Ok what is your favorite solo in a song - any era....

[cnynhiker]

Anything by Jimmy Paige........

 

[rabia]

i really like beautiful liar by beyonce and shakira.....

 

[fat_fleet]

Yeah Beyonce is like a guitar god

 

[Track Rat]

You must spread some rep before giving it to fat_fleet again.

 

[DrumRookie]

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Track Rat again.

 

[fat_fleet]

You must spread some rep before giving it to DrumRookie again.

 

[timtimtim]

These are songs not solos: Winter Wine by Caravan, Scarborough Fair by Simon and Garfunkel, Ys by Alain Styvell, Rose Hip November by Vashyi Bunyan, Guinnevere by Crosby Stills and Nash

 

[grimtraveller]

i really like beautiful liar by beyonce and shakira.....

Does it have solos ?

These are songs not solos: Winter Wine by Caravan, Scarborough Fair by Simon and Garfunkel, Ys by Alain Styvell, Rose Hip November by Vashyi Bunyan, Guinnevere by Crosby Stills and Nash

What has that to do with favourite solos from any era ? If you're just going to name favourite songs or not remain on topic, you might as well start naming your favourite slippers.

 

[grimtraveller]

George Harrison on "Old Brown Shoe". I first thought Clapton did it. I believe it was the B side to "Lady Madonna".

It was the B side to "The ballad of John and Yoko" {His "The inner light" was Madonna's B side}. Fantastic song and groovy solo. All the way through, the bass and guitar play the same line which accounts for the really punchy bass sound.

Kate Bush - Wuthering Heights (guitar solo at the end of the song)

I like that solo. I thought I'd read that it was David Gilmour but it wasn't. There's 2 versions of it though, because I have them both and on one of them, the solo is not prominent at all. I think it was rerecorded or remixed for one of her hits albums because you really hear it then.

Rolling Stones - Sympathy For the Devil (what a great spiky lead guitar sound)

There's this really weird film of the same name {originally it was called "One plus one"} by some French avant garde filmmaker, Jean Luc Goddard, in which the evolution of this song is interspersed with the "action", such as it is. It is one of the most fascinating documents of the song creation process in the studio and you see it change from a folk ballad with Mick Jagger playing acoustic guitar through some other versions before finally arriving at the samba version. The guitar solo was one of the first solos that ever took my notice.

Kinks - You Really Got Me

The subject of much controversy over the years, for decades it was rumoured that Jimmy Page played the solo {and that Jon Lord plays the piano. In fact, he says it himself} but both Ray and Dave Davies are adamant neither is the case. In fact Dave gets rather shirty about it but insists, it's his solo. One of the landmark tones in the evolution of heavy metal.

The Who - My Generation (bass solo)

Even to this day, this outrageous solo sounds fresh and here's a thing - not out of place or unusual, which bass solos so often do. Without "You really got me", this song wouldn't have existed, certainly not in the form in which it did. But the Who took that blueprint and shredded it to pieces. I can see why Roger Daltrey called the Who "the original Japanse thinking machine - you invent it, we'll copy it". The solo and the bass in general was a major turning point in British rock bass playing.

Ringo's long drum solo on Abbey Road

He hated drum solos and was very reluctant to do them. According to Mark Lewisohn the Beatle chronicler, listening to the 8 track tape shows that this may not have been a solo because there's a full band playing during it and was cut out during the mix.

Fleetwood Mac - The Chain (guitar solo)

Another brilliant guitar solo that unfortunately gets overlooked because of the riff that it solos to. Lindsey Buckingham was one of those guys that so wrote great songs, sang well and was a whizz in the studio etc that his actual guitar playing is often the last thing you think of when he springs to mind.

I would say the string section to Dust in the Wind by Kansas is really good.

I think it was Robbie Steinhardt doing both viola and violin. He really was my intro into rock violin and without him, Kansas would've been really good - but not great.

The Beatles - Love you to.

Growing up in England in the 70s, there was alot of anti Indian/Pakistani/Bangladesh sentiment from white and black people and people used to make alot of fun of Indian music. I know for me, alot of the barriers came down at 13-14, thanks in no small measure to the Beatles appropriation of Indian instruments and music.
It's still not clear whether George Harrison or some uncredited sitarist plays the solo here but either way, it's a fantastic one. If you really listen to it, it's so unusual in the way it twists, turns and meanders with intent and is far and away more adventurous than anything Lennon or McCartney had come up with up to that point. But they were and still are the critics fave rave so the myth of their superiority persists.

Hotel California dueling guitar solo/duet

From the moment the song starts, it's something special and it just builds and builds until you think it can go no further.....then that solo/duet comes to take it into the stratosphere. Where the engineer chose to fade it alone should've netted him a grammy !

..organ solo in House of the Rising Sun--the Animals

I think the Beatles did some brilliant stuff in 1963 as did the Hollies. But for me, the first truly great British rock single of the second generation of rock'n'rollers was this one, an absolute masterpiece. The riff is to kill for, the solo to die for.They never got close to being this good again, in my opinion.

I think I'm much more a "riff person" than a solo person.

I can't decide. I love both aspects to the hilt. But I guess if you put a gun to my hardware and said "Decide !", the riff would win, but only just, by the hair of a bald headed woman.

 

[grimtraveller]

Okay - Richie Blackmore - Smoke on the Water comes to mind...

On the Machine Head documentary, the engineer Martin Birch said that although some of Purples solos were constructed of different ones put together, generally, Blackmore would just improvise them on the fly.
I dig this solo but my favourite version is the "Made in Japan" one and it's superceded by Jon Lord's organ at the end {that sounds gross }. Actually, for me one of the great features in Purple were the solo duels between Blackmore and Lord, going right back to "And the address" and others on the first album.

Hocus Pocus - Focus

This would be an all time classic for me were it not for the yodelling. It literally makes my nerves crawl.The playing is incendiary though and it's a great track.

Stairway to Heaven - still does it to me too, probably because it was one of the first ones I learned as a young laddie

This song reminds me of "Hotel California" in it's build up to completeness. It is interesting to me that the song Zeppelin used to be so heavilly feted for was not one of their heavy rockers but this one. It kind of says something about the versatility of Zeppelin lovers.
It's a great solo. When Jimmy Page used to rip into his solos, John Paul Jones used to play the most fantastic bass parts that really gave the solos some body. They were almost solos in themselves. But not on this one. Apart from a couple of places where he does a quick flourish, the bass part during the solo is only three notes !

Alvin Lee was one of my all time favs. "Goin' Home" still gets me wet.

The first time I heard "Goin' home" on the Woodstock film, I thought it was an awesome piece of soloing. But it's one of the few songs ever that I've once liked and grown to indifference about. I find it quite bland.
Alvin Lee felt it was a millstone round his neck, in the end.

the solo in Everyday by Slade has always been a fav of mine - much more pop than anything else but that's a good thing in its own way. The solo was played by the bassist - Jim (Whild) Lea.
SLADE-Everyday - YouTube
'Tain't exciting or dexterous - it has always struck me as right for the song & that's the point in the musical sense isn't it.

Again, a simple, great solo and short, to boot. Pop singles used to have these brilliant short solos on them. When you'd be singing or humming the song, you'd hum the solo too. It was that much part of the song.

I dig are the solo in Come Up & See Me by Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel because it was so outlandish to throw a melodic classical guitar bit in there as well as how good it sounds in the song.

Wicked song ! The intro is absolutely fantastic and the lyric and chorus top notch. It has a lovely breezy light feel and the acoustic guitar solo is so beautifully lightweight. It sounds like a lazy summer song but it's a bitter tirade against the original members of Cockney Rebel. Harley thought the members that quit the band had abandoned him and he thought they'd never make it outside of Cockney Rebel so he was saying to them "when you do make it, come up and see me - make me smile" - very sarcastic. The solo was him sticking to his guns because he never felt electric lead guitars fitted in with the bands' sound.

Greg Rolie's organ solo in the studio version of Soul Sacrifice is great. Greg did a lot of good solos on those early Santana albums.

He certainly did. As neat as Carlos' guitar playing is on the first two albums, the conga players and Rolie's organ were the definitive sounds of Santana. They were a unique band in their sound. Often when the 'great keyboardists' of rock are spoken of, one rarely hears Gregg Rolie's name mentioned. I'm baffled as to why. He was brilliant.

 

[DrumRookie]

On the Machine Head documentary, the engineer Martin Birch said that although some of Purples solos were constructed of different ones put together, generally, Blackmore would just improvise them on the fly.
I dig this solo but my favourite version is the "Made in Japan" one and it's superceded by Jon Lord's organ at the end {that sounds gross }. Actually, for me one of the great features in Purple were the solo duels between Blackmore and Lord, going right back to "And the address" and others on the first album.

This would be an all time classic for me were it not for the yodelling. It literally makes my nerves crawl.The playing is incendiary though and it's a great track.This song reminds me of "Hotel California" in it's build up to completeness. It is interesting to me that the song Zeppelin used to be so heavilly feted for was not one of their heavy rockers but this one. It kind of says something about the versatility of Zeppelin lovers.
It's a great solo. When Jimmy Page used to rip into his solos, John Paul Jones used to play the most fantastic bass parts that really gave the solos some body. They were almost solos in themselves. But not on this one. Apart from a couple of places where he does a quick flourish, the bass part during the solo is only three notes !

The first time I heard "Goin' home" on the Woodstock film, I thought it was an awesome piece of soloing. But it's one of the few songs ever that I've once liked and grown to indifference about. I find it quite bland.
Alvin Lee felt it was a millstone round his neck, in the end.

Again, a simple, great solo and short, to boot. Pop singles used to have these brilliant short solos on them. When you'd be singing or humming the song, you'd hum the solo too. It was that much part of the song.Wicked song ! The intro is absolutely fantastic and the lyric and chorus top notch. It has a lovely breezy light feel and the acoustic guitar solo is so beautifully lightweight. It sounds like a lazy summer song but it's a bitter tirade against the original members of Cockney Rebel. Harley thought the members that quit the band had abandoned him and he thought they'd never make it outside of Cockney Rebel so he was saying to them "when you do make it, come up and see me - make me smile" - very sarcastic. The solo was him sticking to his guns because he never felt electric lead guitars fitted in with the bands' sound.


He certainly did. As neat as Carlos' guitar playing is on the first two albums, the conga players and Rolie's organ were the definitive sounds of Santana. They were a unique band in their sound. Often when the 'great keyboardists' of rock are spoken of, one rarely hears Gregg Rolie's name mentioned. I'm baffled as to why. He was brilliant.

It was the B side to "The ballad of John and Yoko" {His "The inner light" was Madonna's B side}. Fantastic song and groovy solo. All the way through, the bass and guitar play the same line which accounts for the really punchy bass sound.

I like that solo. I thought I'd read that it was David Gilmour but it wasn't. There's 2 versions of it though, because I have them both and on one of them, the solo is not prominent at all. I think it was rerecorded or remixed for one of her hits albums because you really hear it then.There's this really weird film of the same name {originally it was called "One plus one"} by some French avant garde filmmaker, Jean Luc Goddard, in which the evolution of this song is interspersed with the "action", such as it is. It is one of the most fascinating documents of the song creation process in the studio and you see it change from a folk ballad with Mick Jagger playing acoustic guitar through some other versions before finally arriving at the samba version. The guitar solo was one of the first solos that ever took my notice.The subject of much controversy over the years, for decades it was rumoured that Jimmy Page played the solo {and that Jon Lord plays the piano. In fact, he says it himself} but both Ray and Dave Davies are adamant neither is the case. In fact Dave gets rather shirty about it but insists, it's his solo. One of the landmark tones in the evolution of heavy metal.Even to this day, this outrageous solo sounds fresh and here's a thing - not out of place or unusual, which bass solos so often do. Without "You really got me", this song wouldn't have existed, certainly not in the form in which it did. But the Who took that blueprint and shredded it to pieces. I can see why Roger Daltrey called the Who "the original Japanse thinking machine - you invent it, we'll copy it". The solo and the bass in general was a major turning point in British rock bass playing.He hated drum solos and was very reluctant to do them. According to Mark Lewisohn the Beatle chronicler, listening to the 8 track tape shows that this may not have been a solo because there's a full band playing during it and was cut out during the mix.Another brilliant guitar solo that unfortunately gets overlooked because of the riff that it solos to. Lindsey Buckingham was one of those guys that so wrote great songs, sang well and was a whizz in the studio etc that his actual guitar playing is often the last thing you think of when he springs to mind.

I think it was Robbie Steinhardt doing both viola and violin. He really was my intro into rock violin and without him, Kansas would've been really good - but not great.

Growing up in England in the 70s, there was alot of anti Indian/Pakistani/Bangladesh sentiment from white and black people and people used to make alot of fun of Indian music. I know for me, alot of the barriers came down at 13-14, thanks in no small measure to the Beatles appropriation of Indian instruments and music.
It's still not clear whether George Harrison or some uncredited sitarist plays the solo here but either way, it's a fantastic one. If you really listen to it, it's so unusual in the way it twists, turns and meanders with intent and is far and away more adventurous than anything Lennon or McCartney had come up with up to that point. But they were and still are the critics fave rave so the myth of their superiority persists.

From the moment the song starts, it's something special and it just builds and builds until you think it can go no further.....then that solo/duet comes to take it into the stratosphere. Where the engineer chose to fade it alone should've netted him a grammy !I think the Beatles did some brilliant stuff in 1963 as did the Hollies. But for me, the first truly great British rock single of the second generation of rock'n'rollers was this one, an absolute masterpiece. The riff is to kill for, the solo to die for.They never got close to being this good again, in my opinion.
I can't decide. I love both aspects to the hilt. But I guess if you put a gun to my hardware and said "Decide !", the riff would win, but only just, by the hair of a bald headed woman.

Does it have solos ?

What has that to do with favourite solos from any era ? If you're just going to name favourite songs or not remain on topic, you might as well start naming your favourite slippers.

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to grimtraveller again.

 

[bouldersoundguy]

How can this not depend on mood and the situation? I can go for anything from Southern Man to the entire Surfing With the Alien LP depending on whether I'm in a mood for feel or technique. Sometimes all I want to hear is Charlie Parker, sometimes I can't bear to listen to jazz. This entire concept of "best" (or even "favorite") is flawed. It's a moving target that will render the opinion of the moment obsolete with time.

 

[rustman]

When I mentioned "Wuthering Heights" by Kate Bush I ment the original LP version with the guitar solo loud and yes, it wasn't Gilmour but Ian Bairnson. How much I like Kate's music I have always wondered how she can get good guitar players (Gilmour and Jeff Beck to name a few) to play so meanigless notes.

One more great guitar solo: Lucinda Williams; Seeing Black (I guess Elvis Costello plays it).

Add: To bouldersoundguy
You are definitely right. Everything depends on the mood you're in. And my favourites change daily.

 

[grimtraveller]

How can this not depend on mood and the situation? I can go for anything from Southern Man to the entire Surfing With the Alien LP depending on whether I'm in a mood for feel or technique.

The solo on "Southern man" is a real burner. That's what actually attracted me to the song in the first place. I was in some second hand record shop and the guy behind the counter had it on. After about 5 minutes I asked him who it was and got quite a surprize when he said 'Neil Young'.

You are definitely right. Everything depends on the mood you're in. And my favourites change daily.

The way I listen to music is ever so random. It's very rare that I'm the mood for something specific. What I do is grab about 6 tapes {mostly C120s with 2-3 albums on them} and put them in the glove compartment of the van I drive. And as it's dark when I leave home, I randomly grab one and slot it in. as I'm loading up or driving, I see how quickly I can identify the group if it isn't obvious after five seconds. So I have to tune my mind to whatever's playing. Sometimes, I'll listen to one particular song on said album for (or the album itself) for days on end and really dissect them. I once listened to Chante Moore's "Am I losing you" for nearly 10 hours. I had to force myself to move to the next song !

I have always wondered how she can get good guitar players (Gilmour and Jeff Beck to name a few) to play so meaningless notes.

Well, she wrote some fantastic songs back in the day and she had known Gilmore a long time. It was through him that she was able to put a demo together.
As for meaningless notes, I don't think there is such a thing. Even in a meandering jazz improvisation. That said, the notes don't take on importance until afterwards.
Sometimes a solo grabs you, not because of the number of notes or technical dexterity or even it's sweet melody {it may be anything but sweet and melodic} but simply because it does. Like these ones. I can't tell you why it gets me. Nor do I care. It just does.

 

[rustman]

I'm aware of the Bush/Gilmour connection and I admire Gilmour's playing on his solo albums and in Pink Floyd. Still in my standards it's even more strange to play lifeless notes to fill the space on Kates albums. I admire Kate Bush a lot, have been a fan since the first album, but the electric guitar parts on her albums have been the weak link starting from "Red Shoes" album (my opinion, I don't expect anyone else to agree). I haven't heard her latest album "50 words for snow" which has received praise all over. Got to get a grip and get it...

Enough about KB. She'll stay in my heart forever.

I think there are lot of guitarists playing meaningless, lifeless notes and music. Some are playing by vision and blocks on the fretboard rather than listening and interacting with the story within the music and other players. The more years pass the more and more humble it makes me in front of the big mystery of music. Just one note played in a certain way can say so much... In my mind music is not a speed contest, either. Who is the fastest guitarslinger and such nonsense. I must admit I'm oldfashioned and I like players who are playing what's right for the music, not for they egos. Luckily there are lot of those...
George Harrison, Mike Campbell, John Fogerty, Ry Cooder, Angus Young, B.B.King, Robbie Robertson, Bob Dylan (yes I like his playing, too) or, it can be the street busker who has never been able make an album. The list is endless and growing

Neil Young has played tons of great stuff. How about "Cinnamon Girl"?

 

[rustman]

Got to write another short reply. Now I've got 10 messages full.

I totally agree with grimtraveller. If something sonds good it does. I don't either care why I like something or not. I'm so happy I'm not a teenager anymore and I can happily listen whatever I want and don't have to go with the crowd ( not that I did it even when I was young). I like different styles and artists from classical and film music to folk, ethnic, punk, folk, country, disco, metalwhatever. If I like it.

Deep Purple: Highway star (guitar and organ solos, and boy, what a drummer)

 

[Middleman3]

Dude. Guitar solo in Mad About You. Sting bro.

 

[Supercreep]

Kid Charlemagne, SD.

If I have to pick one.

 

[AtoDeficient]

"Spooky", the Atlanta Rhythm Section. . . they released two guitar solo versions, but you know the good one when you hear it. . .

Too many other guitar favorites to list, but Hotel California is near the top.. .

For piano, Skynyrd's Billy Powell on Call Me The Breeze was amazing. . . I swear he had more than ten fingers.

 

[samclements]

Under a Glass Moon - Dream Theater

There is a song on GnR Chinese democracy, I think it is "This I love", but Im not sure,
but anyways, the solo in that is fantastic!