The 5 Albums That Taught Me Guitar

[Music] five more records that made me a record that made me want to find my own sound was tributaries by Larry Coryell with Joe Beck and John Schofield three guys playing identical plastic guitars all sounding totally different a record that made me appreciate Neil Young's powerful yet vulnerable electric guitar sound was the Dead Man soundtrack a record that made me think Jazz Rock Fusion wasn't such a bad idea after all was standards by tortoise so that's Adam Levy now I've been following Adam for years and I saw these reels that he's been posting on Instagram about his Five albums that made him he's done a few of these posts now and it inspired me to think back to when I was first getting into music and learning about guitar the albums that really stuck out to me the albums that made me so that's what we're going to do in today's video I'm going to steal Adam's idea with his permission and I'll show you Five albums that really stuck out to me that were huge in my life and hold a special place in my heart for different reasons so go follow Adam levy on Instagram his link is down below I'll have links to his YouTube and also while you're down there check out the Inner Circle this is basically a yearly subscription that gets you access to all of my video courses this year we've put out a brand new video course essentially every month we have plans to continue to do that throughout the rest of the year and into the future so if you like what I do here and you want to support the channel and get into the video courses that we're making you can just sign up for a yearly subscription and it'll get you access to all of the courses that I've made in the past and access to courses as they drop in the future [Music] uh foreign Clapton Clapton Unplugged this was a big big one for me because this is actually my first memory of music so I was born in 1990 in Charleston South Carolina and uh this album came out in 92. I think and so at the time my parents had this on cassette in their car and honestly the earliest memory of music I have is sitting in the back of the car in the car seat with this album playing you know sing and Before You Accuse Me and hey hey so this is pretty foundational to my love of music and my love of guitar and I still love this record to this day and we had sort of a full circle moment back in 2019 my dad and I got to go to The Crossroads Festival in Dallas and if you were at that Festival you know that Clapton opened the whole festival with an acoustic set where they played a handful of songs off of the unplugged record and it was a really special moment me and my dad were there uh it was genuinely one of the best moments I've had in music seeing these songs played live that really kind of point back to my initial experience of music and what got me interested in it at two three years old so this one is a big one for me I know it's kind of controversial I know some people like it some people don't like it but for me it's I mean foundational foreign [Music] okay so if you've been around this channel for a while you know I've talked about this before but red house is the first time I ever remember hearing something on guitar and thinking like what is that I wanna I wanna do that I want to figure out how to do that and play it and I can take you to the exact spot where I was when I heard this for the first time I had the Sony Walkman CD player I was sitting in the back seat of my mom's SUV in the parking lot of a grocery store while she ran in to get something and I was listening to this and red house came up and I heard that [Music] that sound just grabbed me like I had never heard anything quite like that before and it just it just grabbed me man I don't know how to say it other than that like it really just got my attention and it was right after that that I started asking my parents for a guitar and initially they said no they thought that guitar was going to be this like flavor of the week kind of thing they were gonna buy me some you know guitar and little practice amp and I was never going to touch it it would collect dust on the side of my room so after months and months of asking they ended up caving in that year for Christmas they bought me my first guitar and it was a total afterthought see they ended up buying my sister this nice student model classical guitar and they got signed her up for lessons and they thought she was going to be the musician and on Christmas Eve my dad was kind of doing some last minute Christmas shopping and he saw this 99 dollar it wasn't even a squire it was like Star Caster by fender with the triangle headstock and he just bought it since that Christmas of like 2002 or 2003 to now I have not stopped playing guitar I started on that red Strat and it all started because I heard red house and thought I don't know what this is but I've got to figure out how to do this and uh here we are [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] all right so this this was a really really big one for me and it's a little bit out of left field like Dave Matthews Band you know no I was a white dude growing up in the suburbs in the early 2000s so it does check out that I would be into Dave Matthews Band but specifically the live at Central Park Record Cortez the Killer this is how I learned how to play solos or at least started to learn about soloing now I didn't know it at the time that this was you know a cover of Neil Young but I really quickly honed in on Warren Haynes and I used to come home from school for God maybe the better part of a year and I would put this CD on in my CD player in my room and I'd plug into my little Vox valvetronics modeling amplifier with my little Strat copy and I would sit and try and play I'd try and improvise and try and jam with this band and this was years before I ever played with like people I was playing in like my church youth group or whatever like acoustic guitar but never playing electric guitar with people in a band context and when I listen to this now it's been years since I've listened to this but this actually taught me a lot of those classic guitar moves and there's there's a lot of this there's a lot of Warren Haynes sort of phrasing and technique and and sound that I think has stuck around in my playing to this day like for instance this move foreign like all of those things I learned from this solo like the classic you know there or learning that oh you can play outside of just the minor pentatonic box you can add other notes for different uh sounds and different colors and then like moving up and down the neck not just playing in the one minor pentatonic box being but being able to move from different positions I learned all of that or I should say I was introduced to all of that from specifically this Cortez the Killer live at Central Park Dave Matthews Band with Warren Haynes like Warren Haynes turned me on to all of these Concepts single-handedly almost with this one song I mean listen to this [Music] Dynamics solo is long and drawn out but I've listened to it so many times and played along with it so many times that I learned the idea of like building to something building to something big like this [Applause] so yeah Cortez the Killer Dave Matthews Band Warren Haynes this was uh the right place at the right time for me it was right in that pocket of the learning curve where I was starting to get some dexterity I was starting to get some some chops under my fingers and it was just the right thing right when I needed it like you can sit here and you can Vamp on an E minor uh solo and and put together sort of the building blocks of improvisation and playing with other people and trying to say something with a solo that all came from this particular song [Music] [Applause] [Music] okay this is another one kind of out of left field but there's a story behind this so right around this time 2003 2004 I was 13 14 years old really getting into guitar but also getting just into music in general and finding my own sort of sound of my own voice uh and it this was a weird time in my life school was going terribly I didn't have very many friends I definitely didn't fit in I was terrible at sports so my friend Mike Gilmartin gave me a copy of the wall on CD I had never heard anything like this album before I didn't know you could do this I didn't know you could have an album of music that was part music but also part play and part sound design and part movie there were whole songs on this album that weren't songs just getting introduced to what would go on to become one of my favorite bands which is Pink Floyd but the wall was my introduction to them I think it sort of opened my eyes to the idea of Music being art and not just something that is like you know playing in the radio or or in the background or something to like learn guitar solos on top of it it's like an expression and I remember listening to this and feeling kind of scared I think it was the first time my life I had like an experience with art that made me really feel something outside of just listening to you know a guitar song that I liked you know hadn't thought about this until now it actually like sparked this whole discussion with my parents of like should he be listening to this I don't know this seems like it seems a little dangerous I don't know if we we should be letting him listen to this kind of stuff what is this about you know because my parents vision of Pink Floyd was it was all just you know drugs and rock and roll and all this kind of stuff yeah uh the wall it's not one I listen to often but it's uh it was a really really important moment for me in my life I think [Music] okay so song lines Derek Trucks Band this is another really big one for me so in 2007 I've been playing guitar for a few years now and it's clear that guitar and music is my thing I was 17. I was starting to get to that point where I was getting into players and I was getting into records and trying to figure out like okay I like this album where did they get this from in that fall Eric Clapton came through Atlanta and we went to go see him live it was me and my mom my dad my best friend Andrew and his parents we all went to go see Clapton and that tour was amazing I didn't realize it at the time but I got to see one of the greatest Rhythm sections ever it was Willie weeks and Steve Jordan and then with Clapton was Doyle Bramhall and Derek Trucks and I didn't know who either one of those guys were and we were kind of at the back of the arena and you know Robert Cray opened the show it was an incredible and then Clapton came out and I remember seeing this blonde-haired dude playing an SG who absolutely stole the show for me I was excited to see Clapton and as soon as I heard Derek Trucks take his first solo that was it for me I was solely focused on Derek the rest of the night in that coming New Year's Eve Derek Trucks Band was playing the New Year's Eve show at the Fox Theater here in Atlanta so my parents and I went and I need to shout out my mom and dad because the whole thing with the wall is funny but when it became apparent that music and guitar was my thing my parents were incredibly supportive we started going to shows my dad and I would go to Guitar Center every Saturday and sit and play guitars and you know him not being a musician he didn't play but he has an incredible ear for sound and you know we would sit and compare and contrast and talk about the differences between things and so we got into music and bonded over music in my teens and so that moment of going to see Derek Trucks Band at New Year's Eve at the Fox Theater and it's one of my favorite shows I've ever seen I remember everything about that show I remember where we were sitting I remember what songs they played there's also the special connection though being a guitar player from Atlanta because you know there's a strong connection between Derek Trucks and The Derek Trucks Band and Tedeschi Trucks Band and this city and you know the the bass player Todd Smalley from this band went to the same music school that I went to albeit years and years before I was there and then the fact that I got to see Kofi Burbridge and and John Rico Scott who have unfortunately since passed away is really really special to me but this record I think is one of the best things that Derek Trucks has ever produced has ever put I think this is actually from a guitar perspective some of his best sound is on this record his best tone is on this record this is when he was playing his SG and really relying on those modded supers that he was known for and I love Tedeschi Trucks Band and I've seen them maybe a dozen times over the years in all their different iterations but for me the Derek Trucks Band was again right place at the right time for me as a guitar player who is serious about music and finding his sound and finding players that inspired me Derek Trucks in this record in particular is really really special to me and Mike Madison the singer another Atlanta local his vocal performances on this record are phenomenal it's mixed incredibly well the songwriting is amazing song Lines by Derek Trucks Band is if you're into guitar music or just music in general this should be on your list of of albums so yeah it was a big one for me so those are the five records that made me what are your five let me know in the comments section down below I think this is kind of an interesting insight into people and what inspires them and what got them into music so I'd love to see your five records if you want to support the channel check out the Inner Circle it's the yearly subscription that gets you access to all of my video courses past present and future link is down there and while you're down there please subscribe if you're new to this channel still over 60 of the people that watch this channel on a normal basis aren't subscribed and it really does help me out when you click that red button so thank you my name is retro thank you so much for watching and I'll catch you on the next one

Channel: Rhett Shull

Views: 64,794

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Id: IY6xO2M9pbw

Length: 16min 34sec (994 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 30 2023