Posted on 08/25/2009 10:47:21 AM PDT by a fool in paradise
In 2007, 1,802 Germans played “Smoke On the Water” in unison to enter the Guinness Book of World Records as the largest recorded guitar ensemble. That record was topped Sunday afternoon at Luckenbach, when 1,859 pickers played “Luckenbach, Texas” and “This Land Is Your Land.”
1,859 guitar players in one spot- and it wasn’t an Eric Johnson concert!
The “Pickin’ For the Record” event was organized by the Voices of a Grateful Nation, a support group for American soldiers and veterans, whose Welcome Home Project was the beneficiary.
Pickers paid $10 each, but they received a t-shirt commemorating their participation. The guitar army also played Gary P. Nunn’s “London Homesick Blues,” also known as “I Wanna Go Home With the Armadillo.”
It's been done already...
In 2003, 2004, 2006 and 2007, there were similar world record attempts at the Louie Fest events in or near Tacoma...
Re[portedly the only time they drew anywhere close to 1000 Guitars was the first year, 2003, in Cheney Stadium.
They did get original musicians from the Pacific Northwest who played on some of the different versions (the song itself is from Richard Berry in LA in the 1950s)
Ah well, they didn’t use FR to get the word out obviously!
I did know of course that Richard Berry and the Pharaohs did the original version. I prefer the Kingsmen version, but the original is nice since you can understand the lyrics. But my favorite is the Otis Redding version, since he obviously was working off the Kingsmen record and couldn’t figure out the lyrics either, so he just made up his own!
A close friend of mine was there - he helped set the world record. He’s very excited about this.
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