Gimme Shelter Intro Question (mostly for guitar players/musicians)

Alright, so Gimme Shelter has (nearly indisputably) one of the coolest, most haunting introductions ever with Keith's descending chord sequence of C#-B-A. What has been on my mind for an inappropriately long time is why he dropped the D# over the A chord (the tritone) on seemingly every version after the studio release. It creates almost a ghost of the B chord, like a B with an A in the bass. It is the "doom" of the song, and I love it. As far as I can tell he started playing a D natural (or a B-D to A-C# standard Keith pull-off thing) in the seventies. Anyone have thoughts? Anyone care?

 

I care but I would have to drag my guitar out (I have one tuned to open G which I believe is what Keith used for the studio recording) to check and I'm feeling kind of lazy right now and listening to Beethoven (don't know if Chuck is rolling over right now).
Also I rarely listen to live recordings anymore as I find in about 99% of cases the original studio recording is definitive. I love live music but find it loses a lot in the translation to the recording medium.

Anyway carry on with the discussion.

 

I've been listening to a lot of Beethoven lately as well. Anyway, there's about 100 covers of Gimme Shelter on Spotify and doing a quick listen to the intros it's about an even split. Half play the intro with the tritone and half without. Kind of like half of people play Knockin' On Heaven's Door without the A minor and with and extra C Chord and half the people play Louie Louie without a minor chord. It's the little things.

 

I tried to play Heaven's Door with some kids when I moonlighted as a music teacher. They were oblivious to the A Minor chord; guess they only heard the Guns N Roses version.

 

I guess the relative minor is so close for the ear that once you start playing it wrong it just sticks. Even for Slash.

 

A lot of guitarist do different tunings and chordings for music, Progressive rock? Tony I, of Black Sabbith does the dropped "d" tuning. I learned that Angus Young had to re-tune his ax almost every time they got together to jam with their passed away lead singer Bonn Scott. I think it can make a song interesting and give it a hook.....

 

I have recently started jamming with a bassist friend and Knocking on Heaven's door was one of the tunes we played. The version he showed me alternated the C and A minor. Is that right?

 

"Gimme Shelter" is one of those rare songs where you can tell it's going to be a masterpiece in the first few seconds.

 

Yep.

 

I know, but to me this half-step change makes a huge difference; the simple suspended fourth that he switched to takes a lot of the sinister, foreboding flavor of the original away. IMO.

 

Yeuppers, off topic, I saw Keith at a awards show, with a martini and a cig in his mouth go up to the mic saying "I'm still alive. LOL! I have some tab of his, I might just bust it out and grab my sg and give it a wirl. Remember the Rolling Stones were the Beatles nemesis. LOL!

 

I'd guess at some point Keith simplified his live playing to uh... make it easier? It seems he's done this on quite a few songs (dropping intro to JJF, less hammer-ons in Brown Sugar) Was it done consciously? Who knows...

 

Could be. I'm picturing him starting the show with the original intro to JJF (my favorite Stones song) instead of just THE RIFF as he does on (for instance) the Shine A Light DVD. I think it'd be cool, but more potential for disaster as well (witness the Start Me Up fiascos at Hyde Park that had to be fixed on the videos). He probably at some point thought "f it, no one's gonna notice".

 

Just when you though song intros couldn't get any better than Satisfaction/Paint It Black/JJ Flash along comes Gimme Shelter.

 

The bass player is always right.

 

I also love the way Keith's guitar sounds, that plucky thin sound. That mixed with the note change as you said makes it sound quite a bit different live.

Gimme Shelter and Monkey Man both IMO have the most ominous intros and funnily enough they are both in the key of Db

 

There's a possibility it was done consciously for the simple fact that in the context of a loud rock & roll show with a rowdy audience, it's relatively difficult for harmonic, rhythmic, etc. subtleties and complexities to come across well to the crowd attending the event (recordings done from the board are another matter). The nature of the loud crowd, the loud PA, the acoustics of most venues, etc. make it so that simpler, more overt playing tends to work better . . . which is one reason that I generally prefer studio recordings. A lot of details, a lot of ornamentation is absent in a lot of live performances.

 

The challenge?

 

Mitch Ryder did a pretty mean version with Detroit.

 

Yes. You should listen to the bass on Hot Thing from Prince's Sign O' The Times studio vs. live. Same idea.

 

I think you'd have to do a totally different arrangement to make it interesting at all. There's probably not much of a point though.

 

You mean the Josefus song?




to the OP - it's the open G tuning, although I think that's still before Keef hit Cntl/Alt/Delete on the high string so it's a bit chimey-er...

 

That intro is the reason it's my favorite Stone's song. Such a great tune to hear out partying on a hot summer night. Very haunting.