LIVE FROM FLAT V by Josh Smith
HUMBLER OPINION
Over the last two columns, Josh Smith has been breaking down the song “Brown Gatton,” his ode to both Danny Gatton and James Brown, which Josh originally recorded in 2017 for his album, Still.
HUMBLER OPINION
Over the last two columns, Josh Smith has been breaking down the song “Brown Gatton,” his ode to both Danny Gatton and James Brown, which Josh originally recorded in 2017 for his album, Still.
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MusicTranscript
00:00 (upbeat guitar music)
00:03 These are a hundred percent Danny Gatlinx that I'm playing.
00:09 (upbeat guitar music)
00:12 Then I play some really cool Danny stuff like this.
00:17 (upbeat guitar music)
00:20 That one I got right from him.
00:23 (upbeat guitar music)
00:26 (upbeat guitar music)
00:29 So then this time that's,
00:32 we're into the second chorus of the song
00:34 and I'm playing a lot of double stops.
00:36 (upbeat guitar music)
00:39 And you'll see, I break out of it early
00:49 and modulate to that C.
00:51 (upbeat guitar music)
00:54 (upbeat guitar music)
00:57 So the whole solo is basically three times through
01:13 E to C, E to C, E to C.
01:17 And then we go back to the bridge,
01:18 which is the same as the beginning, the four chord.
01:21 And that's it.
01:22 That's the whole song basically.
01:24 It's a simple song with a lot of twists and turns
01:27 that gives me a lot of freedom to kind of mess around
01:31 and play chromatically, play, you know,
01:34 all that hybrid picking stuff.
01:35 You hear me play a lot of cascades sometimes in this song,
01:39 stuff like this.
01:40 (upbeat guitar music)
01:43 Which is again, straight out of the Danny playbook.
01:53 'Cause I mean that tension right there,
01:55 I can use that to walk up to the C.
01:57 (upbeat guitar music)
02:00 I'll do that sometime.
02:01 So that's a good one.
02:03 I'll play it slow for you.
02:04 (upbeat guitar music)
02:07 Yeah, I don't think I actually got that one from Danny.
02:12 I made that one up.
02:13 (upbeat guitar music)
02:16 But you know, a lot of that is from just years
02:22 of playing and loving Danny Gatton,
02:25 but loving hybrid picking,
02:27 figuring out how to play those open string runs
02:29 and all your keys and use your open strings.
02:32 That stuff's so fun, you know?
02:33 And it's kind of, this song I think is very reminiscent
02:37 of me and what I sound like,
02:39 which is a mix of all these different styles,
02:42 blues and jazz and country technique and R&B and soul.
02:46 You know, I love all those things.
02:48 And I kind of think that's what helped me find my voice
02:51 is when I was able to start mixing them all up together.
02:54 And that was one of my favorite things about Danny Gatton,
02:56 because he always sounded like he only played
02:59 whatever he heard right that moment with no filter.
03:02 He wasn't afraid to play jazz on a weird country song
03:05 or play blues on a country song or play, you know,
03:09 jazz on a funk.
03:10 He'd play anything, anywhere, anytime.
03:12 And I really respected that about him
03:14 in addition to his amazing playing.
03:16 So that was "Brown Gatton."
03:18 It's on the Still album.
03:19 Check it out.
03:21 (upbeat music)
03:24 (upbeat music)
03:26 (upbeat music)