I’ll admit it. I’m a song guy. I like old-fashioned, well-constructed songs. Something with a couple of good hooks, and clever lyrics. Something I can sing along to. (In the privacy of my car, shower, or man cave, because I can’t sing.) That may not seem like much of an admission, but I have become aware over the years that other people gravitate toward different types of musical artists because they are looking for something different.
Perhaps you are one of those fans. Perhaps you seek a more immersive audio experience in which sounds envelop you. Maybe you don’t even like “songs” at all. At least not songs with lyrics and choruses and recognizable structure. Maybe you just chill out with “Beck’s Bolero” or bang your head to “Orion.” For the record, I have done both of those things, but more often than not, I am chilling to John Prine, or banging to Husker Du. You know – songs.
There’s no right or wrong answer to how you enjoy the music you enjoy. But I think there is value in stepping outside your comfort foods every so often to engage another piece of your brain, heart, or ears – whatever organ(s) you listen with.
These rock and roll performances are not to be missed
And I’ll start. Today, I want to mention 15 absolutely virtuoso performances in rock & roll that have little to do with the song in question. Instead, they are all about musical artistry. Here’s how it will work.
I’m choosing four instruments – the four basic instruments that make up a rock & roll band’s arsenal. Voice, guitar, bass, drum. I will pick three stellar performances that show off the length and breadth of what outstanding musicians can achieve. That adds up to twelve. (Let me check that for a moment. I don’t want to take anything for granted here. I just watched Rory McIlroy blow the U. S. Open by taking short putts for granted. Four times three – yep, that’s twelve.)
Then I have three more miscellaneous instruments. Because rock bands use other miscellaneous instruments. That gets us to fifteen. As with all of these lists, I am not saying these are the absolute best performances of all time. I’m just saying they are pretty darn spectacular.
Oh, and I decided to add a little variety, so I tried to vary the musical genres represented, and in each group, I looked for at least one entry a bit off the beaten path. So some of these are fairly well-known and popular, while others – not so much.
Let’s start with the one sure to cause brawls at your local club or frat house.
THREE SPECTACUALR GUITAR PERFORMANCES
ERIC BELL (Thin Lizzy) – “THE ROCKER”
Eric Bell was Thin Lizzy’s original guitarist. He was there for the first several albums, helping them build a cult following that would soon bloom into international stardom. Then he quit. He wasn’t around for the success of “The Boys Are Back in Town,” but he was on hand for their first regional hit “Whiskey in the Jar,” and for the follow-up “The Rocker.”
“The Rocker” is simply a sensational early rock guitar. Bell can get an awesome pounding rhythm out of his Strat for the early verses. Then, a couple of minutes in, his fuzz gives way to the beginning of a lyrical, modulated solo.
Bell shows he can shred as well as anyone, but he also can run through an array of effects all in the service of an inventive solo. For more than two minutes, he soars up and down the fretboard. Feel free to pick something else as the greatest solo ever. But put this one somewhere on your shortlist.
LEO KOTTKE – “VASELINE MACHINE GUN”
From Kottke’s astonishing debut, 6- and 12-String Guitar. If anyone can be said to “shred” an acoustic, it would be Kottke. He would do other recordings of this track with some accompaniment. But on his debut album, produced by fellow guitar legend John Fahey, it’s all Leo, at his fastest and most compelling.
The entire album is filled with spectacular 12-string playing in a variety of hybrid genres that defy classification. He begins this tune with a countrified version of “Taps” before taking off on a roller coaster of blues and bluegrass, with some pop and classical embellishments tossed in for good measure. And he does basically the same thing on all 14 album tracks.
EDDIE VAN HALEN (Van Halen) – “ERUPTION”
If at some point in your past, you got yourself an electric guitar, you may have tried to master the opening riff of “Smoke on the Water.” It isn’t very hard. If you could do it, you might move on up to learning assorted barre chords and some simple blues licks to toss into a fill. Now, if you were really good – I mean just about the best of anyone you hung out with – you might set your sights much higher. You might try to copy some of the easier Clapton, Page, or even Hendrix songs. And then the harder ones.
And then, in about 1978, you heard Eddie Van Halen playing a 100-second guitar jam called “Eruption” and you probably threw your guitar away. You weren’t going to be able to play this one. Of course, if you did, you probably went on to a successful music career. I wouldn’t know anything about that.
THREE THUMPING BASS PERFORMANCES
GEEZER BUTLER (Black Sabbath) – “BASSICALLY/N.I.B.”
If you want to give yourself a migraine – and, really, who doesn’t? – try to figure out why the early Black Sabbath songs got the titles they did. It has to do with American labels feeling like there weren’t enough songs for Americans to buy the albums, so the band just re-labeled pieces of music as separate songs. Geezer Butler plays a kick-ass bass solo intro to “N.I.B.” which came to be known as the song “Bassically.” In live performances, he might build on the album cut – the way artists are apt to do.
Whether you hear it live, or the cleaner studio original, it remains a wonderfully melodic bass riff that maintains its metal bona fides. And, not for nothing, the bass part of “N.I.B.,” apart from the solo intro, is pretty freaking awesome as well.
MIKE DIRNT (Green Day) – “LONGVIEW”
The best bass riff in pop punk. Dirnt kicks off the song with his languid, loping Gibson Grabber, before pounding out the chorus. It’s the type of melodic hook that you might hear from other Grabber players like Dinosaur Jr.’s Lou Barlow.
Dirnt provided plenty of embellishments on plenty of Green Day songs, while never losing his connection with Tre Cool’s equally aggressive drum fills. But on “Longview,” Green Day’s first breakthrough from Dookie, the bass carries the song. As he has recently admitted, he wrote that iconic bass line while tripping on acid, and then spent quite some time trying to recreate it. Fortunately, he was able to figure it out while sober.
LARRY GRAHAM (Graham Central Station) – “HAIR”
There’s a nice message in the song “Hair.” One I have always subscribed to. As Larry sings it: “I just don’t believe it’s fair to judge a man by the length of his hair.” Unfortunately, I’m not sure how many people heard it because, as I have read in multiple places, it comes in a song with the funkiest bass line ever recorded. It’s virtually impossible to hear anything else, even though there is plenty of good stuff going on atop that bass.
Graham was the original bass player with Sly and the Family Stone. He stayed with them for six years before venturing off and forming his own band. Rumor is that had he not left, he and Stone would have likely killed each other.
Whether apocryphal or true, while playing with Sly, Graham perfected the technique of slapping the bass to get more pop out of the strings. It was a technique that became integral to funk and spread into many other genres from rock to rockabilly to bluegrass. Next time you see a bassist pounding the crap out of his instrument, think of Larry Graham, and maybe give a listen to “Hair.”
THREE MAGNIFICENT DRUM GROOVES
STEVE GADD (Paul Simon) – “LATE IN THE EVENING”
Gadd may have invented more iconic grooves than any other drummer. He did “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover” for Paul Simon and “Aja” for Steely Dan. He has sat in with virtually every name in the recording business, especially if that name is looking for some jazz-infused backing. Apart from playing with all the jazz greats, he has performed with artists as diverse as Eric Clapton, Nils Lofgren, and Bonnie Raitt.
Gadd played drums on about half of Paul Simon’s solo albums. The groove on “Late in the Evening” is just one of many great contributions he made to Simon’s discography, but it is my favorite. The skittery cymbals feel like they might drift out of time throughout the song, but they always manage to be right where they need to be, and right on the beat.
I’ve had drummers try to explain to me the technical prowess Gadd displays, the way his hands are almost playing against each other to create a rhythmic tension. That makes some sense to me, but I choose not to think about it too hard. I prefer to just listen.
DANNY CAREY (Tool) – “THE GRUDGE”
“The Grudge” is the opening track of Tool’s third album Lateralus, which may well be the best metal drumming album ever. It isn’t merely that Carey shifts tempo and attitude seamlessly throughout some long, wild forays. He often is the one carrying the melody. There are many times when the guitar and the drums seem to switch places, with Adam Jones’ guitar becoming a percussive instrument and Carey finding a range that few drummers – metal or otherwise – achieve.
The final minute of “The Grudge” doesn’t have much going on from the guitar or bass. It has Danny Carey drilling his drum kit. This was nothing new for Carey, who would contribute countless standout performances on Tool tracks. And he could do it for others as well. Listen to him blending effortlessly with the tricky rhythms coming from Adrian Belew on the guitarist’s album Side One.
GAVIN HARRISON (Porcupine Tree) – “ANESTHESIZE”
Harrison has played with both Porcupine Tree and King Crimson this century. That’s a pretty fair prog-rock resume. On “Anesthesize,” you get the full palate of Harrison’s gifts. There’s an undeniable groove that prevents the heavy material from growing ponderous. As the song evolves through its stages, from rock to funk to metal to art rock, Harrison is unerring in his syncopated machine-gun rhythms.
He will eventually find room for fills despite the up-tempo groove he is providing. This carries through into the slower, more majestic final third during which he never stops throwing in ear-grabbing ideas. I don’t think there is an extended solo in “Anesthisize,” in part because the entire fifteen minutes could be a solo. Were you to simply pull Harrison's drum track out of the song, you could listen to it for that entire run time and never get bored.
KEYS, VIOLA, AND SAX, OH MY – NOTHING MISCELLANEOUS HERE
JOHN CALE (Velvet Underground) – “THE BLACK ANGEL’S DEATH SONG”
Cale was a visionary. An explorer. He was classically trained on the viola and from an early age was intrigued by how it could be blended into modern experimental music. Then he came to the USA and met musicians like La Monte Young and Lou Reed who also accepted no boundaries when it came to modern music.
Lou Reed may be the greatest songwriter in rock & roll history, but he didn’t exactly play well with others. He and Cale made it through two ground-breaking Velvet Underground albums before Reed exiled Cale. But they created some glorious sounds. Cale’s other-worldly electric viola gives “The Black Angel’s Death Song” a nightmarish quality that you simply can’t shake. It’s cacophonous and melodic in equal measure.
On a live recording from The Complete Matrix Tapes, Reed intro’d the song by saying they stopped playing it back in the day because clubs would empty out whenever they did. He then launches into a strong version with guitars taking the original Cale viola part. And you realize that Reed may well have parted company with Cale because that viola was so engrossing that it served to pull attention away from Reed’s lyrics. The bottom line – the song is pretty good without Cale. It’s iconic with him and his viola.
DICK PARRY (Pink Floyd) – “MONEY”
Saxophonist Dick Parry and Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour were long-time friends, and Gilmour had Parry play on some of Floyd’s best-known 1970s hits. On Dark Side of the Moon, Parry contributes two elite solos. He was more prominent in “Us and Them,” because there is no corresponding guitar solo. On “Money,” Parry begins his jam just past the two-minute mark and carries it for almost a full minute, then Gilmour’s guitar steps in with its own solo.
Totally different from the lyrical, gentle romanticism of “Us and Them,” Parry seems to twist and wrench the notes out of his sax during “Money.” It could be a horn playing some stepped-down jump blues, but it’s a sax playing jazz-rock, and every note is engrossing. To top it off, as Gilmour explained, he created a 7/4 time signature within which Parry had to somehow fit all those expressive notes.
STEVIE WONDER – “SUPERSTITION”
Maybe you know the back story of Stevie Wonder’s “Superstition.” If not, here’s a condensed version. Jeff Beck played guitar on Wonder’s “Lookin’ For Another Pure Love,” and Wonder was going to repay the kindness by giving him “Superstition” in return. Then execs at Motown heard the track and killed that plan. This was going on Wonder’s Talking Book album.
Wonder opens the song with ten seconds of drums before the instantly recognizable Hohner clavinet enters the picture. In the next 20 seconds, before Stevie begins his vocals, and gradually adds horns to the mix, he invented the multi-track keyboard groove that everyone would try to emulate. People still study how he achieved the impossible interplay between bouncing melodic lines and pulsating beats.
Wonder himself could not really recreate the exact beat when he played it live. It was a product of imagination, technology, and flat-out brilliant virtuosity. About ten years ago, an online journal – Noise Addicts – dissected the track and determined that Wonder was in fact, playing 8 distinct keyboard parts, then blending and cross-fading to create the exact sound he had in his head. No wonder why so many key players have tried and failed over the years to recapture that magic.
VOCALS – THREE VOICES TO RAISE THE ROOF
ROB HALFORD (Judas Priest) – “VICTIM OF CHANGES”
“Victim of Changes” opened Judas Priest’s second album, Sad Wings of Destiny. Rob Halford’s effortless high tenor begins the song without great fanfare. Halford’s voice was always capable, in his younger days, of remaining pure while still providing the power necessary for metal vocals. About three minutes in, he hits his first falsetto mini-shriek, but it still seems like standard first-rate hard rock singing.
Then, after the guitar solo, the song downshifts into a mystical, romantic, slow pace and Halford’s voices drops in tone and timbre, before revving back up into high gear for the big finish. He provides several different screams in the final minute, whether he’s singing lyrics or simply providing a guttural counterpoint to the guitar. And he ends on a run of “nos,” with the final one being as operatic as metal had ever been by 1976.
Halford had one of the most flexible voices in rock & roll, and in this one track, he announced that metal vocals – and by extension – metal music could go a lot farther than it ever had before.
HALEY REINHART (Scott Bradlee’s Post Modern Jukebox) – “SEVEN NATION ARMY”
Bradlee’s band employs any singer he feels can fit his neo-big band versions of modern pop songs. Some of the best, little-known singers working today have taken the mic for him and reinvented some rock classics. Haley Reinhart, a veteran of American Idol, has been one of his more prodigious vocalists. She may be better known for her slinky, sleepily romantic version of Radiohead’s “Creep,” but I think the White Stripes’ cover shows off her voice to even greater effect.
Reinhart can play it sweet or can play it rough, and the real artistry comes when she is doing both simultaneously. She begins “Seven Nation Army” as a nursery rhyme but before long she blasts out “Leave it alone” like any great blues singer would do. The song shows off the range she has, especially when it comes to tone. In Bradlee’s grand scheme, vocalists provide just one more instrument, and when Reinhart is on the mic, you hear a virtuoso in action.
JANIS JOPLIN – “PIECE OF MY HEART”
Ok, maybe there’s a better vocal in rock history, but in less than 30 seconds of “Piece of My Heart,” Janis Joplin makes her case quite plain. She has undeniable power. She can transition seamlessly into the softer, gentler passages. And she is always interesting. Her tone, her phrasing – they are unique. They aren’t pretty, but they are beautiful. They define rock singing.
Erma Franklin recorded a fine original a year before Joplin, and this is another case of a white musician benefitting from race. But unlike Irma Thomas’s “Time is on My Side,” which has an arguably superior vocal to Mick Jagger’s more well-known Stones’ version, Joplin simply sings the song better. The difference becomes clear in the pre-chorus, where Joplin’s clarity and power are unmatched. No one could sing “Come on, come on…” with the fervor of Janis.
This concludes today’s countdown. There are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of other virtuoso performances you can choose from for your own personal list, but I think these are pretty good representatives of what rock and roll artists can achieve.