Rock Guitar Solos Based On A Jazz Background

Chris Hayes of Huey Lewis & The News

Cris Cohen: Johnny Colla said that one of the reasons your solos were different from everything else on the radio at the time was because of your jazz background. I'm curious how much of your solo writing was different on purpose, and how much of it was just because you couldn't help it, because you were so inundated with the world of jazz when you came into this?

Chris Hayes of Huey Lewis & The News: I came up in that. I learned playing all those standards out of the book and playing a lot of funk, and not really playing a lot of rock.

I had to kind of learn that. So I'm kind of more of a funk player. I never considered myself a great jazz guitar player or anything, but that's kind of how I learned. So I possessed certain parts of the lexicon. I sort of speak that language a little bit. So naturally it is going to have an influence on the note choices that I would make.

That is what I would gravitate towards. If I had been a devotee of Jimi Hendrix or a blues guy, it would have been a completely different thing.

If I had been some sort of technical, Eric Johnson-type guy -- he's fantastic -- if that was the kind of stuff that I liked to play, then it would be more like that.

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