Noddy doing well ...

[uwe]

I didn't know this (I had just noticed his general frailty attributing it to his age), he's only gone public with it now. We always commemorate people here once they have not survived illness, he now did for a change after a five year battle:

[westen44]

He looks very well.  Also, even though he isn't wearing the hat by choice, he looks good in it.  It suits him. 

[uwe]

Even in Slade's heyday he'd be seen more often on stage with caps and hats than not, during the final phase of their recording career he stopped wearing them for a more MTV-friendly image I think, but he always had full, if slightly rebellious hair.













Even the hair he lost during chemotherapy has found a return.

[gearHed289]

Good to hear. And you're right - it's nice to celebrate a survivor.

His mirrored hat inspired Phil Lynott's mirrored pickguards.

[uwe]

Yup, Lizzy - still in original trio form - opened for Slade on a UK tour at their peak in 1973. With Whiskey in the Jar having been a freak hit, Lizzy were now - to the chagrin of the band - perceived as a singles novelty act, good to be put on a tour with Slade (and Suzi Quatro!). It wasn't how they saw themselves, but Noddy's mirror top hat and its reflections left a lasting impression.

Lynott was always a keen watcher, taking it all in: After visiting a Wishbone Ash gig around that same time (more of a "serious" rock band than either Slade or Suzi, Argus had been voted album of the year by Brit music publications in 1972/73), he decided that twin harmony lead guitars were the way forward for Thin Lizzy too. It's a debt that der Holländer still refuses to acknowledge to this day, ghastly person he is ... 

But what about Dennis Dunaway's mirror applications to both his EB-3 and Jazz Bass which likely served the same purpose of reflecting light on stage, did those come before or after Noddy's hat? 

[Basvarken]

Lynott decided to have two guitarists instead of one because he was fed up with guitarists walking out on him in the middle of a gig and leaving him and Brian Downey to continue as a duo. Both Eric Bell and Gary Moore had let him down terribly. He figured if I have two we can always continue when one of them drops out.

[uwe]

That would have only made sense if they hadn't played harmonies all the time! A Lizzy gig where just one guitarist would have played thirds, fourths and fifths to a non-existent root note first voice guitar would have been a weird experience for the audience.

That said, I've read that during one of Gary Moore's later walkouts in the US, they did indeed play a few gigs as a trio until they found a stopgap replacement  - with just Scott Gorham who said he found the situation of being the sole lead guitarist immensely stressful.

[Basvarken]

True. When they started out with two guitarists they didn't play the harmonies yet. If you listen to the Fighting album there are only two (or three?) songs with those signature harmony parts.
In one of the biographies I read that they "discovered" that when Robbo was playing around with his tape echo and by accident harmonized to his own melody part. Scott heard it and thought it sounded cool. So they emulated that part and went on with it.

[uwe]

MAXIMUM INK:  Often there is mention of the twin-lead-guitar-harmony sound in discussions about Wishbone Ash. However, it’s usually Thin Lizzy that get credit for “inventing” that technique. Yet, it occurs to me that Wishbone Ash should really get this honor, since, when you started doing it in 1970, Thin Lizzy only had one guitar player (Eric Bell)!

ANDY POWELL:  Oh, did they?! I think you’re the first person that’s ever picked up on that! [laughing] Well, that’s very nice of you, and it’s funny that you mentioned Thin Lizzy, because I was at a Steely Dan concert last week, and there’s one song of ours that I know had a big impact on those two bands, because there’s riffs in a song by each of them that could only be inspired by the song “Blowin’ Free”, one of our classics, which, back in the day, would have been played quite a bit on FM radio. I’ve spoken to Scott Gorham, from the later incarnation of Thin Lizzy, and I know that they were influenced by Wishbone because we were the first band that they saw when they came to London from Ireland. So, you know, some people admit the influence and some don’t, but it’s all good to me. Music is like that. We all channel other bands, and music we’ve grown up with, and so it’s a huge compliment.

MI:  I understand that you believe your early work with bands that had horn arrangements helped to develop that twin guitar sound.

AP:  Most definitely. Speaking for myself, we were all enamored with the sound we were stumbling on to and creating at the time within the band. But, one of the very first songs that I worked on with my co-guitarist Ted Turner, from the late 60s/early 70s, was the song “Blind Eye”, and we were definitely thinking about producing a piece of music that made the guitars sound like horns, and there’s a little riff in there that runs throughout and just punctuates the song, and really, that’s horn phrasing… brass phrasing. In my teens I was in soul bands, playing songs from the Stax and Motown collection, and you know, I perceived bands at that time as bands with 7 or 8 pieces, and I was often just working as a rhythm guitar player. But I did work a lot with the horn arrangers in those bands, so it was fun to do that, and then just start doing the same thing with the guitars.

MI:  And of course, your guitar of choice is the Gibson Flying V, and you really have to be comfortable with that style of guitar.

AP: Indeed. Yes, most definitely. I think I was looking for a guitar that would be “my” instrument.  I’m to that point [where] I’ve made guitars, and I’ve actually played my homemade, home-built, guitars in different bands, and certainly in the first year of Wishbone Ash I used a homemade guitar. But, I was playing a Gibson SG, which is a much more manageable guitar, but very similar in construction to the Flying V… the Honduras mahogany, one piece body, same scale… but, when I stumbled on the Flying V, people just hadn’t picked up on that guitar, because it was seen as Gibson’s attempt to be “futuristic”. I think it was a little bit too [much] before it’s time. And then of course, as you mentioned, it’s very much a performance guitar. You don’t sit down with that guitar! [laughing] I think a lot of players felt, well, I prefer a Les Paul or something [that] I can put on my knee. But, when I played this one, it was a 1967 [model that] had been sitting in a packing case. It was in a store in London. This was 1972, when I picked it up, so it was already five years old, but brand new. I picked the guitar up, and curiously, I noticed, as a guitar maker, that the “fins” on the guitar actually helped with the resonance. For a Gibson it was very resonant. A lot of Gibsons have that muted, soft, tonal, body kind of sound. But the Flying V had a lot more resonance, and that suited my style very, very, much. I immediately bonded with the thing, and have loved it ever since.

https://www.maximumink.com/index.php/articles/permalink/wishbone_ash

[Basvarken]

Before the Robertson/Gorham tandem Thin Lizzy tried their luck with John Cann and Andy Gee on guitars. Lynott and Dowbey wanted to be able to make the band sound more like the studio recordings with a rhythm guitar supporting while the other was doing lead. And the idea not to be stuck in a rut when one would leave gave Lynott some confidence. But the Gee/(du)Cann line-up didn't work for them.

Then Robbo joined and two weeks later they auditioned Gorham.
It took them one and a half album (Nightlife and Fighting) to find their voice.
Sure they had heard Allman Bros and Wishbone Ash. But it wasn't till Robbo was fidgeting with the tape delay that they thought of doing it themselves too.
They just weren't aware. They more or less had to read in the press that this was their signature sound. 

[Alanko]

John Cann as in this guy?



John McCoy on bass, who played with Ian Gillan... fallen into the Deep Purple trap again. 

There are videos of John Du Cann playing with Atomic Rooster. His guitar approach seems way too crude and approximate to lend itself to orchestrated harmony guitar lines.

[uwe]

Harmonized lead guitars were de rigueur in the 70ies, you heard them with Queen, Alice Cooper and Boston, on most Glam Rock recordings by Sweet or Mud, even with Hot Chocolate (Emma) or Rod Stewart (Sailing) hits, early Thin Lizzy (Whiskey in the Jar) or Deep Purple (the Highway Star solo is at least three different harmonies, not always following harmonic rules, hence it sounds a bit weird/edgy in places) and Kiss (especially on Destroyer, Ezrin was fond of harmony lead guitars). Even bands with just a single guitarist did it via double-tracking in the studio to get that sound. Bands like Wishbone Ash and Thin Lizzy or most Southern Rock bands just took it one step further by wishing to be able to replicate it live at any time with the aid of two or more lead guitarists.



Though it's gone largely out of fashion, I'm still a sucker for that sound (and pretty good at creating harmonic lines and if I do say so myself!).

[Basvarken]

John Cann as in this guy?

Yes, that guy

[uwe]

"His guitar approach seems way too crude and approximate to lend itself to orchestrated harmony guitar lines."

Well, the album was produced by Francis Rossi at the time and the keyboard player in the vid is Andy Bown, likewise of Status Quo!

Not that Status Quo wouldn't play harmonies at times, albeit sparingly:


(Alan's once so forceful bass playing was at this point already severely handicapped by advancing MS,
it was heartbreaking to watch and hear.)

[slinkp]

Even bands with just a single guitarist did it via double-tracking in the studio to get that sound.

The earliest "rock twin lead" example that jumps to my mind is this from 1966, well before any of the bands in this thread existed:


And of course, there was Les Paul well before that, who as usual was years ahead of everyone, but that's not really "rock".