The Ecstasy of Gold

I found this on the LAist blog, and I'll just wholesale quote from them - sums up my feelings nicely:

Here's a little something to help wash out the taint of Celine Dion's "tribute" to Ennio Morricone at last night's Oscars. Sure, Celine has a great set of pipes. No one will argue that. But her singing? Puke! She might as well have been singing the latest bit of background fodder from American Idol for how much you could tell that it was an Ennio Morricone tune. But that's who Celine Dion is. That's what she does. She slathers a heaping does of blandness and pop schmaltz onto everything she gets her throat on.

Instead of Celine pouting and over-emoting her way through the craptastic "I Knew I Loved You," which was awkwardly set to music from Once Upon A Time In America, we offer you this clip of Morricone himself conducting one of his famous tunes from The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, "The Ecstasy of Gold." You might not know the title, but you'll know the song when you hear it. Why? BECAUSE ENNIO MORRICONE IS A GENIUS, AND THIS IS HOW HIS MUSIC WAS MEANT TO SOUND

Top 20 Guitar Solos - #1: Stairway to Heaven - Jimmy Page

I don't think this is nearly Page's best example, but, it is the best I could find:



The studio version is better, but that's splitting hairs - all in all a great song and solo. The original solo was recorded on a '58 Telecaster. Nice.

I hope you enjoyed this as much as I did. As an extra treat...

I don't know how old this kid is, and I've looked carefully for fakery, but I have not found a whiff... fun to watch:

These vids are so popular that embedding has been disabled, so just click here.

then here,

then here

and finally here for the solo.

The kid seems a little sedated, but WOW.

Top 20 Guitar Solos - #2: Eruption - Eddie Van Halen

This is way too long for my tastes, but Eruption is a classic solo and this clip is fun for it shows Eddie in his heyday, showing off (or being a showman, if you prefer)

Top 20 Guitar Solos - #3: Freebird - Collins / Rossington

You've heard it too many times, I've heard it too many times. It's still a great song and solo, though. Even though there's too many crowd shots in this video, they're fun to watch.

Top 20 Guitar Solos - #4: Comfortably Numb - David Gilmour

A beautiful, tasteful solo - melodic and mournful:

Top 20 Guitar Solos - #5: All Along the Watchtower - Jimi Hendrix

The video and audio is a little crappy, but the solos on this are, indeed, amazing. From the Atlanta Pop Festival, summer of 1970, apparently - the original poster didn't put it in the title, but the comments on the YouTube post seem to nail down the show - can't be sure.



FWIW, I dedicate every song to the girl with the purple underwear.

Top 20 Guitar Solos - #6: November Rain - Slash

I pretty much hate Axl Rose, I like Slash, and the coda solo at the end is quite good, but this isn't the solo I would have picked for him. Not #6. No way. IMHOYMMV!

Top 20 Guitar Solos - #7: One - Kirk Hammet

6 degrees of Bob Daisley. As B$X aptly pointed out in the comments for #9, Crazy Train, Bob Daisley's bass tracks were removed when they remastered the classic Ozzy Osbourne albums. Who rerecorded these? Rob Trujillo - Judas bassist reprising his role here in Metallica, after they jettisoned Jason Newsted.

Just kidding (about the Judas reference, not the facts, ma'am). He's a great bass player.

Even though I like Metallica, I think this is a lesser example of the Guitar World "fast, flash, but soulless" problem. I don't like the song much, either.

So shoot me.

Top 20 Guitar Solos - #8: Hotel California - Don Felder / Joe Walsh

This is a very melodic, tasteful solo or perhaps it should be a duet? As an aside, I've never understood why someone would kill themselves with a double-neck guitar. Do you really need to play a 12 string guitar and a 6 string in the same song? Especially when there's TWO other guitar players?

Aside from that nitpicking, this is always fun to hear. Great song, too.

Top 20 Guitar Solos - #9: Crazy Train - Randy Rhoads

Forgive the XMen 3 advert at the beginning, but the pickings were slim for this solo:



I love this song, and the solo is fairly tasteful. Now if only the bass player would get a clue. And the cameraman.

Whoops!

I am definitely going to guitar hell for this. I must have been asleep on Thursday - I skipped over Chuck Berry at #12 with Johnny B. Goode!

I know, I know. Unforgiveable. At any rate, click here to see that post.

Top 20 Guitar Solos - #10: Crossorads - Eric Clapton

Good clip of Cream. Being a bassist, I think Bruce's slides, although expertly done, are a little cheesy and used too much. Clapton's playing is clean, although perhaps a little too technical. Eh, what do I know? Listen for yourself:

Top 20 Guitar Solos - #11: Voodoo Chile - Jimi Hendrix

I stand up next to a mountain
chop it down with the edge of my hand...

I mentioned the original source of these videos in the first post for this year, with the #20 pick, City Rag.

Kudos to the concept, which I'm shamelessly copying here, but they get a D for execution. They obviously picked the first video they could find. In their link for today's post, it cuts out halfway through the solo! Other links provided half-assed videos as well, so I've made an attempt to do it right and cull the best videos I can find for each solo.

My 2 readers might appreciate this.

So... Jimi at Woodstock. Full strength at 8:52.




Um, you're not sick of me gushing about SRV are you? His version is, well, great, too.

Top 20 Guitar Solos - #12: Johnny B. Goode - Chuck Berry

All of Chuck Berry's songs are basically the same, but when then they're this good, who cares? Love the dancers and Chuck's facial expressions: