Hey Riffing On Riffing Readers,
On this exciting day of Bob Dylan's new release Tempest I figured it was a good day to continue with part 2 of my little exploration of Bob Dylan's guitar playing.
Bob is always thought of as a great songwriter and that often over shadows the fact that he is such a great guitar player who has steadily improved and grown through the years. In his early days of playing with a band in the mid 60's through the 70's he was primarily a rhythm guitar player who always had a hot shot guitarist backing him up like Robbie Robertson, Michael Bloomfield, Mick Ronson or one of several other legendary players. But Bob was an excellent rhythm strummer and finger-picker right from the very beginning when he was a solo folk singer in Greenwich Village in the early 60's.
Sometime in the early eighties I noticed Bob started taking some lead guitar solos. By the middle of the decade he was clearly enjoying himself and when I saw him in 1991 he was playing lead guitar through the majority of the show. I really think that touring with the Grateful Dead's Jerry Garcia and his playing in The Traveling Wilburys with George Harrison were huge influences on him and his apparent joy in jamming on electric lead guitar.
Check out these two classic songs from Bob. Be sure to watch them both all the way through and really watch Bob's but great guitar playing on them. Watch his tasty use of connected pentatonic scales. Bob really jams in the simple blues scale while his other guitarist plays further up the neck in another position on All Along The Watcher Tower, making this live version more in the Jimi Hendrix vein than in the original Bob acoustic version.
Then Bob plays some really sweet, slippery lead guitar and shared vocals with Bruce Springsteen on Forever Young.
Good stuff! Nice shirt Bob!
On this exciting day of Bob Dylan's new release Tempest I figured it was a good day to continue with part 2 of my little exploration of Bob Dylan's guitar playing.
Bob is always thought of as a great songwriter and that often over shadows the fact that he is such a great guitar player who has steadily improved and grown through the years. In his early days of playing with a band in the mid 60's through the 70's he was primarily a rhythm guitar player who always had a hot shot guitarist backing him up like Robbie Robertson, Michael Bloomfield, Mick Ronson or one of several other legendary players. But Bob was an excellent rhythm strummer and finger-picker right from the very beginning when he was a solo folk singer in Greenwich Village in the early 60's.
Sometime in the early eighties I noticed Bob started taking some lead guitar solos. By the middle of the decade he was clearly enjoying himself and when I saw him in 1991 he was playing lead guitar through the majority of the show. I really think that touring with the Grateful Dead's Jerry Garcia and his playing in The Traveling Wilburys with George Harrison were huge influences on him and his apparent joy in jamming on electric lead guitar.
Check out these two classic songs from Bob. Be sure to watch them both all the way through and really watch Bob's but great guitar playing on them. Watch his tasty use of connected pentatonic scales. Bob really jams in the simple blues scale while his other guitarist plays further up the neck in another position on All Along The Watcher Tower, making this live version more in the Jimi Hendrix vein than in the original Bob acoustic version.
Then Bob plays some really sweet, slippery lead guitar and shared vocals with Bruce Springsteen on Forever Young.
Good stuff! Nice shirt Bob!