Great guitar solos, #7: Buckethead meets Bernie Worrell and Les Claypool

Buckethead turns 45 today. 

Though perhaps best known to the general public for his mask and unique headgear, Bucket is an exceptionally versatile musician with sizzling guitar chops. 

In two decades on the music scene, he has collaborated with Mike Patton (Faith No More), Iggy Pop, and Bootsy Collins, and ably manned the lead guitar post in a Guns 'n' Roses re-boot. He has created a sprawling catalog of experimental solo releases which incorporate multiple genres, from metal to funk to hip-hop to electronica to moody instrumental ballads to jam rock and even hints of new age music. And when the moment is right, Bucket can transform himself into a robotic dancer.

The video below from Bonnaroo features Buckethead in big company:  the fearsome Primus rhythm section (Les Claypool on bass, Brain on drums) and Bernie Worrell, the emeritus keyboardist from Parliament-Funkadelic. Buckethead is capable of dizzyingly fast shred guitar, but here he lays down a molten, blues-based jam over a deep pocket, an example of the heady blend of technique and feeling Buckethead can draw on. In whatever context(s) he chooses to pursue, Buckethead will continue to generate original music and wicked fretboard work for many years to come.    

      

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Other Truth and Beauty guitar hero essays:

Click here for "Eddie Van Halen's 'Fair Warning':  an Appreciation"

                                    here for "The Second Coming:  Stevie Ray Vaughan," a first-hand                                                                  account of Vaughan's final concert

here for "It was 70 years ago today:  an appreciation of Jimi Hendrix"

                       
  here for "Link Wray's 'Rumble'"     
                  

here for "Great Guitar Solos, #1:  Eddie Hazel (Funkadelic)"

here for "Great Guitar Solos, #2:  Frank Zappa"

here for "Great Guitar Solos, #3:  Hiram Bullock" 

here for "Great Guitar Solos, #4: Dweezil Zappa Nails 'Eruption'"

here for "Great Guitar Solos, #5:  Alvin Lee"

 here for "Great Guitar Solos, #6: Neil Young's 'Hey Hey, My My'"

and here for "Shut Up 'N Play Yer Guitar - The Six-String Wizardry of Frank Zappa, Part II"

Great Guitar Solos, #3: Hiram Bullock

“I think he was the greatest guitar player ever, with the exception perhaps of Jimi Hendrix. Nobody was ever better.”

-Paul Schaffer, on Hiram Bullock


In a perfect world, Hiram Bullock would be a household name. 

From the mid-'70s until his death in 2005, Bullock was an active session musician who straddled the jazz-funk-pop/rock genres.  

Bullock's credits included work with notable jazz figures Art Farmer, Dizzy Gillespie, Carla Bley, Jaco Pastorius, and David Sanborn, with whom he had a long-standing collaboration.

Bullock supported pop acts Burt Bacharach, Kenny Loggins, and Paul Simon, and played on some really big albums:  "Gaucho" by Steely Dan; Billy Joel's "The Stranger"; and the soundtracks to "A Star is Born" and "The Blues Brothers." He also did the solo on Sting's cover of Jimi Hendrix's "Little Wing."

In addition, Bullock was one of the original members of David Letterman's band, and had several releases of his own. 

In the video below, Bullock supports Bootsy Collins on David Sanborn's show, "Night Music," at some point in '89-'90. There's much to love about this performance, including (but not limited to) Bootzilla's regal blue costume and star-shaped bass, and the synchronous booty-shaking of the many people onstage. A friend I forwarded this video to echoed my thoughts when she said, "I want to be in that room."

Bullock's solo comes in at 3:34, and right away you know he means business. The opening pick slide is lascivious - in the best sense - and seamlessly morphs into a sweet, sweet bend joined to an ecstatic expression that could come off as overblown in lesser hands, but fits perfectly here. 

Many rock solos in '89-'90 were played by twenty-something men who crammed as many notes as possible into an agreed-upon number of measures. This technique-for-technique's-sake trap too often buried the melody/theme of the song, rather than supporting it.

By contrast, this solo is pure blues feeling. Hiram builds on the deep groove and makes every note count - and barely looks at his hands as he does it.   

After an explosive climax, Hiram steps back into the shadows, once again invisible. 

Such is the life of the sideman. 

**Click here for "Great Guitar Solos, #1:  Eddie Hazel (of Funkadelic) and here for "Great Guitar Solos, #2:  Frank Zappa

p.s. for more details about Hiram Bullock and the above video, see Jon Leon Guerrero's comments below

Great Guitar Solos, #1: Eddie Hazel

I always wanted to be a lead guitarist. 

The seed was planted in high school, when I listened to Jimmy Page's searing leads on "Led Zeppelin II," above all the "Heartbreaker" solos, both the stand-alone, epic beast which starts at 2:03, and the lesser-known but equally brutal second solo that comes in at 3:08 over the magnum force of Zeppelin's rhythm section. 

Page stoked my interest, but the extent of my actions at the time were air guitar solos in between bench press sets.  I didn't sit down and do the grunt work of learning the guitar until college.  

At the time, my prime inspiration was Kirk Hammett. I walked around campus blasting "Garage Days Re-Revisited" in my Walkman, awestruck by the perfectly-sculpted solos, which were both chaotic and controlled, reliably building to explosive crescendos. Twenty five years on, many of these solos are still hard-wired into my memory note-for-note, as I frequently rewound them at the time, thinking "I want to do that."

Not long into my guitar apprenticeship, my tastes changed. One day a good friend and I sat in my dorm room drinking cheap beer and listening to "Live at Winterland," arguably the best live Hendrix album. At some point, probably after one of Jimi's cosmic solos, my friend (who up to that point had listened mostly to heavy metal) turned to me and said, "You know, Jimi's got something that Kirk just doesn't have." 

This was a permanent paradigm shift for both of us. I still appreciated Kirk Hammett, Eddie Van Halen, and a handful of other hard rock/metal guitarists, but the conversion to Hendrix was a turn away from the fast, highly technical playing that predominated during the plastic '80s toward a more blues-based style rooted in note purity/economy and feeling.       

The two-plus decades since have brought me into contact with a long list of great guitarists:  BB King, (early) Eric Clapton, Duane Allman, Jeff Beck, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Johnny Winter, Carlos Santana, Frank Zappa, Buddy Guy, Mike Bloomfield, Albert Collins.  I owe a debt of gratitude to all of them as I try to channel their spirit in my own playing. 

In this series, I will pay homage to my forebears, the broad shoulders on which I stand every time I plug in.  

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One amazing guitarist who is too rarely mentioned in the same breath as the above is Eddie Hazel of Funkadelic. Hazel co-wrote and wailed furiously on "Red Hot Mama" (and "Vital Juices," an extension of "Mama" that's pure, unalloyed jam), but he's best known for "Maggot Brain," one of the best instrumentals of all-time - and one of the only electric guitar moments in history that approaches the sonic heavy-osity of Jimi Hendrix. 

When I first heard "Maggot Brain," I thought who is this guitarist, and why have I never heard of him? Unfortunately, this is a common reaction to the discovery of Eddie Hazel, whose catalog is limited due to substance abuse and an abbreviated life span.

Naturally, I went to You Tube to crack the mystery of Eddie Hazel, and found this excerpt from "Standing on the Verge of Getting it On":

Backed by the mighty Funkadelic groove army, this is a musician at the height of his powers.

Check out the '70s duds, the big, full Strat tone, and George Clinton's introduction, "I want you to talk to 'em, brother," as Hazel's bandmates clear the way for him to stand and deliver.


**Click here for Great Guitar Solos, #2:  Frank Zappa

here for Great Guitar Solos, #3:  Hiram Bullock 

here for Great Guitar Solos, #4: Dweezil Zappa Nails "Eruption"

and here for Great Guitar Solos, #5: Alvin Lee