It doesn't take much for Annie Clark, alias St. Vincent, to start talking freely about guitar solos. He remembers very well the first one he learned to play, that of Alive by Pearl Jam. Today, after about twenty years of career, he plays phrases as if nothing were as he testifies Live in London! which documents the concert with orchestra he did at the Royal Albert Hall for the BBC (listen for example Black Rainbow or Live in the Dream in which he seems like a sharper David Gilmour). But what do you think is the best guitar solo ever? The answer he gave us: that of Kid Charlemagne.
Steely Dan's 1976 classic, eighth in the charts Rolling Stone US of the best guitar solos ever, opens the album The Royal Scam with its four and a half minutes (reduced to just under four in the 45 rpm version). Almost a quarter of the song is entrusted to guitarist Larry Carlton. Donald Fagen and Walter Becker apparently worked in the studio for a couple of hours on that 50-second solo which, at Becker's insistence, Carlton had to record several times on a Fender Stratocaster before returning to his favorite guitar, the Gibson ES-335. Much of what was recorded was cut, but the first take of the outro – completely improvised – was enough.
«The guitar solos of The Royal Scam they are so iconic that I want to hear them remade note for note,” says Clark, for whom also that of Pegalso a Steely Dan song but released the following year, is another candidate for the number one solo title. «I don't want to hear guitarists improvising or going on, not even the great ones they've had on stage. I want to hear Larry Carlton's solo redone note for note. It's proof of how great he is. From a compositional point of view it is sacred.”
Clark knows about reinterpretations. Live in London! contains orchestral arrangements of the pieces most loved by his fans – among the best moments are the melancholy Los Ageless and the poignant New York – directed by maestro Jules Buckley and co-produced by Rachel Eckroth. Clark describes the experience as “glorious and… civilized. I say this because I came from the tour of All Born Screaming which was the most violent I've ever done, and I have some scars here to prove it. Going from that experience to this was like taking a two-hour beauty bath on stage.”
From Rolling Stone US.
