Okay, so it's been three months, nearly four now since I first introduced this section, and yes, I thought I would be updating it more frequently than I have, with this only being the second edition. But there are a few things to bear in mind. First, it takes a lot of patience, perserverance and meticulous attention to detail to put together one of these. I spent almost half an hour getting the first solo right: you don't want singing or other unwelcome parts spoiling the selection! Even given that, the more snippy among you will note that there are one or two moments where the last syllable of a word maybe gets left in. To you I say, try doing this yourself: it ain't that easy and sometimes close enough has to do ya!
Other than that, there's also the decision as to what solos you choose. It's a lot harder than you would think, so that's taken some time. Then the file has to be checked, converted, uploaded, blah blah blah moan moan don't I have a hard life etc...
Well, finally it's ready so I hope one or two of you will take the time to actually listen to the damn thing...
First we have one of my favourite prog rock bands, Arena, with a track from their album “Pepper's ghost”, which until last year was their most recent. This is the great John Mitchell on guitar, a fine solo from the track “The shattered room”.
An album I reviewed some time ago, but then Jackhammer told me that the legendary David Gilmour plays on it, so I had to listen to it again! I think I described this solo, in my review, as “Gilmouresque”! Little did I know! This is from Berlin's album “Count three and pray”, Gilmour taking the fantastic outro solo on “Pink and velvet”.
Also an album already reviewed by me, this is Y&T, from the seminal “Black tiger”, with a great solo by Dave Menniketti on “Forever”.
Wonderful, classically-influenced solo from Brian Tatler on Diamond Head's “Borrowed time”, this is “Am I evil”.
It stood to reason, with our recent tribute to Gary Moore, that we were not going to let this selection slide by without including one of his many solos, but which one? It could have been any of a hundred, I guess, but I just really like this one. Title track to “Still got the blues”, this is the outro solo.
And finally, wonderful and expressive solo from Vinny Burns on Ten's first album, X, this is again an outro solo, one of the very best I've ever heard, from “Soliloquy (The loneliest place in the world)”.