Blues For Luke

Although he’S not a traditional blues player, Steve Lukather does bring a blues sensibility into most things he plays – and he plays a lot of different styles. Players such as Joe Walsh, Jimmy Page and David Gilmour were major influences on him as a young man, as were the jazzier session men like Larry Carlton and Jay Graydon from the Steely Dan stable. But let’s pull things back towards the blues here!

Steve’s knowledge of scales and harmony gives him the ability to view classic pentatonic patterns in an informed context,

enabling him to play jazzy ‘outside’ lines from within a blues-type format. Skills such as this are the result of both theoretical study and real-world experience. Having played around 1,500 sessions for the likes of Michael Jackson, Lionel Richie and Earth, Wind & Fire, plus his own band Toto and various solo projects, Steve has developed from the 20-year-old prodigy who played on

Hold The Line to a sort of elder statesman who has come through the era of cranked Marshalls, to towering effects racks and back to a relatively simple setup with just a few pedals.

To get the sound for this solo, I plugged in a Keeley-modded Boss Super Overdrive to boost an already distorted Vox AC15. Delay/ reverb effects were added in the mix, but Steve uses these in the effects loop of his amps live. His distinctive vibrato and bends are partly facilitated by his use of light strings, which goes against a lot of the sage ‘heavy strings/high action’ advice passed around in guitar circles… This solo isn’t a detailed study of Steve’s playing (you’d need a lot more than 12 bars to do that!), but hopefully shows some of the process that goes into making his memorable solos.