Fender Benders

More B-bender-style licks

- CHARLIE STARR

WHEN I WAS about 12, my friend's dad was hipping me to all kinds of incredible music. He gave me the 1974 Gram Parsons album Grievous Angel, which includes "Ooh Las Vegas," a song that features some really cool pedal steel guitar licks that can be replicated with a Parsons/White B-bender-equipped Fender Telecaster, which I talked about last month. In this month's column, I'd like to share what I learned from all this.

The track kicks off with a lick played in the key of E, along the lines of FIGURE 1. Here, I begin with a slide up to B on my G string's 4th fret, followed by a C#-to-D hammer-on the B string then the open high E string. I hybrid pick this lick, flatpicking the G string and fingerpicking the notes on the top two strings, and allow the notes to ring together as much as possible.

There's another part of the song, also performed with hybrid picking, along the lines of