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Brown Eyed Girl

#63
It is always a good song to throw out after playing a tune the band has worked several hard weeks on, but then goes over like poop in a punchbowl when finally played live.

My band usually wants to skip the little bass solo entirely, which is okay, because one of the guitarists was usually noodling along on it with me anyway.
 
#64
"Brown Eyed Girl" is one of a long list of songs that, when they come on the radio, I change the station.

But I'll play it all night if people get on the floor and dance and hoot and holler and sing along and we're making the club owner happy because he's selling lots of product and we get invited back to play music at his establishment over and over and other club owners are calling us (instead of the other way around) and we're never in need of a room to play.

I'll play the whole damn list if it gets me those opportunities to be an entertainer.
 
#66
Allow me to make another comment, which someone touched on a little earlier, but got overlooked: All of these songs are pretty simple to play, right? Only a few simple chord changes, easy to learn and blast through, right?

Well, not quite. Sure, the basic chord-change structure is easy...but if you stop and really listen to these songs, there's actually some real arrangement going on there. How many bar-gig bands have actually learned these (sometimes subtle) particulars? A band will slog into Sweet Home Alabama and even though they have two or three guitars, the cover band won't be playing separate guitar parts anywhere close to the record, instead the cover band's guitars will be just freewheeling the same 3 chords over and over and shove a makeshift guitar solo in the middle of the song--then they'll complain about how they hate to play it. Geez, take a few hours to get it right...intro starts with one guitar picking, then second guitar hits a simple one-string lead, then band comes in, for example (going from memory)--and don't forget the occasional drop to F, some bands haven't even figured out there is an occasional F in the song.

Bother to learn all the arrangements, with the little subtle fills and phrases and pauses, and suddenly these old standards won't seem like such stale numbers.
 
#68
nashvillebill said:
Well, not quite. Sure, the basic chord-change structure is easy...but if you stop and really listen to these songs, there's actually some real arrangement going on there. How many bar-gig bands have actually learned these (sometimes subtle) particulars? A band will slog into Sweet Home Alabama and even though they have two or three guitars, the cover band won't be playing separate guitar parts anywhere close to the record, instead the cover band's guitars will be just freewheeling the same 3 chords over and over and shove a makeshift guitar solo in the middle of the song--then they'll complain about how they hate to play it. Geez, take a few hours to get it right...intro starts with one guitar picking, then second guitar hits a simple one-string lead, then band comes in, for example (going from memory)--and don't forget the occasional drop to F, some bands haven't even figured out there is an occasional F in the song.
Click to expand...

Very true. First few years I played Sweet Home, I hadn't learned it. Never listened to all that much either, not my type of music nor favorite song. Jammed on the 3 notes like most people I hear doing it. Then I learned it. A whole lot more goin on there than meets the ear. And it's all very well thought out, not improvised.
 
#70
nashvillebill said:
A band will slog into Sweet Home Alabama and even though they have two or three guitars, the cover band won't be playing separate guitar parts anywhere close to the record, instead the cover band's guitars will be just freewheeling the same 3 chords over and over and shove a makeshift guitar solo in the middle of the song--then they'll complain about how they hate to play it. Geez, take a few hours to get it right...intro starts with one guitar picking, then second guitar hits a simple one-string lead, then band comes in, for example (going from memory)--and don't forget the occasional drop to F, some bands haven't even figured out there is an occasional F in the song.
Click to expand...
Hmm, now I wonder if I have it right, I've got that part charted as:
|DC|G FE|
Not just a drop to "F" but "F" to "E" ?
 
#71
Joe Nerve said:
Very true. First few years I played Sweet Home, I hadn't learned it. Never listened to all that much either, not my type of music nor favorite song. Jammed on the 3 notes like most people I hear doing it. Then I learned it. A whole lot more goin on there than meets the ear. And it's all very well thought out, not improvised.
Click to expand...

Agreed. Some of these bass players on these recordings are deceptively intricate and compose great bass lines. I catch a LOT of cover band bass players just going through the motions, skimming the surface, and cheating themselves out of a learning opportunity in the process. Leon Wilkeson (Lynyrd Skynyrd) in particular writes some outstanding lines, and "Sweet Home" is one of them. We just learned "Simple Man," and I always took that song for granted. Three chords, how hard could it be? Well, it took quite a few passes before I faithfully nailed the line and feel he brings to that song.

So it goes with most of these mainstream standards. I catch bass players goofing on "Brick House," "Walk This Way," and the whole list, all the time. Damn boys, learn the line, you might actually appreciate the song!
 
#78
I had forgotten that middle bass change on Sweet Home!

And that's another great example how those little things can really vary the texture of a "plain, simple, boring old song" and make it sound more appealing--and make it more fun to play.

Same way with Brown Eyed Girl, how many bands play the right number of measures before the bass solo, for example?
 
#79
Laklandfan said:
Leon was not on the Pronounced album. Ed King played bass on simple man.:hiding:
Click to expand...

Good tidbit! Thanks for that. Funny, those guys must have had a shared musical mentality, because it sounds like something Leon would do.

EDIT: It seems Leon was, and wasn't, on Prounounced. He recorded two tunes before leaving, then Ed King took over, but according to Wikipedia, "Ed King was asked to fill in for Wilkeson on bass during the remaining sessions, as Wilkeson already wrote many of the bass parts."

Explains a lot.
 

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