Over the last two months, in my Hot Guitar column, I've discussed some of the subtleties of good R&B rhythms, and also the art of combining lead notes with the rhythm patterns to create distinctive R&B guitar parts. This art form was perhaps best exernplified by the incredibly disciplined yet funky playing of the late, great Jimmy Nolen, guitarist with James Brown.

We all remernber JamesBrown's music as an incredible, tightly woven patchwork of funky parts that locked together like a V8 engine, The guitar part was almost invariably a two part repetitious theme that ran through the groove in an almost hypnotlic way, holding our attention and creating a constant sense of tension in the groove.

These guitar parts always, require a great deal of left-hand damping, because there is a lot,of highly rhythmic single-note work. Remember to keep your right hand nice and relaxed. This left-hand damping enables yo u to free the strings when you need them for two  and three note chordal parts that often act as an answer to the single?iiote workin this type, of R&B playing.

In the exercise below, I've tried to incorporate these elements into a funky part that is typically Jimmy Nolen and typically James Brown in essence. You can see how the singIenote work is answered by the chord parts as if the horn section were kicking in. You should also take note that the use of a 7th(in this case, G) is a good idea when playing this kind of drone sixteenth-note part, particuIarly if you want to create the feeling of tension that helps the groove so much.

Arlen Roth

Althought Jimmy Nolen was an axceptional soloist (e.g., "Willie And The Hand Jive" and other early Johnny Otis ,recordings), his name will be forever linked with the James Brown rhythm section, in which  he created his famous sixteenth-note strumming style. The James Brown band was a two-guitar rhythm section, however, and Nolen must also be credited as the key arranger of those wonderful twô-guitar/bass/ drums syncopations that became the James Brown sound. As R&B has evolved and gained many different regional and stylistic identities -New York, Motown, Muscle Shoals, Memphis, New Orleans, haIf~time, fatback, disco-fulnk, etc.?- Nolens influence has survived all changes as the backbone of most of them.

Below,is the fast guitar part from "Aint It FunkyNow"by James Brown. For the second guitar, strum the following G9 chord in even sixteenth-notes:

This example dernonstrates the classic sixteenth-note strum and the coordination of two syncopated guitar paru into a two-guitar rhythm groove.

Amos Garrett