gimme shelter rolling

--------------------- [excerpt, Life, by Keith Richards] ---------------- So we sat there in the cold, dissecting tracks for as long as the meter held out.  A new Bo Diddley record goes under the surgical knife.  Have you got that wah-wah?...

Jimmy Reed was easier.  He was straightforward.  But to dissect how he played, Jesus.  It took me years to find out how he actually played the 5 chord, in the key of E -- the B chord, the last of the three chords before you go home, the resolver in a twelve-bar blues -- the dominant chord, as it's called. ...

I learned how to do it from a white boy, Bobby Goldsboro, who had a couple of hits in the '60s.  He used to work with Jimmy Reed and he said he'd show me the tricks.  I knew all the other moves, but I never knew that 5 chord move until he showed it to me, on a bus somewhere in Ohio, in the mid-'60s.  He said, "I spent years on the road with Jimmy Reed.  He does that 5 chord like this." ...

"...You live and learn."  Suddenly, out of a bright sky, you get it!

(I was walking along
Mindin' my business
When love came and hit me in the eye
Flash, Bam, Alakazam,
Out of the orange colored sky)

[YOU TUBE, type
Natalie Cole orange colored sky
and / or
Nat King Cole orange colored sky]

That haunting, droning note.  Absolute disregard for any musical rules whatsoever.  Also absolute disregard for the audience or anybody else.  "It goes like this."  In a way, we admired Jimmy more for that than his playing.  It was the attitude.  And also very haunting songs.  They might be based on a seemingly simplistic bedrock, but you try "Little Rain."

One of the first lessons I learned with guitar playing was that none of these guys were actually playing straight chords.  There's a throw-in, a flick-back.  Nothing's ever a straight major.  It's an amalgamation, a mangling and a dangling and a tangling thing.  There is no "properly."  There's just how you feel about it.  Feel your way around it....

If it's an A chord, a hint of D.  Or if it's a song with a different feeling, if it's an A chord, a hint of G should come in somewhere, which makes a 7th, which then can lead you on.  Readers who wish to can skip Keef's Guitar Workshop, but I'm passing on the simple secrets anyway, which led to the open chord riffs of later years -- the "Jack Flash" and "Gimme Shelter" ones.

(Ooh, a storm is threat'ning
My very life today
If I don't get some shelter
Ooh yeah, I'm gonna fade away
War, children, it's just a shot away
It's just a shot away
War, children, it's just a shot away
It's just a shot away...)

[YOU TUBE, type
gimme shelter rolling]

===================
I love these phrases:

"before you go home"

"the resolver in a twelve-bar blues"

"have you got the wah-wah"

"that 5 chord move"

"the 7th can lead you on"

"on a bus somewhere in Ohio"

"seemingly simplistic...but you try Little Rain"

"until he showed it to me"

"until he showed it to me, on a bus somewhere in Ohio"

"Ohio in the mid-'60s"

"I spent years on the road with Jimmy Reed"

"it goes like this"

"a throw-in, a flick-back"

"you try Little Rain"

"it's just a kiss away, kiss away, kiss away..."

--------------------------
{Life, 2010, Back Bay / Little, Brown}
{"Orange Colored Sky" -- written, Milton DeLugg and Willie Stein -- single by Nat King Cole (with Stan Kenton's orchestra), released 1950}
{"Gimme Shelter" -- written, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards.  Recorded, 23 February and 2 November 1969.  Released 5 December 1969.  Album:  Let It Bleed.  Label -- Decca Records / ABKCO}

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