The Steel Guitar Forum

Not sure where to post this, but, as with every other country band known to man, my band plays this absolutely horrible song. There's not many country songs I hate as much as this one. I have never been able to come up with anything that sounded good and wasn't embarrassing. I always tell the band that, and they will leave me alone in the song. About every 5th gig or so, the bass player asks if I want a solo, and I say "no". What do you guys play in the song?

I leaned heavily on Tele licks. Played a variation on the melody. Want me to shoot a video next Monday?
You've seen my licks, they're simple.

Hey Rich -
I used to play it like this..
Da Da ///
Da Da ///
Da Da ///
Da Da ///
Da Da ///
Da Da ///
Da Da ///
Keep it simple, that way before you know it, the song is over.
Hope that helps!

Lane... That would be great.

That won't work Bud. They'll just drag the song on longer.

In some bands, I use a rotating speaker effect, and can limp my way through the song if I have to. This band, the lead guitar player also plays keyboards, so the organ stuff is already covered. I was thinking of hooking up my distortion pedal and just start slamming my bar on the strings. That will teach them.

I'll try to hunt down a backing track: if I HAVE to, I'll just use a karaoke youtube. If any of y'all know where to find one, I'd appreciate it.

It's just Pretty Woman done sideways and upside down.

I kinda make something up on the B6 side of a U12. I tried copying the organ figure. Not so much. But you can play fills where the organ does. I find throwing in B6 fills and pads when I don't know what else to do seems to work sometimes.


I also slide from the 10th to the 12th fret on strings 4 & 5 under those bends at the first part of the lead. Careful, though - the guitar player has to be more up in level than you. I tried lowering the B string with that, and it... didn't ... uh work.

There's always the tambourine...

If I get bored with that kind of tune I try to play as un-E9thy as possible. Either some of the B6 side of the Uni or seventh, 9th, and 13th arps and patterns. I have some of my most fun on songs I don't think I like.
If "Fast as You" bugs you, I wonder what happens when "Swingin'" and "Honky Tonk Badonkadonk" rear their heads…

For "Swingin'," I play the hook from either "Satisfaction" or "Achy Breaky"

Now, this is funny to me...

Hi Richard
I'm confused - I thought you also play keyboards...
That song has cool percussive organ parts throughout it. I have a lot of fun playing parts similar to the recording and also jamming out on as many organ solos as they want to give me. If I didn't have my keyboards with me, I would try to approach it on steel as if I were playing the organ parts.
Never mind - I just read the part where you mentioned the guitar player covers the Organ parts!

I play the vamp and/or something very close to the melody. I like this song !

In songs like this I sometimes act like one of my cords died.
It mysteriously starts working again after the song ends.
I do it on Achy Breaky, fast as you and Mustang Sally

As i suck in being creative and ad libbing, the melody line is my friend. I just play the melody, and if no one want to share the break I may play it again from a different grip.

Other than the melody, I am just comping chords and putting in an occasional lick here and there!

Guitars and Cadillac's is worse ! For Fast as you I just hit the distortion pedal and play faux slide guitar. A phaser pedal also helps...

Karen, Guitars and Cadillacs is kinda easy to get audience giggles and a little fun, assuming key of A.
Get bottled drink beforehand¹:
Put drink in bar hand:
Play solo on open strings while drinking the aforementioned drink


¹if you don't do beer, then soda or tea works.
Drinking from a glass takes WAYYY too much attention; you'll either spill it or spend too much attention on not wearing it.

Lane Gray wrote:Karen, Guitars and Cadillacs is kinda easy to get audience giggles and a little fun, assuming key of A.
Get bottled drink beforehand¹:
Put drink in bar hand:
Play solo on open strings while drinking the aforementioned drink


¹if you don't do beer, then soda or tea works.
Drinking from a glass takes WAYYY too much attention; you'll either spill it or spend too much attention on not wearing it.

lol that works !

I need to redo the video I did of "Little Ways" to include the bottle, but it's there with the dreaded glass on my youtube channel.
First time through, I did the baritone guitar ride, second time, I took a drink. Crowd would like it better with you doing it: you're cuter than a 51 year old Allman Brothers refugee.

I'm with you Richard, I absolutely detest that song and to make it even worse, we go into Pretty Woman after last chorus of Fast As You, another song I can do without, LOL
But when I have to take a break, I basically play what the guitar plays using a seventh sound sorta with both E's lowered and both pedals down and sorta work out of that position. I get up and take break when we start Pretty Woman, cause sure can't play it, but don't want to anyway.

I liked playing that song! But,,, I got off the steel, and played my Tele.Loved playing "Little Sister" on my Tele too. I enjoyed doing double duty.

Richard, about 15-20 years ago I played in a top-40, pop country band that covered this song. The band had a great lead guitarist, so he carried much of the song. As for myself, I've always enjoyed blues music, and the vamp in this song is similar to a blues vamp. So I'd just work fills and leads out of the pentatonic scale. One thing about this song; melodically, since it's based around an up tempo vamp, sustained single note passages tend to have a nice contrast to the rhythm. If you distort your sound (just a little) you can get a real stinging sound that the girls just love.

Bottom line: Don't think about how boring this song (and others) can be to play. Try to figure out how to make it un-boring... for yourself if no one else.

Keep on pickin'!
Glenn

By the way. We have a keyboard player, so playing the organ parts is not really an option.

Back when I had to play "Swingin", I used an organ effect called a Junior. Hear it here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BU5sRsg7GeY

Karen Sarkisian wrote:Guitars and Cadillac's is worse ! For Fast as you I just hit the distortion pedal and play faux slide guitar. A phaser pedal also helps...

I can actually come up with stuff for "Guitars and Cadillacs", although I hate it as bad as "Fast as You". I don't think there has been anything Dwight Yoakim has done that I liked. Maybe "I snag Dixie". I was thinking of using distortion and trying to come up with something. But really, if they play it without a steel solo, nobody but the band will care, or even notice. I know I'll be happier.

John Booth wrote:In songs like this I sometimes act like one of my cords died.
It mysteriously starts working again after the song ends.
I do it on Achy Breaky, fast as you and Mustang Sally

I'll hide my bar and tell them I dropped it. I'll have to wait until the song is over to search for it.

Sorry for all the posts. I have been posting as I read each post. I really should have saved them all until I read all the post. But to continue on, thankfully this band doesn't do "Pretty Woman", that I know of anyway. Been with them for around 6 months and have never heard it.

I was kind of thinking of distortion and doing some open string hammer-on stuff with slide guitar stuff added in. I do that on Pride and Joy and it works out great. Unfortunately, in this band, the guitar player's ego (as well as volume) is so out of control on this song, I don't get to do a solo.

What I do now is just play "kind of like" organ parts using the 3,4 & 5 strings using the B pedal and E lower knee lever. I pick from 3 to 5 in succession real fast, along with the tempo, at the 5th fret, and let off those and it just morphs into the A chord. But that doesn't sound good as a solo. When I don't have a keyboard player, I do something like the organ parts using my rotary simulator.

I've tried playing off the melody for a solo, but it didn't sound right to me.

I also might mention that, in this band (6 pieces), me, drummer, girl singer, bass player, male leadsinger that is the leader and main male vocalist, that plays acoustic and Tele, and plays some of the lead guitar parts, like this song, and the lead guitar player who also plays keyboards.

So between the keyboard player and the lead guitar, this song has everything it needs. And unfortunately, this a song the keyboard player sings, and he doesn't sing a whole lot and wouldn't want to give this song up.Plus he get's to blast the whole city out with his excessively loud Hammond XK-1.

I've been known to throw some "Sweet Child of Mine" guitar licks in on this song...pretty much anything but country. Swapping back and forth with a guitarist is also good to do on this song.