Response To Jim Stringer's "To Cover Or To Copy?", And The Zen Of Country

My friend, guitarist, engineer, producer, mentor, keeper-of-lost-guitars, etc., etc., Jim Stringer, recently wrote a blog on his MySpace page titled "To Cover Or To Copy?" His basic idea was that he isn't a big fan of copying guitar solos and intros note-for-note, and listed a few exceptions to the rule. It's a great post, very reasonable and well thought out, I suggest you go read it (unless you're only reading this because you already read his). I started writing a response, and then as usual I started going on and on and it turned into a multi-paragraph thing. So, rather than clutter up his blog with the whole deal, I posted a few excerpts. Here is the whole thing, though.

Well, Papa Jim, I gotta respectfully disagree with you on this one -- sort of.

I agree with the idea that any player can copy a solo or an arrangement -- it doesn't make you a good artist or player to do so. I've played with guitar players that can learn intros and solos to a "T" that have already been played (or even ones they made up and rehearsed), but can't improvise worth a crap. And this is extremely annoying and totally unimpressive.

But my opinion is that you have to be able to play both. I've sat many times, listening to bands play covers, and every song that was originally a shuffle is now a "straight-8's", and every original "straight 8" song now has a funk beat, and on and on. It's not creative, and it gets boring. I find myself thinking, 'Why don't you show me you can play it "right", before you show me how you can play it "different."' Any yay-hoo can put a different beat on a song, just like any yay-hoo can copy a guitar solo. It doesn't mean anything.

But the fact is, with most of the songs we cover (at least anything recorded after 1957 or so), the artists who recorded it first had every musical style and recording technique available to them that we have today (except digital, but that's beside the point here). Freddie King could've chosen to do "Hideaway" as a straight-8, but he didn't. Roger Miller could've done "Jason Fleming" as a shuffle, but he didn't. Why? Because that's not the way the song sounds best. When you get one of those "rare outtake" discs, that has 40 different takes on every song, including different keys, tempos, and beats, those outtakes (while interesting) usually don't hold a candle to the released song. This is because they chose the take that has the arrangement, solo, etc. that makes the song sound as good as it possibly can.

So who am I to argue with Chet Atkins or Owen Bradley or whoever produced that record that I love? If they felt that that was the way the song sounds best, then I tend to believe them over whatever whim I may have. Changing up beats and arrangements may be creative, to a degree, but it's certainly not innovative. Artists have been doing that for 50 years. (see Elvis's "That's All Right Mama")

The same holds true (for the most part) for "signature" intros and guitar (or steel or drums or whatever) licks. Those guys went through 50 takes of different solos and intros until they found the one that fits the song best. And, more importantly, an intro (and a good solo) usually follows the melody of the song, so changing it to something totally different just doesn't fit the song.

We do, however, have to recognize the difference between a "signature lick" and "copying for the sake of copying". Doing every intro and solo just the same as the original, every single time, as some sort of tribute, is just a cop-out. Not to mention insulting to the creativity of the people who made the music first. BUT, some guitar intros or solos have become just as much a part of a song as the melody or lyrics themselves. To use your example, Merle's original "Tonight The Bottle" is one of those songs. If I hear somebody cover that song live, and they don't play that Burton intro pretty close to exact, I'm like, "C'mon, what the hell was that?" That doesn't diminish the artistic merits of Emmylou's (or Jones's) version at all -- but she's Emmylou Harris and he's George Jones, and the rest of us are just dudes playing a Haggard tune in a beer joint. I guess "artistic clout" has something to do with it -- maybe if you're an artist on the same "level" as the person you're covering, then it gives you a little more license to do what you want with the song. Also, there's a difference between recording a cover song and playing one live -- a recording is more of your personal artistic expression, recorded once and for all time, but a live performance leans a bit more toward just entertaining a crowd. You know, the "yee-haw" factor.

Do we play a different intro to "One Woman Man" or "Folsom Prison", or a different solo on "Lonesome Fugitive" or "Is Anybody Going To San Antone"? Hell no. Those solos & intros have been so ingrained, "as is", into the honky-tonk culture, that playing something totally different would just sound wrong. It would sound like somebody singing the wrong lyrics.

I believe there's just as much (if not more) artistic merit to having musical discipline as having creativity. Give a 2-year-old a crayon and a piece of paper, and he'll make you something creative as hell. Does that mean we should hang it in a museum? No, of course not, because it probably looks pretty horrible. It's great to you if you love the kid, and it is purely creative, but that doesn't make it "good". The same holds true for "jam bands" -- fine, you can play one song for 45 minutes, using every note on the fretboard, but that doesn't show me anything. Anybody with good hand-eye coordination and a basic knowledge of chords & scales can do that.

What Hank WIlliams did is more impressive to me -- he was able to create some of the best art in the history of recorded music, using basically 3-5 chords, 2 meters, and 3 or 4 basic tempos. It takes incredible discipline to make such incredible art inside such a small box. It's really sort of a Zen thing I guess -- being able to do the very most with the very least. And Hank was the master of that.

So, the same holds true for instrumentalists. Most of the time, if I have to play with a bass player who doesn't know country, it's like pulling teeth just to get them to play a basic major scale or go "1-5-1-5-1-5..." for 2 and a half minutes. Country bass is a discipline. It takes heart, good taste, and a good ear for basic melody to be able to do it right, which is why so few guys can. The same discipline is required with country guitar (or any roots music for that matter). It takes balls to play a good country guitar solo -- having 8 to 16 bars of freedom to do whatever the hell you want, and choosing to basically stick to the melody and throw in a few kick-ass things only when it feels right. That's the key -- when you can play with discipline and kick ass, then you've really got something. That's why I play with guys like Jim Stringer, Brad Fordham, Kevin Smith, Billy & Bobby Horton, Justin Trevino, Lisa Pankratz, Buck Johnson, Timmy Campbell, and Redd Volkaert. OK, maybe Redd gets a little nutty sometimes, but he's freaking incredible at it, and he's Redd, so it's cool. Same (yet different) with you, Papa Jim -- you're one of the few guys who can "kick ass" in an artistic & disciplined way. I dig it. Obviously.

Regardless of everything I've just said, there are no hard-and-fast rules. Sometimes it's cool to just throw a different beat on an old song. Sometimes it's cool to copy a guitar intro or solo note-for-note, and sometimes it sucks. And even though most of the time I just stand (or sit) and sing a song, sometimes I hop around and holler and crawl around on the stage and act a fool. All this stuff -- live performances, recordings, solos, intros, creativity and discipline -- requires a recognition of context, and takes balance and taste. If you have that, then you have good music.

Roger