Nail the ToneGary Moore

Still Got the Blues (For You)

Gary Moore · Still Got the Blues · 1990

Moore cut this on his 1959 Les Paul "Stripe" through a Marshall Guv'nor into an early JTM45 reissue prototype set clean, with a 1960B 4x12 loaded with Electro-Voice speakers — the pedal, not the amp, makes all the distortion. Keep the amp just below breakup, push mids hard at both the pedal and the amp, and play the neck pickup with the tone rolled back to about 6 for that fat woman-tone melody, flipping to the bridge for the brighter stretch of the solo. The clean rhythm guitar is the same rig with the pedal off and a subtle stereo chorus, and the lead was reportedly a one-take, first-take performance.

Where these numbers come from: the player said these settings themselves

Tuning

Standard tuning, no capo

Standard tuning, song in A minor; Moore used heavy Dean Markley LTHB strings (.010 .013 .017 .030w .042w .052w), which stiffen the long bends.

Part: Solo

Guitar

  • 1959 Gibson Les Paul Standard ("Stripe") · original PAF humbuckers · neck pickup for the melody and most of the solo, switching to bridge partway through

Amp

Marshall JTM45 Model 2245 reissue (1989 prototype)

GAIN
6.0
BASS
3.0
MID
9.0
TREBLE
7.0
PRESENCE
5.0

The JTM45 has no gain control — 6 is the High Treble channel Loudness, plugged into High Treble Input 1, run clean with all the dirt coming from the Guv'nor; head fed a Marshall 1960B 4x12 loaded with Electro-Voice EVM12L speakers. Moore's tech Graham Lilley identifies this head (serial RI 000011) on this track, though a Marshall 1962 Bluesbreaker combo was used elsewhere on the album ("King of the Blues," "Texas Strut").

Pedals

  • Marshall The Guv'nor (Mk I) · distortion · Gain 7, Bass 7, Middle 10, Treble 8.5, Level 6 (roughly gain 2 o'clock, bass 2 o'clock, mid full, treble 4 o'clock, level 1 o'clock)
  • Roland SDD-320 Dimension D · chorus/stereo widener · Mode 4 — used on the clean rhythm part, not the lead; Moore never confirmed the unit, so this is Guitar World's read of the record
  • Alesis Quadraverb · reverb/multi-effects · Reverb in Moore's headphone mix during the take rather than a printed lead effect

Tone character

thick singing neck-pickup lead · forward, boosted mids · pedal dirt into clean amp · long compressed sustain · woman-tone smoothness · clean chorused rhythm contrast

hard

The notes are simple A minor pentatonic and Aeolian shapes, but the part lives on slow full- and step-and-a-half bends that have to land dead in tune, wide sustained vibrato, and phrasing that pushes and pulls against the beat, plus a mid-solo pickup switch.

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Sources