Vito Bratta is playing guitar again....

[Rollin Hand]

https://www.guitarworld.com/features/vi ... white-lion

I understand and greatly respect his reasons for not being "out and about", but should circumstances change, I would love for him to let it rip a few more times.

And maybe get the old Strat fixed to do it.

[toomanycats]

Funny coincidence, but just the other day I revisited White Lion's Big Game album.

Vito's technique, melodic sensibility, and compositional skills remain truly impressive. Surprisingly, I had forgotten how luscious his clean tones are.

Overall there is something incredibly dated about White Lion. I've always found Mike Tramp problematic. I'm a little embarrassed by him, with his impossible good looks and second rate David Lee Roth schtick. He's a cheese Danish. But what can you expect, as he started out as a Justin Bieber type pop star. Some of the lyrics on songs like "Dirty Woman" and "Let's Get Crazy" make me cringe inside, especially delivered in his heavy accent. Add in the overtly Leftist political talking points he inserts into the lyrics and it becomes absurd. He aspires to save Mother Gaia but is perfectly fine with ravaging the individual bodies of female groupies. Ha ha ha ! Poor liberal inconsistencies. One minute you're Alan Aldo as Hawkeye Pierce, the voice every late 60s social justice issue . . . fast forward a few decades and you're just a booze swilling, womanizing representation of male toxicity and patriarchy. Mike Tramp has aged into the same problem.

Don't get me wrong though, I have a great appreciation for White Lion. In defense of Mike Tramp, he does succeed in introducing a Judeo-Christian perspective, something like a European Christian Socialist view, into the context of 80s glam metal . . . which is no small accomplishment. He did it in a much different way then Stryper, with their beating people over the head with it and literally throwing Bibles into the audience. Tramp was more clever about it, using something like a presuppositional argument.

But back to Vito. The man is simply awesome. In another odd coincidence I jammed with a guy from Staten Island on Thursday night. I was trying to place his accent for a while, then it dawned on me. For those who don't know, Vito Bratta is from Staten Island, and a lifelong resident too I believe. Such a unique place, and I was fortunate to live there for a year. God bless Staten Island, and especially two sisters name Delores and Valerie.

[Rollin Hand]

I revisited the solo on "Going Home Tonight" last night, and my heavens what a solo. So smooth, playful and complex, yet musical. The guy really was a mind-blowing player -- technique for miles, but different and unique. And, he was literally the only other guy that I ever heard who had a sound that could be described as brown (on the "Pride" album).

I listened to part of his interview with Eddie Trunk a few years back, and he seemed at ease with his life, and like in the interview I posted, he seems to miss the spotlight at times. But, one does what one must.

And the accent. The first time I listened to that interview, all I could think of was "he sounds like Christopher Walken." I was worried he would start talking about where he kept an uncomfortable hunk of metal.

Mike Tramp...I always found him to be so clichéd. Never loved his voice or his delivery. I never found him to be a great lyricist (others would find a way to make a point and make it rhyme). Watching him on video remains cringey to me. But, he did have a way with a hook.

[toomanycats]

I revisited the solo on "Going Home Tonight" last night, and my heavens what a solo. So smooth, playful and complex, yet musical. The guy really was a mind-blowing player -- technique for miles, but different and unique. And, he was literally the only other guy that I ever heard who had a sound that could be described as brown (on the "Pride" album).

I listened to part of his interview with Eddie Trunk a few years back, and he seemed at ease with his life, and like in the interview I posted, he seems to miss the spotlight at times. But, one does what one must.

And the accent. The first time I listened to that interview, all I could think of was "he sounds like Christopher Walken." I was worried he would start talking about where he kept an uncomfortable hunk of metal.

Mike Tramp...I always found him to be so clichéd. Never loved his voice or his delivery. I never found him to be a great lyricist (others would find a way to make a point and make it rhyme). Watching him on video remains cringey to me. But, he did have a way with a hook.

A large part of what was so compelling to me about White Lion when I first saw the video for "Wait" (their Ed Sullivan Show moment for most people), was their obvious indebtedness to Van Halen. Tramp was clearly supposed to be the Roth character and Vito was playing the Eddie role. Vito uncannily looked like pre-smiley faced, VH1 era Eddie in his facial expressions. When you heard Vito solo it was abundantly clear that he was Ed's disciple.

[Rollin Hand]

Like he said in the interview, Ed rewrote the book. Vito was 16 and he bought the book.

But Vito never truly copied Ed on his own material.

[toomanycats]

Like he said in the interview, Ed rewrote the book. Vito was 16 and he bought the book.

But Vito never truly copied Ed on his own material.

A good analogy between Vito and Ed would be contrasting Ed with Clapton. If you know Clapton, and I mean the Cream era Clapton which Ed was so profoundly influenced by, then you will recognize that vocabulary, underlying feel, sensibility, and style in Ed's playing. Similarly, Vito has this deep foundational Eddie thing at the core of his playing.

By implication, this would mean that Vito also has Clapton in his playing, which I can hear, certainly on the bluesy licks and cliche double stops on the album Pride. The opening lick of the solo for "Wait" (the bend followed by a right hand tap) is a classic Eddie move. That solo also has a lot of Fair Warningish, Holdsworthy type stuff going on. Vito's output from Big Game on is where I most hear him forging his own style. It's Baroque and neoclassical, though completely unlike Yngwie. Vito loved the ornamentation of the trill, as per Bach and Vivaldi.

Ed and Vito both have that happiness and joy in their playing, though Ed has more raunchiness and swing. Vito has more melancholy in his playing.

I would love to know exactly what influenced Vito in his stylistic direction, other than, obviously, EVH. I tangentially touched this subject on a thread I posted on this forum about a year ago, the subject being Akira Takasaki, and which you participated in.

For me the formula for both Vito and Akira is similar: Eddie + Neoclassical/Baroque.

https://www.aguitarforum.net/viewtopic. ... aki#p29887

[Rollin Hand]

Vito has some Randy in there too, especially in the "song within a song" aspect of his playing. He is more melodic than Ed.

Again though, it comes down to Ed rewriting the book, and Vito buying a copy. Ed added more tools to the toolbox, and Vito certainly benefitted, as did many others.

But Vito was different. The sum of his influences went in a different direction than most others. They used the flash of Ed to be flashy, where he used as a way to embellish his music (OK, he went a bit Ed-wild on "Radar Love"). I wish he could have stuck around longer, but he gave us a lot.