Notes Born of the Earth

I have never considered Willie Nelson among the great guitar players of the world. Actually, to be perfectly honest, I haven’t considered him much at all, and certainly not among my pantheon of Guitar God’s. From my view of things, he was just another country music icon from another era who loved smoking weed. Yet there I was watching him onstage…. and sincerely admiring the man and his talent. His appearance certainly matched expectations, looking as rugged and weathered as any man would after five decades of touring. But though he looked a bit worse for ware, much like his badly worn acoustic guitar, I nonetheless found myself mesmerized by his playing.

It may be important to clarify just what I mean by “mesmerized” there, because it wasn’t Nelson’s mastery of the instrument that I took notice of, but rather his style of playing. And defining that style is difficult to pin down since it doesn’t fall within any known genre that I know of. It’s not a category of playing. I’ve seen many excellent guitarists in my life, and Nelson will never be mentioned among any of them…. ever. He simply doesn’t have that level of skill, and surely never aimed for it. Yet there I stood, surprised, and even shocked to find myself enraptured by what I heard.

What specifically caught me so unaware was a particular technique he used during his various solos, which put a premium on each string being picked (plucked would be a better word) with distinct emphasis. And since the notes were struck with such clarity and intent, a different aesthetic seemed to float above the melody. In fact, the deliberate intent of his picking created its own cadence, its own ascent. In a real sense, I could feel his playing and felt it in my chest, like the notes had their own gravity. The style was rugged and completely free from stylistic pretentions, and with it, another age of musicianship entered the conversation.

The contrast to his style can be heard from a particular subset of modern guitar “Gods” such as Eddie Van Halen, Joe Satriani, Yngwie Malmsteen, Steve Vai, and a number of Heavy Metal guitarists such as Randy Rhodes, who all dazzle with brilliant, mind-bending flourishes and have a command of their instrument that is beyond question. In that there is no argument to make, their musicianship is impeccable, yet the emphasis of their playing is focused more on athleticism, particularly on the fret board, showcasing their speed and agility. Audiences are rightfully “wowed” by the sheer talent on display, but our ability to connect to an authentic emotional passage would be difficult to spot. Even the search for something emotional would likely overshoot their intentions. Their style of play relies on  finesse, so the music that emerges sounds as if descended from the stratosphere rather than something grounded on the earth, like that of say Muddy Waters.

To put my intentions here into a sharper focus, another musician will need to be brought into the fray, because all of this came to mind only after hearing Neil Young’s “Down by the River” while jogging today. You may ask why Neil Young? And that would be a fair question to ask since he has never been mentioned in the same breath as the other guitarists mentioned above. But the answer is simple, the song reminded me of Willie Nelson. While listening to Young’s song, my mind stretched back and pulled from memory an association that I haven’t thought of in years and suddenly the same style was right in front of me, with the same emphasis on picking, the same cadence. I had heard Young’s song before, of course, but it had never struck my ears with the same inflection or poignancy. This was likely due to the earbuds, since the music is delivered directly to the eardrums without the surrounding white noise clogging up the airwaves. The same clarity occurs when hearing lyrics as well.

At the time of its release in 1969, Young had a talented young guitarist in his band named Danny Whiten, who played lead and rhythm guitar along with Young. Due to them both being listed as “guitarist” in the liner notes, it’s impossible to know who is actually responsible for the stunning solos that make up the bulk of the song; perhaps a combination of both…. but at some point, I believe the distinction is irrelevant. The style is the point, and what I find so fascinating about it, just as Nelson’s playing impressed upon me years earlier, is that it’s impossible to quantify, at least at a skill level, because Young is intentionally playing to depict a rural, self-taught style, created with particular intent to put us into the mind of the song’s protagonists.

So, let’s take a look at what I’m talking about there.

For those unfamiliar (listen to it here), the song is a slow burning guitar jam that takes up a whopping 9:20 minutes, which in 1969 would have been an extravagant, self-indulgent use of vinyl. But far more important than its length is the deliberate cadence that Young creates with the guitar, which clearly enhances the intent of his narrative.

To frame what that means, Young’s lyrics will need to be brought in, but even then, the words will only describe the basic setup. The full color of the story only comes into focus when Young begins playing. Here are a few relevant lines that I extrapolated, which provides the basic picture. Young’s couple appears to be on the run and hiding in the woods after breaking some law. Or perhaps the protagonist committed a serious crime that suddenly made his girl an accomplice, and she’s scared and apparently hiding. The song begins with him trying to entice her out and to stop hiding from him, that she has nothing to fear. But then we hear his calculation, that she could betray him, so he kills her.

“Be on my side. I’ll be on your side, baby.
There is no reason for you to hide”
 
“You take my hand; I’ll take your hand
Together we may get away”
 
“She could drag me over the rainbow, send me away”

“Down by the river,
I shot my baby.
Down by the river.

Dead, ooh, ooh, shot her dead, ooh”

That is the basic storyline, but this is where Young’s solo does its magic by adding color and texture, fleshing out the mood of the scene, for it parallels the narrative beautifully. His first solo begins at the 1:55 minute mark with a staccato of a single note that is repeated 38 times. That, in itself, is unremarkable, but the mood and texture created from that single note is incredible. It’s as if the listener is thrown into the middle of the Hatfield-McCoy feud, with all the backwater belligerence one would expect there. Listen and feel the unschooled, deeply rural scene he paints with it. Young makes himself sound like a self-taught country hick from deep in the Tennessee hills. There is not a hint of virtuosity here, and that is his point.

In 2015, Phish guitarist, Trey Anastasio wrote, “If I was ever going to teach a master class to young guitarists, the first thing I would play them is the first minute of Neil Young’s original “Down by the River” solo. It’s one note, but it’s so melodic, and it just snarls with attitude and anger.”

At the 6:00 minute mark, Young’s second solo begins with a distinctly softer touch as the melody meanders around fairly aimlessly, as if he’s quietly searching for where his ‘baby’ is hiding (“there’s no reason for you to hide”). Then suddenly the solo explodes in a torrent of crazy, disjointed, belligerent notes, which to my ear describes the rush of finding her, a chase, the struggle, and the dirty deed committed. The song then fades out with Young’s return to the bridge, “Down by the river, I shot my baby.”

Pieced altogether, Young has created an astounding piece of thematic songwriting here. At no point does the song feel rushed in any way, which allows the listener to settle in comfortably for what’s to come. He evidently felt free to allow the muse to carry the song wherever it led, without concern to restrain it. Young admitted to being sick with a fever when he wrote it and while in the delirium of a high temperature, wrote the basic structures to three of his most famous songs, “Cinnamon Girl”, “Cowgirl in the Sand”, and “Down by the River”, all in a single day. And it was from that delirium that I wonder if he imagined the distinctive guitar cadence for this song, because it adds such a nuanced texture to his narrative, where lyric and guitar meet to create a type of musical novel.

Regardless of what inspired it, Young’s playing here, as well as Nelson’s, is so aesthetically opposed to the speed and dexterity of the standard ‘guitar god’ motif that they appear to be from different worlds. Instead of the clinical precision of Satriani, Vai, and others, Young, and Nelson both play with a decidedly provincial, unschooled style that feels far more organic and grounded, as if the notes were born of the earth.