![]() When Zakk Wylde arrived in the late 1980s, the Ozzies finally received the Aikman they had been waiting for – a forceful, accurate, and freakishly strong armed corn-fed Southerner (via Bayonne, New Jersey or UCLA) with the kind of sonic heft, velocity and drive that helped Ozzy thrive even during the grunge heavy early 1990s. Rhoads’s fleet fingered scalar and modal runs from Blizzard of Ozz or Diary of a Madman are the Staubach jump passes and mad scrambles of their respective fans’ nostalgic highlight reels, while his revered classical guitar training was as much a testament to formality and discipline as Staubach’s Navy background and service. *Lest you not want to grant us this much latitude in comparing Ozzy fans’ passion for their guitarists to Cowboys fans feelings for their quarterbacks, there are parallels. As a vital part of the exclusive brotherhood of Ozzy Osbourne’s guitar slingers, Zakk spent much of three decades responsible not only for his own bone-crunching riffs and skyward solo bends, but also for maintaining a legacy of some true guitar hall-of-fame legends: Tony Iommi (the founder of Black Sabbath and Godfather Corleone of heavy riffage), and the late Randy Rhoads (a man whose import to guitar geeks approaches something like Roger Staubach’s importance to Dallas Cowboy fans). This is where the particular wisdom of Zakk Wylde can be really useful. If the artists themselves feels at liberty to change and revise these classic moments, how loyal should us mortals be? The players themselves don’t think of their own work as sacred even classic solos such as this one or this one can be changed, altered, or expanded upon in a live setting. On the other hand, many of the greatest guitar solos we can think of were basically improvised, off-the-cuff streams of consciousness applied to the fretboard. In many instances, there can be turns of phrase on the instrument as memorable as any specific, compelling lyric from the lead singer, and an essential part of what we consider “the song.” There are certain things that audiences often expect when they hear a tune, and certain guitar solos can be particularly melodic and memorable. So I recently had an interesting conversation with a fellow guitar player about playing covers, and specifically how much of a well known song’s guitar solo should be played note-for-note. Read on – it’s going to be fun, and you’ll see I’m not afraid to reveal myself as a real ’80s guitar nerd. Plus, it’s a nice way for us both to waste some time. Yes, that thing that we are actually supposed to be making with all the musical equipment that we buy! Why would we even talk about this? Well, simply put, it’s essential to think about what goes into making rock and roll fun. ![]() We’re going to have a geek out blog post about music. Hey all! So every once in a while, we’re not going to talk about pedals. ![]()
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