Danny at Puckett's

The recent blog about The WannaBeatles playing the Bedford County Fair was the first part of a two part series featuring a visit to Nashville by our friend Danny Jiminez from Miami.

Danny has been a lifelong friend of WannaBeatle David, and their friendship continues through music and their ongoing conversation about Danny moving (or not, or when?) to Nashville.

The rest of the WannaBeatles met Danny in February when we went to south Florida to play three concerts with the South Florida Symphony.

Here's how Danny showed up in our dressing room, with a Rickenbacker bass which, as he explained, was "a limited edition, factory built Rickenbacker model that replicates virtually every detail of Paul McCartney's 4001S bass as used during the Wings period through today."

So Danny has an affinity for the Beatles, and for musical instruments. We didn't yet know exactly how good he was as a guitarist (and bassist) and singer.

And on Saturday, August 1, we found out, when he joined us onstage to perform with us at Puckett's in Columbia.

The sign at Puckett's advertising our show Aug. 1

We gave him two songs - "Yesterday" and "I Saw Here Standing There" - both iconic, and each one requiring a very different approach to both playing and singing.

The Guitar on "Yesterday"

It takes a real Beatles geek (or maybe we should say devoted afficianodo) to know that McCartney played an acoustic guitar tuned down a whole step on the original recording of "Yesterday."

When we do the song, we use an acoustic guitar in normal tuning. It's not that we don't want to do the song the way it was done originally. We don't have room onstage to keep two acoustic guitars available, and we don't have time during the show to retune the acoustic guitar we use.

What that means is that we do "Yesterday," in the key of F, has to be played in F.

With the guitar tuned down a whole step, the way McCartney did it, the guitar can be played in G, but sounds like it's in F. Anyone who plays even the most rudimentary guitar knows that a G chord has a certain sound. And that's part of what makes "Yesterday" unique.

And that's the authenticity that Danny brought to our show that night.

He brought a separate acoustic guitar, tuned down a whole step, so that he could play the guitar with the original voicing, while singing. It was quite a contribution to the evening.

Danny doing "Yesterday" (and playing a G chord)

It was another great Saturday night, this one made unforgettable by Danny doing two great Beatles songs, handling both the lead vocal and major instrumental parts while we backed him up. After "Yesterday," he switched to bass, playing that running line from "I Saw Her Standing There" while singing lead.

Also that night, we were joined by our energetic intern Melanie, who provided these photos.