#91 – “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” – solo & tutorial

I actually recorded a lesson for this song last week, but the upload failed for some reason. It’s all good though, because I wasn’t entirely happy with it. My schedule keeps getting tighter, and I have fewer and fewer chances during my day to record these lessons, but I’m committed to doing all 100 of ’em.

Today is the first of John Fogerty’s solos in the CCR version of “I Heard It Through the Grapevine”. There’s an 8 bar break after this, followed by another solo. I’ll post that one soon. There’s another REALLY long solo that closes the song that I’m not doing (seriously, it’s nearly 5 minutes). If you’re going to do a 5 minute guitar solo and not improvise any of it, you have problems. Plus, learning this and the next one will give you some ideas for how to approach the changes and a good insight into Fogerty’s lead playing. Lots of minor pentatonic stuff, only deviating to grab the major 6th or follow the bass line.

Good stuff.