Hey everybody, I'm Rick Beato and today's "Everything Music" it's episode 3 of "What Makes This Song Great"
The song we're going to be looking at today
is the 1976 classic from Steely Dan's "Royal Scam" record, "Kid Charlemagne"
Let's get started
Let me begin by talking about the players that are playing on the track
Many of you know that Steely Dan is comprised of two people: Donald Fagen and Walter Becker
Donald Fagen sings lead vocal and plays organ on this tune and Walter Becker plays rhythm guitar
There's also some of the greatest studio musicians of all time playing on this
You have Bernard Purdie on the drums
Chuck Rainey on the bass
Larry Carlton on lead guitar
Don Grolnick on the Fender Rhodes
and Paul Griffin on the clavinet
There's a whole host of vocalists there singing background vocals
Including Michael McDonald who is a lead singer of the Doobie Brothers
Let's check out the track
One thing to notice are the keyboard and clavinet parts together
Incredible pocket: Bernard Purdie
Listen this opening fill here
Listen to the tom tracks by themselves
Again
Here's the snare and toms
That's just the snare track
All the ghost notes
This is on tape
25 years before Pro Tools -- 20 years at least
Here's a fill going into the...
Check it out from the verse
And your guitar
Bass
It's your bass and drums together: bass and drums from the verse
Chuck Rainey
That is so in the pocket!
I'll hit the keys in it
Let's talk about the guitar part that happens in the verse
So it's pretty much made up of either three or four note chords on the top strings
Starts with this little A minor triad here at the fifth fret
Check it out
Then to an E minor here
But the bass note is G so it's really...
...a G6 chord, so it's going from A minor to G6
Then it goes to to a B flat...
...13 with a 9th on top but only playing the top strings
There, so you've got here: A minor to E minor, then to this...
D - G - C chordal voicing
Then to...
...to the Bb13/9 chord. Listen here...
The next section is the pre-chorus which is a really signature part
And here's the guitar part
Starts with G triad here at the third fret
And it goes to a C triad
Now it goes
So it does an E minor triad here in the inner strings
To D minor, ok?
Then it goes to Em7
And then C and then...
So it's doing: C - E..
...B - D...
...to D-E, like a sus chord
Then the second time through you're into the chorus after that line, so here we go
All that is is going between
An F triad to a G triad on the top string, listen
Now you have the Larry Carlton guitar enter, listen
So it comes in with an F7 slides into F7 to G7
Then a new C7 chord
Basically just playing the E string
A string
G string
And B string
Rake
Right there, check it out
Then
So we got...
Then
Then quickly goes back up that
Here
And then he goes slides it again
Into the same thing he did before and then we're into the solo
There's a little chordal lick that happens in the rhythm guitar just before the solo
Emin7b5 to...
...A7
But it's only playing the...
...note E - C# and G
And then the solo begins
Now let's talk about the solo
This is one of the greatest solos of all time
It's... uhm...
...I can't think of a solo that actually has the...
...harmonic and linear complexity in a pop tune - a tune that was a huge hit like this
This Larry Carlton solo is...
...is really one of a kind
I... I don't honestly... don't know of a tune... that's... that's this complex...
...that has this complex of a solo, check it out
Right?
Then the second line is here
He slides in
So...
Now the really interesting part comes in
Then here's another cool lick
So it's really...
Then the next lick
Then...
Then this one is amazing
He slides in like this...
Another great lick, so it's 5th fret
And then...
Like down an Emin7
Right
And then the...
This is a killer lick
So he uses a pedal point up the C
And then...
Comes down over the Bb7 chord
Once again
Great lick
He's using a C major triad over here to give this #11 the dom7#11 sound
Mix#11 or Lydian b7
So he's got two pedal point licks in a row
It's all A minor pentatonic, then...
Then he's using the pedal point up here
Which is really killer and it climbs down to the root on it
Okay, then we're into A minor pentatonic at the 5th fret
Like this
He's using a G major triad here
Let's do it over the chords
Let me go back a little bit and play along with that
Right here
Then he goes into this one
And then the next line
Then he does the coolest [unintelligible] ever here
Right here
It goes like this
So you're on, like an Em pentatonic
Then...
Slide
Then...
Then he goes
So he does a bend
With his first finger and then he goes
That's one of the best solos that you'll ever hear
Not my performance, Larry Carlton's...
For those of you that know the tune, you know that there's another solo at the end that's also amazing
It's a super bluesy, out chorus guitar solo
Play a little bit solo here
Larry Carlton
OK, now let's check out the vocals
No autotune
All done on tape
Great harmonies
It's about, like, six vocals right there
No autotune
That's some broad singing right there
OK, let's do a little point of comparison
Now, this is kind of apples and oranges, but...
I'll play the Bruno Mars' drum groove from "24K Magic"
And I'm gonna put it next to Bernard Purdy's real drum playing
Check'em out
Now...
When I was talking about the Bruno Mars tune, I said the tune would've been much better...
...had he used a real drummer instead of the drum program
And you can really see how silly it sounds next to somebody, really, that can play a groove
I'm not saying you shouldn't use electronic drums
But if you got the choice between a real person and programming a groove
You can hear that flow versus the stiffness of a program groove
That's all for now, please subscribe here to my Everything Music YouTube channel
Hit the notification buttons to let you know when I have a new video or I'm going live
And also, if you're interested in the Beato Book...
...which will show you strategies to solo like Larry Carlton does in this tune...
...you can go to my website at www.rickbeato.com
Thanks for watching.
