Yesterday I submitted Dueling Banjos, and now I'm following up with dueling guitars.

This is from "Crossroads", based on an updated version of the old Robert Johnson legend -- here, the devil's guitarist is Steve Vai, while Ralph Maccio plays to defend his mentor (and it's really Ry Cooder's playing).

That was awesome--didn't know the Karate Kid had it in him!
I may have to watch the movie, is the rest of it as good as this?

Does it scare anyone to know that Ralph Macchio is 45 . . ?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Johnson
The most widely known legend surrounding Robert Johnson says that he sold his soul to the Devil at the crossroads of U.S. Highway 61 and U.S. Highway 49 in Clarksdale, Mississippi in exchange for prowess in playing the guitar. Actually, the location Johnson made reference to is a short distance away from that intersection. The legend was told mainly by Son House, but finds no corroboration in any of Johnson's work, despite titles like "Me and the Devil Blues" and "Hellhound on My Trail". With this said, the song "Cross Road Blues" is both widely and loosely interpreted by many as a descriptive encounter of Johnson selling his soul. The older Tommy Johnson (no relation, although it is speculated that they were cousins), by contrast, also claimed to have sold his soul to the Devil. The story goes that if one would go to the crossroads a little before midnight and begin to play the guitar, a large black man would come up to the aspiring guitarist, retune his guitar and then hand it back. At this point (so the legend goes) the guitarist had sold his soul to become a virtuoso (A similar legend even surrounded virtuoso violinist Niccolò Paganini a century before.)

I always thought this was the raddest scene in film history. Ralph Macchio vs. Steve Vai!

Thus whitening the legend for all to enjoy.

i own this movie on DVD, and on BetaMax. heh

Ry Cooder only recorded the slide guitar parts of the movie, while Steve Vai recorded all other guitar tracks and composed the neo-classical guitar track that wins the battle.

*promote
*music

Re-promoting this video to the front page as a VideoSift Classic. Originally published on Monday 10th July 2006 (promotion called by gold star member firefly)

That was just fun.

Tags changed from "guitar, steve vai, ry cooder, crossroads" to "guitar, steve vai,ry cooder,cuttin heads" by gold star member pho3n1x.

bad tone, bad acting, bad tone, bad dialogue, and some bad tone also

*promote

I watched this movie the other day, really enjoyable, I didn't even realize it was the Karate Kid, though he did look oddly familiar.

Steve Vai as a young schmuck was enjoyable to watch as well

Promoting this classic video back to the front page; last published Friday, May 11th, 2007 3:25pm PDT - promote requested by Farhad2000.

Actually the ending piece that wins the duel is not Steve Vai's composition really, it's Paganini. The piece is ironic in some ways - Steve Vai represents Paganini and the classical school whilst Ralph represents Robert Johnson, yet Ralph wins by playing a Paganini piece that he must have learned in Juilliard.

Ralph does a great job at fake guitar playing in this movie, by the way. I wonder if he actually turned out to be a decent player after all the training he must have gone through.

*music *rocknroll *80s *cinema

Adding video to channels (80s, Cinema, Music, Rocknroll) - requested by Grimm.

*dead

This published video has been declared non-functional; embed code must be fixed within 2 days or it will be sent to the dead pool - declared dead by Grimm.

Awarding Lurch with one star point for fixing this video's dead embed code.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'guitar, steve vai, ry cooder, cuttin heads' to 'guitar, steve vai, ry cooder, cuttin heads, end scene, spoiler' - edited by EndAll

I watched this last night. F*ckin' amazing film, and this scene is just so bad ass.

*promote

Promoting this video back to the front page; last published Sunday, November 25th, 2007 11:53pm PST - promote requested by EndAll.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'guitar, steve vai, ry cooder, cuttin heads, end scene, spoiler' to 'guitar, ralph macchio, steve vai, ry cooder, cuttin heads, end scene, spoiler' - edited by EndAll

This makes me cry. Tears of pain, I assure you. WTF does this have to do with southern blues? This is whitebread cheese-dickery all the way.

>> ^nach0s:
This makes me cry. Tears of pain, I assure you. WTF does this have to do with southern blues? This is whitebread cheese-dickery all the way.


You need to see the whole movie.

*blues

Adding video to channels (Blues) - requested by EndAll.