Word: guitar
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DIED. LINK WRAY, 76, the original thrashing guitarist whose pioneering use of the "power chord" on his 1958 instrumental hit Rumble inspired rockers from Pete Townshend to Neil Young; in Copenhagen. In an era of clean-cut performers, Wray shook up the music world with his distorted guitar and menacing persona, laying the foundation for punk, metal and beyond. In the 1990s, he enjoyed a resurgence when his music was featured in several films, including Pulp Fiction and Independence...
...There's little melodic instrumentation: the guitar simply thrums on the one and three beats, and the piano plays left-hand figures, essentially functioning as a bass. It's all percussive, as in a military band. Civilian life, the arrangement says, isn't much different from the Army, and if you're lucky your Dad will be an understanding drill sergeant. The sentiments too are basic suck-it-up machismo. As in many Seasons songs, the performance here can be taken almost as a parody of the message: Walk like a man, talk like a man, but sings like Baby...
...more complex. The song begins with a snatch of spoken doggerel ("Pretty eyes of midsummer's morn, / They call her Dawn"). Then the drummer has a quick snit fit, and organ and chimes lead into the plaint, "Dawn, go away, I'm no good for you," as a guitar strums 2/4 Latino figures. There are six different melodic elements-hard to call anything in this song a chorus, a verse or a bridge-under the strong harmonic vocals and, of course, the marching feet...
...singing voice (he and Witherspoon do their own vocals) can't approach Cash in its lonesome depths, he has the gift of finding a home in this troubled mind, of moving in and living there. When he stands before an audience, unleashes the dread Cash stare and holds his guitar like a machine gun, you wonder if he's going to open fire on the crowd or himself. If Witherspoon has the gift of residing in her character, of moving in and living there, Phoenix seems voluntarily consigned to the Folsom Prison of Johnny's darkness...
...Carolina. His detour in the South is reflected in the album’s sound: Oldham’s usual lo-fi folk aesthetic is dropped in favor of a Skynrydesque Southern-rawk. The album’s harder sound is also due to Matt Sweeney’s guitars: the last time Oldham and Sweeney collaborated, as the alt-country power-duo “Superwolf,” the results were similarly heavy. Though you wouldn’t expect it, this harder sound really enhances Oldham’s vocal performance: he forsakes the irritating mumble-whisper...