18. KID CHARLEMAGNE

Steely Dan

GUITARIST: LARRY CARLTON (1976)

Messin’ with the “Kid.”

Steely Dan’s catalog is filled with remarkable guitar solos (see’s “Kid Charlemagne” remains the most celebrated. Carlton strings together a series of tasty phrases that follow the underlying chord changes with a blend of inside and outside playing that is technically mind bending and emotionally satisfying. “I was pretty familiar with the tune, so I just improvised,” he tells . “People think I’m kidding when I say that, like I had worked the solo out beforehand, but I didn’t. It was straight improv, and it worked.” Very well, in fact. Perhaps more has been written about his solo than of the song itself. Despite the acclaim, Carlton was, and remains, nonplussed. “When the record came out, there was a wonderful review of the tune in and they raved about the solo,” he says. “I put the record on and listened to it with my wife, and at the end of it I said, ‘I don’t know. It just sounds like me.’”