CLASSIC CORNER: BACKTRACK
to friend’s houses. There were all different pockets of
musicians. There were Deadheads, and metalheads, and
Rushheads, and everything else. Most of the time, it
was just the two of us. One of the things that we loved
doing was to veg out on these chord progressions that
were cool. We’d do that with Pink Floyd and with The
Doors. Kevin was really into on The Doors. I remember
doing “Roadhouse Blues.” You just had to play that. “L.A.
Woman” – that kind of era. “Riders on the Storm.” Floyd,
we would kind of do the Dark Side of the Moon era, The
Wall era. A great one is of course “Comfortably Numb.”
That is something I have done many times. I have
done it as a professional – Dream Theater has done
it. It is one of those highly influential guitar solos that
so many players, certainly myself, used in developing
an expressive melodic side to my playing. And at that
time the Purple Rain movie came out and that song was
really popular. It was just this great, melodic progression
to play too. We would literally trade solos for hours. We
would jam on that progression over and over and over.
It was great for the ear, great for improvisational skills,
great for your ability to play with other musicians in
different settings.
GUITAR BATTLE
— PURPLE RAIN
0:00-1:03
1:04-1:38
1:39-2:05
2:05-2:12
2:13-2:46
2:46-3:13
3:14-3:20
3:21-4:25
4:26-5:01
5:02-5:35
5:36-6:44
6:45-7:11
7:12- end
John Petrucci
Al Pitrelli
Andy Timmons
Andy Timmons & Al Pitrelli
Brad Gillis
John Petrucci
John Petrucci & Brad Gillis
Brad Gillis
Andy Timmons
Al Pitrelli
John Petrucci
Al Pitrelli
Andy Timmons,John Petrucci,
Brad Gillis, Andy Timmons,
Al Pitrelli
Purple Rain from the Guitar Battle recordings featuring Brad Gillis, Al Pitrelli, John Petrucci, and Andy Timmons.
20
DIGITAL EDITION
JUNE/JULY