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Topic: Some Country Funk, "Pick Up The Pieces" |
Mike Neer
From:
NJ
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Posted 18 Dec 2023 11:00 am |
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Okay, my lap steel pals, here is something I cooked up last night. The classic by Average White Band was one I used to play years ago with my 8-pc R&B band, with 3 horns. Something made me think of this tune again.
I set about playing it and struggled with the various lines in the tune, but when I record something and can hear a bit of struggling, I know there has to be a better way of doing it. I got this from really digging deep on Sol Hoopii tracks. It only took a few tunes to open up the doors for me. I will continue to look at new ways to physically play something if I don't think it has the articulation that I want. Sometimes you have to look at the way you are picking it or the way your bar is moving and realize that it will never be seamless, and then move onto another option. This is what I did/do, and I am still not even convinced my search is done.
Anyway, here is the tune. I started recording video of me playing each of the tracks but by the time I got to steel it was just too time-consuming and a huge drain on my energy. I thought I'd make a vid with a dancer I really like to watch, and guess what? He digs it too!
https://youtu.be/0-Kj1B_4Dns
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Links to streaming music, websites, YouTube: Links |
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Brad Bechtel
From:
San Francisco, CA
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Posted 18 Dec 2023 6:54 pm
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Nice job, Mike!
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Brad’s Page of Steel
A web site devoted to acoustic & electric lap steel guitars |
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Carey Hofer
From:
South Dakota, USA
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Posted 18 Dec 2023 7:45 pm
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| That's actually pretty cool. |
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Madeline Dietrich
From:
Virginia, USA
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Posted 19 Dec 2023 12:53 pm
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| Very cool. |
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Jerry Overstreet
From:
Louisville Ky
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Posted 19 Dec 2023 2:02 pm
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Big fan of funk here.
Nice job being faithful to the tune. Very difficult one to get right. Kudos on the arrangement and range of instrumentation.
I really enjoy players going in all directions and just showing there are really no limitations of the instrument if one is but willing to open up the mind.
Nice job on the video dancer Zeb too. |
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Tony Oresteen
From:
Georgia, USA
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Posted 19 Dec 2023 2:43 pm
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Mike,
Nice! That song immediately brought back memories of Jeff Golub & Avenue Blue. It had become his signature song. We lost him in 2015. RIP Jeff.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dkj8LXNmLKI
I've been working on this song for awhile for guitar - I never thought about doing it on a steel guitar.
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Tony
Newnan, GA
Too many guitars, not enough time to play
'72 Sho-Bud 6139, '71 Marlen 210
'78 Fender Stringmaster Quad black
PedalMaster D8 |
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Mike Neer
From:
NJ
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Posted 19 Dec 2023 3:04 pm
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I remember Jeff Golub well. He was a nice guy and really good musician. I had the pleasure of letting him play my guitar at a NYC club back around 1988, when a lot of heavy musicians used to show up at a club called Spo-Dee-Odee. In fact, I often got a chance to sit in and play with these people because I had a…..lap steel. Yup, I would bring my Electar Model M with me, and I would play with the Uptown Horns, and JT Lewis, Narada Michael Walden, Ray Gomez, Edgar Winter, Greg Allman. It was insane! And I was a terrible lap steel player.
Anyway, I appreciate the comments and I hope you can feel how much music excites me. I am in the middle of a longer-term project (ragtime/classical), but it’s such a heavy undertaking that I need to take sanity breaks, and this is my sanity break. I want to keep my chops up and my brain working but purely for pleasure, which is what all these tracks are. The urge comes on strong and usually within a few hours I’m done and I’ll never play it again. It’s therapy, catharsis, all of it.
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Links to streaming music, websites, YouTube: Links |
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John Sluszny
From:
Brussels, Belgium
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Posted 19 Dec 2023 3:50 pm
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| 👏👍😉 |
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Joe Cook
From:
Lake Osoyoos, WA
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Posted 20 Dec 2023 6:29 am
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| That is fantastic! You are a great inspiration, Mike. |
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Brooks Montgomery
From:
Idaho, USA
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Posted 20 Dec 2023 8:30 am
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Excellent Mike! Brings back good memories—I remember seeing AWB in Salt Lake City in 1975 (i think?) and they were touring with Les McCann. Great energy, and that song was getting a ton of air time back then. Cool version.
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A banjo, like a pet monkey, seems like a good idea at first. |
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Tom Jordan
From:
Wichita, KS
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Posted 20 Dec 2023 9:54 am
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TomJ |
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Noah Miller
From:
Rocky Hill, CT
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Posted 20 Dec 2023 3:22 pm
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| Someone needs to medley this with Poco's "Pickin' Up the Pieces". |
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