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Electric Piano part on Cheap Sunglasses?


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That"ll work. I think Dusty used a pianet. I used a Rhodes until the end when we morphed into Frankenstein.

 

Guitar might have double that lick with a ring modulator. If you have one you might give a try on its own zone just for giggles. It"s an old tune play with it.

"It doesn't have to be difficult to be cool" - Mitch Towne

 

"A great musician can bring tears to your eyes!!!

So can a auto Mechanic." - Stokes Hunt

 

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Deguello was recorded at Ardent Studio A in Memphis as were subsequent ZZ Top albums. While in Memphis Billy happened to hear Sam and Dave's "I Thank You" on the radio and was intrigued by the Clavinet part played by Isaac Hayes. He happened to mention it to their engineer who I believe was Terry Manning and was told that this very same Clavinet was in another room at the studio. So they did a cover of "I Thank You" and "Cheap Sunglasses" using that Clavinet. A Ring Modulator was used on the guitar in a few places.
C3/122, M102A, Vox V301H, Farfisa Compact, Gibson G101, GEM P, RMI 300A, Piano Bass, Pianet , Prophet 5 rev. 2, Pro-One, Matrix 12, OB8, Korg MS20, Jupiter 6, Juno 60, PX-5S, Nord Stage 3 Compact
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I guarantee that's not a clavinet in that song - clav has a much sharper sound. It sounds just like my old Combo Pianet sounded, but Wurli would be the next closest. What you are hearing is a combination of the low reeds making a "beowww" sound and playing octaves. And I'm sure it's amped up with some old tweed sweetness.

Moe

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Here is a quote from Billy Gibbons on Musicradar. Personally, having played a Pianet since the early 70's and currently owning three of them I agree that it sounds more like a Pianet on the recording but Billy has a very specific detailed memory of it being a Clavinet.

 

Degüello (1979)

 

'By this time, Memphis had made its mark with us in a really positive way. I don"t think that anyone can go there and not be affected by all of the great music, especially stuff from the Stax/Volt era.

 

'Before we left Memphis, the song I Thank You came on the car radio. Isaac Hayes played this badass clavinet part that made the Sam & Dave version so distinctive. I was in the studio, talking to the engineer, and I remarked about how magical the sound of the clavinet was on that song, and he said, 'Well, lo and behold, that very same clavinet is right out there in the other room." I said, 'Well, that"s it. We"re going to have to incorporate it in our version."

 

'ZZ Top, in the studio, sometimes became a five and six-piece band, by way of whatever we were adding to the sound. One of the key pieces here was the use of that clavinet. We put it on I Thank You, Cheap Sunglasses â it started showing up on a lot of tracks.

 

'Sometimes change is hard to take for some people, but we knew how far we could push things for our fans. Also, we knew that we had to go out and do the songs live, so we avoided any elements that would have made that impossible.'

C3/122, M102A, Vox V301H, Farfisa Compact, Gibson G101, GEM P, RMI 300A, Piano Bass, Pianet , Prophet 5 rev. 2, Pro-One, Matrix 12, OB8, Korg MS20, Jupiter 6, Juno 60, PX-5S, Nord Stage 3 Compact
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I love Billy's playing, and he was a real nice dude when I met him. But I still trust my ears more than a guitar player's 30 year old recollection of what some engineer said. Here's the Sam and Dave song, and it is indeed no question a clavinet. It also sounds nothing like what is on ZZ's Cheap Sunglasses OR ZZ's Thank You.Those are reeds baby, not strings!

 

[video:youtube]

Moe

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By way of comparison:

 

When I listen to Thank You again, I don't hear any keys at all. That pad sound that could easily be played on keys sounds like chorused guitar to me.

 

[video:youtube]

 

Here's Cheap Sunglasses - still sounds like reeds to me.

 

[video:youtube]

Moe

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I do freaking love these tunes!! What I'd always thought about Thank You was that it doesn't have EP but it WANTS one! And when people hear it at a gig with EP it seems to sound "right".

 

RE Cheap Sunglasses, I will eat a bug if that was a Clav. The quote is interesting and worthy or some more research, but I think it's just a simple memory error. One of the biggest things I've learned in my tiny little taste of working in music is to NEVER underestimate our ability to remember incorrectly, the tendency for some memories to evolve over time (and over multiple tellings) and in some cases our ability to manufacture them entirely!

 

 

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Doing further research on ZZ Top it seems Billy Gibbons is known for putting on interviewers by coming up with false stories regarding band history. He does this to either to bolster the band's image and to make some events seem more interesting than they actually were. His story about the Clavinet is probably something he purposely made up for the latter reason. Another deception is that all original songs are credited to all three band members. Some albums like Eliminator were recorded with little or no involvement from Dusty Hill or Frank Beard yet they are credited with co-writing everything. This is another image boost to make it look like this was a real band effort. Actually on Eliminator it was Billy Gibbons co-writing and arranging everything with Linden Hudson who received no credit for his work. Gibbons plays much of the Guitar on the record but all the backing which includes Synths, Drum Machine, and additional Guitar was done by producer/engineer Terry Manning who also did mixing and overdubs on Deguello and previous albums. So now with a sense of how Billy Gibbons operates I would say his comments regarding the use of Clavinet on Cheap Sunglasses and Thank You are completely false and pretty much anything he says is suspect.
C3/122, M102A, Vox V301H, Farfisa Compact, Gibson G101, GEM P, RMI 300A, Piano Bass, Pianet , Prophet 5 rev. 2, Pro-One, Matrix 12, OB8, Korg MS20, Jupiter 6, Juno 60, PX-5S, Nord Stage 3 Compact
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Unquestionably, there is Clavinet on the Frankenstein intro groove, then there is Wurlitzer electric piano on the octave break, and the B sectionâ the drop from the minor third l to major 2d

Hammond C3, Leslie 122, Steinway B, Wurlitzer 200A, Rhodes 73,

D6 Clav

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