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My Influences and Inspirations: Music has played a major part in my life and it has been an evolutionary process for as long as I can remember. My musical influences have been diverse and certainly not only from guitarists. Most of my ideas for soloing came from horn players and my chord voicings are more akin to piano than guitar. Listening to drummers and bass players helped my rhythm playing and, since I was a singer before I played guitar, I learned a lot about melody and phrasing from vocalists. As a teenager in the 50's, I was naturally attracted to Rock & Roll and most of my "heroes" were side-men to the 'Stars': Scotty Moore (Elvis), Cliff Gallup (Gene Vincent) and James Burton (Rick Nelson). Lateron there was Hank Marvin, Lonnie Mack, the Ventures and Steve Cropper (Booker T & the MG's). I stopped listening to Rock & Roll in 1960, because the music became insipid. It had lost its original energy and rawness. We didn't own a record player until 1959. When we finally got one, my uncle dropped off some 78's and LP's by Louis Armstrong, Glenn Miller ...etc. I played those records so much, I could actually sing all the sax and trumpet solos! Two years later I started listening to Jazz - Kenny Burrell and Wes Montgomery, quite a contrast to to the stuff I did with the band. My taste for Rock & Roll was rekindled by the Beatles, Kinks, Animals, Manfred Mann and so on. The Beatles influenced me more with their song-writing than their playing. The Blues also came to me via the British groups. From 1966 until now, I virtually never listened to the radio, except for Blues and Jazz programs, which usually aired on community stations. Instead I got into records by groups and artists like Tony Joe White, B. S. & T., James Taylor, Jethro Tull, Chicago (I, II & III), Traffic, Bonnie Raitt, the Allman Brothers, Pink Floyd, Little Feat, Santana, Steely Dan and a lot of Blues, the three "Kings" (B.B., Albert and Freddie). In the mid- 70's I got into Fusion (Crusaders, LA Express...etc.), Funk, Rufus, Average White Band, Tower of Power, then I switched to Country Rock and what is now called "Roots Music." Dire Straits were one of my favourites in the 80's, along with Robben Ford, Frank Marino, S.R.V, Robert Cray, Eric Clapton and Pat Metheny. I also started to listen to a lot of accoustic stuff and developed an interest in World Music. My playing style is basically a fusion of all the music that influenced me over the years. I never bother with copying other players, not even the ones I cite as influences. To me, working out licks note for note is boring and time consuming. I'm more interested in the way musicians tell their story in a solo - the essence, the overall feel of what they're creating, rather than just the notes they play. As a vocalist, I tend to favour a more melodic approach to my guitar playing and that helped me a lot in the early days, because I used to "sing" the solos to myself as I was playing them. Rhythmic phrasing and the use of dynamics is also important, it's like talking, you know, emphasizing some notes and backing off on others, instead of blurting out a barrage of notes or lines like machine gun fire. There are literally thousands of musicians that inspire me, past and present. It would be an impossible task to name them all, in fact it's easier to list the ones I don't like - but I won't go there! When I talk about music or musicians, I prefer not to use the word "Best." After all, who has the authority to say who's the "Best"? I know what I like/don't like, that's my choice. At the same time, I believe there's "good" and "bad" music (well-played or badly-executed), just as there is "Great" and "mediocre". In any case, musicians should have 'reasonable' mastery on their instruments and that should be a minimum requirement. Unfortunately in the Music Business, where Image and Hype take precedence over Ability, a lot of "bad" players are getting away with murder! (killing the music!!). Having said all that, let's look at some "Great" musicians. I'll start with four guitarists who had perhaps the biggest impact on me when I started playing guitar: B.B. KING: The man responsible for me "getting serious" about guitar playing! B.B. says more with one note than most guitarists try to achieve with a hundred. Listening to B.B. taught me a lot about dynamics and how to get the most out of a solo by using a minimum of notes. I have a fairly comprehensive selection of B.B.'s music, from his earliest work to his more recent recordings, but I think his playing really peaked during the sessions between 1969 - 70, with Bill Szymczyk as his producer. When I saw Buddy Guy in concert in 1973, I thought B.B. couldn't possibly match that intensity. A year later I saw B.B. King Live and the power I experienced that night, left me gobsmacked for days! KENNY BURRELL: The first time I heard Kenny, was on "Blues for Del" with Jimmy Smith (from the LP "Blue Bash"). I loved the lyrical, melodic and bluesy feel he introduced to Jazz. Wes Montgomery was also a great influence and I still get some mileage out of playing 'octave runs' (who doesn't?), but I have a real affinity towards Kenny Burrell's playing. I was fortunate to catch Kenny at a Live concert in Melbourne back in 1972, along with Jimmy Smith, Roy Haynes, Paul Desmond, Dave Bruebeck and Gerry Mulligan. It was an unforgettable experience for me to hear these legendary musicians perform together in one concert, since they all played a major part in influencing my musical direction. CARLOS SANTANA: Here's another guy with a totally unique "voice" on the guitar. I was touring South-East Asia in 1970, when I first heard "Black Magic Woman" and I couldn't believe my ears! I was familiar with Peter Green's version, but this was like - Wow! - Latin music with blues-tinged lead guitar! I love Carlos' melodic lines, the energy and feeling he injects into every note. He is a very passionate, soulful musician and really "shines" in ballads. One of my favourites is "Bella" (Blues for Salvador), a tune he wrote for his daughter. Something else that really inspires me about Carlos is the way he keeps evolving, incorporating current ideas without compromising his individuality. CHARLIE BYRD: My first influence on accoustic guitar, Charlie Byrd's mastery on his instrument was like an instructional encyclopedia for me. He was the first guy I heard play melody, chords and bass simultaneously. Charlie was mostly noted for his Bossa Nova playing, but he was equally at home with Swing and the Blues. I only ever had three formal lessons in my life and they were from a Flamenco guitarist. Due to constant touring with the band, I couldn't continue. Anyhow, those three lessons were my introduction to finger-style playing. I managed to get hold of some written arrangements for Jazz standards which I taught myself to play on nylon string guitar, all the while thinking about how Charlie would approach these songs, so yeah, he was a tremendous influence on me 40 years ago. These days there are many accoustic players with awesome techniques and innovative ideas, but Charlie Byrd was definitely a pioneer in that department.
As I mentioned before, my sources of inspiration are not entirely from guitarists. A great deal of what I learned about chord voicings came from piano/keyboard players, especially when I did the studio sessions. I hardly ever use Barre chords, I can get a better groove going by 'comping' with three notes on the lower strings, they sound really fat and suit just about any style, even Rock. I use different inversions too, like with the third, fifth, or seventh on the bottom, create moving bass lines. All those ideas come from the piano - Ray Charles, George Duke, Otis Spann, Eddie Boyd, Dr. John, Chuck Leavell, and so on. Listening to sax players expanded my vocabulary for soloing ideas. It's a whole different way of "talking" and it got me out of being too cliche. John Coltrane, Paul Desmond, Jr. Walker, David Sanborn and Mike Brecker are just a few examples. Violin music is another good source, check out Don 'Sugar Cane' Harris, Stephane Grappelli and Jean Luc Ponti for some neat guitar ideas. Music affects us all personally in different ways. There's really no right or wrong way, it's whatever moves us and that's OK, as long as we don't push our values on someone else. By that I mean, just because you like Eminem, don't put down someone who's still stuck in the Elvis mode. So, it's basically whatever makes you happy - the same goes for musicians too. Some aspire to reach Hendrix potential, while others are content to play "Apache" for the rest of their lives. Musicians choose their own influences, just like audiences pick their artists. Music is a bit like food - "you are what you eat!" (there's a lot of junk food in music too!!). When we start off learning to play, most of us want to be like our "heroes". But remember, our heroes might have had several influences to achieve their style/sound. So if we get hung up on copying our idols, we'll only ever be - copies! Not to mention that we could run the risk of being sued for plagiarism when we hit the "Big Time!" So what do we do about that? Well, in the words of Howard Roberts, a great Jazz guitarist: "If you steal from one person, it's called plagiarism. If you steal from several, it's called research." So I've done a lot of research in my time and loved every minute of it. I'd like to thank all the musicians I've listed on these pages for being my teachers. I hope that by acknowledging their contribution to my evolution, I am paying back some of my debt to them, albeit in a small way. |