Post by smosey wales on Sept 2, 2019 15:30:09 GMT -5
One of the cool aspects of the Layla set was that the band used the "three guitar attack" made famous by Lynnard Skynnard and used unfailingly by Drive By Truckers to give not a wall of sound--that's in the back--but full frontal of multiple lead guitars, instead of the common-place lead/rhythm alternates. So constantly, there was Doyle, Derek and Trey, each with a different lead style, going at the same time (Doyle may have been more rhythm). But those times Susan picked her guitar and made it a "four guitar attack" that bowled me over. Go back to the clips and focus on the four leads.
Listening to the album version of the song Layla, I've always tried to pick out Duane and Eric--after all, the band was just 5 pieces. So where's all that sound coming from? Here:
"The recording of the first section consisted of sixteen tracks of which six were guitar tracks: a rhythm track by Clapton, three tracks of harmonies played by Clapton (the main power chord riff on both channels and two harmonies against that main riff, one on the left channel and one on the right channel), a track of solos by Allman (fretted solos with bent notes during the verses and a slide solo during the outro[18]), and one track with both Allman and Clapton playing duplicate solos (the 7-note "signature" riff doubled in two octaves and the 12-note "signature" riff doubled in unison).[15][19] According to Clapton, Allman played the first seven notes of the 12-note "signature" riff fretted and the last five notes on slide in standard tuning.[18] Each player used one input of the same two-input Fender Champ amplifier.[20] "
""Layla's" second movement (the "Piano Exit") was recorded roughly a week after the first, with Gordon playing his piano part, Clapton playing acoustic guitar and slide guitar, and Allman playing electric and bottleneck slide guitar"
So as Clapton noted, this is a very hard song to play live (absent Keller's Lap-Top-Loop technique) and when D and the D's went on the road, it was without Duane. "'Layla' is a difficult one, because it's a difficult song to perform live. You have to have a good complement of musicians to get all of the ingredients going, but when you've got that. ... It's difficult to do as a quartet, for instance, because there are some parts you have to play and sing completely opposing lines, which is almost impossible to do."
Of course they had a lot of Filler Saturday night with the large band--but that in no way takes away from what they accomplished there.