Robert Quine On Guitar: Basic and beyond
Gene Santoro, Downbeat, January 1986
PICK UP a record with James Burton's guitar on it — any record from Ricky Nelson to Emmylou Harris — and drop it onto your turntable. Listen carefully to the Telemeister's sense of structure, the way he builds a solo, where he drops in his pedal-steelish slurs and bends. Follow that with Ritchie Valens' 'Fast Freight', anything by Chuck Berry, Link Wray, Jimmy Reed, Charley Patton, and Skip James. Pull out Charlie Christian's solo on 'Swing To Bop', Bill Evans' Portrait In Jazz, Miles' On The Corner or Kind Of Blue, Jimmy Raney Visits Paris, Coltrane's Ascension, some Cecil Taylor, and Ornette's 'Ramblin''. Switch to early- to mid-period Stones, Beck-powered Yardbirds, and 12-stringed Byrds. Now top off the stack with the Velvet Underground's White Light/White Heat, Iggy and the Stooges' Raw Power, and any ambient Brian Eno.
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