“I just go where the guitar takes me.”
- Angus Young
Today is the birthday of musician, guitar player, Elliott Randall. He was born in 1947. It's doubtful you know his name but you likely know his work, especially one specific thing.
It was August of 1972, and Donald Fagen and Walter Becker were a band in the making, one that would soon become known as Steely Dan. They were in the studio putting together what would be their first album, Can't Buy a Thrill. One song in particular was causing problems. They could not get an intro they thought worked. They called in an assortment of players who took different stabs at it with various instruments, but nothing hit the mark. Finally they called in a friend, Elliott Randall, a guitar player they'd worked with before. They told him to give it a spin and see what happens. Randall listened to the tracks of the song that had been recorded to get a feel and then said, “Let's go.”
He then played his guitar part through, start to finish. There were several moments of silence following, and then the engineer, in a fit of rapture, jumped up and yelled into the playback mic, “That's it! That's it! “That's the one!” Not just the intro but the whole amazing thing, solo, outro, everything. The lore has always been that Elliott Randall's near supernatural guitar take on that song, Reelin' in the Years, was done on the very first pass. That's not true. It turns out the assistant sound engineer had forgotten to press “RECORD” on the first one. It was lost to the angels. As Randall said of the ghost track, “What it sounded like we'll never know.” But a second take was done, again straight through, and that is the one that exists in rock history. I don't know how the first one could have been any better.
Jimmy Page has called Randall's solo on the song his favorite of all time. When Jimmy Page says that, well…The solo and the intro rank high on the list of “Bests" for many folks - for more than a few, the intro is as iconic and recognizable as Beethoven's 5th.
Jimmy Page's comment on the solo got me to thinking. Notice he didn't say he considered it “the best” or the most “technically skillful” or “the fastest” - he said it was his favorite. A solo can be technically amazing but void of any soul. Good and great guitar solos connect emotionally in some way with the listener. As it's been said, “It's a conversation within a conversation.” What speaks to anyone in particular is like everything else with music. It's a mystery.
If I were asked to list my Top-100 favorite guitar solos, I couldn't do it. I would need three times that without feeling cheated. I would start with every solo, and note for that matter, that Mark Knopfler ever played. He exists, in a transcendent realm as far as I'm concerned. Sui generis.
But there are countless others. I'm sure you have them - specific players that you love most everything they do. And then there are one-offs, those you don't know by name even, but you sure know that one solo. Example: I can't tell you without looking it up, the Knack's guitar player, but I know every note of that blistering solo of his on My Sharona.
I will offer up now, a favorite solo of mine. It's off Lynyrd Skynyrd's third album, Nuthin' Fancy. Along with Allen Collins and Gary Rossington, Big Ed King filled out that trio of monster players in the band. Unlike the others in the group, King wasn't from a hardscrabble Jacksonville, FL neighborhood. He was from California and had previously played in The Strawberry Alarm Clock (Incense & Peppermint). As an outsider joining the band, he had trouble meshing with the rough and rowdy, hard-livin', hard-partying Skynyrd lifestyle. Nuthin Fancy was the last of the three albums he played on. But he left his mark before he departed. He co-wrote several songs you might be familiar with: Sweet Home Alabama (That's his riff), Saturday Night Special, Workin' For the MCA and others.
Of Skynyrd's three guitarists in those years, King was, to me, the most melodic. I think the solo on this relatively unknown song is a showcase for that. It's one I never tire of hearing. It makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck. The solo starts 1:55 but don't limit your listening to that, take it all in.
Here's to Elliott Randall, Ed King and all the other players that have strapped on six-strings and made us feel something we can't quite explain.
The floor is open for favorites.