"The Circle Game" (Live) by Joni Mitchell (1968) — For more videos like this, please follow (Like) the Official Facebook Page of Sydney Urshan....
Joni Mitchell's friend Judy Collins recently posted an update about Joni's health on her Official Facebook Page:
"I have just heard from a close mutual friend that Joni is walking, talking, painting some, doing much rehab every day, and making good progress...I will try my best to see our songbird when I am in LA in the coming weeks..."
"The Circle Game" was written by Joni Mitchell, and released on her third album Lady's of the Canyon, in March 1970. This performance from 1968 was given two years before the album was released. There's another filmed live performance of "The Circle Game" that Joni gave on August 17, 1966, (almost four years before its release), for a TV series in Canada featuring Canadian folk songs.
A true original, the late, great virtuoso guitarist Duane Allman led the Allman Brothers Band into rock history with his ferocious, deeply expressive and trailblazing guitar work.
Rounder Records offers ample testimony to the beauty as well as the breadth of Duane’s recorded work in the new, beautifully compiled box set Skydog: The Duane Allman Retrospective. In this edition of In Deep, we will examine some of the key elements of Duane’s signature style as a lead guitarist.
One of the best examples of the genius of Duane Allman can be found on the timeless, classic live album, At Fillmore East (1971), which captures the Allman Brothers Band live in concert at the peak of their powers.
Duane’s razor-sharp articulation and masterful touch abound, starting with the slide guitar tour de force “Statesboro Blues,” through the smoldering slow blues “Stormy Monday” and continuing through the fiery, aggressive solos performed on “Whipping Post,” “You Don’t Love Me” and other great tracks.
Duane’s rich, warm tone was achieved via his main ax, a 1958 tobacco sunburst Gibson Les Paul Standard, played through Marshall
“Plexi” 50- and 100-watt heads, usually running two 4x12 Marshall bottoms. For additional distortion, he very occasionally used a Dallas-Arbiter Fuzz Face, usually in the studio.
A key to Duane’s virtuosity was the fact that, like Jimi Hendrix, he had extensive experience as a session guitarist, working closely alongside R&B greats like Wilson Pickett, Aretha Franklin and King Curtis. Through his studio work, Duane had developed a great sense of rhythm as well as a keen understanding of economy, in terms of phrasing.
This understanding resulted in improvised solos that remained cohesive and conversational no matter how long they stretched out or how far they roamed from the original starting point. For this column, let’s use two of Duane’s signature songs, “Stormy Monday” and “Whipping Post,” as our points of focus.
“Stormy Monday,” written and originally recorded by blues great T-Bone Walker, is played in the key of G. For soloing, Duane relied primarily on a few standard “bluesapproved” scales. FIGURE 1illustrates a scale most guitar players are well familiar with, G minor pentatonic (G Bf C D F), as played in third position. FIGURE 2 illustrates the G blues scale, which is the same as G minor pentatonic but additionally includes the flatted fifth (f5), Df.
Most blues players move alternately between minor and major pentatonic scales based on the same root note. Eric Clapton and B.B. King are two great examples of guitarists whose solos are almost always based on a combination of these two scales. FIGURE 3 illustrates the G major pentatonic scale (G A B D E) in an extended pattern that diagonally traverses the fretboard from third to 12th positions.
Duane often used a soloing device that can be traced to B.B. King, one of his biggest influences. King’s signature soloing approach combines the notes of minor and major pentatonic scales in a very specific fretboard pattern, or “shape.” The pattern, known as “B.B.’s box,” is illustrated inFIGURE 4.
This small handful of notes can be ordered and phrased in nearly an infinite number of ways, resulting in many great blues licks. FIGURES 5–8 offer four different ways in which Duane would use this shape as a jumping off point to improvised solo ideas.
PART ONE OF THREE
Now let’s focus on soloing over a 12-bar slow blues form along the lines of “Stormy Monday” and in the style of Duane Allman, as illustrated in FIGURE 9.
I begin in bars 1 and 2 with a melodic idea based on G major pentatonic, but in bar 3, I morph into G minor pentatonic by overbending the second, A, up and step and a half to the fourth, C. At the end of bar 4 into bar 5, I apply the overbending technique to E, the sixth, bending that note all the way up to the G root note, repeating the melodic motif into bar 6.
When performing these bends, line up additional fingers behind the fretting finger—for example, reinforcing the ring finger with the middle finger or both the middle and index—to help it push the string. Doing so will give you better pitch control and stability when bending. The same is true for bend vibratos.
Throughout the remainder of the example, I limit my movement to the eighth and 10th positions to demonstrate that a great amount of melodic invention can be found without moving up and down the fretboard. The intent here is to create lines that are expressive and vocal-like while also evoking a bit of the Duane-like focused intensity.
For his “Whipping Post” solo, Duane drew primarily from the A Dorian mode (A B C D E Fs G), two fretboard patterns of which are shown in FIGURES 10 and 11. Both patterns are very useful for soloing, so you’ll want to memorize them thoroughly.
FIGURE 12 offers an eight-bar solo along the lines of Duane’s “Whipping Post” solo. The song is played in 12/8 meter, which affords a lot of room for rhythmic creativity, and Duane made the most of the opportunity every time he played it. I begin this solo with a wholestep bend from the A root up to the second, B, followed by subtle movement down through the notes of the A Dorian mode.
In bar 2, I play a quick repeated hammer/pull phrase that emphasizes two notes of a G major triad (G and B) before moving into a line based on A minor pentatonic (A C D E G).
Bar 5 offers a unique rhythmic superimposition that Duane used often. Another classic Duane-ism is illustrated in bar 7, as quick pulloffs on the top three strings alternate back and forth in an ascending-and-descending manner.
Try using your index and ring fingers to execute this phrase as well as your index and middle fingers and index and pinkie, or a combination of any of these. The aim should be, as always, clarity in execution.
Last month, we examined the guitar genius of the great Duane Allman, who, as founder of the Allman Brothers Band, rose to prominence as one of the greatest and universally heralded blues-rock guitarists of all time.
In honor of the expansive new box set from Rounder Records, Skydog: The Duane Allman Retrospective, we focused on his single-note soloing on classic Allman Brothers’ cuts like “Stormy Monday” and “Whipping Post.” This month’s column is dedicated to Duane’s mastery of the art of slide guitar.
Duane possessed an instantly recognizable sound on electric slide, earmarked by masterful phrasing and smooth, “singing” vibrato.
Great examples of his slide guitar prowess include “Trouble No More” and “Dreams” from the band’s debut release, The Allman Brothers Band; “Don’t Keep Me Wonderin’,” from Idlewild South; “Statesboro Blues” and “Done Somebody Wrong” from At Fillmore East; and “One Way Out” from Eat a Peach.
He also lent inspired slide work to the title track and many others on the Derek and the Dominoes album Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs.
Incredibly, Duane had been playing slide guitar for only about a year at the time of the band’s debut release. He recalled, “I heard Ry Cooder playing slide on Taj Mahal’s debut album, and I said, ‘Man, that’s for me.’ ” Brother Gregg Allman concurs. “He just picked it up and started burnin’. He was a natural.”
For slide playing, Duane wore a small glass Coricidin bottle (Coricidin was a cold medication) on his ring finger. He usually played slide in open tunings, most often open E (low to high, E B E G# B E) and occasionally open A (E A E A C# E). He also played slide in standard tuning on songs such as “Dreams” and “Mountain Jam.”
In the early days, Duane would retune his gold-top Gibson Les Paul between songs in order to play slide. Later, co-guitarist Dickey Betts gave Duane a two-pickup 1961 Gibson SG/Les Paul Standard that was used solely for slide playing. The design of the SG, with its double-cutaway body, is well suited to slide work, allowing easy access to the upper regions of the fretboard.
Duane chose to wear the SG high on his body to facilitate navigating the board overall. The musical examples in this column focus on the use of open E tuning for slide. FIGURE 1 illustrates how to tune to open E: the sixth, second and first strings are tuned normally (E, B and E); the fifth and fourth strings are tuned one whole step higher (A to B and D to E); and the third string is tuned one half step higher (G to G#). The resulting tuning is, low to high, E B E G# B E. Strumming across all of the open strings sounds an E major chord.
The same is true when barring or placing the slide across all of the strings at the 12th fret. Likewise, barring a finger or placing the slide across all of the strings at any given fret will form a major chord, as shown in FIGURE 2. A great majority of slide licks in open E tuning are formed by moving back and forth between a two-fret span of the fretboard.
FIGURE 3 illustrates one such pattern, which forms an E hybrid scale, one that combines elements of E minor pentatonic (E G A B D) and E major pentatonic (E F# G# B C#). Two notes are sounded on each string at either the 10th or 12th fret, and three notes are sounded on the fifth string with the inclusion of Gs, at the ninth fret.
Practice this pattern by first fretting normally, and then play it using the slide. Some basic rules for slide playing: For proper intonation, you’ll want to, in most cases, position the slide directly over and parallel to the fret wire. Apply only enough pressure against the string to sound a note clearly; do not allow the slide to “bang” into the frets. Also, lightly lay unused fret-hand fingers across the strings behind the slide to help suppress unwanted overtones and ghost notes.
When playing slide, Duane fingerpicked exclusively, using his thumb, index and middle fingers to pick the strings. A major element in the uniqueness of his sound was his pick-hand muting techniques: while one finger picked a string, the other two were used for muting.
For example, when he picked a string with his thumb, his index and middle fingers would rest lightly on the higher strings, muting them; when he picked a string with his index finger, his thumb would mute the lower strings; and when he picked with his middle finger, he would mute the string with his thumb and index fingers. This technique afforded Duane’s slide playing unparalleled clarity and precision. An essential slide exercise involves sliding back and forth between notes of the E hybrid scale, with careful attention paid to playing “in tune.”
FIGURES 4 and 5 offer two different ways one can practice sliding to and from each note in this position. One of the most common vehicles for slide soloing in blues and rock is the 12-bar blues shuffle. FIGURE 6 illustrates a basic shuffle rhythm part played in the key of E using open E tuning. Use only conventional fretting (no slide) to perform this part. FIGURE 7 offers an example of how to play a slide solo over this rhythm part: repeatedly moving the slide back and forth (higher and lower) on the fretboard creates the sound of a slide vibrato.
The “width” of this movement, as well as the speed, is every player’s choice; strive to keep the center of the vibrato movement over the fret for proper intonation. The aforementioned “Statesboro Blues” and “One Way Out” are celebrated slide guitar masterpieces. FIGURE 8 illustrates a “Statesboro Blues”-like solo, and FIGURE 9 offers a solo in the style of “One Way Out.”
Work through each example carefully, and for inspiration, listen to the recordings and pay strict attention to every detail in Duane’s articulation.
Forrest Richard “Dickey” Betts, founding member of the legendary Allman Brothers Band, successful solo artist and leader of his own ensemble, Great Southern, possesses one of the most distinct and influential guitar styles in the history of rock.
Combining elements of blues, rock, jazz, country, folk, bluegrass and world music, Dickey Betts forged his signature sound while laying the groundwork—along with Grateful Dead guitarist/leader Jerry Garcia—for the unique, progressive and forever mysterious genre known as “jam band” music.
In this edition of In Deep, we’ll take a look at a few of the scales Dickey relies on most when weaving his classic solos and melodic patterns.
One of the scales closely associated with the Dickey Betts sound is major pentatonic, the five-tone scale built from the first, second, third, fifth and sixth major scale degrees. FIGURE 1 illustrates G major pentatonic (G A B D E) as played in “open” position, using open strings. This pattern is used very often for soloing in bluegrass and country music, and Dickey learned about its use in this context as a young child, playing acoustic “string music” with his father and uncles.
A common technique when soloing with this scale is to use the minor, or “flatted,” third as a passing tone between the second and the major third. In the key of G, the minor third is Bf and the major third is B. FIGURE 2 presents a Betts-like bluegrass-style three-bar solo that features the use of the flatted-third passing tone as well as many hammer-ons, pull-offs and finger slides, used to yield a smooth, legato sound.
As is the case when studying any scale, it is essential to plot it out on every area of the fretboard and memorize it. FIGURE 3 illustrates G major pentatonic as played in second/third position, with a quick shift up to fifth position and then back to third position on the high E string. This pattern encompasses only fretted notes, so it is easily moved to other positions and keys up and down the fretboard.
One of the signature elements in Dickey’s soloing style is his use of small melodic “cells” that progress in either an ascending or descending manner throughout a phrase. FIGURE 4 shows a solo pattern based on the previously shown scale position of G major pentatonic and built from steadily descending 16th-note melodic cells on each beat. As you play through the figure, notice the subtle differences in the melodic shape of each four-note group as it falls on each successive beat. Classic examples of Betts utilizing this specific technique can be heard on perennial Allman Brothers favorites like “Jessica,” “Melissa” and “Ramblin’ Man.”
The major pentatonic scale lends itself well to performance over large spans of the fretboard, especially when incorporating hammer-ons and slides in order to shift quickly from one position to another. FIGURE 5 illustrates G major pentatonic in an extended pattern that starts in third position and ends in 12th. Play this pattern up and down utilizing the hammer-ons, pull-offs and legato finger slides as shown.
In FIGURE 6, I use this extended pattern to weave another three-bar solo-type phrase that moves smoothly from position to position. When forming the four-note melodic cells, one phrase can be connected to the next using a great variety of choices. At the end of bar 2 into bar 3, I decided to repeat the G root note on the downbeat of beat one in bar 3 to begin the subsequent phrase.
As alluded to in FIGURE 2, passing tones are very useful when building solo phrases from the major pentatonic scale. Along with using the minor third as a passing tone into the major third, the minor, or “flatted,” sixth works great as a connecting note between the fifth and major sixth. In FIGURE 7, I use both of these passing tones in different octaves in order to shape a more interesting melodic line. At the end of the phrase, on beat three of bar 2, I use an oblique bend—a bent note on one string coupled with an unbent note on a different string—to wrap up the phrase.
The sound of oblique bends is one closely associated with the pedal-steel guitar, and Dickey often mimics the pedal-steel sound by incorporating alternating oblique bends in his solo phrases. In FIGURE 8, an A note on the B string’s 10th fret is bent up one whole step, to B, and held while a series of alternating notes are played against it on the high E string. It will take practice to hold this bend firmly and in tune while switching between the different notes on the high E, and I suggest using the middle finger for the bend and the other three fingers for the notes fretted on the high E string.
Another scale that Betts uses to great effect is the six-note major hexatonic, which is nearly identical to the major pentatonic, the difference being that it additionally includes the perfect fourth (in the key of G, that would be C). As depicted in FIGURE 9, G major hexatonic is built from the notes G A B C D E. The major hexatonic can be used very effectively when harmonizing a major pentatonic line. FIGURE 10a illustrates a classic Betts-style major pentatonic melody, and FIGURE 10b harmonizes this melody a third higher, using notes from the G major hexatonic scale (G A B C D E).
Dickey’s best-known use of major hexatonic is most likely within his song, “Blue Sky,” and FIGURES 11a and 11b offer a G major hexatonic melody and a lower harmony line, thirds apart, the latter being based on G major pentatonic.
They’ve suffered breakups, addiction and death. But 40 years on, the Allman Brothers Band remain a force to be reckoned with. In this exclusive oral history, Gregg Allman, Dickey Betts and others tell the story behind rock and roll’s enlightened rogues.
"The Road Goes on Forever.” Gregg Allman wrote and sang the words in “Midnight Rider,” and his Allman Brothers Band (ABB) adopted them as a motto, and for good reason: despite the death of two founding members, two breakups and an acrimonious parting with guitarist Dickey Betts, this summer the band is marking its 40th anniversary and doing so in high style. Warren Haynes and Derek Trucks, who have now played together for nine years in the ABB, form a dynamic, explosive duo that blows away the competition. In that respect, some things in the Allman Brothers Band never change.
The road for the ABB began in 1968 when Duane Allman, a red-hot session guitarist who had made his mark recording with Otis Rush, Boz Scaggs, Aretha Franklin and others, headed to Jacksonville, Florida, looking to put together a band. His manager wanted a power trio—just like Cream—but Duane reportedly scoffed at the notion, saying, “I ain’t on no star trip.” It was a revealing statement, for the group that resulted from Duane’s quest for kindred musical souls was anything but ego-driven. The music of the Allman Brothers Band has revolved around group improvisation and dynamics since their self-titled 1969 debut.
Duane’s musical vision and open mind allowed him to ignore protocol and put together a completely unique hard-rocking outfit featuring two very different but complementary drummers (Jai Johanny “Jaimoe” Johanson and Butch Trucks), an inventive bassist who could hold down the bottom end while displaying melodic flair (Berry Oakley), a soulful singer and organist (brother Gregg), and another hot lead guitarist (Betts).
Betts would prove to be a monumental addition, for his participation underscored the band’s adherence to a rule of jazz: that a group needs multiple, equally powerful lead voices to truly generate sparks. Betts and Allman rewrote the rules for how two rock guitarists can work together, completely scrapping the traditional rhythm/lead roles to stand toe to toe, alternately cutting each other’s heads and joining together for marvelous flights of harmony.
[[ Longtime Guitar World writer and editor Alan Paul has published One Way Out: An Oral History of the Allman Brothers Band. The Ebook is available exclusively through Amazon Singles for $2.99. “It’s their story in their words,” Paul says. “I went through hundreds of hours of interviews, pulling out the quotes to tell the tale of this American institution.” ]]
The ABB’s instrumental majesty was grounded in the blues and in the excellent tunes penned by Gregg Allman and Betts. This combination of a unique vision, instrumental superiority and great songwriting has carried the band through four decades. The Allmans pushed on after Duane Allman’s and Berry Oakley’s tragic deaths, reunited after two breakups and, perhaps most shockingly, have performed without Betts since 2000.
What follows is the ultimate overview of the band’s career, an oral history told in the words of the people who lived it.
Duane Allman met drummer Jai Johanny “Jaimoe” Johanson while working on sessions in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. Duane wanted to form his own band, and his manager, Phil Walden, suggested that he create a power trio in the spirit of Cream and the Jimi Hendrix Experience. Allman targeted bassist Berry Oakley, a Chicago native who was then playing in a Florida band called Second Coming with guitarist Dickey Betts. At Duane’s invitation, Oakley came to Alabama for jam sessions.
DICKEY BETTS The band just sort of happened. It was supposed to be a three-piece with Duane, Berry and Jaimoe. Duane and Jaimoe kept coming and sitting in with Second Coming to get used to playing together, and as we started jamming, something clicked. Eventually Duane asked if I’d go with them. When Butch [Trucks] came along one day and jammed with us, it was something special. All of a sudden the trio had five pieces. We all were smart enough to see that each of us was making a contribution to the sound.
BUTCH TRUCKS I had played with Gregg and Duane before, and he called me when he came back to Jacksonville. He was jamming with lots of different people. We played, and it just worked. Jaimoe told Duane I was the guy they needed—he wanted two drummers like James Brown had—but I don’t think Duane wanted me in the band. I fit musically, but I was a bundle of insecurity, and he didn’t want that. He was such a strong person—very confident and totally sure of himself—and that’s the kind of people he wanted around him.
BETTS It says a lot that Duane’s hero was Muhammad Ali. He had Ali’s type of supreme confidence. If you weren’t involved in what he thought was the big picture, he didn’t have any time for you. A lot of people really didn’t like him for that. It’s not that he was aggressive; it was more a super-positive, straight-ahead, I’ve-got-work-to-do kind of thing. If you didn’t get it, see you later. He always seemed like he was charging ahead.
