Comments on: Jersey Boys’ Guitar Man, Miles Aubrey

By: Pamela

Pamela — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 23:00:41 +0000

Thanks everyone, for the nice comments. This was a fun interview, and I learned alot as well. Ted, very impressive that you referenced that Bread song. I’ll cop to owning the Best of Bread album, but thought the song was ‘Audrey’, not ‘Aubrey’ !!. Steve,I thought of ‘Guitar Man’ for the thematic similarities to Miles’ story. Only after I pulled the lyrics did I see ‘miles and miles away’. Who knew?? It was a sign!!

By: Ted Hammond

Ted Hammond — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 14:15:41 +0000

Stubbleyou, I’ve only gotten a handle on Pop Instrumentals in the last few years. Duane “Twangin’” Eddy did have a unique sound. “Because They’re Young” is a classic.

Vinnie Bell is another great guitar innovator who, like his friend Les Paul, expanded the limits of guitar sounds, and rivaled Ravi Shankar in sitar developments. His watery guitar sounds are on CTMEOY and other unique FV4S studio sessions, and his sitar on “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow”, I believe.

It’s great that Miles Aubrey can continue to build on and honor the guitar innovators and styles.

By: stubbleyou

stubbleyou — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 06:46:13 +0000

Just make sure you research ‘Guitar MAN’ and not ‘GitarZAN.’ You might come up with something by Hank Majewski. (Is it true he changed his name to Ray Stevens, for business reasons?)

By: Ted Hammond

Ted Hammond — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 15:09:38 +0000

I’ll have to pull out one of my Four Seasons CDs out of my 5 disk CD changer, and have a listen to “The Best Of Bread” again. I’ll see if I can come up with some more “Guitar Man” lyrical references.

By: stubbleyou

stubbleyou — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 09:04:16 +0000

Ted, between Pam’s cleverness at coming up with a song about a guitar man with the line “Miles and miles away,” and your matching her with “Aubrey” by the same artist, I think I better sit this one out — though I must say the first song that came to my mind was “Listen to the Man Play the Boss Guitar” by Duane Eddy.

Miles’ contribution to the success of Jersey Boys cannot be underestimated. The fact that some of the instruments are played live onstage by the actors themselves adds so much to the musical excitement of the show, truly making it the “rock concert within a Broadway musical” that so many critics have praised it for being. It makes a difference, and the audience can tell.

Thanks for a fun and informative interview, Pam! It was very interesting learning about Miles’ impressive musical background and experience.

And now, as Paul Harvey would say, the rest of the story: Duane Eddy’s backup band in the early ’60′s, the Rebels, included a musician named Larry Knetchel, who continued to record with Eddy even after leaving the group. He later joined with David Gates and became a member of Bread, where he played the guitar solo on – you guessed it – “Guitar Man.”