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5. Gram Parsons: “Return of the Grievous Angel”
Especially during his Vegas showman era, Elvis Presley was known to shout out his guitarist James Burton from the stage with the signature line, “Play it, James!” Ever a student of the King, the country iconoclast Gram Parsons recruited Presley’s TCB band, led by Burton, for the two solo albums he recorded during his lifetime, including the posthumously released 1974 LP “Grievous Angel.” On this opening track, Parsons gives his own spin on Presley’s famous cue: “Pick it for me, James.”
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6. The Jimi Hendrix Experience: “Fire”
Here’s a fun, audacious variation on the theme: A singer cuing himself, in third person, because he is also the lead guitarist. Naturally, nobody did it with more panache than Jimi Hendrix. “Move over rover, and let Jimi take over,” he commands on this incendiary tune, before coaxing a sonic conflagration from his fretboard.
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7. Lou Reed: “Beginning of a Great Adventure”
On this deadpan, darkly funny meditation on hypothetical parenthood — the male “I Think About It All the Time”? — Lou Reed similarly throws to himself for the solo: “Take it, Lou.”
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8. Pearl Jam: “Yellow Ledbetter”
I do not understand a single word that Eddie Vedder sings on this classic Pearl Jam B-side, except for the cue that he mutters to the guitarist Mike McCready before the song’s blistering solo: “Make me cry.”
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9. Poison: “Talk Dirty to Me”
Finally, one of the things the Poison frontman Bret Michaels is best known for — other than innumerable reality show appearances — is the enthusiasm with which he cues the band’s lead guitarist C.C. DeVille. That exuberance can be heard on Poison’s first American Top 40 hit, from 1987, when Michaels instructs his glammed-out axeman, “C.C., pick up that guitar and, uh, talk to me!”
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