After more than five decades of recording music and more than 60 albums, legendary guitarist Phil Keaggy experienced something new when he sat in a movie theater and heard his guitar playing on the big screen. Keaggy’s rendition of the iconic guitar riff from Guns N’ Roses’ “Sweet Child O’ Mine” is featured in “Reagan,” the Dennis Quaid-led biographical drama currently playing in theaters in a director’s cut.
“It’s the first time in my entire long life that I heard my guitar playing in a movie featured on a big giant screen,” the 75-year-old two-time Grammy nominee told The Christian Post. “I just couldn’t believe it.
I got goosebumps.” The Nashville resident, who was inducted into the GMA Gospel Music Hall of Fame in 2007, said his involvement in the film grew out of his friendship with “Reagan” producer Mark Joseph, whom he met after endorsing one of Joseph’s books exploring rock ’n’ roll and faith. Joseph eventually approached the “County Down” artist about recording the famous Guns N’ Roses riff for the film.
“He said, ‘Hey, you know this song, 'Sweet Child O’ Mine'? Love to have you playing that riff,’” Keaggy recalled. Though familiar with the song, Keaggy went back and studied it closely before heading into his home studio with a Gibson Les Paul electric guitar, the model famously associated with Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash. “I got the lick down, I got the sound down,” he said.
Keaggy created a drum and bass track to accompany the guitar and initially recorded about a minute of music. Roughly a year later, Joseph asked him to add another 25 seconds. The finished recording accompanies the fall of the Berlin Wall, a key sequence in the film, which follows Reagan from his childhood through Hollywood and politics to his