{"id":628,"date":"2007-06-08T22:29:26","date_gmt":"2007-06-09T02:29:26","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2009-05-30T15:52:22","modified_gmt":"2009-05-30T15:52:22","slug":"he-s-no-sultan-of-swing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/he-s-no-sultan-of-swing\/","title":{"rendered":"He&#8217;s No Sultan of Swing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It is right to give thanks and praise to the rhythm guitarist who is not concerned with making it &#8220;cry or sing,&#8221; as <strong>Mark Knopfler<\/strong> sang about the guitarist in &#8220;The Sultan of Swing&#8221;, but should we identify and consider lead guitarists who, although skilled in making it cry and sing, do not display much in the way of holding down the rhythm?<br \/><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/CirDwohWt2s?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><br \/>\nEveryone who professes to care about the guy says B.B. King doesn&#8217;t play chords. I have always found his music uninteresting, so I can&#8217;t be bothered worrying too much about him. But he seems to be an example of a lead guitarist who doesn&#8217;t hold down the rhythm. I can&#8217;t say whether his lead playing displays much rhythm; I don&#8217;t stick around long when his songs come on the radio.<\/p>\n<p>I think of <strong>Jeff Beck<\/strong>, though, when I think of this subject. In the Yardbirds, Beck had that knack of soloing and riffing like there was an M-80 stuck up his butt, but his playing always had a choppy feel that didn&#8217;t seem too concerned with swinging along with the rhythm. Can&#8217;t say I&#8217;ve ever spent enough time judging his guitar-synth solo albums with Jan Hammer. Perhaps some of you can fill me in there.<\/p>\n<p><strong>James Williamson<\/strong>, from <em>Raw Power<\/em>-era Stooges, played with little sense of a song&#8217;s rhythm. He was another guy with an M-80 stuck where the sun don&#8217;t shine. What about <strong>Mick Ronson<\/strong>? Pretty great lead fills on those Bowie songs, but pretty choppy during his rare rhythm parts, no?<\/p>\n<p>Guitarheads, does this make any sense? Does anyone come to mind for you? It&#8217;s not necessarily a bad trait, mind you, but it&#8217;s counter to the values so often expressed regarding the merits of the &#8220;dual rhythmic lead guitars&#8221; of The Rolling Stones, Televison, and other bands typically favored by lovers of &#8220;cool&#8221; music. Feel free to be mystified.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It is right to give thanks and praise to the rhythm guitarist who is not concerned with making it &#8220;cry or sing,&#8221; as Mark Knopfler sang about the guitarist in &#8220;The Sultan of Swing&#8221;, but should we identify and consider lead guitarists who, although skilled in making it cry and sing, do not display much <a href='https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/he-s-no-sultan-of-swing\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[342],"tags":[173],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=628"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}