Entertainment For Lively Minds
Exhortations to solo
Posted by Keef on 10 February 2012 - 10:27pm.
OK, the rules are simple - the following are all examples of a singer on a record calling on a member of the band to contribute some kind of instrumental embellishment.
Identify the artist and the song and say who is being addressed. For bonus points, why is 4 the odd one out?
1 'Yeah - take it, Hugh'.
2 'Play it for me, guitarist'.
3 'Take me down, Jimmy'.
4 'Take me'.
5 'Rock me, Joe'.
6 'Herd 'em up, Tex'.
7 '[Don't talk about it, don't talk about it, please]. Guitar!'
8 'I just gotta hear you play it one time for the world now'.
I'd also like to hear your own examples.
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#3 is Junior's Farm
Macca is addressing Jimmy McCullough
is #7 Stay With Me? Rod addressing Ron
Who said, "Take it Jeffrey!"
Spot on with #3, Nick...
... #7's *not* Stay with Me, though.
I'm going to ponder 'Take it Jeffrey'.
Having 'pondered'...
...i.e. Googled it, I'm none the wiser.
I think Jeffrey Lee Pierce played guitar as well as singing, so my best offer is, something by the Yardbirds??
clue
it's not a guitar solo
Much appreciated!
I see I was experiencing a bit of tunnel-vision there with the guitar thing. Having said that, the whole 'Jeffreys in rock' subset is not a huge one...
There's, ah, Jeffrey Wegener who played drums with the Laughing Clowns or 'Jefrey with one F' who played bongos or whatever on trompe Le Monde... or it's an ironically formal address to someone usually called Jeff who plays something other than guitar - any more clues?!
"Take it Jeffrey!"
Roy Wood to Jeff Lynne, on "California Man" (just before Jeff plays a piano solo).
(I bet some other bastard got there first... Ho hum.)
Is number 1
The Stranglers on Live X Cert?
It almost certainly is, Ian...
... my source is the single version.
Something Better Change
That 'Hugh' always seemed out of place on that song. On Walk On By it's 'Aw, just go for a walk in the trees..."
"Let's pedestrianise
the high street!"
Bugger, that's familiar...
... let me 'ponder' it a moment.
'Let's pedestrianise the high street!'
Of course, who else could it have been? I thought maybe the Clash - how wrong I was!
OK boy
Let me hear you spell Wilmslow
Or
Let's fill the skip
No. 5 Black Francis to Joey Santiago
...on Monkey Gone to Heaven.
Bang on,
Nick.
"Go stick this ...
... in your fusebox!"
Hint
greatly appreciated!
Fusebox is a clue in itself
Think electricity.
Sparks?
(see above)
The answer
I'll be away for the next couple of days so the answer is below. Don't look if you're still playing.
.
.
.
.
.
AC/DC - Live Wire
Number 4
Get it on, T-Rex.
Meanwhile, I'm still thinkin...
Get it On is not the one I was thinking of
I'm thinking 1990s, 'Word'-friendly artist...
'Meanwhile I'm still thinkin'
I'm quite sure is an ode, as in he lifted the line, to Chuck Berry's Little Queenie.
Down at the Doctors
" eight bars piano!"
Thus spoke Lee Brilleaux...no piano followed.
Rock on George ...
... one time for Ringo ...
"Ah rock on... ANYBODY"
Following George's apparent failure to deliver goods as emphatically requested in the first solo break, this desperate appeal for help by rapidly-faltering Bongo, was best bit of Anthology I's 'If You've Got Troubles'
See also...
"Take it away, Grapper!"
Good thread, btw. I didn't realise how much I loved these moments.
Don't know any of those above, but...
"Take it away, George"
Smile,
E.C?
Well done
That's the only one I might know, so I shall now withdraw from this discussion and observe from the sides...
Here's a couple
"Take off, Bubs!"
"Torture time now!"
"Hit it Zubin"
"Whip it out"
Those in the clique will know
Not forgetting...
"Play your harmonica son!"
Zappa
Is it Help I'm A Rock or Trouble Every Day? Or not?
(i'm guessing "whip it out" is an exhortation to Mr. Ian Underwood.)
"Hit it Zubin"
With those words Frank Zappa kicked off the world premiere of 200 Motels (the live performance, not the film) in May 1970 at UCLA'S Pauley Pavilion.
Zubin Mehta was conducting the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
Ahh move over Rover
And let Jimi take over!
Also
"Whip it out Floyd"
And
"on guitar, Jumpin' James Burton"
*Stretches and yawns theatrically*
Well, that's me for today - 1, 3 and 5 swiftly identified, leaving 2,4,6,7 and 8. And of course there's the tantalising question of why 4 is different to all the others.
I think I'm doing woefully badly at identifying your suggestions - for some reason I can hear them all in the voice of Joe Strummer. My friend Mr el Goog advises me that Pete Solowka of the Wedding Present lets his friends call him 'Grapper'. He also advises me that, while there is a video on YouTube of Paul McCartney playing 'Take it Away' featuring George Martin on piano, at no point are the words 'Take it away, George' uttered.
Thanks for the hint, Gatz - I'm going to sleep on it.
Take it jeffrey.
Is it Roy Wood,The Move,California Man?
Yes indeed
and Mr Jeffrey Lynne on the old joanna
who exhorted, "Ok, now I want to hear a little bit of the drums by himself there,"
I *knew*
someone got there first. Note to self: read the whole thread FIRST, yer daft ha'porth.
Jagger
usually, at the end of a chorus thus preceding Keef or Ronnie's solo, shouts out 'ere we go'.
'Take me home Daddy, eight to the bar' Baloo, Jungle Book.
'Give it some stick Mick' - Chas an Dave.
'Let's give it to 'em right now' - The Kingsmen.
'Aaaaaaaaaaaaggghhhh' - Gene Vincent's drummer, Be-Bop Harrell, in the 56 Blue Caps.
Take it jeffrey.
Sorry forgot to put roy wood says it to jeff lynne before piano solo.
Great thread!
I've always liked AC/DC's What Do You Do For Money "how do you get your licks - GO!".
Nineties Australian rocker Nick Barker let fly with the incongruous exhortation to "make 'em cry, Adrian!".
Haha...Do it Jeff
To be fair, Jeff had already started doing it.
Tim Bogert
cheekily reprised Stevie's "Ah, do it Jeff" on the 1973 Japanese-only Beck, Bogert and Appice Live In Japan album.
It was during the track Sweet Sweet Surrender.
Bbrrrrr....miaow!
The Pretenders, Watching The Clothes if I'm not mistaken
Tattooed Lover Boys?
.Edit: Nope - Middle of the Road (AND I think I've spellled tattooed wrong).
*Covers face in shame and runs from room*
Don't know about "tattooed"
but interesting spelling of "spelled"!
:)
That's right piggers...
kick a man while he's down (or should that be 'doown'?)
Surely #4
Is the none-more-Word-friendly Divine Comedy, with Father Ted theme "Songs of Love", to cue the harpsichord middle eight?
I remember it from an earlier recording...
by Pere Ubu (Misery Goats), where David Thomas introduces Mayo Thompson's guitar solo. But that wouldn't make it the odd one out, would it?
Herd 'em up, Tex
Yep, Chris, that's #6 successfully identified (the version I've got is on the C81 cassette). #4 was the odd one out.
Sorry, got my numbers mixed up there
Yes, I remember it from C81 too - don't think it's on the LP version (Art of Walking?)
An inspired choice for this list, Keef, by the way...
@dadwardo Yes indeedy
...and being on the harpsichord makes it the odd one out as all the rest are guitar-based.
Can it be true?
I have scooped the Massive? Surely not! Love it. Cheers Keef.
"Take it, Lou"
Lou Reed. To himself. 'The Beginning Of A Great Adventure"
On a similar tip, I've always enjoyed the demented squawk "Ronno!" that ushers in a fraught-sounding Mick Ronson, on a Bowie version of 'White Light/White Heat'...
"Pick it for me, James".
Gram Parsons - Return of the Grievous Angel.
My favourite
'Do it Robbie, do it..'
Marty Scorsese
in Robbie's Airstream.
'let it roll,
baby roll.'
"Pick it, Wilson!"
Come on! S'easy!
I Will Give One Million Pounds
to the first person to give the correct answer to this. I'm feeling generous.
Play on Wilson Pickett
Viv Stanshall?
In that case
it must be the Pre-Fab Four.
The Monkees with Papa Gene's Blues from their debut album.
I will accept a postal order.
WE HAVE A WINNER!!!!!!!
The song (a beautiful thing) has two exhortations to solo, the first being "play, magic fingers!"
(Unfortunately the prize was, not unreasonably, dependent upon my feeling of generosity, which dwindled to nothing scant seconds before you clicked "post comment")
Rest assured
simply basking in the warm glow of your approval is reward enough for me.
I feel a Mike Nesmith thread coming on ...
?
"All Right, Sterl!"
Lou Reed to Sterling Morrison, Velvet Underground Live at Max's Kansas City, for I'm Waiting For My Man.
But does anybody have any post-guitar solo exhortations? For sheer sodding mind-game genius, Arthur Lee berating Johnny Echols at the end of Your Mind And We Belong Together cannot be beat:
"Hey Mr Knuckles, man, I don't understand your trip, man...you stay in one range of the guitar THROUGHOUT THE WHOLE THING, man...of course, you're the one who says you can blow in the studio, man...no-one to bug you...you gotta BLOW, man...are you ready to take it from the top?"
Lou Reed...
... the man who exhorted himself to solo...
Post-solo evaluations sound like fertile ground for another thread, as indeed do mid-solo interjections (re your post below, E, Complete Control didn't make the final cut here because the panel of experts felt the solo was already well underway at time of speaking so the comment could be considered more in the way of an evaluation of what had gone before or an encouragement to continue than an exhortation).
Is the Arthur Lee rant on the Da Capo version of 'Your Mind and we...'?
btw you should be pretty well placed to identify one of the remaining exhortations on my list, which I don't think has been identified yet.
arthurly
It's on the Forever Changes reissue from a few years back with extra tracks...and begins with about 27 false starts, featuring an increasingly exasperated Arthur trying not to lose it and making everyone very uptight. "You guys should try & relax a little"...very "LOL". I think it was one of the last sessions with the FC line-up, smack, and all that that entails.
PS you're right about Joe to Mick, I kind of knew it was a midway exhortation. Can I redeem myself by mentioning Neil Young to Nils Lofgren just before a wonderful butterfly wing guitar solo, "all right, Nils...". Can't remember the song title, begins "I went to the movies, the other night, the plot was groovy, it was out of sight"...
Redeemed, E
I think the Neil Young song is 'Speakin' Out'.
Must check out the expanded Forever Changes - did you spot the other Arthurly exhortation in the OP?
Missed it
No, that one passed me by! I can't think what it might be, durnit.
Thanks for the Neil Young song title...I was singing it in my head and never got to the song title. I should have sung it right to the end. Damn my memory's getting bad.
#8 is the man Lee to the man Echols once again
It's at 2.18, before the second guitar break (before the first break he says '...one time for everbody, now).
Thanks for the heads-up about the expanded Forever Changes - I had a listen to it on Spotify, including the rant.
This is great!
Did you film this? Very clever!
Ooh, just on the off-chance you never heard it, have you heard the version of You Set The Scene (also on the FC reissue) with Arthurly's rapping at the end? It's a different mix, and the rap and final "yeaee-eeee-eeeeaayayaehhh" give me goosebumps every time...when you think that Arthurly considered that record to be his last words to the world, it's very powerful.
That might be another good thread - alternate versions that are better than the originals.
The sleevenotes for that edition
claim that AL thought he was going to die pretty soon, which gives (both versions of) You Set The scene a bit of extra drama - it was his last testament as far as he was concerned. It also quotes one of the other band members saying that AL "spoke like a 1940s jazz musician" which is quite hilairious.
Hey kids, don't do drugs.
Will go back and give it a listen
I've always thought You Set the Scene rounded off Forever Changes really nicely - it's fairly upbeat but there's a definite poignant sense of things coming to an end about it.
Definitely a good idea to have an 'alternate versions' thread - I also think alternate versions that are NOT better (i.e. they're worse or just different) are worthy of investigation, sometimes just because they show you how good the 'proper' version is. One that comes to mind immediately is an acoustic demo of Bowie's 'Drive in Saturday' which I think is a bonus track on Aladdin Sane but which has more of the vibe of Hunky Dory or Ziggy Stardust about it and hasn't yet acquired a lot of the touches that make the finished version so good. You also realise he'd tweaked 'fallout radiation' in the second verse to 'fallout saturation', which I think has dated much better.
"You're My Guitar Hee-ro!"
Can't believe I'm the first for this, Strummer to Jones, Complete Control.
One of my favourites
A rare example of the exhortation actually occuring during the solo.
What about "Elmore James got nothing on this fella!"
- though that's not so much exhortation as, er, taking the piss.
"Alright dollface, c'mon and BORE me!"
An easy one, I think?
Dollface ... dollface ...
Wayne County? I have no idea, and I suspect I'm not alone here. Clew?
Iggy Pop
I'm Bored
I'm the CHAIRMAN of the bored
Correct
You got it
"Mess around, Tarquin!"
Any takers?
Easy.
From Einsturzendeneubaten's live album, just before the chainsaw solo.
(Hey, Mo' - how about "Pick It, Wilson"?)
I've got a feeling
a feeling deep inside that this might be a Fabs' reference.
It's John Lennon punningly inviting George Harrison to take a solo on a German TV show, isn't it?
Mojo, if you're referring to "PICK IT, WILSON!", then -
no. Absolutely wrong. Do you have anything to substantiate this wild claim?
A man came to me
on a Flaming Pie with this outrageous story!
It's Rik Mayall doing "Evil" on the the Comic Strip album.
"I'm rude to policemen, and I pick my nose, too".
Brilliant.
Correct!
"Cos I'm evil, my middle name is Jeremy"
Don says
Mister Zoot Horn Rollo, hit that long lunar note, / and let it float
"Mmm ... nice"
I saw him hit that long lunar note live twice, and it's still echoing in my noggin ...
that's the nicest one.
Father saw the Captain at the Royal Albert Hall in 60's, he said once you saw him live, you got it.
James Brown.
Surely ?
Maceo !
Clyde !
Bootsy !
and loads more
Nobody gave instructions like JB
"Blow me some 'Trane, brother!" (Super Bad)
"You don't need to do no soloin', just keep what you got... But don't turn it loose... 'cause it's a mother!" (The Funky Drummer)
"I'm not gonna ask you to play jack, 'cause your horn is too big. You got too much horn over there!" (Get It Together)
And my personal favourite, to no one in particular:
"Scuse me while I do the boogaloo" (Cold Sweat)
Haven't seen this one yet
"Let it happen bass player..."
A train driver answers
and, yes, the time does fly by.
The right solo, just not necessarily in the right song
My favourite, Chimneys suggestion of the mighty Biscuits aside (full marks for the Peel version of 24hr Garage People), is the live version of 'What Do I Get?' whereupon Shelley warns the Electric Circus he is about to essay a "tricky guitar solo" (it isn't tricky at all) in the campest, most nasal tone imaginable.
Here's #7
"Den Dennis...
...Den..?"
Bad News!
"...it's your break!"
Colin Grigson's bass solo is the funniest thing in the world.
Correct
On both counts.
See also...
"Vim Foo-AY-GO!"
Apparently he learned to play Stairway To Heaven when he was twelve. Jimmy Page didn't write it until he was 22. I think that says a lot...
"Snap out of it, George"
- mid solo. Actually the reverse of what the OP says.
"Eeeeeeeeeeewwwww!"
Anyone (clue - either of two artists doing the same song)?
That is
all songs by Big Country, shirley?
Everybody solo!
My personal favourite.
Anyone recognise the artist/song?
Well, well, well
Are people stumped or is it just too easy?
"Everybody solo!"
A joyful noise then ensues.
Tempted
to say it must be Yes.
Ah, no
Far from it.
Isn't "everbody solo" an oxymoron?
Like, having an orgy on your own?
...Is this one of your Earth jokings?
It's certainly the noise of a band having a good time
Pretty straightforward, this one...
Terminator X!
....
Terminator X!
....
Terminator X!
Oh! Oh! I know this one!
It's Travis, isn't it?
Correct, it's from the hit album
The Man Who Embraced Black Nationalism
One Word
"Jimmy!"
Plan B
Kevin Rowland to Jimmy Patterson
Spot On
"C'mon Dave, give me a break"
"One break, coming right up"
"Get that cheese grater going..."
Clue: band already mentioned on this thread
The Clash on London Calling
is it not? Can't name the exact song, I'm afraid, but I believe the 'cheese grater' is a cabasa...
Correct.
It's Revolution Rock.
More exhortations than any other
Give me about half a teacup of bass
Now we need a pound of fatback drums
Give me a little pinch of organ
A little pinch of Memphis horns
A little dash of Mississippi congetto's
Now we need a half a pint of horn
It has the feel of 'Dance to the Music'
But it isn't. Is it some other Sly Stone?
Memphis Soul Stew by King Curtis
See also Funky Nassau by The Beginning of the End.
correct!
...I missed one out, the exhortation for Cornell Dupree on guitar, cos I couldn't work out what King Curtis was saying...
"Smoke that geetar!"
Oft used invitation to solo used by this artist.
Genuine question
I have a recording of Ray Charles and Willie Nelson singing 'Seven Spanish Angels'. In addition to Ray's superlative vocal, Ray also cries out 'Help me, George' just before Willie harmonises with him. Who's this George? Did someone tell Ray he was duetting with Mr Jones instead of Mr Nelson?
Been puzzled by this for years.
"Take it!" "No"
#2
Alex Chilton,"Dream Lover",on Third/Sister Lovers.Whether he's addressing himself or Lee Baker,also credited as "guitar" on the album,I don't know.
Correct, Alastair
I don't know whether it was Chilton himself or Lee Baker either, unfortunately.
Two different versions of the same song...
feature "Play it, Steve!" It was the same Steve, too.
Soul Man
Sam & Dave
Blues Brothers