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The dissonant beauty of Highway Star
One of our most prolific commenters Uwe Hornung writes:
I know, I know, we’re not a guitar player forum, but this here is real interesting.
It shows how Blackmore created THAT otherworldly studio sound of the Highway Star solo by harmonizing it (and breaking traditional harmony rules in places as he did not properly discern between major and minor intervals, so some notes sound dissonant, but that is the beauty of it!). It’s really instructive with the split screen and especially with the half-speed version which starts at 01:30.
And of course something that could never be replicated live in sound by any DP guitarist, you need a second guitar player to do that.
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
Fascinating! And amazing how good the half-speed sounds.
This is clearly not my area of expertise because all of these years I thought that the harmonizing during the solo was Lord on the organ.
September 4th, 2024 at 03:00Yo,
Good post, & excellent guide for anyone wanting to get the solo down…( I bet there’s not too many watching the music however lol ) !
I love the guitar too, great sound, well played & it certainly looks like the one I have here, (though we don’t get to see the headstock to confirm).
Peace !
September 4th, 2024 at 06:06They say all roads leads to Rome, but when it comes to DP all roads leads to Blackmore.
September 4th, 2024 at 07:18Peace ✌️
I have finally realised what twin lead guitar is all about after 5 decades, thanks Uwe.
September 4th, 2024 at 07:27Those two guitarists look very similar & I hope Uwe hasn’t become obsessed with android replicas or doppelgangers. A bit hard to tell with no visible heads to go on. Cheers.
Well, I’m happy that you are not bored by it!
I always wondered why that solo sounded in the studio version like it did … strange, but brilliant. (Many years ago I read in a German Gitarre & Bass that “Ritchie actually plays ‘wrong’ dissonant notes and mixesd them to the original signal, that is the secret recipe”, but never delved any further.) That is not the kind of harmony guitar playing you would hear with The Allman Brothers, Wishbone Ash, Thin Lizzy or Iron Maiden, had anyone of them done it, it would have sounded a lot less edgy, more vanilla, because they would have (mostly at least) avoided the dissonant notes (where two notes together don’t fit with each other in the scale).
The dissonance of quite a lot of notes is key for the overall sound. It stems from Blackmore playing the second lead track exactly like the first one, albeit THREE half-steps higher – a minor interval. Under strict Western harmony theory that is basically a no-no, there are some note combinations that need a major interval of FOUR half-steps to sound pleasant/accustomed/in key to our ears. (That of course changes the fretting for the second guitar line, it is then no longer a perfect mirror image of the first one.) But Ritchie obviously didn’t want to sound pleasant, he wanted to make an edgy statement.
Now you guys have to make up your mind whether Ritchie was
– a lazy sod with a limited grasp of harmony rules who didn’t understand/could not be bothered with deciding for every single note whether it needed a three or four half-step interval so he took the easy way out and just stuck to three half-steps all the time;
– an intrepid musical visionary breaking the chains of conventional harmony application as we know them;
– just his usual contrarian self hellbent on standing out: “When I do a harmony guitar solo, I’m gonna show these Fishbone Allmunchkins or whatever they’re called how pedestrian their harmonic concepts are! Nobody gonna play like me, I’m gonna grind them (= Western harmony rules 😎) to the gro-ound …”.
Or maybe all of it. 🤣
PS: Dr Bob, good point, why didn’t Jon play live Ritchie’s second line on organ or synth? It wouldn’t have sounded the same, but he could have certainly approximated it. Jon would have likely winced at playing the three half-steps interval ALL THE TIME (mind you, Jon was never averse to playing something drastic if it sounded interesting), but done so to augment Ritchie’s solo to full studio sound glory. But maybe they just wanted to keep their solo excursions strictly separate, Jon had after all the first solo in Highway Star already.
That said, in the Morse era, somewhat of a replication of the studio sound was attempted when Ian Gillan would start SINGING Ritchie’s first melody line at the first repeat of the solo and Steve would then CHANGE to another melody line which wasn’t an exact copy of what Ritchie had played in the studio (not as boneheadedly minorish), but tried to at least approach it, thus harmonizing with Big Ian’s vocal line. I haven’t seen them do that with Simon though. Was never a particular fan of it either if truth be told, prefer Simon playing the solo just straight without Gillan joining.
September 4th, 2024 at 16:19I have a stange feeling that the next one will be even better
September 4th, 2024 at 16:52Yo,
Leiber Uwe stated about RB…( Pick door 1,2 or 3 )…
qt.Door no.1.”– a lazy sod with a limited grasp of harmony rules who didn’t understand/could not be bothered with deciding for every single note whether it needed a three or four half-step interval so he took the easy way out and just stuck to three half-steps all the time”.
Leiber Uwe, he simply played the same “pattern” of notes a minor 3rd upwards from his original star-point. ( At least it looks that way from the video, I’ve only ever played along to it once or twice years ago ).
But there are lots of reasons why it works, & why he had choices, & likely stumbled by accident upon the sequence.
1. It was the most silly-simple thing to try-out & it worked as you already stated.
2. The bottom end of the chord has no determining note to allocate a preferred Maj or minor, so a Dom7 structure works as well as any other…
3. A Dom7 structure means you can play almost anything through its duration.
4. You can also play a diminished scale through any chord & get-away with it.
5. What’s mostly played is a minor-pentatonic scale, simultaneously with the same pattern / scale a minor 3rd upwards.
At the end-of-the-day, if it sounds right, it is right, & RB likely stumbled across something that worked. Often you don’t / can’t think things through with music when you’re playing along, as you have no time, so you experiment & try things, & this just happened to work.
I’ve heard RB discuss music a few times on video, & suggest what I’ve said to be more correct that the other options offered lol !
Peace !
September 4th, 2024 at 23:21I’m pretty sure that in some live shows Jon did play the second guitar part on the Hammond–but (unlike Uwe!) I can’t immediately come up with a link to an example.
September 5th, 2024 at 00:35@ 5 – all of the above Uwe, those three possibilities that you mentioned. A little similar to the odd ball ways of recording a song back in the glorious days. Eddie Kramer talking about Dave Mason’ slightly out of tune 12 string acoustic guitar on Hendrix’s version of All Along The Watchtower. Cheers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6m019pawms&t=12s
September 5th, 2024 at 01:54Andrew @8: I’m sure it wasn’t beyond Jon’s ability to do so nor would he have refused it if asked nicely by Ritchie. Not sure though whether Ritchie ever wanted his stand-alone-moment marred by something like that, you know that he always was a competitive old badger. Steve certainly wouldn’t have minded though, he was more the analytical “let’s get that original studio dissonance in there as closely as possible”-type anyway. Americans, you know.
Speaking of: Joe Satriani and Dweezil Zappa have both in interviews voiced their appreciation of what Blackmore did harmony-wise in the Highway Star solo. It was unusual. (Tommy Bolin OTOH probably never gave HS in its original studio version a full listen! 🤣 Nor was harmony guitar really his thing though he overdubbed like hell in the studio and was very good at it.)
My personal guess is not that far removed from Doc Gregster’s: Ritchie tried out something for the heck of it in the studio, played it back, liked what he heard (and so did the others), the clock was ticking during the Machine Head sessions and so they kept it without further ado, not obsessing over harmony rules.
September 5th, 2024 at 15:30@ 10 – “My personal guess is not that far removed from Doc Gregster’s: Ritchie tried out something for the heck of it in the studio, played it back, liked what he heard (and so did the others), the clock was ticking during the Machine Head sessions and so they kept it without further ado, not obsessing over harmony rules”. And THAT is exactly the reason you don’t allow someone else to meddle in affairs & change things. Getting rid of anything that isn’t technically ‘correct’. The wonderment of the old ways & days of recording music. Love it. Cheers.
September 6th, 2024 at 00:45Great video, Uwe. Always wondered how that solo sounded so unique.
I’m haunted. Haunted. But that’s what he wanted.
September 6th, 2024 at 02:09Let’s see, Herr MacGregor, sworn to avenge, condemned to hell, tempt not the blade, all fear the SENTINEL …
The telltale (intricate) bass run you hear in that song and the guitar melody & harmonies at 03:55 – all written by Bob Ezrin.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNADrrjTysk
Slowing it down severely and having Gene Simmons sing it rather than having Paul Stanley as the original songwriter rushing through it – Bob’s ideas and decree:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOr1mVpmxBU
It would have sounded like this if Paul had had his way:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qac4retZMPk
Most of the chords and the complete orchestral arrangement? Ezrin again. Not a single Kiss member plays on it, Peter Criss just sings. It was the first song of Kiss which broke into the Billboard Top Ten (#7) and remains their greatest US commercial hit to this day.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qac4retZMPk
All these songs from just one album (Destroyer, 1976). Now you keep on telling me that Bob Ezrin is good for nothing. 😎
PS: And while we’re at it: Another Brick In The Wall, Part 2 BEFORE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCkme-zZKp0
and AFTER Bob told Roger Waters what to play on bass and brought in the kiddie choir:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TftIYFrz0Bg
YOUR WITNESS !!!
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQ2_AUVVGYXkRsY-vcelhKMx2yaI_P0kT32ow&s
September 6th, 2024 at 14:52Ah, darn, ‘pologies, the fourth link in #13 should have been this (Beth):
[ Most of the chords and the complete orchestral arrangement? Ezrin again. Not a single Kiss member plays on it, Peter Criss just sings (wait, the remix brings up some acoustic guitar which might have been played by Paul Stanley – or whoever Bob Ezrin deemed fitter! 😉). It was the first song of Kiss which broke into the Billboard Top Ten (#7) and remains their greatest US commercial hit to this day.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kkd1s1MLvQ ]
September 6th, 2024 at 21:18@ 13 – what has any of the 1970’s Bob Ezrin production work have to do with the last 10 years of Deep Purple? Also in regards to the leave it alone comment, were we not talking about Highway Star, the guitar solo? And where did I say that Bob was good for nothing? Cheers.
September 6th, 2024 at 21:39Yo,
Herr Uwe, you shouldn’t take-on so-much click-bait, Mr.Ezrin’s successes are massive, & the results with DP speak for themselves, as near perfect records.
Mr.Ezrin’s only poor effort ( which may not be entirely his fault ) remains “KISS’s “The Elder”…There’s just nothing there to warrant a re-listen, not even a catchy tune…
“Creatures of the Night” is among their best work, an amazing follow-up / come-back comparatively.
Peace !
September 7th, 2024 at 00:18@ 13 – a short 8 minute interview with David Gilmour discussing Comfortably Numb & Another Brick In The Wall, Part two. Thanks for the initial ‘folk’ version of that song, I had never heard that before. Yes indeed Ezrin ‘discoed’ that song up sending poor Gilmour out to a night club to get a ‘feel’ of what he wanted the rhythm to be. I have to admit that you can hear the rhythm in that demo folk version, but I suppose it had to be drilled home to the ‘no hit single’ Floyd guys what Ezrin really wanted. It certainly worked. Cheers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InG6RAZ0KWs
September 7th, 2024 at 04:00@ 13 – well Uwe you have done it again ole son. That is the first time in almost 50 years I have listened to a Kiss song or three. Meaning, choosing to play them myself & not hearing them at someone else’s abode or at a party or in a pub or somewhere else. I used to own Hotter Than Hell & the much maligned Kiss ‘Alive’ around the 1975/6 era. I gave those albums to friend who liked them much more than I did. First up Detroit Rock City & I don’t mind the original & the 2012 remix. Much clearer & normal sounding as the Kiss I remember. That second link God of Thunder is terrible to my ears, where are the drums in that mix? The vocals are also atrocious. The demo of Paul singing it is much more melodic & clearer & sounds better & is much more like the Kiss I remember. Just listening to a few non Ezrin produced Hotter Than Hell songs now, a similar overall sound to some of the early 70’s Budgie albums I have been listening to. A very dry mix that album is, although the drums are in need of improvement, they almost sound like a drum machine in certain aspects. Anyway I did it, I had a listen & it was ok at times. Thanks for the links & info. Overall it sounds like Ezrin needed to work with more serious musicians, if that is the way to put it. Alice & company were a much better act for him to excel at in regards to his production etc. As you can tell, I am not a Kiss aficionado at all. Cheers.
September 7th, 2024 at 06:32Kiss are the French Fries of rock. No one likes to admit to eating them once in a while.
And I like Gene Simmons’s voice actually better than Paul Stanley’s, it’s less hyper and affected. But their best singer was probably Peter Criss.
https://youtu.be/GUFuJQATLZA
Yeah, I actually like Smokie too, you caught me. 😂
https://youtu.be/Z6qnRS36EgE
September 7th, 2024 at 21:37I tell you what though I did venture into Alice Cooper online after the Kiss trial & Billion Dollar Babies & few others songs previous to that album. It has been a very long time since I have listened to those classic songs. So well composed & recorded & many good memories there indeed. That era always reminds me of a guy from school who was a Cooper & Bowie fan big time. The same school & era as the Slade friend who constantly stirred me about Deep Purple & I returned the same to him of Slade. All good fun & all good music. Hang on, did I just pay Bob Ezrin a positive comment, surely not. Don’t ‘click’ on the bait Uwe, discipline yourself for once! Cheers.
September 8th, 2024 at 02:27Thanks for the Smokie memory lane trip Uwe. Chinn & Chapman as a songwriting duo, say no more. When the Travelling Wilbury’s formed in the late 80’s I remember thinking, ‘who do these guys remind me of’? That acoustic rock driven sound with quality melodies, harmonies etc. Very similar & yes the pedigree of the TW says a lot, however that Smokie style was well before that band as a whole. Yes the TW had the Big O, George Harrison, Jeff Lynn & Tom Petty, but were they influenced by Smokie, that sound and all. The TW had some good songs, I do like some of them. Cheers.
September 8th, 2024 at 08:33I think I forgot to mention Bob Dylan in that Travelling Wilbury’s comment. Cheers.
September 8th, 2024 at 22:03Yo,
Herr Uwe stated…
qt.”Kiss are the French Fries of rock. No one likes to admit to eating them once in a while”.
ROTFLMAO !
Some people may prefer you to say that they’re the “Big Mac’s” of R&R, as their record sales suggest…But don’t worry, DP are “Quarter Pounders” at the least comparatively…And everyone likes a Quarter Pounder yo !
Peace !
September 9th, 2024 at 00:11