A Tribute to Paul Yandell
Paul Yandell, CGP, passed away on November 21, 2011. He was one of my original guitar heroes (along with my Dad, Chet Atkins, and Jerry Reed) and has been a hero to me for close to 50 years.
Paul was not only one of the best guitar pickers on the planet, he was also a fine, fine man and a friend to many. He will be missed greatly.
I leave to it others to try to express in words what a loss this is to the guitar community … I simply do not have it within me to try to find the words, knowing full well that the words would fall short.
All I can offer up in memory of Paul are a few tunes. The first of them being the first tune I wrote for Paul in June of 2010:
The second is a tune I wrote for him in February of this year:
I am really not happy with either of these tunes. The first one was sorta “Paul-like” but I should have probably called it quits with the C-part. I added the part in E, because Paul kinda owned C and E. But, I didn’t make the two chordings go together real well. The second tune was a sort of imitation of a tune that Paul had helped write (On A Roll). I wasn’t feeling very well when I played it, and it shows. Another version of this tune is available on my YouTube channel … it is the same video, but I add a second track to it to do some “harmony.” I actually like it better without the second track, although I wish I had done better on it all the way around.
The best tribute I can play to Paul is the picking I did on a song that my Mom and Dad sang about 40 years ago:
(Note that it takes few seconds for the song to start.)
I was about 20 at the time, going to Georgia Tech, and picking guitar for Mom and Dad whenever my schedule allowed. They decided to make an album and wanted me to play on it, so I did. And, on this song, Dad wanted me to play the break “just exactly like Paul Yandell did for the Louvin Brothers.” So I tried (the break is at about 1:30 into the tune). Actually came out real close to what Paul did … I was pretty hot stuff back then. Amazing what the years can do.
Anyway, I will miss Paul very much. I did not know him well, personally, but he was still a big part of my life. All my best wishes for his family and fellow friends and admirers.