Surprise! Guitar Week keeps strumming as Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy names 10 guitar songs that have influenced his own playing. Check out his list, and then make sure you peep our lists of the 100 Best Guitarists of All Time and 70 Best Guitar Riffs of the 21st Century (So Far).
No matter how accomplished and prolific you get in your craft, there’s always a part that’s a product of your influences. It’s inescapable; the things that make an impact on us inevitably trickle into our own work. You might not even notice it until you listen back to that beloved track many years later.
That’s what happened to Wilco frontman Jeff Tweedy when we asked him to name 10 guitar songs that influenced him for our latest Crate Digging. “Hopefully, I’m here talking to you because I don’t sound like that; I sound like me most of the time,” Tweedy says of his the guitarists he subconsciously tries to emulate. “But I think if you ask anybody that plays guitar and loves guitar and loves guitar music they’ll have a million of these things. And if they’re being honest, they’ll tell you that that’s probably somewhere in their mind.”
As he puts it, his selections are tracks he’s recently listened to and thought to himself, “I try to sound like that.” “I don’t think I’m ever consciously trying to sound like any of these,” Tweedy explains. “I’ll just say that there’s a note of recognition now after all these years of playing. When I go back and listen to some records, I go ‘Oh, that’s where I got that. That’s what I’m trying to do.’”
Names like Lou Reed, Elizabeth Cotten, Cate Le Bon, and Andy Gill make Tweedy’s list, but these are just things he’s heard recently. “There’s a million other ones I could have referenced. Definitely like Television, Tom Verlaine; Hubert Sumlin, Howlin’ Wolf’s guitar player; Poison Ivy, The Cramps. You name it.”
You can watch Jeff Tweedy explain 10 songs he’s heard recently that made him think, “I try to sound like that,” above, and/or read his full breakdown below. Afterwards, check out other Guitar Week Crate Diggings from Metallica’s Kirk Hammett and a special two-fer with J Mascis and Snail Mail.
Meanwhile, Wilco in the midst of a tour with Waxahatchee, will be part of Willie Nelson and Bob Dylan’s Outlaw Music Festival, and have a special “An Evening with Wilco” tour set for this summer. Get tickets to all their upcoming dates here.
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Chris “Ace” Spedding — Brian Eno’s “Needle in the Camel’s Eye”
Number one: Chris Spedding, his parts on “Needles in the Camel’s Eye” off of the Brian Eno album Here Come the Warm Jets. I just… I try to sound like that sometimes.
Stream Here Come the Warm Jets on Apple Music or Amazon Music | Buy on Vinyl/CD
D. Boon — Minutemen’s “Self-Referenced”
Number two: D. Boon, “Self-Referenced” off of the EP, Buzz or Howl Under the Influence of Heat. I heard it recently, and I don’t really think I ever sound like D. Boon — I don’t think anybody ever sounds like D. Boon — but the willingness to use the microphonic feedback on a track as a solo I think is inspiring to this day. I hear it in stuff I try to do all the time. In fact, yesterday I was trying to do a solo with microphone feedback.
Stream Buzz or Howl Under the Influence of Heat on Apple Music or Amazon Music | Buy on Vinyl/CD
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