Last year, Elliot Easton, guitarist for power-pop hitmakers the Cars, told Guitar World about the time he laid down one of his greatest solos while fighting back tears of rage.
The solo in question, that for the Cars' Touch and Go, didn't happen to be included in a recent Guitar Player feature highlighting Easton's best lead work, but one track that did make the cut was an Easton solo tune titled Walk On Walden, which was included in a compilation assembled by none other than Guitar World magazine.
As Easton explained to Guitar Player, Walk On Walden stood out in comparison to his previous work with the Cars, and especially in the context of the album in question. Not that this was an accident.
“The backstory to Walk On Walden is that Guitar World magazine was putting together this CD called Guitars That Rule the World, and they asked me to contribute a track,” Easton explained.
“I thought, ‘You know, there are always heavy-hitter guitar players who are gonna blow their brains out trying to play the most mind-blowing, shredding kind of thing they can come up with.’ So I decided to do a complete 180 and composed an acoustic guitar piece tuned to DADGAD.”
Now, in our defence, Guitars That Rule the World wasn't just a shredfest. Though it did have speedsters like Nuno Bettencourt, Yngwie Malmsteen, and Reb Beach, it also included Albert Collins' Stevie Ray Vaughan salute, Blues For Stevie, and the Dickey Betts/Warren Haynes cut, Wille And Poor Bob, among others. But anyway...
“I played it [Walk On Walden] on an Ovation Elite guitar,” Easton continued. “I just plugged in and recorded that one on one of those old Akai MG-1214 [12-track] recorders. They used those cartridges that kind of looked like a Betamax tape.
“It’s funny, because I decided to throw a curveball and do exactly the opposite of what everyone else was doing, I’ve gotten some really nice responses to it over the years. And here you are today asking me about it!”
