Spectacular Solos From the Early ’70s

Rock Guitar Highlights, 1970-1975

The popular film Conan the Barbarian has a scene where James Earl Jones’s character, Thulsa Doom, is confronted by Conan for stealing his father’s sword. “There was a time, boy,” the evil Doom intones, “when I searched for steel. When steel meant more to me than gold or jewels.” During the early 1970s, many of my friends and I felt that way about rock guitar solos.

Seventeen when the 1970s began, I’d already amassed enough albums to fill an orange crate, most of them purchased at department stores and Dearborn Music. After moving from Detroit to attend John Carroll University, I’d hitch rides to Cleveland’s Coventry section to peruse hippie record shops whose names I’ve forgotten. My goal, first and foremost, was to find solos that could raise the hair on my arms and transport me to a better place.

A half-century has passed since those heady days, and I am still drawn to the solos that have packed a wallop ever since I first heard ’em. Here are some all-time favorites from 1970 through 1975. Feel free to add your choices in the comments section below.

Jimi Hendrix, “Machine Gun,” Band of Gypsys, 1970. Minutes into the new year, Jimi Hendrix, onstage at the Fillmore East, launched into a 13-minute version of “Machine Gun” loaded with a stunning array of sound effects. Billy Cox, bassist on the recordings, recalled, “At the Fillmore East he used a Fuzz Face, wah-wah pedal, Uni-vibe, and Octavia…. In fact, you could hear all of it kicking in on ‘Machine Gun.’ It was incredible. There were people in the audience with their mouths open.”

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Pete Townshend and John Entwistle, “My Generation,” The Who’s Live at Leeds, 1970. An alternately subtle and angry live rendition, with knuckle-bleeding windmill chords giving way to single-line assaults and tender arpeggios. During this 14-minute performance, Townshend emerged as the personification of finesse under pressure, while John Entwistle, with his bass trills and solo breaks, reimagined his instrument’s potential for soloing.

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Eric Clapton and Duane Allman, “Key to the Highway,” Derek & The Dominos’ Layla, 1970. Things were a little too laid back at the Layla album sessions until Duane Allman showed up and kicked the band into high gear. An impromptu jam resolved into an unforgettable cover of Big Bill Broonzy’s “Key to the Highway.” Eric Clapton’s vocals have seldom sounded better, and the guitar interplay is equal to that on the hit song “Layla,” recorded soon afterwards.

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Freddie King, “Going Down,” Getting Ready, 1970. Freddie King’s fire-breathing solos go toe-to-toe with Leon Russell’s throbbing piano in a blues-rock classic. Written by Don Nix, the song was recorded in Chicago on October 24, 1970, and released soon afterward on King’s first Shelter LP, Getting Ready. He cut it live in the studio, singing while playing a Gibson ES-345 strung with light Ernie Balls (.010, .011, and .012) on the treble side and Gibson mediums for the bass strings. From the opening measure’s blistering bends, this song has it all—a tremendous riff, freight-train energy, an exhilarating progression for soloing. It’s little wonder that Jeff Beck covered the song on 1972’s The Jeff Beck Group, and Eric Johnson, Joe Satriani, and Steve Vai used it as a launch pad for jam sessions during their G3 concerts.

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Leslie West, “Mississippi Queen,” Mountain Climbing, 1970. Two minutes and 31 seconds of pure dynamite, complete with cowbell, rusty-zipper vocals, and blues-laden solo. Leslie West bought his first electric guitar with proceeds from his bar mitzvah, then had his great moment of revelation: “I saw Clapton live with Cream, and that did it—I thought I’d better shit or get off the pot.” West hunkered down, created one of the best finger vibratos in rock and roll, and struck gold with “Mississippi Queen,” featuring Cream producer Felix Pappalardi on bass.

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Jimmy Page, “Since I’ve Been Loving You,” Led Zeppelin III, 1970. Trying to choose Led Zep’s greatest blues track is akin to asking a mother to pick her favorite child–good luck with that. A sublime place to start, though, is “Since I’ve Been Loving You.” The 1972 live version released on 2003’s How the West Was Won is another must-hear. On both versions, Page pulls out all the stops, sounding like Otis Rush on a great night. Astounding.

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Eddie Hazel, “Maggot Brain,” Funkadelic’s Maggot Brain, 1971. Drugs + headphones = WTF?! This could well be the most psychedelic track in the history of mankind.

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Duane Allman and Dickey Betts, “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed,” The Allman Brothers Band’s At Fillmore East, 1971. Composer Dickey Betts plays the volume swells and long opening guitar solo. After the drum section and Gregg Allman’s organ solo, Duane takes over, delivering a no-holds-barred climax to what is arguably his most thrilling performance with the band that bears his family name.

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Steve Marriott and Peter Frampton, “I Don’t Need No Doctor,” Humble Pie’s Performance–Rockin’ the Fillmore. This 1971 concert album brought Humble Pie endless radio airplay and cult status. This was the classic lineup, with former Small Faces frontman Steve Marriott and soon-to-be-famous Peter Frampton sharing vocals and guitars. Nick Ashford and Valerie Simpson, who wrote the song, claim that Humble Pie’s 9:15 reading was based on the Ray Charles version rather than their original recording. Crank it up until the neighbors bang on your walls.
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Rory Gallagher, “Living Like a Trucker,” Tattoo, 1973. A superlative example of how a short, to-the-point solo with just the right amount of feedback sustain can elevate a song.

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Ernie Isley, “Who’s That Lady,” The Isley Brothers’ 3+3, 1973. Soaring, Hendrixy, and played with lovely sustain by a young man who used to look out of his bedroom window and watch Jimi Hendrix shoot baskets with his famous older brothers. “The whole attitude of that song was deliberately set up for the solo,” Ernie recalled in 1981.

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Johnny Winter, “Rock Me Baby,” Still Alive and Well, 1973. This ballsy recording of Arthur Crudup’s “Rock Me Baby” featured blues-approved, wall-to-wall riffing. Johnny wore a thumbpick and ran his Gibson Firebird through his then-current stage rig, which he described as “a 100-watt Marshall, one head and two bottoms, and one head and two bottoms of the Ampeg SVTs.” His piercing tone and machine-gun style set a template for Stevie Ray Vaughan and countless other blues-rockers waiting in the wings.

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Billy Gibbons, “La Grange,” ZZ Tops’ Tres Hombres, 1973. “La Grange, Texas,” confided Billy Gibbons in hushed tones, “was the notorious locale for one of the more illustrious cathouses in the state. You just mention La Grange, and most people would certainly be able to raise an eyebrow over it. We put the song together, and shortly after the release, an overzealous newsman took it upon himself to expose what was going on, and in one short week, a many, many year old tradition was on the rocks. There were many tears shed over the demise of that particular establishment.”

But not over ZZ’s first national hit, which journeys from subdued John Lee Hooker-esque vocals to full-tilt boogie. Gibbons played the tune on his beloved “Pearly Gates,” a stock 1959 Gibson Les Paul with a one-of-a-kind tone enhanced by beefy strings (.011-.052) and Gibbons’ using a U.S. quarter as a guitar pick. The fade-out solo provides a textbook example of combining pick harmonics and string bends.

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Joe Walsh, “Rocky Mountain Way,” The Smoker You Drink, The Player You Get, 1973. When I asked him to name his best-ever guitar work, Joe Walsh started with the searing slide and innovative talk box of “Rocky Mountain Way.” “I did that slide solo in one take,” Joe remembered. “I was sitting on an old tweed Fender Champ amp at Criteria Studios, just warming up. I didn’t even know they were recording—I figured they were getting a headphone mix. At the end of the song, I said, ‘Okay, let’s try one.’ And the engineer said, ‘Hey, man, you’re done.’ I said, ‘Come on, man, don’t mess around. I want to really get this.’ They said, ‘Honest to God, you’re done.’ That’s an example of a spontaneous solo. That doesn’t happen all the time, but when the magic’s there—and when it is, it is, and when it ain’t, it ain’t—that’s beautiful, beautiful stuff.” Amen.

This million-selling pre-Eagles masterpiece also introduced the talk box effect to mainstream rock and roll. “I used the talk box that was worked on Bill West, who was Dottie West’s husband and a pedal steel player,” Joe explained in our 1988 interview. “Pete Drake used it on the song ‘Forever,’ and then nobody used it. I went down to see Dottie and Bill when I played in Nashville, and Bill gave me that talk box. Then Peter Frampton asked me how to use it, and he went and got rich with it.”

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Craig Chaquico, “Ride the Tiger,” Jefferson Starship’s Dragon Fly, 1974. Nineteen years old and bursting with enthusiasm, Craig played so ferociously he ran out of fretboard and used to back of his fingernails to soar into the stratosphere. “I got that idea from Papa Jon Creach,” he revealed in our 1982 interview. “When he was playing fiddle, he would just go higher and higher. It used to trip me out because he didn’t have any frets to worry about.

“The lick starts off with hammer-ons hitting the two high strings at once, like the E and the B, with a one-fret space between your ring and index finger. Start getting a circular motion with your picking hand, and move your left hand up fret by fret. When you run out of frets, turn your fingers to the side and use your fingernail. When the amp is really loud and you’re torquing with your pick and digging in, somehow you get enough level of attack that the notes are still coming out. Just keep that thing going up to the polepieces of the pickup, and then slide it all the way down. You can hear the frets kick in on the slide down. It blew my mind the first time I tried this and it happened.”

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Carlos Santana, “Mirage,” Borboletta, 1974. Like Rory Gallagher’s “Living Like a Trucker,” this is a genius-brand example of a perfectly placed solo with searing sustain. “That song is very special,” Santana said in one of our unpublished interviews. “Michael Shrieve, Tom Coster and Leon Patillo put ‘Mirage’ together in one night. They said, ‘Why don't you go out with your wife and cool out. We got it. We’ll call you tomorrow, and you can just come in and play.’ I said, ‘Okay.’ I went in the next day and just situated myself in the studio to find the best spot to create sustain with the guitar and amp. It’s almost like holding a piece of glass to find that right spot in the sun where it turns into a prism. As soon as I found it, I said, ‘Yeah, let’s run it!’

When I hit a long, sustaining note like the one in the beginning of that solo, it’s like stumbling and discovering something that’s not going to be there all the time. Like Miles Davis said, ‘We all wake up to get that tone.’ Sometimes you get it and sometimes you don’t, but you’ve got to keep on trying. It was magical to actually capture it on a recording.”

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Robin Trower, “Day of the Eagle,” Bridge of Sighs, 1974. With its massive sonic dreamscapes, Robin Trower’s Bridge of Sighs elated fans of lead-heavy rock guitar, who’d been pretty much in the doldrums since Jimi’s death. Sung by James Dewar, a tiny bassist with a huge voice, “Day of the Eagle” straddled hard rock and blues, and catapulted Trower into the pantheon of guitar heroes. Robin’s inspiration? B.B. King. “After hearing his Live at the Regal, I began using the instrument as a human voice.”

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Roy Buchanan, “Can I Change My Mind,” Live Stock. Exquisitely beautiful playing from start to finish, recorded live at New York City’s Town Hall.

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Jeff Beck, “’Cause We’ve Ended as Lovers,” Blow By Blow, 1975. In his chanciest career move, Beck abandoned blues-rock for an instrumental album of jazz-rock fusion. Produced by George Martin and dedicated to Roy Buchanan, Jeff’s cover of Stevie Wonder’s “’Cause We’ve Ended as Lovers” is among the most lyrical performances he’d ever record.

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