My twelve year old son is a very capable guitar student and claims he's heard the riff to "Bitch" since he was in the womb (true). He taught it to himself the other day day and when he played it for me I realized it's a fast-finger run sort of thing rather than a Keith riff. Did Taylor create the essence of "Bitch"?

probably evolved from a Keith -Charlie jam in the studio. I never thought MT had much to do with that song. he sure did with 'Sway' though. the solo in 'Bitch' is pure Keith

I seriously doubt it...it's a very keith-type pattern.

No, but he did play the riff on the SF-recording

It's also a very simple riff, and song, to play. To get that unique flair that comes from Keith's own unique style may not be easy to duplicate exactly, but the song itself is very simple to play. A lot of Keith's stuff is pretty basic, it's when he gets into the different tunings that things can get a bit tricky. Monkey Man and the way he plays Honky Tonk Women are good examples of this. HTW is a very simple song chord wise, but the way Keith plays it in an open tuning, not so much. Monkey Man is just a nasty little riff that's tricky to get used to playing properly.

Agree, but Monkey Man is in standard tuning

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DandelionPowderman
Agree, but Monkey Man is in standard tuning

Indeed it is...

from [www.timeisonourside.com] :

When we were doing Bitch, Keith was very late. Jagger and Mick Taylor had been playing the song without him
and it didn't sound very good. I walked out of the kitchen and he was sitting on the floor with no shoes, eating a bowl of cereal.
Suddenly he said, "Oi, Andy! Give me that guitar." I handed him his clear Dan Armstrong Plexiglass guitar,
he put it on, kicked the song up in tempo, and just put the vibe right on it.
Instantly, it went from being this laconic mess into a real groove. And I thought:
Wow. THAT'S what he does.
- Andy Johns, 2007

Always sounded to me like "Bitch" developed out of "Highway Bound" (usually bootlegged as "Highway Child"). Similar lyrics and Mick Jagger is trying to get the riff going. Keith just turns the riff around for "Bitch." The studio version or live versions with Taylor were great. One of the strengths were the guitar duels you got out of Keith and Taylor starting with GET YER YA-YA'S OUT and continuing through STICKY FINGERS and the '72 tour. Somewhere along the line, they stopped mixing together nicely. As great as the '73 European tour is, there is more separation between their playing. If anything Taylor and Preston melded together more.

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Agree, but Monkey Man is in standard tuning

I apologize about that. I didn't know if it was originally in standard tuning or not, but I admit I leaned toward thinking it was probably an open tuning on the recording, since Keith was heavily into the open tunings during that era. Either way, Monkey Man is a tricky one to nail down, especially with how great the record sounds, it's hard to recreate that sound. Maybe that's why they haven't, to my knowledge, played it live that often, especially back in the 70's?

the song reflects Mick Taylor's lead playing at his best. He rips the Am pent. scale on his Les Paul like a bluesman with an attitude. the whole song has MT stylistically weaving from lane to lane, passing others like a Porsche Twin Turbo on the Autobahn fretboard. great guitar work. I miss MT.

Keith may created the opening riff, but MT should have received some songwriting credit on this one.

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Midnight Toker
the song reflects Mick Taylor's lead playing at his best. He rips the Am pent. scale on his Les Paul like a bluesman with an attitude. the whole song has MT stylistically weaving from lane to lane, passing others like a Porsche Twin Turbo on the Autobahn fretboard. great guitar work. I miss MT.

Keith may created the opening riff, but MT should have received some songwriting credit on this one.

One of my all time fav songs
do you drive a Porsche??
I have a black 930

Sorry Midnight Toker

Taylor did not play lead on this song- the rhythm was laid down by Taylor and Keith came in and played his typical angular, Chuck Berry type solo. I would've been interested to hear what Taylor originally had before Keith came in. Listen to any boot especially the Austrailia 1973 boots and you will see Taylor is on the opening riff and Keith plays the lead licks.

Not that I am a big time fan of Keef playing lead- I think he should stick to the riffs and let Taylor play lead with Ronnie on bass if they would ever let it happen again.

i'm not a guitar player but i always felt that bitch and live with me had a simular riff

>> the song reflects Mick Taylor's lead playing at his best <<

that's Keith.

the Andy Johns quote sounds like Keith also demonstrated how the rhythm playing needed to work,
but on the released track that's Taylor doing the rhythm work and Richards on lead.

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ghostryder13
i'm not a guitar player but i always felt that bitch and live with me had a simular riff

quite! It comes out more on the live version of "Live with Me," when the guitar plays what's a bass line on the record.

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cc

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ghostryder13
i'm not a guitar player but i always felt that bitch and live with me had a simular riff

quite! It comes out more on the live version of "Live with Me," when the guitar plays what's a bass line on the record.

Or the other way round, as in recent years: the guitar rhythmn/riff of "Bitch" is not any longer played at all - all of it is done by horns (plus the heavy bass) - the guitars juts "weave" (what I rather would call Italian strike...). It always get me few seconds - maybe even the first verse - to identify the song, is it "Live With Me" or "Bitch"...

- Doxa



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2009-12-08 10:06 by Doxa.

It seems to me that there is a general opinion that KR is a bad guitarist, and that he cannot play certain songs, licks, riffs or solos.

Keiths guitar playing was simple and effective, not a tecnic or virtuoso, but he had feeling, groove and style. Now he plays worse than ever, that's true, but he was a very nice guitarist, and he created a sound, a way to play guitar. He is one of the 10 most influencial guitarists of all the time; MT is a wonderful lead guitarist when he plays nice songs with good company, but his solo albums are................................

<Or the other way round, as in recent years: the guitar rhythmn/riff of "Bitch" is not any longer played at all>

Like a lot of the "riff-songs" from that era, the riffs are not consistantly played live anymore. But it is played. On Bitch, the horns carry a lot of the riffing, but Keith is getting back to it numerous times on the current live versions. I witnessed that myself in Oslo 2007. Somehow it works, imo. Another arrangement, another era, it seems.

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DandelionPowderman
<Or the other way round, as in recent years: the guitar rhythmn/riff of "Bitch" is not any longer played at all>

Like a lot of the "riff-songs" from that era, the riffs are not consistantly played live anymore. But it is played. On Bitch, the horns carry a lot of the riffing, but Keith is getting back to it numerous times on the current live versions. I witnessed that myself in Oslo 2007. Somehow it works, imo. Another arrangement, another era, it seems.

Yeah, I meant that the riff is not played anymore by a guitar. "Another arrangement" is quite 'diplomatically corrective' expression to say that The Stones is not a guitar driven band any longer...

- Doxa

<Yeah, I meant that the riff is not played anymore by a guitar>

But it is. Only not consistantly. I know perfectly well what you mean, though

Songs like When The Whip Comes Down suffer even more from this new arrangement/laziness that Bitch imo.

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Rocky Dijon
Always sounded to me like "Bitch" developed out of "Highway Bound" (usually bootlegged as "Highway Child"). Similar lyrics and Mick Jagger is trying to get the riff going. Keith just turns the riff around for "Bitch." The studio version or live versions with Taylor were great. One of the strengths were the guitar duels you got out of Keith and Taylor starting with GET YER YA-YA'S OUT and continuing through STICKY FINGERS and the '72 tour. Somewhere along the line, they stopped mixing together nicely. As great as the '73 European tour is, there is more separation between their playing. If anything Taylor and Preston melded together more.

Yeah! People tend to focus a little too much on the European tour of '73 sometimes. Taylor and Richards definitely had a bit of "weaving" during their best years together ('69-72).

Bitch shows some of Taylor's best rhythm playing -- very driven and with good timing and technique. During Keith solo he does a great job holding it up. At the same time, Keith did one of his best performances as a lead guitarist.

Good point about the riffs not being played consistently anymore by the guitars. I noticed that as well and to be honest, it really bugs me. Sometimes it seemed as if Keith striclty limits himself to Berry-style licks (except the first few signature riffs at the beginning of a song) and Ronnie barely touches the guitar (but manages to get something that resembles that original riff, just very much in the background). Chuck and the horns take over the main part.

Fully agree that the more punk-like songs such as Whip Comes Down etc. suffer even more, as they are songs that just need 2 guitars to drive them...Come to think of it, that is basically what 90% of the Stones songs need and that is also why I am not so happy of how our heroes sound in concert these days.

I guess the reason for this is a mix of things. Perhaps they feel that raw guitars are out of style, perhaps they feel it sounds better/funkier with horns, perhaps Keith cannot play those riffs anymore for the whole length of a song (due to arthritis). Or it's a combination of all the above...

As for Bitch, I always thought that the riff could be Taylor too - when you play it on guitar, you get tempted to fiddle around a bit with it, include some hammer-ons, some notes in between...

I thought the riff in Bitch was based on the Temptations song "Get Ready"

Probaly not based on it, but indeed there are similarities. As there are between Bitch and Live With Me. And JJF is more or less the riff of Satisfaction backwards. Etc, etc, it's all connected.

Whatever ends up on the record and who played what in the end doesn't really matter. It sounds good in the song, and it is used. Stones' songs evolve over time, which is a good thing IMO. They add stuff, they remove stuff, they change stuff. It would very boring if they always played the same way, I'd rather put on a record. Or listen to AC/DC or Pink Floyd.

lot to like about 'Bitch'...fun lyrics about horsemeat pies, Pavlov Dogs; needing to be 'worked on'... and pronouncing 'bass' with the flat A

and that baritone sax..

some other songs are connected as well, see monkey man riff ( im a monkeeeey ) and cant you hear me knocking after the lyrics . that riff is similar but in a different timing , its all good though!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2009-12-08 17:49 by straycatblues73.

I like Taylor's improvised Texas boogie riff played during the L&G performance. Nice touch for the locale.

I thought taylor wrote all the songs recorded between 1969 and 1974...

The riff Taylor played is absolutely the backbone of the song....