Acoustic Guitar 268.pdf

WIN AN ALVAREZ 50TH ANNIVERSARY 1965 SERIES GUITAR

3 SONGS

BOB DYLAN Mr. Tambourine Man LED ZEPPELIN That’s the Way MADELEINE PEYROUX Weary Blues

APRIL 2015 | ACOUSTICGUITAR.COM

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5 MODERN TROUBADOURS CRAFT ‘THE NEW BASEMENT TAPES’

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MERLEFEST

TRIPPING THROUGH THE PAST

RECLAIMING DETROIT ONE GUITAR AT A TIME

NEW GEAR

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ELLIOTT LANDY PHOTO

‘If you had Bruce playing with you, that’s all you would need to do just about anything.’ BOB DYLAN, ON BRUCE LANGHORNE P. 22

CONTENTS

Features 18 Songwriters at Play 5 modern troubadours collaborate with the young Bob Dylan to create The New Basement Tapes

Special Focus String Bands 36 MerleFest! Behind the flowering of one of the most influential string-band festivals

By Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers

By Mark Segal Kemp

22 His Back Pages Studio guitar legend Bruce Langhorne is the real Mr. Tambourine Man

39 Goodbye Earl 5 little-known teenage girls from North Carolina helped blaze trails for women in bluegrass

By Kenny Berkowitz

Miscellany 10 From the Home Office 11 Opening Act 97 Ad Index 98 Final Note

By Mark Segal Kemp

26 Faith, Folk & Funny Business From The Brady Bunch to Transparent, scriptwriter, songwriter, and acoustic-guitar player Faith Soloway has come full circle By Pat Moran

30 Music from the Ruins Guitars built from Detroit’s abandoned housing stock are adding to the Motor City’s legacy

42 Pickin’ the Blues How racism kept black stringband music virtually hidden for decades By Orville Johnson

46 I Love String Bands AG readers weigh in on what inspires them about string-band music

April 2015 Volume 25, No. 10, Issue 268 On the Cover Elvis Costello Photographer James O’Mara

By Patrick Sullivan

AcousticGuitar.com 5

PRS Acoustics A Culture of Quality

© 2014 PRS Guitars / Photos by Marc Quigley

Born in our Maryland shop, PRS acoustics are heirloom instruments with remarkable tone and exquisite playability. A small team of experienced luthiers handcraft all of our Maryland-made acoustic instruments with passion and attention to detail.

The PRS Guitars’ Acoustic Team.

CONTENTS

SPONSORED

ARRANGING FOR ACOUSTIC GUITAR with Ulli Boegershausen and ELIXIR® Strings

Fender’s Premium Concert Tone 59 banjo, p. 86

NEWS 12 The Beat Seth Avett and Jessica Lea Mayfield release a tribute to indie songsmith Elliott Smith; Airplane manager Bill Thompson dies 14 News Spotlight Rez Abbasi turned to the acoustic guitar to re-invent ’70s fusion classics PLAY 54 Songcraft Songwriter Nathan Bell on “finding” songs in particular guitars Songs to Play 56 That’s the Way by Led Zeppelin 58 Mr. Tambourine Man by Bob Dylan 64 Weary Blues arranged by Madeleine Peyroux 66 Here’s How The art of aleatoric, or “chance,” songwriting 68 Basics Master the art of rests 70 Weekly Workout Exercises for honing the major-pentatonic scale AG TRADE 74 Shop Talk Ovation brand sold to Drum Workshop; Gibson issues a new Dylan signature SJ-200 guitar

76 Makers & Shakers Indian Hill’s Mike Kennedy creates a unique showpiece flattop 78 Guitar Guru What causes random intonation glitches? 80 Review: Bourgeois Bryan Sutton Dreadnought A limited-edition revival of a modern marvel 82 Review: Paul Reed Smith SE A10E This all-mahogany acoustic sounds warm and woody 84 Review: Fishman Platinum Series Preamps User-friendly models with clean and accurate sonics 86 Pickin’ Fender’s Premium Concert Tone 59 banjo revives a long-celebrated line 89 Great Acoustics Larrivée’s 1975 cutaway was a true trailblazer MIXED MEDIA 92 Playlist James McMurtry’s Complicated Game has a softer sound, but more edge to the lyrics; also Jorma Kaukonen’s Ain’t in No Hurry, Julian Lage’s World’s Fair, and Iron & Wine’s Archive Series Volume No. 1

Ulli Boegershausen is a master fingerstylist and teacher. He’s published nine books on how to play the guitar, runs The Mosella Music school, and tours the world as one of the great fingerstylists alive today. “Phosphor Bronze strings from Elixir Strings are my choice for studio and stage. They offer the perfect sound and are, in terms of playability and longevity, simply unbeatable.” —Ulli Boegershausen Ulli Boegershausen shows you a simple way to arrange music for the acoustic guitar. This is a tip you can really use!

Watch Ulli’s arrangement tip:

AcousticGuitar.com/ How-To /Arrange-Elixir

SPONSORED AcousticGuitar.com 7

JOEY LUSTERMAN PHOTO

AG ONLINE

Julian Lage

Watch ‘Acoustic Guitar Sessions’ Online If you love AG’s print stories, don’t miss our online interview and performance series Acoustic Guitar Sessions. Go to AcousticGuitar.com/Sessions and watch Julian Lage picking solo acoustic tunes on his new Waterloo. While you’re at the AG Sessions page, check out appearances from other artists including Seth Avett, Ani DiFranco, Peter Rowan, Richard Thompson, Valerie June, and others.

THE NEWEST GUITARS AND GEAR Every year guitar makers, amp builders, accessory manufacturers, and more gather in Anaheim to unveil their newest models at the NAMM show. 2015 was no different. Head to AcousticGuitar.com/Gear to watch demo videos and interviews with Guild, Martin Guitars, L.R. Baggs, and more. GET GUITAR LESSONS, NEWS, AND VIDEOS IN YOUR E-MAIL Sign up for Acoustic Guitar Notes and we’ll send you a guitar-related e-mail every afternoon. Recent Notes include how to play the Bo Diddley beat, bluegrass bass run technique, and a guitar care video. Sign up today at AcousticGuitar.com/Newsletter-Sign-Up 8 April 2015

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John Pisano

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or some, the annual Winter NAMM convention—that colossal confab of the musicalinstrument trade—is a candy store of glittering new guitars and gear. But it’s also a place to catch up with colleagues and old friends. And the convention offers its share of surprises (the lively onstage interview with Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak among them). One of those bright moments arrived on the second night of the show. I was attending the annual dinner hosted by Martin Guitars (having attended a similar event the previous night hosted by Taylor Guitars), along with AG editors Mark Kemp and Marc Greilsamer. After a day of sensory overload, we were in a rather relaxed mode—my colleagues taking the time to enjoy the balmy Southern California evening on the patio with their vaporizer and cigarettes, respectively. So by the time we sauntered into the lavish buffet, the only available table was to the side and slightly to the back of the stage, where a jazz trio of two guitarists and a double bassist performed. We noshed and naively chatted about other jazz combos we’d heard in restaurants and relegated the music to the background, but soon found ourselves drawn in. The three of us became riveted by the remarkable technique and splendid playing of the elderly guitarist seated just an arm’s length

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away. Due to our location, we couldn’t really see his face, but he had a shock of curly white hair, gnarled knuckles, and an infectious grin as he formed fat jazz chords and deftly picked standards on an older Martin 00-18 flattop. Back on the patio, after the music had ended and as the players packed their gear, I bumped into Martin historian Dick Boak and learned the name of the jazz player: John Pisano. Yeah, that John Pisano. AKA the 83-year-old Godfather of Jazz Guitar, who played on sessions with Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett and Herb Alpert and Joe Pass and Barbra Streisand and still performs with his wife, Jeanne, as the Flying Pisanos (the younger guitarist in the trio was Jim Fox, the bassist Dave Smith). The other guests headed for the bus to return to their hotels, but ever the adoring fan, I strolled back into the dining room and approached John, who graciously took a few moments to share his thoughts about jazz, guitars, and NAMM. And that’s the kind of unexpected encounter that happens sometimes at the world’s largest musical-instrument trade show, far from the roaring crowd, the din of those endless drum solos, and that sprawling candy store that inhabits the exhibition floor. —Greg Cahill, editorial director

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10 April 2015

Except where otherwise noted, all contents ©2015 Stringletter, David A. Lusterman, Publisher.

JAY BLAKESBERG PHOTO

OPENING ACT

Jackie Greene THE FILLMORE SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA NOVEMBER 29, 2014

AcousticGuitar.com 11

FOUR MORE ELLIOTT SMITH TRIBUTE ALBUMS

NEWS

CRACKERFARM PHOTO

Various Artists The String Quartet Tribute to Elliott Smith (2004) Released a year after Smith’s suicide, this string tribute album arranges his most popular songs for violin, viola, and cello.

THE BEAT

Various Artists A Tribute to Elliott Smith (2005) Underground artists deliver wide-ranging interpretations of Smith’s songs, plus originals inspired by his work.

Twilight

Seth Avett and Jessica Lea Mayfield pay tribute to Elliott Smith BY WHITNEY PHANEUF

welve years after his death, seminal indie singer-songwriter Elliott Smith’s fans continue to celebrate his songwriting. This time it’s Seth Avett, of the Avett Brothers, and altcountry singer Jessica Lea Mayfield bringing new life to Smith’s songs on their tribute album, Seth Avett & Jessica Lea Mayfield Sing Elliott Smith, out March 17. “It only exists because me and Jessica love Elliott Smith songs,” Avett says in a video trailer for the album. “Even if the topics are dark sometimes, there’s still a joy to singing them. It’s very different than anything I’ve ever done, the nature of it being a cover record.” Mayfield, who has frequently opened for the Avett Brothers, adds: “Anyone who’s an Elliott Smith fan takes the lyrics and relates them to

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themselves. When Seth is singing, I forget for a moment that they’re Elliott Smith songs, and when I’m singing them, it’s the same thing. I’m singing the lyrics as if it were my own song.” Avett and Mayfield spent three years working on the 12-song record, which includes covers of “Between the Bars,” “Somebody That I Used to Know,” and “Baby Britain.” “It speaks toward the importance of the project to both of us that we made the time to get it done. It’s a Frankenstein of a project, made up of a lot of different sessions in a lot of different locations,” Avett says. “There was nothing insincere about it.” The duo will tour behind the album this spring, with stops in New York, Nashville, Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.

Various Artists To Elliott, From: Portland (2006) The Decemberists, the Helio Sequence, the Thermals, and other Portland musicians cover 15 of his songs.

PORTLAND CELLO PROJECT

Portland Cello Project To E.S. (2014) The genre-bending string outfit significantly reworks six Elliott Smith songs, pairing them with six commissioned works.

GARTH BROOKS SURPASSES ELVIS IN U.S. SOLO SALES “The King” is no longer the reigning king of record sales. Once again, country megastar and acoustic guitar enthusiast Garth Brooks is the best-selling solo artist in U.S. history, taking the title away from Elvis Presley, according to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Brooks’ 2014 album Man Against Machine, which was certified platinum, helped inch his total sales to 135 million, just above Presley’s 134.5 million. Brooks first out-sold the King in 2000 and previously held the title in November 2007. Billy Joel is the third bestselling solo artist with 81.5 million albums sold. The Beatles remain the best-selling act of all time, according to the RIAA, with 178 million albums sold.

RCA PHOTO

Left Bill Thompson Right Jefferson Airplane

Jefferson Airplane and Hot Tuna Manager Bill Thompson Dies ormer Jefferson Airplane, Starship, and Hot Tuna manager Bill Thompson died January 12 of a heart attack in Mill Valley, Calif., where he lived, at the age of 70. Though Thompson didn’t become the Airplane’s manager until 1968, he had actually been part of the group’s world since their

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formation in 1965, when they were still very much a folk-rock group. Thompson had a role in convincing the San Francisco Chronicle’s main music critic, Ralph Gleason, to check out the Airplane; Gleason’s glowing review helped the Airplane become the first of the new wave of San Francisco bands to get signed by a major record label, RCA. When the first Airplane spin-off emerged in 1969, Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady’s Hot Tuna, Thompson became their manager and landed them a deal with RCA. Their live acoustic debut album is still rightly regarded a classic. AG

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AcousticGuitar.com 13

NEWS SPOTLIGHT

Rez Abbasi

A Different Light

Rez Abbasi re-invents ’70s jazz-rock classics in an acoustic setting BY MARC GREILSAMER

here was a time not long ago when the “f-word”—fusion—was considered dirty among “serious” jazz musicians. For the most part, that dismissive attitude has all but disappeared; jazz-rock is now largely considered a legitimate link in the chain of jazz history, and many of the genre’s finest moments have taken their rightful place in the book of jazz standards. As evidence, look no further than Intents and Purposes, the new album by the Rez Abbasi Acoustic Quartet (RAAQ), which features Bill Ware on vibes, Stephan Crump on bass, and Eric McPherson on drums. For the RAAQ project, Abbasi leaves behind his cherished D’Angelico NYSS-3B semihollow-body archtop for the sound of the steel-string acoustic. In doing so, he gives an acoustic voice to several pillars of electric jazz fusion. “I knew it would recast the music in a different light altogether,” Abbasi says.

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FILLING THE VOID For Abbasi, this is no nostalgia-laden endeavor. “There was this hole in my jazz education, where I didn’t really hear much of the fusion coming from the ’70s,” he says. “At about 15 or 16, I had been playing a lot of prog-rock music in garage bands—Rush, Yes, and groups like this—and I would listen to King Crimson. When I was 16, the jazz bug bit me. That was based on acoustic music—Charlie Parker, 14 April 2015

Coltrane, and this kind of stuff. When someone finally introduced me to fusion, it was too reminiscent of what I had just left.” Inspired, in part, by this “void” in his musical history, Abbasi decided to tackle a range of fusion classics from the likes of Herbie Hancock, Return to Forever, Weather Report, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Billy Cobham, Larry Coryell, Pat Martino, and the Tony Williams Lifetime. Using Spotify as his musical library and his primary tool in the vetting process, he pored over hours of jazz-rock history before settling on eight touchstones—a discovery process he calls “overwhelming.”

‘I feel like myself on both acoustic and electric; the vocabulary doesn’t change.’ “Because there was no nostalgia in this process, I benefited from that,” Abbasi says. “There were no extra musical experiences attached to these tunes. It was all about present-day aesthetics—what I’m hearing right now. It wasn’t like, ‘Oh, yeah, I remember I heard this tune in high school, I gotta play that.’ It cleared the slate for a purely musical reason.”

For some of his band members, however, this is seminal music. “As with many in my generation,” Ware says, “this music was a bridge between rock, from my youth, and jazz, as I matured as an artist. As I reached my teenage years and began playing in bands, it was all rock—because that’s what everyone around me played. As I became more interested in instrumental music, I was drawn to jazz-rock. The songs on this record are very familiar to me, as they were some of my favorite tunes when I was in high school.” ATTACK & POP Most players know that switching over to acoustic guitar presents a number of challenges. “Projection is more difficult on acoustic, especially within a band situation,” Abbasi says. “Also, I think the tone of an acoustic is more difficult to work with because there’s no manipulation of electronics—it’s just a pick, your fingers, and the guitar. You really have to work around that.” Still, Abbasi’s playing style remains relatively constant. “I feel like myself on both acoustic and electric; the vocabulary doesn’t change,” he says. “Any instrument you pick up is going to influence you and inspire you in a different way, but essentially, my persona is still completely there.” Abbasi’s weapon of choice for his acoustic project is a thinline Guild Songbird he picked up at Matt Umanov’s shop in New York almost two decades ago. So enamored was he of the Guild that he traded in a “semi-expensive Martin” to get it. “I didn’t care, because this thing was magical,” he remembers, describing its tone as “childlike and idiosyncratic. . . . It sounds like no other guitar I ever played.” When going acoustic, Abbasi stays committed to steel-string instruments. “I feel like nylon-strings is the default that a lot of jazz guys go to when they switch from electric to acoustic. I really like the attack and the pop of the steel-string.” To add a bit of Eastern flair, Abbasi, who is intimately familiar with instruments like the oud and sarod, makes use of a fretless steel-string—an old custom-shop Washburn that recently had its frets removed by Matt Brewster of 30th Street Guitars. For Coryell’s “Low-Lee-Tah,” he created a duo arrangement with just his Songbird and a Korean-made Gold Tone baritone. “Rez’s arrangement choices are exciting,” Ware says, “because he doesn’t just play it the way they were recorded by the original artists. Instead, he allows the arrangement to form organically out of the approaches and unique voices of the specific players.” Adds Abbasi, “All I wanted really was to distill the skeleton of the tunes, essentially the compositions. I wanted no part in any other aspect of the music. I wanted the group to interpret them as we are, as musicians now.” AG

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S R Y E A T I L P R T W A G N SO TE D RAA O TE B LLAO CRE O T SC U R YLAN O D D U BA O B RO OLD B T E RN AR OD 26-YE M W 5 HE HO ITH T W

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Marcus Mumford, left, Rhianna Giddens, T Bone Burnett, Elvis Costello, Jim James, and Taylor Goldsmith.

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lvis Costello was a teenager in London in 1968 when several UK hit songs piqued his interest: “The Mighty Quinn,” by Manfred Mann; “This Wheel’s on Fire,” by Julie Driscoll; and “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere,” by the Byrds. All were written by Bob Dylan, but his original versions were not well-known until the release of The Basement Tapes in 1975. That album, of course, consisted of sessions Dylan had recorded with the Band years before, in 1967. “I was attracted to the mood of those songs, because I loved the Band and I loved [Dylan’s] John Wesley Harding,” says Costello. “Those records are the product of the work shopping that they were doing.” The recently released six-disc set The Basement Tapes Complete (Columbia/Legacy) documents how Dylan, Robbie Robertson, Rick Danko, Richard Manuel, Garth Hudson, and Levon Helm worked up well over 100 songs in Dylan’s den and in the basement of the house they called Big Pink. “You hear a group of musicians trying stuff out,” Costello says, “fooling around, playing half-finished songs, songs that sound like they’ve been made up on the spot, covers by other people.” Those lo-fi demos, never intended for public release, have been a touchstone for generations of rock and roots musicians. Last year, Costello was one of five artists given the extraordinary opportunity to extend the legacy of that era of Dylan’s songwriting, thanks to the discovery of a box of forgotten lyrics he wrote at the time of the Basement Tapes sessions. Dylan’s publisher shared the lyrics with producer T Bone Burnett, who in turn invited Costello, along with Marcus Mumford (Mumford and Sons), Jim James (My Morning Jacket), Taylor Goldsmith (Dawes), and Rhiannon Giddens (Carolina Chocolate Drops), to write new songs based on Dylan’s words, and to record them as an ad-hoc band. The result is Lost on the River: The New Basement Tapes, which, apart from its Dylanological significance, is simply a great album—frisky and fun, stylistically varied yet unified, too. The five artists not only rose to the challenge of making songs from Dylan’s 47-year-old scribbling, but they stayed true to the freewheeling spirit of the original basement sessions. “It was our good fortune that these lyrics came to light and we were given them to play with,” says Costello. “It was a playground.” AcousticGuitar.com 19

SETTING THE STAGE It’s hard to imagine a better guide for The New Basement Tapes than Burnett, who played in Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Revue in the ’70s and has helped shape the contemporary Americana scene as producer of such albums as Gillian Welch’s Revival, Alison Krauss and Robert Plant’s Raising Sand, and the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack. When presented with the lost Dylan lyrics, Burnett’s first thought was to not think too much. “I decided not to analyze it or break it apart, but just find some collaborators who could relate to it spontaneously,” he says. “I didn’t want to get a lot of ideas.” Burnett wanted to assemble a diverse group of songwriters who could also back each other on multiple instruments. He had worked with Mumford, Giddens, and his longtime friend Costello at a 2013 concert celebrating the music of the Coen Brothers’ movie Inside Llewyn Davis (for which Burnett was music supervisor), and saw them as natural collaborators. He felt similarly about James, who had already been through the same process, creating new songs from Woody Guthrie lyrics for the 2012 album New Multitudes. Mumford suggested bringing in Goldsmith, whom Burnett describes as an “allaround threat” with his chops on guitar, bass, keyboard, and vocals. Unlike Dylan and the Band, who in 1967 were hanging out in Woodstock and made The Basement Tapes over the course of a year or so, the biggest window of time that Burnett could find to get his busy artists together was 12 days. The tight schedule ruled out recording in a house that would have to be set up from scratch, so the sessions were booked instead at the expansive Capitol Studios, on the lower level of the Capitol Records tower in Hollywood. “It was a basement, too,” Burnett says with a chuckle, “so it had that going for it.” Burnett supplied the songwriters with transcriptions of the Dylan lyrics in advance, so they could work up ideas to bring to the sessions. Once in the studio, Burnett wanted everyone to do what Dylan and the Band did,

swapping instruments as they wrote, arranged, and recorded on the fly. With all the musicians working off the same set of lyrics, the sessions could have felt like a songwriting competition to see whose version of a particular lyric would get picked for the album. The best strategy, Burnett decided after a slow first day in which they recorded just one song, was to record all of the ideas that everybody had and sort through them later. “So we put the pedal to the metal and started working fast,” he says. The group wound up recording 48 songs in the 12 days they worked together. And out of those 48 tracks, Burnett picked 20 for the album. “Because T Bone made the decision to record everything, we didn’t know what was going to happen with these recordings, and nobody really cared,” Giddens says. “It was just like, ‘We’re making awesome music. Let’s make as much as we can.’”

‘We’re making awesome music—let’s make as much as we can.’

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FOLLOW THE LYRICS Keeping the sessions fast and loose was appropriate for the spirit of Dylan’s lyrics. “The words are very playful from that time,” Goldsmith says. “It’s not like he’s trying to get after ‘Visions of Johanna’ or ‘Chimes of Freedom’ or stuff like that. It’s really like, ‘What’s a good way for us all to have a good time today?’” The silliness heard in original Basement Tapes songs like “Lo and Behold” and “Tiny Montgomery” (Costello calls them “drunken pirate songs”) carries over to The New Basement Tapes on songs such as “Married to My Hack” and “Card Shark.” Costello recalls performing Goldsmith’s “Card Shark” at a concert in Los Angeles after the album release, with everyone off mic and harmonizing in the footlights. “There’s a line in it that says, ‘Stick it in the rear and roar for a bit / And waddle down the road like a brick,’ and we all had difficulty getting to the next chorus without bursting out laughing,” Costello says. “There’s nothing wrong with playing with words for sheer mischief. You don’t always have to be looking for some kind of deep and hidden meaning in the song.” Not all the lyrics are so irreverent. “Spanish Mary,” written in the stark style of a traditional ballad, builds to the haunting couplet, “Beggar man, beggar man, tell me no lie / Is it a mystery to live or is it a mystery to die?” That song was a natural for Giddens, the most tradoriented artist of the group, who accompanied her interpretaton on a 19th-century-style minstrel banjo. The low-and-lonesome album opener, “Down on the Bottom,” ponders being

JAMES O’MARA PHOTO

voice trilling over an insistent rhythm reminiscent of “The Other One” by the Grateful Dead. More examples of such contrasts can be seen in the Showtime documentary about the sessions, Lost Songs: The Basement Tapes Continued.

‘We weren’t seeking [Dylan’s] endorsement or approval.’ ELVIS COSTELLO

In the basement, at Capitol Records in Hollywood: James (from left), Costello, Mumford, Goldsmith, Giddens.

“down to the last drop in the cup” and got an R&B treatment by James, while “Kansas City” is a rueful farewell to a fickle lover that Mumford (with an assist from Goldsmith on some of the chord changes) turned into a folk-rock anthem. EDITING DYLAN One of the keys to the project was that the artists could edit the lyrics however they wanted. Dylan himself was strictly hands off. “We weren’t seeking his endorsement or approval,” Costello says. “I think it would be very strange for him to get involved, as somebody who’s moving forward all the time.” Editing and adaptation were necessary in many cases. Some lyrics were incomplete or in progress, as became obvious when the songwriters got to examine the original handwritten pages. “You could see where things had been crossed out and where there were alternate rhymes and word choices and things like that,” says Costello. “That made you feel that these were in an unedited state, so you could do a little work of your own.”

WHAT THEY PLAYED IN THE BASEMENT Among the sundry instruments used on The New Basement Tapes sessions were these, from Costello’s collection:

Within the group, the songwriters often came to very different conclusions about how to make a lyric work. A case in point, Costello says, is “Lost on the River”: James’ version (not on the CD) included every word Dylan wrote. Giddens reduced the original lyrics somewhat and also changed the gender, while Costello added a verse to complete a story he felt was implied. With all those editorial changes, the artists tried to retain the voice and intent of Dylan’s words. With “Liberty Street,” Goldsmith found he had to move some lines around and add a few words (for instance, he wrote “another victim of the heat” in order to rhyme with the title phrase). But, he says, “I didn’t want to make it about words that I was writing. I just wanted a little bit of glue to hold it together.” Even when the songwriters used the exact same words, it’s fascinating to hear how differently they interpreted them. On the album, James’ “Hidee Hidee Ho” is light and swingy, while the version by Giddens and Costello is decidedly darker, with Giddens’ opera-trained

Costello’s ’60s-era Fender Jazzmaster 1954 Gibson J160E 1936 Gibson Super 400 with DeArmond pickup

LETTING GO Since the release of The New Basement Tapes, the artists have returned to their own bands and projects. But the creative lessons of that unique collaboration linger on. Even for Costello, who has one of the most wide-ranging songwriting resumés in contemporary music, the group experience was unlike any other. “The pleasure of doing it in a cooperative endeavor like this with other songwriters was to not have the arrogance to say, ‘Well, this is how it goes and this is definitive’—because nothing’s definitive,” Costello says. “There are all these other versions. So that really changed the nature. I couldn’t compare it to writing songs with Allen Toussaint or Burt Bacharach or Paul McCartney or anyone else I’ve ever written with.” For Goldsmith, the sessions were a reminder of “how fun recording and music can and should be. We really learned how to let go and not worry too much about how good something is going to be or how to cultivate our own comfort zones. I feel like the result ended up being so great because of that. It’s very easy to get precious about records that you make, and the music is often better served not to do that.” Giddens was so moved by the experience that, right before the sessions ended, she stayed up all night writing a song about it. The track, “Angel City,” closes her new solo album, Tomorrow Is My Turn, which was produced by Burnett. She says that making music with Costello, Mumford, James, and Goldsmith, with Burnett’s gentle encouragement, transformed how she looks at songwriting. “Sometimes you have to just do,” Giddens says. “Later maybe you go, ‘This was not a good song—I’m going to tear it up now,’ but when you’re in the act of creating, you can’t secondguess yourself because then you just stop the creativity. With The New Basement Tapes, there was so much creating going on, you had to just rip away that self-consciousness. That was a really great opportunity, because I think as an artist, eventually you have to kick that to the curb in anything that you do.” AG

1938 Martin 000-28 1958 Gretsch 6120 tenor electric Vintage Gibson Super 400 with Johnny Smith pickup Recent Gibson L-00

Vintage Framus 12-string acoustic (bought during session) 1956 Fender Mandocaster 1938 Gibson tenor ukulele

1967 Harmony Sovereign Deluxe Jumbo H1265 AcousticGuitar.com 21

HIS BACK PAGES O

ne day in 1963, multi-instrumentalist Bruce Langhorne brought a Turkish frame drum to a recording session with Bob Dylan at the Columbia Recording Studio in New York City. The instrument didn’t make it onto the album, The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, but it made a big impression on Dylan, who was starting to write his own songs. “He had this gigantic tambourine,” wrote Dylan in the liner notes to Biograph, identifying Langhorne as the inspiration for “Mr. Tambourine Man,” which he initially wrote for Another Side of Bob Dylan (1964) but released on Bringing It All Back Home (1965). “It was, like, really big. It was as big as a wagon wheel. He was playing, and this vision of him playing this tambourine just stuck in my mind.” Fifty years later, Bob Dylan is, well, still Bob Dylan, and “Mr. Tambourine Man” remains one 22 April 2015

STUDIO GUITAR LEGEND BRUCE LANGHORNE IS THE REAL MR. TAMBOURINE MAN BY KENNY BERKOWITZ

of the high points of his career, his only number one hit, thanks to a 1965 cover recorded by the Byrds. But despite a long list of accomplishments, Langhorne has largely been forgotten, living out his days in Venice, California, too ill to walk along the beach. He hasn’t played guitar since having a stroke in 2006, and though he selfreleased an album of solo demos in 2011, called Tambourine Man, his mind is less focused on those early sessions than it is on Archimedes, Albert Einstein, and mortality. “At one point, I was like Mr. Guitar in Greenwich Village,” says Langhorne, talking by telephone on this 50th anniversary of the song’s release. “I got to play gospel, I got to play Irish folk music, I got to play everything. And one of the things I got to do was play music with this kid Bob Dylan.”

IT TAKES A VILLAGE Growing up in Harlem, Langhorne played violin as a child, but stopped at 12 after losing two and a half fingers on his right hand in a fireworks accident. Instead, he took up acoustic guitar, and though he could only pick with his middle, ring, and pinky fingers, he developed a call-andresponse style that relied on subtlety, quietly embellishing the melody, and voicing two or three notes at a time, each one perfectly placed. By the time Dylan arrived in New York, Langhorne was already the guitarist of choice at Gerde’s Folk City, the center of Greenwich Village’s folk scene, where he would accompany multiple singers in any given night’s hootenanny. That’s how he met Dylan, along with fellow folkies Eric Andersen, Joan Baez, Richard and Mimi Fariña, Richie Havens, Carolyn Hester, Gordon Lightfoot, Fred Neil,

collaborating on the soundtrack to Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid (1973), Dylan and Langhorne never played together again. “Bobby was one of those people—his intent was very strong,” said Langhorne in 1998, describing those early sessions in an interview for Martin Scorcese’s film documentary No Direction Home. “I like to call somebody’s intent their thread. He would generate a thread from the beginning of his song to the end of his song that you could really latch onto, either as a listener or as an accompanist. And I would latch onto his thread and I knew what he was going to do. That’s the telepathic part. I had some idea of what he was going to do before he’d do it. Before he did it. Even if I’d never heard the material before.”

SESSIONS For years, it seemed as though Langhorne had played with everyone. Before and after those Dylan sessions, he recorded with Joan Baez, Harry Belafonte, the Chad Mitchell Trio, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, Richard and Mimi Fariña, Hugh Masekela, Odetta, Babatunde Olatunji, Tom Rush, and John Sebastian. He was at the epicenter of change in the folk world, back at a time when session guitarists simply showed up ready to improvise, and an album could be recorded in a single day, or even in a few hours. There were too many sessions to remember, even when Langhorne’s mind was still sharp, but in the years since his stroke, his memories tend to either blur together or disappear entirely.

‘As a species, we are mandated to do certain things, and one of those things is to make a joyous noise unto the Lord.’ BRUCE LANGHORNE

Left Langhorne with the drum he says inspired “Mr. Tambourine Man” Below Bruce performs with Odetta at the March on Washington, 1963

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and Buffy Sainte-Marie. In 1961, as the music reached the recording studios, Langhorne was there, first with the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem on their major-label debut, and next with Hester on an album that featured a young Dylan on harmonica, playing his first recording session. Langhorne didn’t think much of Dylan’s chops, but felt a “telepathic” connection with him—once Dylan began writing songs, Langhorne’s opinion changed. “He can’t sing for shit, but he’s a great poet,” says Langhorne. “Even though I love him very much, I don’t think he can sing. I mean, I didn’t realize what a great poet he was until I started to really listen to some of the stuff that he was writing. Then I was impressed.” He rejoined Dylan in the studio for The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan (1963), playing on a version of “Corrina Corrina” that was released as the B-side of a single featuring the nonalbum track “Mixed Up Confusion,” on which Langhorne also played. Next came Bringing It All Back Home (1965), where Dylan officially transformed folk into folk-rock, with Langhorne playing on every cut, contributing epochal performances to “She Belongs to Me,” “Love Minus Zero/No Limit,” and “Mr. Tambourine Man.” “It was a gig for me,” he says, talking about Bringing It All Back Home. “I was getting paid for playing guitar—in New York. How phenomenal is that? Getting paid was a big deal. Getting paid doing something that I enjoyed was a big deal. Being paid enough to live on as a musician in New York was a big deal. It was fun to get paid. It was fun to write music. It was fun to work with really incredibly talented people. But what is fun? The bottom line is I was a musician in New York City, getting paid to do what I would have had to do anyway.” Langhorne had already electrified Dylan’s sound when he installed a pickup on his 1920 Martin 1-21 and plugged into a Fender Twin to record “Mixed Up Confusion” (that single was released on Dec. 14, 1962, more than two years before Dylan famously “went electric” at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival). The historic Martin is now owned by collector Maple Byrne, Emmylou Harris’ guitar tech. At the 1963 March on Washington, Langhorne stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial alongside the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil-rights heavyweights. He was there to accompany folk singer Odetta as she sang for the 300,000 people who came to watch King deliver his famous “I Have a Dream” speech. The following winter, Dylan and Langhorne performed “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue” on the late-night Les Crane Show, but by summertime, after the notorious electric set at the Newport Folk Festival, Dylan’s transition to rock was complete. Langhorne was replaced by electric bluesman Michael Bloomfield, who was replaced by Robbie Robertson, and apart from

AcousticGuitar.com 23

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daddario.com/alwaystrue 24 April 2015

Bruce, left, with Carolyn Hester, Bob Dylan, Bill Lee

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On this early winter day, instead of answering questions about Dylan, Langhorne, now 76, talks about Odetta’s cover of “Masters of War”—“I was very happy and proud to be able to play with her”—or Belafonte—“Harry has always been an outspoken political voice, and I was flattered to assist him”—or the state of the natural world —“There’s a huge battle taking place between marsupials and placentals for domination of the surface of planet Earth.” He recorded a few songs on his own, but they never materialized into an album, and as folk-rock turned into rock, Langhorne went on to score soundtracks for Peter Fonda’s The Hired Hand (1971), Idaho Transfer (1973), and Outlaw Blues (1977); Bob Rafelson’s Stay Hungry (1976); and Jonathan Demme’s Fighting Mad (1976), Melvin and Howard (1980), and Swing Shift (1984). “Just occasionally you come across these geniuses. Bruce Langhorne was one,” Demme has said. “These people all tend to work in the same way: They respond instinctively to the visual image. I still remember the insane thrill of being with Bruce in his apartment, with his guitar and other instruments, and looking at scenes from Melvin and Howard. He was playing things and I was just saying, ‘Oh my God, that’s amazing.’ Bruce Langhorne has done some of the most beautiful scoring that I have ever been involved with, or ever known.” Writing for film meant expanding into other sounds, other genres, and other instruments, especially keyboards, and by the ’90s, he was multitracking solo demos at home, mostly driven by African and Afro-Caribbean rhythms. “Chihuahua” is sung from the point of view of a jealous pooch; “Subaru” is about a woman who loves Langhorne’s car more than she does Langhorne; and “Perfect Love” is the story of the Garden of Eden, told through a conversation with God. They’re joyful, infectious, and full of

life, just like the portrait of Langhorne that graces the bottle of his own Brother Bru-Bru’s hot sauce, the pied piper who used to lead a musical parade along Venice Beach. “As a species, we are mandated to do certain things, and one of those things is to make a joyous noise unto the Lord,” Langhorne says. “What is the most joyous noise that I can think of? It’s the sound of children laughing. But that’s just what I think. As I get older and older, as I get closer and closer to death, I get to realize that what I think is sometimes completely wrong. And my bottom-line answer always has to be, ‘Oh.’” Langhorne says he still has the tambourine, bought at the Folklore Center in Greenwich Village. He says it could be carried inside a cymbal case and has a ring of small bells hanging along the inside of the rim. Longtime friends remember the guitarist for his hearty laugh, for being the kind of musician you’d gladly follow through the jingle-jangle morning. But what does it mean now to be Mr. Tambourine Man? “I’ve also been called Mr. Fuckhead,” Langhorne says. “It’s just another name.” It was a great compliment, wasn’t it, to have inspired someone like that? “It certainly was.” Do you like the song? “I like other pieces of music more.” Like what? “‘The Well-Tempered Clavier.’” If Dylan came to visit, what would you do? “I’d say, ‘Hi, Bob, how you doin’, man?’” What else? “Well, if me and Bobby Dylan actually started talking, we could probably talk for hours, and we’d wind up making each other laugh.” AG See the music for “Mr. Tambourine Man” on page 62.

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FAITH, FOLK, AND FUNNY BUSINESS FROM THE BRADY BUNCH TO TRANSPARENT— SCRIPTWRITER, SONGWRITER, AND ACOUSTIC GUITAR PLAYER FAITH SOLOWAY COMES FULL CIRCLE BY PAT MORAN

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n some ways it’s all using the same basic muscle,” Faith Soloway says. The Boston funnywoman is talking about the intersection of songwriting, acoustic guitar playing, and theater. “You’re starting with feeling, with hooks, with imagery. Be it writing a song, a musical, or a short story, the poetry is similar. The thing you need to do is get out of your way and let it happen.” As Soloway unpacks the creative process that has fueled her eclectic career—musical

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director at Chicago’s Second City, theatrical impresario of such raunchy yet open-hearted stage shows as Jesus Has Two Mommies, and acoustic-folk singer-songwriter—she almost forgets to mention her most recent gig. Soloway is a scriptwriter for Amazon’s white-hot, muchbuzzed-about serio-comedy Transparent, which was created by her younger sister, Jill. Transparent stars Jeffrey Tambor as Mort/ Maura, a retired college professor who comes out to her family as a transgendered woman.

The streaming series has been praised as both genre- and gender-bending, with critical consensus website RottenTomatoes.com applauding its “sophistication and sincere dedication to the human journey, warts and all.” In January, the show won two Golden Globe awards: best series, and best actor in the TV comedy/musical category for Tambor. At the ceremony, Jill gave a shout-out to her and Faith’s transgender dad for inspiring them. “I want to thank you for coming out,” she said, “because in doing so, you made a break for freedom, you told your truth, you taught me how to tell my truth and make this show, and maybe we’ll be able to teach the world something about authenticity and truth and love.” Faith, a gay single mother, credits the show’s binge-watching appeal with being a “real story told with love.” Transparent is not the first time Faith and Jill have worked together to balance empathy and comedy. Growing up in Chicago, the two “were always collaborating, constantly making up songs, shows and jokes,” Faith says. “We were each other’s wingmen.”

ACOUSTIC GUITARS CAN BE FUNNY Music has always been a catalyst to Faith’s creativity. “I played cello in high school and that got me started,” she says. “I turned it sideways and played it like a four-string guitar—a jumbo cello-tar.” After learning how to play a G chord, the self-taught guitarist never looked back. She left Chicago to study theater at Indiana University. Borrowing a classmate’s classical guitar—“The classical fit me because my hands are small,” Soloway says—she played obsessively. She also started writing songs. “I was serious about songwriting, but in a way it was still goofing around,” she says. “I never thought I would perform my songs.” Soloway returned to Chicago during college break to stage a Club Med-themed production of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. She wound up landing the prestigious job of musical director at Second City, the comedy launching pad for performers ranging from Bill Murray to Stephen Colbert. After three years with the famed Chicago comedy troupe, scoring scenes and writing parody songs, she was ready to stage her

own show. Inspiration struck when the Soloway sisters watched a rerun of TV sitcom The Brady Bunch with a mutual friend who started reciting all of Jan Brady’s lines verbatim. “Jill and I got the idea to put the Brady Bunch onstage,” Soloway says. “I played the underscoring,” providing the guitar when Greg Brady “strummed” his acoustic onstage. The Real Live Brady Bunch premiered in 1990. Both the audience and theater were tiny, but Soloway recalls that the air was electric. “People weren’t just watching the show, they were erupting as they were experiencing it,” she says. “So many people had been brainwashed by that show, it hit on many different levels. The next week, there was a line around the block.” The Soloway sisters took the Bradys to New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Boston, as well as to college campuses across the country. The media buzz spawned a revival of the campy ’70s sitcom and piqued Hollywood’s interest in the Soloways. Sadly, their involvement in the 1995 cash-in, The Brady Bunch Movie, was minimal. “There was a brief moment

‘I didn’t do that three-chord strumming thing. I had to cram my fingers together to make interesting chords, and do a lot of fingerpicking and open tuning.’

Opposite Actor Jeffrey Tambor picked up a Golden Globe for his acting in ‘Transparent.’ Left Faith Soloway

where Jill and I thought we’d help write it,” Soloway says. “But the horrible truth is that this whole thing is owned by Paramount. We were borrowing their idea. We were lucky that it went as far as it did.” At loose ends in Los Angeles, Soloway rekindled her love of folk music. She borrowed guitars, started hitting open mics, and played her songs. The audience response was encouraging. “I always wanted to write songs and sing them,” Soloway says, citing Suzanne Vega as a key influence. “I fell in love with everything about her—her style, her quiet, her pain.” Tired of L.A. glitz and emboldened by Vega’s example, Soloway moved to Boston in 1994, and got serious about writing songs and playing guitar. “I didn’t know anybody, so I went to an open mic,” she says. “I was a new guitar player, but I trusted my musicianship because I played piano and cello.” Soloway took the plunge and bought the Yamaha acoustic she still owns and plays. “I had the action lowered to make it a little easier for me,” she says. “I put [an input jack] in at the base where the guitar strap goes. I learned about guitar parts as I went along. “Since my hands are small, it was hard for me to do barre chords,” she continues. “I couldn’t play in the standard way that everybody else could. I didn’t do that three-chord strumming thing. I had to cram my fingers together to make interesting chords, and do a lot of fingerpicking and open tuning. I surf the guitar with my palm, and my right hand is really percussive.” Drawing on her improv and theater days, Soloway began interspersing her songs with quirky, unfiltered humor, a quality that stood out in Boston’s often overly earnest folk scene. As she honed her act, she gained notice for her empathy as well as her diamond-hard wit. She frequently saves her sharpest comic jabs for herself. “I like to make fun of myself first,” Soloway says. “I have to make myself look the worst through the most humiliating things, so that people [feel comfortable] to join in with me.” A case in point is “Lesbo Song,” one of Soloway’s more popular tunes. The percussive, energetic folk-rocker that closes her sole studio album, 1997’s Training Wheels, celebrates Soloway’s sexual and gender identity, while at the same time poking fun at the po’-faced seriousness in the women’s music genre exemplified in the 1990s by Lilith Fair. “I don’t have a whole bunch of stuff recorded,” Soloway says. “What is great about the Boston folk scene is that there was just so much collaboration. The bad thing about it is, I was a really lazy songwriter and I would just depend on my same five songs. I could get away with doing that because I was constantly sharing bills.” To help fill the bill, Soloway “started closing shows with these little rock operas.” AcousticGuitar.com 27

MISS FOLK AMERICA Boston filmmaker and producer Ian Brownell caught Soloway’s show just as her theatrical side was reemerging. “A friend dragged me to see what he described as a ‘funny singer at Club Passim,’” Brownell remembers. “This did not fill me with excited anticipation.” The first half of the show—Soloway playing with her plugged-in band, the Faith Soloway Crisis—changed Brownell’s mind. But it was the second half of the show that blew him away. “The second half was one of her original ‘rock operas,’ in which she roped many of Boston’s best singer-songwriters and folk instrumentalists into acting in these loose original playlets,” Brownell says. “The first one I saw was called The Lez Boat, and it was hilarious.”

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“I had jumped ship,” Soloway says. “I went back to my roots and did crazy musicals.” Brownell became a key collaborator when Soloway moved her folk-rock operas, retitled “schlock operas,” out of Club Passim into larger venues. “Ian developed a creative way of shooting live—like concert-style,” Soloway says, “and we made videos for the show (Miss Folk America), which is a celebration of the folk scene. “Miss Folk America was all about girls playing guitars, so I played a lot of guitar in that show,” Soloway says. “Mary Gauthier, Kris Delmhorst, and Meghan Toohey were all a part of that production. It was a crazy show—a folk explosion.” Soloway’s multimedia schlock operas grew grander and bawdier. The casts continued to expand, pulling in Boston folk luminaries like

Catie Curtis and Mary Chapin Carpenter. Soloway reveled in the sense of community she’d created. “I like to have the most fun onstage and the most passion as possible. I love working with people,” Soloway says. “I’d rather work with people than work alone, and I find theater a religious and healing experience. I love sharing that with people.” Soloway shares that passion in her day job at Urban Improv, an educational theater program for children in fourth grade through high school that she’s been doing for more than 20 years. “It’s a choice-making curriculum that works with improv to parse out issues that kids go through, from bullying to self-esteem,” she says. Soloway still has that first Yamaha she bought, but she also plays an acoustic Takamine, an electric Gibson ES-135 semihollow body, and her current favorite, a Taylor acoustic. “The Taylor is cut better than the Yamaha, and the action is a little easier,” she says. “It has a Fishman onboard Blender [pickup system] and pearl inlay on the fretboard. It’s really pretty, and it sounds great. “I just accompanied this musical I wrote, Norbert Beany Is Action Man, and I played the Taylor for it,” Soloway adds, crediting her work in children’s musical theater with keeping her young. “It keeps me on top of where kids are, and that helps me with my writing.” That on-the-job training came in handy when sister Jill turned to Faith for help with Transparent. “I told her if the series went anywhere, I definitely wanted to be included, and she called my bluff,” Faith says. She laughs. “Jill asked, ‘Can you move here in three weeks?’ It happened that fast.” The whirlwind success of the show reminds Faith of the previous project that brought the sisters together. “The Real Live Brady Bunch is the show that really married us creatively, [and] it had this incredible word-of-mouth,” she says. “I think that’s what’s happening again with Transparent.” Currently working with Transparent’s writing team on season two, Soloway splits her time between Boston and Los Angeles. The bicoastal life and hectic pace of turning out a hit show is taxing, but Soloway finds solace in her guitar playing. “Because my life is so crazy now, it’s centering to write and to play,” she says. “It calms me down.” Will Soloway’s therapeutic, meditative playing result in a new folk album—a follow-up to Training Wheels? Soloway says that’s a distinct possibility. “I would love to record an album. I’d need to go out, do some open mics,” she says. “I’m curious to see what my set list would be after all these years, and what kind of interesting sounds I come up with. “I’m a musician first and I feel blessed to have that connection with music,” she adds. “That’s why I started writing songs in the first place.”AG

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GARY ZIMNICKI MAKES GUITARS FROM DETROIT’S ABANDONED HOUSING STOCK BY PATRICK SULLIVAN

30 April 2015

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stray yellow dog ambles through a muddy lot in what was once the heart of the Motor City, sniffs around among some orange barrels and stacks of discarded tires, then, finding nothing of value, runs off. Built in 1910 and located 500 yards from Motown’s legendary Hitsville USA studios, the two-story house that once stood in the lot at 6406 Trumbull is long gone. Like a growing number of once-beautiful homes in Detroit’s Northwest Goldberg neighborhood, the structure was knocked down to combat urban blight, but that’s where the story takes a hopeful turn. Thanks to local luthier Gary Zimnicki, the discarded floorboards and joists of 6406 Trumbull, and other homes in what is now one of the city’s most crime-ridden neighborhoods, are being recycled to make something wholly unexpected—gorgeous acoustic guitars. “Not many people who see these completely destroyed skeletal houses are probably imagining that they could be made into musical instruments,” says Zimnicki, a self-taught luthier with 30 years of experience who recently started working with reclaimed wood after a friend suggested the idea. A lifelong resident of the Detroit area, Zimnicki, 56, is the son of a factory worker who was also a talented carpenter. “My dad worked like a dog and got paid very little,” the tall, powerfully built Zimnicki recalls. “Out of necessity, he figured out how to make just about anything we needed.” Having grown up some ten miles from Northwest Goldberg, Zimnicki had a veritable front-row seat as his hometown slid into neglect and decay. Once the richest city in America, Detroit has lost more than half its population since 1950. It now has some 70,000 abandoned structures that attract arsonists, drug dealers, and feral dogs, but Zimnicki is hopeful the city can rebound. “I don’t want to sound New Age-y or anything, but it helps to have a connection with the material you’re using,” Zimnicki says as he stands next to a row of instruments hanging from the ceiling of his crowded workshop. For all Detroit has endured, its residents retain a strong sense of connection to the past, which can make the demolition of the city’s once coveted residences that much more difficult to watch. “My mom was one of the last to move out of the neighborhood and was very stubborn about giving up her home,” says Linda Hernandez Mangum, the daughter of 85-year-old Alice Hernandez, the last owner of 6406 Trumbull. If not for Reclaim Detroit, a nonprofit organization that dismantles vacant structures to recover materials for reuse, the remains of Hernadez’s home may never have found their way into Zimnicki’s guitars, ukuleles, and mandolins. “Gary’s work gets people interested in what we’re doing here,” says Jeremy Haines, Reclaim Detroit’s sales director. “Seeing a guitar made

Gary Zimnicki

from this wood is an eye-opening experience. People say, ‘That instrument came out of a house? How does that work?’” Haines was a bit surprised himself when Zimnicki first called. “I said, ‘We don’t have exotic woods here—it’s just lumber, man,’” he recalls. But as they talked, Haines realized how suitable the wood was for Zimnicki’s purposes.

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he houses Reclaim Detroit deconstructs typically date back to the building boom of the 1910s and ’20s. They were built with lumber from trees that may have been hundreds of years old. “Old growth? Check. Air dried? Check,” Haines says. “He does need quarter-sawn boards, which are a little challenging to find sometimes. But we’ve got them.” Zimnicki has spent hours carefully sorting through piles of maple floorboards in the hunt for usable pieces. Perhaps the biggest challenge is finding boards without cracks. “I don’t mind nail holes though, because they can be filled and they serve as a reminder of where the wood originated,” he explains.

The wood is much harder than freshly milled maple. “It’d be an exaggeration to say it’s like cutting steel, but it’s definitely a lot more effort to push it through the table saw,” Zimnicki says. The fact that this wood has been air-drying for many decades means there has been ample opportunity for intercellular water to work its way out in ways that kiln drying can’t achieve. And that, Zimnicki feels, helps explain why musicians really like these instruments. “I’m writing it off to the age of the wood,” he says. “It does something to the sound.” That’s echoed by Tom Roach, former president of the Classical Guitar Society of Michigan, who just commissioned Zimnicki to make a classical guitar out of reclaimed wood. The wood from these houses, Roach feels, has stood the test of time. And, he says, it sounds great. “I’m in the market for a classical guitar,” says Roach, who lives in the Detroit area. “But I played the steel-string and said, ‘Oh, wow. He’s made something really remarkable here.’” Crafted from wood pulled from the remains of the Trumbull house, Zimnicki’s steel-string AcousticGuitar.com 31

‘Seeing a guitar made from this wood is an eye-opening experience. People say, “That instrument came out of a house? How does that work?”’ JEREMY HAINES, RECLAIM DETROIT

32 April 2015

model features a soundboard made with Douglas fir from a ceiling joist. The back and sides are made from maple floor boards, alternating with thin strips of black walnut from a local tree. To date, Zimnicki has constructed ten instruments with wood purchased from Reclaim Detroit. Since debuting them at 2013’s Healdsburg Guitar Festival, and being featured on a PBS NewsHour segment in July, hundreds of people from around the country have inquired about purchasing their own piece of Detroit. The rising demand for his guitars aside, Zimnicki says that crafting these instruments is also a way of paying tribute to the craftsmen who built many of these dwellings before his parents were born. “Some of the homes were absolutely beautiful, with details that nobody puts into homes these days,” he says. “It’s nice to think about that and wonder what the people who laid the flooring a century ago would have to say if they saw what I was doing with it.” Word of Reclaim Detroit’s promising raw materials is definitely starting to spread. A Detroit musician named Mark Wallace has begun using this wood to make solid-body guitars, and artisans from around the world are contacting the nonprofit, with orders coming in from as far away as Japan. “There’s a huge thirst for this stuff,” Haines says. “It’s about the story of the city. People say, ‘I’ve heard about what’s going on in Detroit, and this is inspiring.’” That helps explain why Reclaim Detroit is moving soon to a larger, more central location. The hope, Haines says, is to begin supplying products to furniture manufacturers and other large companies. Scaling up will divert more material from landfills. And it will provide much-needed jobs. Lee Powell, 34, has worked for Reclaim Detroit for two years. He appreciates the paycheck and the chance to learn woodworking skills. And he’s seen empty houses contribute to crime in his own neighborhood in southwest Detroit. Still, taking houses apart is tough work. And it can be profoundly sad. “I found newspapers in one place from 1918,” Powell says. “It really gets you thinking about how old these houses are, how many people lived in them. And it makes you wonder. Where are they now?”

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ake no mistake, Northwest Goldberg can still be a dangerous place. The murder rate is almost eight times the national average, according to data compiled by the National Association of Realtors. “Rough ain’t the word,” says Daniel Ross, a tattooed construction worker helping to renovate an old bar on Trumbull. “It gets crazy here sometimes. But it’s definitely coming up. That’s why we’re fixing up this place.” Thomas Habitz, an urban planning specialist with Henry Ford Health System, which has a hospital complex just north of Trumbull, says that crime and safety problems tied to the vacant structures have diminished. “The area is quieter, waiting for development and investment,” he says. “It doesn’t look great yet by any means, but our goal is to have a completely blight-free neighborhood and add hundreds of jobs over the next 20 years.” To that end, Henry Ford Health System bought about 200 neglected properties in the neighborhood, and has partnered with Reclaim Detroit and other contractors to tear down about 75 structures. “A lot of these homes were occupied by drug dealers and squatters,” Habitz says. “A number of the garages had stolen cars in them.” With many more homes slated for demolition, Zimnicki sees even more opportunity to come, both as a luthier and a Detroit resident. “There is still a lot to be done, but at least the downtown area seems to be getting pretty well established with new businesses,” Zimnicki says. “Part of that path is removing the 70,000 vacant, decaying structures, which means there should be a pretty good supply of floor boards and ceiling joists for a lot of years to come.” For many people in the community, the work Zimnicki and Reclaim Detroit do serves as an important reminder that there was a successful city here even before the auto industry’s heyday. After all, when the Trumbull house was built, the city was considered the Paris of the Midwest—a capital of culture. In musical terms, that distinction was repeated in the 1960s, when artists like Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, and Diana Ross recorded hit records and meticulously honed their stage acts under the tutelage of Motown’s Berry Gordy. “These houses were beautifully designed, and they were often made of very expensive materials,” Roach says. “Repurposing them for another artistic project seems very appropriate. It represents Detroit’s past and takes it into the future.” As for 6406 Trumbull, specifically, the fact that it now enjoys a second life as a musical instrument is icing on the cake. “Many fond memories were made in our childhood home, and it warms my heart to think that part of it lives on in the lives of others as they make music from wood used to build precious homes over a hundred years ago,” Mangum says. AG

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SPECIAL FOCUS

Old Crow Medicine Show at the 2014 MerleFest

STRINGBANDOLOGY

FROM AFRICAN-AMERICAN FIELD WORKERS TO THE GRAND OLE OPRY UP TO MERLEFEST, STRING BANDS HAVE BEEN AN IMPORTANT PART OF AMERICAN POPULAR CULTURE It’s rare that an acoustic-guitar player

Since most acoustic-guitar players also

performs in a vacuum. Sure, classical

appreciate other acoustic instruments,

guitarists can perform entire solo recitals,

Acoustic Guitar recently added a new

and singer-songwriters can record and

department (Pickin’) that offers news and

perform their music with no additional

reviews of banjos, mandolins, and all manner

accompaniment. But the rich, resonant

of other acoustic stringed instruments. With

sound of acoustic guitars becomes

the annual Merlefest coming in late April,

exponentially more interesting when you

AG’s editors have decided a special focus

add other instruments: drums, keyboards,

on string bands is in order.

electric or pedal-steel guitars . . . or, say, several other purely acoustic instruments. Enter that most historic of American ensembles: the string band.

So, grab your big ol’ dreadnought, strum a few chords or flatpick a few notes—and enjoy this issue’s journey through the glorious sounds of bluegrass and string bands.

AcousticGuitar.com 35

STRING BANDS

MERLEFEST! HOW A FAMILY GATHERING FLOWERED INTO ONE OF THE MOST INFLUENTIAL STRING-BAND FESTIVALS BY MARK SEGAL KEMP

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nder a warm Carolina blue sky in spring 1988, a flatbed truck pulled up in a grassy meadow at a community college in the southern Appalachian mountains. The truck’s bed would provide the stage for a sold-out music event—more than 1,000 people splayed out on blankets or sitting in lawn chairs brought from home. The event had piqued the interest of an equal mix of young, scraggly, long-haired hippies in tie-dye and jeans, and senior citizens clad in their Sunday-go-to-meeting best. This event—held in the tiny town of Wilkesboro, North Carolina—would come to be known as MerleFest, a folk and bluegrass showcase named in memory of the late Merle Watson, the guitar-playing son and musical partner of flatpicking guitar legend Doc Watson. The younger Watson had died tragically in a tractor accident three years earlier. “It was intended to be one time, one show, one night,” says original MerleFest executive director B Townes, a horticulture instructor at the community college. Townes had no idea how popular the festival would be for music fans starved for acoustic sounds rooted in tradition. What began as a way for Townes to raise money to improve the campus gardens—now called the Eddy Merle Watson Memorial Garden for the Senses— today attracts nearly 80,000 people a year to see up to 100 acts play on 14 stages. With its guitar and songwriting workshops and musical marketplace, MerleFest has become one of the biggest and most influential folk and bluegrass festivals in the world, and a rite of passage for new generations of string bands that have carried acoustic music into the 21st century. Acts ranging from Alison Krauss and Union Station to Nickel Creek, Old Crow Medicine Show, the Carolina Chocolate Drops, 36 April 2015

Della Mae, and many others have made their names at MerleFest. At this year’s event, to be held April 23-26, the Avett Brothers will headline the coveted Saturday night concert. For the Avetts, who first appeared on a much smaller MerleFest stage in 2004, the band’s status as headliners this year is the culmination of a dream. Banjo player Scott Avett remembers when he and his guitar-playing brother Seth first attended the festival as fans in the 1990s and witnessed life-changing performances by artists ranging from Watson and folk legend Ramblin’ Jack Elliott to then-newcomers Gillian Welch and David Rawlings. “I immediately knew that I wanted to be part of that world,” Avett says. “I had found where I belong. That was a pivotal time in our journey.” The year 1988 was a pivotal time for MerleFest—and all who love string-band music. On the bed of that flatbed truck on that spring afternoon, American music veterans, including Watson, Earl Scruggs, and Chet Atkins, played scorching sets alongside a who’s who of progressive pickers, all of whom had been inspired in some way by Doc and Merle Watson, whose very presence in the folk/bluegrass scene of the 1960s and ’70s bridged generations.

‘I immediately knew that I wanted to be part of that world. I had found where I belong.’ SETH AVETT

“This is a particularly pretty tune I did on an album called Cold on the Shoulder,” flatpicking guitarist Tony Rice said as he stepped to the microphone that day. “It’s called ‘John Hardy Was a Desperate Little Man.’” And from there, Rice, fiddler Mark O’Connor, mandolin player Sam Bush, shaggyhaired bassist John Cowan, banjo man Béla Fleck, and Dobro player Jerry Douglas—all in their 20s and 30s and full of youthful zeal—lit into the lilting traditional tune, spraying solos into the warm mountain breeze. AG

SARA BRENNAN-HARRELL PHOTO

GORDON BURNS PHOTO JIM GAVENUS PHOTO

SARA BRENNAN-HARRELL PHOTO

AUSTEN MILKULKA PHOTO

MELANIE LITCHFIELD PHOTO

Clockwise from top left Steep Canyon Rangers, The Waybacks with the T Sisters, Justin Robinson of Carolina Chocolate Drops, Steel Wheels, Holly Williams, Doc Watson

AcousticGuitar.com 37

JIM GAVENUS PHOTO

The Avett Brothers at the 2013 MerleFest

38 April 2015

STRING BANDS

The Happy Hollow String Band plays a 1976 Democratic Party rally on the back of a flatbed truck at Blue Mist Barbecue, in Asheboro, North Carolina. From left to right: Sonia Hughes Michael, Gwen Auman, Sandy Chrisco Hatley, Robin Auman Penninger.

GOODBYE EARL

HOW 5 TEENAGE GIRLS FROM NORTH CAROLINA HELPED BLAZE TRAILS FOR WOMEN IN BLUEGRASS BY MARK SEGAL KEMP

n 1975, my friend Buck Parker introduced me to the Auman sisters, two teenage bluegrass musicians who could play rings around most of the guys in our neck of North Carolina. Gwen and Robin, who played mandolin and upright bass, respectively, were members of the all-girl Happy Hollow String Band. The only other all-girl band I knew of at the time was the Runaways. I was 15. I didn’t know much back then. Today, the emergence of groups such as Della Mae has created a resurgence of chatter about all-female string bands. As if this were something new. The truth is, before Della Mae there was Uncle Earl, and before Uncle Earl, there was that little trio called the Dixie Chicks. And women have played prominent roles in numerous mixed-gender contemporary, old-time folk and string bands, from Rhonda Vincent, who started out in the 1960s as part of her family band the Sally Mountain Show, to later players, including Alison Krauss of Union Station, Sara Watkins of Nickel Creek, and Rhiannon Giddens of the Carolina Chocolate Drops.

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Though it’s not talked about nearly enough, women have been prominent in folk, country, bluegrass, and old-time string bands from the beginning—much more so than in rock ’n’ roll. The whole concept of a lead guitarist was invented by a woman, Maybelle Carter of the Carter Family, who has inspired generations of acoustic guitar players. Sally Ann Forrester became a Bluegrass “Boy” in 1943, when Bill Monroe hired her to put a little accordion into the Appalachian-music genre he created. Hazel Dickens was a powerful voice for mountain women and coal miners when she picked up a guitar and began singing bluegrass and folk protest songs in the mid-’60s. And Cynthia May Carver, better known as Cousin Emmy, wrote one of the more enduring banjo-based stringband tunes, “Ruby, Are You Mad at Your Man?” And yet, in the 21st century, some people still express surprise when women strap on guitars and banjos and form bands. As if it’s a novelty. For Gwen Auman, that’s exactly how she and her fellow members of the Happy Hollow String Band were treated: as a novelty. According to

Auman, the five teens were acutely aware early on that they were making a feminist statement. “We realized we were different, but we wanted to be accepted as musicians and not just labeled as a girl band,” Auman says. “I remember that was really important to us—you know, ‘Yeah, we’re girls, but can you accept us as musicians?’” When they came together in the early ’70s, the Happy Hollow String Band—which also included guitarist Sonia Hughes (now Michael), banjo player Sandy Crisco (now Hatley), and fiddler Karen Joyner (now Pendley)—had few peers to turn to for support. “We started out on the fiddler’s convention circuit and there were no women hardly at all,” says Auman, who still performs in bands around my hometown of Asheboro, just east of the Wilkesboro site of MerleFest. “There might have been somebody’s wife singing in a band, or maybe they’d let a woman play bass, but it was very obvious to us that this was a male-dominated thing.” The Auman sisters were lucky to have a supportive big brother, who had already navigated the bluegrass world. “My older brother, Michael, who was a member of a local bluegrass band, AcousticGuitar.com 39

the Bluegrass Gentlemen, not only taught me to play,” Gwen Auman remembers, “but he also let me play his heavenly 1969 Martin D-18.” She soon gravitated to the mandolin, purchasing a German-made Hofner and then a local luthier’s copy of a Gibson A model. “Many bluegrass players pick F-model Gibsons, but I preferred the look and sound of the A. Still do.” The Aumans’ cousin Sonia played an F-series Yamaha, and banjo player Sandy picked a ’70s-era Gibson RB-250. These days, Sandy says, “I pick a 1960s Baldwin C model that I bought during college. My middle daughter, Kellie, now picks my Gibson.” One can only hope that Kellie Hatley will join together with the growing number of players in other bands—from those still unknown to members of well-known bands such as Della Mae and the Carolina Chocolate Drops—in continuing to diversify traditional string-band music—just as Hatley’s mom and the other teenage girls of Happy Hollow so boldly did in a small Carolina town in the bell-bottom ’70s. AG For more on the role women have played in folk and bluegrass, read Murphy Hicks Henry’s Pretty Good for a Girl: Women in Bluegrass (University of Illinois Press), which documents more than 70 overlooked female players. Happy Hollow String Band From left to right: Karen Joyner Pendley, Michael, Auman, Hatley, Penninger.

40 April 2015

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COURTESY OF OLD HAT RECORDS

STRING BANDS

PICKIN’ THE BLUES HOW NEGLECT AND RACISM KEPT BLACK STRING-BAND MUSIC VIRTUALLY HIDDEN FOR DECADES

Memphis Jug Band veterans: Laura Dukes, left, Will Batts, Milton Roby, Will Shade, 1950.

BY ORVILLE JOHNSON

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he 2005 Black Banjo Gathering in Boone, North Carolina, was a giddy time for a splintered community of artists and academics. The event not only acknowledged the crucial role of African-American musicians in the historic creation and development of old-time Southern string-band music, it brought together players who were hungry to breathe new life into this rich American music tradition. Among those players were the future members of the Carolina Chocolate Drops. “One of the most important things about the Black Banjo Gathering—besides it being an academic event with a lot of great minds that were studying different aspects of the banjo as an African-derived instrument—was getting 42 April 2015

different black musicians who were interested in this type of music together,” says Dom Flemons, a founding member of the Chocolate Drops who now records as a solo artist. “That’s something that showed we had a community of people, all of us knowing we’re out there, instead of it feeling like we’re all on our own separate island.” Around that same time, an influx of youthful energy was pouring into established oldtime music festivals in North Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia. Young members of bands like Old Crow Medicine Show and the Avett Brothers were bringing raw power to both the music and dance traditions. Virtuoso players ran their fingers across fretboards with magical

dexterity, but most of the musicians participating in the jam sessions at these gatherings played their instruments at varying levels of skill. Many grew up listening to rock, pop, hiphop, or other types of music, but when they discovered old-time string bands, they were drawn in by a key element: the sense of community. “I really didn’t hear old-time music until I got into the contra-dance community,” says Rhiannon Giddens, another Chocolate Drops founder who has a solo album coming soon. “I just fell in love with the banjos, played in the clawhammer style. I’d never really heard a whole lot of that, and that was it. I was completely hooked.”

CHRIS ALBERTSON PHOTO

SEGREGATION BLUES Another cultural artifact from that period in American history is segregation, which was largely carried over into the recording industry. There are some examples of white and black string-band musicians recording together. Black fiddler Andrew Baxter joined the Georgia Yellow Hammers, a white string band, for a recording of “G Rag,” for instance; and black fiddler Jim Booker played several old-time standards including “Soldier’s Joy” and “Grey Eagle” with the white Taylor’s Kentucky Boys. For the most part, though, the companies segregated music along racial lines in the same way that Southern bathrooms and restaurants were segregated. That created separate release categories for the races, and distribution of the records accordingly to stores in black and white neighborhoods.

As this artificial segregation of music continued through the 1920s, musicians realized that if they wanted to record, they needed to change the music they played to fit the record company-driven categories. Young black musicians who had grown up playing string-band music (including players like Lonnie Johnson and Brownie McGhee) shifted their sound to the blues. The black Tennessee Chocolate Drops, featuring fiddler and mandolin player Howard Armstrong, and the Mississippi Sheiks, with brothers Bo, Sam, and Lonnie Chatmon, developed a string-band sound that relied on blues rhythms and tonalities, but they managed to sneak an occasional banjo-and-fiddle tune past the recording managers by adding the word “blues” to the song title.

Left Lonnie Johnson, 1960 Below Howard Armstrong (fiddle) and brothers L.C. (guitar), F.L. (mandolin), Roland (cello), 1925.

COURTESY OF OLD HAT RECORDS

STRING THEORY In the American melting pot, disparate elements are often thrown together and, occasionally, new and beautiful things emerge. The Southern string band is one of those things. Fiddles were part of the baggage of the ScotsIrish immigrants who populated the Southeast, and when they arrived, their traditional tunes and ballads began filling the Appalachian hills and hollers. African Americans brought the gourd banjo onto the slave ships that carried them to the Americas, and when they heard their captors’ fiddles and other European instruments, the musical styles began to blend together. Literary references to slave fiddlers date back to the early 1700s; by the 19th century, the fiddle and banjo were the two major folk instruments played by both white and black musicians throughout the South. Black players who provided the music at balls, dances, and community events for whites learned the jigs, reels, marches, and quadrilles that were the current dance favorites. But they would add the rhythms and minor tonalities of their own musical culture, and as white musicians heard these new and exciting sounds, they would incorporate them. Eventually, a sound developed that was uniquely American and specifically Southern. After the Civil War, some former slaves became professional musicians, working in traveling medicine shows, playing square dances, doing street performances, and sometimes working with white musicians as well. They spread this new sound across the country. It wasn’t until the late 19th century that guitars became more accessible and were used— along with the string bass—to fill out the banjo and fiddle tunes, establishing the format for the modern string band. Around the same time, the recording industry arrived and began putting string bands on wax. However, the racism and segregation of the times dictated that black string bands would get short shrift. Even though there were many white and black string bands, most surviving recordings are of the white ones. That imbalance is due primarily to a calculation made by record executive Ralph Peer, who worked for then-popular record labels Okeh and Victor. Peer was among the first to record folk styles, believing that if the music of certain ethnic and cultural groups was made available, there would be a market among those same groups. He and a few others in positions of power at the major record companies decided which styles would be appealing to whom, and that determined what would be recorded. Southern whites, they believed, would be more interested in “hillbilly” stringband music, and black audiences would gravitate to blues, jazz, vaudeville, and gospel. Because of this calculation, only a few recordings of black string bands are available today to reflect the breadth and influence of AfricanAmerican string-band music during its heyday.

AcousticGuitar.com 43

Even though the lack of recording opportunities reduced the commercial viability of black string bands, their impact was felt in the music of white players who had heard and performed with black musicians. Several iconic white country artists, including Bill Monroe, A.P. Carter of the Carter Family, and Hank Williams, credit African-American string-band musicians as strong inspirations and major influences. Carter would travel into the mountains of Virginia and east Tennessee on song-collecting trips with African-American guitarist Leslie Riddle, who would memorize the melodies while Carter collected lyrics and later adapted the tunes into songs that would become country and bluegrass standards, including “Hello Stranger” and “Let the Church Roll On.” Elements of Riddle’s guitar technique found their way into the combination rhythm/lead guitar style of Maybelle Carter. Bill Monroe was a young boy traveling around to square dances with his Uncle Pen Vandiver when he met African-American fiddler and blues guitarist Arnold Shultz.

‘One of the most important things about the Black Banjo Gathering was getting different black musicians who were interested in this type of music together.’ DOM FLEMONS “The first time I ever saw Arnold Shultz was at a square dance in Rosine, Kentucky,” Monroe has recounted. “Arnold and two fellows come up there and played for the dance. He was powerful with it.” Monroe went on to create and popularize bluegrass music, a driving, exciting modern synthesis of the old-time string-band sound mixed with blue notes and blazing tempos. Likewise, Rufus “Tee-Tot” Payne, an African-American 44 April 2015

guitarist, taught Hank Williams guitar chords and introduced him to blues progressions that found their way into the country legend’s classic songs such as “Mind Your Own Business” and “Honky Tonk Blues.” BRINGING IT ALL BACK HOME By the 1940s, the black string-band sound had become virtually invisible in terms of popular recordings or job opportunities besides a few isolated communities in the Southeast. It would not be until the 1970s that Joe Thompson, an African-American fiddler from North Carolina, would rekindle interest in the black string-band form and inspire young people to bring it back to life. He learned to play from his father, who had learned from his own father, a slave. Thompson, his brother Nate, and a cousin, Odell, formed a string band and played throughout North Carolina until World War II, when Thompson joined the Army. After the war, Thompson returned to the States and took a job at a furniture factory, relegating his music to a hobby. In 1973, ethnomusicology student Kip Lornell urged Thompson to begin playing again at folk-music festivals. The fiddler gathered his family band together and, as word got out among the folk-music community, he was soon invited to play at venues across the country. They wound up touring Australia, made new recordings, performed for folklorist Alan Lomax’s American Patchwork documentaries, and played Carnegie Hall in 1990 as part of its Folk Masters program. In 2007, Thompson was awarded a National Heritage Fellowship for his music. Two years earlier, three young AfricanAmerican musicians—Dom Flemons, Rhiannon Giddens, and Justin Robinson—met at the

Carolina Chocolate Drops original lineup: Giddens (from left), Robinson, and Flemons

Black Banjo Gathering. Soon thereafter, the three began visiting Thompson’s house on a weekly basis to learn his music and hear stories of the black string bands from his youth in the 1930s. “The casualness of being able to go down to his house on Thursday night and play with him consistently was amazing,” Flemons remembers. “It was a unique experience being able to play next to Joe and understand the music on a different functional level. He grew up with the music being at a functional level in the community instead of it being a music that was always performed on stage.” Inspired by those weekly meetings to reclaim and reinvigorate that part of their musical heritage, Flemons, Giddens, and Robsinson adopted the Tennessee Chocolate Drops’ name and started the Carolina Chocolate Drops in honor of their mentor and his music. Within a handful of years, the Chocolate Drops would be a critically acclaimed young band, their album Genuine Negro Jig winning the 2010 Grammy for best traditional folk album. In no small part due to the Carolina Chocolate Drops’ success, the old-time string-band sound, a vital part of the fabric of American music, has undergone a wave of popularity that doesn’t seem to be diminishing. The engaging simplicity of the music and the social values of the community that springs up around it create a warmth and vitality that is timeless. Black string bands including the Chocolate Drops and Ebony Hillbillies, as well as white ones such as Old Crow Medicine Show and Foghorn Stringband, are keeping old-time stringband traditions alive and pushing them forward into the 21st century. AG

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STRING BANDS

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ACOUSTIC GUITAR ASKED READERS ON SOCIAL MEDIA TO SHARE WHAT INSPIRES THEM ABOUT STRING-BAND MUSIC. WE GOT TONS OF FEEDBACK FROM PLAYERS, FANS, & OTHERS. HERE’S WHAT THEY HAVE TO SAY. I remember seeing the Juggernaut String Band at Cambridge Folk Fest around 1980. Been hooked on all things string band ever since. Sara Anne O’Keeffe London, England

Bluegrass music has been the nucleus of my existence ever since I went to my first tiny, local bluegrass jam in Portland in 2004. Despite a degree in classical guitar, my music had always been steeped in improvisation and jamming. Before I stumbled on the bluegrass jam scene, I had no idea that improvisation and collaboration were at the center of bluegrass culture. I was familiar with bluegrass music, but was unaware of the bluegrass community. What sets string-band music apart from any other genre? Community, authenticity, musicianship, and thoughtfulness. You’re exposed, vulnerable— string-band music is nude emotion, and the community is there to support you. Ken Chapple Wayward Vessel, Ken Chapple String Band Portland, Oregon

46 April 2015

I play acoustic music because I love the tones the acoustic instruments create. There is a simple honesty to acoustic guitar and acoustic bass that I just adore. I’m very passionate about making the best possible music I can. I strive to not be defined by genre. I try to use the genre as tools to mix and match to tell the story. Music has always been my first love and it’s my hope that I convey my love of music in every song I write or cover. Eric Evans Great Meadows, New Jersey

Some of my favorite memories and best music I’ve played has been parking-lot picking—just something very free about it. It all started for me at the Union Grove fiddler’s convention in N.C. back in the mid-’70s. Ralph Tompkins Sykesville, Maryland

Above Guitarist Ken Chapple performs at the 2013 Northwest String Summit Band Competition at Horning’s Hideout, near Portland, Oregon.

As a nonplayer, I’d like to throw in my thoughts. As you may know—it’s a bit of a cliché, but true-ish—we Brits can be a bit reserved at times, especially when older. It has been brilliant to watch, therefore, the effects that Old Crow Medicine Show has on the British public, clapping, hooting, and hollering! You’d have to see it to believe it. There is something about a string band that just gets to the very heart of you and carries you off on a wild ride, even if you turned up to the gig in shirt and tie! Inez Soman London, England

It’s pure and just plain fun. I’m in a string band called the Ragtime Relics, and we’re old guys playing old acoustic music and love it! John Sudia Hillsborough, New Jersey

String bands can have people ranging in age from their teens to their 70s. Eric A. Hughes Oakland, California

ANDREA BEHRENDS PHOTO

Old Crow Medicine Show

I play in a band called Ocotillo Rain and Thunder Bluegrass Band. We play mainly traditional bluegrass but have been adding some songs from newer groups like Old Crow Medicine Show. Nationally, I do see a range from all ages, especially the young, but here in Tucson it seems to be mainly the older crowd. My wife and I RV in the summer, and I attend jams in other cities. I see the younger crowd there and the enthusiasm goes up to another level. I’m 56 but young at heart. My son has a string band in Nome, Alaska, called Bear Mountain Holler, and their crowd is mainly 30-something and younger. Jeff Collins Tucson, Arizona

It’s real. It’s raw. When playing with people, it is full and complete. I grew up following my dad and his friends around playing bluegrass. Paul Jacob Enders Coatesville, Indiana

I’ve been playing in a band for two years. It isn’t a pure string band, because we have accordion and trumpet. But I love it—the layering, the raw sound, every note and chord is being played right there. It’s not produced in a computer. Every single time we play a song, it’s us at our core. When everything clicks, it’s just the most amazing feeling. Gabriel Monet Vareschi Atkinson, New Hampshire

‘Every single time we play a song, it’s us at our core. When everything clicks, it’s just the most amazing feeling’. GABRIEL MONET VARESCHI

I love the string-band format because of its ensemble nature. We are a five-piece group of multi-instrumentalists; there is no lead singer. When it’s your turn to do a song, the rest of us have your back. I also like the fact that the format allows us to do a Louvin Brothers tune followed up with a deep cut from the Stones. From Ralph Stanley to Pink Floyd, it keeps the shows fresh and unexpected. It also allows for jamming and improvisation. Everett Harlow ROOTS 66 Gloucester, Massachusetts

I love Old Crow Medicine Show, whether playing in a carpark or on stage. Bands like these are not sanitized, they don’t apologize, and they live the music as a way of life. You can’t take the music from them, and they give so much back through preserving the music and growing the audience. Carolina Chocolate Drops bring something different—the vibe is

the essence of jug band, with old-school picking and banjo-led. Raw, honest, and so simple it’s actually deceptively difficult and can’t help but carry you away. I defy anyone to sit still. Claire Latham Halifax, England

[String-band music is] more organic, it sounds a lot more intimate and palatable. I like string bands like Leftover Salmon, Keller Williams, and the Travelin’ McCourys; some of Jerry Garcia and David Grisman’s stuff. Most string bands I listen to have lifted my spirits in one way or another. The whole scene that they create is one of passion and peace. Sean Selburg Portland, Oregon

I think that most of the musicians doing that are just hipsters. Usually it’s just urban/suburban hipsters playing. That just doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. Kenny Randall Tampa, Florida

I have loved string-band music since before I knew what to call it. I just love how, whether it’s an old-time fiddle band or jazz hot club, every instrument needs to fit together to either make it drive or swing. Chris Jones Buffalo, New York AG AcousticGuitar.com 47

ACOUSTIC GUITAR 2015

SUMMER EVENTS AND FESTIVALS DIRECTORY

Acoustic Alaska Guitar Camp

YOUR GUIDE TO THE TOP EVENTS AND FESTIVALS OF 2015 Accent on Music Fingerstyle Guitar Seminar Portland, Oregon Web: accentonmusic.com/seminar.html Mark Hanson’s 16th annual fingerstyle guitar seminar. July 22-25, in beautiful downtown Portland, Oregon. Instructors: Hanson, Terry Robb & Jeff Peterson. Limit: 35 attendees. Visit us online for more information and to register.

48 April 2015

Wasilla, AK (907) 331-4864 E-mail: [email protected] Web: acousticalaska.com Improve your guitar, mandolin, ukulele, voice, and songwriting on a picturesque lake under Alaska’s beautiful mountains. Small classes/jams ensure great experiences. All levels welcome. Tuition includes shuttle, meals and camping. Cabins available. Bluesman Brooks Williams; Singer/ songwriter Ellis; Champion Flatpicker Steve Kaufman; Mandolinist Emory Lester; GuitarMaster Mark Stuart; Slide Artist Doug Cox; Ukulele Wizard Jim Boggia; and Clawhammerin’ Steve Baughman. Let the Moose be Your Muse.

Ashokan Guitar Camp July 12-16, 2015 The Ashokan Center 477 Beaverkill Rd., Olivebridge, NY (845) 246-2121 Web: ashokan.org/guitar Gypsy Jazz, Swing, Bluegrass, Ragtime, Blues, Celtic, DADGAD with Russ Barenberg, Denis Chang, Peter Davis, Jefferson Hamer, Al Petteway, Del Rey, Adam Traum and Happy Traum. All levels served!

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California Coast Music Camp

Jorma Kaukonen’s Fur Peace Ranch

Palo Alto, California July 5-11 and July 12-18 (650) 306-0399 E-mail: [email protected] Web: musiccamp.org

39495 St Clair Rd Pomeroy, OH 45769 Phone: (740) 992-6228 and (740) 992-2575 Fax: (740) 992-9126 E-mail: [email protected] Web: furpeaceranch.com

Join top instructors at an acoustic music camp in Northern California’s scenic Gold Country mountains. One or two weeks. Cost includes all lessons, meals, and lodging. Workshops, dances, concerts, performance opportunites, swimming, and hiking.

Fur Peace Ranch & Psylodelic Gallery. A ranch that grows guitar players . . . the Fur Peace Ranch hosts national recording artists that teach guitar, bass, vocals, mandolin, percussion, and songwriting.

Guitar Intensives’ Mainely Guitar Week

Centrum’s Port Townsend Acoustic Blues Festival & Workshop

July 19 - 25, 2015 (917) 620-8872 E-mail: [email protected]

July 26-August 2, 2015 Port Townsend, WA 98368 Phone: (360) 385-3102 x116 Fax: (360) 385-2470 E-mail: [email protected] Web: centrum.org/blues

Dream-team faculty, spectacular location on Frenchman’s Bay in Bar Harbor, ME - steps away from Acadia National Park. Mike Dowling, Rolly Brown, Martin Grosswendt, Andra Faye, Scott Ballantine, more! Guitar mandolin - slide - fiddle - bass - band lab - vocal - and more!

Join Jerron Paxton, Artistic Director, and more than 30 faculty for the largest country blues gathering in the nation! Learn from players from various regions—Piedmont, the Mississippi Delta, Hill Country, Texas, and more!

Crown Guitar Workshop & Festival

Guitar Workshop Plus

(855) 855-5900 Web: crownguitarfest.org

June 21-26 (San Diego) July 19-24 (Toronto-Session 1) July 26-31 (Toronto-Session 2) August 11-16 (Vancouver) (905) 567-8000 E-mail: [email protected] Web: guitarworkshopplus.com

Seven days in guitar heaven! Nine artists in residence. All genres— beginner to professional. August 30 September 6, 2015 at Bigfork, Montana.

The ultimate experience in music education for guitar, bass, drums, vocals, keyboards, and songwriting. Courses for all levels, ages, and styles. World class artists teach and perform such as Tommy Emmanuel, Muriel Anderson, Andy McKee, and more!

From Women’s Hearts and Hands Mendocino, CA 95460 (415) 663-8793 E-mail: [email protected] Web: womensheartsandhands.com Superb, in-depth guitar instruction; jams and performances; theory; seascape beauty; delicious food! Beginners learn simple songs, songwriting, strumming patterns. Intermediates learn fingerstyle, jazz, blues, lead/improv, chord/melody, bossa nova.

Huck Finn Jubilee Bluegrass Music Festival June 12 -14, 2015 E-mail: [email protected] Web: huckfinn.com Three days of music - some of the greatest national headlining bluegrass names! Thousands of fans enjoy jamming, camping, fishing and family fun along the lake of CucamongaGuasti Regional Park in Ontario, California.

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AcousticGuitar.com 49

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Christian Guitarist Workshop

Wind River Guitar Dubois, Wyoming (307) 455-3748 E-mail: [email protected] Web: mikedowling.com

Messiah College, 1 College Ave, Suite 3004 Mechanicsburg, PA 17055 Phone: (717) 796-1800 ext. 2400 Fax: (717) 691-2317 E-mail: [email protected] Web: messiah.edu/guitar

Three full days of affordable private guitar instruction with Grammy winning Mike Dowling. Request a Wind River Guitar brochure at mikedowling.com

April 18, 2015: Messiah College’s Christian Guitarist Workshop: Sessions for all levels (including beginners) acoustic or electric. $50 ($35/students). Part of our many programs for Christian guitarists. Details on website.

Sisters Folk Festival

The Woodstock Invitational Luthiers Showcase

September 11 – 13, 2015 Web: sistersfolkfestival.org

October 23, 24 & 25, 2015 Woodstock, New York woodstockinvitational.com facebook.com/WoodstockInvitational

A world-class music event where “All the town’s a stage”, the weekend after Labor Day in the beautiful mountain town of Sisters, Oregon. From “Blues to Bluegrass” and everything in between, with ten intimate venues, over 40 acts… a magical weekend of music.

Fine handmade acoustic guitars & stringed musical instruments exhibited by their makers: show & sale, live music, clinics & workshops, concerts, tonewood festival.

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50 April 2015

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56

MARINA CHAVEZ PHOTO

Acoustic Classic Led Zeppelin’s ‘That’s the Way’

66

Here’s How Take a ‘chance’ at songwriting

68

Basics Ah, the art of mastering rests

70

Weekly Workout Major pentatonic scale exercises

PLAY

Madeleine Peyroux & ‘Weary Blues,’ p.64

AcousticGuitar.com 53

AILEEN BELL PHOTOS

SONGCRAFT

Hello Song, Meet Guitar

Writing the right music often means having the right instrument BY NATHAN BELL

he song is driving me crazy. I’m trying to finish writing the material for my next album. I have a session scheduled to record in Nashville with acoustic-bass player Missy Raines and her scary-good band, the New Hip. But I’m stuck trying to finish the song that will tie the project together. The title is “Dust,” and it’s one word here, one word there away from being done. It’s a new song, with the heart of an old song, about rugged, worn country and the equally rugged and worn people who stay on and make it a living place. Unlike every other song I have ever written, it will have two leading voices—one rough, male, and tired, the other brighter and female. I’ll know what I’ve been looking for when I hear it—something that sounds and feels wellrooted in the earth; weary yet hopeful. And I know I haven’t heard it yet. Did I mention that finishing this song is driving me crazy? My friend calls. He’s sending a guitar. It’s a 1932 Gibson L-00, bound fretboard, black with a white pickguard. It has bracing so delicate that it can only be strung with very light silk-and-steel strings.

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54 April 2015

I have been a songwriter for a very long time, but I’ve been a guitar player for even longer, starting on a Harmony strung with medium-gauge barbed wire, and later with a variety of other acoustics and electrics. I’ve played a lot of guitars. It’s not every day that somebody sends me a vintage Gibson, though. My friend says he just wants me to play it and tell him what I think. This will be a welcome diversion from writing that song. ongwriters find different ways to extract music and lyrics from what seems like nowhere and nothing. I know songwriters who can only write in complete silence, by the light of early morning. I have met songwriters who can only write in a room with other songwriters. And almost every songwriter I know can write in the car, while moving. I write best with a guitar in my hand, stumbling along until the ideas that have been tapping at my conscious self hear their cues. The cues can be fast, repeating bluegrass runs, chopped acoustic-soul 9th chords, delicately fingerpicked mountain melodies, minors over majors and the reverse,

S

or sounds I haven’t heard yet and didn’t know I was searching to find. The cues always arrive. The problem is, I never know when, where, or how. But the right guitar can make all the difference. It’s not rule of law, but I find it a lot easier to write a fingerpicked blues on a 00 or an LG than on a dreadnought or a jumbo. I’ve had two careers, with a large gap in between. In my mid-’80s career, with the acoustic duo Bell and Shore, I played dreadnoughts— first a 1976 Martin D-35 and then a 1976 Mossman Flint Hills model. For the alt-country lead work, I played a 1937 National steel-bodied guitar. I strung them all with medium-gauge strings, and I played hard enough that one day I would require shoulder surgery. I wrote many albums’ worth of material with those guitars. The songs from that period are aggressive, in your face; even on the ballads, they are heavily on the two and four, a direct result of those big, loud guitars from the bluegrass and dancehall, Delta blues traditions. The lyrics are assertive, wordy, clever, and equally in your face.

Then I quit music. For almost 15 years I didn’t play at all. When I came back to writing and performing in 2008, my shoulder had been shredded by athletic endeavors, warehouse jobs, and playing flatpick guitar, and I couldn’t play the dreadnoughts. I bought a Larrivee OM-03, strung it with light-gauge strings, and started learning to fingerpick. That smaller, thinner guitar had a sound that was controlled, with a feeling of compression and restraint. I started writing songs that were more compressed, with fewer changes, fewer words, more restrained. The lyrics and melodies were new, reflecting both a different writer and a different instrument. Because of the tight and controlled sound, the songs had more space, and it was incumbent upon me to honor that space. That Larrivee had a high-end sparkle that made me feel optimistic, made me play more melodically, so I also became a more melodic writer, and my songs were more optimistic. And because I now played with my fingers, the sound and the songs were more intimate. Shortly after finishing three new albums— Traitorland (2009), Black Crow Blue (2011), and Blood Like a River (2014)—I became the proud new owner of a used Larrivee 00-03, a guitar that played beautifully and was simple to mic, both in the studio and on stage. Its sound, even more contained, accorded even more restraint, both in the playing and writing. That brings me to the present. I wrote the title song of the new album, I Don’t Do This For Love, I Do This For Love (Working and Hanging on in America), with this guitar, starting from a fingerpicked melodic riff. Then I wrote the next two songs on the same guitar, because it turned out that, when pressed, my little Larrivee had a rugged personality and enjoyed playing down-and-dirty blues. It was this Larrivee that I was using to finish the final song, but something wasn’t right. The chords sounded OK; the guitar fit my hands, as always. Yet everything I played was a tiny bit off, making the words feel separate from the melody. hree albums into my second career—the Old Guy career—and I am stuck on the last song of the fourth. Really, really stuck. Voila!—my friend sends me the Gibson. The L-00 is equal parts dustbowl and Delta blues. One strum reveals that it is also an unusual guitar, deep and powerful with a delicate high-end sparkle. Later, when I play it on the recording of this song, engineer Ben Surratt compares it to an orchestra. The guitar arrives on a Friday, and the first thing I play is a variation on the fingerpicked standard “Cocaine Blues.” The instrument falls into my hands as if it were made for me. All guitar players have had this moment: A guitar that is an actual revelation. A guitar that is perfect for who the guitarist is right at that moment. And at this moment, I’m a middle-aged,

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middle-class family man, hanging on by my fingertips to a job that only pays the bills, on the verge of watching my children move away. I’m fragile, but I’m still here, like this old guitar. I decide to play through the 90 percent of the song that is almost “Dust,” because I feel something in this guitar. I have learned to believe in this one thing—the guitar. I attach a capo on the fourth fret. The first chord is an Em with a suspended seventh, and I strum down hard with my thumb to make it ring. But it doesn’t ring. It catches for a moment before unfolding with extra half-tones and a dissonance that feels exactly like the moment in 1986 that I stood in a gravel parking lot in Enid, Oklahoma, and the sky looked incredibly beautiful, and I understood for the first time how somebody might want to make their way in such a harsh, windy place. The sound is hard like that, and beautiful. And then I sing this song for what feels like the first time, new lyrics falling into place. Twenty minutes later, I have a song that ties everything together. I record it a few weeks later, and it sounds exactly as I hoped it could. It turns out that I wasn’t really stuck—I just didn’t have the right guitar.

When the guitar meets the writer halfway, real magic always occurs. believe that when we write songs with our hands on a guitar, we become, for those moments, part of the wood in the instrument and part of every note that ever vibrated there. We are part of the strings and the frets where our hands move. Like all creative pursuits, songwriting is full of rules that are meant to be broken, tricks that work once and never again, and techniques that lead the writer down well-worn paths that end nowhere. But my 40 years of writing and playing tell me that when the guitar meets the writer halfway, real magic always occurs. It just takes the right guitar, at the right time, in the right place. I also know that one day, when no guitar feels right in my hands, when I’m really, really stuck, I’ll take that old 1976 Mossman off the wall, hang my arm over the top (the shoulder surgically repaired for four years now), and it will lead me through my hills of Tennessee to somewhere I haven’t been in 25 years, and there will be songs there and it will be, once again, the perfect guitar at the perfect time. AG

I

Nathan Bell is a singer-songwriter based in Signal Mountain, Tennessee. You’ll find all of his Old Guy-era albums on Stone Barn Records, available at nathanbellmusic.com.

WHAT NATHAN BELL PLAYS GUITARS I carry three guitars on the road: A 2011 12-fret Larrivee 00-03 Special Edition, a 2008 mahogany 14-fret Larrivee OM-03E, and, lately, a 1932 Gibson 12-fret L-00. I also have a 1937 National, painted auto-body brown, that I play at home and would bring on the road, but I’m saving that for the unlikely day in the future when I have a guitar tech. AMPLIFICATION I like to have somebody point a microphone at whatever guitar I’m playing, and I don’t have a pickup for the Gibson, but when I have to plug in, I use either the Larrivee 00-03 with a Schatten HFN Artist pickup through a Fishman Platinum Pro EQ Analog preamp, which is remarkably natural sounding. If I’m playing in an electric band, I use the Larrivee OM-03E with the factory installed LR Baggs Element through a Passac EQ. And I use Mogami Gold cables. ACCESSORIES Couch guitar straps. Strings are Ernie Ball Aluminum Bronze Medium Light (00-03), Elixir Phosphor Bronze lights (OM03E), and John Pearse Silk and Phosphor Bronze 11’s (extra light) for the Gibson. My pick collection includes Cool Picks heavy gauge cellulon triangles, 2.2 mm Chicken Picks, and medium gauge Everly Star Picks. I use Kyser and G7th capos, both regular and cut style. And last, but not least, a Louisville Slugger with a duct taped handle (because I carry a 1932 Gibson on the road). AcousticGuitar.com 55

ACOUSTIC CLASSIC

Acoustic Zep Is Still Heavy

Explore Jimmy Page’s pastoral classic

Led Zeppelin Led Zeppelin III Atlantic

BY ADAM PERLMUTTER

n 1970, the members of Led Zeppelin h u n k e r e d d o w n i n B r o n -Y r - A u r, a n 18th-century cottage in Wales, where, free from the distractions of the city, they composed the songs that would appear on their largely acoustic album, Led Zeppelin III. A pastoral influence is particularly evident on “That’s the Way,” with its droning acoustic guitar supported by evocative mandolin and pedal-steel parts. Guitarist Jimmy Page played “That’s the Way” in open-G, down a half step (low to high: Db Gb Db Gb Bb Db), exploiting the beautiful resonance of this

open tuning. Unless you’re playing along with the song, you can simply lower strings 1, 5, and 6 by a half step, to get into open-G (D G D G B D). Whatever tuning you use, note that everything sounds a half-step lower than written. The song kicks off with a two-measure pattern that’s also heard throughout the verses and interludes. By moving a two-finger grip along the second and fourth strings, Page etches out a colorful harmonic sequence (analyzed in full in the first two measures’ chord symbols, and streamlined to the overall harmony of G in the

remainder of the transcription). To play this part, fret the second- and fourth-string notes with your first and second fingers, respectively. As for the strumming, be sure to add the accents on the “ands” of select beats; this will help you capture the proper groove. You will find a contrasting two-bar pattern in the chorus, this one based on the flat III chord, Bb, borrowed from the parallel key of G major—not the most common harmonic choice in a rock song. Note, too, that the chord receives the raised 11th, E, adding further color to the song. AG

HEINRICH KLAFFS PHOTO

I

56 April 2015

THAT’S THE WAY

WORDS AND MUSIC BY JIMMY PAGE AND ROBERT PLANT

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AcousticGuitar.com 57

ACOUSTIC CLASSIC

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58 April 2015

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AcousticGuitar.com 59

ACOUSTIC CLASSIC

Outro

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2. I can’t believe what people saying You’re gonna let your hair hang down I’m satisfied to sit here working all day long You’re in the darker side of town 5. And yesterday I saw you kissing tiny flowers But all that lives is born to die And so I say to you that nothing really matters And all you do is stand and cry 6. I don’t know what to say about it When all you ears have turned away But now’s the time to look and look again at what you see Is that the way it ought to stay 60 April 2015

0 3 0 4 0

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0

Accentuate

1.800.788.5828 www.rainsong.com

Escape the expected. Experience graphite.

Intro

D

# 4 Dœœ œœ œœ œ œœ œœ & # 4 .. œœ œœ œœ œœ œœ # 4 . œ œœ œ œœ œœ œ œ œœ œ œœ A x E m7throughout the ornaments song. œ be sure œœ œ œ & #*Strum: 4 .Also, ≥ œ≥ thanks ≥ œ≤ œ≥ ≥ œ≥ ≥ œ to enjoy the fullness of the D (F) chord œ232 œ 2 œ2 to the root on the open sixth string.œ 2 *Strum: ≥ 3≥ ≥in3≤the The accompaniment pattern 3≥ ≥ 3≥ ≥ 3 .shown 2 beat, 22 2 2 next two bars—a root or fifth on each 0 0 0 0 . 2 20 32 2 2 flanked by chord strums—will set 33 3 3 . 0you32 to0 play B 0 0 22 2 2 the rest of the song. Don’t be overly concerned 00 0 0 .down;0 ≤ =little * ≥ =written; up with playing exactly what’s B 0 0 0 0 improvised variations will make for the most

Tuning: D A D G B D, Capo III

D

ACOUSTIC CLASSIC

G

A

Intro

E m7

x 1 0 0 34 T 0 111 x 23 0000

0 0 0 132

D

G

ob Dylan originally recorded “Mr. Tamboux 1 0 0 34 T 0 111 23 0000 0 0 0 132 rine Man” in drop-D tuning, with a capo at the third fret. To get into this tuning, simply tune your sixth string down by a whole step, to D from E. If you use the capo, note that all of the music in this arrangement will Intro sound a minor third higher than written; for example, a D D chord is in fact an F. Intro To learn the song, first work out the intro. D * ≥ = down; ≤ = up Chorus As seen in the first bar of the notation, Dylan dynamic rendition. AG decorated the D chord with the occasional susG A D G pended fourth (the note G, played Hey with theTambourine Read anMan interview Bruce Langhorne, Chorus Mr. play awith song for me fourth finger on string 1, fret 3) or suspended the inspiration for “Mr. Tambourine Man,” G A D G A second (the open first string). Try using theseD on page 22. G

B

Shake That Thing ‘Mr. Tambourine Man’ helped to launch the folk-rock movement BY ADAM PERLMUTTER

3.

3.

Hey Mr. Tambourine Man play a song for me I’m not sleepy and there is no place I’m going to

D G A G A D G Global Strum Intro Hey BOB I’m not sleepy WORDS and there AND is no MUSIC place I’mBY going to DYLAN Mr. Tambourine Man play a song for me

Tuning: D A D G BMAN D, Capo III MR. TAMBOURINE

G A D G G D Hey D G A D Mr. Tambourine Man play a song for me

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Intro Intro

D

DD

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GG

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3 3 3 33 33 3 2 2 2 22 22 2 3 3 3 33 3 3 3 3 33 33 3 m7 22 2 2 2 E2 22 2 A 0 0 0 00 00 0 0 0 G 0 00D00 0 A 2 2 2 22 G D 2 2to 22 2 0 sleeping 0 0 me 0 00 00 0 2here 2 2 0 0but still 0 00not 0 0G 0 00 00 0 Left stand 2 blindly 2 feet 2 2My 2weariness 0 0amazes me I’m branded 00 2 my 22 on 3 2 2 232 20 2 3 3 32 2 3 3 00 00 2 0 03 2 0 0 2 3 33 3 3 33 G 3 33 3 G 3 3 3A3 2 2 2 2D * = down; = up D G * = down; = up 2 22 2 0 2 22 22 000 0 0 2 222 My weariness amazes me2I’m branded on0 my feet0 0 Repeat Chorus 0 00 0 Repeat 0 0 0 0 Chorus 0 0 0 0 2 2 2 I have 2 no 2one to meet 0 2 2 0 0 0 0 0 2 D G D G Em7 A * = down; = up I have no one to meet G G AA DD G

Intro Intro

Intro Chorus Chorus D

D

Though I know that evening's empire has returned into sand

D

22 33 22 *Strum: 00

23 0000

A

G

23 0000

m7 m7

G

In the jingle jangle morning I’ll come followin’ you

©1964, 1965 WARNER BROS. INC. COPYRIGHT RENEWED © 1992, 1993 SPECIAL RIDER MUSIC. INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT SECURED. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. REPRINTED BY PERMISSION.

Tuning:DDAADDGGBBD,D,Capo CapoIIIIII Tuning:

3. Though you might hea he Repeat Chorus D

G

It’s not aimed at anyo A 3. Though you might hear laughin’ spin D G

1. Though I know that evening's empire has returned into sand And but Hey Mr. Man a song for me D G for the sky th D D Tambourine G Em7 play A D G A D G E m7 A D G Left me blindly here to stand but still not sleeping Left meVanished blindly here tomystand sleeping It’s not aimed at anyone it’s just esc handbut still ot sleepy and there isfromno place I’mnotgoing to A G D G D A D G GG A D GD Em7 G A if you hear vague weariness amazes meI’m I’mbranded brandedononmy my feet I’m ready to go anywhereD I’m readyAnd for to fade MyMythe weariness amazes me feet In jingle jangle morning I’ll come followin’ you Into Em7 my own parade cast your dancing spell my wayG Left me blindly A D here to stand but stillGnot sleeping HarmonicaSolo Solo(use (useverse verse progression)D Harmonica progression) G D G G DD G Repeat ChorusAndA but for the sky there are no fenc Em7 G A D G Mr. Tambourine play D I havenoMan noone onetoto meet a song for me Into my own parade cast your dancing spell my way I have meet I promise to go under it My weariness amazes me I’m branded on my feet G Em7 G GHarmonica AA(use DD To your tambourine D G Em7 AA AG G Em7 verse progression) AGmind D in G D 62 AprilAnd GDDancient A G2015 AD D4. Then GSolo Thentake take medisappearing disappearing through thesmoke smokerings ringsofofmy my mind 4. through Andthe the ancientempty emptystreet’s street’stoo toodead deadforfordreaming dreaming Ime promise to go under it the I have no one to meet And if you hear vague traces skip e jingle morning I’llthat come followin’empire you has returned into 1. jangle Though I know evening's DD sandGG DD GG D of skipp D

G

Em7

A

G

A

D

G

2 2G G 22

00 00

AA 0 0

DD 0 0

G G2 2 22

2 2me wearinessamazes amazes meI’mI’mbranded brandedononmymyfeet feet MyMyweariness

Global Strumming Pattern

Repeat Chorus Repeat D DChorus GG Anonoone D I have onetotomeet meet I have

G

HarmonicaSolo Solo(use (useverse verseprogression) progression) Harmonica

G

œœEm7œœD œœDAœœA GG œœ œœ œ . GœœG œœ œœ œœ œDD œ œ œ GœœGA Aœœ œœ œ Em7 œœancient œœhear œœlaughin’ œœlaughin’ œœ œ .3.3. Though œ œ you might hear spinnin’ swingin’ madly across Though you might spinnin’ swingin’ madly acrossthethesun sun œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ And the ancient emptyœstreet’s street’s too deadfor for dreaming And the empty too dead dreaming œ œ œ œ œ Dœ Dœ œ œ G G œ œ Dœ Dœ œ œ œ Gœ Gœ œ ≤ ≥

2 3 2 0

0 2 3 2 0

≥ It’s≥It’snot ≥ not ≤ aimed ≥aimed ≤ ≥ at≥atanyone ≥anyone ≤ ≥ ≤it’sit’s ≥justjust ≥ escapin’ ≥ escapin’ ≤ ≥ ≥onon ≥the≥therun ≤ run ≥ ≤

. .

E2m7 Repeat Chorus G G 2 Em7 3 3Repeat 3D 3D Chorus 3 2A A 3 3And 3but 3for3for 2sky 2there 2 2are 3 3 facin’ 3 And but thethe skythere areno3nofences fences facin’

2

0 0

000 000

G G GG 0 2

2 2

222 2 222 0

AA AA

22 00

0 0

D0D D D 2

3 3 0 0

3 3 0 0

D

GG G

G A

DD A

G Em7 Em7

GG

GG

DD

GG

Em7A A Em7

GG

AA

DD

GG

Yestotodance dancebeneath beneaththe thediamond diamondsky skywith withone onehand handwaving wavingfree free Yes DD

GG

DD

GG

Silhouettedbybythe thesea seacircled circledbybythe thecircus circussands sands Silhouetted

DD

GG

GG

DD

GG

DGD

Em7 Em7

AA

forgetabout abouttoday todayuntil untiltomorrow tomorrow LetLetmemeforget

GG

And if youHarmonica hear vague ofverse skippin’ reels ofdancing rhyme Into myown own parade cast your dancingspell spellmymyway way Into mytraces parade cast your Solo (use progression) Harmonica Solo (use verse progression) D

DD

GG

DD

DD

GDG

GG

Withallallmemory memoryand andfate fatedriven drivendeep deepbeneath beneaththe thewaves waves With

And but for the sky there are nogoanywhere fences facin’ I’m ready anywhere readyforfortotofade fade I’m ready totogo I’mI’mready Repeat Chorus Repeat Chorus G

DD

fromthe thetwisted twistedreach reachofofcrazy crazysorrow sorrow FarFarfrom

It’s not aimed atthat anyone it’s just escapin’ on the run Seein’ chasing Seein’ that he’s chasing Tobehe’s bewanderin’ wanderin’ To Em7 A A

GG

Downthe thefoggy foggyruins ruinsofoftime timefarfarpast pastthe thefrozen frozenleaves leaves Down

DD

2G GG G

dnd G A GG DDDD GG DD DD D Em7 G Em7 . Though you hear laughin’ spinnin’ swingin’ madly across the sun I wouldn’t pay ittoo any mind it’s just await shadow I might wouldn’t pay ittoo any mind just a shadow you’re toes numb toit’s step onlyforyou’re formy myboot boot heels MyMy toes numb to step wait only heels D

DD

Thehaunted hauntedfrightened frightenedtrees treesout outtotothe thewindy windybeach beach The

Repeat Chorus D DD D G G GG D D DD G G GG ToToyour tambourine in time it’s just a ragged clown behind your tambourine in time it’s just a ragged clown behind senseshave havebeen beenstripped strippedmymyhands handscan’t can’tfeel feeltotogrip grip MyMysenses

G A AA A

AA

DD

3 3 0 0

2 traces And if you hear vague of of skippin’ reels of ofrhyme And ifTake you hear traces skippin’ reels rhyme Take me ona atrip trip upon your magic swirlin' ship 2.2. me onvague upon your magic swirlin' ship

DEm7 Em7

GG

Thentake takememedisappearing disappearingthrough throughthe thesmoke smokerings ringsofofmymymind mind 4.4. Then

AA D

RepeatChorus Chorus Repeat

G

To your tambourine in timetoit’s just a ragged I promise togo under it it clown G IGpromise Ago D Dbehind Aunder

GG

HarmonicaSolo Solo(use (useverse verseprogression) progression) Harmonica

4.4. Then take through takemeG medisappearing disappearing throughthethesmoke smokerings ringsof ofmymymind mind DThen D I wouldn’t pay it anyDmind D Dyou’re GG D it’s justGaGshadow Down Downthe thefoggy foggyruins ruinsof oftime timefarfarpast pastthethefrozen frozenleaves leaves Em7 A Seein’ that he’s chasing DD GG DD GG The Thehaunted hauntedfrightened frightenedtrees treesoutouttotothethewindy windybeach beach Repeat Chorus DD GG Em7 Em7A A FarFarfrom fromthethetwisted twistedreach reachof ofcrazy crazysorrow sorrow

p

Harmonica SoloG(use AA DD GG G verse progression) YesYestotodance dancebeneath beneaththethediamond diamondskyskywith withone onehand handwaving wavingfree free

.

Then takeSilhouetted me disappearing through the by smoke rings of my mind bybythethe sea sands Silhouetted seacircled circled bythethecircus circus sands

G

DD

D

A DD

DD

GG

G

G GD

GG G

DD G

GG

Down theWith foggy of time far past the frozen leaves and fate driven deep Withallruins allmemory memory and fate driven deepbeneath beneaththethewaves waves

Are you reAdy?

D

DD G

D Em7 Em7

AA G

The haunted frightened trees outtoday to until the windy beach LetLetme tomorrow meforget forgetabout abouttoday until tomorrow

Three full days, affordable, G guitar Em7 A private instruction Far from the twisted reach of crazy sorrow Repeat Chorus Repeat Chorus with Grammy-winning G A G Mike dowling D Yes to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free Harmonica (use verse progression) Harmonica Solo (use verse progression) inSolo his comfortable D G D G rocky Mountain home. Silhouetted by the sea circled by the circus sands D

D

G Wind riverDGuitar is all this and more.

G

With all memory and fate driven deep beneath the waves D

Em7

A

Let me forget about today until tomorrow Repeat Chorus

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Harmonica Solo (use verse progression)

AcousticGuitar.com 63

ACOUSTIC CLASSIC

More than the Blues

This standard has worked as both a jazz and country tune BY ADAM PERLMUTTER

ot to be confused with the Langston Hughes poem of the same name, “Weary Blues” is a popular standard with roots in ragtime. It was penned in 1915 by the composer and pianist Artie Matthews—not as well known as Scott Joplin, but considered by some to be an equally sophisticated musician. “Weary Blues” is most often played by Dixieland and New Orleans jazz bands, and it’s seen a number of great interpretations by such heavyweight soloists as Louis Armstrong, Johnny Dodds, Sidney Bechet, and Johnny Hodges. The song has also been transformed into a country classic by Hank Williams. The jazz singer Madeleine Peyroux recorded “Weary Blues” for her album Careless Love (2004), which informs the arrangement shown here. Though the title of the song would suggest that it’s based on the 12-bar blues, that is not the case. “Weary Blues” might have a bluesy

MARINA CHAVEZ PHOTO

N

Madeleine Peyroux

feel, but most of its sections are in fact 16 bars long. And as demonstrated on Peyroux’s recording, the song, originally in 4/4, works beautifully as a waltz. In the key of A minor, this arrangement is built from just a handful of chords—Am, Dm, B7, E7, and D7. These could be played as open grips, but shifting them up the neck makes them

Accompaniment Pattern

Chords

Swing

3

WEARY BLUES Am Dm

( q q =q e )

B7

1 x1 2 1 x Accompaniment A m Pattern Dm Am Accompaniment Pattern 5 fr. 5 fr. 7 fr. Accompaniment Accompaniment PatternPattern Swing SwingAccompaniment œœ œœ Pattern œ œ Chords Chords Swing œ œ Swing ( q q =q e ) Chords Chords ( œ œ œ œ œ ) = Swing q q q e & Chords 00311 x

sound, appropriately enough, a little darker. The music here in notation and tablature is an accompaniment pattern for the first eight bars of the chorus. Try fingerpicking this part (remember: p=thumb, i=index, and m=middle), letting all the notes of each chord ring together. After you’ve learned the patterns in the notation, apply them to the rest of the song. AG

x 1342 x

TRADITIONAL

œœ œœ œ

œœ œœ œœ

œœ œœ œœ

B7

#œ œ œ# œ œœ

D mx DxBm 7 œ ( q Aq = Am B27m1Accompaniment x x q qm=q e ) Pattern q e) ( q q =q e()D m E7 œ E7 5 fr. 5 fr.x 1342 x7 fr. 1 x 1A œ œ B7 œ B7 x x 00311 Swing B 7 A m D m A m E 7 D 7 A m D m A D B 7 Am m 5Chords D m B 7 œ fr. 5 fr. 7 fr. x x x x x œ œ # œ œ x1x1342 xm 1 x 1 2 1A x03241 x3241 00311 1342 x 1 2 1 xx œ Aœm 00311 x Accompaniment œœ Amœœmmœm œDetc. œœ mœœAœ m œ œœ œœAœm œ # Bœ 7œ œ D mPattern œœEœ7œ œœ7œœ B 7 E 7 mD B 55fr.fr. 5 fr. 5 =œq œ e) 7œfr. œ œ Aœ 3qfr. fr. 5 fr. fr. 7 fr. œ( q57œ œ # œ # œ œ œ p p i i p Pick: œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ A mx xD mx xB& 7 œ œœœœœœ A œm œœœœ œœœœ œ œœœœœ œœœœ œ œ œœœ œœ œ œB 7œ #œ# œœ œœ œE 7œ œœœœœœ œ #œ#œ#œœœœœœœœœœ # œ œœ œ œ œ œ x SwingA m œ œ œ D m œ Chords œ 5 fr. 7 fr. & &œ œ œœœ œœ œ œœ œœœœœ œœ œœ œœœœ œœ œ œœœ œœœœ œœœ œ œœœ œœœœ# œ œœœ œ œœœ#œœœ# œœ œœ œœ # #œœœœ E7 D 75 fr. x x ( q q =mq emœ) &œetc.œ œ œ&œ œœ œœ œ œ œ œœ œ œ œœœ œ œ œ œœ œ œ œœ #œœ œœ œ œ œ œœ œ 3 fr. 5 fr. 5 5 œ œ œœ œ œ6œ œ 6œ œ œ œœ5œ œ5 œ # œ œœ5œ 5œ # œ œ œ œœ5œ 5# œ œœ œœœ œ 7#7œ Em DD7 77 Pick: p p&i i pœ œ œœ œ œ œ œ œ œ E 77 œ A311 m D x B x m m 5 5 œ œ etc. x x03241 13427x 5 fr. 1xx3241 1E 2 17 œmmm 7 etc.œ A m7 7 7œ 7 7 œ œ 7 œ5 5 7œ œ 7 œ5 5B 77 œ 7œ 5 5 E77 œ 7 œ8 8 7 3xfr. D 7A m œp p Pattern D i i pD Accompaniment Pick: 5 fr. E 55 fr. 7 fr. 3 fr. E 7 D 7 5 5 6 6 5 5œ 5 5 7 7 5œ5 5œ 5 x x 3241 x 3241 x 03241 03241 Pick: p p im im0p 5 5m m x x 55etc. 0 fr. m m 7 7 53 5 5 etc. 5 5 5 50 8 8 77 77 3 fr. 5 fr. 5 fr. 3

3

Am

00311 x

3

3

1342

03241

3

1 121

00311

1342

1 121

00311

1342

1 121

3

3

3241

03241

3241

# œœ œœ œœ œœ B œœ œœ œœ œœ œœ œœ œœ œœ 7 œœ œœ # œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ B& # (q 7 7œ œ œ œ DEm7x xBD77x 87 87 7 7 œ œ œ B œ œ 8 87 868œ A D A B E 5 fr. x x7 fr. 7 7 6 3 fr. 5 fr. B B Instrumental Solo 7(use Cho 0 œ # œ œ 1 œœ œœ1 B œœ œœChorus œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ Chorus # œ œ œ # œ7œ œ 7 # œ0œ œœ œ œ1 œA AœmB Dœm œ œ œ Amœ œ œ œ Instrumental œ œ0 œ Solo œ (use0œChorus & Aœ DChorus 1 progression) œ 55 5 6 6 5 5 A 5 5D 5 5 7 7 œ Weary blues from5 waitin’ A œ œ œ A D A D7 Weary 7blues 7 from waitin’ 5 5 5 5 Amœ 8 8 Dm Instrumental Solo (use Chorus 1 progression) œ5 5 œ7 7 Chorus 15 5 lovers x m m 7 Ewaitin’ 7 7 7 2. 7Through7Atears I watch 7 young 7A 7 7 6 Weary7blues from D7 B 03241

ords

342 3241

3241

5 fr.

3241

3 fr. Swing

i7 6i 6p7 p i 7 i5 p57 Pick: i pp petc. 7Pick: p Pick: 7p 5i 57 7 5 57 7 5 57 70 7 76 556 55 7 77 7 5 70 7 5 5 5 5 50 5 8 8 ) = q qe 57 5 7 7 7 5 57 0 7 5 65 0 76 0 6 7 7 7 57 5 7 6 7 5 55 5 0 5 5 5 5 7 7 0 5 5 555 565 6 0 5 7655 5576 55 5557 57 7 5 5 5 6 6 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 7 7 5 5 5 5 8 8 0 7 7 57 757 777 0 77 7 757 5 77 577 557 75 7 m m 507 56 7 77 57 5m 757 556 5 77 0 m m0 7 etc. 5 75 0 7 7 7 70 7 7 0 7 7 7 7 7 70 7 7 7 7 7 7 Pick: p p i i 0p 0 (use 7Chorus 1 progression) 0 5 5 0 0Instrumental0 Solo 0 70 0 0 3

1 121 3241

0

m

64 April 2015

3 fr.

m

m

55 77

55 7 77 7

m

m

m

m

7 7 i m0p Chorus 1 A5m Pick: p p i A Detc. m

0

m

m

m

0

m

2m. Through I watch 1young Instrumental Solo tears (use Chorus 7prog

77

BB0 0

77

77 55

7 7Am 7 7 00

77

Accompaniment AccompanimentPattern Pattern Swing Swing

3 3

x 7 fr. 7 fr.

Am

77

A7m7 E7 7

77

Dm

77

66 00

Am

66 7 7 Am 77 E7 Am E7Dm 00

Am

Am

E7

Am

mmmm etc. etc. have blues havegot gotme mecryin’ cryin’ i These i ip pblues Pick: Pick:p pp pi These

E7

Am

Am Am

1.1. The Thesnow snowfalls falls’round ’roundmymywindow window Chorus Chorus1 1 Am Am DD mm

Dm

E7

Am D7

These blues Am Ame m cryin’ DD mm Am Am DThese D 7 7 blues have got me cryin’ My dream world fell have apartgot And Andofofallallthe thethings thingsthat thatmight mighthave havebeen been

Am E7 Am D7 Am Am E7E7 Am Am E7E7 Am 5 55 5 6 66 6 5 55 5 5 55 5 5 55 5 7 77 7 55 5 555 home sweetdaddy daddy pleasecome come home 5 55 5 Oh sweet Oh Amplease8 come E7A m Am E7E7 7 5 Oh 55Oh 5sweet 7 7 7 7please 5 55 5home 5 55daddy 5Am 88E87 7 7sweet 7 Chorus 2 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 7God 7Godforgive 7forgive 7 7if7ifI cry 66 66 me me I cry 00 55 00 77 Am0 0 E7 Am Am 7 7 Am 0 0 Am Dm 77 00 00 DD mm

Oh sweet Weary blues fromdaddy waitin’please come home Chorus Chorus3 3 B7

E7

Am

E7

Am

Oh sweet daddy please come home

E7

ASolo m Aso m long D D m m Chorus A1m A1progression) mprogression) Lord I’veInstrumental been waitin’ Instrumental Solo (use Chorus (use Weary Wearyblues bluesfrom fromwaitin’ waitin’

E7E7

But Butit itcan’t can’tchill chillmymyheart heart

Am

Am Am

BB 77 E7E7 Am Awaitin’ mwaitin’soso Elong 7 Elong 7 Am Am E7E7 Lord LordI’ve I’vebeen been

Dm

Am D7

Am Am DD 77

ADmD E7 Am DD 77 Oh sweet daddy come Am Aplease m Am m m Am Ahome mE7 DD 7 7 Am Oh Oh sweet sweet daddy daddy please please come come home home And Andofofallallthe thethings thingsthat thatmight mighthave havebeen been

These Theseblues blueshave havegot gotme mecryin’ cryin’ Chorus Am Am EChorus 7 E7 2 2 Am Am E7E7 Am Amplease Dplease D mm come m A m OhOhsweet sweetdaddy daddy comeA home home Weary Wearyblues bluesfrom fromwaitin’ waitin’ Am Am

7m7 AB m AB

DD mm

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Am A Dm D mm

Am Am DD 77

Am Am

AEm A7Em 7

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Weary Wearyblues bluesfrom fromwaitin’ waitin’

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Ohdied sweet sweet daddy daddy please please comehome home God Godknows knowsitOh itdied the the day dayyou you left left come Oh Ohsweet sweet daddy daddyplease pleasecome comehome home MyMydream dreamworld world fell fellapart apart

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Weary Wearyblues blues from from waitin’ waitin’ Flex Pre: an exceptionally transparent,

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These Theseblues blues have haveor got got me mecryin’ cryin’ Alone together, they’re the ultimate Am Am

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Madeleine Peyroux

Chorus Chorus3 3

These These blues blues have havegot gotme mecryin’ cryin’ But Butit itcan’t can’tchill chill mymy heart heart Am Am

Am Am

Oh sweet daddy daddyplease pleasecome comehome home Careless Love God Godforgive forgiveOh me me if sweet ifI cry I cry Rounder/Universal

E7E7

DD mm

Am A Em 7 E7Am Am EE7E7E77

Am Am

Lord Lord I’ve I’vebeen been waitin’ waitin’sosolong long 1. The Thesnow snowfalls falls ’round ’round my mywindow window Am Am

LISTEN TO THIS!

Am Amcome mm Am Am DD 77 Oh sweet daddy please E7E7 home DD These These blues blues have have got got me me cryin’ cryin’ AsAsthey they gogostrollin’ strollin’bybyAm Am E7

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daddy please come home

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D7

Dm

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Am Am

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BB

Am D7

Theseme blues have got me cryin’ God forgive if I cry

Oh sweet daddy please come home Instrumental Solo(use (useChorus Chorus1 1progression) progression) The snow falls ’round my windowSolo Chorus 2 Instrumental Chorus 3

1.

Chorus Chorus1 1

( q (q =qq=eq )e ) Am Am DD mm

7 7E7

00 Oh sweet A0m0daddy please E7 comeAhome m E 777 My dream world fell apart

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HERE’S HOW

playlist with samples of the genres or bands you choose so you have references to work from. Include at least one style or band that demands a complete departure from your norm, like speed metal, flamenco, or polka (depending on your tastes). This process can be used to determine any number of song and arrangement elements, from the tuning of the guitar to the number of lines in a verse. Experiment and see what works for you or for the song you are using it for. Expand your rolling options by including different types of dice, like the doubling cube used in backgammon (perfect for deciding things like the bar count, as its faces are the numbers 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, and 64) or the dice used in role-playing games like Dungeons & Dragons, as they usually have multiple combinations of singleand double-digit numbers.

Roll of the Dice

An introduction to aleatoric songwriting BY OCTOBER CRIFASI

leatoric or “chance” music, as it is more commonly known, is music in which some part of the composition is left to chance by either the roll of the dice or, as in the case of composer John Cage, the I Ching. While this may sound like a strange approach to songwriting, it is an excellent way to free yourself of the I’ve-writtenthe-same-song-again blues, a complaint I often hear from students. While there is no set order to the exercises provided here, there are a few items you will need to gather before you begin: several sheets of blank paper, dice (six-sided is best), a newspaper or magazine, scissors, something to write with, and tape or a glue stick. Feel free to start from the lyric exercise first, should that be your preference.

A

66 April 2015

MAP THE SOUND & STRUCTURE Choose six genres of music that you like and assign each the numbers 1-6 to correspond with a six-sided die. You can also use “in the style of” and list six favorite players or songwriters instead. Create similar lists for key signature, chord type (i.e. major, minor), and chord pattern (I–IV–V; I–vi–IV–V; ii–V; etc.). In each case, refrain from your “go to” chord type or style—you already know how to write that song. ROLL ONE DIE PER CATEGORY You may be tempted to roll again if you don’t like the first outcome. Fight that urge and go with the result anyway; remember this is about breaking out of your comfort zone. Create a

CRAFTING THE LYRIC Take pages from a magazine or newspaper, and cut out the words and phrases that catch your eye. Go with your first impulse and try not to overthink the choices. Once you have a good pile of words and phrases, take a blank piece of paper and order the words into phrases on the page. Again, don’t overthink this process. Do an initial placement and read through it. Revise as you need to, filling in with new words from the pile. When you have your text locked in, go ahead and paste or tape your lyrics in place. ONLINE RESOURCES There are a slew of excellent resources on the web to assist you, should you get stuck. Two of my stand-bys are: languageisavirus.com, a treasure trove of interactive programs like the virtual cut-up machine, haiku generator, and daily writing prompts; and also muse.fawm.org for its user-friendly collection of random lyric, song title, plot, and structure generators (pulled together by the folks of the February Album Writing Month challenge, or FAWM). Once you have completed everything, test drive the lyric and music together to see what it sounds like. If you don’t like what you hear, go through the process again, changing out text or category choices as you feel appropriate. The point of all of this is to open your ear and process to new ways of hearing and thinking about the songwriting process. You just may find the results surprise you. AG

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THE BASICS

Rest Easy

Learn how to value the quiet between the notes BY ADAM LEVY

You can terminate the note by muting it with your pick hand or by simply lifting your fretting finger off the string.

measure in 4/4 time. Ex. 1b is comprised of two half-note rests. These each get a count of two beats. The symbols in Ex. 1c are quarternote rests, which count for one beat each. Ex. 1d shows eight eighth-note rests. As you might expect, each of these is valued as half of a quarter rest.

ave you ever noticed that most of the musical examples in this and other guitar magazines are chock full of notes? That’s because writers want to make the most of the visual real estate available within the layouts, and usually the notes are what best illustrate a lesson. But rests—the silences between the notes—are important too, and you’re likely to encounter them more frequently in the music beyond pages such as these. If you want to be a fluent music reader, you’ve got to understand rests as well as you understand the pitch and rhythm values of notes. That’s what you’ll be working on in this Basics lesson. The musical examples that follow will help you get there. Before diving into the examples, however, here’s a quick review of the most common rest symbols. Ex. 1a shows a whole-note rest, which represents the value of four beats—a full

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EVERY COUNT COUNTS Ex. 2 begins with a whole-note rest. There’s no special trick to counting a big fat rest, but be sure not to waste any time lingering there. Use the quiet opportunity to look ahead and size up the next measure. In the third bar, take care to give full value to the notes as well as the rests. The C on beat 1—held over from the previous measure— should sustain for a full beat before the silence that follows. (When the note’s time is done, you

can terminate the note by muting it with your pick hand or by simply lifting your fretting finger off the string.) After the quarter rest comes an eighth rest on beat 3. Consequently, the note that follows (A) is played on the upbeat (“and”) of beat 3. Make sure to cut off the final C after one beat so that the quarter rest on beat 4 gets its full silent value.

Ex. 1 shows rest values. Ex. 2 shows how rests indicate silence.

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ALL ABOUT THOSE EIGHTHS Ex. 3 is an eighth-rest drill to help prepare you for Ex. 4. The lone D in measure 1 is on the Ex. 2of beat 1; in measure 2, the note is on “and” the of beat 2; and so on, through Ex.“and” q2= 76–92 measure 4. Repeat this example several times = 76–92 until qyou can easily play—and feel—the rhythm in each bar.

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rhythm, count “one and, two” before playing the G on the “and” of beat 2. The same value of rest can be seen in measure 2 as well—a quarter-note rest on beat 2 followed by an eighth rest on beat 3. This is not represented as a dotted-quarter rest because, as a matter of convention in musical notation, the center of the measure (between beats 2 and 3) should always be visible. Using a dotted-quarter rest here instead would make it harder to see exactly where the beats are. Measure 3 is particularly thorny, with eighth-note rests on beats 1, 2, and 4. Before it 1on the guitar, you may want 3 you 1try playing 0 to clap the rhythms while counting “one and, 3 1 0 1 two and, three and, four and” aloud.

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Though the notes in bar 4 are different from the notes in bar 2, the rhythm is exactly the same. Seeing this is helpful because it frees you from having to count the rhythms all over again. The more you practice reading, the more you’ll begin to notice recurring patterns like this in music. AG

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Ex. 3 shows how to count rests before upbeats. Ex. 4 shows rest variations.

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AcousticGuitar.com 69

WEEKLY WORKOUT

Two for the Price of One

Learn a new scale sharing the same notes as one you already know BY PETE MADSEN

s a guitarist, while you’re likely intimately familiar with the minor pentatonic scale, the major pentatonic scale might seem foreign. But actually, if you know the minor pentatonic scale, then you know its major counterpart. Take, for instance, the A minor pentatonic scale (A C D E G), which contains the same notes as the relative major, the C major pentatonic scale (C D E G A). In this lesson you’ll explore a handful of fingering patterns for that scale, then

apply them to assorted licks, as well as a pair of solos on the 12-bar blues form. With any luck, in the process you’ll become just as fluid with the major pentatonic as the minor pentatonic scale.

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WEEK ONE Let’s look at five patterns for the C major pentatonic scale, each starting on a different note of the scale, played in two octaves. Pattern 1 starts at the root, on the sixth string’s eighth-

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fret C. Play the scale using alternate picking, and strive for a clean and articulate attack. If needed, use a metronome to help you keep a steady tempo. Dedicate one finger per fret, keeping your hand in one position so that you can move between the notes with maximum efficiency. For example, the first pattern starts at the eighth fret, then moves to the tenth fret on the same string. If you use your second finger for the eighth fret

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third finger, backed up by your second and first Pattern bend 4 requires a bit of muscle to fingers—this execute. (If the bends in this lesson are too difficult, try rendering them a half step, or simply omit them.) Hold the bent note while you use your fourth finger to fret the eighth-fret F. Pick WEEK TWO the second string, then the third string again, Now you’ll have fun with some cool licks, all of releasing the bent note to its original pitch. 0 3 3 5 which can be played over a C chord. The scale Lick 4 moves between the fourth and fifth 1 3 3 5 0 for 2 your licks, 2 5the lower regispatterns will form the 0 template scale patterns and emphasizes 2 2 5 0 3 3 5 and adding bends, slides, hammer-ons, and ter. Try playing the first quick hammer-on with 0 3 3 5 pull-offs will make them sound more interyour second finger, then use your first and esting. Lick 1 starts off with a non-scale tone, fourth fingers for the second-fret E and the Week 2 D#, but it quickly slides into a scale tone from fifth-fret G, respectively. Then, try switching to Lick 1and resolves on C, theLick the first pattern root2 your third finger toLick slide from 3 the fifth-fret G to note. Lick 2 uses the fifth-scale pattern and is the seventh-fret A; this3sets you up to play the articulated with a series of pull-offs. Use your remainder of the lick in fifth position. (œ) fourth finger for the eighth-fret notes, your Lick 5 uses a series of hammer-ons within 3 first for the fifth-fret notes, and your third the second pattern, reaching across to the third finger for those at the seventh fret. pattern for a whole-step bend1on the second Lick 3 is a little trickier. It starts out where string. Use your second finger for this bend, 8 8 5 Lick 2 left off and8 produces pedal steel–type 8 positioning your third and first fingers to take 10 5 8 (7) 5 8 9the whole-step bend, use your 5 7 7 effects. To play over7for5the rest of the lick. 7 5 5 7

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AcousticGuitar.com 71

WEEKLY WORKOUT

TIP 3

For a good flow in your solos, stay in one or two positions and grab notes that are easily accessible, rather than jumping around the neck.

WEEK THREE Now you’ll put some of these licks to work in a 12-bar country-flavored solo. The opening sequence works for country-fueled grooves in C and will also come in handy over rock songs requiring major-flavored runs—think Keith Richards on the Rolling Stones’ “Brown Sugar.” For the half-step bend in the third bar, use your first three fingers on the same string to support the bend. This puts your fourth finger in place to play the eighth-fret G. Most of this sequence is played using the major pentatonic patterns. In the next four bars you’ll play over the same pattern, adding some pull-offs and using your fourth finger to play the eighth-fret G. This will set you up to play the descending pullC 7fifth frets. And in offs between the eighth and the last four measures, to play the hammer-on triplet lick, bar the first and second strings with your first finger.

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WEEK FOUR In this 12-bar solo, you’ll play a lot of doublestops or pairs of simultaneous notes. The first four bars take notes from the first pattern and slide into the various double-stops. In the fifth bar, while the note F is not a member of the C major pentatonic scale, it’s an appropriate choice given that the chord is F7. The rest of this lick moves between the second and third scale patterns. In the seventh bar, back on the C7 chord, you’ll do a full-step bend with your third finger—remember to reinforce the bend with your first and second fingers. Keep the bend held and grab the 15th-fret G with your fourth finger before releasing the bend and pulling off to the 13th-fret C. This maneuver might be a little tricky, especially if your guitar doesn’t have a cutaway. For the G7 in the ninth measure, you’ll slide into some more double-stops and descend on the first and second strings as you progress back to C7 via the F7 chord. Now that you have explored the major pentatonic scale in the key of C, try it in other keys. If you know the E minor pentatonic scale, for example, you can use its patterns to play the G major pentatonic scale. Try creating your own licks from the scale patterns and see if you can find interesting ways of navigating between the patterns. There are virtually limitless ways to do so! AG

Lick 6 expands on the phrase from Lick 1. The opening phrase is played three times, the second time resolving to the C that’s an octave lower than the first; the third time, extending up to the first string’s 12-fret E, bouncing off surrounding scale tones in alternation with a C pedal or constant tone.

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SHOPTALK

Ovation Brand Sold to Drum Workshop

Surprise sale is latest in a series of divestments by Fender

Ovation founder Charlie Kaman

BY MARC GREILSAMER

n January 6, Fender Musical Instruments Corporation (FMIC) announced that KMC Music, its wholly owned subsidiary, had sold the Ovation guitar brand to Drum Workshop, Inc. Considering Fender’s recent history of brand divestment, the move wasn’t entirely unexpected. However, Ovation’s acquisition by DW—a major manufacturer of percussion instruments and accessories—raised a few eyebrows across the industry. “What does a drum company want with a guitar company?” asked one commenter on AG’s Facebook page. “I think an Ovation would make a fine drum!” joked another, referring to the guitar’s unconventional design. Initial reports indicate that DW will be keeping the Ovation brand alive. Scott Donnell, VP of marketing at Drum Workshop, called it a

O

74 April 2015

“fluid situation. . . . We’re excited about the future of Ovation and what we can do with that brand,” he said. Donnell added that, based on preliminary discussions, there is a “distinct possibility” that Ovation will be reopening a US-based production facility. Founded in the mid-1960s by aerospace engineer Charles Kaman, the Ovation brand of guitars distinguished itself thanks to its use of fiberglass-composed, bowl-shaped guitar backs and, later, onboard electronics. Thanks to Glen Campbell and other well-known supporters, Ovation enjoyed a period of great popularity in the 1970s and 1980s. Less than a decade ago, the Kaman Corporation decided to sell off KMC, its music-related subsidiary, to Fender, but last year, Fender announced it was closing its Connecticut-based Ovation manufacturing facility,

leaving all of Ovation’s production to its overseas facilities in South Korea, China, and Indonesia. For Fender, this is the second major acoustic-guitar brand with which it has parted ways in the past year. The company sold its Guild brand to the Cordoba Music Group last year, followed by the announcement in December that it had ended its European distribution relationship with Japanese maker Takamine (which is now handled by Korg), calling into question the future of both brands in the United States. As for Drum Workshop, the bulk of their acquired Fender product lines revolve around percussion—including Latin Percussion, Toca Percussion, Gretsch Drums, Gibraltar Hardware, and KAT Percussion from Fender’s KMC subsidiary—while the inclusion of Ovation in the sale seems to be of secondary importance.

MILESTONES C.F. Martin Guitar, an early advocate for sustainable woods, earned an FSC Leadership Award from the Forest Stewardship Council at an awards ceremony at Greenbuild.

Gibson Brands has opened a store at the former site of an iconic Tower Records in West Hollywood, California. “We want to reinvent this site to be an international phenomenon that its legacy deserves,” Gibson CEO Henry Juszkiewicz told the LA Times, promising to retain the store’s “crazy vibe.”

DYLAN SIGNS ON TO SIGNATURE SJ-200 Bob Dylan has been associated with some iconic guitars, including a late ’20s- or early ’30s-era vintage Nick Lucas flattop that he played in the studio and on tour between 1963 and 1966 (Gibson offers a signature model). When he countrified his sound, the folk rocker turned to a Gibson J-200, as seen on the cover of the Nashville Skyline album. Now Gibson is offering a limited-edition signature vintage sunburst Dylan SJ-200 model, six years in the making. The special appointments (120 bear the bard’s own signature; another 300 are not

signed) include an Adirondack spruce top, flamed maple back and sides, a rosewood mustache bridge (inlayed with mother-ofpearl), bone saddle, a double pickguard engraved with the classic poinsettia pattern and inlayed with mother-of-pearl dots, a rosewood fingerboard with a bella-voce inlay, and a 111/16-inch bone nut. It comes equipped with an LR Baggs Anthem pickup system. The Player’s Edition (sans signature) is $4,999 list; the autographed Collector’s Edition is a cool $9,999.

Bono has said he may never play guitar again following a bicycling accident, but he’ll have direct input into the guitar playing of others—Bono and U2 guitarist the Edge have joined the board of directors of the Fender Musical Instruments Corporation.

TANGLEWOOD ISSUES THE PREMIER III LINE The UK-based Tanglewood Guitar Co. has revamped its Premier Series, one of the company’s most popular product lines. The third and newest generation of Premier Series instruments features solid AA Sitka spruce tops, lending a robust tone that retains its clarity even under heavier strumming. Backs, sides, and necks are made of mahogany, and the bodies are finished in natural satin. The guitars are fitted with NuBone nuts and saddles and D’Addario EXP strings. The guitars—cutaway dreadnoughts, an OM model, 12-string, and bass—feature a

B-Band Crescent pickup system (only the OM does not have a pickup) and sell for under $600 street. In addition, the Super Folk six-string also is available in a left-handed model. Meanwhile, Tanglewood has expanded its Java Series with two new dreadnoughts: one acoustic model and one electro-acoustic with cutaway and Fishman Sonitone pickup. Both feature solid cedar tops and three-piece backs built of matching outer pieces of amara wood, centered by a wedge of golden spalted mango. Learn more at tanglewoodguitars.com. AG

John D’Addario Jr., vice chairman of D’Addario & Co. recently picked up a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Koblenz Int’l Guitar Festival in Germany on behalf of himself, the company, and the D’Addario Foundation for their dedication to promoting the classical guitar. AcousticGuitar.com 75

MAKERS & SHAKERS

Indian Hill’s Mike Kennedy creates a unique showpiece flattop

BY MARC GREILSAMER orm follows function—that has been misunderstood,” said the renowned architect Frank Lloyd Wright. “Form and function should be one, joined in a spiritual union.” Luthier Mike Kennedy, proprietor of Indian Hill Guitars in Montreal, calls this statement one of his “guiding principles” of guitar building. “I strongly believe,” Kennedy has said, “that a cohesive design in both structure and aesthetics is fundamental to producing exceptional instruments.” In many ways, Kennedy has reached the apotheosis of this philosophy with his recent work on a singular presentation guitar he created in honor of the legendary Western artist Charles Marion Russell, whose early-20th century paintings of cowboys, Native Americans, and landscapes are internationally revered. Kennedy’s “Russell guitar” will be a featured auction item in “The Russell: An Exhibition and Sale to Benefit the C.M. Russell Museum,” to be held this spring in Great Falls, Montana. Kennedy’s instrument, a Grand Concert model, combines a Sitka spruce top with walnut back and sides, and it includes a number of noteworthy Western-themed flourishes—most significant, a wood-burned image of Russell’s bison skull logo in the center of the spruce top.

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erhaps it’s only fitting that Kennedy was first bitten by the acoustic-guitar bug while living out West, in Santa Cruz, California. “I basically just put everything I had in my car and drove out there,” he recalls. Living in a friend’s garage for much of his time there, Kennedy’s life revolved around surfing and playing guitar. When the time came for him to get a new acoustic, he considered the idea of building his own.

Mike Kennedy

Before he’d arrived in Santa Cruz, he says, “I didn’t even realize until that point that people actually could build guitars.” That changed when Kennedy started working at a coffee shop near the Santa Cruz Guitar Company, where a number of SCGC employees would hang out—which only served to feed his newfound acoustic-guitar obsession. Learning to build guitars soon became a viable option. “I’ve always loved figuring out how things worked and building things,” Kennedy explains. “I’d studied mechanical engineering, so I’ve always had that bent.” Not only would he be able to make himself a new instrument, he thought, but maybe he could land a gig at SCGC in the process. Below, left The unique bracing pattern Right Magnetic end graft

LENNY P. ROBERT PHOTO

Western Spirit

Kennedy’s first attempt involved using a how-to book as tutelage, but he abandoned that notion when he got to the list of required tools—on page two. He then decided that taking a full-blown guitar-making course was the best approach, and he soon enrolled in the program run by esteemed Canadian luthier Sergei de Jonge. At the time, Kennedy wasn’t particularly familiar with de Jonge or his sterling reputation; he chose de Jonge’s course simply because it offered vegetarian meals. “He’s an amazing guy,” Kennedy says of de Jonge, “an incredible teacher and one of the most generous people I’ve ever met—with knowledge, and with tools and wood.” Of Kennedy, de Jonge says, “I could see right away that he had a really good aptitude for guitar making—didn’t take long for me to see that.” Kennedy completed the course, but the timing never quite worked out for him to join

76 April 2015

MIKE KENNEDY PHOTOS

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Santa Cruz. Yet, Kennedy had such a wonderful experience with de Jonge the first time around that he decided to take the course again. When the course was complete, de Jonge agreed to take him on as a full-time apprentice. “He’s incredibly easygoing, but he still has very high standards for the quality of work that he will accept,” Kennedy says. “From the get-go, from the very first guitar I built for him [in 2005], it had to be up to his standards. It had to be perfect.”

‘I think it’ll sound different than my other guitars, but I’m not sure how, and that’s what I’m curious about.’ De Jonge was impressed with Kennedy. “It was a pleasure to have him in the shop,” de Jonge says. “His work was always good, he was conscientious, and towards the end of his time with me, his workmanship was just excellent. Often, when I’d have real fine details to be executed on a guitar, I’d pass it over to him.” Kennedy has been on his own for about six years and has built roughly 25 guitars under the Indian Hill name. “I’m starting to hone in on how the guitar functions as a system,” he notes,

taking an ever-more holistic approach that considers how all the parts interact, how changes to one element of the build affect all of the others. “I’m not doing each part in isolation. I’m taking a step back a little bit and having a wider perspective on how the build is going,” although his eye for detail has never been more precise. ike de Jonge, his mentor, Kennedy likes to keep an open mind—willing to take things in new directions, not caged in by a concrete system, working very much by intuition and feel. The Russell guitar presented him with a number of fascinating challenges. In terms of the wood choices, Kennedy wanted to “keep it North American,” settling on highly figured walnut for the back and sides because it was “visually striking,” and on Sitka spruce for the top, because it would provide a nice contrast with the wood-burned Russell logo. In order to accommodate the wood burn, Kennedy had to forgo a traditional soundhole in favor of f-holes, a relative rarity for a flattop acoustic, which meant modifying his standard bracing pattern. In the end, the new pattern was only slightly different than his usual bracing. The hybrid bracing style, which he likens to a “birdhouse shape,” uses elements of a double-X system combined with elements of a ladder system. He shifted the side braces so they connect at the

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main X, instead of out toward the waist. “I like to think a lot about evenly distributing the forces. I try to have all the braces connected to each other, because they’re not only support, but they’re helping transmit vibration.” Though he wasn’t sure if the new system would work, his subsequent Chladni testing, which assesses nodal patterns to help tune the top, proved successful. “I was able to get a closed ring and a half [pattern], so I was able to tune the top right where I was hoping to get it.” Another challenge created by the lack of a soundhole was being able to provide access to the guitar’s interior. Kennedy settled on the use of an end graft, which is held in place by magnets and features an Indian Hill logo design that has a sort of Old West “branded” appearance. For the purfling, Kennedy expanded on the Western theme by opting for an intricate rope design that combines maple, walnut, and a “mystery tannish veneer” and is constructed based on the golden ratio (related to the Fibonacci sequence). To facilitate appropriate air movement in the box, he plans to add at least one soundport. Though the aesthetic considerations are ample, Kennedy is, of course, most concerned with how the Russell guitar is going to sound. “Not nervous,” he says, “just curious. I think it’ll sound different than my other guitars, but I’m not sure how, and that’s what I’m curious about.” AG

CarbonFiberCases.com AcousticGuitar.com 77

GUITAR GURU

What Causes Random Intonation Glitches?

Even the best-built guitar can exhibit idiosyncratic gremlins BY DANA BOURGEOIS

Q

Using an electronic tuner, I can verify that when my open strings are in tune, my fretted octaves are accurate or nearly accurate. Individual notes of certain chords, however, can be very out of tune, and capoing in some positions requires retuning. I’ve noticed that all guitars, even electrics with ‘properly’ adjusted saddles, have the same intonation problems to a greater or lesser degree. Can you explain what causes seemingly random intonation glitches? Is it possible to modify a guitar to intonate as accurately as a keyboard?” Alex Medford Somerville, Massachusetts

GOT A QUESTION? Uncertain about guitar care and maintenance? The ins-and-outs of guitar building? Or a topic related to your gear?

78 April 2015

A

A plucked string produces a fundamental tone and a series of overtones, or harmonics. In an interval of a perfect fifth, the third harmonic of the lower fundamental and the second harmonic of the upper fundamental are the same pitch. When significant harmonics of two notes are perfectly in tune, the interval is said to be just, or consonant. By virtue of shared harmonics, the easiest intervals to hear as consonant or “out of tune” are unisons and octaves, followed by perfect fifths and perfect fourths. A consonant perfect fourth above a consonant perfect fifth produces a pitch slightly higher than an octave above the original note. This phenomenon (difficult to succinctly explain) presents serious problems for instruments capable of playing multiple, simultaneous notes. If you demand consonant octaves, something has to give. Guitars and pianos solve this problem by dividing consonant octaves into 12 equally spaced semitones. This tuning system, known as equal temperament, allows instruments to play in all keys with reasonable intonation. The downside is that every interval except the octave is either flat or sharp relative to its harmonically consonant counterpart. Every interval, except the octave. So the good news is that guitars do, in fact, intonate about as accurately as pianos, though not without idiosyncratic intonation gremlins.

Ask Acoustic Guitar’s resident Guitar Guru. Send an email titled “Guitar Guru” to editor Marc Greilsamer at [email protected], and he’ll forward it to the expert luthier.

Inaccurately placed frets and saddles, common to many older guitars not produced using today’s ubiquitous computer-guided machinery, can further skew the baked-in imperfection of equal-temperament fret spacing. Fret, saddle, and string wear can wreak havoc on even the most accurately manufactured instrument, while dryness or humidity can raise or lower a soundboard (and with it, strings), altering intonation from one day to the next. And players may have a tendency to push strings sideways when fretting certain chords, inadvertently seasoning the harmonic soup.        Yet guitars have distinct intonation advantages. By making subtle, even unconscious adjustments in tuning and inflection, squeezing a chord a certain way, sliding up on a pivotal note, or simply refraining from bad technique, a good player’s intonation always seems dead on. Andrés Segovia is said to have preferred high action (the better to manipulate intonation), eschewed compensated saddles, and advised students that tuning to the unique requirements of an individual piece of music is a fundamental aspect of musical inter-pretation. Before succumbing to keyboard envy, always remember that no pianist can manipulate intonation with the left hand. AG Dana Bourgeois is a master luthier and the founder of Bourgeois Guitars in Lewiston, Maine.

If AG selects your question for publication, you’ll receive a complimentary copy of AG’s The Acoustic Guitar Owner’s Manual. Dana Bourgeois

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knowledge in string design. We incorporate innovation into materials selection and string construction while utilizing preferred gauging based on years of input from our GHS artist family. Add in cryogenic treatment to extend the life and enhance tone. The Americana Series strings are served in our Nitro-Pack which utilizes a sealed nitrogen atmosphere, preventing oxidation and corrosion for each individual string, and then each set is wrapped in outer Fresh Pack foil.

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NEW GEAR

Aged Tone Adirondack spruce top

Gentle Giant

Bourgeois’ Bryan Sutton Limited Edition dreadnought revisits a modern marvel BY MARC GREILSAMER

80 April 2015

ow considered one of the world’s premier flatpickers, Bryan Sutton was quite a phenom when he hit the bluegrass scene nearly 20 years ago. When Sutton was first establishing his sterling reputation, it was usually with his 1997 Bourgeois D-150 in hand—a dazzling dreadnought with an Adirondack spruce top and Brazilian rosewood back and sides that boasts an often elusive combination of power and finesse. That D-150 surely marked a pinnacle of Dana Bourgeois’ 40-year guitar-building career, so it may come as little surprise that the esteemed luthier has chosen to replicate that instrument with the majestic Bryan Sutton Limited Edition dreadnought. Using the original as a springboard, Bourgeois has constructed a wonderfully balanced, tonally superb guitar that adds a number of elements to give it a particularly lived-in feel.

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VIBRANT SOUND The Sutton model is a responsive instrument with dynamic projection. Its rich, robust bass is certainly evident, though it never overwhelms. It’s got the muscle to cut through any string band without sacrificing the nuance and refinement of a memorable instrument. It boasts impeccable clarity and glorious sustain no matter how far up the neck you wander. The note separation is brilliant, and its deep, full sound is sure to make ears perk up. Constructed using hide glue, the review model features an Aged Tone torrefied Adirondack spruce top—with tight, even, straight grain—and elegantly figured Brazilian rosewood back, ribs, and headstock cap, plucked from Bourgeois’ special reserve. Toss in an ebony fretboard and bridge plus a one-piece mahogany neck, and you have all the ingredients of an archetypal, “golden-era” flattop guitar.

123/32-inch nut width

Ebony fretboard

Gold Waverly tuners

BODY Dreadnought size Aged Tone Adirondack spruce top with Aged Tone doublescalloped X-bracing AT A GLANCE

BOURGEOIS BRYAN SUTTON LIMITED EDITION

NECK One-piece mahogany neck

Brazilian rosewood back and sides

Ebony fretboard

Ebony bridge

25½-inch scale length

PRICE $11,645 list

Aged Tone finish

123/32-inch nut width

Made in the United States

Abalone rosette

Gold Waverly tuners

bourgeoisguitars.net

SPECIAL APPOINTMENTS No doubt that Bourgeois was looking to approximate the look and sound of that original D-150, his top-of-the-line dreadnought, but he’s taken things a few steps further by trying to approximate the overall feel of a “broken-in” guitar. (After all, Sutton’s D-150 has gotten nearly two decades’ worth of heavy use.) To achieve this, he’s used the torrefaction process on the guitar’s Adirondack braces (to release moisture and sap, and add stability) as well as on the soundboard itself.

If you happen to end up as one of the 30 owners of a Bourgeois Bryan Sutton Limited Edition dreadnought, consider yourself lucky.

Other features exclusive to this line include a vintage-style through (long) saddle that extends to the wings of the bridge, double-scalloped X-bracing pattern, and ultra-thin Aged Tone finish. Bourgeois rounds out the package with a number of standard D-150 features, including triple ivoroid binding for the neck, headstock, and body, a beautiful abalone rosette, ivory bridge pins, and diamond/square fretboard inlays. Gold Waverly machines round out a visually stunning, aurally satisfying, eminently playable instrument. COMPLETE PACKAGE In the world of acoustic guitars, the word “special” is bandied about with regularity, so much so that it may even invite a sense of skepticism. However, the Bryan Sutton model needs no embellishment or hyperbole. Sometimes, special is indeed special. With a constantly rotating assembly of guitars rolling through the AG office, it can prove difficult

for a particular instrument to catch the ears of the folks around here. But when I started picking on this Bourgeois, several coworkers ambled over to my desk—and I can assure you it wasn’t my virtuosity that turned heads; far from it. The magnificent tone of the guitar is immediately recognizable, whether blazing down the bluegrass path or leisurely strumming jazz-inflected voicings. Bourgeois is limiting this model to a run of 30 guitars; with a list price of $11,645, it’s no bargain. On the other hand, the likes of this investment-grade instrument may be increasingly hard to come by. Without question, there are a number of heirloom-quality guitars that can be had for less. Still, if you happen to end up as one of the 30 owners of a Bourgeois Bryan Sutton Limited Edition dreadnought, consider yourself lucky. AG [Editor’s Note: Dana Bourgeois writes the Guitar Guru column for AG.] AcousticGuitar.com 81

NEW GEAR

AT A GLANCE

PAUL REED SMITH SE A10E BODY Solid mahogany top with proprietary X-brace/classical hybrid design Mahogany back and sides Rosewood bridge Gloss finish NECK Mahogany neck Rosewood fretboard 25.25-inch scale length 121/32-inch nut width Gloss finish

Warm, Woody, and Inexpensive

PRS’ first all-mahogany acoustic mixes characteristics of steel-string and classical models BY ADAM PERLMUTTER

PRS SE tuners EXTRAS Undersaddle pickup with volume and tone controls D’Addario light phosphorbronze strings (.012–.053)

hen I first pick up Paul Reed Smith’s SE A10E, with its narrow nut and sleek low action, not to mention its asymmetric headstock and super shiny finish, the guitar feels more like an electric than an acoustic. But a few cursory strums reveal the SE A10E to have the warm and woody sound characteristic of a good all-mahogany guitar.

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Hardshell case PRICE $799 list; $599 street Made in Korea prsguitars.com

82 April 2015

BALANCED SOUND Out of the box, the SE A10E plays extremely well. Its slightly chunky neck—comparable in profile to a typical 1950s solid-body electric— is easy to cradle in all registers, whether I’m playing full barre chords or single-note runs. And, though at 121/32 inches, the nut is a hair narrower than on a standard Gibson electric, the fretboard doesn’t feel at all cramped. An aficionado of prewar flattops won’t necessarily be wowed by the SE A10E’s overall voice; it seems to lack a certain complexity and character. But it does have an assertive, punchy midrange; a tight, clear treble; and a round, solid bass. Given its even sound, the SE A10E accommodates a wide range of stylistic approaches. It responds equally well to everything from bluegrass-style cross-picking in the open

position, to vigorous strumming in drop-D tuning, to chord-melody arrangements of jazz standards. Clearly the SE A10E isn’t a guitar that’s pitched at the fingerstyle player, but it does fare quite well in this context—again, despite the skinny nut. The instrument refuses to muddy up when placed in lowered tunings like DADGAD and open-G, and fingerpicked improvisations in these tunings benefit from the instrument’s clarity and balance.

The guitar would make a no-brainer for an electric player looking for a comfortable acoustic. The SE A10E comes complete with an undersaddle pickup whose tone and volume controls are positioned conveniently, tucked inside the soundhole. Plugged into a Fender Acoustasonic amplifier via a quarter-inch jack at the endpin, the electronics system delivers a good approximation of the guitar’s natural acoustic sound.

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A HYBRID MACHINE Presided over by the luthier Paul Reed Smith, PRS Guitars has been making high-performance electric guitars since the mid-1980s but didn’t enter the acoustic market until 2009. The SE A10E is PRS’s first all-mahogany guitar and, like the company’s other acoustic offerings, it borrows design trademarks from the electric series, such as the idiosyncratic headstock and the birds-in-flight fretboard inlays. The SE A10E also shares a unique bracing pattern with other PRS acoustics. Its solid top is supported with a hybrid of Torres-style fan bracing used on classical guitars and the X-pattern traditionally seen on steel-string guitars—a design that Smith conceived of after he played an original Torres whose sound he found explosive. The SE A10E is available in two finishes— tortoise shell and black. Our review model came in the former. The coloring, a deep brown-maroon, feels heavy and oversaturated. It partially obscures the grain of the mahogany and makes it difficult to see the body’s black binding. PRS’s American-made instruments are known for their superlative craftsmanship. The build quality on the SE A10E is good overall but doesn’t quite measure up. The fretwork is clean and tidy, as is the slotting on the bone nut and saddle. But there’s the occasional dimpling in the finish, and inside the guitar, excess glue is apparent around the bracing and kerfing. These small anomalies of craftsmanship are easily overlooked, though, given the SE A10E’s low street price of $599. Having smooth playability and tonal balance, the guitar would make a no-brainer for an electric player looking for a comfortable acoustic, or a studio musician in search of an inexpensive guitar that will sit nicely in a mix. AG Contributing editor Adam Perlmutter transcribes, arranges, and engraves music for numerous publications. AcousticGuitar.com 83

NEW GEAR

Power to the Preamp

The Platinum Stage, left, and the Platinum Pro EQ

Fishman’s Platinum Series is Class A all the way BY ADAM PERLMUTTER

hen it comes to guitar electronics, very good things are coming in increasingly small packages. That’s definitely the case with Fishman’s newly designed Platinum Pro EQ analog preamplifier, which is about the size of the average portable hard drive, and its even more diminutive counterpart, the Platinum Stage. Auditioned with a new Yamaha LL16 ARE guitar, both units deliver clean and accurate sonics, not to mention user-friendliness and affordability.

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THE PLATINUM PRO EQ Powered by a nine-volt battery or AC adapter, the Platinum Pro EQ ($249.95 street) is housed in a sturdy steel chassis and is intended for use as a stompbox. Its control panel is easy to grasp. At the bottom-left corner is a footswitch for engaging a built-in tuner with five different modes: fully chromatic, ukulele, bass, guitar, or violin. The tuner is intuitive to operate with its virtual needle displayed on a screen in the center of the front panel. 84 April 2015

The unit features controls for honing and controlling the sound of a stringed instrument, and all perform very well. A row of dials—low cut, bass, middle, treble, and brilliance—offer great tone-shaping possibilities, while notch and phase controls attenuate unwanted feedback. A boost control enhances the volume of a low signal without coloring it; a single-knob compressor smoothens the overall sound. I plugged the Platinum Pro EQ into a Fender Acoustasonic amplifier and found that the class-A preamp does an excellent job of delivering the Yamaha’s natural acoustic voice. The EQ section is very smooth and responsive: The treble control precisely tailors the sound to cut through a mix without any harshness, and the bass control minimizes the booming low end of the dreadnought guitar. An attractive shimmer to ringing arpeggios can be had with the brilliance control, and the compressor works beautifully in evening out the sound without robbing the tone of vitality. Plugging the Platinum Pro EQ directly into Apple’s GarageBand on a MacBook Pro via an

Apogee Duet interface, I enjoyed similarly satisfying results for recording some basic acoustic-guitar tracks on the fly. And plugging in a Fender Jazz bass, I tracked some robust low-end parts: testament to the preamp’s versatility. THE PLATINUM STAGE The Platinum Stage ($119.95) comes in a similarly sturdy chassis and has about the same footprint as a typical smartphone. Its controls are more minimal with just a four-band EQ section, a volume boost switch with level control, and a balanced D.I. with pre/post EQ setting and auto-ground lift. As its name suggests, the Platinum Stage is intended for live performance, and it handily clips on to the belt (although it feels a little goofy to wear it this way). Though obviously not as versatile as the Platinum Pro EQ, the Stage sounds just as good, thanks to the class-A electronics. And the EQ controls still offer plenty of tone-shaping possibilities—enough to satisfy most performing guitarists. AG

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AcousticGuitar.com 85

PICKIN’

AT A GLANCE

FENDER PREMIUM CONCERT TONE 59 BODY 11-inch Remo Renaissance head Burl walnut resonator Brass 40-hole flathead tone ring 24 hooks Multi-ply maple rim with walnut stain

Heavyweight Champion Fender’s top-of-the-line Premium Concert Tone 59 banjo revives a long-celebrated line BY ADAM PERLMUTTER

Maple bridge with ebony cap Chrome clamshell tailpiece Gloss polyurethane finish NECK Five-piece walnut-and-maple neck Rosewood fretboard with 22 frets 26.4-inch scale length 1.69-inch nut width Dual-action truss rod Planetary tuners Gloss polyurethane finish EXTRAS D’Addario J-61 strings (.010/.012/.016/.023W/.010) Deluxe hardshell case PRICE $1,349.99 advertised Made in China fender.com 86 April 2015

ender’s new Premium Concert Tone 59, a modern interpretation of the five-string banjo that graced the company’s catalog during the 1960s, is loud and lively, rife with overtones, rich and warm-sounding. Its intonation is true and correct, and the banjo plays effortlessly well, thanks to a svelte neck and a perfect factory setup. When played in the Scruggs or clawhammer style, the Premium Concert Tone 59 has an assertive voice that’s perfectly suited to a bluegrass romp. There’s good note separation between the individual chord members; everything is clear and distinct. It also sounds excellent when subjected to non-idiomatic approaches—for example, improvisations informed by Indian classical music or the sort of cluster voicings associated with 20th-century art music. The banjo has a bit of a longer neck than the standard guitar—the Concert Tone has a 26.4-inch scale and 22 frets. And it’s a lot burlier too: The review model weighed in at a whopping 12 pounds, seven ounces. But somehow it’s not difficult to transfer between a guitar and the Concert Tone, and when played in seated position, it’s easy to forget about the instrument’s relatively great mass. Compared with a guitar, the neck feels accommodating, the 1.69-inch nut giving the fretting fingers ample space to move between the strings. The banjo’s relatively slinky strings—the highest pitched sized at .010— make it easy to play high-velocity runs up and down the neck.

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COSMETIC APPEAL The Concert Tone looks as beautiful as it plays and sounds. The resonator is fashioned from American black burl walnut, with stunningly eccentric figuring and rich color. The maple rims have been stained a warm brown to match the walnut. Non-stained maple and walnut segments are sandwiched together in the neck, their appearance echoed in the multicolored wooden marquetry gracing the fingerboard and rims. The headstock, which sports a rosewood cap, is emblazoned with an ornate torch inlay in abalone; the fretboard is decked out with a wonderful assortment of old-school floral and geometric shapes, complemented by acrylic pearl buttons on the planetary tuners. The well-constructed Concert Tone boasts a Remo Renaissance head stretched to the perfect tightness, and the 24 hooks and other hardware require no adjustment. The frets are smoothly crowned and have no jaggedness at their edges. All of the inlay work has been cut and glued with great precision, and while the gloss polyurethane finish feels a little heavy and detracts slightly from the banjo’s old-fashioned detailing, it has been faultlessly applied. With an advertised price of $1,349.99, the Premium Concert Tone 59 banjo isn’t exactly a bargain for an imported instrument, but with its pro-level sound and playability, not to mention its snazzy looks, the instrument would make an excellent choice for the guitarist looking to double on the banjo in any capacity. In short, it’s a winner. AG

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n 1963, a young Jean-Claude Larrivée left his hometown of L’Abord, Quebec, Canada, and moved to Toronto. A few years later, he met world-renowned classical luthier Edgar Mönch at a concert, and within a week he was studying guitar building with the maestro himself. By 1970, Larrivée had already started to develop his steel-string guitar concepts, which were received enthusiastically by the area’s professional musicians. One of Larrivée’s first steelstring customers was Bruce Cockburn, for whom he ultimately made three instruments, including his first cutaway model, pictured here. I can remember, as a young Larrivée apprentice, hearing Cockburn try to explain a body shape that would allow him better access to the upper registers of the fingerboard. Everyone present thought it was a bit of a crazy idea, as none of us had yet been exposed to a cutaway flattop guitar. When the time came to turn this idea into an actual guitar, Larrivée bent the sides on a hot pipe—without the aid of even a rough sketch—and fashioned an instrument that was far ahead of its time. The guitar’s construction is not dissimilar to today’s Larrivées. The brand’s distinctive symmetrical bracing system was almost fully evolved even at this early stage in Larrivée’s career, as was his use of the hand-fitted dovetail neck joint. However, there are some notable differences: The guitar has a nonadjustable truss rod instead of the contemporary adjustable variety; it’s built with a European spruce top (possibly a residual influence of his German-born mentor) instead of Sitka; and it features a spectacular set of dark, completely quarter-sawn, old-growth Brazilian rosewood back and sides. If you had to pick a pivotal instrument in Jean-Claude Larrivée’s career, this would certainly be it. Larrivée’s unique Florentine cutaway design was exposed to audiences by a gifted musician’s extensive touring and blazed a trail for luthiers and players alike for decades to come. AG

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This article was first published in the December 2006 issue. AcousticGuitar.com 89

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Playlist James McMurtry’s gamesmanship

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Playlist Julian Lage’s solo-guitar set

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Final Note David Bromberg on David Bromberg

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James McMurtry

Acoustic First

The literary songwriter softens the edges of his sound to bring more edge to his stories BY MARK SEGAL KEMP

here’s not a better living American songwriter than James McMurtry, whose literary bloodline—son of Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Larry McMurtry (The Last Picture Show, Lonesome Dove)—makes a damn good case for a genetic predisposition for telling great stories. Combining everything that’s righteous in the story-songs of Steve Earle or Bruce Springsteen, but putting a brutally dark spin on them, McMurtry’s vignettes reveal unvarnished truths about America, circa now. The country’s oldest and most respected leftist weekly, The Nation, has named McMurtry’s classic blue-collar anthem of 2004, “We Can’t Make It Here,” one of the best protest songs ever. No matter what your political perspective, it’s hard to disagree with that. McMurtry’s musical stock-in-trade is weaving together acoustic and electric instruments in ways similar to his use of language, employing brash electric-guitar fuzz, distortion, or dissonance to put just the right emphasis on a key word or phrase. “We Can’t Make It Here,” for instance, begins with spiky electric and acoustic guitar notes over a thudding bass line to suggest a raw, emotional prickliness before

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92 April 2015

locking into the repeated descending chord progression that carries such gritty, hyper-real couplets as, “Empty storefronts around the square / There’s a needle in the gutter and glass everywhere.” On Complicated Game, McMurtry puts full emphasis on his warmer acoustic sound, fingerpicking or strumming an old Gibson dreadnought he got from Ani DiFranco, making only the sparest use of electric guitars to provide coloring to a set of songs that are much more personal than political. The shift in McMurtry’s musical focus underscores the vulnerable side of his writing. In the first few tracks, McMurtry tells of love’s myriad personae: the passionate young marriage that couldn’t possibly survive limos that “smelled like cocaine sweat, cheap cologne, and aftershave” (“You Got to Me”); a more mature blue-collar marriage rooted in perseverance (“Copper Canteen”); a marriage with agreed-upon infidelity that burns holes in one’s self-esteem (“She Loves Me”). The one refrain that ties together all of these complicated games comes over the strummed guitars, keyboards, and drums of “You Got to Me,” which sounds as if it was plucked straight from Exile on Main

James McMurtry Complicated Game Complicated Game

Street-era Rolling Stones, fronted by Lou Reed with a Texas drawl. “You got to me,” McMurtry sings, “brought all this emptiness down on top of me / Off on a thousand-dollar odyssey / And I know a thing or two now.” Elsewhere, McMurtry’s protagonists question their existence in the world (“Ain’t Got a Place”), contemplate change (“Deaver’s Crossing”), return disillusioned from war (“South Dakota”). One of the standout tracks is the album’s most electric moment, “How’m I Gonna Find You Now,” which finds McMurtry talksinging the exploits of a wide-eyed crazy who’s “smoking into town like a Molotov cocktail,” with quavering tremolo guitars approximating the protagonist’s sleep-deprived insanity. Blue-collar struggles remain at the heart of Complicated Game (as they do on all of McMurtry’s albums), but with a warmer, acousticbased sound, the songwriter is able to bring more of the nuances of personal relationships to the fore. To be sure, McMurtry has played plenty of all-acoustic shows, and acoustic guitars have been at the core of everything he’s ever recorded. But Complicated Game is acoustic first, and that makes all the difference. AG

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Jorma Kaukonen Ain’t in No Hurry Red House

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On new solo outing, Jefferson Airplane/ Hot Tuna guitarist takes his time Before Jorma Kaukonen electro-shocked folk into psych-rock with Jefferson Airplane, he fingerpicked an acoustic guitar, inspired by the fretwork of the Rev. Gary Davis. Though his longtime Airplane spinoff Hot Tuna has flirted with amplified lava-lamp boogie, the band’s excursions into stripped-back electric and acoustic blues have proved more durable. But Kaukonen, now 74, is at his purest on his solo acoustic recordings, with JA/Hot Tuna bassist Jack Casady in tow to provide his signature deep, guttural growl. Ain’t in No Hurry, Kaukonen’s third album for Red House, simply reinforces the portrait of a master comfortably ensconced in his roots. The elegiac “In My Dreams” weaves the guitarist’s grainy, smooth-as-single-malt vocals with his nimble, silvery picking, distilling mortality and memories of sun-dappled psychedelia in one phrase: “We never seem to age in my dream.” But Kaukonen’s lackadaisical touch can’t conceal his propulsive drive. For every familiar touchstone—on a few cuts he plays his 1958 Gibson J-50, the guitar he used on the Airplane’s “Embryonic Journey”—there’s a fresh wrinkle: the bad-ass bent notes and chugging coal-train picking on “Where There’s Two There’s Trouble,” the pedal-steel drenched countrypolitan pop of “Bar Room Crystal Ball.” Kaukonen and his sidemen play loose and elastic, and their invigorated takes on old folk and blues shun reverence. The Depression-era clarion call “Brother Can You Spare a Dime” is pointedly topical, but also turns playful in the knotty weave of Kaukonen’s Spanish-flavored guitar and Barry Mitterhoff’s trilling mandolin. Kaukonen’s in no rush to speak his mind on Ain’t No Hurry. Instead, he lets each moment sweep you up. —Pat Moran

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Julian Lage

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World’s Fair Modern Lore

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The child prodigy finds nuance and maturity on first all-solo guitar set Julian Lage may be the most down-to-earth guitar virtuoso ever. When he plays—or talks about his playing—there’s not an ounce of pretentiousness in his demeanor. He breaks into a big smile when he finds a particularly sweet spot on the fretboard. He’s naturally inquisitive; he listens intently. That’s perhaps why Lage, groomed since he was 12, has become one of the guitar world’s finest players. On his first set of all-solo acoustic-guitar pieces, Lage brings together folk, jazz, and other musical references in 12 improvised, though compact songs (none much longer than four minutes) with deceptively simple melodies that connect on a deeply emotional level. Opening track “40’s” is a sweet folk melody that arrives on a breeze of melancholy, as if through an open car window during a summer drive into the country. Lage’s guitar runs like water over “Gardens,” and on “Red Prairie Dawn” he seems to be jamming with himself on a bluegrass hoedown. Even the coiling guitar in the album’s most experimental track, the brief “Doublesteps,” is accessible enough to thrill the most serious love of melody. Lage named the album World’s Fair for the sense of nostalgia it conjures, and these songs surely live in another time. But Lage is a product of the modern world—a virtuoso with an attention span that’s brought him from helping to breathe new life into the career of vibes legend Gary Burton to performing dizzyingly experimental free improvisations with avant-jazz-rock guitarist Nels Cline (Room) to a recent country-folk collaboration with Chris Eldridge (Avalon). On World’s Fair, Lage rolls alone on a set that feels so warm and intimate, it’s as if he’s sitting across the room playing just for you. —M.S.K.

Home recordings explore Sam Beam’s formative years Iron & Wine (aka Sam Beam) fans who miss the homespun simplicity of his early efforts— specifically his much-loved 2002 Subpop debut, The Creek Drank the Cradle—will surely embrace this first archival release from his new label. It consists of 16 songs from that time when Beam was making his albums alone at home on a four-track cassette recorder, often overdubbing banjo and slide-guitar parts on top of his acoustic picking. The recording is decidedly lo-fi (more on some songs than others), but the overall feeling is still warm and intimate thanks to the immediacy of his vocals, many of them nearly whispered. There’s bright fingerpicking on tunes such as “Loretta” and “Sing Song Bird,” while others feature mesmerizing guitar-banjo-slide interplay. “Judgement” even adds a track of guitar-tapping percussion to nice effect. For me, the most effective songs have an almost nostalgic glow, capturing the joys and uncertainties of relationships with lovers and friends from days gone by. In the pretty opener “Slow Black River,” he sings about “your hand in mine forever”; in “Quarters in a Pocket,” he quietly intones: “Time spent with you feels like sketches for a painting / that you won’t let me see.” Then there’s “Everyone’s Summer of ’95,” about Beam and his buddies whiling away their days, “halfway home and going nowhere.” Though I personally prefer Beam’s more elaborate and musically adventurous recent albums, these early songs have a quiet grace and power that is both appealing and compelling, and they provide glimpses into the heart and soul of one of music’s most interesting eccentrics. (Available through ironandwine.com.) —Blair Jackson

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Mendocino Guitar Festival, medocinoguitarfestival.com . . . . 83

Acoustic Guitar Guides, store.acousticguitar.com . . . . . . 90, 93

Fur Peace Ranch, furpeaceranch.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

Merlefest, merlefest.org . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87

Acoustic Guitar Subscribe, acousticguitar.com/subscribe . . 99

G7th, Ltd., g7th.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93

Acoustic Image, acousticimg.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

GHS Strings, ghsstrings.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79

American Music Furniture, americanmusicfurniture.com . . . . 85

Gibson, gibson.com. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

Ashokan Fiddle & Dance Workshop, ashokan.org . . . . . . . . 88

Guitar Center, guitarcenter.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

L.R. Baggs, lrbaggs.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Guitar Workshop Plus, guitarworkshopplus.com . . . . . . . . . . 88

Bourgeois Guitars, pantheonguitars.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

Hill Guitar Company, hillguitar.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

Bread & Roses, breadandroses.org . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95

Hoffee Cases, carbonfibercases.com. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

Breezy Ridge Instruments, Ltd., jpstrings.com . . . . . . . . . . . 77

Homespun, homespun.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

California Coast Music Camp, musiccamp.org . . . . . . . . . . . 87

Steven Kaufman Enterprises, Inc, flatpik.com . . . . . . . . . 65, 73

Collings Guitars, collingsguitars.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

Guitar Humidor, guitarhumidor.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94

D’Addario & Company, daddario.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24, 25

Kyser Musical Products, kysermusical.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

Elixir Strings, elixirstrings.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4, 7

Luthier Music Corp., luthiermusic.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93

Sweetwater Sound, sweetwater.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

Elliott Capos, elliottcapos.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

C.F. Martin & Co., Inc., martinguitar.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16, 100

Taylor, taylorguitars.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Ernie Ball Music Man, ernieball.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52

Masecraft Supply Co., masecraftsupply.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88

Wind River Guitar, mikedowling.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

The Music Emporium, themusicemporium.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 P.K. Thompson Guitars, pkthompsonguitars.com . . . . . . . . . . 88 Paul Reed Smith, prsguitars.com. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Radial Engineering, radialeng.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 RainSong Graphite Guitars, rainsong.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 Original Guitar Chair, originalguitarchair.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 Saga Musical Instruments, sagamusic.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Shubb Capos, shubb.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87 Stewart-MacDonald’s Guitar Supply, stewmac.com . . . . . . 94 The Swannanoa Gathering, swangathering.com . . . . . . . . . . 73

AcousticGuitar.com 97

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DAVID BROMBERG, ACOUSTIC GUITAR SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1990

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