That's not like the record

[Joe Alterio]

For me, I have a lot of respect for the players that go on stage and can pick an intro, outro or solo note for note. And personally, I get a BIG rush out of doing myself onstage. To me, there is nothing like nailing a complicated, yet familiar, lick and getting both the positive audience reaction and that great feeling of confidence and satisfaction from playing it correctly (now, if I mess it up.....well, that's another story!).

A couple of years ago my band shared a job with the Wright Brothers and one of the songs they did was "Misty" (the Ray Stevens version). I remember how I was floored that the steel/banjo player NAILED the intro on the banjo. Then, I recall being disappointed that he didn't do the Jay Dee solo.

So there you have it.....but that's just me. Yeah, I know...."listen to the record, then"....but you know what, I really like hearing it just like the record LIVE, since I am always impressed at the skill it takes those musicians to nail the complicated licks.

One more quick example.....one band I played with always did "You Ain't Goin' Nowhere" and it never sounded quite right. Then, I played it once at a rehearsal with Don Curtis' son Don Jr. on drums. I had given him the Byrds' version of the song to learn how the song goes, and he played it almost exactly the way Michael Clarke played it....and it was GREAT! The drums alone made that song, with some help from the steel. It was wonderful, and I love when it happens live.

[Jim Peters]

So can the singer make up lyrics too? Being faithful to a cover song doesn't necessarily mean note for note. I play songs all night long that have horn parts(we have no horns). When I play with the hippy band( NRPS, BYRDS,etc,) I can't imagine playing Panama Red with anything but Cage's riffs, at least as good as I can play them. Can you guys come up with better ones? I can't.
Once the signature sound of a song is achieved, there is plenty of room for improvisation. But there are groups(jam bands) they are called, whose purpose is to stretch those signatures, indeed it is expected, but a regular cover band has to follow the original song enough for the audience to know the song without too much thought. JP

[Dave Mudgett]

If you want to play for $50.00 a night in front of nobody go ahead and improvise. You'll find that no one will listen to it very long. People want to hear the hit.

Point 1 - I think that is a pretty big overgeneralization. Some people want to hear hits exactly like the record, and others want to hear something different. To me, the key is to find the audience for what one wants to do, not turn oneself inside out trying to figure out what some particular audience wants.

Point 2 - People play for different reasons, and short-term money is not always the main one. I think many professional people would find it very difficult to match their day-gig salary by playing in cover bands, no matter how successful. I, personally, much prefer to be a college teacher than play music I'm not interested in, so the financial incentive just isn't there for me.

Point 3 - I think the big-commercial potential of cover bands is fairly limited. If making a lot of money is the main musical interest, I think most people would probably be better off writing and playing tunes for an original band and shooting for the big-time.

To me, "success" in any field requires that someone understand their own reference point on it - whatever it is - and work assiduously toward that.

[Doug Beaumier]

I have never played in a "cover band", if that means playing note for note every fill, every solo. I refuse to do that. I would quit music before doing that.
There is no need to copy every steel lick note for note. In my opinion, a steel player in a club band should play the signature steel parts on the record, and improvise fills and solos. That does not mean a long jam, that means an 8 bar solo in the style of the original. That's how I've done it for 35 years, 4000 gigs, and it works well for me. Just my opinion of course.

[Bobbe Seymour]

"Annoying line dancers! Ha! Ha! Ha!, I love it Barry!

This is a great thread!

[Bobbe Seymour]

Another short story, back many years ago in Nashville, I was hired by a Nashville record company ("AUDIO Media") to do "sound alike" recordings for truck stops, Cracker Barrell restraunts and such.

The company hired singers that sounded like the original stars, (or very close). I was to cop every lick and play just like the steel player on the original cuts. Pete Drake, Lloyd Weldon Hal and even one some that I did the originals on, and others I didn't recognise. Not a very easy thing to do but it was a lot of fun really, I used my Sho-Bud Crossover on th Drake cuts, Emmons guitar on the Weldon recordings, a LDG on the cuts that "he" did and so on.
I left this series of sessions a better player, and with a new appreciation of my fellow steel guitar players. Really enjoyed the work (and the money). The storyl of this morrie is:
TAKE THE MONEY ANDS RUN! Have fun and try to learn from every thing and every one.

Bobbster

[Tony Prior]

Yes, like Doug is saying, not note for note every song, but certainly close to some of the signature lines, at least the ones that can be the IDENTITY phrases that are key to the song.

No different than a Guitar player playing Sweet Home Alabama, or Cocaine...or Honky Tonk Woman or Satisfaction

no difference..

the Guitar parts are signature to the song....

I'm not saying anyone should play anything note for note, but I do think if you are out playin' and the tune has a well know phrase we should play it or play it close. If you happen to know it spot on then play it spot on, but if we don't even know anything close to it thats a different issue in my view. To me that implies we are jamming with a band that is NOT jamming.

Lets make one thing clear though, I am not talking Kenny Cheesy , McGraw etc...I'm talking classic traditional songs, Jones, Merle, Pride, Price, Paycheck, Tubb, Loretta, Connie Smith etc....


I'll come runnin'
D I V O R C E

for example..

but there is another side here..

If you decide to run with it and play it spot on and there are other Steelers in the room...don't fumble it up ! There will be forgiveness if you play your own thing but none if you play the Loyd lick and fumble it !

[Clyde Mattocks]

I think to a large degree, musicians' perspectives on this are colored by their instrument and what era
and style they formed their musical values. To
comment on Kevin's observation, I have worked with a lot of guitar players from the extended jam school
who could nail every Dicky Betts lick. They closed
their eyes and wailed, oblivious to the fact that
fifteen minutes ago, they had repeated every phrase ten times and the audience was long gone.

[Doug Beaumier]

I have to say... as much as I loved the Allman Bros. 35 years ago when the stuff was new, I can't listen to those extended self-indulgent guitar solos today. That style sounds so dated to me today.

I saw the original Allman Bros. Band with Dwane play at the Paramount Theater in Springfield, Mass. in 1972. The theater was almost empty. There were about 40 people there. They were unknown around here at that time. When I saw the show I became an instant fan. Below is a picture from that performance.

[Herb Steiner]

Just going back over this entire(some) thread that I've no doubt contributed to the overextension thereof, Ben Jones said back on page 3:

lemme try and sum this up:
1. definitive signature licks that are an integral part of the song, especially intros? yes-play it like the record.
2. play the melody?-well duh! but remember theres more than one way to play it
3. Everything else?-unless you are a tribute band, who cares?

Which Ben does sum up quite accurately, IMHO.

As I alluded to long ago, some solos are a significant part of the composition of the song, so without backtracking any of my other opinions subsequently stated, here's an off-the-top-of-my head list of what I think might be required material to know.

To Ben's section 1, I'd say that these intros/solos bear learning to a great degree, not necessarily note-for-note (taking into account the skill level of the player) but close enough to be recognizeable to the knowledgeable civilian:

1. Weldon's intros and solos to the significant Connie Smith early hit recordings, esp. "Once A Day," "I'll Come Running," (good luck!) "If I Talk To Him," "Then and Only Then," et al.;
2. many of Tom Brumley's and Mooney's solos on Buck Owens' recordings, though not necessarily all, but definitely "Together Again";
3. many of Lloyd Green's intros/solos to Faron Young tunes like "Step Aside", Johnny Paycheck's "Jukebox Charlie" "Apt. #9" and "Motel Time", and Charlie Pride songs, among others, and Warner Mack's "Bridge Washed Out";
4. Moon's and Norm's intros/solos to Hag tunes, esp. "The Bottle Let Me Down," "Swinging Doors," and "Big City;
5. many of Buddy's and Jimmy Day's intros/solos to Ray Price tunes, esp. "I Just Destroyed The World," "Crazy Arms," "Heartaches By Number," "Release Me," "City Lights," "Night Life" "The Other Woman," "Touch My Heart," "A Way to Survive," "Different Kind of Flower" and some others;
6. many of Paul F's, Weldon's, and Buddy's solos to George Strait's material, such as "Ace In The Hole";
7. many of Paul F's solos to Alan Jackson tunes, such as "Gone Country";
8. in Texas, the intros/solos to Darrell McCall's "Dreams Of A Dreamer," "I'll Break Out Again Tonight," and Johnny Bush's "Whiskey River;"
9. Hal Rugg's intros to certain Loretta Lynn hits;
10. Pete Drake's solos to Gary Stewart songs like "She's Acting Single," "Out of Hand," and others.

Again, IMHO it's a woefully incomplete list, but even on these, there's plenty of room for creativity and improvisation within these formats.

[Les Anderson]

If you decide to run with it and play it spot on and there are other Steelers in the room...don't fumble it up ! There will be forgiveness if you play your own thing but none if you play the Loyd lick and fumble it !

AMEN to that!!!!!

Words can hurt but looks can crush you.

[Joe Savage]

I've been following along here and I would say I'm in the camp of trying to be accurate with intros and some solos/fills on the classic tunes, but there are times when I just don't know the song. Sometimes I may have never even heard the record. A person just can't know every dang song. It's not possible. I like to learn parts because I enjoy the original parts, and consider them "lessons". But don't hold it against anyone for not.

Here's another question about covering tunes, "Does anyone out there play other instrument parts if they are signature and say for instance you don't have a piano or a fiddle in the band? Do you try to cover those? Or do you just play the steel parts. What if the song doesn't have much of a steel part, do you not play?....... What if you have a lazy guitar player that won't learn parts, do you try to cover those? Aren't the other parts in a song just as important as the steel? I just try to do whatever I feel is necessary to make the tune happen. If that means emulating Buck Trent on a Porter tune, or playing fiddle lines in something else, I dig that type of stuff. I like the details. But it all depends on the band and situation, like has been said before in this thread. Another thing is sometimes, you just can't cover it exactly. The solo on "Cryin' Time" comes to mind.

[Theresa Galbraith]

I'm always knocked out when the band plays it like the record! WOW!

[Theresa Galbraith]

[Dave Mudgett]

Joe brings up an important point about the "lazy guitar player" syndrome - I have also seen this, and I agree that it takes the whole band to agree to learn the parts - it's not just the steel player that matters. But I don't think it's always laziness. Sometimes bands, as a group, decide to do a classic tune differently. One must play something that fits the way the band is doing the tune. Many, many times, it's the band leader or singer that decides how to arrange the tune. No matter how I feel about it, unless I'm the band leader, that decision is often out of my control. Do you really want to play the "correct" head or fill if it clashes with the arrangement?

This all goes to the "When in Rome" argument. Many of you seem to assume that the only context for some of these tunes is in a classic country context. I play quite a few classic country tunes in an Americana or folk-rock context. I think they sound fine, but they sometimes have a quite different feel than in their original context.

These great tunes do not always have to be displayed as museum pieces. They can be a living, breathing part of the current music scene, and not necessarily relics of a past era. Don't get me wrong - I love the original versions of any of the tunes being discussed here and think it's very worthwhile to learn how to do the original arrangements. But I find the level of rigidity some of you advocate quite stifling. I wonder how many people would have ever heard of "Walk, Don't Run" if the Ventures didn't rearrange that Johnny Smith original. Or in the other direction, how about Charlie Parker's rearrangement of classic standards that led to bebop? The music world is replete with interesting arrangments of older tunes, and it's not all garbage.

Up here away from the heart of the classic country music scene - where many people wouldn't know a Ray Price or Merle Haggard tune if it hit them on the side of the head - I don't think most of our younger college-age crowds would go for these classic tunes if they were always done pedantically like their 1950s and 1960s versions. I honestly think that updating them can be a reasonable way to get them exposed in this case. Of course, I agree that sometimes it's good to give them classic versions too. But maybe they're not ready for that until they've heard something they can relate to a bit more easily.

Doug - interesting that you saw the Allmans with Duane in 1972, since he died on October 29, 1971.

Although I agree that sometimes the Allmans could take the jam thing to excess, most of these shows were packed, and I saw them quite a few times in various places - Boston, NY, Cincinatti, and so on, between 1970 and 1973.

Frankly, from a commercial point of view, I think it's clear that this type of music is still highly regarded - the jam band movement? Yeah, I agree it also has excesses, but I'd still rather listen to the better examples of this than most of what's on commercial broadcast radio these days, I'm sorry to say.

The usual "my opinions" disclaimer applies.

[Doug Beaumier]

Doug - interesting that you saw the Allmans with Duane in 1972, since he died on October 29, 1971

oops! Wrong year! Thanks Dave, The Allmans played a couple of times at the Paramount Theater and I listed the wrong show. They also played at the Woodrose Ballroom in S. Deerfield MA back in the day. $2 at the door, and you could walk right up to the stage for a close look! The good olde daze.

[Barry Blackwood]

Dave, so true about bandleaders. Something one of them told me once has stayed with me all my career. This could be a sage advice for any working stiff, not just us musicians. I was told, "I'm not always right, but I'm always the boss."

[Les Anderson]

Do you mean something like my signature?

[Barry Blackwood]

Kinda sorta ....

[Chuck Cusimano]

I guess the lady in the first post must be related to the lady I heard from a couple weeks ago..
We were playing a senior citizen dance in East Fort Worth, and I changed the lyrics on the tag of (Ironicly) "Kiss An Angel Good Morning" to: "Kiss an angel good morning, cuz you're gonna catch the devil when you get back home."

She came to me on break and scolded me for changing the lyrics. At first, I didn't know what to say and started to unload on her and tell her to lighten up, get a life and go home if she didn't like the music, but common sence prevailed, and I just sort of laughed it off, and told her I was an out of work comic, and was practicing my humor, and having fun, and I was sorry if she was offended by my poor judgment.

She bought it, and went and sat down and got out of my face.

It's hard not to get mad at such criticizim, but in the long run, if the audience starts staying home, so will we as musicians. After all, it's ALL ABOUT THEM.

[Barry Blackwood]

Chuck, we're already staying home.

[Jim Sliff]

and he played it almost exactly the way Michael Clarke played it

The drums DO make that song "groove" - except Michael Clarke was long gone from the band.

I'm pretty sure it was Jon Corneal on that track. But that shift to toms on the chorus is just flat essential for it to sound "right" to me. One of those rare cares where I really do like it played like the original.