nineties kid Alex Niven with a wonderfully heterodox selection of Britpop-era lead gtr bits (but i will not, on principle, click on a Dodgy uToobclip, sorry)
damnit Carl beats me to "Reeling in the Years"
while we're in the lyrical-yet-stirring zone
Mr Robbie Krieger!
a very under-rated guitarist
on the solo-ing front, overshadowed by the inordinate largesse and floridity of Ray Manzarek, the obviously most striking instrumental presence in the Doors
(cf Hugh Cornwell, whose own endowments were overshadowed not just by Dave Greenfield's mighty organ but Jean-Jacques Burnel's throbbing and jutting bass)
but Mr Krieger did any number of lovely and clever lead guitar bits, i'm picking this one only because i just recently heard it on the radio
(solo starts about 3-15)
here's a live version
Another Los Angeles myth-band, another lyrical-yet-stirring solo... can we call this a solo?.... it's more like a geyser, or the heavens suddenly parting to let gush down this cascading iridescence... Lyndsey playing the Morse Code of the heart
love the song but wait all the way through just for the solo-not-solo, which always comes in just a little bit later than i expect
start listening around 3 minutes and see if you are wrong-footed too
(great overblown kitsch period piece video of course)
now what is Lyndsey playing here... it almost sounds like pedal steel... but it's not, judging by this live version
this song, and others on a mixtape we named Stevie ♥ Lyndsey, soundtracked one of the best holidays of our lives, driving through the South West, Arizona and New Mexico, which meant we actually passed through Stevie country (Nicks spent much of her youth in Phoenix, AZ, and Albuquerque, NM)
Lyndsey in general, and "Gypsy" in particular, is among an extremely restricted contingent of guitar solos my wife actively enjoys... otherwise she is quite the solo-phobe, reacting to e.g. Clapton as if affronted, almost the musical equivalent of a flasher in a dirty mac... the gendering of solo-love (and solo-emission) is something that i expect we will have to address at some point, but later for that...
