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Good Times
Nile Rodgers’s short, bright chords leave room for Bernard Edwards’s bass line to move. Listen for the little muted scratches between the notes of the chord. They keep time as the bass takes longer strides, and the whole groove feels lighter for the space between the two guitars.
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Tattooed Love Boys
Follow Chrissie Hynde’s chord accents under the verse and see how quickly they bring you back around. James Honeyman-Scott said he settled on a small line against her rhythm and kept playing it to stay in time. Once you hear both, the sharper little lick makes a handy guide to the part underneath.
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Get Up (I Feel Like Being A) Sex Machine, Pts. 1 & 2
Catfish Collins’s clipped guitar scratches pass around the bass line played by his brother Bootsy. The bass makes the first beat easy to find, so try listening for the quick guitar answers that come afterward. The pattern is already in place before James Brown starts trading lines with Bobby Byrd.
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Back in Black
Engineer Tony Platt points to a detail you can test on headphones. Malcolm Young’s Gretsch sits on the left, with Angus Young’s lead on the right. Try following Malcolm when the familiar lick breaks off into shorter runs. The weight comes from his firm chord attack and the empty space he leaves between strokes.
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Love and Happiness
Teenie Hodges lets the first guitar notes hang in the air. Once the band starts playing, listen for the little gaps in his repeating figure where the organ and bass can answer. As Green starts taking more liberties with the phrasing, the guitar is still quietly setting the terms.
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London Calling
Engineer Bill Price remembered how Joe Strummer damped his chords with his strumming hand. His original rhythm take stayed in the final mix. Listen during the first verse for the chord hits that stop almost as soon as they start, then follow the longer guitar sounds around them as the track fills out.
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Coyote
Mitchell’s guitar keeps a low string ringing while the upper notes of the chord change. Listen for that anchor under the long vocal lines and for the bass curling away from it. The open tuning gives those chords room to spread without slowing the strum.
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Stir It Up
The rhythm guitar cuts the chords short on the offbeats, leaving the bass free to stretch out underneath. Stay with that dry chop when Wayne Perkins’s overdubbed guitar starts to make itself heard. The small strokes are what keep the track swaying as the higher guitar takes longer breaths.
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Take Me Out
Alex Kapranos describes splitting a chord across the bass and the two guitars. After the big slowdown, listen to the second guitar and bass turn the big riff into a series of interlocking notes. The parts leave little holes for one another, so the new groove lands heavier than a single strummed chord would.
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Bo Diddley
Diddley holds to one chord and changes where he hits it. Count the first group of three accents, then wait for the two that answer it. The guitar’s tremolo and rattling percussion give those same accents enough motion to carry the verses.
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Pride and Joy
Vaughan alternates low walking notes with high, clipped brushes of the strings in the verses. Hear how much the little upward accents contribute to the swing. There’s enough lift in the backing figure to make the stretch between the solos worth listening to on its own.
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Little Wing
Hendrix lets the chord ring while a finger moves inside it, so the backing has its own little melody. Hear it under the singing, where the upper notes lean into the spaces he leaves in the vocal. The guitar can finish a phrase without losing hold of the harmony underneath.
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Kiss
David Z used guitar chords and a gate to help shape the hi-hat pattern before Prince added his electric guitar part. Listen for the dry electric strokes against that busy, thin top end. There’s so much room below the guitar that you can hear exactly where each chop starts and stops.
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This Charming Man
Johnny Marr recalled layering several acoustic tracks beneath the electric guitar. Listen past the bright run at the front for the strumming that makes it bounce. The lower part gives the lead line a place to land every time it comes back around to Morrissey’s vocal.
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Message in a Bottle
Andy Summers’s guitar spells out the verse chords one note at a time, with another guitar layer adding harmony. Listen for the switch to more emphatic chord strokes when the chorus arrives. The verse pattern is so mobile that the chorus can feel like a change of pace even before you focus on the drum part.
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Afrique Victime
Ahmoudou Madassane’s rhythm guitar gives the title track something to hold on to as Moctar’s lead climbs. Pick out the lower repeated figure while the upper guitar starts spilling across the beat. That steady part gives the later solo a strong sense of motion without forcing it into short phrases.
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All My Loving
John Lennon strums quick groups of three under the verses, making the chord changes fly by without crowding Paul McCartney’s melody. Listen for the shorter offbeat strokes in the bridge, then for the triplets when the verse returns. That quick, even rhythm is as much a part of the song’s lift as the tune.
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Start Me Up
Keith Richards hits the chord, pulls back, then drops another short accent into the opening riff. Catch those gaps as the bass and drums come in. The part has enough room for the band to move around it without losing the little push and hesitation that makes the opening work.
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Last Nite
Nick Valensi’s high notes keep repeating while Albert Hammond Jr. plays the lower chord strokes around Nikolai Fraiture’s bass. There’s a clear thump where the lower parts meet and a little slack where the upper part keeps moving by itself. That separation lets the song feel like two people pushing the same beat from different places.
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