll tenor sax or piano and you'll never be short of a gig.

However, you could try this:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnTZFXBDBDU

So I listened to both of these songs (as I wasn't familiar with them)
For the song - Rebel Rouser, you could play (most of) the sax part on the guitar as it does allow enough time to go back and forth. It is basically a 2 chord sax part. Learn the chords behind the song and you will see how easy the part will play in.

40 Miles of Bad Road is different. It would call for you to be in 2 places at once so unless you are Chet or Tommy Emmanual, you might as well forget about it.
However, something that you might find very usefull would be a Looper Pedal.
I don't know if you are familiar with those but they are quite easy to use, Kick the pedal down and it records the line that you are playing
(some of them record up to a couple of minutes long)
Kick it again and the recording stops.
Depending on what model you get - You kick another button and it will play back over and over, all day long if you wish. You can then play accompanyment along with your piece. If you wish, you can record a second "layer" and even a third and fourth if you want.
These are generally really quite simple to run. Even a dummy like me can use one and there are lots of tutorials on YouTube to show you how the different models work.

These are great for helping you with timing and learning to play along.
I hope this helps.

I remember listening to an interview with B. B. King once when he was talking about the beginnings of the electric blues era. He said that since the guitarists didn't have any previous format to use as an example for what they should be playing for a solo, they just tried to imagine what a sax player would do in that place and in many cases they would outright copy a sax part and just add some guitarness to the solo...

now this is a good thread... I'm listenin (and chucklin because we are big Duane fans here on a personal level but my older boy gets angry every time he hear's the saxophone
in the old tunes and wishes it was only duane)

ps. the new album is really good, you wont regret it period. Especially if you are fan
of 60's exotica instrumental music.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51GORSBhZZL._SL500_AA300_.jpg

now this is a good thread... I'm listenin (and chucklin because we are big Duane fans here on a personal level but my older boy gets angry every time he hear's the saxophone
in the old tunes and wishes it was only duane)

ps. the new album is really good, you wont regret it period. Especially if you are fan
of 60's exotica instrumental music.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51GORSBhZZL._SL500_AA300_.jpg
I actually feel the same way. Not to disparage sax players but I just can't get enough of Duane's playing. Nonetheless, I suppose that it broadened the appeal of his music considerably and worked towards the acceptance of twangy guitar sounds by a larger audience.

I liked the raspy, snarly tone the sax player(s) got on those old records. It really fit the rebel rouser image.

I liked the raspy, snarly tone the sax player(s) got on those old records. It really fit the rebel rouser image.

Speaking of raspy, When I'm at my brothers,
and we get to jamming, he plays the sax
parts on his harp. Of course, the only ones
we have to entertain is our ourselfs, if you
don't count his Lab, which likes to join in
on all the harp parts.

========================================

<><> Raspy <><>

Thanks for all the interesting comments.
Raspy, thank you for reminding me of a long gone pup, who would jump up on a chair and sing like a canine angel every time I pulled out the harmonica or recorder. She was a doggie diva!

I'm still smiling.

Thanks for all the interesting comments.
Raspy, thank you for reminding me of a long gone pup, who would jump up on a chair and sing like a canine angel every time I pulled out the harmonica or recorder. She was a doggie diva!

I'm still smiling.
Thanks for reminding me about some of mine that would howl right along. That's what life is about and remembering times like those.:D

By the way, I still have all those LP's. I bought them because I played tenor sax in a group and then the guitar players couldn't or wouldn't play the songs. Then I noticed girls were not that enthralled wiht sax players and bought a guitar.

By the way, I still have all those LP's. I bought them because I played tenor sax in a group and then the guitar players couldn't or wouldn't play the songs. Then I noticed girls were not that enthralled wiht sax players and bought a guitar.

Absolutely, sax players make some neat noises but guitar players get the girls. Everyone knows that.

Absolutely, sax players make some neat noises but guitar players get the girls. Everyone knows that.

Anyone tell that to Bobby Keys? ;)

:Dwho's bobby keys? I know who Dion is and I know who the Rolling stones are.

Turtle,
You're pulling our legs!
If you know who The rolling Stones are, then you know who Bobby Keys is.

You kidder, you.

I bought his autobiography from Amazon - "Every night's a Saturday night". Arrived in the mail 2 days ago. I'm taking it to read on holiday with me day after tomorrow.

Thanks for reminding me about some of mine that would howl right along. That's what life is about and remembering times like those.:D
I once had a beagle that was pretty much indifferent to music but if I put Jazz on the stereo he would lie down in front of the speakers and listen.

Synchro, your pup had more musical insight than I ever had. Jazz to me has always been too similar to a B B King guitar lead.

Synchro, your pup had more musical insight than I ever had. Jazz to me has always been too similar to a B B King guitar lead.
Depends upon who's playing the Jazz. BB King copied Charlie Christian and gave some very convincing demonstrations of Christian's techniques on his (King's) training video.

A lot of jazz guitarists copied Charlie Christian but many of them took it in new directions. Wes Montgomery comes to mind here. Wes' playing was cool and modern but still has some roots in the Blues.

Or look at Jim Hall, another Charlie Christian admirer. His music, while rooted in the Blues does not use much, if any, conventional Blues cliches but goes off into harmonic terra incognita. It's very angular and at times dissonant but he still has a wonderful sense of melody and can rein it in easily and bring the listener right back to the melody.

Synchro, your pup had more musical insight than I ever had. Jazz to me has always been too similar to a B B King guitar lead.
By the way, I'm pretty sure that my beagle was bred from Arthur Feidler's male and Miles Davis' b*tch. Hence he had classical sensibilities and a post-Bop appreciations for Cool Jazz. :) OK, just kidding here. Trying to sound like Nat Hentoff.

So who's Bobby keys and Nat Hentoff ? Were they on Hee haw ?

Is this a test?

Bobby Keys was a tenor sax player that hung around with Leon Russell and his merry band of sideman and studio musicians in the early '70s. This group made up the bulk of musicians for Joe Cocker's Mad Men and Englishmen tour in 1970. I'm not informed about Bobby Keys, luck with women, but they made a solid R&B section.

Nat Hentoff was a noted jazz critic in the '60s-'70s. I think he wrote for Downbeat and/or several NYC publications.

Getting back to Fletch's original question. As for playing totally solo guitar, that's a really tough nut to crack. I resorted to using my voice as accompaniment and a hybrid picking style to play a verse or so piano like with the melody. Not appropriate for Duane, but a way to do a solo thing.

Folk Tune (http://halitelane.com/recordings/beneath_the_willows.mp3)

Of course solo guitar can be done:

Tommy Emmanuel

Joe Pass

I think the best way for you to overcome your problem is to buy a copy of "The Twang Thing" and tab out all the chords for the tunes you like. Get a friend to accompany you that is hard headed about rhythm and just do the best you can on sax solos.

I've struggled on the group vs. solo thing for many years. But I can only advise to play whenever it works.

Lee

Do the sax parts on a kazoo. You'll be a BIG hit with the ladies.

Absolutely, sax players make some neat noises but guitar players get the girls. Everyone knows that.

Does Bill Clinton know that?:D

Here it is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IFQExyyT6Q

Does Bill Clinton know that?:D

Yea, but he got Hillary too so that balances it out to zero.

Here it is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IFQExyyT6Q

That's great! I always thought it was sax player that made those noises. I bet he gets all the girls too (cause he's a guitar player)

Bobby Keys is still around (lives here in Nashville) and still tours with the Stones.

Wondered what pedal he was using, then found it under the video on YT - Roland GR-09. Way to go... :)