Chords for Larry Carlton Talks About "Kid Charlemagne" and "Don't Take Me Alive"

Larry I want to talk about after watching you play last night
_ about your
_ Influences as far as your chord work and your single note work because what I noticed I mentioned this earlier
Too is that you poured like a jazz player?
_ Very sophisticated
Chording and then when you solo you have influences of rock blues funk jazz
How do you approach the two different things?
Well to start with I think everything you said is accurate and the reason I _
Think I play the way I play is because of the era which I was brought up
I was born in 48
So I'm listening to doo-wop music in the 50s and taking guitar lessons at age 6
So I'm hearing _
_ _ All day long _
But in the early [C] 60s and Chuck Berry's around so I'm hearing rock and roll and doo-wop
So all that's going into my young little musical brain.
Yep, _ but at age 14
I'm playing with some guys that are older than me and I hear a big
_ _ [G] six _ _ _ _
_ My [N] ears got all turned on the dad is that yeah, so I'm listening to pop radio
Playing pop gigs at age 14 and 15, but I'm listening to jazz every day after school
So all of those things were what I liked
Well, they all melted together to make me the player I am if I hadn't listened to off
I wouldn't be the same player
I think it has to do with that era and then my personal choices of the music
I responded to during that time.
It would have been people like Wes Montgomery.
Yeah, I think 60s Wes was
Very famous.
Yeah, but you your chord vocabulary is much more complex than people like Wes
Joe pass because you use a lot of triads of the bass notes.
You use a lot of the cord polychords.
Yeah
Where did you?
Develop that because that was not common among jazz players necessarily.
Yeah, I think _ I was getting interested in jazz
I was in junior high school.
Yeah, and I knew about [G] G
_ _ [F] _ _ _ 13
_ _ [N] Well, I'm walking to school one day and I'm thinking about this court and I realized there's an e triad on top of a
G7 foot that was the beginning for me
My teacher those years that I studied
He never taught me scales modes any of that.
So I just kind of came up with that on my own
Wow, there's an e on top of a G [B] chord and it functions like a diminished [Em] chord.
That means there's three [G] other
Ones you can move [Fm] around words, you know, yeah, so that was [N] the process of the brain.
Yeah
_ Digesting the concept and over the years when I get a sophisticated
Standard play on it was an altered chord.
[Bb] I was thinking of another chord on top of that
What you do, but you do a lot of moving lines
You were all over the place last night almost like a piano player that to me
I [A] see that [Gb] studio player there connecting things
That and [Bb] always in everything sounded so which it was improvised you're always _ _
Playing new [N] things and it's obvious the way that you go for things that are always improvising.
Yeah, I don't know
I love the sound
_ Tight voice and fun piano _ and it's difficult if not impossible to get most of them and I remember
[C] _ I _ _
_ _ [Bb] _ _ _ _ [F] _ _
_ _ _ Like those [Em] sounds so if you like something [Cm] eventually it should come out of [Bb] your playing now when you do those things
And in your single note playing and I've heard you talk about this
Yeah, if you took a new flat [G] six nine [N] four or something you're thinking different triads
You'll play flat majors F majors C majors.
So that was that something you just experimented with
_ Again, it came from [Em] that
Just from seeing those chords
_ So when somebody plays [G] G major 7, _ _ _ [E] _ _ _ _
[Cm] that's all D major over G [N] and those are what I'd like to call the money notes
They're the color notes
But again, it was ignorance on my part because I didn't know anything about scales.
So it was just my own little concept
They play G major 7th.
I think
It sounds good.
_ _ [Gb] I
Said this to you earlier that one of my biggest [N] videos on my channel is Kid Charlamagne
That song just resonates with people.
Yes, but that song is a it's a great song
It's an amazing song, but it's features you through the whole thing.
Do you remember anything about that session? _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ I
Can picture tonight I did solo.
Okay, because it was an overdub
So just me Donald Walter and Gary Katz you were there Steve for kids Charlamagne cousin Steve's there _
_ _ and
Walter told me just last year
_ Passing speaking.
He said
He said I remember the Kid Charlamagne night.
He said because I asked you to play a strap
And so we tried a couple of takes on a strap
And then the ball through said I just told him that get your guitar.
_ I
Think that's the greatest
Guitar solo on a song ever on any pop song rock song any song ever
_ Period no question about it.
There's no better solo than Kid Charlamagne pop with a close second of don't take me alive
Okay.
Now don't take me alive
Which is on the same record on Royal Scan 1976 _ _ _
That solo now was this done near each other?
Thank you was during that same week maybe that one one night and so
_ _ _ _ No songs nowadays even then started out with the guitar soul
Well, whose idea was that to start that with you must have been Donald.
I mean it was written into the chart No singing
Just the chord progression
_ We'd already I think we already finished the guitar solo
And Donald said something in front though just starts cold anyway, let's just put a big cord
It's that simple
_ And so I went out in the studio stood in front of my little lamp
And by the way, I saw the video you did talking about that and I'll show I'll correct you in one thing
Please the big G raised nine quarter.
Yeah, I mean, yeah, you told the guys to move this finger
_ from the D to the G
[Gm] _ _
_ _ Well, I kept [G] them both _
_ _ [Gm] _ _ But yeah, I watched it just [N] last time I couldn't I can't I can't grab two notes with that finger right, right
It was interesting.
[G] That's how you were you get it done this way
Tell me about the [N] process of doing studio takes back then would they just say okay, here we go
You're off.
Are you standing in the control room or you out by your end?
I was in the control room for the studio.
Dan overdubs.
Okay for the court
Yeah, I just stand in front of the amp let them get the compression just right, right?
So right, but you know often in the control room, so
_ [A] communications easier
_ _ _ _ You know never I shouldn't say [Gb] never but most of the time I would say play
[N] Play something Larry and when you were do basic tracks and you're talking about Asia, for example
Oh and on on that record the rhythm parts
On the song Asia, for example, I asked you if you guys were all playing together and you said we were yeah
All right in the room
_ If I remember correctly, you know, it's a long time.
Yeah.
I don't think we cut to a quick track masks Steve
Did we cut we didn't use it?
_ most dates
And yeah, we we were all in the same room with the same charts _