Frankie & The Knockouts - Sweetheart (Guitar Cover)

The Song:

"Sweetheart” is a song co-written by lead singer and Academy Award-winning composer Franke Previte and guitarist William Elworthy was the debut single by Franke and the Knockouts from New Brunswick, New Jersey, and was their greatest hit, reaching the U.S. top 10 during the spring of 1981. The song is from their self-titled debut album released that year. March 1981 on Millennium Records and produced by Steve Verroca.

The band switched to MCA Records in 1984, and split up around 1986. Previte co-wrote music for the hit soundtrack for the 1987 movie Dirty Dancing, including "(I've Had) The Time of My Life," and Eric Carmen's hit "Hungry Eyes".

“Sweetheart” the song is written in the key of C#m which is a constant in the intro and verse while the bass notes move to create musical tension and interest (a great lesson for song writers!). To play along with this tune you need to tune up almost a ½ step. I am not sure how Elworthy played this live since it’s a mix of the C#m with a moving bass line and keyboards, he could have done them all, kudos if that’s the case. But in this guitar cover I’ll try and show you examples of both parts. At any rate it’s a wonderful song that I’ve loved since the 80’s, just loved the band and wish they would have done more or made it on a larger scale.

The Video:

The process of final product you are seeing is as follows: I import the original track from iTunes into PreSonus Studio One, tempo map it in PreSonus Studio One, and record all the guitar part as close as I can get them to the original track.

I then buss the guitars to an effects track where I use a send for reverb. On the master I have a limiter, compression and EQ and I usually master in the same workspace. All the guitars are recorded through a Fractal Audio AXE FX III, I generally use the standard Fractal presets and tweak them a bit.
I record the video on my iPhone (with the lesser quality audio), import the video onto my MAC where I use DaVinci Resolve to edit the video and replace the iPhone audio with the studio quality audio from PreSonus Studio One.

The Equipment:

I recorded this track using a 2010 Paul Reed Smith Custom 24, 25th Anniversary, Scarlett Red, no modifications, this is a stock PRS Custom 24. I played all guitars directly into to a Fractal Audio FXIII and then into PreSonus Studio One.