Eddie Lang - For Guitarists Only

April Kisses
Feelin' My Way
Pickin' My Way

April Kisses

Composed by Eddie Lang
Transcribed and arranged by Dave Berend

Modern Guitar Solo with piano or guitar acc. by Eddie Lang, America's Foremost Guitarist
Copyright 1933 (April 5) by Robbins Music Corporation
Price .75 cents

April Kisses is one of two sides recorded on April 1, 1927 for OKeh records (the other being Eddie’s Twister), its significance cannot be overstated. An original composition devised as a solo tour-de-force for guitar (the recording has piano accompaniment which is unnecessary), April Kisses is largely responsible for bringing the guitar to the forefront as a powerful solo instrument, and signaled the beginning of the end of the banjo’s reign in pop music and jazz. The future of the guitar was made plain for all to hear with this recorded coupling, there would be no turning back.

April Kisses was the first in a series of “Eddie Lang Modern Guitar Solos” published by Robbins Music. It was transcribed and arranged by Dave Berend, and published by Robbins Music in 1933 (the other three being Rainbow’s End, Feelin’ My Way, Pickin’ My Way). Berend, a banjo player turned guitarist, was a member of the Robbins Music staff and responsible for all of the transcriptions published under Eddie Lang’s name. It is likely he performed these duties without support from Eddie Lang, though Lang may have had a hand in the 1932 publication Robbins Guitar Folio of Popular Songs as the folio included special choruses of six popular songs “as played by Eddie Lang”.

Published in April 1933, April Kisses was almost certainly being prepared for publication at the time of Lang’s death (March 26, 1933). Robbins released another three Eddie Lang Modern Guitar Solos during that year, and then published a number of Lang solos and several Eddie Lang guitar method books from 1935 through 1939.

The transcription is not entirely faithful to the 1927 recording, though it doesn’t detract all that much from the Lang’s original message. This is where Berend earns his arranging credit.

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