Weird Al, The One-Note Guitarist
For the first time in “Weird Al” Yankovic’s long career, he picked up a guitar and not an accordion, for his performance.
During his love show at the Apollo Theater in New York on March 23, Yankovic played guitar in front of a live audience and conquered the solo part of Neil Young’s classic “Cinnamon Girl”.
He said of his performance,
“Tonight is a very, very special night for two big reasons. One is, on this next song, I’m going to make my guitar-playing debut. My whole life, I never learned to play the guitar. I figured, you know, I’ve been in entertainment, I’ve been a recording artist and a professional musician for most of my life, and I should know how to play the guitar. So, for the last several months, I’ve been studying and learning how to play the guitar so that I could debut it at the Apollo on this next song.”
He further said that he and his band were “honored and humbled to be playing the famous Apollo Theater”. He paid tribute to the theater’s history, an essential place in the history of African-American music, by “playing a song by the great Mr. Neil Young.”
Now that’s a guitar-solo debut done the right (and funny) way.