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Hennessy Macklemore III
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Paul Gilbert May 14, 2021 3:47:48 GMT Gatr, Rodney Blazershorts, and 9 more like this

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Post by Hennessy Macklemore III on May 14, 2021 3:47:48 GMT

Paul Brandon Gilbert (November 6, 1966 - )
Years active: 1983-present
Country of origin: United States of America
Recorded vocal range: D2-A5 - 3.6 octaves

Band history:

1983-1985 - Black Sheep (lead guitar)
1984 - Scotland (guitar)
1985-1988 - Racer X (lead guitar, backing vocals)
1988-1997 - Mr. Big (guitar, backing vocals)
1990-1992 - Electric Fence (lead vocals, guitar)
1991 - Paul Gilbert (lead vocals, guitar)
1998-present - Paul Gilbert (lead vocals, lead guitar, occasional bass, occasional keyboards, occasional drums)
1998-2009 - Racer X (lead guitar, backing vocals)
2005 - pintSIZE (guitar, backing vocals)
2009-present - Mr. Big (lead guitar, backing vocals)

*Green marks harsh distorted notes.

*Italics mark non-melodic notes.

*Underlines marks notes in backing vocals or otherwise muffled/obscured in the song mix.

SPOILER: Click to show

{Spoiler}{Album ranges}
Paul Gilbert:

Tribute to Jimi Hendrix (1991) - G2-D3-C5
King of Clubs (1998) - G2-B2-F5
Flying Dog (1998) - F2-G♯2-D5-G5
Beehive Live (1999) - B2-E♭5-F5
Eleven Thousand Notes (2000) - B♭2-D5-G♭5
Alligator Farm (2000) - G2-C5
Raw Blues Power (2002) - F2-A4
Burning Organ (2002) - F♯2-D3-C5-F5
Gilbert Hotel (2003) - A2-G♯4-A♯4
Acoustic Samurai (2003) - F♯2-D5-F5
Guitar Wars (2004) - B♭2-A♭4-D5
Space Ship One (2005) - B♭2-D3-B4-E5
Space Ship Live (2005) - B2-B4-E5
Tough Eskimo (2007) - F♯2-E5
United States (2009) - B♭3-B♭4
Vibrato (2012) - E2-F♯2-D5
Stone Pushing Uphill Man (2014) - F♯2-F4
I Can Destroy (2016) - A2-C♯3-B4-D♯5
PG-30 Live At Zepp Tokyo 2016 (2017) -

Yellow Matter Custard:

One Night in New York City (2003) - A2-C5-F5
One More Night in New York City (2011) - G2-D5-G♯5

Mike Portnoy's Amazing Journey:

One Night in New York City (2007) - A2-C5-E5

SPOILER: Click to show

{Spoiler}{Detailed bio}
Paul Gilbert is someone who is primarily most famous as one of the most proficient guitar shredders of the '80s, and has made quite a name for himself as not only a terrifyingly fast player, but also a very diverse and versatile musician overall. What doesn't always get talked about quite as much, though, is the fact that he has done quite a lot of singing as well over the course of his career, and ultimately demonstrated a more impressive range than many might expect. Paul's singing voice is naturally quite pleasant, and can take on a light, gentle tone in the third and lower fourth octave, and he also has respectable skill at blending this into a mezza voce tone that he frequently sings into the upper fourth octave with rather nicely. When it comes to harder rocking songs however, he is also very capable of letting loose and hitting some massively gritty upper fourth octave notes, in a belting style that he at times carry up to the lower fifth octave. Beyond that, he has furthermore demonstrated the ability to do some pretty crazy rock screams up into the mid fifth octave, which are a less common feature of his singing, but can be very impressive when he does them. His low range is also quite decent, as he naturally has a rather deep voice and makes fairly common use of second octave notes in his music, occasionally demonstrating some pretty solid resonance down to F2 or so even in live performances. Surprisingly, despite of the strong track record he has made for himself as a vocalist, Paul often talks about his range as one that is extremely limited, and has expressed frustrations about not being able to sing higher parts as consistently as he would like. But even if he may see this as the case, he at least has a nicely impressive recorded range to boast for!

Paul's career with music began at a young age, as his guitar skills made him a teenage prodigy and attracted a lot of attention to him, eventually to the point that he moved to Los Angeles to attend the Guitar Institute of Technology at the age of 17. After graduating from G.I.T., he became an instructor there, and formed the band Racer X with vocalist Jeff Martin, bassist Juan Alderete, and drummer Harry Gschoesser. Racer X went on to be Paul's first serious band of note, as their style of speed metal/shred metal appealed well to the musical climate of the mid '80s, and drew favorable comparisons between Paul and other renowned guitar shredders of that era, such as Yngwie Malmsteen and Randy Rhoads. The band's first album, Street Lethal was released in 1986, and was soon followed by the album Second Heat in 1987, for which they were joined by second guitarist Bruce Bouillet. Though Paul never did any lead vocals in Racer X, his backing vocals already demonstrated a promising degree of skill as a singer, as he was appointed with the task of singing Jeff Martin's backing harmonies for live sets - which frequently involved melody lines up to F5, sometimes even higher! Though Racer X developed a fairly strong following from 1986-1988, their inability to land a major label deal led to disheartenment among its members, and Paul eventually came to the decision to leave the band in 1988. His last two shows with them at the time were recorded and eventually released as the live albums Extreme Volume Live later that same year, and Extreme Volume II Live in 1992, by which point the rest of Racer X had broken up.

Following his departure from Racer X, Paul joined forces with vocalist Eric Martin, bassist Billy Sheehan, and drummer Pat Torpey to form the rock supergroup Mr. Big, who quickly gained attention for their combination of technical shred instrumentation and tasteful harmony vocals sung together by all the band members. Paul became a core part of these vocal harmonies, much of which can be heard on the band's first two albums in particular - Mr. Big (1989) and Lean into It (1991), the latter of which featured their #1 hit "To Be with You" and put them in the spotlight for a bit during the early 90s. During this time, Paul also began to slowly branch out and begin occasionally to perform as a lead vocalist from time to time - the first instance of this being on Mr. Big's live cover of "Baba O'Riley", originally by The Who, in which he regularly sang Pete Townshend's vocal parts. In 1991, Paul performed a tribute set to Jimi Hendrix at the Montreaux Jazz Festival as part of a rock trio, in which he played guitar and sang, and was recorded and later released as his first solo album simply under the title Tribute to Jimi Hendrix. A few years after that, during Mr. Big's tour for their 1993 album Bump Ahead, the band began to do an "instrument swap" routine, in which every member traded roles and played a cover of Chuck Berry's "Johnny B. Goode" on an instrument they didn't normally do - Paul's being lead vocals. In 1996, Mr. Big released their fourth album, Hey Man, which would become Paul's last album with the band at the time, as he quit in 1997 and was replaced by Richie Kotzen. However, he ended up making one more lead vocal appearance with the band before leaving, on the non-album track "Unnatural".

After quitting Mr. Big, Paul began to officially pursue a solo career, and released his first album, King of Clubs in 1998. On this album, he handled all vocal duties himself, in addition to playing the majority of the instruments, aside from some guest appearances by Pat Torpey and the former members of Racer X. Unlike Paul's previous material, King of Clubs strayed away from heavier music entirely, and instead was largely written in a pop rock/power pop vein. This was received well by some fans, but one particularly vocal fan was so displeased by it that he sent Paul an email aggressively bashing him for betraying his metal roots by playing music like this, and telling him that he would never be successful doing so. Instead of being offended by this, however, Paul took it as inspiration to reform Racer X, and contacted the rest of the band to do so. They reunited later that year, and went on to record three more studio albums over the course of the next few years - Technical Difficulties (1999), Superheroes (2000), and Getting Heavier (2002). On the side, Paul also continued writing and recording solo material very actively, even releasing another album later in 1998 entitled Flying Dog. This album also featured Racer X vocalist Jeff Martin on drums, and former guitarist Bruce Bouillet on second guitar, who then accompanied Paul on his tour to promote these albums (some of which was recorded for the live DVD Eleven Thousand Notes). His live sets tended to consist of a combination of solo originals, Mr. Big song such as "To Be with You" and "Green-Tinted Sixties Mind", Racer X songs such as "Scarified" and "Heaven in '74", and a diverse selection of other covers ranging from "Hold Her Tight" by The Osmonds to "Dancing Queen" by Abba. Paul continued for the next few years juggling guitar and backing vocal duties in Racer X while also playing guitar and singing on his own solo albums, for which he actively put out new releases at a fairly frequent rate. His third solo album, Alligator Farm, was released in 2000, which was followed by two albums in 2002 - one being a collaboration album with his uncle Jimi Kidd, entitled Raw Blues Power, and the other being the solo album Burning Organ. These albums were then followed by the 2003's Gilbert Hotel, 2005's Space Ship One, and the rare 2007 EP Tough Eskimo, which would go on to be Paul's last release as a lead vocalist for several years, as he began to focus on writing instrumental music after this, and did not feature any vocals on his next couple of albums.

During the mid 2000s, Paul also began to get involved in a large number of collaborations with other artists. Perhaps the most notable of these were the various cover projects he did with drummer Mike Portnoy, starting in 2003 as part of a Beatles tribute called Yellow Matter Custard. This group also featured Neal Morse on rhythm guitar, keyboards, and vocals, and Matt Bissonette on bass and vocals, and featured the four of them performing a two hour concert of Beatles covers, with each member taking turns doing lead vocals and replicating the Beatles' vocal harmonies together as faithfully as possible. They recorded a live DVD entitled One Night in New York City in 2003, and the success of the project's reception led to Paul and Portnoy collaborating together in other tribute projects over the next few years. The next two of these projects (Hammer of the Gods, a Led Zeppelin tribute, and Cygnus and the Sea Monsters, a Rush tribute) did not feature Paul on vocals and instead saw him focusing strictly on guitar. However, the fourth project, called Amazing Journey, was a tribute to The Who, and featured Paul playing and singing Pete Townshend's parts. In addition to this, it featured Extreme vocalist Gary Cherone singing Roger Daltrey's parts, and former Mr. Big bassist Billy Sheehan playing and singing John Entwistle's parts, which marked his and Paul's first time playing together in almost a decade. They released a live DVD also titled One Night in New York City in 2007, which served as the last of these cover collaborations between Paul and Portnoy for several years. However, in 2011, Yellow Matter Custard reunited (this time with bassist/vocalist Kasim Sulton replacing Matt Bissonette) and performed another concert of Beatles covers, this time featuring all-new songs that had not been played at the previous concert. Once again, they recorded a live DVD entitled One More Night in New York City and released it as the last of this concert series.

In 2009, Racer X broke up for a second time, which now instead gave way for Paul to reunite with the original lineup of Mr. Big. They embarked on a highly successful reunion tour later that same year and released the live album Back to Budokan, and then began working on a new album, which materialized in late 2010 under the title What If.... They have since resumed as an actively touring band, and have released two more studio albums - 2014's ...The Stories We Could Tell and 2017's Defying Gravity. In addition to this, Paul has still continued as an active solo artist, though his recent albums have alternated between vocal and instrumental. In 2012, he released the album Vibrato, which is half vocal and half instrumental, and served as his first studio release singing mainly as a lead vocalist in five years. After this, he released Stone Pushing Uphill Man, a mostly-instrumental covers album that featured him playing guitar leads in the place of the songs' original vocal melodies. Paul has stated in interviews that his reason for doing this was due to some of his frustrations with his own singing limitations, and wanting to challenge himself as a guitarist by using his guitar to try to express what his voice can't. The only vocal track on this album is the original title track, which features some bluesy baritone singing down to F♯2 by him. Paul's most recent vocal album was his 2016 release I Can Destroy, which featured vocals on almost every song, but since then he seems to have resumed focusing on instrumental music, as his 2019 album Behold Electric Guitar featured no vocals, and the songs released off his upcoming album, entitled Werewolves of Portland, have all been instrumental so far. While it seems probable that we will still hear more singing yet from the man one way or another, in the meantime, Paul's guitar playing still offers quite a lot to be enjoyed (to say the least), so he is very much a musician worth his salt all around!

Previous version of this thread by Monocus on TRP2.

Last Edit: Sept 16, 2024 21:11:14 GMT by Hennessy Macklemore III

Hennessy Macklemore III
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Paul Gilbert May 24, 2021 20:03:34 GMT Kreuger likes this

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Post by Hennessy Macklemore III on May 24, 2021 20:03:34 GMT

Gonna be finishing up the last bits of material that I have to check for this thread over the next week. In the meantime, here are a couple potentially range-expanding notes that I'm still unsure about:

Seems like most people are hearing this weird scream-slide thing as getting up to A5. I was hearing it as a gritty A4 for a while though, so I figured I'd throw it out there for further discussion.

I'm unsure of whether this falsetto bit is Paul or Jeff Martin - Jeff does the rest of the lead vocals on this track, but these parts are panned to the same channel as Paul's backing vocals, so it seems possible as his voice. I'm thinking of messaging Jeff Martin's Facebook page to ask about them, but regardless of who they are - how high should I count them for? I'm hearing B5s and some short squeaks even as high as E♭6 at the end.

Last Edit: May 24, 2021 20:04:47 GMT by Hennessy Macklemore III

Platypus Vocal Master Offline Posts: 644 Likes: 2,814 Join Date: September 2019	Paul Gilbert May 24, 2021 20:31:26 GMT Quote Select Post Deselect Post Link to Post Member Give Gift Back to Top Post by Platypus on May 24, 2021 20:31:26 GMT I'm getting ~F♯5 for Mr Skin
	These are called harmonics. They aren't even real notes! That means we're playing impossible music!

Hennessy Macklemore III
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Join Date: April 2020
Favourite singer: Steve

Paul Gilbert Jun 9, 2021 1:49:22 GMT Kreuger likes this

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Post by Hennessy Macklemore III on Jun 9, 2021 1:49:22 GMT

Every time I think I'm coming up on being done notewatching this guy, I keep finding more random live covers because apparently he knows every song in the universe. :laughing:

However, here's one of the more interesting finds I made tonight:

He actually goes for all the notes in the original, including the standard A4s on the verses and choruses, a C5 at 2:02 shortly followed by entire lines on E5, then more lines at E5 at 9:57 climbing up to G5s! I'm also hearing the line at 10:08 get up to G♯5, but I'm having a hard time telling if it's him, because I think his wife is also singing backing vocals there, and he appears to be pulling away from the mic at the time, so I could use some other opinions on that.

Either way, he put forth much more of an effort to sing it faithfully than Ace Frehley did in his version, which topped at G4. :bless:

Hennessy Macklemore III Administrator Offline Posts: 1,997 Likes: 1,979 Join Date: April 2020 Favourite singer: Steve	Paul Gilbert Aug 18, 2021 19:41:06 GMT Quote Select Post Deselect Post Link to Post Member Give Gift Back to Top Post by Hennessy Macklemore III on Aug 18, 2021 19:41:06 GMT Very gritty F5 at the end of the slide upward here, right?
	Last Edit: Aug 18, 2021 19:44:38 GMT by Hennessy Macklemore III

Paul Gilbert (2,962 views)

Post by Hennessy Macklemore III on May 14, 2021 3:47:48 GMT

Post by Hennessy Macklemore III on May 24, 2021 20:03:34 GMT

Post by Platypus on May 24, 2021 20:31:26 GMT

Post by Hennessy Macklemore III on Jun 9, 2021 1:49:22 GMT

Post by Hennessy Macklemore III on Aug 18, 2021 19:41:06 GMT