Question: Get Soft! Seventies soft rock lead guitar shoot-out!

Soft rock lead guitar shoot-out: which song do you pick?

  • Bread: 'The Guitar Man'

    Votes: 7 63.6%

  • The Carpenters: 'Goodbye to Love'

    Votes: 4 36.4%
  • Total voters
    11
Motorik

Motorik

Kick Henry Jackassowski
Like you, I often fantasize about playing the lead guitar in a chart-topping seventies soft rock act. When entertaining this fantasy it's common for us to imagine one of two options: playing fuzzlord Tony Peluso's solo in The Carpenters' 'Goodbye to Love', or rocking the wah-wah like Larry Knechtel on Bread's 'The Guitar Man'.

But what if there could be only one?

Which track wins the soft rock lead guitar shootout, and why?

Exhibit A:



Exhibit B:

 
That's really a tough one. Goodbye to Love is not my favorite Carpenters song by a long shot; whereas Guitar Man is an absolute staple on my soft rock list. Also, the tone on Goodbye is absolutely dreadful. However, its composition is head and shoulders above the Guitar Man solo. Instead of being handed a few meandering licks, the listener is treated to a journey, first through the vocal melody (with impeccable phrasing), then to a masterful saunter through the changes that builds in intensity until, finally, the vocal comes back in.
So Goodbye to Love takes it.
 
micwalt said:
That's really a tough one. Goodbye to Love is not my favorite Carpenters song by a long shot; whereas Guitar Man is an absolute staple on my soft rock list. Also, the tone on Goodbye is absolutely dreadful. However, its composition is head and shoulders above the Guitar Man solo. Instead of being handed a few meandering licks, the listener is treated to a journey, first through the vocal melody (with impeccable phrasing), then to a masterful saunter through the changes that builds in intensity until, finally, the vocal comes back in.
So Goodbye to Love takes it.
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I like your analysis of 'Goodbye to Love'. It's a beautifully composed solo. And I actually really like the Big Muff tone he went with. :heavymetal:
 
Regarding both:

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As my son would say (has said): "Wuss rock of the worst sort."
 
Knox in Box said:
I tried. 0:35 into GTL before I had to turn it off. I could literally feel the juices retreating from my generals.
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Never understood the love for Karen Carpenter. Yeah - she had a pleasant voice, but her delivery was so bland, vanilla, and utterly anodyne their stuff put me to sleep.
 
bsman said:
Never understood the love for Karen Carpenter. Yeah - she had a pleasant voice, but her delivery was so bland, vanilla, and utterly anodyne their stuff put me to sleep.
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I understand that she was tremendously talented and they loved her for it. There's only just a couple of songs I can personally stand though without feeling like I'm living in a 70's dishwashing liquid commercial.
 
Bread - wah wah always gets me. The Carpenters solo started out more like the composed melody and only started improvising in the last bit.
 
I've just had a Deep Thought:

At some point in the seventies wah-wah went out of favor for the most part, and it remained that way for quite some time. From my recollection 'Sweet Child o' Mine' was a song that brought the wah back in from the cold (and the Les Paul for that matter), but the wah has gone in and out of popularity since then.

Now, my idea: do periods of large-scale wah-approval usually occur alongside periods of tolerance for flared pants?
 
Motorik said:
I've just had a Deep Thought:

At some point in the seventies wah-wah went out of favor for the most part, and it remained that way for quite some time. From my recollection 'Sweet Child o' Mine' was a song that brought the wah back in from the cold (and the Les Paul for that matter), but the wah has gone in and out of popularity since then.

Now, my idea: do periods of large-scale wah-approval usually occur alongside periods of tolerance for flared pants?
Click to expand...

This is a good exercise, trying to remember times when wah wah wasn't popular. Early seventies prog bands were still using wah. Steve Howe of Yes more traditionally, and Fripp and Wetton from King Crimson made it sound more like a synth modulating device on their guitar and bass. Definitely not present in first wave punk. Trying to recall if early Talking Heads or Blondie used it. I don't think so. Steve Miller did. Ted Nugent did in the mid seventies. Zappa. Off hand I'm having a hard time coming up with wah use in the 80s, until you get to Smashing Pumpkins. After them it came back in a big way in the 90s with grunge. British bands like Blur used it quite a bit. Oasis of course. I think it's been back ever since. Built to Spill was one of my favorite indie guitar bands, with 3 guitarists blending lead, often with wah, rhythm, and slide. And I totally left out funk and R&B (Rufus comes immediately to mind).
 
rickenvox said:
This is a good exercise, trying to remember times when wah wah wasn't popular. Early seventies prog bands were still using wah. Steve Howe of Yes more traditionally, and Fripp and Wetton from King Crimson made it sound more like a synth modulating device on their guitar and bass. Definitely not present in first wave punk. Trying to recall if early Talking Heads or Blondie used it. I don't think so. Steve Miller did. Ted Nugent did in the mid seventies. Zappa. Off hand I'm having a hard time coming up with wah use in the 80s, until you get to Smashing Pumpkins. After them it came back in a big way in the 90s with grunge. British bands like Blur used it quite a bit. Oasis of course. I think it's been back ever since. Built to Spill was one of my favorite indie guitar bands, with 3 guitarists blending lead, often with wah, rhythm, and slide. And I totally left out funk and R&B (Rufus comes immediately to mind).
Click to expand...

It's an interesting exercise when you start into it, or fun to guitar nerds like us. :embarrassed:

Those were real good points you made. Another seventies rock band that used wah was Thin Lizzy, like on 'Jailbreak' and 'Don't Believe a Word'. Possibly Brian Robertson was the wah guy rather than Gorham, because in the later albums they knocked it off? I don't think the NWOBHM bands that came after used wah much, but somebody who knows more about that scene (Jbird?) could answer that.

I should add I'm not talking about 'cocked wah', I mean actually rocking the pedal.

After you mentioned mentioned first wave punk I wracked my brain trying to think of an early punk band using wah. The only thing close I could think of, and this isn't exactly big-time, is Peter Laughner in Rocket From the Tombs on 'Ain't it Fun', and even then it's just for the lead lines.

 
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