Topic: New Tab Postings
"Let Go the Line" has always been one of my favourite Max Webster songs. Where this song is posted at YouTube (see link below), the descriptive term that shows up in the comments repeatedly is "haunting", which is a very apt way of describing it. A couple of years ago I started working on a tab of the song, but I quickly encountered an obstacle; the tightly wound harmonies of the main guitar riff were difficult to sort out. I ended up having to shelf it, maybe to try it another time.
More recently (back in December), I was asked about doing a tab of the song, so the time had come to pull the tab back out and have another go at it. This time, though, I had an extra tool or two to rely on that I didn't have the first time. I used Audacity to slow the riff down, and a little digital voice recorder came in handy for dividing it into smaller parts and looping short phrases. With the main riff finally sorted out, the rest followed quickly.
The song is from A Million Vacations (1979), the most commercially successful Max album. Vacations is an interesting grab-bag of a record. Up until that point, the band had been almost exclusively a one-lead-singer act, that vocalist being Kim Mitchell, of course. But on this album the lead vocals were spread around more liberally. Mitchell did the bulk of the lead vocals, as always. But the album's title track was co-written and sung by drummer Gary McCracken. And keyboardist Terry Watkinson handled lead vocals on his compositions, "Let Go the Line" and "Charmonium". (I've always associated "Let Go the Line" with the Saga song "Scratching the Surface", as both are songs that were radio singles sung by the keyboard player -- Jim Gilmour, in the case of Saga -- who was somewhat softer-voiced than the regular lead singer. I also happen to really like both songs, and have tabbed both of them.) After A Million Vacations, Watkinson departed the band to turn his efforts to a solo career.
The tab:
https://www.angelfire.com/planet/zerofret/cantab/maxwebster-letgotheline.txt
Audio:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyz2hPe7zUo
Posted by planet/zerofret
at 12:01 AM EST
Updated: Thursday, February 11, 2010 12:58 AM EST
Post Comment | Permalink | Share This Post
Updated: Thursday, February 11, 2010 12:58 AM EST
Post Comment | Permalink | Share This Post