Favorite WB guitar solos?

You know, the way these bots (and they are bots) parse the language of the thread to try to "blend in" and generate clicks is pretty hilarious and brilliant if it weren't so insipid and annoying. And you have to think that they generate some kind of return or else they wouldn't continue to post.

All the above mentioned are great solos. I also have a particular liking for Walter's guitar solo on Darkling Down, just great !!

I am glad to be here. Genius

I have the ultimate WB guitar solo, one that will make every fan totally GREEN with envy. If you recall, I am the person who passed Walter in the hallways from time to time before figuring out who he really was). He was toting a guitar and I asked him what guitar he had with him. He said it was a 12-string Stratocaster. Curious, I told him I’d never seen a 12-string Stratocaster. He opened his gig bag and proceeded to play (of course, no amp) about a minute’s worth of music. It was so unbelievably beautiful, faint, almost ethereal, and then the notes were gone as quickly as he was. He packed up in seconds, and left in the blink of an eye…

One more I just thought of: how about that incredible intro to Last Mall??

Hoo boy, what a question! I can't talk about just a few. In roughly chronological order...

Black Friday, especially with its face-melting tone, is loads of fun. I'm partial to that low run followed by a series of bluesy bends coming out of the chorus chords and back into the main riff.

The second half of the Bad Sneakers solo hits all the right notes, so to speak.

Home at Last... Can we just talk for a moment about how to say SO MUCH with SO FEW notes?? The middle solo itself is great, but the part right at the end leading back into the final chorus is where I want to focus on. Playing harmony to Donald singing "Well, the..." coming out of the guitar solo, laying off for a second, then coming back in unexpectedly at the "is surely past" line is just brilliant. And the lick right after "tied to the mast" is the kind of shit they could hold an entire fucking college course about.

Josie is melodic, but not at all predictable. The tension-and-release effect when Walter does the very slow bend from A to B, then runs back down to a heavy vibrato E gets me every time I hear it.

That ending in Gaucho is understated but sublime with not a single wasted note. To be completely unoriginal and quote the very next song on the album, perfection and grace.

The slow burn with lots of sustained vibrato in Jack of Speed just feels so right over the sparse instrumentation.

I have a soft spot for the soloing and fills in Things I Miss The Most. That bridge is just stunningly beautiful anyway with the chords and the layering of the vocals, then Walt just finds a way to fill in all the gaps without stepping on anything.

Snowbound is just SO Walter. Nobody else could have played that middle solo, those fills throughout the song, OR that tag solo. The spot around 6:24 where he does an upward slide, then plays a couple very percussive, staccato pops is genius. The very end where he gets away from the single note stuff and starts throwing in some double stops and chords, complete with a couple muted "chunk chunk" sounds, gives a nice sense of building and completion. (And how stupidly good is his bass playing on this song???)

I'm in awe every time I hear the solo in Junkie Girl. How the hell did he craft such a cohesive and melodic solo over those "where did THAT come from?" chord changes?

Selfish Gene has that wonderful interplay with the girls singing before the meat of the solo kicks in. I really love that aggressive chord hit followed by some individual notes, rinse, repeat thing he does here. I was subconsciously inspired to do something similar on a guitar solo I recorded for my friend's band. No, it's not that similar, but I can totally hear where I got the idea for it now.

Bonus: the solo Walt laid down live on David Letterman's show in 1995 for Josie! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EZa3W62N3w Extra bonus: that is one gorgeous Telecaster he's playing.

Edit -- Totally forgot to write anything about Godwhacker, which, come on now, no excuse on my part here for that egregious oversight. That's a superb solo. The repeated note intro to the solo, the straight-up-the-neck run back up the hill contrasting the more gradual and side-stepping downhill section just before it, and those gorgeous last few notes before the vocals kick back in. Textbook example of how to create direction and motion in a solo.

I agree Matt, that ascending guitar part right near the end of Gaucho, where he quotes the "what do you think I'm yelling for" is beautifully done and perfect for that song.

I've said before, but Gaucho ranks right up there. Understated, but really beautiful. Easy to get lost in everything else that's going on on that track, but worth revisiting from time to time.

D-Mod, that is NOT why I posted this question to the group LOL, it actually just occurred to me that it might be a lively discussion with all the WB-heads in here and of course you! I do love the Home at Last solo also. But, since you brought it up... how ABOUT those 24 tracks???

I suppose I could say that , working with a helper, I'll be dragging out some 24 tracks in the coming days and see what we can see. Don't have the means to play back yet, but the track logs are good so at least we should be able to "see" the contents first....

hey Tony - a little dead aroud here, huh? May be time for a new post? Or should we say something scandalous or otherwise TRY to start a flame war? Nah, I'm afraid our group contains people who are just too smart for that and don't seem naturally cruel or trollish. I dunno...

almost impossible. Although I do go for the lyrical stuff. So on any particular day I'd say: Bad Sneakers: Home at last. That doesn't inlcude the "stage II" stuff, from whcih I would pick a few I'll return to add to the list after perusing the track listing (even the "new" stuff if pretty old by now)