Neil Younger showcases his savage overdriven tones and channels Hendrix in probably the most menacing solo rendition of the Star-Spangled Banner you’ve ever heard

On Thanksgiving Day (November 23), electric guitar hero Neil Younger posted a video titled Stand for Peace, which options him taking part in The Star-Spangled Banner solo.

Wielding his iconic, much-modded and road-worn 1953 Gibson Les Paul – often called Outdated Black – Younger delivers a really Younger-ian rendition of the US nationwide anthem that may also call to mind Jimi Hendrix’s gloriously freewheeling Woodstock rendition of the same tune.

By Younger-ian, we imply that the tone of this interpretation is completely brutal – getting progressively extra in order it goes on. By the point Younger reaches the tune’s conclusion, the drive and nastiness is such that you simply’d assume that the circuitry of his guitar amps is actively cooking.

As Young’s longtime tech, Larry Cragg, told Guitar World in a 2009 interview, that state of affairs is in no way farfetched.

The core of Younger’s guitar amp setup is a 1959 tweed Fender Deluxe. Initially a 15-watt unit, it was hot-rodded with two 6L6s instead of its authentic tubes. That reinforces the output from 15 to 19 watts, and makes the Deluxe run so scorching that Cragg typically has high-powered fans running behind the amp at all times to “keep it from blowing up.”

Although it is decidedly missing in close-ups of Younger himself, the video does function a tasty shot of the guitarist’s pedalboard, which is nearly as well-known as Outdated Black.

Over-sized, manufactured from pink wooden, and simply as worn-through as a lot of Younger’s different gear, the pedalboard has – amongst different distinctive options – one thing referred to as an “ugly button.”

“That’s a really unusual factor, and Neil solely hits it when he needs to go to the following stage,” Cragg told Guitar World in 2009. “It prompts a unit that’s simply completely freaked out. It’s adjusted the way it undoubtedly ought to not be adjusted. However Neil appears to love that.”

Outdated Black, too, is a singular beast that – apart from quite a few different tweaks – incorporates a Firebird pickup on the bridge.

“Initially there was a P-90 in there,” Cragg said in 2009. “However within the early Seventies the guitar was misplaced, and when Neil recovered it just a few years later the bridge pickup was gone. He put a Gretsch DeArmond in there for some time, however after I got here onboard I changed that with the Firebird, which has been there ever since.

“Everybody calls it a mini humbucker, however it’s not. It’s a humbucker, and it’s very microphonic – you possibly can communicate into it. It’s actually piercing and excessive and a giant a part of his sound.”