I’m finishing up a collection of songs I should be able to play from memory, and my last selection before moving on to beginner Grade 4 was The Doobie Brothers “China Grove.” This was most humbling exercise I’ve encountered yet. At first I tried singing along while playing the rhythm guitar part Tom Johnston plays in their live performances. I quickly realized that wasn’t going to happen. I tried singing to the other guitar part, which is a bit less demanding, but I couldn’t pull that off either. My voice is too low to sing in Johnston’s register, but even after dropping the vocals an octave I could not get it right, so I gave up and decided to cut out Johnston’s rhythm guitar from the album version, play that part myself. and add in the rest of the original song to my recording.
If you listen and notice anything at all I could do better or any bad habits you see me developing, please let me know. It will be greatly appreciated!
Having said all that, I had a lot of fun learning and playing this song. I hope you can enjoy a few minutes rocking along with it as well!
Great job on that, Jim. Well done. Such quick chord changes.
Sorry you couldn’t get the vocals down. I can relate to that. The high registers, are hard to impossible for me to achieve. A Capo helps sometimes, though.
The piece will develop further the more you play it: you’ll probably see or hear parts that could be improved; isolate those phrases and practise the improvements. There are a couple of short sections with no backing track where your timing is less precise: even with a backing track, keep tapping your foot so when you do go ‘solo’ the tempo is maintained.
Nice one. I think i have heard that song most of my life and i didnt realize that was the name. Hey i really was digging that rythem melodic run action near the end. That was sweet, and you seemed to nail it. I listented to that part a couple of times. You can hear there is a lead over it also but that rythem guy has a cool set of licks that you played really well also. Nice job it got me feeling some movment this morning with my 3rds sip of cooffee.
Thanks for the encouragement! No time for the rhythm guitarists to fall asleep during that lead solo! On the album version there are two rhythm guitars, one in each stereo channel. In some live performances I’ve seen on Youtube Tom Johnston would take the busier rhythm part, sing, and then take the lead solo. Impressive!
Hey Jim!!!
Way to go!!! Really tough tune & your playing does it justice for sure! After listening to your version I listened to the Doobies’ album version. Then played them in pieces listening to yours for a minute then theirs for a minute etc., I think my only criticism ( not REALLY a criticism) is that you could bump up the volume of your playing a bit vs the other guitar & the vocals… you aren’t “Lost in the Mix” but it just feels like the Doobies have your guitar part slightly louder. Otherwise, danged fine playing!!!
Kudos to you & your Silver Sky!
Thanks for the encouragement! That volume issue is a side-effect of me trying to be a sound engineer😒. Turns out the relative volume of my guitar seems to depend on what you use to listen. I played through my PC’s built-in speakers and headphones and the volume seems right. I play it using my iphone’s built-in speaker and I can hardly hear my guitar! Using bluetooth earbuds with my iphone the volume sounds right. If I knew the reason for the difference I could fix the recording.
