Guitar Tricks Insider April/May Digital Edition | Page 20

SOUND ADVICE SOUND ADVICE first thing you would hear was an acoustic guitar. Because it’s not something that anyone really hears from me. It’s a real songwriter approach. The focus is on the song. I write a song so that it can stand on its own – just me sitting there playing and singing. So after that you have to trust the musicians that you’ve hired to interpret it in some way that it’s fitting. And fortunately I couldn’t have had better musicians; and I’m kind of stunned myself by what these guys did. I did not tell them what to play. “Rose of Sharon” wasn’t the first thing we cut. But what you hear there is a completely live take other than the lead guitar and vocal. It’s just beautiful the way Jim Cox plays the B-3 on that song. “WHATEVER I PLAY HAS ALWAYS GOT SOME CONTINUITY. THAT’S THE WHOLE IDEA. MELODY IS THE MAIN INGREDIENT.” It’s a mood. The song is not just lyric and chords. It creates a whole building. Yep. And again, that for me is why it’s a great song. It’s very simple. And the way we structured a solo – I just wrote a series of chords to play over. And I don’t write so often Rose of Sharon – Robben Ford Talk to Your Daughter – Robben Ford 20 DIGITAL EDITION thinking in terms of a solo anymore. I write a song. But it seemed to me to write a bridge with a lyric would just become a bunch of “blah blah” because the mood was already there. Mood is the perfect word. It’s a mood. I did not want to do anything to detract from that simple space. It’s the same kind of space you’ll get in a John Lee Hooker slow blues with just him on the acoustic guitar. You don’t want to leave that space and you don’t want anybody to try to teach you anything or sell you anything. So the song was written and it was very short. And so to expand it I wrote that series of chords and just played the simplest most tasteful guitar solo I could possibly play over it; so that I didn’t break that mood and make it about the guitar. Everything just came together so beautifully. So I guess it’s not only the best song on the record – the recording came together so well and the guys played so beautifully. It’s just my favorite thing on the record. ■ APR/MAY APR/MAY DIGITAL EDITION 21