Guitar Sitar S&D

Listening to some old pop radio station today I got reminded about how often and in odd places the guitar sitar sound was brought out. I heard it both today in that kind of twisted lead guitar on The Chi-Lites "Have You Seen Her" and setting up a melody in "Cats in the Cradle". It was used in other places, perhaps best in that great solo on Steely Dan's "Do It Again".

The guitar tone and the lead on "Have You Seen Her" is really kind of nasty, especially considering how smoothe the chorus is on that song. I suppose that is kind of the genius of the recording. I think it sounds pretty cool.

So ILM come out in praise or scorn for other uses of the 'guitar sitar', an odd sound curio from the late 60s and 70s. Especially point out places where this sound might be used in more modern recordings, not much of which come to mind other than on one of those later kind of meh Metallica songs.

fascination street by the cure sounds good to me.

One of Chips Moman's trademarks -- B.J. Thomas' "Hooked on a Feeling," Elvis' "Stranger in My Home Town."

Or the American Studios band, I guess. "Stranger" was produced by Felton Jarvis.

Elvis' "Stranger in My Home Town." and Fascination Street are a couple of good ones that didn't come to mind.

I think "Wherever I may Roam" might be the the Metallica tune that starts with that guitar sitar sound.

"One of Chips Moman's trademarks" -- That would also be him that may have produced The Box Tops' "Cry Like a Baby", right? That is one that just came to mind and it sounds good on that track.

Praise for its use in Joan Baez's "Love is Just a Four Letter Word" which not only was early but in a nominally "country" song.

thread reminds me of that old radio spot for the Electric Prunes and Vox wah-wah pedal... "make your guitar sound like a sitar!"

numerous early Bevis Frond songs also meet this criteria.

parliament "moonshine heather" and various other rhenium/osmium/first thangs tracks, though sometimes you just notice it as a weird noise in the background.

joseph stoned age man has some, too.

Not to be a prude about this, but if we're going to have a whole thread dedicated to this, we should at least call the instrument by its correct name: the "electric" sitar, the most famous of which was the Coral Sitar, made in the 1960's.

wendy and lisa play electric sitar on "strange relationship," right??

"I Know What I Like", Genesis

"Close to the Edge", obv.

"Paint it Black" and "Mother's Little Helper" for sure

Isn't that a real sitar on the Stones' records, though?

And yeah to the Box Tops; I knew there was a tune of theirs I was leaving out there. Did Moman or Dan Penn produce "Cry Like a Baby"? Penn did "The Letter."

First thing I thought of was the Box Tops. It's all over the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band's "Child's Guide to Good and Evil" album

A few favourites:

Freda Payne, "Band of Gold"
Poppy Family, "Where Evil Grows"
Lemon Pipers, "My Green Tambourine"
Spinal Tap, "Listen To The Flower People"

Isn't that a real sitar on the Stones' records, though?

I didn't think so, but maybe you're right about that now that I think about it. What's the song on Nuggets that rips of the riff from "Paint it Black"? I think that one's a guitar.

Brian Jones played a real sitar, I thought.

In keeping with the Elvis/Chips Moman angle, there's Joe South, who used it several times, including "Games That People Play."

There's a few Delfonics songs that employ this, all of which I like better than "Have You Seen Her".

Beatles - Norwegian Wood
Poppy Family - free from the city.

That's a real sitar on the Beatles thing too, right?

Hey! Let's not forget "Come and Get Your Love" by Redbone!

Totally. Isn't George Harrison the most famous white dude ever to play the thing?

All nine volumes of "Electric Sitar Headswirlers" to thread

Shirley Eaton "Flowers In The Air"

"Not to be a prude about this, but if we're going to have a whole thread dedicated to this, we should at least call the instrument by its correct name: the "electric" sitar, the most famous of which was the Coral Sitar, made in the 1960's."

I would imagine a few of the more modern uses of this sound come from a pedal.

http://www.haveyouheard.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/anton_gun.jpg

"Motherfucker broke my sitar!"

I wish for the life of me I could remember the song to contribute it to the thread, but anyway. One time me and my friend were at work and this song was playing and the lead kicked in with an electric sitar. I couldn' figure it out at first, "This solo sounds kinda weird, like definitely not a guitar."
"Sounds like a sitar."
"Hmm, but I don't think you can really use the techniques this guy's using on a ... oh! I bet it's one of those electric sitar guitar things..."
Suddenly my friends becomes incredibly condescending / smarmy and is all, "oh...heaven forbid...he not play a regular sitar."
"Uh, that's not really what I...nevermind."

I went over my tone and phrasing in my head seriously for ten minutes trying to figure out why he snapped at me. SHRUG

Shirley Eaton "Flowers In The Air"

SALLY eaton, bro

she's a wiccan, now, apparently.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sally_Eaton

SALLY eaton, bro

Yeah, I quickly looked at my iTunes library and mixed her up with Shirley (Shirley Eaton was in Goldfinger and has a Eurospy exploitation song of her own)

Shirley Eaton was in Goldfinger and has a Eurospy exploitation song of her own

WANT

She's also in this weird UK Mickey Spillane adaptation from, I think, 1963. Shows on Turner Classic occasionally.

xp: yeah, that sounds good too!

Ha, I heard "Have You Seen Her" yesterday and "Green Tambourine" today and thought I was going to come here and add them, but this list is already sewn up pretty tight.

Not so much the sitar sound as sitar technique(s): the Kinks' "See My Friends" and "Fancy."

The Coup "Repo Man"

Stylistics, "You Are Everything"

So most of these apparently were played by Vinnie Bell or else- according to the man himself- producer Bobby Eli.

Actually I used to think the electric sitar sound was Vinnie Bell's "watery" guitar sound, but I guess that is something different.

I guess Bobby Eli is known more as a guitar player, one of the members of the Philly International house band.

The inventor of the instrument

I'd like to shake that man warmly by the hand

There's a video of him playing it on his homepage http://www.vinniebell.com/

Was just reading Dennis Coffey's book where I learned that it was he who played the Coral sitar on "Band Of Gold."

Motorpsycho - "Hey Jane"

echo & the bunnymen - killing moon

Eddie Willis on "Signed, Sealed And Delivered"

So it was Reggie Young on "Cry Like A Baby" and "Hooked On A Feeling."
http://www.bronsonsmusic.com/reggie_young_part_2.html

The roots, however, are found in November 1964, when the first recording of "Heart Full of Soul" by the Yardbirds was engineered by Brian Auger with rather unusual sounds blended in. An authentic Indian sitar player was brought into the studio, including a tabla player along side. Unfortunately the sitar player could not get the 4/4 time signature right, and due to the fact that the Yardbirds were a road group, the original would not be able to be played to live audience. Jeff Beck stood in and used his fuzz machine with a tone blender which created a similar and extremely effective sound.

http://www.oocities.org/shiloh_noone_za/IndianSitar.html

Jeff Beck stood in and used his fuzz machine with a tone blender which created a similar and extremely effective sound.

sentence perfectly formed to make guitar pedal nerds shake with rage

http://thumbnail.image.rakuten.co.jp/@0_mall/pedalmania/cabinet/effectpedal1/d-e1/electro-harmonix1/ravish-sitar.jpg

Been curious to try that. I remember Danelectro had a cheap sitar pedal, the main component being a cardboard slide.

There's plenty of videos of it on YouTube. YT is pretty much the default pedal showroom these days.

that danelectro truly truly sucked. im not a hater of all of their stuff but that one was awful. ive messed around with the ravish sitar a bunch, and its about as good as ive heard for sitar sims. sold one to a dude that does the george harrison in a pretty high line beatles tribute band thing and he seems to be digging it.

This is the first thing I thought of, but maybe this is a real sitar?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpYG0igKX60

http://teental.free.fr/fotos/Sitar/Vinnie%20Bell%20Sitar%20Ad.jpg

I like how Cornershop used it in some of their songs. Too lazy to find which ones tho.

"Used to be a Cop," Drive-By Trucker. Does not really make the song better, go figure.

I seem to recall that Steve Howe uses one on occasion.

Most definitely a real sitar on the Williams/Watson track - that's David Lindley playing the sitar.

great tune