LIVE FROM FLAT V by Josh Smith.
JAMES MEETS DANNY.
“BROWN GATTON” is a song Josh Smith recorded in 2017 for his album Still, which leaned on the jazzier side of things. As the title suggests, the tune is essentially his expression of “James Brown meets Danny Gatton.” Singer and bandleader James Brown is, of course, the Godfather of Soul, and Danny Gatton, for those who may be unfamiliar, was one of the greatest all-around guitarists of all time.
JAMES MEETS DANNY.
“BROWN GATTON” is a song Josh Smith recorded in 2017 for his album Still, which leaned on the jazzier side of things. As the title suggests, the tune is essentially his expression of “James Brown meets Danny Gatton.” Singer and bandleader James Brown is, of course, the Godfather of Soul, and Danny Gatton, for those who may be unfamiliar, was one of the greatest all-around guitarists of all time.
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MusicTranscript
00:00All right, Josh Smith back again. This month we're gonna start talking about my song Brown Gatton.
00:09This tune is from my album Still, which was a jazzier album I did, and the title should tell
00:15you a few things about this tune. It's basically James Brown meets Danny Gatton. That's at least
00:21what I was thinking when I wrote it. So it's at its heart a James Brown shuffle, like, you know.
00:30But mixed with Danny Gatton hybrid picking and ideas, and of course some interesting twists
00:37and turns. So the phrase of the song, the melody, the head of the song, has a two-beat bar every
00:44third bar. So it goes like this. One, two, three.
00:51One, two, three, four. One, two. So it's turning itself around with a two-beat bar after every
01:07third bar of the melody. This leads to some cool twists and turns, especially when you
01:12go through the change, because then the second time we do it, we modulate to C. So we go...
01:14So we go...
01:21So
01:30so
01:37so
01:39so
01:45so
01:59that
02:00it adds a lot of kind of forward motion to the tune. When we hit those two two-beat bars,
02:06it kind of, the audience kind of feels something, because something different than the ordinary
02:11is happening. But it doesn't feel out of place, because it's still in the same time signature.
02:16You're just dropping two beats, and starting a phrase in a weird spot, as far as what the
02:21ear is used to. And then when we get into the solo later, that makes for really great,
02:26cool phrasing things, because you can have licks that cross the bar in a different way
02:30than you're used to, and resolve in a weirder spot. And I love that. And that was kind of
02:35the Danny Gatton twist on the James Brown thing. Then we get to the bridge of the song,
02:40which goes to the four chord, and we're full on James Brown here, where I'm playing straight
02:44eighth notes.
02:45So we're basically chromatically moving around the forward.
03:04With those stabs on the five chord, and then we're into the solo. So that's the meat and
03:24the potatoes of this tune, Brown Gatt.