Guitar showmanship involves gimmicks, jumps, or other stunts with a guitar. Some examples of guitar showmanship would become trademarks of musicians such as Jimi Hendrix, Chuck Berry, Pete Townshend, Jimmy Page, Eddie Van Halen, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Ace Frehley, and Angus Young.
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Blues musicians such as Charley Patton would use stunts such as playing the guitar behind their back, and these showbiz stunts were further developed by the touring R&B performers.[1]
Jimi Hendrix, who spent his early career touring with R&B show bands, used some of these gimmicks in his rock sets, such as playing his guitar behind his back, in between his legs, and playing it with his teeth. Other guitarists such as Joe Satriani and Zakk Wylde employ these techniques and Steve Vai has played with his tongue on several occasions. Buddy Guy has also tossed his guitar up in the air and caught it on exactly the same chord he was previously fretting. [2] Stevie Ray Vaughan would also play the guitar behind his head, and behind his back.[3]
Chuck Berry's showmanship has been influential on other rock guitar players.[4] He used a one-legged hop routine,[5] and the "duck walk",[6] which he first used as a child when he walked "stooping with full-bended knees, but with my back and head vertical" under a table to retrieve a ball and his family found it entertaining; he used it when "performing in New York for the first time and some journalist branded it the duck walk."[7][8]
The Who's guitarist Pete Townshend commonly plays his guitar with a fast windmill motion, inspired by watching Keith Richards' warm-up exercise.[9][10] At a show in Tacoma, Washington in 1989, he struck the guitar with such force he drove the guitar's tremolo bar through his hand and needed hospital treatment.[11]
Townsend also destroys his guitar, usually at the climax of a set. The first occasion was in 1964 at the Railway Tavern in Harrow, which has a low ceiling; he raised his guitar above his head and accidentally drove the headstock into the roof smashing it off. When the audience failed to respond he proceeded to smash the rest of the guitar to pieces.[12]
Pete: (After cracking the headstock) I was expecting everybody to go, “Wow, he’s broken his guitar, he’s broken his guitar,” but nobody did anything, which made me kind of angry in a way. And determined to get this precious event noticed by the audience. I proceeded to make a big thing of breaking the guitar. I bounced all over the stage with it and I threw the bits on the stage and I picked up my spare guitar and carried on as though I really had meant to do it.
Jimi Hendrix would sometimes set fire to his guitar. On March 31st,1967 at performance at London Astoria Hendrix sustained hand burns and visited the hospital.[13][14]
Hendrix was also known for having a very erotic stage presence. Audiences would see him slowly sweeping his hand similar to Townshend's windmill, rolling his head, and "wiping" the guitar's neck in order to create some extra fuzz.
Jimi Hendrix would also play guitar with his teeth. In 1967 at the Monterey International Pop Music Festival he played the guitar solo from his popular song "Hey Joe" with his teeth.
Jimmy Page is famous for playing his guitar with a violin bow, as on the live versions of the songs "Dazed and Confused" and "How Many More Times".
The heavy metal virtuoso Yngwie Malmsteen has one distinct guitar stunt in which he would take the guitar while connected to its strap and fling the guitar around his shoulders once or multiple times giving it a "hula hoop" effect and bring it back to his hands. This stunt can be seen on the 2003 G3 concert video.
Angus Young is famous for his wild onstage antics: intense jumps and running back and forth across the stage while playing his guitar. Young would clamber on to Bon Scott's(1975–1980) or Brian Johnson's(1980 til present) shoulders during concerts and they would make their way through the audience with smoke streaming from a satchel on his own back, while he played an extended guitar solo, usually during the song "Rocker" with Scott or during "Let There Be Rock" with Johnson.
Ace Frehley, the original lead guitarist and spaceman of the rock band KISS, was best known for multiple guitar gimmicks, such as the famous smoking guitar in which he would let smoke emit through his neck pickup by use of a trap door.
Christopher Guest, portraying lead guitarist Nigel Tufnel of the band Spinal Tap in the film This is Spinal Tap, is shown playing one guitar while playing another with his foot in both a display and parody of guitar showmanship. Parodying Jimmy Page's style of showmanship, Tufnel also plays his guitar using a violin--not the bow but the instrument itself, drawing one stringed instrument across another.[15] When performing live as Tufnel with Spinal Tap, Guest's solos were also known to include playing the guitar with his foot while juggling and playing the guitar from a distance using thrown horseshoes.