Over 50 years ago, Aerosmith began working on a song that would later become a top-10 hit twice.
Walk This Way didn't initially make the charts when it was released in 1975, but after the single was reissued in 1976 following the band's hit Rocks album and it climbed to No. 10 on Billboard's pop chart.
Ten years later, Steven Tyler and Joe Perry teamed with rap group Run-D.M.C. for a cover of the song that eventually reached even higher to No. 4.
'Walk This Way' Named Among Greatest Guitar Solos of All Time
Rolling Stone listed Walk This Way at No. 91 on the list of the 100 greatest guitar solos of all time.
"While this deeply horny cut from Aerosmith’s 1975 landmark, Toys in the Attic, is best known for its funk-tinged central riff, guitarist Joe Perry’s showy solos give Steven Tyler’s flirtations a playful edge," Rolling Stone wrote.
"After Tyler’s first plea to 'just give me a kiss,' Perry offers a taste of his virtuosity with a squealing solo that, according to Guitar World, he overdubbed using a double-cutaway Gibson Les Paul Junior with a single P-90 pickup; after the second go-round he played a late-Fifties model Stratocaster that he also used on his final showcase, a lengthy solo that veers back and forth between longing squeals and fast-fingered blues jamming."
Joe Perry Reveals Inception of Legendary Solo
Perry remembered the early gigs played by the band were "heavily into funk and soul."
Thanks to drummer Joey Kramer, the band was introduced to acts like James Brown and Sly Stone. Perry revealed it was guitarist Jeff Beck had turned him on to the Meters, and he loved their riffy New Orleans funk, especially Cissy Strut and People Say.
"In December of '74, we flew to Honolulu to open for the Guess Who. During the sound check, I was fooling around with riffs and thinking about the Meters. I asked Joey to lay down something flat with a groove on the drums. The guitar riff to what would become Walk This Way just came off my hands," he said.
Needing a bridge, Perry revealed, "after playing the first riff in the key of C, I shifted to E before returning to C for the verse and chorus. By the end of the sound check, I had the basics of a song."
Aerosmith's version of the song reached as high was No. 10.
from Men's Journal https://ift.tt/NEfkZ3B
