CLASSIC CORNER: BACKTRACK
What do you remember about recording
The Guitar Battle version of “Purple Rain”?
In finding out that you and I were going to talk
and listening back to it, I kind of forgot a bunch
of things. I forgot we were all trading solos and
I had my part. And some guys were doing the
melodies and some guys were improvising. You
had Brad Gillis on there and Andy Timmons.
Al Pitrelli was on there, as well. It brought
back memories hearing everybody’s take and
everybody’s different tones. When you hear
guitar players playing on a single song like
that back-to-back, it really demonstrates how
there are so many voices you can have on that
instrument. There are so many different ways to
manipulate the strings and the tone to make it
your own. You can really hear that on this.
Like you said, it’s a great song to play on.
It’s such a beautiful progression. It’s really
simple but I really like it. I tried to use the
different melodic motifs that Prince originally
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put in there, to kind of pay tribute to the actual
song. It also reminds me growing up I was a big
fan of Journey and Neal’s playing. Again, it’s that
same side where there’s a very melodic chord
progression and his guitar playing is a blend of
fiery technique and rock playing, but also really
super tear-jerking melodic lines. “Mother Father,”
“Faithfully” – songs like that. In fact, I think I did
a little bit of “Faithfully” in the MI version. I think
I snuck some in there. But it’s that same kind of
thing I was talking about with Gilmour, with Neal.
I love that side – the super, pulling-on-yourheartstrings, melodic, rock guitar playing.
Since our recording I’ve seen videos of
you playing it at a NAMM show and at
Musicians Institute (using the Guitar Battle
track). What I love about the one from
MI is that it shows the full range of your
expressiveness, technique, emotion, and
your melodic invention. In other words it
was a guitar masterpiece and you played it
masterfully.
JUNE/JULY