Acoustic Guitar 274.pdf

TALLEST MAN ON EARTH | SARAH MCQUAID | JD SOUTHER | ED HELMS

3 SONGS

ALICE IN CHAINS Nutshell BOB DYLAN House of the Rising Sun EARL BELL Travelin’ Blues

OCTOBER 2015 | ACOUSTICGUITAR.COM

JAMES TAYLOR BACK IN THE DRIVER’S SEAT AFTER 13 YEARS

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CONTENTS

‘Mistakes sometimes create the most interesting sounds.’ KRISTIAN MATSSON, P. 24

Features 24 Tallest Man on Earth Swedish singer-songwriter Kristian Matsson’s modern folk By Adam Perlmutter

Special Focus Home Play 46 The Accidental Guitarist Ruminations on the art of noodling By Adam Perlmutter

30 Brand New Start James Taylor talks guitars, songwriting, and his first album of new songs in 13 years

50 The Way of the Couch Tips on practical ergonomics for guitarists

By Greg Cahill

By October Crifasi

36 Try a Little Tenderness JD Souther takes a classic songwriting approach on new album

52 BBQs, Beaches, and Backyards Playing at home or with friends is the perfect casual gig

By Kenny Berkowitz

By October Crifasi

40 Lightning in a Bottle The rise of folkie Sarah McQuaid

Miscellany 10 From the Home Office 12 Opening Act 80 Marketplace 101 Ad Index 102 Final Note

October 2015 Volume 26, No. 4, Issue 274 On the Cover James Taylor Photographer Timothy White

By Andy Hughes

AcousticGuitar.com 5

CONTENTS

NEWS 15 The Beat Bluegrass picker and comedian Ed Helms on the Lonesome Trio; remembering Ronnie Gilbert, Jim Ed Brown, and Richard Eddy Watson 20 News Spotlight Joseph Skibell and his book, My Father’s Guitar and Other Imaginary Things PLAY 57 Songcraft A songwriter’s guide to rhyme The Basics 60 How to use open strings creatively 62 Learn the fundamentals of hybrid picking 64 Weekly Workout Swinging like Freddie Green Songs to Play 68 Nutshell Angsty acoustic gem from Alice in Chains 70 Travelin’ Blues A hot one from Memphis legend Earl Bell 74 House of the Rising Sun Learn this timeless bordello blues

Mérida Master 75D p. 88

AG TRADE 79 Shoptalk The Roberto-Venn School of Luthiery; Woodstock Luthiers Showcase 82 Makers & Shakers Paul Heumiller and his Dream Guitars 84 Guitar Guru The upside of torrefaction 86 Review: Taylor 914ce This revamped guitar is a winner across the board 88 Review: Mérida Master 75D A dreadnought with a lovely voice and a modern look 90 Review: Grace Harbor GHGC-200 A satisfying and responsive budget flattop 92 Great Acoustics Pogreba resonator MIXED MEDIA 96 Playlist The Steep Canyon Rangers show versatility on Radio; also, Langhorne Slim’s The Spirit Moves, Chuck Johnson’s Blood Moon Boulder, Thad Beckman’s Streets of Disaster, Dylan’s first album remastered 99 Books Willie Nelson’s lively memoir, It’s a Long Story, is full of heart, soul, and humor AcousticGuitar.com 7

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In the Studio: Charlie Parr Enjoy a recent Acoustic Guitar Session episode with bluesman Charlie Parr. Watch Parr perform his new song “Frank Miller Blues” and talk about his beloved National metal-bodied resonator and Fraulini 12-string. See more at: acousticguitar.com/sessions to check out interviews with and performances by Richard Thompson, Ani DiFranco, Seth Avett, Peter Rowan, Della Mae, Bruce Cockburn, Valerie June, Julian Lage, Eliza Gilkyson, Preston Reed, and many others. NEW INSTRUCTIONAL SERIES AVAILABLE: ‘5 MINUTE LESSON’ Acoustic Guitar’s experts offer brief, insightful tips on warm-up exercises, practice tips, gig preparation, and other useful topics. The first few installments of 5 Minute Lesson are taught by master jazz guitarist, composer, and educator Ron Jackson. For more information and to start shopping, visit store.acousticguitar.com GET ‘ACOUSTIC GUITAR’ IN YOUR E-MAIL INBOX Your daily piece of acoustic guitar. Enjoy reviews and demos of the latest guitars and gear, instructional video, guitar technique tips, acoustic guitar news, special offers, and so much more. Sign up for Acoustic Guitar Notes and we’ll e-mail you articles and videos that will help you improve your playing and stay connected to the acoustic guitar world. acousticguitar.com/acoustic-guitar-notes

50 years of craftsmanship, tone and beauty. Introducing the new Alvarez 1965 series For more information, please visit: www.alvarezguitars.com/1965-series

FROM THE HOME OFFICE AcousticGuitar.com • AcousticGuitarU.com

CONTENT DEVELOPMENT Editorial Director & Editor Greg Cahill Editor at Large Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers Managing Editor Blair Jackson Senior Editor Marc Greilsamer Associate Editor Whitney Phaneuf Copy Editor Anna Pulley Senior Designer Brad Amorosino Production Manager Hugh O’Connor Contributing Editors Kenny Berkowitz, Andrew DuBrock, David Hamburger, Steve James, Orville Johnson, Richard Johnston, Sean McGowan, Jane Miller, Greg Olwell, Adam Perlmutter, Rick Turner, Doug Young

INTERACTIVE SERVICES Interactive Services Director Lyzy Lusterman Creative Content Manager Joey Lusterman Creative Content Coordinator Tricia Baxter Community Relations Coordinator Courtnee Rhone Single Copy Sales Consultant Tom Ferruggia

MARKETING SERVICES Sales Director Cindi Kazarian Sales Managers Ref Sanchez, Greg Sutton Marketing Services Manager Tanya Gonzalez

Stringletter.com Publisher David A. Lusterman

tage. Praise. Studio. You name it—acoustic guitarists employ their guitars in a variety of special settings. One common factor: You’d be hard-pressed to find a guitarist that doesn’t play at home. In the special section in this month’s issue, you’ll find advice on three aspects of playing at home: noodling, playing on the couch, and leading friends in backyard sessions. Call them home improvement tips. A couch potato’s guide to playing the guitar struck a few folks around here as too irreverent a topic. But the negative ramifications of slumping on the couch while binge watching Ancient Aliens can come back to haunt you. So, AG enlisted contributor October Crifasi, a skilled performer and instructor, to lay down the law (sit up straight!) by explaining the flawed mechanics and potential harm inherent in this common practice.

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Crifasi also contributes etiquette advice on making that backyard bash a fun experience. And Adam Perlmutter contemplates four ways that the sometimes maligned art of noodling can help you to tap your creativity. Elsewhere, you’ll find my interview with singer-songwriter James Taylor, who hit the top of the Billboard charts earlier this summer with Before This World, his first album of original material in 13 years. And Perlmutter sizes up the Tallest Man on Earth, the Swedish artist who has carried the sobriquet as the next Dylan on his broad shoulders. Meanwhile, Kenny Berkowitz delves into JD Souther’s tender side and Ron Jackson returns with a lesson on playing swing jazz in the style of the legendary Freddie Green. In addition, you’ll find news, more player tips, songs to play, gear reviews, and more. Keep on playing! —Greg Cahill

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KNOW YOUR ROOTS

THE SEED TO SONG JOURNEY: GUATEMALA The journey took four days. Five flights and hours of off-roading on treacherous, handmade jungle roads. Sleeping on cots in remote, thatchedroof logging camps and grinding raw corn for tortillas with the camp chef. All of this effort to locate the perfect mahogany tree for the next batch of Bedell Guitars. Going to the source is not the easy way, but it’s the right way to find sustainable tonewoods and forge fair trade partnerships with communities worldwide. Doing the right thing never sounded better. E V E RY 2 01 5 BE D E L L I S H A N DC R A F TE D I N TH E U S A . WAT CH T H E VI D E O AT B E D E L L G U I TA R S .C O M

The Beat Weavers co-founder Ronnie Gilbert dies

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The Beat MerleFest Radio Hour is on the air

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News Spotlight Joseph Skibell on ‘My Father’s Guitar’

THE BEAT

Picking & Grinning

NEWS

DALE MAY

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Lonesome Trio (L to R) Jacob Tilove, Ian Riggs, Ed Helms

Actor and music hound Ed Helms talks bluegrass, comedy, and a cappella BY KENNY BERKOWITZ

n the 20 years since graduating from Oberlin, the three college buddies who formed Weedkiller have moved on to very different careers. Banjo player and guitarist Ed Helms has become the publisher of the Bluegrass Situation website and an actor, playing Andy Bernard on The Office, Stu Price in the Hangover trilogy, and Rusty Griswold in this summer’s Vacation. Ian Riggs has become a full-time musician, playing upright bass in New York City, and mandolinist Jacob Tilove is an architectural historian whose most recent book is about “the definitive history of the development of the garden suburb.” Fortunately for bluegrass fans, the friends stayed in touch, playing occasional gigs as the Lonesome Trio. Now, with the release of their self-titled debut album on the Sugar Hill label, they’re busier than ever. Helms—talking by phone from his office in Los Angeles, where he’s working on a set of upcoming film projects—describes how decades later, they simply love playing together. “Playing together has been a very steady constant in our lives, but not anything we took all that seriously,” he says. “I have some old cassette tapes of Weedkiller, where we sound like musicians who love

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bluegrass, but haven’t had a lot of exposure to really great bluegrass playing. At that time, it wasn’t as much about performing for people as just having a blast performing for ourselves. We would play at weddings, parties, but even then, it was just for us. It was something we did because we loved it.” That’s what you hear when you listen to The Lonesome Trio: friends playing for the pleasure that comes from making music, carving two weeks out of their otherworldly schedules to write, rehearse, and record an album of original material, with enough time left over to simply hang out. It’s a folk album filled with overdubs, with Helms on acoustic and electric guitar, accordion, banjo, harmonica, organ, piano, and trumpet; Riggs on bass, piano, autoharp, vibraphone, and drum; and Tilove on acoustic and electric mandolin, accordion, fiddle, and guitar. Of the three, Tilove’s writing is the most ironic, with titles like “Appalachia Apologia” and “The House Song (Sung by a House),” while Riggs follows close behind with the tragicomic “River in the Gutter.” That leaves Helms, the comedian, as their darkest writer, singing about death, drink,

exhaustion, failure, fear, loneliness, and a life that’s “all gone to hell.” “We tap into a pretty raw place, and I really love that,” says Helms, the trio’s only Southerner, who started bluegrass guitar at 13 years old and takes his main inspiration from Tony Rice and John Hartford. “It’s a totally separate creative pursuit, a different channel of creativity than the comedy, and I love them both. Our show is lively and fun, but it’s not comedy. It’s about the music, our friendship, and the joy of playing together.” Over the summer, the trio took their show on the road before Helms went back to work on Love the Coopers (due in November), Central Intelligence (2016), Captain Underpants (2017), and the longer-term projects Mermaids in Paradise and Naked Gun, which may still be years away from being finished. In the fall, he’ll return to the Bluegrass Situation’s Los Angeles festival, which he co-founded, and if all goes well, the trio will soon have enough material to record a follow-up album. And what about Andy Bernard, who’s been out of work since The Office closed shop? What does he think of all this bluegrass? “It’s pretty good,” says Helms, in character, “but it would sound a lot better a cappella.” AG AcousticGuitar.com 15

THE BEAT

BRIEFS ‘HOME’ SWEET HOME Nickel Creek and Punch Brothers co-founder, mandolin virtuoso, and multiinstrumentalist Chris Thile will become the new host of NPR’s A Prairie Home Companion starting in 2016. Thile has twice served as a guest host on the popular public-radio show, which features heartfelt traditional music and storytelling. Longtime host Garrison Keillor will retain an active role in the coming season and beyond, acting as co-host, writer, and executive producer over a lengthy transition.

The Weavers (L to R) Pete Seeger, Lee Hays, Ronnie Gilbert, Fred Hellerman

IN MEMORIAM The folk and country music worlds lost three greats in recent weeks:

Chris Thile

Van Morrison

SONGSMITHS HONORED The Songwriters Hall of Fame ushered in its 46th year of honoring songwriting legends. Van Morrison received the Johnny Mercer Award, the hall’s highest honor, which is bestowed to writers with a long history of outstanding creative works. Other new inductees included the Grateful Dead songwriting team of Robert Hunter and the late Jerry Garcia, rock composer Linda Perry, the late Chicago bluesman Willie Dixon, and country star Toby Keith. 16 October 2015

RONNIE GILBERT 1926–2015 Ronnie Gilbert—who co-founded the seminal folk-singing quartet, the Weavers, with Pete Seeger, Lee Hays, and Fred Hellerman—died on June 6 in California at age 88. As the only female voice in the Weavers, Gilbert’s signature contralto was a rally cry for social change and helped inspire the folk-music revival of the 1950s. Gilbert was born Ruth Alice Gilbert in Brooklyn and grew up in New York City, where the Weavers performed their first gig at the Village Vanguard in 1949. The group’s 1950 debut record, which contained “Tzena, Tzena, Tzena” and Lead Belly’s “Goodnight, Irene,” was a hit and spent 13 weeks at No. 1. The Weavers’ harmonies and sing-along spirit brought work songs, union ballads, and gospel to new audiences, and popularized standards, including “The Wreck of the John B” (aka “Sloop John B”), “Rock Island Line,” and “On Top of Old Smoky.” But post-World War II politics and the impending Cold War made the Weavers a target of the anti-Communist right wing and, after a pamphlet called Red Channels named Seeger a member of the Communist Party, the group was blacklisted. The Weavers had a second act, thanks to a sold-out Carnegie Hall reunion show in 1955, and continued recording and touring until 1963. Gilbert turned to acting after the Weavers broke up and appeared in many plays, including

the Harold Pinter-directed, 1968 Broadway production of Robert Shaw’s The Man in the Glass Booth. Later, in the ’70s, Gilbert studied psychology and worked as therapist. Gilbert is survived by her wife and longtime manager, Donna Korones, her daughter, and a granddaughter. Her memoir, Ronnie Gilbert: A Radical Life in Song, is set for publication by the University of California Press this fall. JIM ED BROWN 1934–2015 Jim Ed Brown, Grand Ole Opry star and member of country music sibling act, the Browns, died of cancer on June 11 at age 81. Brown—alongside his sisters Maxine and Bonnie—sang and played acoustic guitar on the trio’s singles including “Here Today and Gone Tomorrow,” “I Take the Chance,” and “Just as Long as You Love Me.” But it was the 1959 crossover hit, “The Three Bells,” that cemented their place in history. The Chet Atkins-produced folk-pop song reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and earned the Browns an invitation to join the Grand Ole Opry in 1963. Brown continued performing at the Opry for more than 50 years and enjoyed a solo hit with “Pop a Top” in 1967. This month, the Browns will be inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame, along with Grady Martin and the Oak Ridge Boys. Before Brown’s death, while he was in a Franklin, Tennessee, hospital, he was presented with a medallion commemorating his Country Music Hall of Fame membership. CONTINUES ON PG. 19

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Ray Benson

RICHARD EDDY WATSON 1966–2015 Richard Eddy Watson—blues guitarist, grandson of Doc Watson, and son of Merle Watson—died on June 1 of a heart attack at his home in Deep Gap, North Carolina. He was 48. As a young player, Watson perfected his fingerpicking on tour with his late father and grandfather. He recorded “Feeling the Blues” in 1992, which he dedicated to his father, and in 1999 collaborated with Doc on the Grammynominated Third Generation Blues album. Watson performed with his grandfather until Doc’s death in 2012, and was a staple at MerleFest—the traditional music festival that bears his father’s name. In a statement, MerleFest director Ted Hagaman writes: “The entire MerleFest family was saddened to learn of the passing of Richard Watson. Richard has been a fixture at MerleFest for many years, helping to carry on the Watson legacy. He was a talented musician and he will be missed.” Watson is survived by his wife, Annette; daughter, Candis Watson Webb; grandson, Tantem Webb; mother and stepfather, Geneva Hennessee and David Hennessee; and sister, Karen Watson Norris. —Whitney Phaneuf

AUSTIN: OUTER LIMITS Asleep at the Wheel frontman and founder Ray Benson has returned to Sirius XM’s “Willie’s Roadhouse” on a bi-weekly basis to host his show, Austin Outer Limits. The one-hour broadcast, inspired by the theme “where cowboys meet aliens,” features Western swing and Texas honky-tonk music handpicked by Benson. On October 26, Benson will be added to the Philadelphia Music Walk of Fame—along with six other inductees—during a ceremony on the Avenue of the Arts in Philadelphia. SUNDAY FEELING WNCW has teamed up with MerleFest to create the MerleFest Radio Hour, an hour-long weekly show of live performances, album tracks, and an interview segment with artists who have played at MerleFest. The show, co-hosted by Mark Bumgarner and Steve Johnson, airs live on Sundays from 6-7 p.m. EST on WNCW. It also is streamed on wncw.org/listen-live.

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NEWS SPOTLIGHT

Joseph Skibell My Father’s Guitar and Other Imaginary Things Algonquin

Steel-String Lit

In his new book, My Father’s Guitar and Other Imaginary Things, essayist Joseph Skibell draws inspiration from wood and steel BY ADAM PERLMUTTER

s a teenager in the 1970s, novelist and creative-writing professor Joseph Skibell spent countless hours in intimate discourse with his Alvarez steel-string, wearing deep grooves in its fretboard while dreaming of becoming a singer-songwriter. But in his 20s, having devoted himself to a literary life, he lost interest in the guitar and played the instrument only occasionally. Decades later, Skibell read a profile on luthier Ken Parker in The New Yorker, rekindling his relationship with the six-string. Skibell’s father passed away around the same time, and the writer used a chunk of his inheritance to upgrade from the old Alvarez to a pair of Parker electric guitars. “In an idiosyncratic way, I taught myself the classical repertoire, working through volumes 1 and 2 of Christopher Parkening’s method. If only someone had told me when I was in my 20s that I could play sophisticated music on the solo guitar, and not just sit around strumming ‘Ride Captain Ride,’” says Skibell, now 55. Skibell began to make a study of the art of lutherie. In the summer of 2009, he and his daughter, Arianna, took a North American road trip to visit the workshops of Ken Parker, Michael Greenfield, and Linda Manzer. Skibell

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20 October 2015

developed an acquisitive streak as a consequence of the trip, and he’s since commissioned elegant acoustic guitars from J.S. Bogdanovich, Bevan Frost, Shelley D. Park, Erich Solomon, and others. But the centerpiece of Skibell’s collection is a handmade Parker archtop dubbed Fig, named for the dramatic figuring of its big-leaf maple back and sides, which resembles the meat of that fruit. F.I.G. is also an acronym for Father’s Imaginary Guitar. The instrument is a minor character in Skibell’s latest book, My Father’s Guitar and Other Imaginary Things (Algonquin Books)—a collection of essays originating from reflections he had on his great road trip. How would you characterize yourself as a guitarist? I play a lot, mostly fingerstyle, and I’m a bit surprised I play as well as I do. I studied a little with Pierre Bensusan and Michael Chapdelaine, and I can play some of their less challenging pieces. I’d say that I’m a high-intermediate player. My question is: What would it take to become advanced? It seems that there’s a great leap between high intermediate and low advanced—I don’t know if I’ll ever make the leap, but I’d like to.

What was it like to share the stage with Paul Simon when he participated in the Richard Ellmann Lectures, a series you directed at Emory University, where you’re on faculty? He was such a mensch to let me join him in playing and singing “The Boxer.” The words “I’m onstage with Paul Simon” shot through my head, and I immediately gave myself a tension headache. And working with him for the year and a half leading up to the lecture, it was so inspiring to see how he was all about serving the work to an impeccable degree. He’s a master in all senses of the word. In your instrument collection, you’ve shied away from production models in favor of those built by luthiers. As an artist, do you feel a connection with guitar makers? I’ve really gravitated toward luthiers—Ken Parker, especially, because I do feel a kinship with him. Ken is working so far beyond the norm, but like many novelists, he’s sort of an unheralded genius—many people see him as just a guitar maker. In the same way, a novelist can work so hard to put new and amazing things into a work, only for it all to be lost on readers. CONTINUES ON PG. 22

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It’s also interesting to see how luthiers’ personalities come out in their instruments. Fig, like Ken, is brilliant, and extravagantly generous with herself, sui generis, sensitive, and hyper-aware, but also a little moody. You never know quite what you’re going to get when you play her and you have to give her as much as she gives you. Shelley Park is kind of like a Girl Scout leader—earthy, unpretentious, always doing her duty—and likewise her guitars are there to serve, always playable, always dependable, always forthright and honest. In My Father’s Guitar and Other Imaginary Things you recall being embarrassed by your father bargaining on the price of a Fender Mustang on your behalf. How do you think he’d feel about the cost of your guitar-collecting habit? On one hand, behind my back, he’d probably roll his eyes, and think “Enough is enough.” But on the other hand, my father really liked nice things, and I think he’d appreciate the fineness of these instruments and be glad that I’ve been able to own them.

Juilliard.edu/guitar

Photo: Darnell Renee

Talk about the names you’ve given your guitars. I’ve named guitars after departed relatives, as a way of keeping their names alive. One of my Solomon guitars, Lena, is a prototype baritone with maple back and sides. It’s made in honor of my mother, who had very light skin and a surprisingly deep voice—people often mistook her for a man on the telephone. The Parker, Fig, is, of course, a tribute to my father. My two Shelley Park Gypsy guitars are like opposite twins. Goldie, a grande bouche with shimmering maple back and sides, and a cedar top, is open and friendly, while EmY, a petite bouche with very colorful mahogany back and sides, and a spruce top, is more high-strung. I call the pair the Lezanski Twins—they were made in memory of my mother’s brother and sister, Les and Idelle Lezan. Neither married, and they spent the last 20 years or so of their lives living in the same apartment, not always happily.

22 October 2015

Joseph W. Polisi, President

Do you think about your family when you play the instruments? I really like that their names are on the labels, and that, one day, someone else will own these guitars and wonder who these people were. Each guitar is so different, and it does make me think of them when I play the instruments, and perhaps honoring these relatives justifies buying all these guitars. AG

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STANDING TALL By Adam Perlmutter

24 October 2015

Singer-songwriter Kristian Matsson possesses a stage name that commands respect. And he has the talent to be the Tallest Man on Earth I’m perched on an old vinyl couch in a dressing room in Los Angeles’ historic Wiltern Theater, waiting to meet Kristian Matsson, the Swedish singer-songwriter who goes by the stage name the Tallest Man on Earth. When he enters the room and I stand to shake his hand, I am surprised to find that his height is not one for the record books. Matsson, who was touring in support of his latest album, Dark Bird Is Home (Dead Oceans), is a compact man with a commanding presence. He wears a short beard and fashionably disheveled hair with subtle grey highlights that he makes no effort to hide. He is dressed nattily, having swapped out the tank top he’s often photographed wearing in favor of a tan blazer over a black T-shirt. He has a coffee in hand. As he sits for the interview, he removes the blazer, revealing a horse tattoo on his left forearm.

He looks like the prototypical hipster sampled from Silver Lake or Bushwick, but Matsson speaks thoughtfully and without any affect about his music, which can be categorized roughly as modern folk, and which is indebted to such idiosyncratic singer-songwriters as the late Nick Drake. Matsson, who is 32, grew up in Dalarna, a rural province in central Sweden. He was fortunate enough to be exposed to jazz and classical-guitar repertoire in high school, but even so he grew tired of the regimented structure in those forms and sought out other sounds. “I started playing in punk and glam bands before entering a Bob Dylan period, and also checking out Nick Drake in my late teens,” he says, adding that this led to a discovery of their folk and blues antecedents.


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TALLEST MAN ON EARTH

Matsson performs at the Fox Theater in Oakland in June.

In 2006, after a brief stint in the Swedish indie-rock band Montezumas, Matsson emerged as the Tallest Man on Earth, releasing a selftitled solo EP with just acoustic guitar and voice. He would use this same instrumentation on his next two full-length efforts: Shallow Grave (2008) and The Wild Hunt (2010). Inevitably, Mattson drew frequent comparisons to Dylan. It’s true that, like Dylan’s early work, the Tallest Man on Earth’s most prominent features are a scratchy voice and a fingerpicked acoustic guitar, but the assessment is somewhat superficial. From the beginning, Matsson has had his own concept within the folk tradition, with a harmonic language that’s broader than most, and a lyrical lens that’s often Northern European. 26 October 2015

“[The comparison] drove me crazy for a while,” says Mattson, looking down at his coffee and rapidly stirring it. “I didn’t set out with a specific plan to be a singer-songwriter in the mold of Bob Dylan. I just don’t think like that. My music has evolved naturally as I’ve brought different influences into the fold.” atsson has always thought of the guitar as an extension of his voice— he has often recorded his playing and his singing on the same track. To match his baritone, and to suit his signature contrapuntal approach, he’s relied on a number of different makes and models of guitars. Early on, he played acoustics by Furch, a Czech maker, and by Guild. Then, in 2011, he received a

‘IN TERMS OF TUNINGS, I TEND NOT TO USE THE OBVIOUS CHOICES, LIKE DADGAD— THAT WOULD JUST SOUND TOO IRISH.’

fortuitous e-mail from Eric Padilla, the luthier behind the Carmel Guitar Co., in Northern California. Padilla says, “While I was getting the company set up, building prototypes, I listened constantly to the Tallest Man on Earth. Then I had an epiphany: Why not just write to Kristian to see if he’d be interested in checking out one of my guitars?” Matsson was amenable, and Padilla sent him a freshly completed dreadnought with an Italian spruce soundboard and mahogany back and sides. “I received the package at the local grocery store, which doubles as the post office,” Matsson says. “I was so excited that I unboxed the guitar in the parking lot, and right away I was really impressed by its great resonance and responsiveness.” Since that first encounter, Matsson has developed a close relationship with Padilla, even taking the luthier on the road as a guitar tech. And Matsson has acquired three more custom builds from his friend—an OM and another dreadnought, both with Italian spruce tops and rosewood backs and sides, and a third dreadnought with a Sitka spruce top and narra back and sides. “It’s an astonishingly good quartet—all of the guitars are so well-built, and they just have such nice projection and sustain,” Matsson says. That’s not to say that Matsson always places sustain and boutique guitars at a premium. His no-name 1900s parlor guitar and his 1930s Gibson L-0 both have a noticeably short decay time—an attribute that he sees not as a shortcoming, but a boon to his fret hand. “When I play those guitars, my left hand must be a bit more active,” he explains. “Not only does this force me to keep up my technique, I find myself stepping outside of what I normally do and playing new things on these guitars, especially the L-0.”

Near the end of that particular tour, Matsson found himself depleted. He looked forward to returning home, but once he got there he faced the death of his grandfather and a divorce from his wife and sometimes-collaborator, the singersongwriter Amanda Bergman. After a period of healing, he became reenergized about music and got to work on a new record. “I began to get excited about working on new material, and I saw that I was putting a difficult time to good use. I found myself writing songs mostly about

what happens before and after a divorce,” he says. Matsson, like Nick Drake before him, often uses nonstandard tunings that render his fretboard an unfamiliar place, all the while helping create uncanny harmonic structures for new songs. Tallest Man on Earth records tend to incorporate a mixed bag of tunings, but for Dark Bird Is Home Matsson used just one—E B C# F# B F#, lowest string to highest. “In terms of tunings, I tend not to use the obvious choices, like

I

n recent years, Matsson has played in increasingly larger venues. By the time he toured in support of There’s No Leaving Now (2012), he began to have technical problems with the sparse instrumentation of voice and guitar. Matsson says, “It became difficult to fill a large hall with an intimate sound. To create drama in a song, and to capture the audience’s attention, I’d strum fiercely and then become too keyed-up to cleanly fingerpick a more delicate section. “It was lonely as well,” he continues. “After a show was over, I’d be sitting by myself in the green room, wishing I had someone to talk to about what had just happened onstage. I’d think to myself, ‘Is this really what success looks like?’” AcousticGuitar.com 27

TALLEST MAN ON EARTH

‘Timothy,’ and then walk across the lawn to record it. My studio is such an inspiring place to work. It’s got solar tubes in the ceiling, which let in this beautiful prismatic light. The floor has these wide wooden panels that add brilliance to the sound. If you play drums in my studio, you’ll sound like John Bonham,” says Mattson, referring to the late Led Zeppelin drummer. Partly as a way of stretching out sonically, and partly with an eye toward touring with a

band that would help carry the load, Matsson worked with fuller arrangements on Dark Bird Is Home than on any of his previous records. Initially he recorded all the guitar, banjo, pedalsteel, synth, and vocal parts, along with some of the drum tracks, in his barn. Dusting off his old B-flat clarinet, he also added some strategically placed woodwind layers. But he wasn’t quite satisfied with the results. “The record needed some supporting musicians who could actually play their instruments correctly,” he says.

JOEY LUSTERMAN

DADGAD—that would just sound too Irish,” he says, laughing. “What I like about the B tuning [Bsus2/E, to be exact] is that it has not the tonic but the fourth [E] as the lowest note, and that adds a bit of unpredictability to the sound.” Using a recording studio that he built in an old barn adjacent to his home allowed Matsson to work on Dark Bird Is Home in a relaxed and unhurried way, tracking whenever the inspiration struck. “It was great to be able to sit down in my kitchen with the L-0, write a song like

Smokey darkness

THE B TUNING ADDS A BIT OF UNPREDICTABILITY TO THE SOUND.

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28 October 2015

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o address the situation, Matsson flew to Wisconsin and enlisted the help of Michael Lewis, Michael Noyce, and C.J. Camerieri, members of Bon Iver, with whom Matsson has toured. They used reed, string, brass, background vocals, and assorted other parts to create lush overlays for the arrangements. Matsson says that he wanted a female vocalist to record the harmonized vocals, but, not unlike at an old Muscle Shoals recording session, he had to go with the musicians who happened to be available. “Since no women were around at the time, that’s Mike Noyce on all the high parts,” Matsson says. “He sings so beautifully.” On that note, it was time for Matsson to soundcheck for the evening’s performance. He put his jacket back on and, walking me out of the Wiltern, peered at the stage through one of the theater’s back doors. “I’ve got an entirely different backline than I had for shows on the East Coast, and the symphonic drum we’ve been lent is so much larger than we’re used to,” he says, somewhat nervously. “But then again, mistakes sometimes create the most interesting sounds.” AG

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30 October 2015

On his first album of new songs in 13 years, singer-songwriter James Taylor reconnects with his muse and tops the pop charts By Greg Cahill

“I

like the idea of slow evolution and practice, the way the Japanese revere their masters and pass their technique down to subsequent generations,” says singer-songwriter James Taylor, whose recently released hit album, Before This World (Concord), marks the second-longest wait between an artist’s debut on the Billboard charts and the coveted No. 1 spot. (Tony Bennett holds the record.) “It’s not a very Western way of thinking, but in the long run it’s a nice way to think of your work.” In addition to Before This World, his first set of originals in 13 years, Taylor has a newly launched Sirius XM channel devoted to his music—he recently performed at the Apollo Theater in Harlem, the first time he’d headlined a show in that venerable hall, to promote the channel. And at press time, he was scheduled to perform on August 6 with his band for the first time at Fenway Park in Boston, the hallowed Red Sox baseball stadium that inspired one of the songs on the new album. Taylor, 67, recorded most of the album last January with his longtime rhythm section in a barn in the woods behind his home in rural Massachusetts during a ten-day period. “That contributed to the unity and cohesiveness of the sound,” he says. “And that really works in its favor.” The album is alternately reflective and celebratory, often evoking familiar themes of restoration and spiritual renewal that grace his best work. His voice is as soothing as ever. And despite the presence of cellist Yo-Yo Ma and guest singer Sting, Taylor’s cedar-top concert-model acoustic, built by Minnesota luthier Jim Olson, colors these sessions with warmth. His guitar even cements the foundation for the Steely-Daninspired “Stretch of the Highway,” and his impressive fingerstyle technique shines on the folksy tunes “Before This World/Jolly Springtime” and “Wild Mountain Thyme.” Asked about his custom-made guitar, Taylor says, “It has very low action. [Jim] makes a guitar that is very stable, very reliable. All of my Olsons have lasted—I’ve played them on the road and they’ve stood up well. I’ve abused them terribly, but he’s around to fix them, so that’s a crucial relationship we have.” The new album arrives 45 years after Taylor’s 1970 breakthrough release, Sweet Baby James (Warner Bros.), which included such signature songs as “Fire and Rain,” “Country Road,” and the sweetly sung title track, a lullaby to his baby nephew. The LP was made on a shoestring budget of just over $7,000 and established Taylor as one of the brightest stars in the then-nascent singer-songwriter movement. I spoke to the five-time Grammy winner and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee in late June as he was winding his way on a bus through the Berkshires to Pennsylvania, where the troubadour had scheduled three days of band rehearsals to prepare for this summer’s tour. He was gracious, contemplative, and excited as he discussed songwriting, guitars, the power of music, and the latest leg of his career—a brand new start.


JAMES TAYLOR

The opening track, “Today Today Today,” finds you singing “The world will open wide / I’m running with the tide.” It’s a cheerful personal manifesto. It is. I used to find a quiet space at home and put in a couple of hours writing lyrics in the morning and maybe a couple of hours in the afternoon. But it wasn’t enough this time. I found that it would take a week or more for the lyrics to come through. One day, I was leaving my home and driving to a friend’s apartment in Newport, Rhode Island, to do some writing. I had packed my guitar and all my notebooks and a keyboard and all my little recorders, and I’d put a boat on the top of the car. This song lyric came to me while I was at the wheel. The lyric was sort of, “Let’s get going on this thing.” It’s a song about getting started.

‘FOLK MUSIC WAS SOMETHING THAT A YOUNG MAN WITH A GUITAR COULD TAP INTO. IT’S ALWAYS BEEN ONE OF MY FOUNDATIONS. I COME BACK TO IT A LOT.’

The album marks the end of a 13-year hiatus from recording original material. But were you writing during that time? Yeah, you know, there were lots of starts—lots of melodies and chord changes—but it’s always a matter of writing the lyrics. That was the hard part. Some of these melodies I’d had for years. For example, “Montana”—those changes I’ve had for at least 15 years. Russ Titelman [the producer of 1997’s Grammy-winning album October Road] was on me to finish it. It took a family ski trip to Big Sky, Montana, where I’d borrowed a friend’s cabin—that’s where that lyric came through after three days, again, isolated. So these songs didn’t just crop up in the last year. In fact, in 2010, we went into the studio and put down demos to about nine of these songs. The album has two tracks that evoke English folk music, one original (“Before This World/Jolly Springtime”) and the other traditional (“Wild Mountain Thyme”). Why did you turn to that style? It’s a tradition that I came up in. That sort of acoustic-guitar folk style—it was very accessible, it was something that was made for citizens to do. It’s the people’s music—unlike jazz or classical music, folk music is meant to be played by everyone. It was a major movement in popular music in the late ’50s and early ’60s, and for me it was something that a young man with a guitar could tap into. It’s always been one of my foundations. I come back to it a lot. . . . On the past couple of albums, I’ve come back to keeping the acoustic guitar at the center of the arrangements.

James Taylor, mid-1970s

32 October 2015

Why do you think the new album has struck such a chord? Well, it has been a long time [between studio albums] and I have a very loyal audience that

was waiting for a new album and was ready for one. And, though I say it myself, I think that it’s good work—this is something I’ve done 16 times before, to take a batch of new songs into the studio, and I’ve learned how to do it. It’s painful for me to listen to the first couple of albums I made because it took a long time to develop the skills to make an album this way. Primarily, I’m a singer and songwriter, and I’m writing for myself, but increasingly, as the years go by, I’m writing for this band that I’ve worked with for decades. It’s a consensus type of arrangement—I don’t dictate what they’re going to play. We talk a lot about it though. You know, one of the strange things about being a singer-songwriter is that often the first time a song is played it’s also recorded for good and all. In an ideal world, you would take those ten or 12 songs on the road and play them 20 or 30 times for audiences and let the songs really become what they are meant to be. So part of the challenge is getting it right the first time. In a 2000 60 Minutes interview, you told Charlie Rose that you are yourself for a living, which is the classic definition of a singer-songwriter. I think that’s true. But I have started writing from a point of view other than my own, increasingly as time goes by. “Angels of Fenway” is from the point of view of a young boy attending the ball game with his grandmother. “Far Afghanistan” is from the point of view of a soldier preparing to do this extreme thing that we ask of our soldiers. So I am more often writing from the point of view of a character other than myself, although inevitably there’s a personal connection with the song. Exceptions are “Today Today Today,” “Watchin’ Over Me,” and “You and I Again,” which are about me and the people in my life. “Far Afghanistan” is a bit of a departure in that it is topical. But it’s not political. For one reason or another, I spent a lot of time thinking about what a soldier’s experience is and why young people are compelled to test themselves.

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I have written other songs in a similar vein, including “Native Son,” “Soldiers,” and “Belfast to Boston,” that also are about war, or about this extreme state. But it’s true that I haven’t written many political songs—though I did write “Let It All Fall Down” during Watergate. Occasionally, I am moved to write political songs, but generally it’s personal.

‘WE’RE CONSTANTLY LOOKING FOR A WAY BACK TO ONENESS OR FOR A CONNECTION WITH EACH OTHER AND THE WORLD. MUSIC IS VERY EFFECTIVE AT CONNECTING US TOGETHER.’

In a recent interview on the Howard Stern Show, you said “Fire and Rain” is a song you probably wouldn’t play if you were alone because you tap into that deeply personal lyric through the audiences’ connection to it. That’s very much what live performance is about, that shared experience. I know from being onstage and in the audience that the two things are similar experiences. There’s something very gratifying about something as simple as kicking loose and celebrating, and sometimes it’s deeper than that. I remember being on tour directly after 9/11, the shows that we played were deeply emotional experiences. Everything was resonating deeply with people. It runs the gamut emotionally. But ideally performances find a group having a common experience and there’s something about the music—it can mean a lot and it can go very deep.

During the past few years, James Taylor has produced nine videotaped guitar lessons that are available free of charge on his website. The videos employ a number of viewing angles, including a guitar cam that

It’s cathartic? And celebratory, too. And palliative. And all of these things, you know? Sweet Baby James was released 45 years ago, as the Vietnam War dragged on. It was an era that found the nation steeped in a malaise. Played on your car’s AM radio, those soothing songs offered shelter. It was an amazing time. The function those songs serve for me is that, whatever it is that makes you want to put into the language of music an internal emotional experience and to make that both outside of you and in front of you, they show that my music can resonate with other people, too. And that’s what you want as a performing artist—you want other people to share in that experience. Not to get too cosmic, but the human condition is that we live in these isolated individuated consciousnesses that re-create the entire world inside our heads. It’s obviously the thing that allows us to compete, and it’s been a great survival strategy as a species. But it does isolate us, and we’re constantly looking for a way back to oneness or connection with each other and the world. That’s kind of a spiritual hunger to escape this thing that we are so committed to, this isolation. Music is very effective at connecting us together. That’s a primal thing. Music does it. It always has. There’s a reason why music lived in the church for hundreds of years, and that’s because it does fulfill a spiritual need. You’ve always been open about your recovery from alcoholism and addiction, and have said that music saved your life. I have a passion for music and I had it early on. It solved problems for me—internal, emotional problems—by being able to express some of this stuff and finding an audience for it. It was such a positive thing. For me, there’s also a little bit of arrested development . . . and having an audience listening to my music and giving me feedback is still

shows his fingerpicking pattern from inside the soundhole. He provides pointers on playing his hits “Fire and Rain” and “Country Road,” among other songs, and offers a detailed explanation of his flat tuning.

“I plan to record another batch of these this fall,” he says, “when things slow down a little bit.” Learn more at jamestaylor.com/guitar-lessons


JAMES TAYLOR

very compelling, very important to me. I love that . . . that’s the main thing that I live for, and the album addresses that tug of war between home and the road. It’s always a challenge to find the balance between the family at home and the family on the bus.

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I’ve read that your songwriting process starts with noodling on the guitar. Yes, that’s what happens. I’ll find a chord progression that will suggest a melody and that also will suggest some language. That’s all you need, just a “corner” that you can lift up. Generally, my practice is to follow that wherever it goes. I do have themes that I keep coming back to. There are spirituals for agnostics that are palliative and that give comfort. There are recovery songs. There are songs about home and the road. My father shows up a lot in songs of mine. There are songs that are celebratory. Occasionally, I’ll write a song about the music business, but I do come back to familiar themes. From one point of view, you could say that all songwriters are constantly rewriting the same 50 songs, and that can be an interesting exercise. I once wrote a song called “Turn Away” in which I literally took a Beatles song, the song “The Night Before,” and I restated it. You can do that. It was just an exercise, but it turned out to be quite a good song. But often I’ll lift a corner and follow it wherever it will take me. And that’s how I write most of my songs. What is the meaning of the album’s title, Before This World? When I was 17, I didn’t think that someone who is 67 had anything in common with me or that we would have a shared experience or that we could communicate in any important way. One of the things that you learn over time is that you become who you are at the age of 17, or 20, or whatever—you basically gel, you individuate, you coalesce—and you are that person for the rest of your life. That’s the news. You don’t change that much, because change is a gradual thing. So I became who I am in 1965, through the five years before that and the five years after it—that’s who I am. I feel like a messenger from that time, from another time. And you’re still going strong at 67, and at the top of the charts. Being No. 1 at this age is very reassuring. I want to continue as long as I have something to contribute. I don’t want to hold on longer than is appropriate, but I do feel that if I’m meant to do anything in this life then this is probably it. And that’s wonderful to know. AG

34 October 2015

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‘TENDERNESS’ JEREMY COWART

By Kenny Berkowitz

36 October 2015

JD Souther revamps his acoustic jazz on an album of originals rooted in the Great American Songbook

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o some people, JD Souther is country legend Watty White on ABC’s Nashville, a fictional writer/producer modeled halfway between Harlan Howard and Cowboy Jack Clement. To others, he’s one of the architects of California county-rock—a man who wrote hit songs for Linda Ronstadt and the Eagles, released a handful of solo albums, and then disappeared. In the past few years, he’s begun performing his old songs again, recasting himself as a singersongwriter and acoustic guitarist in a jazz trio. Now, with Tenderness (Sony Masterworks), he’s finding a place within the Great American Songbook, which he insists isn’t a new direction at all, but more like a new film. “Every album is like a different movie for me,” says Souther, a member of the Songwriters Hall of Fame, talking from his farm just south of Nashville. “For a while, it was the same ensemble of actors, and this is a different group. But the process for putting together this album, and all my albums, is always the same. We start with a slow, gathering storm, a broad band of stuff that gets winnowed down until it’s a good 45-minute set. We end with a rush, when I see the shape and know who the players are. “It’s like I’m punching up my own script. “But I like this album very much. It’s by far my favorite, because I sound so much more relaxed as a singer. I’m not trying to do anything. I’m just singing the songs, telling the stories.”

It’s a warm spring day in Tennessee, and because Souther has a mild case of synesthesia, he talks about the colors he sees when he hears music, how he envisions this album as a woman standing outside in the rain, and how the sky above his barn looks like Vaseline. Nearing 70 years old, he’s been writing songs and telling stories for a long time, some of them sadder than others, but almost all of them sad. He grew up in Detroit, where his father, John Souther, sang in big bands under the stage name Johnny Warren, crooning in an Irish tenor that JD (born John David) remembers sounding “like an early Sinatra.” When Souther was three years old, the family moved to Shaker Heights, Ohio, followed by a move to Dallas and then Amarillo, where his father owned a music store and JD attended college. At 22, after playing drums in a series of bands, he left for Los Angeles, where he taught himself guitar and quickly became part of a scene that included David Blue, Jackson Browne, Glenn Frey, Don Henley, Linda Ronstadt, Judee Sill, and Warren Zevon. Some became stars, some didn’t. Souther and Frey recorded an album as Longbranch Pennywhistle, with session help from James Burton, Ry Cooder, and Buddy Emmons, but their record company folded before they could make much impact. Next, Souther almost became an Eagle, thinking about joining Frey and Henley in Ronstadt’s backup band, but deciding against it.

“David Geffen asked me to give it a try, to play a set with Glenn and Don one afternoon at the Troubadour,” says Souther, referring to the famous West Hollywood nightclub. “I remember we were doing a ballad, and I was looking down the road and thinking, ‘I am unnecessary here. We’ll stay better friends if I’m not in this band.’ So I told David, ‘I don’t think it’s a good idea, and I’m sure Glenn and Don are going to be relieved when you tell them.’ We were all happy with that, because we knew we were going to keep writing together. Jackson and I lived right across a little courtyard from each other, and Linda was my girlfriend, and we were all hanging out, listening to everything each of us was doing.”

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oon enough, Ronstadt’s career took off, with the Eagles following close behind, while Souther stayed close to all of them, becoming an award-winning cowriter with Frey and Henley (“Best of My Love,” “Heartache Tonight,” “New Kid in Town,” “The Sad Café,” “Victim of Love”) and a songwriter/ producer for Ronstadt (“Don’t Cry Now,” “Faithless Love,” “Prisoner in Disguise,” “Simple Man, Simple Dream,” “White Rhythm and Blues”). From there, he went out on his own, first with the short-lived Souther-Hillman-Furay Band (with former Byrd Chris Hillman and Richie Furay of Buffalo Springfield and Poco), and then as a solo act, releasing four albums in 13 years. All of them—John David Souther (1972), Black Rose (1976), You’re Only Lonely (1979), which


MICHAEL WILHOITE

JD SOUTHER

JD Souther performing earlier this year at the Carlyle Cafe in NYC

included his only solo hit, “You’re Only Lonely,” and Home by Dawn (1984)—were filled with haunted, beautifully heartbreaking songs, and though none made Souther a household name, each built his reputation as a songwriter. He didn’t record another album for 24 years. When he did, it was a very different movie.

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here’s nothing country about If the World Was You (2008), the album that began Souther’s move toward jazz, or about the new Tenderness, which has taken the music to the next stage. The songs are still recognizably Souther, but the settings are carefully balanced between the present and a timeless past, rooted in an era when standards were too new to be called standards, with quartets and quintets playing in smoky, darkly lit rooms, and audiences setting down their drinks to hear every nuance in the singer’s voice. “I don’t really sing licks anymore. I just don’t have the patience for it,” says Souther, who’s begun writing a new batch of songs with some of the same feel. “My voice is better now than it was 30 years ago, which is partly a genetic blessing from my father, and partly 38 October 2015

because of all the things I don’t do anymore. I don’t get drunk. I don’t do blow. I don’t smoke Lucky Strikes. I don’t stay up all night. And I don’t sing hard. I’ve learned to modulate my voice into a volume that actually gives me more room for expression. I can go softer, I can go more forceful, but mostly I can interpret the words better without sounding strained.” In “Come What May,” which opens the album, he says goodbye to a lover, trying to persuade himself that he’ll be all right; in “Downtown (Before the War),” which closes it, he sings about a long-remembered love, and the foolishness of hoping a song could ever bring it back. In between, there’s “Something in the Dark,” originally written as a cautionary tale to Judee Sill, and “Dance Real Slow,” in which Souther’s voice is so vulnerable and so intimate, it’s almost a whisper, offering a lifetime of solace that begins with a single dance: “Let the world fall down around us / save all your tears for me / time will pass / what will be will be / and I will always hold you tenderly.” Writers don’t write songs like this anymore, because our sense of romance has changed, even if our romantic ideal hasn’t. But Souther does, and does it beautifully, with string arrangements by Billy Childs and a production

by Larry Klein that recalls the Sinatra/Nelson Riddle records Souther and his father used to listen to years ago. Souther has moved beyond the café jazz of If the World Was You, taking inspiration from such songwriting icons as Sammy Cahn, Matt Dennis, Cole Porter, and Jimmy Van Heusen to create something that would have seemed impossible: using acoustic guitar to write songs that reflect our own time and place, while still fitting convincingly within the Great American Songbook. “I discovered new things on the guitar, inversions and voicings I couldn’t have done 20 years ago, because I wouldn’t have known how,” says Souther, who writes on a set of small-bodied Gibsons built by Ren Ferguson, and plays live as a duo with pianist Chris Walters, alternating between strumming rhythms and spare, haunting leads. “People love sad songs. I do. There are things you don’t get a chance to say in casual conversation. You know, when someone asks, ‘How are you?’ most people have a reflexive action that’s positive: ‘Great. How are you?’ “Sad songs give vent to all the emotions we don’t wear on our sleeves, that lay deep within all of us,” he continues. “That makes them much more satisfying.” AG

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LIGHTNING IN A BOTTLE By Andy Hughes

40 October 2015

On the eve of a US tour, UK-based folkie Sarah McQuaid talks about her passion for Nick Drake, live performance, and her custom-made Manson acoustic guitar

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ll musicians need an editor, someone who will tell them honestly if songs work or not. For UK-based singersongwriter Sarah McQuaid, while working on her latest album, Walking Into White, that much-needed candid opinion was provided by her cousin and co-producer Adam Pierce. It was Pierce—whose producer credits include Tom Brosseau’s Posthumous Success— that recommended McQuaid cut her five-minute songs in half and remove the repetition, be it in lines or complete verses. The result is a more radio-friendly album that represents the ongoing development of her craft as a songwriter and musician. Walking Into White is the Sarah McQuaid album fans have been waiting for. “It is a short album. But I looked up some other short albums—the Beatles’ Revolver album is one—so I am in great company! It does mean that with the bits of talking that I do, I can get the album nicely into a set, and that makes it perfect for my current concerts,” explains McQuaid, who is also the author of The Irish DADGAD Guitar Book, which The Irish Times called “a godsend to aspiring traditional guitarists.” Though McQuaid makes a living from her music, she is not troubling the super-tax bracket just yet. Born in Spain and raised in Chicago, she moved to the wild country of county Cornwall on the south coast of England in 2007, after 13 years in Ireland. That meant she had a property to sell, which brought her some welcome additional capital. So what does a musician do with extra cash? Buy the acoustic guitar of her dreams, of course. “I was living in France when I was 18, and I went to Ireland for the Easter holiday and met a musician named Brendan O’Regan, who had this gorgeous bouzouki, and I asked him who made it, and he told me about Andy Manson,” she says. Manson lives in Devon, the next county to Cornwall, and has made guitars for Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones, Ian Anderson, and Mathew Bellamy of Muse, so, unsurprisingly, his waiting list is long—too long to add another musician. But McQuaid asked Manson to make a guitar for her, and by way of an audition, he traveled to see her support Cara Dillon in concert. She passed the audition, and Manson

moved her to the top of his waiting list. A few months later, her new Manson guitar was ready. “I visited Andy’s workshop,” McQuaid recalls. “And I told him what I wanted—a small body with a big sound, and a deep cutaway, because I like to work up the neck of the guitar. I had been playing a guitar made in 1965, when you could use Brazilian rosewood, which is illegal now, and you can get your guitar confiscated by customs in some countries, so I was worried about traveling with that. Andy told me he was using cherry wood for his guitars, so the body is cherry wood, the top is spruce, and the neck is mahogany. It’s a beautiful piece of work, and I am so lucky to have it.” Every bit as vital as the craftsmanship of her guitar is the creativity McQuaid brings to her playing. She stresses that she sees the guitar as far more than just chords to lay her vocals over—it is an integral part of her music. Her admiration for the influential folk artist Nick Drake comes in part from his willingness to write guitar melodies that were a direct but complementary accompaniment to his soulful vocals and vivid stories. You can hear that influence in her use of complex guitar textures on the track “Canticle of the Sun (All Creatures of Our God and King).” “The first verse is single unison notes playing the melody, the second verse has a chord-based backing, the third verse is some tinkly notes that I get from playing high up the neck of the guitar to give a mandolin sound, and the fourth verse is a harmony to the melody of the vocal,” McQuaid explains. “I found it interesting to record it like that, and hopefully the listeners will find it enjoyable as well.” Walking Into White is also notable for the different method of writing she employed from her past three albums. “Previously my albums had long gestation periods—my third album was written and recorded, but I went on tour, came back a year later, ditched half of the album, wrote some new songs, and tinkered with what was left, so that was a long time in the making. For this album, I was so busy touring, I had nothing finished when I booked the studio and the flights to the US. I had loads of music ideas recorded—I get inspired in soundchecks for gigs, and record ideas then. I had notebooks full of

WHAT SARAH MCQUAID PLAYS GUITARS “My first guitar was a secondhand Yamaha 375S, which is lovely. It has a solid spruce top and a rosewood body, and I played that through college. I had a job in a music store that sold vintage guitars, and I played almost every guitar that came through the store when I worked there! They had a Martin D-28, from 1965, and I fell totally in love with it. The owner let me buy it by paying out of my wages—it took me about two years, and I still have that guitar now. My favorite guitar has to be my Manson, because that was made for me to my own specifications, and it is just a wonderful instrument to play.” STRINGS McQuaid uses Elixer strings. CAPOS “Just a couple of days ago, I met up with Nick Campling, who designs and makes G7th Capos. I have used them for years, and, because I wrote about them online, the company sent me some design prototypes to try out and I sent them back with some comments. Nick invited me over to his house, so I could tell him in person which capos I liked and which ones I didn’t like, and why, and show him what was making buzzing noises, and so on. My road manager and I went for a fantastic lunch with Nick, and I tried loads of capos, and I asked to have one of the Newport models. Nick asked me if I would like a gold-plated one! So now I have a gold-plated Newport capo—it’s really bling, I love it!”


SARAH MCQUAID

‘I HAVE ALWAYS RESPONDED EMOTIONALLY TO MUSIC—I OFTEN CRY WHEN I AM WRITING SONGS; I HAVE NO IDEA WHY! IT’S NOT THAT I AM SAD, IT’S JUST . . . AN EXCESS OF EMOTION.’

snatches of lyrics, so I had a very short, intense period of getting everything together, and chose the best for the record. “I enjoyed this compacted way of working. It felt scary at the time, but now I know I can do it that way, I may well do that again in the future. Having made three albums, I wanted a change in approach and my way of working. I wanted to broaden my horizons in terms of my subjects for songs and the way I made the record, and I got both of them this time.” It’s clear that music is not just McQuaid’s profession, it is entirely her passion. “I have always loved music. I remember singing songs with my mother, and I joined a choir when I was about six years old,” she says. “I have always loved hearing new music—I remember when I was almost late for school because I heard a new song on the radio, and I couldn’t leave to catch the school bus until the song ended. That was how much I adored listening to music, and I still feel that way now. I have always responded emotionally to music—I often cry when I am writing songs; I have no idea why! It’s not that I am sad, it’s just . . . an excess of emotion. That sometimes happens when I play live onstage as well. I can feel tears starting to prick my eyes, and I think, ‘I can’t do this! My makeup will run and I’ll get a snuffly nose,’ so I have to fight it down and carry on. I do meet people afterwards who say they cried during my show, and I can’t really tell them that I understand that because it happens to me, too!” That emotional connection, to her music and fans, motivates McQuaid to keep playing— even when she’s worn down by life on the road. “I love performing, I love the communication with an audience, and sometimes it feels like an electrical connection between me and them. When they are with you, it can be wonderful, but there are times when it is a struggle,” she says. “I think that people are not getting it, and then they come to see me when I sell my CDs and say how much they loved it! Some audiences are just more reserved in showing their feelings, I guess. “I have just done six weeks with five shows a week, and I am exhausted and happy to be home, but I know that in a few days, I’ll be keen to get out there and start doing it all over again.” AG 42 October 2015

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THE ACCIDENTAL GUITARIST

Noodling is a discipline, or maybe non-discipline, that can reveal hidden reserves of creativity By Adam Perlmutter

46 October 2015

his magazine dedicates a whole lot of ink—and pixels and megabytes—to demonstrating regimented approaches to learning the guitar, from accompaniment patterns in all styles to the nuts and bolts of alternate tunings to songs both old and new, inside and out. So the topic at hand—noodling, basically playing in an unguided way, with few restrictions or none whatsoever—might seem counterintuitive. The term is often used pejoratively, less by those who noodle than by innocent bystanders, like anyone who’s ever tried to have a conversation with someone who’s simultaneously picking on a guitar. Or any musician, en route to the soundproofed acoustic room in a Guitar Center, who’s been assaulted by the sound of 20 or more players auditioning loud electric guitars, unintentionally collaborating with pentatonic gibberish in all different keys. In any case, noodling is a pastime that’s potentially rich with musical benefits—a discipline, or maybe non-discipline, that can reveal hidden reserves of creativity and lead to previously unseen directions. When used to supplement a more methodical study of the guitar, it can be an asset to one’s overall musicianship, and not just a nuisance to anyone within earshot.

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TV TUNES Not to be patronizing, but the average American spends far too many hours each day sitting on the couch and watching television. If this describes the way you spend the bulk of your leisure time, noodling can allow you to feel slightly less guilty when binge-watching, say, a full season of House of Cards or Mad Men. Enjoying a show with a guitar at hand lets you make the most of this sedentary time, working on musical exercises you normally neglect. For instance, playing along with the program’s theme song, its incidental music, or even the commercial breaks can be a study in both ear training and improvisation. But beware—unless you’re in the saintliest company, noodling with the TV should be a solitary activity. It’s so annoying to have the audial aspect of television viewing obscured by a family member or friend’s commentary on the guitar. A word of caution: The salty, oily snacks typically associated with TV viewing, not to mention the beverage perched on the couch’s arm and waiting to be spilled, can have damaging effects on the strings and the finish of a fine guitar— especially if it’s French polish.

making it easy to create or import a backing track, layer on an extended solo, and then listen back to everything. That way, you can comb through the music to identify any mistakes in your noodling or to extract little bits and pieces, which you can then flesh out into new licks or even full compositions. TWISTING THE PEGS A twist of the tuning machines can make the guitar refreshingly unfamiliar territory, ripe for noodling. If you’re new to nonstandard tunings, first try the basics, like open G (low to high:

D G D G B D, with the strings 6, 5, and 1 each tuned down by a whole step from standard) or DADGAD (in which strings 6, 2, and 1 are lowered by a step). Play freely, experimenting with the nicely contrasting timbres of open strings, fretted notes, and natural harmonics. Or better yet, come up with some of your own tunings, twisting the pegs until the open strings work together to make a harmony you find appealing. To further mix things up, strap on a capo. Then noodle away and explore the colorful new possibilities inherent in your reconfigured fretboard.

NOODLING CAN BE ESPECIALLY SATISFYING IN A GUITAR-DUO SETTING.

CHORDAL NOODLING Those who are mediocre multitaskers will respond better to more focused strategies. Jamband guitarists tend to play long solos, sometimes interminably so—aka noodling—over static harmonies. Try doing the same. Select one chord—any chord, open or closed, simple or complex, familiar or exotic—and, dispensing with theory and not worrying yourself with thoughts about chord-scale relationships, relax and play whatever comes to mind. Though working with static harmony is in many ways freeing, you need not use just a single chord as the basis of a noodling session. Try a two- or three-chord progression, a 12-bar blues, something more complicated, or even an atonal situation, all of the 12 notes carrying equal weight. Whatever harmonic backdrop you choose, the idea lends itself nicely to recording, especially on a DAW (digital audio workstation), AcousticGuitar.com 47


PARTNER UP FOR A NOODLE FEST Noodling is typically classified as self-indulgent, but it can be a collective activity as well. At best, it can be a fascinating, spontaneous dialogue between two or more musicians; at worst a group of players talking over each other in an obstreperous and unlistenable way, as in an ensemble of inexpert free-jazz musicians. If done with sensitive listening on the musicians’ parts, noodling can be especially satisfying in a guitar-duo setting, where the different personalities of each instrument and its owner can make things really interesting. The next time you get together with a guitar-playing buddy, instead of rehashing “Hotel California” or whatever, try using any of the above strategies to noodle together. Pick a single chord or simple, looping progression to riff on, get into the same nonstandard tuning, or maybe even two different tunings, then see what happens next. The best part is that you won’t annoy your friend with incessant plinking as you sit together on couches, noodling away while you drink tall boys and catch up on all those episodes of Game of Thrones. AG

48 October 2015

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THE WAY OF THE COUCH Far more guitarists qualify as couch potatoes than care to admit—sometimes to their detriment By October Crifasi

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h, to lose oneself to the hours of the day strumming the strings of a good acoustic guitar while stretched out on a favorite comfortable spot on the sofa. A few minutes of mindless meandering across the strings in this blissful state of repose can serve as the perfect pick-me-up to low spirits, or as an excellent jumping-off point to get the creative musical mojo flowing. But while playing this way can be good for the soul, it is not always good for the body. Proper ergonomic posture is not the first thing that springs to mind during these moments of musical Zen, and yet, if care is not given to correct alignment, muscle pain and other more serious issues can occur over time. Although the best bet for healthy posture while practicing is a straight-back chair, it is still possible to sit on the couch and play for a brief period to relax, without ruining your 50 October 2015

spine, as long as you are mindful of your posture and take breaks to stand up, stretch out, and walk around a little to work out any tension that may have set in while noodling. Here are a few helpful hints to ensure a blissful session of guitar Zen while also taking good care of your back. THE COUCH SLOUCH What is the couch slouch? It’s that strange L-shaped body position that comes from slumping low against the arm or back of the sofa with the legs stretched out long across the couch, a coffee table, or the floor. Undeniably one of the more comfortable ways to zone out, it is also one of the weakest ergonomic positions to hold for long periods of time. To get a better understanding of the impact this position can have on your body, imagine yourself standing upright in this

sort of half-bent position for half an hour or more. Feel a little twinge in your shoulders or neck at the thought? Add the weight of the guitar to that picture, and you understand why holding this position for any length of time can trigger a host of shoulder and neck issues down the line. The cause of the pain is the head, neck, and shoulders being constantly slumped forward in a near 90-degree angle by the arm or those cushions you are leaning on. These unnatural angles send your upper back and cervical spine (neck) completely out of alignment, wreaking havoc on the muscles of the lower back and also chest muscles as they try to compensate. The better ergonomic alternative is one in which your back is straight, but not rigid, with the shoulders in balance and the neck and jaw relaxed. The hips and lower back should be in a neutral position—not tilted too far forward or

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continue with periodic shoulder circles to keep shoulders balanced and relaxed. You may find that using a guitar strap while seated can help to keep the body of the guitar from pitching too far forward on the legs, just be sure to keep enough tension on the strap to hold the instrument in place, but not so tight that it places undo pressure on the upper back and neck.

‘PROPER ERGONOMIC POSTURE IS NOT THE FIRST THING THAT SPRINGS TO MIND DURING THESE MOMENTS OF MUSICAL ZEN.’

back—to allow for proper weight support of the upper body. When the pelvis and lower back are out of this neutral alignment, other parts of the back and shoulders kick into overdrive to help keep the torso upright, and that can lead to muscle fatigue and inflammation. Instead of stretching lengthwise across the couch, sit up either on the edge of the couch with both feet flat on the floor (the best option), or if that feels too awkward, place several pillows behind your lower back to support your spine and help you keep the pelvis still. Also remember to keep the shoulder relaxed and turned back slightly to prevent hunching over the body of the guitar, and check that your chin is not craned too far forward or bent too far down to see your music. The shoulder of the strumming or picking hand may also pitch up toward the ear with tension as you play on the couch, so make sure to

THE CROSS-LEGGED CROON This mainstay of couch and floor playing is a better choice for focused practice, and also singing and playing at the same time. Posturewise, it’s a bit of an improvement from the couch slouch, as you can sit with a straight back. Be mindful to avoid sinking or caving in of the chest around the body of the guitar or a downward tilt of the chin and neck in the direction of the fretboard. Prolonged periods with the neck and chin in this position can cause compression of the nerves that travel through the neck and down the arms and into the fingers, especially if arthritis or disc bulges or other deterioration is already present. This compression can sometimes result in a tingling down the arms and into the fingertips. Tucking a few firm pillows or cushions behind the mid-back and also under the hips is the best way to bring the lower back and spine into better alignment. Switch out the legs every so often to avoid cutting off circulation. Do your best to curb the temptation to sit with one foot tucked under the thigh of the opposite leg as this throws the hips into asymmetry, which over time can cause a spinal shift and imbalance to related muscles and soft tissue. If reading music or charts, be sure to place them as close to natural eye level as possible, either using a music stand or by placing the music far enough in front of your eye line (on a table or floor) so you do not have to strain your chin and neck forward. No sheet of paper tucked in between the body of the guitar and your knee either, at least not for any prolonged period of time. A CHAIR FOR THE AGES Ultimately, the best situation for practice of any kind is to sit in a chair free of arms and full or good back support (aka a straight-back chair) and use a music stand. But if you go the couch route, you might want to keep a chair next to the couch so that once you find that sweet spot of relaxation and musical flow on the sofa you can easily shift to a chair to keep the moment going. It’s not the most exotic location, I know, but your back and shoulders will thank you in the long run. AG

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BBQS, BEACHES, & BACKYARDS Playing with friends at home or on an outing are perfect casual gigs By October Crifasi

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ummer is here and the time is right for hitting the beach with pals or firing up the grill for a weekend BBQ. It’s also the perfect opportunity to break out the guitars and shaker eggs, gather dear friends and family around the camp or bonfire, and get to strumming and singing in good old-fashioned campfire style. While there are no formal rules to the summer song road, there are definitely a few steps you can take to make sure your summer musical adventures are fun for everyone. So start making your favorite summer song playlists, get the marshmallows ready for toasting (but don’t get that sticky goo on the fretboard), and let the good times roll. KEEP IT SIMPLE When deciding what songs to share, look for songs that use three or four chords so players of all levels and experience can join the fun. Songs with recognizable and strong choruses are also 52 October 2015

great choices: “Stand by Me” or “Take Me Home, Country Roads” are good for starters, or just about any Johnny Cash song. “These Boots Were Made for Walkin’” is a personal favorite—with its easily accessible chord changes (mostly E, A7, and G), spoken-sung delivery, signature bassline, and attitude, the song offers a little something for everyone, regardless of playing experience. There are thousands of songs that use only a handful of chords, so your options are almost infinite. Using fairly easy songs allows other beach and BBQfriendly instruments, like the ukulele or mandolin, to play along, too, without a great deal of difficulty or need for transposition. KEEP IT FUN Nothing puts a damper on a good strum-along faster than a long, drawn-out song about death, dying, and tragedy, so keep the song choices upbeat and fun to sing. Slower, more sentimental or moody songs like “Puff the Magic Dragon” or “Wish You Were Here” can work,

too, but it’s best to mix them in between other more lively fare to keep the mood from getting too heavy. Songs with easy and interesting backup vocal parts make for lively singing: “The Lion Sleeps Tonight,” “Big Yellow Taxi,” “Be My Baby,” or Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline,” for instance. Remember to sprinkle in some beach and summer favorites like “Surfin’ USA” or “Summertime Blues,” too. Depending on your crowd, Monty Python songs are a great deal of fun to play and sing with a group and always make for boisterous singing and harmonies (“The Lumberjack Song” and “Bright Side of Life” in particular), as are classic Irish pub songs like “The Wild Rover.” Having a few humorous songs in the mix can also help to reinvigorate the crowd if energy or spirits start to drag. Another creative option is to play a standard 12-bar blues and go around the circle giving everyone a chance to either come up with a lyric line on the spot or take a solo.

Grace Harbor Guitars New and very nice! Quality Craftmanship BRING CHARTS & LYRIC SHEETS Make sure to bring a few copies of lead sheets or charts for the songs you choose so people can follow along. You may even want to start a binder or folder with your favorites to keep in the car for those spontaneous music-making moments at a party or trip to the beach. If you know ahead of time what you’d like to play, you can also send PDF files to friends and guests to either print out or load onto an electronic device in advance. There are several three-chord songbooks available both in print and online, as well as books of classic campfire tunes, folk songs, beach songs, children songs, the list is endless. The internet is rich with websites dedicated to song charts and lyrics both for guitar and ukulele, but one caution: Charts on these sites are not always accurate. The content listed is quite often the result of someone listening to a track and mapping changes and lyrics by ear. About half of the time the chart is correct, the other half—not so much. You never quite know how accurate the transcription is going to be until you actually use it. Do yourself a favor and play through all of the charts you intend to share prior to the gathering.

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R-E-S-P-E-C-T Playing and singing together is not only fun, it also provides a wonderful opportunity to foster good timing and listening skills not otherwise possible when playing alone. See how well you can stay in rhythmic sync with your fellow players. Always wanted to try your hand at singing harmony? This is the perfect environment to give it a go, especially if it’s a song with a memorable harmony in the hook or chorus. If you’re song leader, be sure to make eye contact with your fellow players so you can give signals to let everyone know when it’s time to move into a new section, take a solo, or get ready to end the song. Good listening skills come from paying attention to what is happening in the song and with the musicians around you, so do your best to not get too locked in to reading a lead sheet or chart. If there are many lead players in your group, be polite and take turns throughout the song; an instrumental break crammed with five lead guitarists playing over each other without a break for the entire section (or the entire song) can be a drag, especially for those listening, singing, or playing other instruments. Just remember to not take anything too seriously, respect your fellow players, and by all means, have a rollicking good time. AG AcousticGuitar.com 53

60 Basics

The creative side of open strings

64 Weekly Workout

Learn to swing like Freddie Green

70 Acoustic Classic

Bluesman Earl Bell’s ‘Travelin’ Blues’

74 Acoustic Classic

The sweet misery of ‘House of the Rising Sun’

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SONGCRAFT

A Songwriter’s Guide to Rhyme

How to rhyme effectively without sounding trite BY JEFFREY PEPPER RODGERS

ongs don’t have to rhyme, as demonstrated by such unrhyming classics as Paul Simon’s “America,” John Lennon’s “Across the Universe,” Suzanne Vega’s “Tom’s Diner,” and Sting’s “Fields of Gold.” Yet most songs do rhyme, and for good reason. A rhyme helps lyrics lodge into people’s heads, focuses their attention on key words and phrases, and solidifies the structure of a song—a rhyme pattern clearly outlines a verse or chorus, for instance. Good rhyming adds rhythm and zing to the words. No wonder, then, that rhyme is a bit of an obsession among songwriters. Rhyming is such a natural thing, instilled in children since their days of Mother Goose and The Cat in the Hat, yet it’s notoriously difficult to do well—especially since rhyming words have been so thoroughly picked over by songwriters and poets over the ages. How do you use rhyme effectively without sounding trite, turning to wornout combos like chance/dance/romance, or resorting to unfurled just because you needed a rhyme with world? As with chord progressions, melody, and other aspects of songwriting, the key is developing a good, flexible vocabulary.

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RHYME SCHEMES The most traditional and familiar rhymes fall at the end of a line, and they follow a rhyme scheme or pattern that usually repeats within the same section throughout the song. Here are

some common rhyme schemes, with examples drawn from my own songs: AABB Many songs use couplets—the lines rhyme in pairs. “My Life Doesn’t Rhyme,” a song about songwriting, opens with three couplets: Searching for chords that’ll turn like a wheel [A] As I try to interpret the way that I feel [A] Wishing for words that’ll glimmer like pearls [B] No, I never stop hoping to impress all the girls [B] Too ancient for Idol, too young to expire [C] Here’s why this songwriter does not retire [C] AAAB You can also use rhyme in groups of three (or even four, though that can get old fast). In the story song “Sycamore Tree,” each verse has a triplet rhyme, and then the last line ends with the title phrase. The grass tickles on my feet [A] When I’m rocking in my bouncy seat [A] The summer breezes smell so sweet [A] Blowing by the sycamore tree [B]

ABAB With this pattern the rhymes interlock, creating a tight four-line unit. From “Somehow”: I want your hair on my shoulder [A] I want to breathe you now [B] Feeling our hands getting bolder [A] Somehow somehow [B] You can combine couplets and interlocking rhymes to create longer patterns, like this one, from “The Day After Yesterday.” (Note that in the fourth line the rhyming word, track, isn’t actually the last word of the line, adding a little irregularity to the pattern.) The day after yesterday I lost my luck [A] Sped right off in an old milk truck [A] Oh I heard it clinking away [B] The sky was yellow and the sun was black [C] Rise or set—I can’t keep track sometimes [C] It’s been a very big day [B]

ABBA Much less common in songs than AABB or ABAB rhyme schemes, ABBA can be an interesting choice. The bridge of “My Life Doesn’t Rhyme” uses this pattern (after a first line, AcousticGuitar.com 57

SONGCRAFT

marked with an X, that doesn’t rhyme with anything): Heartache and quiet desperation [X] Are a songwriter’s very best friend [A] But a song with a rhyme [B] And a good sense of time [B] Will carry you through to the end [A] USING UNRHYMED LINES As the last example suggests, you don’t need to rhyme every line. Mixing rhymed and unrhymed lines makes the lyrics less predictable and tidy. You could, for instance, rhyme two of the four lines in a stanza, using the rhyme schemes AXAX, AXXA, or XAXA, where X again represents an unrhyming line. From “American Dream”: When you’re out on the road [X] Driving alone [A] With the rising moon [X] A sliver of bone [A] Rhyme schemes can help build contrast between the sections of a song. If the verses are

58 October 2015

ABAB, you might switch to AABB on the chorus, for instance, and then use no rhymes at all on the bridge. These changes in the rhyme scheme should go hand in hand, of course, with the other changes in the melody, the length and phrasing of lines, the chord progression, and so on. Think of all these aspects of the song as reinforcing each other to create the total effect you want. PERFECT RHYMES (& THEIR PITFALLS) All of the aforementioned lyric examples use perfect rhymes—the rhyming words end with the same accented vowel/consonant sound. A perfect rhyme is satisfying for sure, and for some songwriters coming more from the Tin Pan Alley school, perfect rhymes are the only acceptable rhymes. If you can stick with perfect rhymes while keeping the words fresh and saying what you want to say, well done. But beware of fixating too much on perfect rhymes. “Rhyme is a trap sometimes just because obviously if you’re trying to make the end of every line rhyme, that limits your lyrical content and can dumb it down,” says blues/ hip-hop songwriter G. Love. “When you’re

doing a rhyme pattern, a listener can almost guess what the next line is going to end with. So if you can get away from using a rhyme, you can have a more interesting approach to your lyrics and keep people guessing, which is kind of the magic of songwriting.” In comic or novelty songs, rhymes that are a little ridiculous can make the song funnier (as in “Atheists Don’t Have No Songs,” where Steve Martin rhymes “a Bach cantata” with a line about how “Atheist songs add up to nada”). In rap, proving your rhyming dexterity is part of the game. In these contexts, putting rhymes in the spotlight makes sense. But in other types of songs, good rhymes are more in the background, quietly serving the song. Rhymes that draw attention to themselves can take listeners out of the story and emotion of the song—the songwriter’s craft (or lack thereof) becomes the focus. The key is to be alert for when you’re forcing a rhyme, by stressing a normally unstressed syllable of a word (for instance, saying “no-thing” to rhyme with “sing”) or using convoluted syntax (saying “So much in love with me you’d fall” in order to rhyme fall with

the previous line). Ideally, lyrics flow in the same way they would if spoken. They sound natural and, hey, they rhyme, too. One caveat, though, on the topic of forced rhymes. I can’t help but think of Bob Dylan rhyming knowed with road in “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right,” or Leonard Cohen using the slangy pronunciations “do ya,” “overthrew ya,” and so on to rhyme with the title of “Hallelujah.” On paper, these rhymes look bad—if these songs were unknown and brought to a songwriting workshop, no doubt some people would tell Leonard and Bob that their songs needed more work. In truth, if all songs with sloppy and forced rhymes were removed from the airwaves, radio stations would go mostly silent. The point being, rhyme is just one factor in what makes a song successful—however, you define success. With rhyme as well as all other aspects of songwriting, you tune your ear to what you like, and you set your own bar.

of alliteration (s, w, and th sounds). Another example is this great, twisted line from Warren Zevon’s “Werewolves of London”: “Little old lady got mutilated late last night,” which is jam-packed with l sounds.

‘Every song has a voice, and you have to decide on word rhymes based on the voice. Is it a medieval voice, is it a modern voice, is it an anxious voice?’ DAR WILLIAMS

NEAR RHYMES One way to go beyond the limited choices of perfect rhyme is to use words that almost rhyme—they are referred to variously as near rhymes, slant rhymes, half rhymes, or just imperfect rhymes. Near rhymes are all over the place in contemporary songwriting: down/ around, home/phone, sleep/street, spin/again, road/side, love/move, and so on. If you open your lyrical vocabulary to near rhymes, you’ve got way more options; though you lose some of the ring of a perfect rhyme, you gain by having access to less common and potentially more interesting words. Near rhymes can also allow you to rhyme the seemingly unrhymable (even orange, as Eminem famously demonstrated in a 60 Minutes interview by freestyling “I put my orange four-inch door hinge in storage and ate porridge with George”). With near rhymes, you use either the same vowel sound and different consonant (line/time, phrase/trade), or a different vowel sound and the same consonant (hot/doubt, friend/stand). INTERNAL RHYME You can spice up the rhyming in a song by using rhymes in the middle rather than at the end of the line. Rap lyrics use tons of internal rhymes (as in Eminem’s orange example). James Taylor drops them throughout “Let It All Fall Down”: “Sing a song for the wrong and the wicked and the strong / And the sick as thick as thieves.” Although it’s not rhyme, strictly speaking, a related technique for making lines of lyrics hang together is alliteration, or repeating consonant sounds at the beginnings of words. The James Taylor lyrics just quoted have quite a bit

STRATEGIES FOR FINDING RHYMES Sometimes rhymes just fall into place when you’re writing lyrics, but in many cases it takes work to find them. Making lists of potential rhymes can really help. You can generate them in your head: If you need to rhyme with done, for instance, just run through the alphabet for the preceding consonant to find bun, fun, gun, none, and so on. Be sure to consider consonant

combinations, too, that give you spun, shun, stun, and more, as well as two-syllable or longer words such as begun and outrun. And then you can extend your search to near rhymes: hum, trunk, front, crunch, overcome. You can get help with this process by using a rhyming dictionary—paper or electronic. Some will give you not only perfect rhymes but near rhymes (try b-rhymes.com). If you want to take a more analytical approach, you might check out books such as Jimmy Webb’s Tunesmith: The Art of Songwriting and Pat Pattison’s Writing Better Lyrics, which dig deeply into the mechanics of rhyme, meter, and stresses. As you compile a list of possible rhymes, look for words that not only rhyme and sing well but match what folk-pop songwriter Dar Williams called the song’s voice—encompassing its musical, emotional, and narrative voice. She gave this example based on looking for an end rhyme for the line “It’s not my fault.” “Every song has a voice, and you have to decide on word rhymes based on the voice,” she says. “Is it a medieval voice, is it a modern voice, is it an anxious voice? I go through the list of options based on the voice of the song. I’ll riddle it through for a while, but if nothing works, then I have to change the word fault. It’s just that simple. When it’s going well, that’s really fun. You have vault, and sometimes you’ll discover that vault is exactly the word—and then suddenly you have this whole metaphor of currency and secrecy or something that you realize would be perfect for the song. So rhymes can give you serendipity.” Ultimately, rhymes and rhyme schemes are a secondary consideration in songwriting; they are the tail and should not wag the dog. So let your idea guide you. Just start singing and tune your ear for which lines seem to want rhymes. Often you can tell where the rhymes should fall, and even what vowel sounds work well, when you’re still singing nonsense sounds. Once you’ve arrived at a pattern for each section, try to maintain it through the whole song, but make sure you don’t sacrifice the voice, meaning, or natural flow of the language in order to land a rhyme. An irregularity in the rhyme pattern here and there will be forgiven, forgotten, or not noticed at all by listeners—in fact, an unpredictable moment may serve to hold their attention. Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers is a grand prize winner of the John Lennon Songwriting Contest and the founding editor of Acoustic Guitar. This article is adapted from the second edition of The Complete Singer-Songwriter, forthcoming from Backbeat Books. AcousticGuitar.com 59

THE BASICS

Open Strings

BY RON JACKSON

There’s a lot more to using them creatively than you might think

he guitar’s open strings have so much to offer. They’re the easiest notes to play, requiring no skill whatsoever. Well, maybe just a little. They have more sustain than fretted notes, and they really make the instrument resonate. And, chords containing a combination of fretted notes and ringing open strings—whether gently fingerpicked, as in the Kansas song “Dust in the Wind,” or frenetically strummed, like in a flamenco situation—just sound terrific. This might be an easy lesson, but you’ll learn some pretty sophisticated chords, all incorporating open strings, that you can use to make your music sound more than basic.

T

NEW SOUNDS FROM OLD CHORDS In the first handful of examples, you’ll take basic chord shapes you likely already know, and move them up and down the neck against the ringing open strings to find colorful new sounds. Ex. 1 shows how you can get maximum mileage from the good old open-E shape (fingered with fingers 2, 3, and 1 on strings 5, 4, and 3): 13 different sounds for the price of one. There are multiple ways of labeling some of the harmonies; I’ve used the most straightforward chord symbols here. But don’t concern yourself too much with the names of the chords. Instead, focus on their distinctive sounds. For

instance, Fmaj7#11 (with the seventh, E, in the bass) is a sound that’s evocative of flamenco; Emaj7#5 is a colorful chord that’s commonplace in modern jazz. Ex. 2 uses the same approach as Ex. 1, but with an open A chord (fingered 1–2–3 or 2–3–4 on strings 4, 3, and 2). After you’ve played through the chords, try working up Ex. 2 with an A minor shape (fingered 2–3–1) instead of A major. A few of the Am-based voicings I like a lot are the D6/9 that’s in the third position (with the first finger on string 2, fret 3), Amaj7 in fifth position, and Dm(add9) in sixth position.

Gently fingerpicked or frenetically strummed, ringing open strings just sound terrific.

Ex. 1

E

œ & # œœœ œ œ B

F maj7# 11 F #11

œœœ b n œœœ œœ # # œœ œ œ

0 0 1 2 2 0

Ex. 2

A

œ & n # œœœ œ

0 0 2 3 3 0

B bmaj7# 11 B 11

0 2 2 2 0

B Ex. 3

60 October 2015

D

0 0 3 4 4 0

œœ # œœ n b œœ n # œœ œ œ

E m7 E maj7# 5 A add9

œ nœ n œœœœ # n b œœœœ œ œ 0 0 4 5 5 0

0 0 5 6 6 0

E 7#b11 9

E maj9

C maj7

0 0 7 8 8 0

0 0 8 9 9 0

0 0 9 10 10 0

œœ # œœ n œœœ b n n œœœ œ œ 0 0 6 7 7 0

b n œœœœ #œ œ

A m7 A maj7# 5 D add9 A 7#b11 A maj9 9

nn œœœœ # n # # œœœœ n n # œœœœ b n b n œœœœ œ œ œ œ

œœ n n œœœ nœ

C #7# 9 E 9sus4

# #n œœœœœ œ 0 0 10 11 11 0

#œ n œœœ œ

œ n n œœœ œ

# #b œœœœ œ

F maj7

# œœœœ b n n b n œœœœœ œ œ œ 0 0 11 12 12 0

0 4 4 4 0

0 5 5 5 0

0 6 6 6 0

0 7 7 7 0

0 8 8 8 0

0 9 9 9 0

0 10 10 10 0

0 11 11 11 0

0 12 12 12 0

E b/D

E /D

F /D

F #/D

G /D

A b/D

A /D

B b/D

B /D

C /D

#œ

0 0 12 13 13 0

A bb# 95

n n œœœœ n b b n œœœœ œ œ

A 13b 9 A 9sus4

0 3 3 3 0

nœ

E bb# 95

œ

0 13 13 13 0

D b/D

b n œœ

# œœœ œœ nœ E

0 0 13 14 14 0

n # œœœœ œ

A

0 14 14 14 0

n # œœ

D

Ex. 1 Ex. 1

## œœ b n œœœ œœœ # b n œœ œœ # ## œœ œœ œœ

# 7# 99 EE9sus4 C C #7# 9sus4

11 EE3, based FFmaj7# 11 open F 11D majorEEm7 5 the A add9 EE77##bthe EEmaj9 C 11 In Ex. on the chord, E maj7# fourth, sixth, and (G, B, and E). 9 ninth maj7# 11 F 11 m7 E maj7# 5 A add9 maj9 Cmaj7 maj7 9 b you’ll find only one open string, D, which acts as The same idea is transferred to the key of A a pedal tone—a note that remains constant minor in Ex. 5, then to D minor in Ex. 6. while the chords above it change. (The Who’s Your basic open E7 chord kicks off Ex.7. The Pete Townshend is a master of open-string pedal grip, which incorporates the open strings 1, 2, tones. Check out the and around 0 0 chorus0of “Substitute,” 0 0 6, is moved 0 0 to imply 0 one bluesy0 0uses a D 0 0 0in the chorus, 0 or 0 0 chord. The 0 same concept 0 0 where he0 pedal tone 0 sounding E7 is dem0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 the E pedal tone on “I Can See for Miles.”) For onstrated with an A7 chord in Ex. 8. Try 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 2 harmonic3 3variety, also 4 try Ex. 35 5using 6 7on the idea 8 by moving 9 the E7 10 10 2 4 6 7 8 9 maximum expanding and 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 a basic D0minor shape A7 up 0the neck, and 0 instead of 0 D major. 0 0 shapes further 0 0 you’ll find 0 some cool, jazzy-sounding voicings to add to Ex. 2 Ex. 2 THIRDS AND SIXTHS SLIDING your bag of harmonic tricks. 11 In Ex. 4, in the B keymaj7# of E minor, A 11 Bmajor 11 andAminor m7 A maj7# 5 D add9 A 7##b 11 A FFmaj7 A B maj7# 11 B 11 A m7 A maj7# 5 D add9 A 7 b 9 Amaj9 maj9 maj7 9 City–based thirds are moved about on strings 4 and 5, Ron Jackson is a New York master while all of the other strings are played open. jazz guitarist, composer, arranger, producer, This dresses up a chord progression common to and educator who’s played with Taj Mahal, all popular genres—i–bVII–bVI–bVII (in the key Jimmy McGriff, Randy Weston, Ron Carter, of E minor, Em–D–C–D). The D chord, for and many others. Find more of Jackson’s instance, 0receives some colorful notes:0 the lessons at practicejazzguitar.com. 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

œœ # & & # œœœ œœ

œ nœ nn œœœœœ ## nn bn œœœœœ bœ œœœ œœ

## œœœœœ bb nn œœœœœ nn œœ nn œœ œœ œœ

bb nn œœœœ ## œœœ œœ

## #nn œœœœœœ #œ œœ

œœ nn nn œœœœœ nn œœ

## œœœ & & nn œœ œ

bb

œœ # œœ nn bb œœœœ nn ## # œœœœ œœ œœ

œœ nn nn œœœœ œœ

EEbb/D /D

FF/D /D

## nn # ## œœœœœ nn nn ## œœœœœ bb nn bb nn œœœœœœ œ # œœ œ œœ œ œ

## #bb œœœœœ #œ œœ

D D

EE/D /D

FF##/D /D

G G/D /D

b /D A A b/D

b /D B B b/D

A A/D /D

## œœ n & n & nn œœœ

œ bb bb œœœ œœ

nn n ## œœœ n œœ œ

œ nn nn œœœ œœ

## # ## œœœ # œœ œ

nn nn œœœ œ œœ

bb b nn œœœ bœ œœ

nn n ## œœœ n œ œœ

bb n nn œœœ nœ œœ

2 2 3 3 2 2 0 0

3 3 4 4 3 3 0 0

4 4 5 5 4 4 0 0

5 5 6 6 5 5 0 0

6 6 7 7 6 6 0 0

7 7 8 8 7 7 0 0

8 8 9 9 8 8 0 0

9 9 10 10 9 9 0 0

10 10 11 11 10 10 0 0

B B

EEm D 66add4 C maj7 D 696add4 m D9 9 add4 C maj7 D 9 add4

## 4 . ˙ ˙ & & 44 .. ˙˙˙˙˙ ˙˙ 0 .. 0000 .. 5705 B 7 0 B 0 Ex. 7 Ex. 7

### ### & & ## B B

EE77

.. œœœ . n œœ nœ œ 0 .. 0100 .. 0210 2 0 0

˙˙ ˙˙˙˙ ˙˙˙

˙˙ ˙˙˙ ˙˙˙

0 0 0 0 0 0 4 4 5 5 0 0

˙˙ ˙˙˙˙ ˙˙˙

0 0 0 0 0 0 2 2 3 3 0 0

0 0 0 0 0 0 4 4 5 5 0 0

A m(add9) G6 //A FFmaj7# 11 G6 /A maj7# 11 G6 /A

.. 0500 .. 7057 0 0

0 0 0 0 4 4 5 5 0 0

˙˙˙ ˙˙˙ ˙˙

0 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 2 2 0 0

œœœ œœœœœœ œœ

0 0 0 0 2 2 0 0 4 4 0 0


0 0 0 0 2 2 0 0 4 4 0 0

œœœ nn œœœœœœ œœ 0 0 0 0 4 4 0 0 5 5 0 0


0 0 0 0 4 4 0 0 5 5 0 0

œœœ œœœ . ### ## . # œœœœœœ œœœœœœ . œœ œœ 0 0 0 0 0 0 .. 0 0 2 2 2 2 0 0 .. 0 0 4 4 4 4 0 0

0 0

˙˙˙ ˙˙˙ ˙˙

0 0 0 0 2 2 3 3 0 0

Ex. 8 Ex. 8

œœ œœ œœ œ

bbb#b 959 A A n œ# 5 0 0 13 13 13 13 13 13 0 0

B B/D /D

nn # ## œœœ # œ œœ

C Cœ/D /D

b /D D Dn œb/D

11 11 12 12 11 11 0 0

A nn ## œœœœ œœ œœ A

0 0 14 14 14 14 14 14 0 0

nn œœ œ œœ

bb b n œœ bœ œœ

nn n ##Dœœœ n œ œœ

12 12 13 13 12 12 0 0

13 13 14 14 13 13 0 0

14 14 15 15 14 14 0 0

D

Ex. 6 Ex. 6

A m(add9) G6 A .. nn .. ˙˙˙˙˙ ˙˙˙˙˙ . .˙ ˙˙ ˙˙˙

.. ..

E

0 0 0 0 13 13 14 14 14 14 0 0

0 0 12 12 12 12 12 12 0 0

Ex. 5 Ex. 5

Ex. 4 Ex. 4

## œEœœ œœœœ nn œœ

0 0 0 0 12 12 13 13 13 13 0 0

nn nn œœœœ n bb b n œœœ œœ n b œœ œœ œœ

0 0 11 11 11 11 11 11 0 0

B B

Ex. 3 Ex. 3

0 0 0 0 11 11 12 12 12 12 0 0

A 9 A 9sus4 A13b 13b 9 A 9sus4

œ nn nn œœœœœ œœ

#œ nn # œœœœœ œœ

Pete Townshend

## œœœ bb nn n œœ œœœœ nn bb œœœœ œœ œœ

0 0 0 0 10 10 11 11 11 11 0 0

B B

E bbb 99 nE bœ## 55

.. n œœœ . nœ œœ .. ..

0 0 2 2 0 0 2 2 0 0

.. bb .. ˙˙˙˙˙ . . ˙˙

˙˙˙˙ ˙˙˙

˙˙˙˙ ˙˙˙

˙˙˙˙ ˙˙˙

0 0 6 6 7 7 0 0

0 0 5 5 5 5 0 0

0 0 3 3 3 3 0 0

0 0 5 5 5 5 0 0

œœœœœ œœœ œœ

œœ nn œœœœœœ œœ

.. ..

0 0 0 0 4 4 5 5 0 0

A A77

D C add9 B b(# 4) C add9 Dm(add9) m(add9) C add9 B b(# 4) C add9

œœ œœ œœ

0 0 2 2 0 0 2 2 0 0

.. ..


0 0 3 3 0 0 4 4 0 0

0 0 3 3 0 0 4 4 0 0

0 0 5 5 0 0 5 5 0 0

œœœœ œœœœ œœ

0 0 5 5 0 0 5 5 0 0


0 0 3 3 0 0 4 4 0 0

.. . .. ..

œœœœœ .. œœœ . œœ

0 0 3 3 0 0 4 4 0 0

.. ..


THE BASICS

Hybrid Picking

BY SEAN MCGOWAN

Learn to combine and alternate between the pick and fingers in chordal passages and lead lines

coustic guitarists often identify themselves as either fingerstyle players or flatpickers, and certainly those terms identify genres as well as techniques. But, in fact, many of us learn and utilize a wide variety of techniques to better express our music. A wonderful technique that combines flatpicking with fingerstyle is known as hybrid picking. Here are some tips on learning to combine and alternate between the pick and fingers in chordal passages and lead lines.

articulate the notes. Adopt traditional classical notation, but substitute p—which indicates the thumb —for the flatpick. To that end, p = pick, m = middle, a = ring, and c = pinky. Hold your pick as you normally would, between the thumb and index finger, and allow your other fingers to rest above the strings. Ex. 1 features an ascending line in A major— based on harmonic tenths like the ones heard in the Beatles’ “Blackbird”—and uses the pick in tandem with the middle finger as indicated. This will get you acclimated to feeling the pick and a finger working together to “claw” the strings. Ex. 2 features the same basic line, but with an alternating pattern between the pick and middle finger. For the last chord, add your ring and pinky to pick the notes on the B and high

A

CHORD & ARPEGGIO PATTERNS Let’s jump right in with a simple exercise that uses the picking hand middle finger along with the flatpick. In all of the following examples, try the suggested fingers of the picking hand to

i

c p

Ex. 3

Ex. 2

Ex. 1

m

a

C Dm # # # 4 . œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ . œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œœ n n n œœ œœ œœ œœ j œœ œœ œœ œœ j & 4 . œ œ œ œ . œ œ œ œ œ Jœ œ œ Jœ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ a m

p m p m

p

.2 .0

B

3 2

5 4

2

4

5

5

4

0

2

4

2

2

. .

2 0

3 2

2

5 0

4

4 2

5 4

2

c a m p 4 5 2 2

p m

5 5

0

5 5

3

5 5 3

5 5

6 7

3

6 7

5

6 7 5

6 7 5

Ex. 4

œœ œœ œœ œœ F 6j œœ œœ œœ œœ A mj œœ œœ œœ œœ Gj œœ œœ œœ œœ Fj œ œ œ œ C œ œ œ œ & œj J œ œ œ J œ œ œ J œ œ œ J œ œ œ œ Jœ œ œ œ œ j œ œ œ œ œ Jœ œ Em

a p m

8 9

8 9

B7

8 9 7

8 9 7

10 10 7 7 8

G6

8

10 7 8

7

8

8

8

8

7

7

7

7

5

5

5

5

9

9

9

9

7

7

7

7

5

5

5

5

7

7

Ex. 5b

Ex. 5a

62 October 2015

10 7

A m7

G6

5

5

5

3

3

3

3

Ex. 6a

A m7

G6

A m7

5

5

5

5

5 3

5

5 3

5

Ex. 3

Ex. 2

Ex. 1

C Dm # # # 4 . œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ . œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œœ n n n œœ œœ œœ œœ œœ œœ œœ œœ j J j J & 4 . œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ . œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ which ais actually the basis of a style E strings. You might want to practice that a few on G6 and Am7 chords. On the second and used in c p m p mpick the lowest note in the voicing a fourth beats, m while sounding the higher notes with your p middle and ring fingers. 2 Ex. 5b 4 takes 5 it a 4 step 5 2 by 3 5 eighth-note rhythms and 2 further adding 2 0 2 4 2 breaking up the pattern with two consecutive 0 2 4 0 pick strokes followed by the fingers. Ex. 6a–b break the chords down into single notes using fingerstyle arpeggio patterns.

m feel of using three fingers times, just to get the concurrently with the p pick. Now play chord patterns using 2 the 4 pick 5 and 5 4 2 3 5 between a downtwo fingers. Ex. 3 alternates 0 ring 2 4fingers 2 2 pick stroke, with the middle and 0 2 4 articulating the higher notes. The syncopated rhythm and the finger switching involved on the fret hand make this a great warm-up exercise. Ex. 4 is a descending variation that splits the middleEand m ring fingers with an F 6empty string in between. This will help you get used to using the fingers on adjacent as well as skipped strings. Increase the difficulty by starting to break up the notes in the chords with the pick and fingers. Ex. 5a illustrates a bass-chord pattern

. .

B

p mmusic called chicken pickin’. Ex. 7 illuscountry trates this approach with an eight-bar lick using hybrid picking for adjacent and skipped single5 5and double-stops 5 5 6 bars 6 6 6 note-lines, in 5 5 5 5 7 7 4–6. 7 7 Ex. 8 is a banjo-inspired lick that can easily be 3 3 3 5 5 5 dropped in as a lead break for a bluegrass tune. This features larger string skipping, and fretted notes with open strings, which you’ll want to sustain. Follow the suggested pick-hand patterns Fclosely, take it slow, andC then incorporate this technique into your own hot lead breaks.

. .

Ex. 4

A m LINES œ œ œ œ G œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œœ œœ œœ œœLEAD œ œ œ œ j You can œ œ œ œ œalsoœcreate œinteresting œ jeffects j œ œin leads œ byœ j œ œ œ œ j œœ œœ œœ œœ œ between œ strokes & œj J œ œ œ J œ œ alternating J œ pick œ andJtheœ fingers œ œ Jœ œ œ J œ œ is a to play single-note lines. This typically happens Sean McGowan (seanmcgowanguitar.com) 8 9

8 9

8 9

B7

7

8 9 7

10 10 7 7

10 7

8

8

when skipping two or more strings, but you can a p m hybrid pick single notes on adjacent strings,

10 7 8

B

# . .

G6

. .

8

8

8

8

7

7

7

7

5

5

5

9

9

9

9

7

7

7

7

5

5

5

7

7

5

5

5

Ex. 5b

Ex. 5a

&

7

A m7

jazz guitarist based in Denver, where he directs the guitar program at the University of Colorado.

3

3

5 3

5 3

G6

A m7

G6

5

5

5

3

5 5

3

A m7

œœ œœ . . œœ œœ . . œœ œœ œœ œœ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ .. œ . . . . œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ p

a m p

5 4 3

5

5 4 3

5

8 5 5

. . . .

8 5

7

7

5

p

p

a m

5 4 5

3

5 4

8 5

5

3

7

5

8 5 5

7

. . . .

p m p a 5

4 3

5

5

4 5

3

8

5 7

5

8

5 7

5

. .

Ex. 7

G G Am # . œœœ œœœ œœœ œœœ. . œ œ #œ œ œ œ œ œ œ bœ nœ œ œ ˙ œ œ & .œ œ œ

B

5

5

Ex. 6a

Ex. 6b

. .

5

p m p a 3 3 3 3 4 4 5 5

5 7

5 5

5 7

5 5

. .

p

5

m

m p a p m p 0 0 0 3 4 0 0 3

b œ œœ œ œœ œ œ œ C7

p

2

p 2

0

2

0

0

a m p 5 5

8

8

5 5

8 5 8

Ex. 8

G

œ # œ œ œ nœ œ œ œœ & œ bœ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ bœ nœ œ nœ œ bœ œ œ n #œ nœ œ œ p

5 5

B

8

5 5

8 5 8

5 5

6 7

5

5 5

5

3 3 4

5 3

m

3 0 0 0

0 5 4 3

1

2

˙ .. ˙˙ . ˙.

œ bœ œ #œ œ œ œ nœ œ œ nœ #œ œ œ œ nœ w

G

p

10 9 8

p m p

6 7

8

p m p

0 7

10

0

m p 0

7 8

0

m

2 0

0

3 AcousticGuitar.com 63

WEEKLY WORKOUT

Swinging Like Freddie Green

BY RON JACKSON

Learn the stylistic subtleties of Count Basie’s legendary jazz guitarist

ne of my favorite rhythm-guitar approaches is the one that the late jazzmaster Freddie Green pioneered in his work with the Count Basie Orchestra. Throughout his 50 years on that gig, Green played an acoustic archtop, unamplified. Though his strumming was sometimes more felt than heard, it contributed so much to Basie’s signature sound and swing. Green’s style—basically, quarter-note strums, in 4/4 time, four to the bar—seems simple enough. But it’s rarely mastered. When trying to play in the manner of Green, guitarists tend to use too many notes in their chords and to strum them too loudly. So, as you play through this primer on Green’s style, strive for a less forceful, swinging feel. And be sure to use a metronome, set to beats 2 and 4, to keep things tight.

O

WEEK TWO Ex. 6 uses the same chord shapes from Ex. 1 and 2, but in common chord progressions. The first two bars are based on the I–vi-ii–V in C major; the second two on the iii–VI–ii–V. The fifths from these chords are omitted in Ex. 7, for a more Freddie Green–like sound. In the third and fourth measures, note the use of common tones—the Em7 and A7 chords share the fifth-fret G and the Dm7 and G7 chords share the third-fret F. This makes for smooth transitions between chords. Ex. 8–9 take the same approach as Ex. 6 and 7, but the first chord in each bar is rooted on the sixth string and the second one on the fifth string. In Ex. 9 you’ll see another common tone in action; the highest note of both the Dm7 chord and the G7 is the 10th-fret F. See if you can extend the pattern to the Em7 and A7 chords.

WEEK ONE Review the most common diatonic (within the same key) seventh chords, with roots on the fifth and sixth strings. Ex. 1 depicts fifth-stringrooted chords within the C major scale. (If you happen to be on a 12-fret guitar, don’t worry about playing those chords falling way up on the neck.) Also based on the C major scale, Ex. 2 uses sixth-string-rooted chords. Ex. 3 is identical to Ex. 1, except it omits the fifth of each chord—a note that Green generally avoided. The fifth is considered inessential, as it doesn’t define the sound of the chord like the third or seventh do. And Ex. 4 shows fifth-stringrooted voicings on the adjacent strings 5–3 also containing just roots, thirds, and sevenths. Then, in Ex. 5, you’re back to sixth-string-rooted chords, this time without fifths.

Jazz master Freddie Green

BEGINNERS’

TIP 1

Learn all of these examples up and down the guitar neck by heart, as you’ll find the chords all over the place in jazz and other styles.

FREDDIE GREEN COLLECTION ©2015

BEGINNERS’

64 October 2015

TIP 2

Always look for the third and seventh of each chord in these examples.

WEEK 1 Week

1 Ex. 1

Ex. 2

C maj7 D m7 E m7 F maj7

œ & 44 .. œœœ . 54 . 53

B

œœ œœ

œœ œœ

œœ œœ

G7

6 5 7 5

8 7 9 7

10 9 10 8

12 10 12 10


œœ œœ

œœ œ œ

œœ œ œ

13 12 14 12

15 14 15 14

17 16 17 15

A m7 B m7b 5 C maj7 C maj7 D m7 E m7 F maj7

œœ œœ

Ex. 3

œœ œ

œœ œ

œœ œ

œ & œœ

œœ œ

œœ œ

œœ œ

G7

5 4

6 5

8 7

10 9

12 10

13 12

15 14

17 16

3

5

7

8

10

12

14

15

B

œœ œ

A m7 B m7b 5 C maj7

œœ œ œ

œœ œ œ

œœ œ œ

8 9 9

10 10 10

12 12 12

1 2 2

8

10

12

G7

A m7 B m7b 5 C maj7

œœ œ œ

œœ œ œ

œœ œ œ

3 4 3

5 5 5

6 7 7

8 9 9

1

3

5

7

8


G7

œœ œ œ

œœ œ œ

Ex. 4

œœ œ

œœ œ

œœ œ

œœ œ

4 2 3

5 3 5

7 5 7

9 7 8

œœ œ

10 9 10

A m7 B m7b 5 C maj7

œœ œ

œœ œ

œœ œ

12 10 12

14 12 14

16 14 15

WEEK 22 Week Ex. 6

Ex. 5


œ & œœ

œœ œ

œœ œ

9 9

10 10

12 12

2 2

8

10

12

1

B

VIDEO LESSON ACOUSTICGUITAR.COM

œœ œ

G7

A m7 B m7b 5 C maj7

œœ œ

œœ œ

œœ œ

4 3

5 5

7 7

9 9

3

5

7

8

œœ œ

C maj7

œœ œœ

œœ œœ

5 4 5 3

5 4 5 3

A m7

œœ œ œ

œœ œ œ

5 5 5

5 5 5

5

5

D m7

œœ œœ

œœ œœ

G7

œœ œ œ

œœ œ œ

6 5 7 5

6 5 7 5

3 4 3

3 4 3

3

3

D m7

œœ œ

œœ œ

G7

6 5

6 5

5

5

œœ œ œ

œœ œ œ

10 10 10

10 10 10

10

10

Ex. 7

E m7

œœ & œœ

œœ œœ

A7

# œœœ œ

8 7 9 7

8 7 9 7

B

œœ œ œ

D m7

n œœœ œ

œœ œœ

G7

œœ œ œ

œœ œ œ

5 6 5

5 6 5

3 4 3

5

6 5 7 5

3 4 3

5

6 5 7 5

3

3

C maj7

œœ œ

œœ œ

5 4

5 4

3

3

Ex. 8

E m7

œ & œœ

œ œœ

# œœ œ

œœ œ

7 5 7

7 5 7

6 5

6 5

5

5

B

A7

D m7

n œœ œ

œœ œ

5 3 5

5 3 5

G7

C maj7

œœ œ œ

œœ œ œ

œœ œ

œœ œ

4 3

4 3

8 9 9

8 9 9

3

3

8

8

A m7

œœ œ

œœ œ

5 5

5 5

5

5

A œm7

œœ œ

œœ œœ

13 12 14 12

13 12 14 12

D m7

œœ œ

œœ œ

4 3

4 3

3

3

œœ œ œ

œœ œ œ

12 10 12 10

12 10 12 10

G7


Ex. 9

WEEKLY WORKOUT

E m7

œœ E m7 & œœœ & œœ 12 12 12 12 12 12 12

B B 12

Week 3

#Aœœ7 œ # œœ œœ A7

œœ œ œœ œ œ

12 12 12 12 12 12 12 12

14 12 14 14 12 12 14 12

œœ œœ œœ œ

D m7

Dœœm7

nœ œ n œœ œ

14 12 14 14 12 12 14 12

G7

Gœœœ7 œœ œœ

œœ œ œœ œ œ

10 10 10 10 10 10 10

10 10 10 10 10 10 10

10

10

9 CEx. maj7

œœ œœ œœ œ

12 10 12 12 10 10 12 10

C maj7 œ

œ œœ œ

12 10 12 12 10 10 12 10

A m7

œœ œœ œ

9 9 9 8 9

9 9 9 8 9

8

8

A œm7

œœ œœ œ

œœ œœ œœ

12 10 12 12 10 12

12 10 12 12 10 12

D m7

Dœm7

œ œœ œ

œœ œœ œ

10 10 10 10 10

10 10 10 10 10

10

10

G7

Gœ7

œœ œœ œ

œœ œœ œœ

10 9 10 10 9 10

10 9 10 10 9 10

Ex. 10

Week3 3 WEEK CEx. maj7 10

&C maj7 œ¿¿ & œ¿¿ ¿ 2 B 2¿¿ ¿ B Week 4

A m7

¿ A œm7

œ¿¿ œ¿¿ ¿ 2 ¿¿ 2 ¿

œ¿ ¿ ¿ 5 ¿¿ 5 ¿

Ex. Week WEEK 4 411

& &

CEx. maj7 11 C.. maj7 ¿

œ .. ¿¿ œ¿ .¿ .2 B .. 2¿¿ B ¿

Ex. 12

& &

E 712 Ex.

¿ #Eœ¿7 ¿ # œ¿

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D7

# n œ¿¿ n¿ # œ¿ ¿ 4 B 4¿¿ B ¿

& &

D7

66 October 2015

œ¿¿ œ¿¿ ¿ 2 ¿¿ 2 ¿ ¿ œ¿ ¿ œ¿ ¿ 6 ¿¿ 6 ¿ œ¿¿ ¿ œ¿ ¿ 4 ¿¿ 4 ¿

C #dim7

C #bdim7 ¿

#b œ¿¿ # œ¿ ¿ 2 ¿¿ 2 ¿

¿ œ¿ ¿ œ¿ ¿ 6 ¿¿ 6 ¿

D m7

œ¿ œ¿ ¿ ¿ 5 ¿¿ 5 ¿

¿ D m7 œ¿ œ¿¿ ¿ 3 ¿¿ 3 ¿

D m7

Dn m7 ¿

œ¿¿ œ¿¿ ¿ 2 ¿¿ 2 ¿

œ n œ¿¿ ¿ ¿ 3 ¿¿ 3 ¿

¿ œ¿ ¿ œ¿ ¿ 6 ¿¿ 6 ¿ œ¿¿ ¿ œ¿ ¿ 4 ¿¿ 4 ¿

¿ # œ¿ ¿ # œ¿ ¿ ¿¿ 6 ¿ 6

œ¿¿ ¿ œ¿ ¿ 4 ¿¿ 4 ¿

# œ¿¿ ¿ # œ¿ ¿ 4 ¿¿ 4 ¿

G7

œ¿¿ œ¿¿ ¿ 3 ¿¿ 3 ¿

G¿7

D #dim7

D #dim7 œ¿¿ # # œ¿¿ œ¿¿ # # œ¿¿ ¿ ¿ 3 4 ¿¿ ¿¿ 3 4 ¿ ¿

¿¿ œ¿ ¿ 5 ¿¿ 5 ¿

E7

œ¿¿ ¿ œ¿ ¿ 4 ¿¿ 4 ¿

¿ ¿¿ 6 ¿

A7

n #Aœ¿7 n # œ¿ ¿ ¿ 5 ¿¿ 5 ¿ œ¿¿ ¿ œ¿ ¿ 4 ¿¿ 4 ¿

œ¿¿ œ¿¿ ¿ 5 ¿¿ 5 ¿

#Aœ¿7 # œ¿ ¿ ¿ 5 ¿¿ 5 ¿

G7

n œ¿ n œ¿ ¿ ¿ 3 ¿¿ 3 ¿

G7

œ¿ œ¿ ¿ ¿ 5 ¿¿ 5 ¿

¿ D m7 œ¿ œ¿¿ ¿ 3 ¿¿ 3 ¿

D7

œ¿ œ¿ ¿ ¿ 5 ¿¿ 5 ¿

œ¿ œ¿ ¿ ¿ 5 ¿¿ 5 ¿ œ¿ œ¿ ¿ ¿ 3 ¿¿ 3 ¿

D m7

œ¿ œ¿ ¿ ¿ 5 ¿¿ 5 ¿

œ¿¿ n #Aœ¿7 œ¿¿ n # œ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ 6 5 ¿¿ ¿¿ 6 5 ¿ ¿

6

¿ œ¿ ¿ œ¿ ¿ 6 ¿¿ 6 ¿

A7

A7

# nEœ¿¿7 # n œ¿¿

œ¿¿ œ¿¿ ¿ 4 ¿¿ 4 ¿

¿ œ¿ ¿ œ¿ ¿ 6 ¿¿ 6 ¿ œ¿¿ ¿ œ¿ ¿ 4 ¿¿ 4 ¿

E m7 œ¿

œ¿ œ¿ ¿ ¿ 3 ¿¿ 3 ¿

œ œ¿ ¿ ¿ 3 ¿¿ 3 ¿

¿ œ¿ ¿ œ¿ ¿ 6 ¿¿ 6 ¿

E m7

œ¿ œ¿ ¿ ¿ 3 ¿¿ 3 ¿

œ¿ œ¿ ¿ ¿ 3 ¿¿ 3 ¿

œ¿¿ œ¿¿ ¿ 3 ¿¿ 3 ¿

G¿7

œ œ¿ ¿ ¿ 3 ¿¿ 3 ¿

G7

œ¿ œ¿ ¿ ¿ 3 ¿¿ 3 ¿

# n œ¿¿ # n œ¿¿ ¿ 4 ¿¿ 4 ¿

œ¿¿ œ¿¿ ¿ 4 ¿¿ 4 ¿

# œ¿ # œ¿ ¿ ¿ 5 ¿¿ 5 ¿

œ¿ œ¿ ¿ ¿ 5 ¿¿ 5 ¿

œ¿ œ¿ ¿ ¿ 5 ¿¿ 5 ¿

œ¿ œ¿ ¿ ¿ 5 ¿¿ 5 ¿

œ¿ œ¿ ¿ ¿ 3 ¿¿ 3 ¿

œ¿ œ¿ ¿ ¿ 3 ¿¿ 3 ¿

œ¿ œ¿ ¿ ¿ 3 ¿¿ 3 ¿

œ¿ œ¿ ¿ ¿ 3 ¿¿ 3 ¿

D7

œ¿ œ¿ ¿ ¿ 5 ¿¿ 5 ¿

G7

n œ¿ nn œ¿ n¿ ¿ 3 ¿¿ 3 ¿

G7

œ¿ œ¿ ¿ ¿ 3 ¿¿ 3 ¿

.. .. . .. .

BEGINNERS’

BEGINNERS’

When playing in the Freddie Green style—or jazz in general—be sure to accent beats 2 and 4.

Play through the chords in a fake book, using voicings containing only roots, thirds, and sevenths.

TIP 3

WEEK THREE Now that you’ve woodshedded on the chords from Weeks 1 and 2, it’s time to get into the Freddie Green comping style. In the previous examples you discarded the fifths of the chords. Years ago, I studied with Bucky Pizzarelli, who told me that Freddie Green often distilled things down even further—ghosting all but one of the notes in a three-note chord, for example. Essentially Green played one-note chords! Ex. 10 demonstrates this approach with the progression from Ex. 7 and 8. As you can see, all of the notes are muted, save for those on the fourth string. This week you only have one short figure, since it might take some practice and focus on your fretting fingers to get the music up to speed. The trick is to strum all six strings while fingering the three-note chords— fretting the outer notes lightly and letting only the fourth string ring—all while completely deadening the remaining strings with the undersides of your fretting fingers.

LISTEN TO THIS

Count Basie The Original American Decca Recordings GRP

TIP 4

WEEK FOUR In Ex. 11 you’ll find the first four bars (eight, if you count the repeat) of rhythm changes—the harmonic progression from the Gershwin tune “I Got Rhythm,” one of the most common forms in jazz, on which innumerable other compositions are based. The example starts off with a fifth-stringrooted Cmaj7 chord, only its third (E) sounding. Immediately following that chord, you’ll also see the introduction of a new chord type— the fully diminished seventh—which is used to neatly connect diatonic chords. A C#dim7 chord bridges the chords Cmaj7 and Dm7, just as a D#dim7 then connects Dm7 and E7.

Whatever style you play, this minimalistic approach can de-clutter and breathe fresh life into your music.

Ex. 12 shows the entire bridge of rhythm changes, with its series of dominant seventh chords moving counterclockwise along the circle of fifths. Note how the fourth-string notes descend in neat half steps between the chords. After you’ve worked through all four weeks of this lesson—and you really think you’ve got a feel for the Freddie Green style—try playing through some standards using the same approach. Play chords with just roots, thirds, and sevenths; chords with only thirds and sevenths; and of course, those containing only one note. Be sure to maintain a swinging feel, with an emphasis on beats 2 and 4. Also, the Freddie Green style needn’t be limited to jazz. Whatever style you play, especially in ensemble settings, this minimalistic approach can de-clutter and breathe fresh life into your music. AG AcousticGuitar.com 67

ACOUSTIC CLASSIC Alice in Chains, 1992

CHRIS CUFARO

Alice Unplugged Alice in Chains’ ‘Nutshell’ is an angsty acoustic gem BY ADAM PERLMUTTER

68 October 2015

he sound of 1990s grunge can be defined by walls of overdriven electric guitars, but the era’s most prominent practitioners—including Nirvana, Soundgarden, and Alice in Chains— were known to unplug from time to time. Case in point: Alice in Chains’ “Nutshell,” which appeared on the group’s 1994 album Jar of Flies. While the late frontman Layne Staley sings this song of despair, guitarist Jerry Cantrell creates a moody atmosphere on the steel-string acoustic. The song was originally played in standard tuning, down a half step, so be sure to adjust your guitar if you’d like to play along with the recording. Note that all of the music then sounds a minor second lower than written—in the key of Eb minor instead of E minor. The notation here depicts the song’s pickup bar plus its first three measures—three bars

T

that are repeated, with little improvised variations, throughout the entire song. The four chords should be easy enough to manage. In the interest of efficiency be sure to keep your third and fourth fingers stationed on strings two and one when you switch between the G and Em7 chords. Also, note that Cantrell sometimes removes his third finger from the Cadd9 grip and plays the second string open, making for a Cmaj7 chord. As for the right hand, maintain a constant up and down movement, in 16th notes. The beats and the “ands” should receive downstrokes; the other parts of the beat, upstrokes. Take things slowly when learning the strumming pattern, and if needed, subdivide, that is, count in eighth notes instead of 16ths, in order to switch chords at the right time, every time. AG

ds s

NUTSHELL

WORDS BY LAYNE STALEY, MUSIC BY JERRY CANTRELL, MIKE INEZ AND SEAN KINNEY

Alice in Chains Jar of Flies Columbia

Intro Intro

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Intro Intro

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Various Artists Memphis Blues Caravan, Vol.1 Memphis Archives

SONGBOOK

Blues on the Run

‘Travelin’ Blues’ is obscure but well worth checking out BY ADAM PERLMUTTER

good solo blues recording can be full of wonderful anomalies. That’s certainly the case with a somewhat obscure recording of Mississippi-born bluesman Earl Bell (1914– 1977) playing his “Travelin’ Blues” before a Memphis audience in 1974, as documented on the album Memphis Blues Caravan, Vol. 1 (Memphis Archives, 1994). Bell is an interesting figure who traveled extensively, became a fixture on the Memphis blues scene, and claimed to have co-written “Terraplane Blues” with Robert Johnson, with whom he traveled in the 1930s. Our arrangement contains all of the music for the intro, first verse, and first guitar solo.

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(Note that the original recording features a good bit of improvisation on the subsequent three verses and solos.) The song is based on the 12-bar blues in the key of A major, but Bell takes liberties with the form, as he’s free to do without the constrictions of an ensemble performance. For example, note the irregular lengths of the intro and first guitar solo (each is ten measures), and the unpredictable modulations of time signature, particularly in the former section. Then, in smaller details, there are the unintended harmonies. Take, for example, the stack of perfect fourths (A D G) in the intro’s sixth bar, a sonority characteristic of modern jazz, or

the inadvertent note B in bars 3 and 4 of the solo, which, in tandem with the other notes (F#, D, and A), turns the intended IV chord (D7) into a Bm7. Earl Bell played a National Triolian on the recording, and though a resonator guitar will lend the appropriate rawness, you can play the piece on any acoustic guitar. Try using a thumb pick on the bass-string notes while picking the higher notes with your index, middle, and ring fingers. Don’t worry so much about learning the arrangement note-for-note. Just go for the overall spirit of the piece, while borrowing some of the guitar phrases for use in your own improvisations. AG

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TRAVELIN’ BLUES

WORDS AND MUSIC BY EARL BELL

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ACOUSTIC CLASSIC

‘The House of the Rising Sun’ is a timeless tale of troubles

Bob Dylan

BY ADAM PERLMUTTER

he House of the Rising Sun”—a traditional folk number lamenting a life spent ignobly in New Orleans—is closely associated with the Animals, the British Invasion band that recorded it in 1964. But the song has been covered extensively by so many luminaries—to name just a few, Woody Guthrie, Lead Belly, Pete Seeger, and Bob Dylan. The arrangement shown here incorporates an accompaniment inspired by the Dylan version, which appears on the singer’s self-titled 1962 debut for Columbia Records. Whereas the Animals’ version is based on arpeggios, Dylan’s has a neat sort of walking bass line that’s

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punctuated with chordal strums. (He reportedly cribbed that from his pal Dave Van Ronk, who also covered the song.) The song is in 6/8—that’s six eighth notes per bar. If you’re unfamiliar with this meter, practice it on a single chord before learning the song. Count “One, two, three, four, five six,” and so on, while also tapping your foot. Add simple eighth-note strums in downstrokes, and then try strumming in continuous 16th notes, playing every other strum with an upstroke. After you’re comfortable counting in 6/8 and strumming rudimentarily in the time signature, delve into the transcription. The chord

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grips are straightforward—basic open cowboy shapes. For the D/F, try wrapping your thumb around the neck to fret the sixth-string F. On every beat 1 and 4, play the given chord’s bass note with an assertive downstroke. Note that by using inversions—chords with notes other than roots in the bass—you get that smoothly descending bass line: A to G to F to E. On the other beats, you’ll add upper-string strums; try to maintain steady timing when switching between the single-note and chordal bits. This rhythmic pattern should get you through the whole song—or pretty much any folk song in 6/8. AG

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74 October 2015

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HOUSE OF THE RISING SUN

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76 October 2015

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ther was a2.tailor My mother was a tailor wed these new jeans Sheblue sewed these new blue jeans eetheart was My a gambler Lordwas a gambler Lord sweetheart n New Orleans Down in New Orleans

5. Oh tell my baby sister 5. Oh tell my baby sister Not to do what I have Notdone to do what I have done But shun that houseBut in New shunOrleans that house in New Orleans They call the Rising They Sun call the Rising Sun

e only thing gambler needs 3. aNow the only thing a gambler needs itcase and a Is trunk a suitcase and a trunk e only time when he’sonly satistime ed when he’s satis ed And the n he's on a drunk Is when he's on a drunk

6. Well with one foot6.on thewith platform Well one foot on the platform And the other foot on thethe train And other foot on the train I’m going back to New I’m Orleans going back to New Orleans To wear that ball and Tochain wear that ball and chain

his glasses 4. up He tollsthehisbrim glasses up to the brim e’ll pass the cards around And he’ll pass the cards around e only pleasure gets outpleasure of life he gets out of life Andhethe only bling from town to town from town to town Is rambling

7. I’m going back to7.New I’m Orleans going back to New Orleans My race is almost run My race is almost run I’m going back to end life back to end my life I’mmy going Down in the Rising Sun Down in the Rising Sun

The Animals,1964 From left: Eric Burdon, Alan Price, Chas Chandler, Hilton Valentine, John Steel

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82

Makers & Shakers Paul Heumiller’s Dream Guitars

84

Guitar Guru The upside of torrefaction

86

New Gear Taylor revamps the 900 series

88

New Gear Mérida’s newest dreadnought

AG TRADE

SHOPTALK

Building a Legacy

John Roberts, left, with a student at the Roberto-Venn School in the ‘70s

The esteemed Roberto-Venn School of Luthiery turns 40 BY ADAM PERLMUTTER

hances are, if you own a guitar made in the last few decades, it’s got some connection to the Roberto-Venn School of Luthiery. This institution might not be well-known among consumers, but it’s regarded among those in the industry as the premier guitar-making school. Its graduates include employees of such top acoustic-guitar manufacturers as Martin Guitar, Taylor Guitars, Collings Guitars, and the Santa Cruz Guitar Co.; the independent luthiers Jason Kostal, Michihiro Matsuda, and Michael Baranik; and numerous instrument repairers, tonewood suppliers, and assorted other experts. This year marks the 40th anniversary of Roberto-Venn, which was co-founded in 1975 by luthiers John Roberts and Robert Venn. (Both builders passed away in the 1990s.) To celebrate this milestone, the Phoenix, Arizona-based school held a gala concert in June and will hold its first reunion during the second weekend of October. “It’ll be a celebration and learning opportunity for our graduates,” says the school’s director and third co-founder William Eaton. “The presentations and panel discussions will be similar to a mini luthiers’ convention.” Kostal and Baranik are among the acoustic builders scheduled to attend.

C

In the past 40 years, the guitar industry has changed radically, especially with the widespread use of computer-controlled CNC machinery to speedily and efficiently carve wooden components and inlays. Roberto-Venn has addressed these innovations while maintaining the intensive overall approach it’s been fine-tuning since becoming an accredited institution in 1979. Its core five-month course—two are offered each year—focuses on both guitar building and repair, leaving pupils with a firm grasp of the fundamentals. It culminates with each student producing at least one acoustic and one electric instrument. “Our students get lots of hands-on training, as well as theoretical knowledge, during the 880-clock-hour course,” Eaton says. In Roberto-Venn’s earliest days, students built steel-string acoustics with fan braces modeled after the Torres style. Today, they use the various X-bracing patterns commonly found on modern steel-strings, also incorporating more recent developments from the guitar-making world. At the same time, the school teaches older techniques that have seen a resurgence in popularity. For example, it offers an elective course on the centuries-old art of French polishing. Eaton

explains, “The emphasis is on the use of historical, traditional materials and techniques, including creating a cotton pad to apply the shellac-alcohol mixture.” The knowledge base students acquire during their short stay at Roberto-Venn serves as the point of departure for their own work. In the case of Matsuda, with his boldly sculptural instruments, this work is a great distance from the conventional. “I remember that we learned some newer ways of building during my time at the school, such as bolt-on neck joints [on acoustic guitars] and making certain radiuses on braces,” says Matsuda, who completed the course in 1997. “And there were conversations in my class about the possibility of using graphite materials and fanned-fret systems. I was fascinated by these ideas. I needed and wanted [the training] to develop my skills and concepts before starting my own thing.” Reflecting on the work produced over the last 40 years by Matsuda and so many other skilled luthiers—a virtual who’s who of the guitar industry—Eaton says, “It’s tremendously rewarding to witness students stringing up their guitars for the first time—a memorable experience for them and for us.” AcousticGuitar.com 79

SHOPTALK

BREEDLOVE ‘TREE’ GUITAR RAFFLE WILL SUPPORT SISTERS FOLK FEST Perhaps you’ve heard tell of “the Tree,” a special Honduran mahogany log of extraordinary strength and beauty. Now, you can have the chance to win a guitar made from this magical wood. Breedlove Stringed Instruments is donating a custom C20/CM guitar to benefit Oregon’s Sisters Folk Festival, and even if you don’t attend the festival, you can still purchase raffle tickets for a chance to win. The Tree mahogany used for the back and sides of the instrument was donated to Breedlove by Jay Howlett—if you haven’t seen the remarkable quilted figuring of this lumber, words cannot do it justice, and its tonal qualities are as legendary as its appearance.

80 October 2015

Breedlove has paired it with a red-cedar top featuring a sunburst finish and added a unique fingerboard inlay that reads “SFF 2015” across a vintage-style microphone. Breedlove’s instrument, which is valued at $8,000, will be on display at Paulina Springs Books leading up to the folk fest, which will be celebrating its 20th anniversary with this year’s event, scheduled for September 11–13. Raffle tickets will be sold for $20 a pop (or three for $50), and will be available either at the festival or online. At press time, the drawing was set to take place on September 13. Visit sistersfolkfestival.org for details and to purchase your raffle tickets.

SEVENTH WOODSTOCK SHOWCASE SET FOR LATE OCTOBER Those interested in world-class handmade acoustic guitars would be well-advised to check out the 7th annual Woodstock Invitational Luthiers Showcase (and Tonewood Festival). The event will be held at the historic Bearsville Theater and the Utopia Soundstage on October 23–25. Many notable builders will be on hand to exhibit their wares and offer ample information about construction techniques and specs. The intimate Woodstock show offers consumers a unique chance to test-drive a wide variety of highend instruments all in one location. Whether your interest tends toward flattops or archtops, steelstrings or nylon-strings, resonators or Selmer-style creations, you’ll find instruments that will catch your attention. (There also will be an assortment of ukuleles, mandolins, banjos, and other stringed instruments available to sample.) For the builders in attendance (pro or amateur), there will also be a number of tonewood dealers, along with makers of strings, tools, parts, and other accessories. Among the builders in attendance will be legendary names such as Sergei de Jonge, John Monteleone, Ken Parker, and Tom Ribbecke. Also of note, Jorma Kaukonen will be headlining this year’s String Sampler Concert. Other highlights will include a series of performances and luthier demos (featuring the likes of Bucky Pizzarelli and Vicki Genfan), along with a number of instructional workshops and clinics, plus a display of rare and vintage instruments. Learn more at woodstockinvitational.com. —Marc Greilsamer

MAKERS & SHAKERS

Dream Weavers

Paul Heumiller’s guitar emporium unites world-class builders with enthusiastic customers BY ADAM PERLMUTTER

n the late 1990s, Paul Heumiller, a guitarist accustomed to production models, took delivery of a custom instrument that would change his music and his life: a Stefan Sobell Model 1 with Brazilian rosewood back and sides. “My friend Martin Simpson encouraged me to order the guitar, and it’s the single best thing I’ve ever done for my playing,” Heumiller says. “Right away, I could hear nuances that I hadn’t heard before—it showed me what other guitars could not. And it just wasn’t possible for me to look at the Sobell and not play it.” Today, Heumiller is the proprietor of Dream Guitars, a shop that focuses on luthier-built instruments. Located in Weaverville, North Carolina, a small mountain town near the liberal

I

82 October 2015

enclave of Asheville, Dream Guitars has quickly become a vital hub of the acoustic world. More than a mere salesman, Heumiller sees himself as an advocate of guitar makers, whose long hours at the workbench make it difficult for them to market themselves effectively. “Luthiers don’t really have time to maintain social media and blogs, and I try to help these artists, many of whom have become great friends, connect with their audiences. On the side, I’m a yogi, and so I really see myself as being in the service of this wonderful community.” AN ALTERNATE PLAN Heumiller grew up in a crowded New Jersey house with nine siblings. At ten, he appropri-

ated his sister’s cheap Yamaha nylon-string guitar and taught himself to play by reading Alfred method books. His older brothers supplemented his musical education. “Two of my brothers were college deejays, and they had massive record collections. Between them they played me everything from all the classic folk recordings to Jeff Beck and Alice Cooper, which probably explains why I’m slightly deranged these days,” says Heumiller, laughing. Heumiller, like many of his generation, spent his 20s pursuing dreams of rock stardom. He sang and played electric guitar in clubs along the Jersey Shore, including Asbury Park’s Stone Pony, the club where the Boss himself, Bruce Springsteen, has jammed since his earliest days.

EMILY NICHOLS

‘Luthiers don’t really have time to maintain social media and blogs, and I try to help these artists connect with their audiences.’

Paul Heumiller relaxes with his Jordan McConnell SJ, featuring inlays by Larry Robinson and artwork by Fian Arroyo.

But things didn’t go as hoped for Heumiller, and during a low point in the late 1980s, he realized the urgency of having an alternate plan. “After being a starving musician for a while, I had a week where I ate nothing but Häagen-Dazs I bought with a coupon book, as that’s all I could afford,” Heumiller says. “I knew then that I had to find something else to do with myself than play music.” Heumiller set his guitar aside to focus on computer programming, from mainframe systems to PC to the Internet—he worked on the earliest online investment-banking systems and cellular-phone systems. Then, in the mid1990s, he picked up the guitar again, focusing on the steel-string acoustic. In 1999, he

attended the first IGS (International Guitar Seminar) at Columbia University in New York City, led by Bob Brozman and Woody Mann, where he also encountered Martin Simpson for the first time. Heumiller says, “I heard Martin play a few notes and instantly felt that was the sound I was trying to make my whole life. We began working together; I built him a website, and he in turn mentored me on guitar.” As their friendship evolved, Heumiller traveled with Simpson as an assistant to master classes around the United States and in Europe. More than a few attendees had beautiful custom instruments, and this is where the seeds for Dream Guitars were planted. “The people at these workshops had all these amazing handmade guitars,” he says. “Whenever possible, Martin and I would visit local luthiers, and we had a great time seeing how instruments were built, passing guitars back and forth and getting to know their nuances so well.” GOING WITH HIS GUT In 2002, Heumiller started Dream Guitars, selling custom guitars, mostly acoustic, on the Internet. He opened a small shop in Red Bank, New Jersey—the hometown of jazz luminary Count Basie—the following year. The retail space only lasted until 2004. “I quickly saw the shop as a hindrance,” says Heumiller. “It felt like I needed a whole staff just to deal with visitors—most of whom were unlikely to actually buy guitars. It turned out that the Internet was a better way for me to support builders, while helping players from around the world find their dream guitars.” Around the same time, Heumiller, then a father of three young children, began to despair about the quickly rising cost of living in New Jersey. So he poured himself into finding a more livable place on the East Coast. After Simpson’s North Carolinian friend Al Petteway, the Grammy-winning guitarist and National Geographic photographer, showed Heumiller around Asheville, he was sold. “I went with my gut. The Asheville area was the only spot on the entire Coast that felt right. It’s got mountains and natural beauty and, even more important, great people—like-minded artistic folks who live there for a common reason, to slow down a little and get down to what’s most important in life,” says Heumiller, who moved there in 2004. A decade later, with a staff of eight, Heumiller, now 50, sells about 400 guitars per year at Dream Guitars. Most of the sales are still done online—the shop, part of his residence, is open only by appointment. Dream Guitars’ entire inventory—usually more than 200 instruments—fills seven rooms of Heumiller’s home and sits on stands, waiting to be played. The offerings run the gamut. Heumiller says, “We sell guitars from pioneering guitar makers like Ervin Somogyi, who many credit with lightening up the bracing of the steel-string for modern

fingerstyle playing, and from younger luthiers like Jordan McConnell, a Canadian maker whose guitars are off the charts in terms of their expressiveness.” The shop also includes a full video recording studio, where Heumiller, Petteway, and other guitarists record demos of all of the shop’s instruments, and where a series of lessons is produced. Dream Guitars also hosts (and records) concerts and workshops on the premises; recent guests have included Alex de Grassi and the duo of Tony McManus and Beppe Gambetta. “I created Dream Guitars out of love for music and guitar,” says Heumiller. “Since the beginning, we’ve strived to be much more then a guitar shop; we want to be a community.” MUSICAL TOOLS While some luthiers like to deal directly with their clients, others prefer to let Heumiller— with the deep knowledge he gleans from playing, in his estimate, a thousand guitars each year—help customers design their guitars. “I’ll guide a customer on everything from choosing tonewoods to helping them make the best decisions with respect to resale value,” says Heumiller. “Someone like Ervin will tell me, ‘You talk them all the way through [the specifications and options of a custom guitar] and just let me know what I need to build.’” Many players and collectors consider prewar steel-strings to represent the golden era of guitar making, but Heumiller feels that today’s independent luthiers are crafting the best guitars ever made, while expanding the instrument’s tonal capabilities. “Not to take anything away from a 100-year-old Martin or a 50-year-old Gibson—we currently have 1930s Martins and 1940s [Gibson] L-5s for sale. I love vintage; it’s so inspiring to hold a guitar and know it has hundreds of stories in it. But the truth is, these guitars are not as well-made [as the best modern luthier-built instruments]; they’re not as easy to play and don’t intonate as well, even if you change the frets,” says Heumiller, adding that his inventory is typically less than 10 percent vintage. It might be expected that a guitarist in Heumiller’s position would have a substantial personal collection, but he typically owns only half a dozen at a time. Currently, his go-to flattop is one made by Jordan McConnell, with inlay work by Larry Robinson. He also owns a Mountain Song baritone, a nylon-string fretless banjo, and a Paul Reed Smith archtop. (He’s the half-owner of a vintage Teisco that he bought with Martin Simpson when they rescued it many years ago from a pawnshop.) “My arsenal includes tools for making music, only what I need for writing songs,” he says. “I’ll often keep a guitar for a little while and then sell it, even if I love it—like I did with the Brazilian Sobell. A guitar, just like love, comes and goes.” AG AcousticGuitar.com 83

GUITAR GURU

Thermal Knowledge What can torrefaction do for your instrument? BY DANA BOURGEOIS

Q

We love the sound of vintage guitars, improved over the years by chemical changes inside the wood, vibrational energy, UV exposure, changes in humidity, and so on. From observing violins, we know that the aging process continues to improve (or at least not degrade) tonal quality for up to 350 or 400 years. To what approximate “age” does the torrefaction process take wood, and how do you think modern guitars made using torrefied wood will react to those changes 40 or 50 years from now? David Ferraro Franklin, Pennsylvania

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

84 October 2015

A

Torrefaction is a process of heating wood in an oxygen-free environment to remove oils, pitch, sugars, resins, and other vibration-damping volatiles. It’s believed that proper treatment redistributes lignin, the “glue” that bonds cellulose fibers, resulting in wood that is measurably stiffer, weighs less, and vibrates more efficiently than un-torrefied wood. Under a microscope, torrefied wood looks much like wood that was naturally cured for many decades. True torrefaction—the elimination of volatiles without damaging structural cellulose— occurs within a range of temperature and duration of treatment that varies from one wood species to the next. The window for optimum treatment is relatively narrow, but within it, different degrees of aging can be simulated. I’ve experimented with torrefied woods that appear to simulate between 50 and 100 years of natural aging. My objective is to get as close as possible to the sound of guitars from the ’30s and ’40s, so I’m mostly attracted to wood in the upper half of that range. Large chemical and structural changes occur in the first few years after a tree is cut. After a couple decades, however, natural transformation slows considerably. The condition of wooden objects found in Egyptian tombs

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.

suggests that curing attributable to aging alone eventually operates at an extremely slow rate, at least under ideal conditions. Given that violins from the 17th century are still in active service, and that guitars from the 1930s still sound good enough to exchange for extremely large sums, it seems reasonable that contemporary guitars made with torrefied wood can last for at least the lifetime of the original owner—and hopefully a lot longer. The oldest torrefied guitars I’m aware of were produced more than 20 years ago by several Scandinavian luthiers. From what I have been able to learn, the structural condition of those guitars appears about normal for their age. Length of fiber is one indication of structural integrity. If you break a quarter-inch by quarterinch stick of properly torrefied Adirondack spruce and observe the length of fibers at the break, on average these will be longer than fibers from broken sticks of non-torrefied Western red cedar, redwood, Engelmann spruce, and Alpine spruce—all species commonly used for contemporary steel-string guitars. My takeaway is that properly torrefied, properly selected wood used in conjunction with a well-engineered design, can produce guitars that are both great-sounding and durable. Though they may not turn up in Egyptian tombs, every indication is that 40 or 50 years from now, high-quality, well-maintained, torrefied guitars stand a solid chance of becoming vintage in their own right. 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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NEW GEAR Ebony bevel

Sitka spruce top

Grand Auditorium shape with Venetian cutaway

Simply Sublime The revamped Taylor 914ce is a winner across the board BY ADAM PERLMUTTER

very year, in what is surely a feat of mass production, Taylor Guitars makes 130,000 guitars (more than anyone else), all of them consistently good, and some of them, like the new 914ce, sublime. That guitar, with its brawniness and deep resonance, not to mention its supreme playability, is a winning performer. Decked out with abalone, ebony, and koa trimmings, it’s got stunning looks to match.

E

REDESIGNED INSIDE & OUT Since Andy Powers (see Makers & Shakers in AG’s July 2015 issue) arrived at Taylor in 2012, the bright young luthier has been at work overhauling the company’s lines, one series at a time: first the 800 series, then the 600, and, most recently, the flagship 900 series. The 914ce is a Grand Auditorium model—Taylor’s most popular body style, smaller than a dreadnought, 86 October 2015

and intended to work equally well for flatpicking and fingerpicking—with a Venetian (or optional Florentine) cutaway and electronics. At first glance, the revamped 914ce doesn’t look a whole lot different than the old model, but it’s received a comprehensive overhaul. The guitar’s woods have been recalibrated to optimal new thicknesses, the soundboard includes lighter bracing (though no less strong), and the back now sports unusual diagonal bracing (said to change the way the back interacts with the top) for enhanced resonance. A hand-carved bevel, like those first used by William “Grit” Laskin and other modern luthiers, now graces the lower bass bout, for player comfort. Details not visually apparent are found in the use of protein glue on the bracing and bridge, which facilitates the best transfer of sound in these critical areas. Also in

the service of sound, the new gloss finish is a paper-thin 3.5 mils—about 40 percent thinner than Taylor’s previous finish. LUXURIOUS DESIGN Befitting of an instrument in Taylor’s most luxurious series, the 914ce is made from a gorgeous selection of tonewoods, all solid—Sitka spruce for the top; Indian rosewood for the back and sides; and ebony for the fretboard, bridge, armrest, headstock overlays, heel cap, bridge pins, and bindings. Ebony, paired with koa, also makes an appearance on the binding throughout the guitar, and stunning layers of ebony, koa, and paua decorate the soundboard’s edges and are echoed in the rosette. Other lavish appointments include Taylor’s new Ascension peghead inlay and a set of super fancy fretboard inlays, both in abalone. All-gold

VIDEO REVIEW ACOUSTICGUITAR.COM/GEAR Right An ebony bevel provides comfort Far right Abalone fretboard inlay

Ebony fretboard

BODY Grand Auditorium shape with Venetian cutaway Sitka spruce top East Indian rosewood back and sides Ebony armrest AT A GLANCE

TAYLOR 914CE

Ebony bridge with micarta saddle Gloss finish

hardware, including Gotoh tuners and a neckheel-mounted strap button, also contribute to the guitar’s elegance without feeling excessive. (For those who find the strap button obtrusive, the guitar can be ordered without one, at no charge.) Taylor is known for its craftsmanship, and the 914ce’s build quality is unimpeachably excellent from stem to stern. There’s not a flaw to be found in the fretwork, gloss finish, inlay work, or the interior aspects. An anomaly or two would almost be welcome, though; those found on some high-end guitars are nice reminders of luthiers’ handwork. VERSATILITY MEETS PLAYABILITY Out of the box, the 914ce is a great joy to play.Its neck is fast and slender, but it feels roomy, thanks to its 13/4-inch nut. (A nut width of 111/16 or 17/8 inches is available for a charge of $200.) All of

EXTRAS Elixir phosphor-bronze medium strings (.013–.056)

NECK Mahogany neck

Expression System 2 electronics

Ebony fretboard

Deluxe hard-shell case

25.5-inch scale length

Limited-lifetime warranty

13/4-inch Tusq nut

PRICE $6,498 list; $4,999 street

Gold Gotoh 510 tuners Satin finish, gloss on face and rear of headstock

the notes on all frets ring beautifully clear and sound consistent in their fullness. It’s almost too perfect—this guitar isn’t for someone playing the country blues, for example, which would benefit from a little sonic raggedness. But the 914ce is well-suited to a range of styles. It sounds just as good for the most basic campfire strumming as it does for intricate fingerstyle jazz. The guitar has a remarkably wide dynamic range and terrific balance. The bass’s remarkable depth can be heard as well as felt in the chest, the mids are rich and warm, and the trebles are strong and clear, but not at all strident—in standard and a range of alternate tunings from DADGAD to open C. T he 914ce includes Taylor’s most recent version of its ES electronics, with the pickup’s piezo elements relocated from their customary position under the saddle to just behind it, to

Made in the United States taylorguitars.com

capture more of the saddle’s movement. Plugged into a Fender Acoustasonic amp, the system sounds astonishingly natural when the three rubber, left-bout-mounted volume, bass, and treble knobs are set flat. Taylor’s newly redesigned 914ce is a superfine modern guitar whose pristine sound is matched by its perfect build, smooth playability, and luxurious looks. At $5,000 street, it will no doubt have a select audience. Also, at that price point, the guitar is competing with handmade, luthier-built guitars tailored to individual players’ styles. That said, the 914ce represents a production model at its best, and is definitely worth aspiring to own. Contributing editor Adam Perlmutter transcribes, arranges, and engraves music for numerous publications. AcousticGuitar.com 87

NEW GEAR

AT A GLANCE

MÉRIDA MASTER SERIES 75D BODY Dreadnought size Solid Sitka spruce top with scalloped Sitka braces Solid Indian rosewood back and sides Rosewood bridge Gloss polyurethane finish NECK Mahogany neck with ebony fretboard 25.4-inch scale length 1.69-inch bone nut

A New Player in the Game Mérida’s Master Series 75D boasts a lovely voice and a modern look BY ADAM PERLMUTTER

he Extremadura, an autonomous region in western Spain, is known as the guitar’s birthplace. It’s also the inspiration for a relatively new guitar brand, Mérida, which takes its name from the region’s capital city. The company’s handcrafted imported guitars—which first made a splash in Europe and Japan, and are finally available in the United States—include classical and steel-string offerings. Found in the new Master Series of steel-string guitars are dreadnoughts and grand auditoriums with various tonewood packages, all available with a cutaway and Fishman electronics. I checked out the Master 75D, a dread, in its non-cutaway incarnation.

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14:1 enclosed tuners Satin finish EXTRAS D’Addario EXP 11 strings Hard-shell case PRICE $1,425 street Made in China meridaguitars.com 88 October 2015

CLASSIC SPRUCE & ROSEWOOD CONFIGURATION The Master 75D is built from the time-honored tonewood combo of a Sitka spruce soundboard, with scalloped Sitka X-bracing, and Indian rosewood back and sides—all solid. Mahogany is used for the neck and ebony for the fretboard. Care appears to have been taken in the selection of the woods; the Sitka is finely grained, and the rosewood has an attractive deep brown coloration. Aesthetically speaking, the Master 75D, with its spare, modern look, is a refreshing

departure from the traditional dreadnought. The rosette, said to have been inspired by the architecture of the Mérida Amphitheatre, is formed by elliptical rings of rosewood and mahogany—the sculptural rosewood bridge has a binding of mahogany, as do the body and headstock. Mahogany also makes appearances in the truss-rod cover, heel cap, back strip, end strip, and in the script M on the headstock—the only part rendered by CNC machinery. The Master 75D, like all Mérida guitars, is made in China, a fact that the company seems to downplay. (They indicate, in tiny letters on the soundhole label, that it’s made in P.R.C.) But the guitar is hardly the typical assembly-line Asian import. In fact, except for the finish, it’s made entirely by a single luthier. Whoever built the review model did very clean work, with the exception of a little debris inside of the box. The poly finish is uniform and very thin—you can almost feel the pores. In a thoughtful flourish, the wood inside the guitar has been rubbed with oil, for both protection and beauty. After overseas completion, the Master 75D is set up at Mérida’s Norwalk, Connecticut, headquarters. As a result, the fretwork is impeccable, smoothly polished and leveled, and with comfortably rounded ends.

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The guitar is hardly the typical assemblyline Asian import. In fact, except for the finish, it’s made entirely by a single luthier. M WELL-ROUNDED PERFORMER The Master 75D has a 1.69-inch bone nut and a relatively shallow neck that fans of traditional steel-strings might find skimpy. But thanks to its profile and its satin finish, as well as the low action, it’s quite comfortable. Depending on one’s playing style, though, the action might be a little too low—a heavy hand can cause some buzzing at the lower frets. Even and well-rounded are the words that come to mind when describing the guitar’s overall voice. The bottom end is full, but not overpowering as on some dreadnoughts; the midrange is strong and airy, and the treble register is sparkling. It offers a nice snap and projection, likely owing to its rosewood back and sides, and it can be driven pretty hard before the tone is adversely affected (buzzy frets notwithstanding). The instrument is also well-rounded when it comes to its potential applications. Though the instrument wouldn’t necessarily appeal to the bluegrass traditionalist, it does have ample volume for rhythmic applications in that idiom, and a good presence and string-to-string balance on those G runs. It sounds equally nice for basic rock strumming, fingerstyle improvisations in DADGAD, jazz comping with walking bass lines, and chord-melody solos involving complicated harmonies. Mérida’s Master 75D is a welcome addition to the world of dreadnoughts, a nicely made guitar with a lovely voice and styling. The most traditional player might not gravitate toward the instrument, but it would make an excellent choice for the musician who works in a range of styles, or for the singer-songwriter who wants a nice guitar for composing purposes. At $1,425 street, it’s far from a bargain for an imported instrument—but it’s not a bad deal, either, especially for a well-crafted handmade guitar built from all-solid tonewoods whose supply levels are not what they once were. AG

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Quality is laced throughout IT’S NEVER TOO LATE, the first studio album featuring Emmanuel completely solo since 2000. He frequently threads three different parts simultaneously into his material, operating as a one-man band who handles the melody, the supporting chords, and the bass all at once. A friend and follower of the late Chet Atkins – who christened Emmanuel a Certified Guitar Player - Emmanuel easily skates between musical styles, pl playing with blues, jazz, country, and folk on this album.

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NEW GEAR

AT A GLANCE

GRACE HARBOR GHGC-200 BODY Grand Concert size

Fundamentally Sound

The Grace Harbor GHGC-200 comes from a credible new line of budget flattops BY ADAM PERLMUTTER

Solid spruce top Layered sapele back and sides Rosewood bridge Gloss polyurethane finish NECK Nato neck Rosewood fretboard 25.4-inch scale length 1.67-inch nut Chrome tuners (16:1 ratio) Gloss polyurethane finish EXTRAS D’Addario EXP16 strings (.012–.053) Hard-shell case One-year lifetime warranty PRICE $519 list; $439 street

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90 October 2015

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here’s no shortage of sensibly priced, impressively built guitars on the market these days. Yet, few flattops at under $500 street sound as satisfying and feel as responsive as Grace Harbor’s GHGC -200. With its burnished tone and its sensitivity to fingerstyle technique, it’s a voice that will likely sound even better with age, thanks to the guitar’s solid spruce soundboard.

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HANDSOME DESIGN, FINE CRAFTSMANSHIP Instrument distributor Dana B. Goods has introduced a handful of traditional flattops under the Grace Harbor brand. All of the instruments are made in China and set up at the company’s US headquarters, in Oxnard, California. The four models in the 200 series— classical (nylon-string), dreadnought, grand concert, and parlor—use solid spruce tops, while the dreadnought-sized GHD-100 and GHD-100CE (with cutaway and electronics) have laminated spruce tops. The GHGC-200 is based on the traditional 14-fret grand concert size—slightly smaller in all dimensions than a dreadnought. While the top is made from the same species as many high-end guitars, the back and sides are fashioned from layered sapele, and the neck from nato, both sitting in for mahogany.

out of the box. At 42.5 millimeters (about 1.67 inches), the nut is on the narrow side. This will no doubt be a deal-breaker for some players, but the fretboard doesn’t feel cramped, nor do the pick-hand fingers. EXPRESSIVE & DYNAMIC Overall, the GHGC-200’s voice is best described as warm, with strong fundamentals. It doesn’t have the loudness or low-end power typically associated with a larger guitar, but its balance from string to string and between registers is impressive. The model has a full sound when strummed at moderate levels with a plectrum,

but it really shines as a fingerpicker, given its nice dynamic and tonal range. In any tuning, and with or without a capo, the guitar is very responsive to the overall placement of the pick hand and to varying ratios of flesh and nail when the strings are attacked. To put it another way, it’s a very expressive instrument. Though it won’t necessarily give a player the same pride of ownership as a high-end domestic guitar, Grace Harbor’s GHGC-200 can definitely compete with its much costlier counterparts in terms of playability and sonics. It’s equally recommendable as a great guitar to learn on and a smart budget option for recording. AG

The Capo Company

Few flattops at under $500 street sound as satisfying and feel as responsive. Though there’s not much in the way of bling, the GHGC-200’s design is handsomely straightforward. A thin abalone rosette is a nice touch, as is the company’s old-fashioned script logo and nautical icon on the headstock’s rosewood overlay. However, this vintage-inspired guitar would perhaps look even nicer with a tortoise pickguard in place of its black scratchplate, and open-geared tuners instead of the generic sealed machines. The review model boasts fine craftsmanship, inside and outside. Its frets are smooth and comfortable, and the finish is smoothly buffed and polished; its bracing appears cleanly sanded and glued, and so does the kerfing. It’s one of those guitars that stands up, in terms of build quality, to instruments costing a lot more. Action is slinky, but all of the notes on the neck ring true. The neck’s great-feeling medium-sized profile is set up perfectly right

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The Rambler

Pogreba’s resonator caught the attention of Bonnie Raitt BY BEN ELDER he offbeat resonator guitar designs of Montana luthier Larry Pogreba involve construction and deconstruction. While whimsy is a standard feature in Pogreba’s instruments (especially his de rigueur vintagehubcap resonator covers), he also focuses on using traditional designs and attempting to improve on their comfort and playability. In the guitar pictured, Pogreba started with the concept of a National single-cone resophonic and updated it with a Fender-esque headstock with six-on-a-side tuning gears and a cutaway Les Paul body shape. The secret of this instrument is its light aluminum body (as opposed to steel, brass, or German silver). Aluminum-bodied instruments are Pogreba’s specialty, and this guitar was conceived in hopes of catching the attention of Bonnie Raitt (it did—she’s been using it in concert), who, Pogreba was told, disliked the weight of traditional resophonics for stage use. Pogreba’s selection of blue for the anodized body came from an inside tip that it was one of Raitt’s favorite colors (and is similar to the color of her signature model Fender Stratocaster). The R on the hubcap, incidentally, originally stood for Rambler. To accommodate the height of the hubcap, Pogreba cut a circle in the top of the guitar’s hard-shell case and covered it with another hubcap. The high-tech materials Pogreba uses contrast with his rough-hewn construction: He makes no effort to hide the welding seams or the hammer marks created when pounding the back arch into shape. “Aluminum is very easy to work with,” he says. “It doesn’t warp, I can weld it like sheet metal, and I can use woodworking tools.” Emmylou Harris and Keb’ Mo’ have added Pogreba guitars to their collections, and other name artists are interested as well. And although Pogreba is turning some of the concepts of resonator-guitar innovators John and Rudy Dopyera upside down, his work is motivated by the same desire to solve players’ problems that inspired the Dopyeras’ inventions three generations ago.

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This article was first published in the August 1999 issue. 92 October 2015

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ENTER TODAY ACOUSTICGUITAR.COM/WIN/TC-HELICON-GEAR GIVEAWAY RULES: No purchase necessary. Void where prohibited. Entrants must be 18 years or older. Each entry must be individually submitted using the Official Entry Form at AcousticGuitar.com/Win/TC-Helicon-Gear and received by October 31st, 2015; facsimiles may not be substituted. Prize drawing will be made on or around November 15th, 2015. The grand prizes will be fulfilled by TC-Helicon within 60 days of receipt of winner’s written acceptance. Employees of Acoustic Guitar magazine, and TC-Helicon are not eligible to win. Odds of winning depend on the number of entries received. Limit one entry per person. Acoustic Guitar magazine reserves the right to notify the winner by mail or by e-mail and to identify the winner in the magazine as well as the Acoustic Guitar website and Facebook page. International entrants, please note: If the winner is resident outside the United States and Canada, he or she is responsible for all shipping, customs, and tax costs. In the event that an international winner is unwilling or unable to cover these costs, he or she will forfeit the prize and a new winner will be selected at random. Giveaway entrants may receive information from Acoustic Guitar, and TC-Helicon For the name of the prize winner, send a self-addressed, stamped envelope to TC-Helicon 2015 Giveaway, c/o Acoustic Guitar magazine, 510 Canal Blvd, Suite J, Richmond, CA 94804. This offer ends on October 31st, 2015. Taxes are the responsibility of the winner. No prize substitutions are permitted

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HARVEY ROBINSON

Playlist The Steep Canyon Rangers ride again

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Playlist Revisiting Dylan’s folk-blues debut

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Books Willie Nelson tells all—with soul

PLAYLIST

MIXED MEDIA

Langhorne Slim, p. 97


PLAYLIST

Steep Canyon Rangers

Traveling the Dial The Steep Canyon Rangers show their versatility across a variety of styles BY KENNY BERKOWITZ

resh from mainstream success backing Steve Martin and Edie Brickell, the Steep Canyon Rangers keep refining their sound, returning to their own trad/progressive balance of North Carolina folk, pop, and bluegrass. Radio opens with a title track about the pleasures of listening to deejay Casey Kasem and American Top 40, unreeling a long list of pop references that includes the Kinks (“Waterloo Sunset”) and the Rolling Stones (“Dead Flowers”). It’s followed soon after by the neo-trad “Blow Me Away,” which chugs forward on Nicky Sanders’ Gypsy-style violin and guitarist Woody Platt’s freight-train rhythm—they sing

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about how “the Rock of Ages is broken/just an empty page where the book fell open,” as if they’re playing a gospel song. (They’re not.) On the album’s one instrumental, “Looking Glass,” the band starts at breakdown speed before shifting to a quieter, meditative arpeggio, then races again until it stops suddenly in silence, determined to defy expectation. (They do, consistently.) Other songs are more clearly folkcountry, including “Wasted,” about the dangers of drink, and “When the Well Runs Dry,” about the hard lives of farmhands. But whatever they’re singing about, from blackbirds to brakemen, contemporary or not, the Rangers’ playing remains firmly rooted in

Steep Canyon Rangers Radio Rounder

the early years of Bill Monroe & His Blue Grass Boys, especially Mike Guggino’s mandolin, Charles R. Humphrey III’s bass, Graham Sharp’s banjo, and Platt’s rock-solid rhythm. That frees Sanders’ fiddle to provide the jazz flourishes and new percussionist Mike Ashworth to add momentum with brushes on a wooden box. Officially, the Rangers have become a sextet, but with Jerry Douglas producing and playing Dobro, they’ve grown even bigger. There’s strength in numbers, and it’s given the ensemble a new depth—a sense of subtlety where the lines between different kinds of music are effortlessly crossed, re-crossed, and crossed again. AG

Langhorne Slim

Chuck Johnson

The Spirit Moves Dualtone

Blood Moon Boulder Scissor Tail Editions

Complex roots rocker creates his best work yet Langhorne Slim’s seventh album is his second effort with the rock ’n’ soul combo the Law, and it’s also his first set written and recorded free from alcohol. But clean living hasn’t changed how Slim, born Sean Scolnick, approaches music-making. As before, he pulls from roadhouse Americana, honky-tonk blues, and pulpit-pounding soul for rollicking and redemptive tunes anchored by sturdy acoustic guitars. What has changed is Scolnick’s embrace of frailty and vulnerability. Previously fogged in a cloud of bravado, his soul-searching now comes into sharp focus. The warily optimistic “Airplane” builds on the tumbling waterwheel of Scolnick’s Martin D-28, Malachi DeLorenzo’s saltshaker percussion, and David Moore’s yearning piano, climaxing in a deluge of velvety strings. “Changes,” a clear-eyed look at the random ripples our lives set in motion, draws on Moore’s cartwheeling banjo, the Martin’s delicate filigree, and Scolnick’s hopeful vocals, which recall Cat Stevens’ timbre and touch of regret. Plaintive folk-based reveries like “Whisperin’” are balanced by the shuffling soulful stutter of “Bring You My Love,” all gravelly scream and tipsy swing, and the glam rock doo-wop of “Put It Together,” where Scolnick, the former barstool laureate, levitates like a preacher above the dancefloor amid lashings of silvery strings, Jeff Ratner’s pulsing bass, and a massed chorus of Little Richard-style falsettos. Yet it’s on the stripped-back numbers that Langhorne and the Law excel—Scolnick’s swampy Silvertone on the title track’s freewheeling scuffle, and the sharp, pinwheeling acoustic guitar figure that sets up “Wolves,” a celebration of the unshielded heart. By embracing his contradictions, Slim has made his finest album—pensive, giddy, selfdoubting, and swaggering. —Pat Moran

Bay Area composer offers idiosyncratic take on solo guitar Chuck Johnson—not to be confused with the Internet troll of the same name—is an electronic composer, as well as one of the most inventive guitarists working within the American Primitive tradition. The half-dozen tracks that constitute Blood Moon Boulder, Johnson’s third solo-guitar album, speak to the wide-ranging influences on the guitarist’s concept, from the folk-blues fingerpicking of Elizabeth Cotten to the deep listening of the composer and accordionist Pauline Oliveros, under whom he studied while pursuing his MFA at Mills College.

It’s an unfailingly pleasurable listen from start to finish. A standout track is the album’s opening piece, “Corvid Tactics.” In an extended meditation on the B-flat Lydian mode, Johnson plays low glissandi on his baritone Weissenborn, calling to mind the Hindustani alap before unexpectedly yielding to a Travis-picked tune with a fitful chord progression. In the end, he manages to reconcile these two dissimilar worlds. He also takes the Travis approach to evocative new places on “Medicine Map,” on a standard guitar in open-D tuning, with an emphasis on major-ninth chords and other expressive harmonies. Johnson is a soundtrack composer—his work is heard on the HBO documentary Private Violence and the PBS-TV show A Chef ’s Life— and overall, the record, with its depth of sound and attention to timbral detail, has a filmic feel. Though the music sometimes works in complicated ways, it’s an unfailingly pleasurable listen from start to finish. —Adam Perlmutter

In 2003, Columbia Records gave Bob Dylan’s catalog a sonic facelift on a critically acclaimed 15-disc box set of hybrid SACDs. Oddly, Dylan’s 1963 self-titled debut—which featured two originals (including the Guthrie tribute “Song to Woody”) and 11 emotionally raw folk-blues covers— was missing in action, deemed unworthy of audiophile treatment. Perhaps the engineers were scared off by a hurriedly recorded album that produced thin-sounding master tapes. Enter audiophile label Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab. This newly remastered stereo version is a sonic charm that puts Dylan— armed with just his craggy vocals, a guitar, and a harmonica—front and center, free of tape hiss and other distractions, and showcased in an intimate setting. The reissue is available on a hybrid stereo SACD and a high-definition two-LP, 180gram, 45 rpm vinyl set. While 1963’s Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan would highlight Dylan as a rapidly maturing songwriter, his debut is filled with powerful performances from a youthful song interpreter wrestling with Blind Willie Johnson’s “In My Time of Dyin’,” Bukka White’s “Fixin’ to Die,” the Rev. Gary Davis’ “Baby Let Me Follow You Down,” and the woeful blues “House of the Rising Sun” (with an arrangement lifted from Dave Van Ronk, see page 74), to name a few. An essential recording. —Greg Cahill

Bob Dylan Bob Dylan Sony/Legacy/Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab


PLAYLIST

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98 October 2015

Roots singer-songwriter shows off his picking prowess I’ll admit I had not heard of Thad Beckman before this disc crossed my desk. Best-known as the long-time accompanist to the fine singersongwriter Tom Russell (who I am familiar with), Beckman has released a knockout of an album with lots of stylistic variety. He once described himself as a “roots singer-songwriter,” and that sounds about right. There’s a lot of old-school folk, country, and blues in his writing, and his slightly creaky, weathered voice (which has a bit of a tremulous Willie Nelson quality) gives his songs a timeless authenticity and gravitas. Beckman is an excellent guitarist, whether playing spry fingerpicking lines, tasteful leads, or chopped strums. Most of these songs are dominated by acoustic guitar, but he plays electric on a few, and mixes in some Dobro. He also has a number of fine players backing him—I particularly like the contributions of organist Mike Emerson on three songs. The title track is a world-gone-wrong blues with a slightly jazzy retro vibe. His classic lostromance folk number “Stirring Up Some Ashes” has an almost slack-key feel. “Blues in My Blood” is dripping with country gravy, thanks to evocative steel guitar from Paul Brainard. My favorite, though, is a solo acoustic instrumental called “A Soldier Returns Home,” which starts out like a Mississippi John Hurt ramble, evolves into a guitar fantasia that has a mid-’60s Fahey/ Basho/Peter Walker raga vibe, then moves into a Middle Eastern riff, before dropping into a subtle quotation of “Taps.” This is powerful stuff, beautifully performed and exquisitely produced. Quite a find! —Blair Jackson

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It’s a Long Story: My Life By Willie Nelson with David Ritz Little, Brown

Willie Nelson’s lively memoir is full of heart, soul, humor, and wild tales BY BLAIR JACKSON

aving devoured Joe Nick Patoski’s entertaining and tremendously detailed biography, Willie Nelson: An Epic Life, a few years ago, I wondered what Willie’s own autobiography (actually his second; the first came out in 2000) could add to my understanding of this wonderfully idiosyncratic artist. The answer is: plenty! Reading It’s a Long Story: My Life feels a little like sitting at a neighborhood bar (or, perhaps more apropos, sharing a joint) and listening to Willie spin tales. It’s casual and conversational, irreverent and self-effacing, but also soulful and deep in places. It is also relentlessly upbeat and nice to just about everyone who gets mentioned in its brisk 375 pages. He has nothing but good things to say about his various wives (the breakups were usually his fault, he admits), his children (all of whom he adores), and every musician who’s ever played with him or influenced him. He paints himself as an iconoclastic screw-up who somehow managed to persevere and eventually thrive, even though he never quite fit in with the mainstream—all true. You learn about the magic he heard in Django Reinhardt and Lefty Frizzell and Frank Sinatra, and the importance of his piano-playing sister Bobbie on his development and musical stability. His old pal Waylon Jennings helped him escape the clutches of a Nashville establishment that wanted to change him and tame him. (Producer Chet Atkins was one of many who did not “get” what was special about

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Nelson.) Moving back to his home state of Texas ultimately saved him and his career (his later IRS woes also get a lot of ink). One thing this book does really well is describe how the details of his life affected his songwriting every step of the way. He goes almost line by line through songs such as “The Night Life,” “Crazy,” “Bloody Mary Morning,” and “The Party’s Over,” drawing parallels with his mindset at the time he wrote them. He also discusses how and why various songs he covered by other writers through the years resonated with him so strongly. His description of the more than two dozen diverse albums he recorded in the past decade alone speaks of his restless artistic nature and also his current relevance. And then there’s his now-legendary beat-up old Martin classical guitar, which he nicknamed Trigger “thinking of the closeness between Roy Rogers and his beloved horse,” he writes. When Nelson’s spread near Nashville went up in flames in December 1970, “I managed to make it to my bedroom where, dancing between the flames, I grabbed two guitar cases. One contained Trigger and the other two pounds of primo Colombian pot.” He writes plenty about weed, of course, but in the end not as much as he does about his abiding faith in Jesus. This is one complex fellow, filled with multiple conflicting impulses. And this book lays them out unflinchingly for all the world to see. It’s a great read. AG

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Acoustic Rock Essentials ALL THE TIPS AND TECHNIQUES TO UNPLUG YOUR ROCK AND ROLL store.AcousticGuitar.com.

ADVERTISER INDEX Acoustic Guitar Giveaway, acousticguitar.com . . . . . . . . . . . . 93

GHS Strings, ghsstrings.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78

P.K. Thompson Guitars, pkthompsonguitars.com . . . . . . . . . . 67

Acoustic Guitar Notes, acousticguitar.com. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98

Guitar Center, guitarcenter.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11, 43

Paul Reed Smith Guitars, prsguitars.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

Acoustic Guitar Subscribe, acousticguitar.com/subscribe . 103

Guitar Humidor, guitarhumidor.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

Acoustic Guitar U, acousticguitaru.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94

Guitar Instructor, guitarinstructor.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81

Alvarez, alvarezguitars.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Guitars in the Classroom, guitarsintheclassroom.org . . . . . . 99

Andrew White Guitars, andrewwhiteguitars.com . . . . . . . . . . 99

Hill Guitar Company, hillguitar.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

Bedell Guitars, bedellguitars.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Hoffee Cases, carbonfibercases.com. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

Bose Corporation, bose.com/live1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49

Homespun, homespun.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

Bourgeois Guitars, pantheonguitars.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Huss & Dalton Guitar Company, hussanddalton.com . . . . . . 58

Shubb Capos, shubb.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74

Bread & Roses, breadandroses.org . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101

Janet Davis Music, jdmc.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98

Stewart-MacDonald’s Guitar Supply, stewmac.com . . . . . . 77

Cole Clark Guitars, coleclarkguitars.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

Juilliard School of Music, juilliard.edu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

Collings Guitars, collingsguitars.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

Kyser Musical Products, kysermusical.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

D’Addario & Company, daddario.com . . . . . . . 18, 19, 44, 47, 68

Luthier Music Corp., luthiermusic.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98

Dana B. Goods, danabgoods.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

Mackie, mackie.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Elixir Strings, elixirstrings.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8, 29

C.F. Martin & Co., Inc., martinguitar.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104

Elliott Capos, elliottcapos.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

Masecraft Supply Co., masecraftsupply.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74

Ernie Ball Music Man, ernieball.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

Music Dispatch, musicdispatch.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85

Woodstock Invitiational, woodstockinvitational.com . . . . . . . 34

G7th, Ltd., g7th.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91

Original Guitar Chair, originalguitarchair.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70

Yamaha Corporation of America, yamaha.com . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Radial Engineering, radialeng.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 RainSong Graphite Guitars, rainsong.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 Rock and Roll Fantasy Camp, rockcamp.com . . . . . . . . . . . . 70 Saga Musical Instruments, sagamusic.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 Sam Ash Direct, samash.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

Sweetwater Sound, sweetwater.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Taylor, taylorguitars.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 The Acoustic Music Company Ltd., theacousticmusicco.co.uk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 Tommy Emmanuel Touring, tommyemmanuel.com . . . . . . . . 89


FINAL NOTE

There seems to be a lot of players, pickers, side singers, and writers who come from Texas. I don’t know why,

BUT THERE’S A LOT OF FREEDOM TO THINK AND DO WHAT YOU WANT TO DO. E.J. CAMP

WILLIE NELSON AG, OCTOBER 1997

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