Van Halen Inspired By Larry Coryell Playing?

BillDL

For many years on and off I've been trying to remember the title of a piece of solo guitar and who played it.  I first heard it around 1980 on one of those floppy thin records that used to come with the Guitar Player monthly magazine, and I was sure it was from the vinyl record that was still attached by its perforations in a 2nd-hand Guitar Player magazine I had borrowed from a friend. I may be mistaken and perhaps it was a reissue in a post-1980 magazine.  What I do remember about it was that immediately I heard Spanish Fly from the Van Halen II album around 1983, several years after its release 1979, I was struck by a strong similarity between that and the piece of guitar playing on that floppy "vinyl" record.  It wasn't so much the actual notes being played, but more the general feel and the timing.

I had previously searched through songs by guitarists that I was particularly interested in at the time like Lee Ritenour, Larry Carlton, Al Di Meola, and others, but I never found it ...... until today.  The name Larry Coryell sprung into my mind for no apparent reason and it suddenly clicked.  I found this YouTube video showing a Guitar Player magazine cover (stated as being from 1976) in which Larry Coryell plays that piece of music entitled Toronto Under The Sign of Capricorn.

I found another video of him playing it live and another of the song from his European Impressions album.

It wasn't hard to find Van Halen's Spanish Fly.

Given that (it would seem) Larry Coryell's piece of music was featured in Guitar Player magazine in 1976 and then included in his album recorded in Montreaux in 1978, and Van Halen's Spanish Fly was on their 1979 album, perhaps there is absolutely no correlation between the two pieces of music, but I still hear strong similarities between the two.

Is it just my imagination that I am hearing similarities, or is it simply that the two guitarists are just playing fast improvised sounding Spanish / Flamenco styled music?

Danny1969

You are right and Eddie has mentioned he did try to make it sound like that
I love this kind of playing and spent weeks trying to copy Spanish Fly over Covid 



Piss poor copy really but I had fun trying 

BillDL

Well I thought that was really good.