“You didn’t get 10 shots at a solo because the rest of the band had walked out”: Jethro Tull legend Martin Barre on the pressure of recording guitar solos before digital recording
Jethro Tull’s Martin Barre has reflected on the pressure of recording solos before the digital age, noting that he only had “a couple of goes” at doing so during the making one of the band’s most successful albums.
During the recording of the title track of Aqualung, the band’s fourth album released in 1971, band founder Ian Anderson was apparently willing to replace the guitar solo with a flute solo instead, if Barre didn’t get it right within a couple of takes.
READ MORE: “It’s good to be a little bit of a street gutter rat”: Lita Ford advises young players to do this instead of “Google guitar chords”
Asked if this is true in an interview for the print edition of Guitar World, Barre answers, “Yeah. [Laughs] It was never spoken of, but essentially, you had a couple of goes. You didn’t get 10 shots at a solo because the rest of the band had walked out; that’s what you got. If that’s the way it was for other bands, I don’t know, but we just didn’t do that.
“I remember reading about Brian May and how long he would take constructing his solos, like, days. It might not be true, but I was amazed. I could never have been there, and even today, it’s got to have that sort of inspiration. It’s got to have that fluidity, an instant improvisation,” he explains.
“I still do solos in one or two takes, and they’re going to be the best ones. If you overthink it, it starts to go downhill. That’s just me on my own. I mean… I could spend a month doing a solo if I wanted to, but I never, ever will.”
You can catch Martin Barre’s An Evening With Martin Barre & Friends tour throughout the UK this year – to get tickets, head over to his website.
The post “You didn’t get 10 shots at a solo because the rest of the band had walked out”: Jethro Tull legend Martin Barre on the pressure of recording guitar solos before digital recording appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
Source: www.guitar-bass.net
