LIVE FROM FLAT V by Josh Smith
SWITCHING GEARS
Josh Smith presented the meat and potatoes of the tune “Brown Gatton,” a song from his 2017 album, Still, that is a musical tribute to two of his heroes — the somewhat unlikely duo of the Godfather of Soul, James Brown, and jazz/rock/country guitar wizard Danny Gatton. This month, Josh shares some of the approaches he uses for soloing on the tune.
SWITCHING GEARS
Josh Smith presented the meat and potatoes of the tune “Brown Gatton,” a song from his 2017 album, Still, that is a musical tribute to two of his heroes — the somewhat unlikely duo of the Godfather of Soul, James Brown, and jazz/rock/country guitar wizard Danny Gatton. This month, Josh shares some of the approaches he uses for soloing on the tune.
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MusicTranscript
00:00All right, Josh Smith here. We were talking about my tune Brown Gatton last month, and we worked
00:09through the meat and potatoes of the tune, the changes, the feel. Now let's talk about how I
00:14solo over this tune. So like I mentioned, there's a weird turn of time in this tune where after every
00:20three bars of 4-4 time, there's a bar of 2-4 time. And that enables you to have some really cool
00:26phrasing in your solo, especially when you're moving between the two changes in the tune,
00:31which are from E7 to C7, this kind of cool modulation sound. So basically when I start
00:38soloing, we come out of that bridge and we hit those. So right there was the turnaround. You
00:55kind of heard me start a phrase in a weird spot that would normally be in the middle of another
01:00bar of 4-4, but it's the new bar, and the guys hit it with me. So I'm going basically starting
01:15a phrase in a weird spot. And when you carry things through the bar line like that, it's a
01:21great sound. So especially when I move up to the C. So let's say I'm on the second half of
01:25the phrasing. It's like a weird spot to resolve and modulate to C. So the ear just, it's jarring
01:43to the ear, especially, you know, but with the band, we're all doing it together. So it sounds
01:47right. And it ends up, I get to play a lot of phrases like this. Let's say going from...
02:06So there's a cool way of going back from C.
02:09And I modulate back to C before, I mean back to E, before the change happens to kind of,
02:20you know, foreshadow it, I guess. And these are 100% Danny Gatlin licks that I'm playing.
02:39So I'm going back to C, and I'm going back to E, and I'm going back to C, and I'm going
02:46back to E, and I'm going back to E, and I'm going back to E, and I'm going back to E,
02:52and I'm going back to E, and I'm going back to E, and I'm going back to E, and I'm going
02:58back to E, and I'm going back to E, and I'm going back to E, and I'm going back to E,