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Name some killer P90 tones...


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What are your favorites?  Top 3?  Notable or memorable P90 tones you’ve loved thru the years....

Leslie West and his Mississippi Queen junior bite, Tony Iommi’s early Sabbath nasty snarl, Pete Townshend’s rawk with The Who...?

Popular and well known or obscure enough to give us a reason to scour the intrarwebs to find new music...  what p90 tones give you the bumps of a goose...?

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Mick Ralphs on "Thunderbuck Ram" by Mott the Hoople. You'd be hard pressed to find a better example of a dialed up, overdriven P-90 sound (happens for the first time at about the .0:34 mark). 

Steve Hunter and Dick Wagner on Rock and Roll Animal and Lou Reed Live

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBiIkdc7pME

 

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20 minutes ago, Willie G. Moseley said:

Mick Ralphs on "Thunderbuck Ram" by Mott the Hoople. You'd be hard pressed to find a better example of a dialed up, overdriven P-90 sound (happens for the first time at about the .0:34 mark). 

Steve Hunter and Dick Wagner on Rock and Roll Animal and Lou Reed Live

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBiIkdc7pME

 

Oh, man. That was gnarly. Right when he kicked in with that riff...  thanks for that. Exactly the kind of thing I was looking for. 

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Sabs?

Mississippi Queen

Live at Leeds (especially "I Can't Explain" - was just listening last week at work)

Some may scoff, but one of the best live sounds I have ever heard (regardless of guitar) was Rick Richards' (Georgia Satellites) multiple Les Paul Specials through Park and Marshall amps (all with bull horns mounted where the handles used to be).  ETA: c. 1987 or '88.

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Brad Whitford  on the debut Aerosmith album.... Joe Perry on the rhythm track for “The Other Side”...

Also Keith on the entire Let it Bleed album which was an Australian Maton electric with P90 types...,

Wagner/Hunter on the intro to Same Old Song and Dance...

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James Gurley (Big Brother & the Holding Co.)...I think.

He was known to play Les Paul Specials and SG Specials, and is considered the founder of the Frisco psychedelic guitar style. Bandmate Sam Andrew recalled how Gurley was into the pure spectrum of sound and its potential. Barry Melton of Country Joe & the Fish said, "James Gurley is the 'Yuri Gagarin of rock and roll; the first man in space.' Gurley did not play chords all that well, in terms of conventional music. They needed a guy like Sam (Andrew) to tie things down. Gurley was into the sonic qualities of the instruments."

Thing is, I've seen some in-studio shots of Gurley w/ an SG Special but it looks like the pickups are replacement DeArmond Dynasonics, of all things (but those pickups were underrated IMO).

Here's Big Bro. @ Monterey, but a better version of "Ball and Chain" is heard on Cheap Thrills, IMO, and the opening track on that album, "Combination of the Two" also highlights Gurley's barely-musical sonic excursions...yet somehow it keeps your attention....YMMV

 

 

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5 hours ago, velorush said:

Sabs?

Mississippi Queen

Live at Leeds (especially "I Can't Explain" - was just listening last week at work)

Some may scoff, but one of the best live sounds I have ever heard (regardless of guitar) was Rick Richards' (Georgia Satellites) multiple Les Paul Specials through Park and Marshall amps (all with bull horns mounted where the handles used to be).  ETA: c. 1987 or '88.

YES! Rick Richards had KILLER P90 tones on all 3 Satellite albums. He use the Ampeg for slide, but all the non-slide stuff was P90. 
Great examples? Sheila, Mon Cheri, , Slaughterhouse, Battleship Chains, Open All Night, etc, etc.

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On 6/13/2020 at 5:45 PM, joshoowah said:

Santana at Woodstock

https://youtu.be/AqZceAQSJvc

I think he also used the SG special in the studio for the first album or two. Some great guitar tones on those two albums, Santana and Abraxas.

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I’m not sure about this because documentation is non-existent but I’m going say Matt Andes on Jo Jo Gunne’s “Jumpin’ The Gunne”.   I believe Andes used a Dan Armstrong for slide and there are a few obvious Strat tones on the record, but I’m pretty sure the rest is just straight-ahead Les Paul Junior.  Awesome sounding guitars throughout, good songs. “Made to be played loud.”

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Mountain at the Capitol Theatre in 1974 is my go to.  It's on YouTube.  

Ariel Bender on "Live Mott the Hoople (All the Way from Memphis is a godlike P90 tone) from 1974

1974 was a good year for the dog ear pickup...

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When I ordered a custom-made guitar for the first time (1994; delivered in '95), I specified dog-ears. Seymour Duncan personally wound 'em to have what he called "a warm, bluesy sound."

LO-Leader #1004-95.jpg 

 

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22 minutes ago, Willie G. Moseley said:

When I ordered a custom-made guitar for the first time (1994; delivered in '95), I specified dog-ears. Seymour Duncan personally wound 'em to have what he called "a warm, bluesy sound."

LO-Leader #1004-95.jpg 

 

I’ve got my name on the list for a custom-made guitar right now, my first. It, too, will have something of the p90 persuasion...

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13 hours ago, Brooks said:

This was my Duotone w/ Phatcats, which are basically P90s
 

 

Minor hijack..,this Generic Hustle album is GREAT! Just sayin’...

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Here is a tune from my first album...the rhythm guitar is a bridge p90 cranked into a Marshall baby JMP with a treble booster.

The lead and solo bits are neck and or bridge p90s through a Mk1 Tonebender clone into the Marshall.

I love the razor grindage tone on the rhythm...it worked for the song.

https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=GIou087WS5c&feature=share

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I listened to American Idiot in the car yesterday.  Billy Joe Armstrong’s been all about the P-90s lately and sounds pretty good.   A Junior into a Plexi or two is really all you need.

Their latest, “Father Of All... “ is good, too.

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  • 2 months later...

FYI the October issue of Vintage Guitar (Peter Green on the cover)  dissects Mott the Hoople's '71 album Brain Capers  for that issue's retro-review "Pop N' Hiss" installment (p. 50). Mick Ralphs advised that he used a Les Paul Jr. through a Sunn amp...and it shows, sonically. My personal favorite Mott the Hoople album, and it failed to chart in both the UK and the US.

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