Vol_3_No_6

$4.00

Magazine Volume 3, Number 6

September/October 1999

Gary Brewer Bert Casey John Lowell Paul Brewster Huss & Dalton

CONTENTS

Flatpicking Guitar

FEATURES

Gary Brewer Flatpick Prole: Bert Casey Huss & Dalton Guitars Jam Tunes: “Angeline the Baker” Masters of Rhythm Guitar: Paul Brewster By Request: Bruce & Nunally “Flatted 7th Medly” Kaufman’s Flatpicking Camp Guitar Highlight: Walker Dreadnought

Magazine Volume 3, Number 6

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September/October 1999 COLUMNS

Published bi-monthly by: High View Publications P.O. Box 2160 Pulaski, VA 24301

Round The Horn Craig Vance Beginner’s Page: Harmony Harmony Singing Part IV Dan Huckabee Flatpicking Rhythm: Doc Doc Watson Rhythm Joe Carr Guitar Maintenance & Repair Frank Ford Kaufman’s Corner: Corner: “Tennessee Stud” Stud” Steve Kaufman Flatpicking & Folk/Acoustic Folk/Acoustic Rock John Tindel Nashville Flat Top: “Rawhide” Brad Davis Break Time: “Fireball Mail” Chris Jones The O-Zone: Crosspicking “Lonesome” Orrin Star Way Down Town Dix Bruce Music Theory: Mastering Mastering the Fingerboard Fingerboard Mike Maddux Flatpicking Fiddle Tunes: Tunes: Of Governors and Galoots Adam Granger Exploring Bluegrass Bluegrass Guitar: Up The Neck II Steve Pottier Eclectic Acoustic: “Farrell O’Gara” O’Gara” John McGann

Phone: (540) 980-0338 Fax: (540) 980-0557 Orders: (800) 413-8296 E-mail: highview@atpick.com Web Site: http://www.atpick.com ISSN: 1089-9855 Dan Miller - Publisher and Editor Mariann Miller - Sales and Advertising Connie Miller - Administration A dministration Contributing Editors: Dave McCarty Bryan Kimsey Cover Scan - Jason Hungate Subscription Rate ($US): US $22.00 Canada/Mexico $27.00 Other Foreign $32.00 All contents Copyright © 1999 by High View Publications unless otherwise indicated Reproduction of material appearing in the Flatpicking Guitar Magazine is forbidden without written permission Printed in the USA

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DEPARTMENTS

Flatpicking Guitar Magazine


On The Web New Release Highlight: John Lowell Reviews

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EDITOR'S PAGE New Flatpicking Guitar Magazine Audio CD We are very excited about this issue of Flatpicking Guitar as it is the rst to also have a companion CD. Every song that is tabbed out in this this issue is included on the CD (most of them at both fast and slow tempos), plus we have included short interview segments with the featured artists, special guest segments with Kenny Smith and Bryan Sutton, play-along rhythm tracks (slow, medium and fast tempo) to “St. Anne’s Reel,” and an extra bonus track, the title cut to Gary Brewer’s new CD Jimmy Martin Songs For Dinner, which was written by Tom T. Hall. The CD is packed with 68 minutes of material. material. Thanks is due to Brad Davis for letting us use both his studio and his engineering skills. skills. I hope that everyone who has already subscribed to the CD enjoys enjoys its contents. If anyone has suggestions suggestions as to how we might improve the content of the CD, let us know.

Roanoke Bluegrass Weekend Flatpicking Guitar Magazine and Acutab Publications are proud to announce that we are co-promoting and hosting the 1st annual Roanoke Bluegrass Weekend Weekend on November 19, 20, and 21st of this year. year. The event will be a three-day series of workshops, concerts and jamming for banjo, mandolin, and guitar. guitar. We have put together a very impressive list of instructors and performers performers for this event. The instructors are as follows: follows: Banjo—Terry Baucom, Sammy Shelor, and Scott Vestal; Vestal; Guitar—Tim Stafford, Kenny Smith, Wyatt Rice, and David Grier; Mandolin—Alan Bibey,, Rickie Simpkins, and Mike Compton. The event will be held at the Bibey Hotel Roanoke in Roanoke, Virginia. Virginia. Call 800-413-8296 for details. details. Dan Miller Editor and Publisher

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Gary Brewer by Dan Miller Gary Brewer is immensely proud of his Roan Mountain, Tennessee, heritage and his family’s musical tradition. “I am the fth generation of bluegrass music in my family,” Brewer states, matter of factly. “Our family was playing bluegrass before it was called bluegrass—that’s why we sometimes call it ‘brewgrass,’ ” he says with a wink and a smile, certainly not wanting to take anything away from his friend and mentor Bill Monroe. The family connection is certainly apparent during one of Brewer’s performances. Not a show goes by when Gary doesn’t announce, “this next tune will be played in the ‘old-time’ style of my granddaddy ‘Pap’ Brewer.” Gary’s father, Finley “Jim” Brewer, Jr., who drives the band’s bus and picks the guitar, is also called up on stage to sing a few numbers with Gary during the show. Additionally, when the show is close to home, Gary’s four year old son, Wayne, will come up on stage with his dad and his “Papaw” to sing a song or two. About a year ago Wayne Brewer even performed with his father on the Grand Ole Opry and became the youngest person ever to perform on that stage. Thanks to Bill Monroe, Gary has an open invitation to perform at the Grand Ole Opry and has done so on several occasions.

The Monroe Connection Although Gary did not come to know Bill Monroe very well until they toured together in 1995, he is deeply indebted to the Father of Bluegrass. During the winter of 1994-95 Monroe was putting together a WSM-sponsored tour with his son, James, and called Gary to ask that he not only join the tour, but book it and run it as well. Gary says, “My wife answered the phone one day and said, ‘Gary, it’s Bill Monroe on the phone for you.’ I said, ‘Right, it’s just one of the guys being silly.’ I had met Monroe before, but I didn’t know him very well. She said, ‘No, it really sounds like him.’ ” Monroe told Gary that he had been watching him since Gary was a boy and knew that he was a young man who “kept 4

Gary Brewer picking with Bill Monroe on the Grand Ole Opry, September, 1995. his nose clean,” was “from good stock,” and was “one hundred percent bluegrass.” Honored at the invitation, Gary signed on the tour which included Bill Monroe and his Bluegrass Boys, James Monroe and the Midnight Ramblers, Gary Brewer and the Kentucky Ramblers, and the Sullivan Family. The tour lasted 3 months (January through March) and the bands played 11 cities in 7 states. At the time, Gary was in the middle of recording his acclaimed Guitar album. Monroe knew about the project

and pulled Gary aside before a show at Roy Clark’s theater in Branson, Missouri. He told Gary that he had written two songs for the guitar and asked Gary if he would like to learn them. Gary and Bill swapped Gary’s herringbone back and forth until Gary had learned the tunes to Monroe’s satisfaction. The two songs, “The Ozark Rag” and “The Old Kentucky Blues” were cut on Gary’s Guitar recording and Monroe accompanied him on mandolin. Gary says that these two cuts were the last songs Monroe recorded



in a professional studio session which were commercially released on a major label. Gary remembers, “When we were on tour with Monroe, he would tell the audience, ‘Gary is going to record this number. Would you all buy a copy?’ The crowd would yell. Then Monroe would say, ‘Come here a minute boy. These people love you up here and I love you too. I’m going to help you. Would you come and do this number on the Grand Ole Opry with me? I’m going to get you on the Grand Ole Opry.’ And he said, ‘I’m not talking about just being a guest. You are going to be featured on the Grand Ole Opry.’ From then on, every show he would say the same thing. Sure enough, he set the date up and we went on the Opry in September of 1995.”

The Family Tradition Gary Brewer began playing the guitar when he was nine years old. His father, Finley “Jim” Brewer, Jr., was a guitar player himself and knew the value of a good foundation. He recommended that Gary start with formal lessons and learn how to read music—thinking that if Gary learned how to read music young, he could later learn to play anything. Gary started taking electric guitar lessons with a teacher, J.C. Gay, in Louisville, Kentucky. He began by learning how to read and play songs like “Cab Driver,” “Make The World Go Away,” “Country Roads,” and other popular numbers. When asked about his electric guitar roots, Gary says, “I think I started on that because it was easier to play.” Gary’s father was born and raised at the family home place near Roan Mountain, Tennessee. Gary’s grandfather, Finley J. “Pap” Brewer, was an old mountain musician who played guitar, banjo, mandolin, old-time fiddle, harmonica, and “about anything,” as Gary says. Pap Brewer had even spent some time playing as a sideman with the Carter Family when they would come through town and need musicians to ll in. After serving in the Korean War, Gary’s father was stationed at Fort Knox, Kentucky, where he met a young woman, Norma Odle. Jim and Norma married and decided to settle in Louisville after Jim got out of the service. Although Gary was raised in Louisville, he spent all of his summers down at the family’s farm in Tennessee. Gary’s father was one of nine children and they all played music. When the family got together they would always pick and sing. Gary said, “They would play all night long until they Flatpicking Guitar Magazine

fell over asleep on the oor.” When Gary would visit his grandfather, he’d plug in his electric guitar and play the tunes he was learning, but old Pap would never come out and listen to him. Gary says, “He didn’t want to have nothing to do with the electric guitar. He didn’t even want to listen to it.” When asked how he felt about that, Gary says that he was too young to even notice much. But later, after Gary learned to pick bluegrass on the acoustic guitar, he did notice that his grandfather suddenly paid a lot of attention to him. Gary remembers, “After I made that transition, he had me up on a pedestal then and wanted to hear me play all the time.” Gary’s transition from the electric guitar to the acoustic guitar, and bluegrass music, occurred when he was twelve years old. He had been “horsing around” one winter, sliding on the ice while holding onto the door handle of a moving car, and accidentally slid under the vehicle. The car ran over his leg and broke his femur. While he was laid-up in the hospital, his dad brought him an acoustic guitar to pick. Gary sat in bed in his body cast and began to instinctively pick out bluegrass tunes that he had been hearing his father play on records for years. He said,

“I didn’t even know the names of the songs. My Dad played that music all of the time around the house, but I was never interested in it. But there in the hospital it just started coming out. I would pick something and ask my Dad, ‘What is this song.’ He’d say, ‘Well that sounds like ‘Mountain Dew’ off of the Stanley Brothers album.’ That is really how it happened.” At that point Gary became fully immersed in bluegrass music and has never looked back. Gary says that his summers spent on the farm in Roan Mountain gave him a great appreciation for country life. He said, “I learned the farming way of life. My family had a hundred acre hillside farm there on the mountain and everything was done with horses and plows. I learned to do all that by hand and that is stuff that most people my age know nothing about. That has helped me in my music because I have written songs about that time and have combined it with stories from my Dad. It has really helped me have that authentic touch when I sing about that lifestyle.” After Gary transitioned to the acoustic guitar at the age of twelve, he began listening closely to the albums and eight-track tapes that his dad had around the house. The

Three Generations of Brewers perform at the Grand Ole Opry, Oct 98 Finley “Jim” Brewer, Jr., Wayne Brewer, and Gary Brewer


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Gary got home that night he announced to his parents that he was going to start a bluegrass band. He named the band the Kentucky Ramblers and is still, over eighteen years later, playing under that same band name. The newly formed young band began playing at school fairs, church gatherings, music barns, and other local events. They quickly became popular and by the last year of Gary’s high school days they were even getting festival bookings. Gary remembers, “We had some promotional photos and demo tapes. I started sending things around. The local and community papers started carrying little articles about us and we began gathering some recognition.” He continues, “I would see something in the paper that there was going to be a blueGary’s rst publicity photo, 1980 grass festival somewhere and I would get on the phone and music that inspired him the most was that call. I’d say, ‘Hey I got a bluegrass band of the Stanley Brothers. He says, “The and I want to come play.’ I got jobs up in Stanleys had that mountain inuence and Indiana and around different towns in Kenmountain sound. They were from the same tucky that way. I wasn’t even old enough to region of the country and I could identify drive! My parents would take me. As time with it.” As a result, his early guitar inuprogressed we got busier and so my Mom ences, other than his father and grandfather, and Dad bought a mobile home to travel in. were George Shufer and Bill Napier. He Dad would drive and Mom would go with also said that he remembers seeing Norman us to cook meals and make sure we were Blake play on “Hee Haw” when he was a eating good. We were all just boys, fteen, young teenager. sixteen, seventeen years old.” Although Gary was exposed to, and Gary is a self-starter who always gives greatly enjoyed, the music of many blueeverything he is involved in his full effort. grass guitar players, he has never tried to Whether it be motorcycle racing, karate, copy or imitate anybody. He says, “I started swimming, football, or music, he gives it my own band when I was fteen years old everything he’s got. As a sixteen year old and began writing my own material imband leader, he realized early the value of mediately. I was busy doing something self-promotion and the hard work involved that would be all mine instead of copying in marketing a band to the public and has records. I was hearing what was inside of worked incredibly hard from the very start me on the guitar.” to achieve his success. Gary began his professional career in Fifteen Year Old Bandleader about 1979 and since that time has recorded When Gary was about fteen some school 34 projects under his own name; lled in for mates who had heard that he could play the Ralph Stanley’s guitar player on occasion guitar asked him to join them in a talent conduring the early 1980s; actually took Bill test. He went to one boy’s house to rehearse Monroe’s place on stage at Fan Fair in 1996 and saw that they had a banjo and mandolin. and lled in for the Father of Bluegrass with They started to jam and it developed into his Bluegrass Boys when Monroe was in a great afternoon picking session. When the hospital; toured Europe in 1995, sell6

ing out every show and recording a highly acclaimed “Live in Europe” album in the process; has been the main-stay act in the mayor of Louisville’s music program for the past fourteen years; toured with Bill Monroe; played on the Grand Ole Opry as a featured act; played for President Clinton during a campaign stop in Louisville; recorded the sound track to a soon-to-bereleased major motion picture “The Floyd Collins Story”; has played at nearly every major bluegrass event in the country; and eight years ago he started, and still runs, the country’s largest free Bluegrass festival. On top of all that, and of special interest to readers of this magazine, he has recorded a highly acclaimed guitar instrumental album which was released in 1995. When asked about his success, Gary says, “From the time I rst started as a teenager, I understood that there was only going to be one Ralph Stanley. I knew that I needed to do something different in order to be recognized. I attribute my success to that fact that I record and perform my own material. I have never tried to copy anyone. Ninety percent of what I do in my show is Brewer material.”

The Guitar Project Like one of his good friends, Larry Sparks, Gary is predominately known in bluegrass for his singing. When you have a great bluegrass voice like his, fans are naturally going to be drawn to it over other talents. However, also like Larry Sparks, Gary is a great guitar player and, fortunately for readers of this magazine, enough fans took notice of Gary’s guitar abilities to convince him that he should record an instrumental album which highlighted his guitar talent. Gary said, “I waited until I thought the time was right.” After spending some time with Gary, I got the sense that he will only be involved in a project if it is going to be something exceptional. While his unique style of guitar playing and his ability to play the guitar, in and of itself, would have been enough to carry this project, Gary went the extra mile to include several special cuts in order to make this project stand out. Obviously the fact that Gary included two Monroe tunes that were written by Monroe specically for guitar brings historic content to the recording. Additionally, Gary not only asked Monroe to record on this project with him, but he also asked another one of his heroes, Josh Graves, to be involved as well. As if having both Monroe and Graves



play on his CD were not enough, Gary is quick to point out the importance of the fact that they played together in the same session. He says, “I had Uncle Josh on the same session with Monroe. At that time Josh had been in the business 53 years and Monroe had been in it for 55 and they had never recorded together. That is history right there.” In addition to Monroe and Graves, Gary also had Larry Sparks join him on two of the cuts, “Steel Guitar Rag,” and “Bringing Mary Home.” On this project, Gary shows that he is a very versatile player, including songs that range from “Don’t Let Your Deal Go Down” to “Dust In The Wind.” His style is deft and clear, or as Norman Blake pointed out in the liner notes, “The arrangements are straight ahead, no gimmicks, with the melody being the main focus. As Bill Monroe once said, ‘He doesn’t just note, note, note, for the sake of noting.’ ” In 1998, Mel Bay Publications produced a transcription book of Gary’s solos from the Guitar CD.

The Mayor’s Programs In addition to being out on the road with his band every weekend, Gary also plays in Louisville every day from Monday through Thursday, two or three shows a day, for the City of Louisville in the mayor’s “Summer Scene” and “Winter Scene” programs. Describing the programs, Gary says, “I go into any and all facilities that the city of Louisville has a hand in nancially—public libraries, retirement centers, senior citizens homes, the mayor’s black tie events, schools, etc.—and I perform about 45 minutes. I have been doing that for fourteen seasons now.” Gary admits that he has been fortunate to have had the job with the city all of these years. He says, “It has allowed me to play bluegrass music for a living and be at home during the week. I am known all over the bluegrass industry as the guy with the coolest job because I draw city pay for playing these gigs.” Gary’s work with the mayor’s ofce over the years has come in handy for bluegrass fans. Labeled “Louisville’s Bluegrass Authority” by the city, Gary is called on to help out whenever city events involve bluegrass. That not only included the move of IBMA’s annual convention and Fan Fest from Owensboro to Louisville, but also the beginning of an annual free bluegrass festival in Louisville eight years ago. Flatpicking Guitar Magazine

The Strictly Bluegrass Festival As if everything else he has going in his life as a recording artist and performer is not enough, Gary Brewer also promotes the largest free bluegrass festival in the country, the Strictly Bluegrass Festival in Louisville, Kentucky. This festival, which is a non-alcohol, family oriented event held on the second weekend in September, began eight years ago to help ll the void when the Kentucky Fried Chicken festival ceased to exist. When asked about his involvement in the event, Gary says, “The festival started after people felt the absence of the old KFC festival here in Louisville. When it went under, everyone kept asking me, ‘What happened to KFC festival?’ when I was out on the road. I got tired of answering people, because I really didn’t know what happened to it. I was working for the mayor and so I approached him and said that me and my dad wanted to start a bluegrass festival. I told him I wanted to format it after the KFC festival by it being free, but we didn’t want to have alcohol and we wanted to have it in a park, not up on the concrete.” The mayor, having known and worked with Gary and his father, said that he felt they were they

men for the job because “he knew they could do it right.” Gary started the event at a park in downtown Louisville and, by bringing in such acts as Bill Monroe, Jimmy Martin, Del McCoury, the Osborne Brothers, and J. D. Crowe, outgrew the park facility in two years. By the festival’s second year, they had exceeded a total of 10,000 people in attendance over the two days. The funds to run the festival and pay the bands came from sponsorships that Gary and his father “dug up personally.” Having outgrown the park downtown, the festival then moved to the Iroquois Park Amphitheater, an 800 acre park. Last year’s attendance was over 15,000. Gary says, “We have superceded every expectation of mine and the city’s and we are continuing with that and are still growing by leaps and bounds. We do it purely out of love for the music.” Jimmy Martin Songs For Dinner Gary’s newest project is a recently released tribute to the King of Bluegrass, Jimmy Martin, titled Jimmy Martin Songs For Dinner. The project’s title cut was written by Tom T. Hall and his wife, Dixie. Every other cut on the CD is a Jimmy Mar-

Gary Brewer and the Kentucky Ramblers perform at the Strict ly Bluegrass Festival in Louisville, Kentucky, September, 1995. From Left to Right: Steve Day, Jim Brewer (seated) Gary Brewer, Gary Hays, and Larry Beasley.


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tin standard. As if a tribute to Martin was not enough, Gary once again went the extra distance to make this project something special. Playing and singing on this recording with Gary are bluegrass legends J.D. Crowe, Doyle Lawson, and Bobby Hicks. When asked about the origin of this project, Gary says, “Because Jimmy Martin has been in semi-retirement, there is a whole generation of fans who don’t know about his impact and contribution to this music. I gured, why wait until he is gone to honor him?” When Gary talked with Martin about the project, Martin said that others had approached him with the idea, but he felt Gary could be the one to carry it through. With Martin’s nod, Gary proceeded. Gary’s agent, the legendary Lance LeRoy, was instrumental in selecting the songs for this tune. LeRoy knows Martin well because he is also Martin’s agent. In picking the tunes for this recording, Gary wanted to choose songs that “everyone else hadn’t covered to death.” LeRoy helped Gary research the songs and make the song selections. In putting together the artists who would play on the recording, Gary rst decided

who he thought would be the best men for the job and then picked up the phone. He says, “All of these guys were tickled to do it because they were paying tribute to their mentor. Jimmy trained guys like Doyle and J.D.” The CD includes 12 tunes which were recorded by three different bands; four songs per band. The rst four cuts included Gary on guitar and lead vocal, Larry Stephenson singing tenor and playing the mandolin, Terry Eldredge singing baritone and playing bass, Larry Beasley on banjo, Art Stamper on ddle and Sam Harris on drums. The second set of four songs include Gary on guitar and singing lead, Doyle Lawson singing tenor and playing mandolin, J. D. Crowe on banjo and singing baritone, Bobby Hicks singing bass and playing ddle, Terry Smith on bass, and Sam Harris on drums. The third set of four tunes is performed by Gary’s band, The Kentucky Ramblers: Gary, vocals and guitar; Nathan Livers, vocals and mandolin; Kent Todd, vocals and fiddle; Don Hill, banjo; and Wade Butler, bass. Sam Harris also plays drums on these tracks. Although the release date for this new project wasn’t until late July, Gary had a

limited number printed and released at the Beanblossom festival in June. Radio DJs were quick to get their hands on pre-release copies and immediately began broadcasting cuts from this project over the airwaves, especially the title cut. When asked how he got a hold of the song “Jimmy Martin Songs For Dinner,” Gary said, “I got a call from Tom T. and Dixie Hall. They told me that they had just written this song about Jimmy Martin. They had heard about the project and wanted to know if I could use the song. Tom T. Hall taped himself singing the song and sent me the tape. I’ll tell you, that is a tape I will always cherish!” Get a copy of Jimmy Martin Songs For Dinner , and I think you will agree with Bill Monroe: Gary is “one hundred percent bluegrass.” After hearing Gary Brewer play during a campaign stop in Louisville a number of years ago, President Bill Clinton said, “Gary Brewer and the Kentucky Ramblers are outstanding. They are Kentucky.” Although Gary is proud of his families Roan Mountain heritage, it is true that he is certainly one of Kentucky’s favorite sons. He keeps pure the tradition of the music that came from Kentucky and actively promotes that music with strong passion. On the following page, we have transcribed Gary’s rst break to “Old Minor Joe Clark” from his Guitar CD. Gary said that he had been fooling around with minor chords one day and began to play the old mountain ballad “Old Joe Clark” out of A minor. He named his arrangement the tune “The Old Minor Joe Clark.” The transcription on the next page was taken from a Mel Bay book which contains complete transcriptions of the songs on Gary’s CD. Gary also played this tune on the Flatpicking Guitar Magazine audio CD. The version we recorded may not be note-for-note exactly like it was done on the recording, but you’ll get the idea. Have fun with this one!

Gary Brewer recorded his Jimmy Martin tribute album with: (back row) Terry Smith, Bobby Hicks, Sam Harris (front row) Gary Brewer, Doyle Lawson, J. D. Crowe 8



Round The Horn by Craig Vance

In this column I’d like to introduce you to a great tune, “Round The Horn.” To the best of what I’m able to discern, the title would have something to do with either sailing or traversing the seas around landmasses. As the dictionary described one of the several meanings of the word horn being: “A cape or peninsula.” It’s a very owing piece in the key of G. There are a few interesting minor chord placements, one being the Em chord at the conclusion of the B part of the tune. What really intrigued me about this particular tune was that it used some very tasty bass notes in conjunction with some ngerings that create a warm tone when played along with a rhythm guitarist. That will probably become apparent to you also once you reach the B and F# notes where the Bm chord appears twice in the second half of the tune. This is

yet another tune that I rst heard Norman Blake play back in 1981. Occasionally this tune would pop into my head after hearing it on a rare, fairly worn out cassette of Norman playing this at one of his shows. I recently traced the tunes’ origin to ddler Jay Ungar. We had been in touch via email, and he conrmed, indeed, that it was a tune that he had written back in 1978. As I was trying my best to keep clarity about this piece, I attempted to reach Norman to verify that this was in fact the same “Round The Horn” that Jay wrote. After Norman got home from the road, he left a message on my machine saying that as far as he could recall, it was the same tune, but may have undergone some changes through the process of interpretation. Knowing from past experiences that tunes will change depending on who gets a hold of them, it

is likely that this version is different since it has been through that process. Enough of that! I believe I’ve covered my tracks to the best of my ability. The head of the tune can be raised an octave to achieve a suitable variation. This should be a lot of fun to learn and to bring to jam sessions. Once again, it is not a standard old ddle tune (though I hope someday it has such impact) so you can be hot potatoes at the next session by presenting this great tune. Thanks to Jay Ungar for the tune. Thanks to Norman Blake for bringing it into the atpickers circle. Back to changing my strings…

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Round the Horn Written by Jay Unger

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gcdgcdgcdgcd by Dan Huckabee

Singing Harmony: Part IV (bass) The nal harmony part is bass. “Hey, Mister Bass Man, I wanna be a bass man too!” There’s a little macho—for real men only—prestige associated with this part. That’s obvious and to be expected, but in bluegrass, there’s a special pride in every part. Take “lead” for instance. He’s the star of the show and the namesake of the band. Tenor, hey, Bill Monroe sang tenor! It is unusual for a man to have a high enough voice to sing tenor, and a true bluegrass pride. How about humble “baritone.” Now that’s the “real musician’s” part. Why? Because it’s the hardest to gure out, hardest to hear, and the part that Earl and J.D. Crowe sing. First understand that even if you are a female or a male who isn’t blessed with that deep rich low voice, you still need to understand how all the parts t together, so this article is for everyone. What is so interesting about the bass part is that it is not constructed to conform to the melody (like the baritone and tenor are). It’s totally independent. I could just about teach the bass part by writing one sentence. “The bass harmony singing part is the same line as the bass notes you play on your guitar when you are strumming rhythm, or the same that the bass player would play on his standup or electric bass.” Go back and read that sentence again, because that’s all you really need to remember. Why try to confuse people by making a big deal out of it. That won’t help you learn. Some people just hit the bass notes of each chord when they are playing rhythm, and others add “walkups” to connect one chord to the next. In other words, we are playing G and we walk up the scale from G to C to take us to the C chord. (G, strum, A, B, C, C-strum). So, bass singers can just sing the bass notes or they can make it fancy by walking up or down from chord to chord. Just keep in mind that they use the same notes as guitar bass notes. When you add a bass part to a song, you now 12

have four people singing at the same time: four-part harmony. But since there are only three notes in a chord, keep in mind that the bass singer will always be singing the same note as one of the other three singers (but in a lower register). The bass-man might be on a low C when the tenor, melody, or baritone is on a high C. But I don’t want anyone to get confused here. The bass singer doesn’t sing the same part as one of the other singers “start to nish.” He just happens to be

on the same note as one of the other singers at one point in the song, so he might hit the same note as the melody singer at one point in the song, hit the same note as the tenor singer at another point in the song, and the same note as the baritone singer in still another point. This is just random, not planned. The bass man is not “tting” his part to anyone, he’s just “singing the bass notes” of the chord progression. There are two main rules in our music for harmony. It’s what music majors study in college (but in more detail than you need). Parallel 5ths and parallel octaves are illegal! Now what in the world does that mean? OK, if you sang the melody line (but an octave below the melody singer), you are not singing a bass part, but rather, you are “paralleling” the melody singer an octave below him. If you sang ve scale steps below one of the other singers, you’d be singing “parallel” to the singer but a fth below him. This would make your harmony sound “Chinese.” Not really, but it has a avor that might remind Americans of a sound that has a “Chinese” avor. It is very common for groups new to bluegrass music to accidentally parallel the tenor with the intent of singing a true baritone, and also common for a “newcomer bass singer” to parallel the melody. Nothing to be ashamed of. A common mistake and a normal part of the learning process, but incorrect.

of four-part harmony is a thing called, “calland-response.” This is where one person sings and the other three answer. This technique can be arranged in any way your imagination can create. The tenor could call and the other three could respond, the melody could call, or the bass could call. This brings up an exception to “normal” bass part approach. If the bass is “calling,” he would sing a “melody” (but an octave lower), because he’s not really singing a part at that given moment, but is instead, singing lead. That is a different role entirely. The bass as a part of a whole, or the bass alone as a lead singer, are two entirely different things. Now let’s add a bass part to the song that we’ve been playing with for the past three issues, “Woah Mule Woah.” I’m going to sing the notes of my “rhythm guitar bass line.” I’m going to walk from the G chord to the C chord, and I’m going to walk from the D chord, back to the G chord. Since it’s ignoring the other singers’ lines, it totally avoids the dreaded “parallel 5ths and parallel octaves.” Just follow the line in the provided music and you got yourself a perfect and correct bass part and the nal puzzle part to a perfect four-part harmony song. If you’d like to have some material to practice with so that you can master this skill, call us at: Musicians Workshop 800543-6125. We have six different harmony courses. One example lesson can be heard on the Flatpicking Guitar Magazine Audio CD for this issue. Remember: “Feed a man a sh and you’ve fed him for a day. Teach a man to sh and you’ve fed him for a lifetime.” We at Musicians Workshop don’t teach isolated songs, we use songs as examples to teach the concepts that make you successful.

Another factor in your four-part harmony education is “arranging.” The real fun part Flatpicking Guitar Magazine


Woah Mule, Woah (bass part)

# 4 & 4 1

G

D

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Woah mule woah,

jœœ œj˙

woah mule I say.

G

C

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3 3

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J J


G

œ œ œ œ œ œ œœ˙ œ œœ

Ain't got time to kiss you now,

0 3

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mule'-s run a-way

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13

œ œ œ œ œ œ#œ œ Flatpick Rhythm Guitar H.O.

3

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by Joe Carr

Doc Watson Rhythm I have missed the Doc Watson issue, but I still get to tell my “rst time I heard Doc” story. Around 1968 or 1969, I was in high school in Dallas and I had been playing guitar in various nger styles for three or so years. One of the cool high school car guys offered me a ride one day in his very cool 1955 Chevy hot rod. This ride was truely memorable because playing on the Chevy’s 8-track sound system (also cool!) was Doc Watson’s album Southbound . How could this car jock, who didn’t even play guitar, know about this great guitar player before I did? Needless to say, I ran out as soon as I had saved $5.98 and bought an LP copy

of this great album. Doc’s guitar and voice really turned me around. I nally bought a atpick and was determined to learn to hold on to that dang thing. Unfortunately, I lost that album many years ago and I haven’t heard it since. My memory is that it was a beautifully played and recorded album full of classics like “Windy and Warm” (ngerpicked), “Blue Railroad Train,” “Southbound” and “Tennesse Stud.” Although I didn’t start trying to atpick solos until several years later, this rst exposure to the atpicking art by the “Doctor” had a lasting impression. In 1993, Smithsonian Folkways released a CD of live duets featuring Doc and bluegrass innovator Bill Monroe. The recordings were SANTA CRUZ made between 1963 and GUITAR 1980 and show off both COMPANY musicians in an informal duet setting that really showcases their unique talents. We also get a sense of the incredible audience response Doc’s atpicked solos received in the early days of this style. The duet setting allows each musician a freedom and 328 Ingalls Street sponteneity that is really Santa Cruz, magic. California 95060 “Have a Feast Here 831-425-0999 Tonight” (“Rabbit in a Log”) was recorded in 1964 in Boston. Both Bill and Doc seem to be having a good time with this Monroe Brothers favortie. Behind the rst mandolin solo, Doc plays an active bass

14

line which serves as a counter melody to Monroe’s lead. This technique would be too busy in a full band, but it works great in the duet format. Notice the use of the second fret F# note on the sixth string of the D chord. Thumb-wrappers know this chord well, although it can be played “over the top.” Behind the second mandolin solo, Doc plays a more traditional type of bass/strum accompaniment with a twist at the end. The rhythm gure in measures 16-17 is a common end-of-solo lick in old-time and some bluegrass music. To work well, all the musicians need to expect it. Bill and Doc play it perfectly. For best results, play this tune fast. I have played both the melody and rhythm parts of this tune on the Flatpicking Guitar Magazine Audio CD which corresponds to this issue. The original Monroe and Watson source is: Bill Monroe and Doc Watson: Live Duet Recordings 1963-1980, Off the Record, Volume 2, Smithsonian Folkways

SF CD 40064.



Have a Feast Here Tonight

Arranged by Doc Watson transcribed by Joe Carr

Doc’s back-up to rst mandolin solo D

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15

Have a Feast Here Tonight

Arranged by Doc Watson transcribed by Joe Carr

Doc’s back-up to second mandolin solo D

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2 3 2 2


Flatpick Prole Bert Casey by Dan Miller

Chances are that you have never seen Bert Casey play on stage at a bluegrass festival or heard his guitar work on a bluegrass recording. But if you were like me, back in the early 1980s and desperate to nd some kind of instructional course for the bluegrass guitar that I could sink my teeth into, you know about Bert Casey. Although Bert may never be widely known as a bluegrass performer or recording artist, his teaching method for learning bluegrass guitar has denitely made his name known to atpickers in a big way. Considering the fact that his two instructional books and one video for learning how to atpick the acoustic guitar have sold over 100,000 units combined, there are a lot of pickers who know about Bert and his great teaching methods. The original edition of Casey’s rst instructional book, Flatpicking Guitar Songs, was published in 1982 and was one of the great early repertoire builders on the market. In the book (which was accompanied by a cassette tape) Casey not only provided transcriptions to twelve of the most popular atpicking tunes, he was probably the rst atpicking author to offer an instructional book/cassette course which provided up to four different arrangements of each tune. On the accompanying cassette the tunes were played both fast and slow. Today’s edition of the book contains the same material, although, several upgrades to the visual presentation and the quality of the audio cassette have been added. Casey also plans to upgrade the cassette to a CD format in the near future. In Flatpicking Guitar Songs, the rst presentation of each tune is a melody oriented, straight-ahead arrangement. Subsequent variations get progressively harder. The book begins with simple tunes, such as “Will The Circle Be Unbroken,” “Wildwood Flower,” “Home Sweet Home,” and “Cripple Creek,” and then moves on to more challenging standards such as “Billy In The Lowground,” “Black Mountain Rag,” “Salt River,” and an intermediate level version of “John Hardy.” Rounding out the book are tunes such as “Red Haired Boy,” “Sally Goodin,” “Old Joe Clark,” and a Clarence White inspired arrangement of “Nine Pound Flatpicking Guitar Magazine

Hammer.” When I was struggling to learn how to play lead breaks on the guitar in the early 1980s, I was thrilled when Bert’s book came out. His book provided my rst exposure to many of these tunes and, I’ll have to admit, I still use a lot of his licks to this day. Shortly after we began publishing this magazine, I was at the NAMM show in Los Angeles walking up and down the isles of vendors and spotted a table that had Bert’s book on it. I had not heard much about Bert before or after working with his book and when I saw the book on the table I asked the woman working at the booth if she knew what had ever happened to Bert Casey. The woman said, “He just went to get some lunch and will be right back.” Wow, I hadn’t expected that! I came back later and met both Bert and his partner Geoff Hohwald, who has written numerous instructional books for banjo, and told them both how much I had appreciated their instructional material back in the days when I was struggling to nd anything I could learn from. After talking with Bert at the show, I thought that it would be interesting to do a feature story about him because there might be other players who had worked with his material over the years and, like me, had wanted to know more about him. I became even more interested in pursuing the interview after I saw his great Acoustic Guitar Primer course several months later. I reviewed that course in Volume 3, Number 1 of this magazine and, as I said in the review, I think it is the best instructional book/CD/video package on the market today for the beginning acoustic guitar player. Bert Casey grew up in the small town of Elba, Alabama. The population of Elba totaled about one thousand and, as a result, all the kids in town, grades one through twelve, attended the same school. Regarding his early exposure to music, Bert says, “You could be in the marching band in the fourth grade and the concert band in


the fth grade because the school was small and they needed warm bodies. Also, for the same reason, you could be in the adult church choir in about the fth grade. So I was playing horns at school and singing in church, learning how to sing the parts and all of that.” When Bert was in the tenth grade, his family moved to the “big city” of Dothan, Alabama. Bert says, “At school in Dothan, I had to make a choice between music and sports. I was doing them both in Elba. I played football and basketball and could still be in the concert band. In Dothan I was not able to do that, so I chose to do sports in the eleventh and twelfth grades and didn’t actively play music for several years.” After graduating from high school in 1963, Bert went to college at Auburn and did not end up getting back into music until the late sixties when he was a graduate school student at Georgia Tech. It was at this point that Bert became interested in playing the guitar and pursued the folk/rock music of the late sixties. He said, “I dived into it head rst. The rst guitar I bought was a used Martin D-18.” Bert’s rst real exposure to bluegrass music came when he attended a bluegrass festival in the late sixties in Lithonia, Georgia. He said, “We went up there for about ve straight years and I got totally immersed in it.” Upon graduation from Georgia Tech with a masters degree in textile chemistry, Bert got a job working as a salesman in the textile industry in Atlanta. He says, “There was a pretty good bluegrass scene around Atlanta during those years and so it wasn’t hard to nd people to pick with.” At rst 17

he and his picking friends were just getting together to jam. That eventually led to a job playing at one of the local bars two nights a week. Regarding his early days learning how to play lead guitar, Bert says, “There wasn’t really any transcriptions of material available, so I had to pick everything off of records. I put it on a reel-to-reel and then slowed it down to half speed. There are good and bad points to that. The bad side was that it took a long time to sit and transcribe the material, but, by the same token, it really developed my ear.” When asked about the type of material he was trying to learn how to play, Bert said, “I was still learning a lot of folk rock like Crosby, Still, and Nash, James Taylor, Paul Simon, and others. I also started learning from Doc Watson records. He was my rst atpicking inuence. Along about that time Dan Crary put out that rst album, so I learned every lick on that album as well. From there I expanded to learning Clarence White and I also learned the early Tony Rice stuff from when he was with J. D. Crowe.” During the mid-70s energy crisis the textile chemical company that Bert worked for was having a rough time getting raw materials. Because of the shortage of both gasoline and raw materials, the company pulled their salesmen off of the road. At that time, Bert and the banjo player in his band decided to start playing music full-time. They recruited a bass player and a female vocalist and at that point Bert began a fulltime music career which continues to this day. He remained active in various bands, playing bluegrass, country-rock, classic rock, and dance music from 1974 all the way through the end of 1997. At that point he became so busy with his music instruction business, Cassette and Video Learning Systems, that he decided to focus on that. In addition to the acoustic guitar, electric guitar, mandolin, and bass instructional material that Bert himself has written, and the banjo courses written by his partner Geoff Hohwald, Cassette and Video has also produced material for violin, drums, harmonica, and blues guitar written by a variety of other instructors. They currently carry eleven different book and video combinations and eight intermediate-to-advanced songbooks for various instruments and vocals. All of this material is primarily distributed through music stores. Flatpicking Guitar Magazine talked with Bert about his involvement in the production 18

of instructional material for the guitar in the following interview:

How did you rst get involved with writing and producing instructional material for the guitar? You gure out pretty early on that if you are trying to be a full-time musician, you can’t depend on one source of income. You need to diversify. So I started teaching lessons out of my home in about 1976. At that time there was really no suitable material to teach from. There was nothing that worked. So I started accumulating material, writing out songs, and working out different teaching strategies. Geoff Hohwald, who is my business partner now, was a banjo player and working out of a local music store. He had been doing the same sort of thing and had put out his books, Banjo Songs Volumes One, Two, and Three. He talked me into doing the Flatpicking Guitar Songs book. What were you trying to accomplish with this project? Basically what we tried to do was get out a lead bluegrass guitar book that had a lot of good breaks in it. The rst break would be a melodic break, the second or third, or sometimes fourth break would involve throwing in the hot licks and/or moving up the neck. We tried to make a real logical approach to it. This book was written back when I was doing a lot of lead guitar work on stage. It contains a lot of different inuences—Doc Watson, Dan Crary, Clarence White, Tony Rice, and even a little Glen Campbell thrown in there. One of the inuences in particular for the song “Nine Pound Hammer” was Geoff’s friend Sandy Rothman. Sandy was friends with Clarence White. He had jammed with him and had taped a lot of the jam sessions. Geoff had studied a lot of that, listened to it, and played it. On “Nine Pound Hammer” we tried to take this one song and make it the showcase song of the book. We collaborated on this break and tried to put a little bit of everything in it. There is not really a melodic break on this tune like there is on all the others. It was basically put together as the showcase song for the book and contains a lot of different inuences. What was your next project? We followed up the Flatpicking Guitar Songs book with the Flatpicking Guitar Primer , which eventually became the Acoustic Guitar Primer . What we were

trying to do was to come up with a logical, step-by-step approach to teaching because there were not many methods out at that time. The ones that were out would have big gaps in them. We accumulated the material and then tested it on about 100 students before we put it out.

When did you rst put out the Flatpicking Guitar Primer ? That would have been in 1984. It was originally written as a beginning bluegrass rhythm guitar book that would eventually lead the student into playing lead guitar. In the long run it has turned out to be a great selling book under the Acou stic Guitar Primer title. It is still a great bluegrass rhythm guitar book, but because it starts out with several public domain songs that everyone knows, it also has a more universal appeal. Today it is basically the same book as it was at the start. We have changed the name to Acoustic Guitar Primer and updated the presentation, audio quality, and format, but the material and teaching method is basically the same. When did you put out the video for this course? In 1994 we decided to put out the rst videos. We had been talking about it for a long time because everyone else was putting them out. Geoff did one on the banjo and I did the one for acoustic guitar in 1994 and we continued from there. When we did that, the business just exploded. It went from being a one-day-a-week part-time thing to a full-time job. Were the videos as reasonably priced back then as they are today? Since we were the “small kid on the block” up against the big guys like Warner Brothers and Hal Leonard, we knew we had to do something to make an impact. What we tried to do was concentrate on quality and price point. Most of the instructional videos in those days were selling for $45 to $50. We sold 60 minute videos that retailed for $9.95. We developed a good relationship with a video studio in town and they gave us a break on the editing and duplication. That allowed us to put a lot of detail in every video and sell a high quality product at a real good price. The growth has been really dramatic. We now have about 800 dealers and 6 different distributors. This year we expect to sell a total of about 120,000 units. When I saw the Acoustic Guitar Primer



video, I was really impressed with the comprehensive teaching method. How do you develop that? All the stuff that we do is based on experience. I have done ve of the courses, Geoff has done several, and we have also produced books and videos by some other teachers. All of the courses we produce have been done by people who have spent a lot of time as teachers. They have to have had the experience of teaching before we will consider producing their project. A lot of the courses you see on the market have a “star” performer who does not have the experience of teaching and it doesn’t really work. We tried to provide a comprehensive method that works step-by-step. The method I developed for the guitar course was based on years of experience as a teacher. It was then tested on students before we put it on the market. That way we could see where the gaps and the holes in it were and determine if the method made sense or not. We have tried to develop a real comprehensive course directed mostly towards beginners.

you think is the best way for a student to approach learning how to atpick? The best way still is to have a teacher. That way you get instant feedback. You don’t get that from books, or videos, or CDs. Nothing can be a substitute for a good teacher. The problem is nding a good teacher that will give you a real broad knowledge and understanding of what you are doing. Assuming you can’t nd that, we try to provide books and videos that will help you ll that gap. We keep updating our product when new formats become useful and viable. We did the books and cassettes rst, then moved on to CDs and videos. In order to take full advantage of the quality of CD audio, we went back and re-recorded all of the material. We have also gone back and re-shot some of the early video footage for the guitar video. As technology changes, we will keep up with it in order to provide a better product.

lessons, you realize that there are only a certain percentage of students who want to learn how to play lead guitar. Most people want to learn how to accompany their singing. That is what the follow-up acoustic guitar video will be—a sing-along type of thing where you learn a variety of different rhythm patterns, barre chords, and different songs and styles. We are also getting prepared to do some jam-along bluegrass CDs that will have 74 minutes of material that you can practice along with. On the following page, you will nd Bert’s arrangement of “Nine Pound Hammer” from his Flatpicking Guitar Songs book. The timing on this one is tricky in places, so be sure to get a copy of the Flat picking Guitar Magazine Audio CD which accompanies this issue in order to be able to hear Bert play this tune both at normal speed and slowed down.

What do you have in mind for the acoustic guitar in the future? We have plans for a follow-up video to the Acoustic Guitar Primer which will be more of a rhythm course. When you teach

Having had all of this experience, what do

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19

Guitar Maintenance and Repair by Frank Ford

Adjusting Truss Rods Acoustic guitar setup is not an arcane art, but rather a series of steps by which the instrument can be evaluated and adjusted to optimize playability. I nd it useful to start with the nut, and proceed to neck relief, fret condition, neck angle, and nally to the bridge and saddle height. This is a general order of operations, but since frets, neck angle and relief all inuence each other, it isn’t always possible to work with one aspect without considering the others. For purposes of discussion, though, I’ll tend to treat each subject as an independent factor as it inuences playability. In the last two articles, I’ve concentrated on the rst step, setting up the nut. Today, I’d like to get into a more complex topic, evaluating and controlling the straightness of the neck. First, let’s talk a bit about how truss rods work. Truss rods are devices installed in the neck to help stabilize and control the straightness of the neck along its length. Before the use of steel strings on guitars, there was no need for truss rods because the gut strings did not exert enough tension to cause the neck to bend or deform. With the advent of steel strings as standard equipment on guitars and the interest in making slim, more playable necks, it became necessary to install devices to support the neck against the increased string tension. The simplest and most obvious truss rod is a steel or other stiff structural support inlaid or laminated in the original construction of the neck. At the top of the next column is a view of the end of a Martin guitar neck, showing a nonadjustable steel truss rod. This steel truss rod has a strong “T” cross section, and along with a substantial mahogany neck, it provides plenty of resistance to bending. A thinner neck is more exible and will need more support than this kind of rod can provide. A really big steel rod could be used, but it would be so massive that it would actually change the Flatpicking Guitar Magazine

balance and feel of the guitar. An adjustable rod can give much more support without adding extra mass. There are basically two types of ad justable rods: compression and bendi ng rods. Each of these types may have either one-way or two-way action. One-way rods work to bend the neck “backward” against the tension of the strings, and are found in the vast majority of guitars. Two-way rods work in both directions, and are more frequently used by smaller manufacturers. Bending truss rods are devices which actually bend as they are adjusted. This kind of rod is easy to understand because as it bends, it bends the neck along with it. Bending rods are made of two parallel elements, one pulling or pushing on the other to create the bend. Most new Asian guitars, Martin guitars, and many others use a bending rod. The original truss rod, pioneered by Gibson in the early 1920s, is a compression device, which actually squeezes the neck from the inside to compress the back of the neck, bending it against the direction of the string tension. One end of the rod is rmly anchored in the neck, and the other end has a nut and washer assembly to provide the tension. Take a look at this traditional style compression rod:


Notice how low (toward the back surface) of the neck the truss rod is mounted. The white strip above the round rod is a “ller strip” inserted in the channel above after the rod is installed. When the rod is tightened, it squeezes the wood inside the back of the neck, which is much smaller in cross section than the front (ngerboard) surface. Additionally, the ngerboard is very rigid and resists compression. A relatively light amount of compression is all that’s needed to bend the neck backward to compensate for the string tension. Gibson, Taylor, and many other makers use compression rods. There is a two-way version of the compression rod, which has anchors at both ends:

Here, the rod actually rotates, and pulls the anchors toward each other to compress the back of the neck, or pushes them apart for an opposite reaction. The adjusting nut of the truss rod may be placed at either end of the neck, so it may be accessible at the peghead (Gibson, Taylor) or through the interior of the guitar (Martin, Collings, Santa Cruz). Either way, 23

the action is identical, and the functionality is the same. You can’t miss the peghead adjusting type:

It takes a 1/4" socket wrench. The most common sizes are 1/4" and 5/16" for this type of adjustment nut. Many guitarists assume there’s no truss rod if they can’t see it at the peghead. To adjust the truss rod on this Martin guitar, you simply stick a 5 millimeter hex key (Allen wrench) through the hole in the brace under the ngerboard:

Feel around a bit, and you can connect easily. Other makers hide their adjustments way up inside, as with this Santa Cruz guitar:

I laid a mirror inside here so you can see the truss rod access hole in the neck block. It’s way up near the top where it’s invis24

ible from the outside. Several makers put it there, partly to discourage musicians from adjusting their own necks. There’s really no substitute for experience, so ideally you’d leave truss rod ad justments to your friendly local luthier. As to your own needs, I hope you’ll be guided by your sense of your own mechanical ability. That said, I’ll get on to the topic at hand. Regardless of the type, an adjustable truss rod affects only the shaft of the neck, the flexible portion from the nut to the thick part at the heel. The idea is to control the straightness of the neck by bending it backward against the pull of the strings, if necessary. But there are a few points of confusion about the utility of truss rods. I think the second most important piece of misinformation is that a truss rod will prevent the eventual need for resetting the neck. I’ll be dealing with the neck reset issue in future articles, so for now I’ll just say that a truss rod has absolutely no effect on neck angle. The single most common misconception is that truss rods are for adjusting action. While adjusting the truss rod does affect the playing action, that’s a side effect and not the purpose for the adjustment. As a general rule, once the nut and truss rod are set, all action adjustment is done at the bridge, by raising or lowering the saddle. As novice players we’re taught that a guitar neck should be straight, not warped. A true “warp” is a matter of wood seasoning unevenly as it gains or loses moisture. Good instruments are made with carefully seasoned wood in humidity controlled environments, so neck warping is not all that common. What’s not so rare is a neck that exes under string tension, bending forward, appearing warped. Remove the string tension, and the neck straightens out. Neck “straightness” is an interesting issue. In practice, a truly straight neck may not be ideal. Played open, or fretted in the low positions, a string vibrates in a wider arc than it does when fretted high up on the neck. In order to avoid buzzing, it’s usually a good idea to have some forward “relief” or slight bend in the neck. With a bit of forward bending, the neck will allow for the wide vibrating arc of the long strings. While some musicians have a light touch and can actually play a truly straight neck, nobody likes a neck with a reverse bend, or “negative relief.” With such a neck, the string will tend to buzz like crazy in the low positions, from the nut to the fth fret



or so. So, I nd it useful to describe a truss rod as a device to control neck relief. When it comes to adjusting a truss rod, the rst step is to determine the neck relief, which must be done with the strings tuned to pitch. You can “sight the neck,” looking down the outside corners of the frets from the nut to to the body. Sighting is really more useful for observing uneven frets, because neck relief can be a bit subtle. Here’s how I do it. I simply mash the G string down at the rst fret and at the body, usually the fourteenth fret:

The string is nice and tight when tuned to pitch, so it strikes a perfectly straight line. Then, all I have to do is look at the space between the bottom of that string and the top of the sixth fret:

more relief. If it buzzes in high positions, a truss rod adjustment won’t help— the action will need to go up at the bridge. Actually making the adjustment is easy. You just turn the truss rod nut, and observe the results. Unless you crank really hard and break something, you are not likely to do any real damage by misadjusting a truss rod. If you get it too tight, you can loosen it later, and vise versa. Here’s a hot tip: Take the truss rod nut off, if possible, and oil the threads of the truss rod. Most of the time, the factory doesn’t lubricate them, and you might be turning the nut against a lot of unnecessary friction. Before you start wrenching away, please remember that the diagnosis is the key to the job. Make sure you understand what you’re doing and why. If your guitar has the same tendency to buzz when played hard all the way up the neck, then rest assured that your truss rod is adjusted about right.

Grier, Stafford, Rice, Smith, and You

6 9 2 8 3 1 4 0 0 8 L L A C

Roanoke Bluegrass Weekend Nov. 19-21

6 9 2 8 3 1 4 0 0 8 L L A C

Respect for Tradition James Eye for Innovation Alan Shelton of the

Clinch Mountain Boys Can you see that space? It turns out to be rather easy to measure it by simply looking at it. While you’re staring at that little space, just try to imagine which of the strings might t between the G string and the fret. A medium gauge rst string is 0.013 inches which is just about the right amount of relief for a “regular” player. A hard driving bluegrasser is likely to need more relief, maybe as much as the third string itself, or about 0.026 inches. The point is to determine the right amount of relief by experimentation. That is, play the guitar and adjust the relief until strings have about the same tendency to buzz when fretted at the low positions and high positions. A guitar that buzzes in low positions only may be in need of a neck adjustment for Flatpicking Guitar Magazine

plays the

Huss and Dalton Model TD-R Check it out at his next show ph. 540-337-3382 e-mail: [email protected] web site: dezines.com/hdguitar

Huss and Dalton Guitars


25

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Kaufman’s Corner by Steve Kaufman

Subscribe to Flatpicking Guitar Magazine

on CD Call (800) 413-8296

The Tennessee Stud Welcome back to my part of the world. Thanks for all of the FGM suscribers that made it to the 1999 Flatpicking Camp and we look forward to seeing you next year. The dates will be:Banjo Camp- June 14-18, 2000; Mandolin Camp -June 14-18, 2000; Flatpicking Camp - June 18-25, 2000. This break comes from my “To The Lady” CD. I’ve chosen it so you can see the use of

runs and licks while you are trying to sing. Work out the breaks on these pages and listen to you FGM CD enough to familiarise yourself with this song and arrangement. The break written here starts at the rst beat of the verse and goes into the chorus and to the next verse. Have fun with it and let me know how it treats you. I’ll see you down the road somewhere.

! BANJO MANDOLIN GUITAR s o y Bibey Stafford Baucom r e r d Shelor Simpkins Smith a i Compton W. Rice C V Vestal Grier w n u o p N s e e Roanoke Bluegrass W m o H Weekend Call for a FREE Flatpicking Mercantile Catalog Instructional Material, Guitar Gear, CDs, and more

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Tennessee Stud

Drop D Tuning Key of D

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Flatpicking Flatpicking & & Folk/Acoustic Folk/Acoustic Rock Rock by byJohn JohnTindel Tindel

Rockin’ The Blackberry Ah, the good ole’ “Blackberry Blossom.” The mere mention of this song brings forth a wide variety of responses. These range from yawns, groans, or even out-right refusals to play amongst veteran pickers who burned out somewhere around the 10,000th rendition, to excitement and delight from folks new to the genre who are just discovering the merits of this simple, yet complicated, Celtic-sounding, but as American-as-apple(or was it blackberry)-pie, melodic little toe-tapper. As evidenced by the fact that it is easily among the top ten most often played songs at bluegrass picking parties and campres everywhere, there is no denying that jamming to this song is fun. For one thing, it utilizes the “people’s chords,” these being, of course, G, C, and D (with the occasional A thrown in) in the verse parts, which is an accessible and easy progression in which to play. The change to Em in the chorus part, being the relative minor of the key of G, allows for a nice switch from major to minor

mode playing, a great platform for blues based, string bending, rabble rousing. With this in mind, and seeing as how there seems to be the word “rock” in the heading at the top of this page, there is some tab of a verse and chorus part of this old chestnut, with a health heaping of rock inuenced meandering injected sporadically. In keeping with the previously mentioned “start with the melody” rule, I have played variations of the traditional melody line at the beginnings of most of the phrases before going off-road into “rockier” territory. Just hang a left at the “Pavement Ends Here” sign. Notice that the low G at the end of the rst phrase is “pushed” ahead of where the down-beat would normally be. It’s the same thing at the end of the next phrase. Jump on that note and set up for the hammeredon phrase that follows. Bend the Bb note up a little to create the “blue” note, that atted third effect that lends in that blues feel. By bending the note up towards the major third (the B natural), you can irt with

that strange area between minor and major modes where the blues and rock reside. The very next measure you are rmly back in major territory to the end of that phrase, except for the Bb/B natural deal again in the 3rd and 4th notes and then again an octave lower. At the chorus, it is back to minor with the Em change. You can really work those top two strings up the neck when you get comfortable with the picking pattern. Have fun with this one and good luck. One addition to my last column on improvisation. My buddy, Jim, has observed that the best thing about improvising is that if you make a mistake, you are only one fret away from the right note! Till next time, happy trails and good picking.

Blackberry Blossom D

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3 Flatpicking Guitar Magazine


On The Web by David Dugas

Welcome to On the Web! In this issue I’m going to list a few of the many Bluegrass and Old-Time Music Associations in the USA and around the world. A very comprehensive list can be found at the Bluegrass Roots web site (listed below in the last paragraph). I’d like to thank the members of the FlatpickL community for sending me the links listed here, especially my friend Tommy Parham of SEBA for the many links he sent! Here we go....

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• Alabama Bluegrass Music Association: http://www.bham.net/abma/ • Association and Organizations page of Bluegrass World: http://bluegrassworld.com/organizations/ • Boston Bluegrass Union: http://www.bbu.org/ • Brandywine Friends of Old Time Music: http://www.brandywinefriends.org/ • Central Texas Bluegrass Association: http://www.zilker.net/~ctbg/ • California Bluegrass Association Bluegrass and Old Time Music: http://www.mandolyn.com/ • Desert Bluegrass Association: http://home.att.net/~fertilepickens/ • Gulf Coast Bluegrass Music Association: http://home.att.net/~DianeBates GCBMA.html • Intermountain Acoustic Music Association: http://www.iamaweb.org/ • International Bluegrass Music Association: http://www.ibma.org/ • Kansas Bluegrass Association: http://www.eece.ksu.edu/~starret/kba.html • Minnesota Bluegrass & Old Time Music Association: http://www.mtn.org/~mbotma/ • Nishna Valley Bluegrass Association: http://www.nvbga.com/ • North Florida Bluegrass Association: http://jvm.com/bluegrass/

www.tbcnet.com/~niba •Northern Indiana Bluegrass Association: http://www.ft-wayne.com/bluegrass/ • Pacic Bluegrass Network in Australia: http://www.healey.com.au/~mkear/ pbn.htm • Rivertown Bluegrass Society, Inc: http://members.aol.com/rbsociety/ • Rosine Association - A Monument to Bill Monroe: http://www.gotech.com/rosine/rosine.htm • Southeast Bluegrass Association: http://www.sebabluegrass.org/ • Southern Wisconsin Bluegrass Association: http://emerald.jvlnet.com/~swbmai/ hot.html • Southwest Bluegrass Association: http://www.s-w-b-a.com/links.html • Southwest Bluegrass Club: http://home.swbell.net/swbc • Southwest Traditional and Bluegrass Music Association: http://www.inetserv.com/swp/ • West Michigan Bluegrass Association Homepage: http://home.swbell.net/fnorvell/index.html • And nally, the excellent links page of Bluegrass Roots. This is a great resource of BG Music Associations, Organizations and Clubs (and it’s in Estonia! That is cool!) in the USA and around the world: http://bgr.ee/LINKS/l_270.html

• Northern Illinois Bluegrass Association: Flatpicking Guitar Magazine


Huss & Dalton Guitars by Dan Miller

Guitar builders Mark Dalton (left) and Jeff Huss (right) How many lawyers does it take to build a guitar? Ask Jeff Huss and he will tell you that it really only takes one, but it is nice to have a partner. Huss is, in fact, a lawyer. However, Huss & Dalton is denitely not a law rm. They are a partnership building ne guitars in Stuarts Draft, Virginia. Although Huss and Dalton have been building guitars under their own name for a relatively short time, they have made a great name for themselves in the acoustic guitar market by turning out high-end guitars that are rich in both sound quality and appearance. Jeff Huss grew up in North Dakota where he went to law school and, upon graduation, passed the state bar. He then decided to move to Virginia so that he could be close to bluegrass music. Every young lawyer’s dream, right? After the move, Jeff studied for and subsequently passed the Virginia state bar and applied for a job at a law rm in Waynesboro, Virginia. At about the same time (1984), Jeff heard that Geoff Stelling was moving his banjo shop from San Diego, California, to Afton, Virginia, and went to talk to Stelling about a job. At rst, Stell Flatpicking Guitar Magazine

ing told Huss that he was not looking for a company lawyer. But after Huss explained he was only interested in building banjos, Stelling hired him for the job once he opened up his new shop. For Huss, it was really the only sensible thing to do. I mean, given the choice between working in a law rm and shaping banjo necks, what would you do? Case closed. When Jeff started working at the Stelling shop, there were only three people working there; Stelling, Kim Breedlove, and Jeff. After working with Stelling for three or four years, Jeff also became interested in learning how to build guitars. He bought a book on guitar making and used Stelling’s facility to build a guitar in his spare time. Stelling saw Jeff’s rst guitar, liked it, and asked if Jeff could make one for him. Jeff said, “At that point I started two. I made another one for me and one with Stelling’s name on it. It turned out pretty well. Someone at a festival saw his and wanted one. He asked me to build another one, which he sold, and it kind of just grew out of that.” From there Stelling made it known that the guitars were available and orders began coming in. This was the birth of the Stelling guitar. Jeff says that the seventh guitar that he built with the Stel-


ling name on it went to David McLaughlin and then eventually ended up with Russell Moore of IIIrd Tyme Out. Gary Brewer also currently plays a Stelling guitar. As more orders for Stelling guitars came in, Jeff built a small shop at home and began working on guitars at his house while still working at the banjo shop building banjos. However, he says, “Eventually I went down to working four days at the Stelling shop, then three days, and then after the shop at home was complete, I quit working at Stelling altogether and strictly worked at home. I continued to build the Stelling guitars, but also started to build guitars under my own name at that time (1993).” Mark Dalton is a guitar and banjo player from Alta Vista, Virginia, who grew up playing bluegrass music and working in his father’s auto body shop. Eventually he took over the shop when his father retired, but his heart was more into bluegrass, banjos and guitars than it was repairing auto bodies. He was friends with Geoff Stelling and the guys who worked in Stelling’s shop because Geoff would always invite him up to the picking parties he hosted at his home. When Mark heard that Jeff Huss had quit working at Stelling, he knew that there was a job opening and he says, “I thought about calling him, but I didn’t.” It just happened that just after Jeff quit, Stelling had a picking party and called Mark. Mark told Stelling that he knew something about nish work and asked Stelling for a job. Stelling didn’t give him an answer either way at rst, but the following week, he called. At rst Mark was working at the banjo shop two days a and week, then three days, and eventually full time. He started there in 1994. Shortly after Mark began working at Stelling, he ordered a Huss guitar for himself from Jeff Huss. While Huss was working on the guitar, he began talking with Mark about the possibility of taking on a partner. Mark had put some money aside from the sale of the auto body business and so they combined forces and began Huss & Dalton guitars. Mark quit working at Stelling and thus the Huss & Dalton guitar business was born in September of 1995. The original intention of the new partnership was to stay working out of Jeff’s home shop and remain a small two-person operation. However, Mark says, “We were only there at Jeff’s for about a year. We moved into a building in Stuarts Draft and hired somebody else to work with us.” Today the shop supports four full-time employees, including Mark and Jeff, and 33

Mark’s wife also works there part-time. The rst of August they intend to hire another employee and are also looking to move the shop to a new location. In the relatively short period of time that Huss and Dalton have been building guitars under their own name, they have gained a reputation for producing great sounding, high quality guitars. Ralph Stanley’s guitar player, James Alan Shelton, plays a Huss and Dalton guitar. Huss and Dalton began their business by building Dreadnought guitars because, as Jeff explains, “That was our background. We were bluegrass guys. We started out with a rosewood and a mahogany Dreadnought.” The next model they designed become known as their “C-M” model—a small bodied cutaway with the depth of a Dreadnought. Jeff says, “It is a pretty versatile guitar. It is bigger than most ngerstyle guitars, but smaller than a Dreadnought. That model has probably been our best seller.” As time has progressed, driven by the requests of music stores and customers, Huss and Dalton have gradually added to their catalog of standard models, now building a total of nine. These range from the standard Martin style Dreadnoughts, to the OM style, to models patterned after some of the old Gibson body styles. Of course, all guitar models can be built with a variety of custom options. When asked what makes any of their designs different from old Martin and Gibson standards, Mark Dalton said, “The biggest change that we made, as far as that was concerned, is when we made the radiused top. We heard of people doing radiused tops and decided to try it. But I don’t think anybody really does a 25 foot radius like we are. When we did that, it changed the sound and made our sound distinct. The guitars are real strong in the mid-range and real balanced. They are not as boomy. For a long time we designed everything in our line with the radiused tops. We still have everything built to that design except for our TD-R and TD-M, which are true old Martin copies. They have more bass and they are louder than our other guitars.” Another departure from standard design that Jeff and Mark decided to try was the large sound hole design. Mark says, “Everything we build, with the exception of the old Martin copies and the smallest of the small body guitars, has a 4 and 3/16th inch sound hole.” When asked about the decision to go with the large soundhole, Jeff said, “At 34

rst, when I was doing the Stellings, ‘large sound hole’ was one of those buzz words like ‘scallop braces,’ ‘forward X-braces’ and that kind of thing. I tried a large sound hole on the Stelling and people thought it was cool, so we kept it that way.” Standard features on Huss and Dalton guitars include braces that are scalloped and made out of red spruce, saddles and nuts made out of bone (the TD-R model has a long “through” saddle), and the bridge plates made of Honduran rosewood. Regarding this feature, Jeff said, “I experimented a lot when I was building the early guitars, looking for a bridge plate that would be durable and keep the top from bellying too much. We settled on the Honduran rosewood because we like the sound and they hold up real well. Mark adds, “If you ever hold up some Honduran rosewood and tap it, it just rings like a bell. It made sense to that it would make a good bridgeplate.” Wood binding is also a special characteristic of many of the Huss and Dalton models. They typically use either maple or ebony, but some models also include more exotic woods such as amed koa. When asked about the decision to use wood binding, Jeff said, “When I built the rst guitars for myself, I used wood binding because I think it looks so much nicer and so much richer. Looking at what other people charged for wood binding, I couldn’t understand it because it didn’t seem that much harder than plastic bindings. When we started designing our models we decided to put the wood bindings on because it looked nicer and we could do it economically.” For top woods, Huss and Dalton like to use either Sitka or Englemann spruce, depending upon the model. The traditional Dreadnoughts feature Sitka spruce, however, Appalachian spruce is an option. All top woods are ex tested with a deection jig that Huss and Dalton built. The tops are sanded to a certain thickness and then the deection is measured on the jig. The top is then run through a sander until a standard deection is obtained. Jeff says, “The standard for our tops is measured in stiffness rather than thickness.” The most notable bluegrass player that is currently playing a Huss & Dalton guitar is James Alan Shelton, the guitar player for Ralph Stanley. When asked how the relationship with James came about, Mark said, “Ralph was doing a show down in Greensboro and we had a booth set up down there. James was walking by and I was sitting at the booth with a guitar in my

hands. I noticed him across the isle looking at something and, while he was over there, I played the intro to ‘Rank Stranger’ on the guitar. He turned around and laughed and said, ‘I’ve heard that before.’ He came over and we started talking. He sat down and started playing the guitars. He liked the guitars and said that he was interested in having something that was like his old Martin. He didn’t want to have to take the herringbone on so many plane rides.” James now plays one of Huss & Dalton’s TD-R models. At the time James placed the order, there were two banjos in the band and so he wanted a loud guitar. Mark and Jeff built the back and sides out of Honduran Rosewood. Mark said, “The Honduran Rosewood is very dense and heavy, even more so, I think, than Brazilian. It makes a really loud guitar.” The neck on James’ guitar was custom made to duplicate the neck on his D-28, otherwise it was the standard TD-R. Jeff Huss came across the Honduran rosewood, which Huss & Dalton likes to use, completely by accident. Jeff explains that Honduran rosewood is an excellent wood with qualities very similar to Brazilian rosewood. However, builders usually have a hard time nding Honduran rosewood of suitable quality for guitar building. Jeff happened to meet a woman one day while picking up his kids from school. They began talking and when Jeff mentioned that he built guitars, she asked if he ever used rosewood. It had just so happened that the woman and her husband, who was a logger, had just returned from Honduras where her husband had bought a container full of Honduran rosewood logs. Jeff found the wood to be ideal for guitar building and has put it to very good use. Although Huss & Dalton have been building guitars under their own name for a relatively short period of time, they have gained a very good reputation in acoustic guitar circles. All of their guitars are currently being sold through music stores and have reached most of the large stores which specialize in acoustic stringed instruments. Before purchasing your next guitar, be sure to check out one of these beauties. You’ll be glad you did. For more information call Huss & D alton: (540) 337-3382



By Brad Davis RAD DAVIS IS ENDORSED BY SIT STRINGS/COLLINGS/MARTIN/GRETCH/FENDER/PEAVEY/THUNDERFUNK/GIPSON/ RNIE BALL/BAGGS/WILKINS GUITARS.

Rawhide I chose this song for this issue because this break demonstrates a technique, or style, which incorporates extremely fast licks and slow lick patterns blended together to create a super contrast in a solo when they are played side-by-side. The slow lick phrases will force you to choose your notes more tastefully. Additionally, these slow phrases can provide you with a short mental resting place so you can be prepared for the fast lick phrases which follow.

Key-B capo fourth fret

1 2 3 4 5 6

G

H 3 1

1

Records

INSTRUCTIONAL TAPES

Rawhide

Part one G

0

You will notice that I have gone back to using “grid tab.” I have done this only because I have received numerous requests to bring it back. The companion CD lesson for this column will cost $10.00 including S/H. You can order by card at (615) 262-5066 or email: [email protected] or send check or money order to: BDM publishing/Box 890. Madison, TN 37116. Our web address is: bdmpublishing.com.

3

3 3

3 3

3 3

3 3

3 3

3 3

G

H 3 1

3

3 3

3 3

3 3

3 3

3 3

3 3

H 3 1

S

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3 3

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1

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+

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3

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4

G

+

1 + 1/3 3

2 3

+ 3

3 3

+ 3

4 3

+ 3

C

1 1/3

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2 3

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3 3

+ 3

4 3

+ 1 3 1/3

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+ 3

2 3

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3 1

2

1

+ 1

3

4

4 3

+

1

3

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1 2 3 4 5 6

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1

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1 2 3 4 5 6

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1

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4

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3

0

2

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3

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2

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35

Key-B capo fourth fret

Rawhide (con’t)

Part one 2nd time

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G

G

G

H 3 1

1 2 3 4 5 6

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3 3

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3 3

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3 3

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3

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3

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1

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3

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1

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3

3

3

1

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1

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2

3

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1 2

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2 2

G

0

1

2

4

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1 2

+

3 1

+ 2

+

2 1

+

3

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4

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5

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1 1

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2

8

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0

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3

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2

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3 3

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G

+

1 1

0 3

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2

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4 4

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2

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2

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1

3

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3

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B

3

2

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3

1

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2

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3

0

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0

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4

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B S

0

1 0

1

2

4

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1 2

1

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1

4

0

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1

1

2

2

2 3

+

2 1

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3

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B 1 2 3 4 5 6

+

2 1

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E

1 2

E

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1

1

0 4

1

0

2

4

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0 3

2

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3

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A

1 3

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Part two B

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1 2 3 4 5 6

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1 1

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Rawhide (con’t) A

D

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3

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1

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2 2

3

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3

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4

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3

1 + 1/3 3

3

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3 3

3 3

3 3

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3

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6 6

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0

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2

1

3

1

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1

2

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1

0

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4

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1 1

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3

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3

3 3

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1

1

1

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3

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2

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Part one 3rd time G

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2

37

Break Time by Chris Jones Banjo Tunes Steve Kaufman contributed some great guitar breaks to banjo tunes in past months, and I thought I would weigh in on the sub ject myself. I’ve been thinking about banjo tunes a lot lately (in fact, they’re causing insomnia), and working up breaks to them, since it’s the subject of one of my new videos that I recorded for Musician’s Workshop (shameless commercial plug, exhibit A). I’ve spent a lot of time and taken up some Flatpicking Guitar Magazine space discussing playing breaks to bluegrass songs, and nding ways to create interesting solos that are built around the melody of the song. It would follow that a lot of the same principles would apply to playing breaks to banjo tunes, since a lot of them have vocal-like (as opposed to fiddle tune-like) melodies. However, that can be too much of a generalization, since some banjo tunes have fairly complex melodies, some have very vague melodies, and some, even banjo players will admit, have no melody at all. These are the tunes that are basically rolls played over a chord progression. The more melodically complex tunes are frequently banjo adaptations of ddle tunes; Sailor’s Hornpipe would be an example of this. I won’t deal with those here, since I don’t re38

ally think of those as banjo tunes, but more like tunes in which the banjo takes on the ddle role. There, that was easy. The tunes with more of a song-like melody, and those with very little melody, give us the challenge of having to ll up space taken up by a banjo roll. There are ways to do this without simply stringing together scale oriented licks or just playing rolls ourselves. Just as we would in playing a break to a song, we need to get a good handle on what the melody is and then use that as a basis for our solo, adding double stops, crosspicking, licks that connect melody notes together, and plain old pauses to esh it out and make it sound like the tune belongs on a guitar. It’s worth noting that in banjo tunes that seem to have very little melody, they at least have melodic movement that can be a guide for us. The example I’ve chosen, Fireball Mail, denitely ts into the vocal-like category, perhaps because it really is a song. The break I came up with is fairly simple, low on the neck, and stays true to the melody. Those of you hoping to be inspired by a daring artistic interpretation, featuring complex, nger stretching, up the neck licks will have to look elsewhere; this is more of a caveman type of break. I’ve even avoided crosspicking in this solo: I personally love crosspicking, and would recommend it to anyone on a tune like this (unless a physician has advised you against it for health reasons), but I wanted to show that we could play a decent break without it. Instead I’ve made use of a G arpeggio (in measure 11) and some emphasized down stroked quarter notes to ll a logical crosspicking space instead. Elsewhere in the break, I’ve used a lot of hammer-ons and slides, sometimes in combination with double stops (e.g. measure 4), along with syncopation (e.g. measures 3 and 4), which helps to add interest to this fairly straightforward break.



Fireball Mail Arranged by Chris Jones G

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39

J A M T U NE S “Angeline The Baker” by Curtis Jones, Jr. We featured Curtis Jones in Volume 2, Number 1, of Flatpicking Guitar in our “Masters of Rhythm Guitar” column. At that time, Curtis was lling the guitar spot with the Schankman Twins. These days Curtis is touring with Bluegrass, Etc. and was featured on the band’s newest release. He has also been touring with his own band, Lonesome Timber, to promote his solo project Blue As I . Although Curtis was featured in the “Masters of Rhythm” column, he is also a great lead guitar player. We contacted

Curtis about submitting a favorite ddle tune to our “Jam Tunes” column and he was happy to participate. He selected one of my favorites, “Angeline The Baker.” Curtis said that he was inspired to work up a break to this tune after hearing Stuart Duncan play it on the ddle. He plays this one in the key of D using a “Drop D” tuning. I think you will enjoy playing Curtis’ rendition of this ddle classic. On the Flatpicking Guitar audio CD that accompanies this issue, we brought Kenny Smith into the studio to play rhythm for Curtis and then, after Curtis played this selection both fast and slow, we gave Kenny a chance

to step out on this tune as well. If you get the CD you will hear Curtis and Kenny jam on this tune for several minutes. It’s some of the best picking I’ve ever heard. Enjoy picking “Angeline the Baker.” In an upcoming edition of Flatpicking Guitar audio we will provide some back-up tracks to this tune so that you can practice along with the CD.

DAN DELANCEY F L A T P I C K

G U I T A R “

NEW CD RELEASE

A FEW FAVORITES

Listening to him play, it is certainly evident that arrangement is something Dan does very well. His arrangements are interesting, exciting, tasteful and well performed.

—Dan Miller, Editor”


Liner Notes— “A Few Favorites” by Dan DeLancey “From the rst note of “The Girl I left Behind Me” to the last lick in “Clarinet Polka” you can tell that Dan DeLancey is a powerhouse guitar player. His playing is up-lifting and soulful. The song selection is splendid! Dan is backed by a group of super musicians who know how to make a recording work. A nicely thought out project that will remain a favorite of mine as I know it will be of yours. The only down side—and it was hard to nd one—is that the recording is over too soon for me. It only means that I’ll have to hit re-play all day!! Enjoy “A Few Favorites” as I have. —Steve Kaufman • 3 Time GuitarBehind Champion Titles include: TheNational Girl I Left Me,

Redwing, Memories Waltz, Uncle Herman’s Hornpipe, The Shelter Of Your Eyes, Golden Eagle Hornpipe, Pass Me Not, Farther Along,

To order your CD, please send $15 to: DAN DELANCEY • 7911 HUNTER RAYTOWN, MO. 64138 • 816-356-1879

40



THE

O

-Z by Orrin Star

Crosspicking “Lonesome” “I Know What It Means To Be Lonesome” is a bluegrass standard that I love and which I recently started playing again. Like many songs with ragtimey, circle-of-fths progressions, it allows great soloing freedom: after stating the melody even once you can then forget about it and simply play over the changes. And songs like this are also prime candidates for crosspicking breaks.

42

But don’t get me wrong: while it’s easy to crosspick over almost any set of chord changes, it doesn’t automatically yield a credible solo; that takes some work. In Hot Licks for Bluegrass Guitar (my bestseller) I identied the challenge of crosspicking as “how to get the most melodic mileage from an appealing yet essentially mechanical technique.”

That is what guided the making of this solo. And if you can view it not only as a solo for a particular song, but also as one answer to crosspicking’s challenge, then I will rest easier for now.



Masters of Rhythm Guitar:

Paul Brewster by Dan Miller

When I saw Ricky Skaggs and his band Kentucky Thunder play on stage several years ago, the rst thing I noticed was the presence of three guitars. One guy was doing all of the lead work and the other two were playing rhythm. One of the rhythm players was even playing on an archtop. My initial thought was “I wonder how they all stay out of each other’s way?” My next thought was, “An archtop in bluegrass?” Those thoughts led to an interest in talking with one of the rhythm players for our “Masters of Rhythm Guitar” column to nd out more about the bluegrass band with three guitars. Everyone who reads this magazine goes to jam sessions, and, many more times than not, there is more than one guitar player at the jam. I thought it would be very interesting to get a professional perspective from Skagg’s rhythm guitar player and tenor singer, Paul Brewster—someone who works in that situation on a regular basis—in order to answer the question, “How can guitar players stay out of each other’s way?” Before we address that question, however,

44

let us tell you a little about Paul Brewster. Many bluegrass fans will remember Paul from his ten years of work (1979-1989) with the Osborne Brothers, but his bluegrass and musical roots run far deeper than that. From the 1930s through 1966, Paul’s father, Willie, played ddle and guitar for Cas Walker. Walker had a number of radio programs over the years and eventually had his own television show, Farm and Home Hour, which aired everyday of the week out of Knoxville, Tennessee (It was on this show that a young female singer named Dolly Parton got her start). Paul’s two uncles, Ray and Bud, also played (guitar and banjo respectively) for Walker, and early in their career his father and his Uncle Ray had also performed together as the Brewster Brothers on the Grand Ole Opry. Paul says, “When I was young, I thought everybody’s dad went to work and played music for a living.” Paul even taught himself how to play guitar by watching his father play on television. In addition to playing with Walker, Paul’s father also spent time playing in Carl Story’s band and his Uncle Bud played with the Pinnacle Boys. Paul said that his father did not play much music at home, so when he began to have an interest in learning how to play the guitar, at about the age of eight, he would drag his dad’s Martin out of the closet and “bang on it.” He said, “I watched my dad on TV everyday and try to copy what he was doing.” When asked about the kind of music he rst started learning, Paul said, “My dad was also a DJ at a local radio station and had all of the new records that were coming out at the

time—Buck Owens, George Jones, and all of that. I was into that. Most kids start out in rock-and-roll. I was never into that. That was never played at my house and really never allowed. I was pretty much raised on country music. I learned bluegrass by hearing my father and uncles play it and by listening to Flatt and Scruggs. I never really did take up playing lead on the guitar, I was more interested in singing. My dad doesn’t atpick either.” Paul’s rst stage appearance was at an elementary school talent show where he played and sang George Jones’ “Love Bug.” During his high school years Paul says that he didn’t play in any organized bands, but he did pick and sing with his dad in church and played quite a bit around the house. After graduating from high school in 1974, Paul began to sit in and sing with his friend Jimmy Milsap’s band, Knoxville Grass. A few years later Paul became a member of the band and worked, singing and playing guitar, with them for three years. During the 1970s Paul’s Uncle Bud opened a music store in Knoxville called Pick and Grin. Paul says, “There was a lot of bluegrass coming out of that store starting in about 1975. I think they sold more banjos per capita than any other store in the country. There were people coming from all over the place. That is when I really got interested in it. I would hang around the store and pick a lot.” In 1977 Paul’s Uncle Bud started a bluegrass festival called the Red Gate Bluegrass Festival in Union County, Tennessee. The Knoxville Grass was hired to work at the festival and Sonny Osborne heard Paul sing. Paul remembers, “I told him that if he ever needed somebody that I would like to try out. A short time later he gave me a call. I went to his house in Nashville and sung “Pathway of Teardrops” for him and he said, ‘You’re hired.’ ” Paul stayed with the Osborne Brothers from 1979 through 1989 with the exception of one year, 1982, when he played with the Pinnacle Boys. By 1989 Paul wanted a break from music and went to Florida to become a golf professional. A golf course in Naples hired him and he began working under the local pro to get his PGA card. After about a year a half in Florida, he moved back to Knoxville and worked in a series of different jobs for about another year and half before getting the bluegrass bug again after working at Dollywood, with a band called True Blue, for a season. He and his original band mate from the Knoxville Grass, Jimmy Milsap,



decided to start a band and called themselves Heartland. Heartland did not last long because a short time later (1995) Paul got the call from Ricky Skaggs. Paul and his wife decided to move back to Nashville and get back into music full time. Paul came into Ricky’s country band and sang harmony and played both guitar and banjo. He then followed Ricky’s transition back to bluegrass as a member of Kentucky Thunder. When asked about how they work the sound of three guitars into the band, Paul said that the lead player (originally Bryan Sutton and now Clay Hess) will usually play a rhythm style with bass runs, lls, crosspicking, and those kind of accents. He refers to it as a “Tony Rice style” rhythm. In order to provide a different texture to the sound, Paul will always capo in a position different than the lead player. For instance, if the song is in G and the lead player is playing out of the G position, Paul will capo up in B at and play out of the E position. He also avoids playing runs or bass note accents by providing more of a full strumming style of rhythm. He says, “It is kind of what I played when I was with Bobby and Sonny. They didn’t play the note picking, G-run, guitar. They wanted me to play more of a strum style like Ray Edmonton, the studio musician here in town. They used him on the records back in the early days. He played a straight “D-18” style rhythm. If you listen to ‘Son of a Sawmill Man,’ that is just ying rhythm.” The third guitar player in Skagg’s band, Darrin Vincent, plays an archtop guitar and his rhythm style is a “chunk” rhythm, like a mandolin chop. Although it may seem surprising to some that an archtop player is up on stage with a bluegrass band, Paul says, “Flatt and Scruggs used that kind of rhythm guitar on their records. They had a second guitar player providing a mandolin style chunk rhythm when they recorded and I’m pretty sure he played an archtop. The sound it adds is kind of like a drum beat.” Between the lead player’s runs and accents, Paul’s strumming a rhythm pattern in a different position, and Darren chunking an archtop, the band acheives a very full rhythmic sound and the guitar players do not get in each other’s way. In order to decide what capo position to use on each tune, Paul says that he will play with it and see which position complements the song the best. Once he has come up with something he thinks sounds good, he will usually stick with that position everytime the band plays that particular Flatpicking Guitar Magazine

Ricky Skaggs and his three-guitar rhythm section: (left to right) Clay Hess, Skaggs, Darrin Vincent, and Paul Brewster tune. His strumming pattern will also vary depending on the feel of the song. He also says that he usually stays with standard rst position chords as long as it doesn’t clash with the lead player’s rhythm. Otherwise he will occasionally play chord inversions up-the-neck when they t appropriately. When asked if he has to economize his rhythm stroke when the band plays some of their notoriously fast numbers, Paul said, “I try not to cheat if I can help it. I try to always keep it the same without cutting corners. A song like ‘Get Up John’ really works the guys that are playing solos when it gets up to a certain speed, but that is when I can laugh a little after playing ‘Ruby’ for ten years with the Osborne Brothers.” In addition to his work with Skaggs, Paul is also getting ready to start recording his rst solo project (on Skagg’s label, Ceili Records). Paul will draw from both his country and bluegrass backgrounds, but his

says the recording with be mainly acoustic, “not a lot of pedal steel and no electric guitar.” A lot of the songs will be from the county, gospel, and acoustic music material Paul has written himself. Although Paul Brewster is best known for his vocal talents, there is no disputing the fact that a guy who can keep up the rhythm for bands like the Osborne Brothers and Kentucky Thunder can certainly be called a “Master” of his trade. The rhythm style Paul has played with both of these great bands is one that might be new to many bluegrass players and it is something that is very difcult to accurately represent in tablature. We have recorded Paul demonstrating his technique and you can hear Paul’s rhythm style on the Flatpicking Guitar Magazine Audio CD which accompanies this issue.

Our first guitar book, for flatpicking monster Tim Stafford. Learn Tim’s solos from all 3 Blue Highway albums plus Alison Krauss’ Every Time You Say Goodbye. Tab and standard notation for 23 tunes all carefully proofed by Tim for accuracy. Lots of photos as well.

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Doc Watson’s “Way Down Town” Part II by Dix Bruce

Doc Watson’s Lead Guitar on “Way Down Town” Last time we looked in depth at Doc Watson’s rhythm guitar work on “Way Down Town” from the Smithsonian / Folkways CD set “Doc Watson and Clarence Ashley: The Original Folkways Recordings 1960-1962” and transcribed in my new book of the same title. (See below for availability.) Doc’s approach to playing lead on “Way Down Town” is kind of a hot rodded, expanded Carter-style which comes a natural extension of his rhythm, playing in other parts of the song. In both solos, he starts with the basic melody (included in the last column) and adds a variety of hammers,

Learn the tunes and solos of your choice, in any format. The Original Custom Transcription Service All styles and instruments: atpicking, ngerstyle, chord solos, melody, improvisation; other instruments (horns, woodwinds, piano, etc.) transcribed for guitar, mandolin, etc. I can also create custom arrangements. Private lessons via U.S. mail. Berklee graduate, professional recording and performing artist. Tab and/or standard notation. Details and tips on the Web:

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pulls, and strums. It works very well as a guitar solo or as a solo in an ensemble as Doc always keeps the rhythm going along with his lead. The rst solo below is used as the introduction to the song. Notice how the melody is simply stated without a lots of extra notes. By the time the vocal comes in, the listener already knows the tune. Beginning in the second full measure (don’t count the pickup) Doc begins using a series of hammers, much like he did in the rhythm work we looked at last time. In measure 11 (M11) he adds a pull off. In M6, 14, and 15 he plays around a little with the rhythm to get a syncopated feel through the use of eighth notes followed by quarter melody notes. In both solos Doc mixes single (down) and double (down-up) strums (see M1 on the F chord). The up stroke of the double strum is played much lighter than the down stroke and Doc usually plays only strings one, two, and sometimes three on the up stroke. I tried to notate all the instances of the double strums on “Way Down Town” as I think they make a difference to the sound Doc gets but they do add signicantly to the difculty of the piece. You can play them as written or as single strums. When Doc strums, he sometimes articulates individual chord tones, almost like an arpeggiated strum. (as in M12) If you get the timing right it makes for avery nice, full, sound. In the second lead solo below, Doc expands the ideas he played on the rst solo. This second solo includes more hammers and pulls and also uses the sixth string F bass note (M17) as in the rhythm part. I nd it quite interesting to compare the two solos. While they’re very similar, the second deftly enlarges on the rst and

makes great use of many of the elements of the backup we studied previously. The solos, when viewed in succession, offer a great study in developing theme and variation with a light artistic touch. It’s done in a style that brings the listener along on the improvisation. We always know what song he’s playing but his subtle changes are delightful and just enough to keep us interested in the process. Therein lies the genius. Listening to and studying Doc Watson as I have with this project allowed me to discover many wonderful aspects of his art. He is a master of guitar playing with a great command of the both the instrument and the traditional idiom. Once I had transcribed his individual notes, licks, and backup schemes, I tried to look at the larger picture and evaluate how each worked as a complete piece. There never seemed to be a note out of place, never a time when I thought the solo could be improved with a few more or a few less notes. It’s not that his playing is perfect - that would be boring - it just hangs together so well and sounds so much like him. I guess that’s the mark of a great artist.

Dix Bruce’s book “Doc Watson and Clarence Ashley: The Original Folkways Recordings 1960-1962” is available with the accompanying CDs from the author. Call Toll Free 1-877-219-0441, Musix PO Box 231005, Pleasant Hill, CA; e-mail: [email protected].

(617) 325-6853 46



Way Down Town

Arranged by Doc Watson Transcribed by Dix Bruce C

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47

Way Down Town (con’t) G7

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The Bluegrass Guitar Style of Charles Sawtelle To order, send

$19.95 plus $3.00 Shipping and Handling to: High View Publications P.O. Box 2160, Pulaski, VA 24301 or call

1 (800) 413-8296 to order with Mastercard or Visa

In addition to the tablature and standard notation of 27 Sawtelle solos, this book also includes: Detailed Sawtelle biography, An in-depth interview with Charles, Section on Charles’ rhythm style, Charles Sawtelle Discography, The rst ever Slade biography, Notes on each solo transcription, Dozens of photographs

48





49

Music Theory: Mastering the Fingerboard Technical Studies for Flatpickers. Alternate and painful ngerings... by Michel A. Maddux

How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice man, practice! We’re nally underwa underway. y. The clouds below are scattered, and Boston’s Logan airport is fading into the blue-green of the Atlantic Atlantic ocean. The aircraft is is level at 31,000 feet. With four and a half hours hours in the air ahead, I’m thinking about how to maintain technical prociency on the guitar for those that have only a short time each day to practice. In my day gig I do consulting for computer companies, so I travel quite a bit. In years past I have been on the road as much as 85% of the time. Sometimes the destination includes a concert, but not always. There have been years where I’ve own in to Wineld on Thursday night, and had my wife meet me at the contest with a guitar. (By the way, that’s not a great way to prepare for the National Championship - I don’t recommend it.) I work in an ofce that doesn’t encourage guitar playing (imagine that if you can!). Even so, I still try to get in quality practice time with the instrument each day. Now, I will admit that I no longer regularly carry a full size guitar on the road when I don’t have a concert waiting at the other end. Instead, I grab one of the small bodied practice guitars. In my case, I use a Martin Backpacker. The Backpacker is easy to carry through the airport, lightweight, and somewhat difcult to play because of the size of the body body.. This isn’t a review of the backpacker, so I won’t go into a lot of detail. My experience is that full size ngerboard of the Backpacker is a significant advantage. Enough of an advantage that I have chosen to carry it with me on road trips to keep my chops up. When I include one of the (readily available over the internet) free metronome programs on my laptop computer, I have a complete practice room in a portable package. With this capability there is really no excuse for not practicing practicing except time. That 50

begs the question, how do I maximize the effectiveness of the time I have left for practice? I started out my musical career as a trumpet player (well, that’s if you ignore the year of lessons on piano that my mother had me take when I was ve). On the trumpet, if you don’t play every day, it’s nearly impossible to maintain the embouchure. Embouchure is a French word that means the way you hold your mouth - just like in shing! When I was in the eighth grade I got a book on trumpet from Ernest S. Williams, a famous classical trumpeter, entitled The Secret of Technique Preservation . He called this “a compendium of exercises for those that only have 20 minutes per day to practice.” In the book, Mr. Williams Williams shows different exercises that you can do in a short time to exercise all of the major muscle groups and techniques required to maintain the right level of technique for the trumpet. Well, you’re probably asking, what does this have to do with the guitar? Simple: the application of similar reasoning to the guitar means that we should be able to come up with a method that will, at the very least, keep the skill already developed from deteriorating. Note that this this set of exercises won’t force you to grow very much musically. musically. To grow we must spend some portion of each day working to master new technique and new material. These exercises are for the player who has only a short time each day to polish technique. The Willi Williams ams method for trumpet takes the player through warm-up, into scale studies, both major and minor, diminished, augmented, seventh, chord studies, sight reading, slurring, whole-tone, range extension, and tonguing exercises, including single, double, and triple tonguing technique. To atpick the guitar, the techniqu techniques es that we study include warm-up, scale studies, both major and minor, minor, diminished, augmented, seventh, chord studies, sight-

reading, legato and staccato playing (the atpickers version of slurring and tonguing), whole-tone, ethnic, and unusual scale patterns, range extension, cross-picking, oaty,, and velocity studies. In other words, oaty a survey of the important elements of music, and the specic technique for atpickers.

The Secret of Technique Preservation - on guitar! I have have adapted adapted the concept of the Williams method for my personal use with the guitar guitar.. In 20 minutes of practice I want to use all of the important elements of the atpicking technique. Starting with with the warm-up, (5 minutes), I then proceed to scale studies (5 minutes), then on to cross picking and oaty studies (5 minutes), and nally wrap up with chord studies (5 minutes). To maintain maintain technical prociency through busy travel and work schedules, you need to do this drill at least 6 days a week. The good Lord and my trumpet instructor, both said to take one day per week off. I have found that six days a week is likewise the right number of days to practice and play the guitar guitar..

The WarmUp Use the rst ve minutes to get reacquainted with the guitar. Tune up the instrument, play slowly through an easy piece, get your mind working. Think about runners getting ready to do a long run. They rst stretch, and might jog jog a bit. Only when the blood ow to the muscles is ready do they begin the more difcult part of the run. Scale Studies Turn on the metronome. Set it to the speed that you’re comfortable playing the scale patterns. I like to start out a bit slowly, slowly, around 112 to 116 metronome markings, and play sixteenth sixteenth notes at that speed. Run the scale patterns, all keys in rst position. I like to do all 12 rst position major scales, a few minor scales, then run selected patterns



up the neck, usually in the key of C.

that you want to play in another position, higher on the neck. The problem of moving up and down the neck smoothly while keeping the melody and the music alive is one that offers several interesting and musical solutions. Differing players will use techniques that include a lick that moves, or playing a run that uses open strings. The rst example is the rst position C major scale, extended to the full two octaves. Note that the extension can be done smoothly, with no drop out in sound, by using open strings during a hand position shift.

Chord Studies The next 5 minutes minutes or so I’ll I’ll play play through through chord studies. For these I use the “big” chords. Use the examples from the Texas Swing given in previous issues of FGM, the Mickey Baker book, or make up your own. The important thing here is to keep your rhythm exactly right with the metronome, no matter what the tempo or changes. changes. Timing is all important. Cross-Picking/Floaty/Velocity I like to wrap up this brief practice session by playing a tune that uses cross-picking and oatys, then return to a simple scale for velocity studies. Always use the metronome to ensure that your timing is correct, then crank it up to the fastest you can possibly play for velocity studies. studies. For the last bit I’ll do a rst position C scale with the metronome at the highest velocity possible (for me that’s sixteenth notes at 150-176 range), and then try to play rhythm at the same or higher tempo. Playing rhythm at 176 MM and above is pretty challenging, but you can learn to do it. If you do that much every day as a minimum, you’ll nd that you can maintain technique, even though busy schedules don’t allow time for much else.

Notes: This form has you shifting from rst to fth position on both the ascending and on the descending form. While the open E string rings, move your hand to fth position. On the descending descending passage, again while the open E string rings, return to rst position. The next exercise moves between the rst position and fth position forms, playing a complete two octave C major scale in fth position before returning to rst position. Notes: This form requires several several hand position shifts. shifts. In measure 2, shift to fth fth position while while the open E rings. In measure 4, the rst three notes are ngered 4-2-1. In measure V, shift to IV position for the notes on frets 4-5-7, then back to Vth position. Complete the transition back to I position, again on the open E string. You may notice that measure 5 shows an alternate ngering for the scale pattern, and then repeats the C note on fret 8 to keep the timing constant.

Range Extension and Moving up the Neck On to new material. Today I want you to take a look at extending some of the rst position scales to a full two octaves. Frequently we nd that a melody extends beyond rst position. position. Maybe there is a lick

Now let’s do the same thing for the D major scale. Notes: This form has you shifting from rst to seventh position on both the ascending and on the descending form. While the open E string rings, move your hand to seventh position. On the descending passage, passage, again while the open E string rings, return to rst position. The next exercise does the same thing as the exercise in C, and requires hand shifts between the rst position and seventh position forms. You will be playing a complete two octave D major scale in seventh position before returning to rst position. Well, work on these, and experiment with other ways of making the hand position shift smoothly.. In time and smoothly and with practice practice you will nd that you can move between these positions easily. easily. Until next time, have fun, and keep on pickin’! About the author: Mike Maddux has been atpicking since 1981. He performs regularly in Colorado Springs and the western United States with his wife Bertye and “The Mike and Bertye Maddux Band.” His most recent CD, “OL Banjo,” is available through Flatpicking Guitar Magazine. Please contact him with questions or comments in care of this magazine.

C Major Scale - First and Fifth Positions. Repeat 8-16 times without stopping.

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51

By Request . . . Bruce and Nunally’s “Flat Seven Medley” We have decided to kill a lot of birds with one stone in this column. We have been receiving requests for some of the ddle tunes that we have yet to cover in the magazine to date. Jim Nunally and and Dix Bruce put several of these tunes together togethe r in a medley they call the “Flat Seven Seven Medley.” Medley.” The medley appears on their highly acclaimed Fathers To Sons CD, and we have provided a complete transcription of their cut in this issue. While it is very long, within the contents of this tab, you will get breaks to all of the following ddle tunes: tunes: “Red Haired Boy,” Boy,” “Paddy On The Turnpike,” “June Apple,” “Salt Creek,” “Old Joe Clark,” and “Big Mon.” Several of these great atpicking atpicking standards have yet to be transcribed in our magazine, so we felt this was a good opportunity to get those tabs to you. When Dix and Jim rst conceived of putting out a project together, togeth er, their rst idea was to have an instrumental album which highlighted their atpicking skills. They later made a decision to include vocals

and thus the focus of the album shifted. However, they had already worked up some mighty great breaks to ddle tunes and didn’t want that work to go to waste, so they decided to put the ddle tunes together in a medley. Jim and Dix noticed that many of the tunes they had worked up had a at seventh. Perceiving a theme here, they choose to play only the tunes that featured the at seventh and then appropriately titled the medley “Flat Seven Medley Medley.” .” Another consideration for song selection and performance was a historical aspect. Dix said that they wanted to provide tunes that were representative of ddle music from a historical historical perspective. perspective. Tunes like like “Red Haired Boy” and “Paddy On the Turnpike” are old tunes which came to America from from Ireland. The droning back up Jim plays on “Red Haired Boy” could be representative of the bagpipes. “Salt Creek” and “Old Joe Clark” are more representative of Appalachian music and since Doc Watson made “Salt Creek” one of the rst

great atpicking standards, you will notice that the tempo picks up when this tunes comes along in the medley medley.. The medley ends with “Big Mon” which is the newest composition and represents the transition from old-time mountain tunes to bluegrass music. Jim Nunally plays plays a great break break in the guitar’s lowest registers to add a nice twist to his rendition of this tune. For those readers who have been asking for more ddle tune standards—here you are! You now have six tunes and six pages of material to sink your teeth into!

Flatpicking ‘97 CD and Transcriptions in One Package! This new Mel Bay Publications project provides the Flatpicking ‘97 CD CD packaged in a book which contains the solo transcriptions for each tune. tune. Also included is a biographical sketch sketch of each artist.

To order, send

$19.95 plus $3.00 Shipping and Handling to:

High View Publications P.O. Box 2160 Pulaski, VA 24301 or call

1 (800) 413-8296 to order with Mastercard or Visa



53

Flat Seven Medley

Arranged by Dix Bruce and Jim Nunally

Red Haired Boy, capo 2

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PICKIN’ FIDDLE TUNES by Adam Granger

OF GOVERNORS AND GALOOTS Hello you galoots and galettes. I hope I’ve piqued your curiosity with my title this time. The “galoots” part is evident enough, with Cowboy’s Dream and Cowboy’s Reel honoring us with their ten-gallon presence. These two prairie biscuits are in my book (along with Cowboy’s Jig , by the way). There’s also a dandy waltz called the Cowboy’s Waltz . A jig, a reel, a dream and a waltz: that’s pretty much life in a nutshell, isn’t it? Well, anyway, back to the governor part. Down at Wineld a couple of years ago I got into a conversation with a Missourian about Marmaduke’s Hornpipe, and he told me that Missouri had had a governor whose rst or last name was Marmaduke, and that this tune was either written for him or was his favorite tune or both. It therefore goes by the alternate title The Governor’s Tune. Ergo the column title. Okay buckaroos, strap on your formal chaps, because we’re going to the State House to visit the Governor (and remember, aim for the spittoons and don’t scrape your spurs on the furniture). Marmaduke’s Hornpipe is the thorniest of these three mavericks, so we might as well rope it rst.

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Marmaduke’s is in open (uncapoed) D, as evidenced by the sea of open, second fret and fourth fret notes in the rst part. Go back to Volume 3, Number 1 and review the rst-position D scale and this will be smooth sailing. You can play the whole rst part in the second position, using the rst and third ngers, but be sure that you maintain the ability to play it in the rst position, using the second and fourth ngers. If you nd it hard to play this in rst position, play it there until it isn’t anymore. And now on to a pesky second part. The rst ve measures of the second part can be played in second position, and will invoke the top half of the abovementioned D scale. Now comes the fun part: Using the open note at the end of the fth measure as a oat point, move the index nger to the third fret. This will be your anchor in the storm to come. The fth- and seventh-fret notes are made with the second and fourth ngers. Your reverse oat point is the open note halfway through the seventh measure. Mind you, this passage can be played in the seventh-through-tenth-fret position. That’s how I present it in GFTFG. I would encourage you, though, to try it as shown here. Most hands should be able to make a ve-fret reach on most guitars. If you can’t make this reach right away, remember that you’re stretching out muscles, so take it easy and take your time. As my Uncle Ernie, who was married ve times and had thirteen careers, liked to say, Good things come to those who persevere! 60



Okay, now on to the easier stuff. In Cowboy’s Dream, we have another D tune. Apropos of my discussions in recent columns about the close relationship between tunes and scales, every single note in this tune is in the D scale. Cram on that scale for ve minutes and this tune will come to you like a hungry dog to hog jowls.

COWBOY’S DREAM I

D

A

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A BRIEF COMMENT ON CONTIGUOUS-STRING UNISON-FRET NOTE PAIRS (CONSTRUFRENOPS) Both of these tunes contain passages wherein same-fret contiguous-string pairs are found, to wit, the second, fourth and sixth measures of rst part of Cowboy’s Dream and the second, third, sixth and seventh measures of the rst part and all but the fourth and eighth measures of the second part of Cowboy’s Reel . (By the way, that’s the winner of our Long Complicated Sentence Competition). These can be played either by attening a nger or by “stepping over”, but they should not be played by hopping a nger. There will come a tempo at which this bad habit willcome back and bite you on the nose. In the second measure of the rst part of Cowboy’s Reel , then, the consecutive and contiguous third fret notes could be played either with one nger (the second or third), or with the third nger on the high E string followed by the second nger on the B string. I just made up the phrase “stepping over” to describe this action; it seems to t.

Other than the CONSTRUFRENOPS factor, there is absolutely nothing daunting or difcult about Cowboy’s Reel. Like its soporic cousin in the key of D, this tune references the G major scale 100%. (Listen up, you atpick tenderfeet: Learn the rst-position scales and the world is your oyster on a tortoise shell!)

starting at the end of the third measure of the second part. These four notes are innocuous at rst glance, but they will be found, with time, to contribute an understated insistance to the Cowboy’s Reel.

My favorite part of this tune is the two pairs of unison notes

COWBOY’S REEL G

I

C

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KEY: A (CAPO 2)

G

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All right, you saddle-sore city-slickers, we’re at trail’s end. Water your horses, hang up your tack, scrape off your boots and let’s go into the bunkhouse and pick ! (Oh, and check your guns at the door. . .) Adam Granger has been playing guitar since John Glenn orbited the Earth the rst time. He worked on A Prairie Home Companion for three years, as leader of the house band, The Powdermilk Biscuit Band. He has judged the National Flatpick Guitar Contest in Wineld, Kansas, and serves on the faculties of The Puget Sound Guitar Workshop, Camp Bluegrass in Levelland, Texas and The Stringalong Workshop in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. At the DJ Convention in the Noel Hotel in Nashville in 1971, he recorded a song on a tape recorder that Mac Martin had set up in his room. Kenny Baker watched. Nervous beyond redemption, he played and sang terribly, and broke a G-string on Martin’s guitar. Adam’s book, Granger’s Fiddle Tunes for Guitar , is the largest collections of ddle tunes in guitar tablature, and, along with the accompanying set of recordings of the 508 tunes, it comprises t he largest source of ddle tunes for atpickers in the world.



61

Exploring Bluegrass Guitar Starting Up The Neck II by Steve Pottier As I wrote in the last column, learning to play up the neck is a process of organizing the territory. In my mind, it is organized in the chord shapes presented last time, and new chord fragments, scales and licks “hang” off of those shapes. For example, try a G chord using a D shape at the 7th fret, which I write as G(d7). If I want a G7 chord there, it will look like my D7 down the neck, just moved up to the 7th fret. I still think of G(d7) but now it’s a 7th chord at the same position. Another way of using these chord shapes as landmarks is to think of surrounding notes that might be used in melodies or licks with that shape. Of course, all the notes around the shape may be used at one time or another depending on what key you’re in, whether you use chromatic notes, etc. I’ve drawn diagrams that will give you a start on some likely possibilities. (insert diagrams here) So now the plan is this: 1) Learn the chord shapes around the neck by strumming them in chord progressions you already know. Feel free to substitute any of the shapes for the chord you’re in. If you’re playing G chords, you could use

the F at the 3rd fret [G(f3)], the D at the 7th fret [G(d7)] or the Bb at the 10th fret [G(Bb10)], which are all G chords (called inversions). I’ll call this learning the major landmarks. 2) Memorize the surrounding notes and use them to help you nd familiar melodic fragments. Try “Row Row Row Your Boat,” “Wildwood Flower,” “Wreck of the Old ’97.” It doesn’t have to be the whole melody, just a piece you can remember and nd. The idea is to relate the notes in your head to places on the ngerboard. Try some of the lead-ins I’ve tabbed out. Try Salt Creek. This is starting to become familiar with the territory around the landmarks (and this goes on forever). 3) Transpose licks you already know. Play them in the same key an octave higher. If you can, transpose licks in G to licks in C and vice-versa. This is a way to multiply what you already know. 4) Learn to connect the chord shapes, transitioning from one position to the next higher position, or from one chord to the next.

Bb Shape

5) Learn to work out your best ngering solutions for the ideas that you have. This plan is a continuation of the “expanding on what you already know” idea. The three chord shapes you already know. Chord progressions to songs you already know. Put them together up the neck and now you’re gaining knowledge of the landmarks that will allow you to play up the neck. You expand on this by learning the surrounding notes, and so on. Later, you will start the whole cycle over as you learn other chord shapes, etc. One more chord shape to add to the ones I’ve already shown: the “inside” D. It’s really just an extension of the rst D shape, but eliminating the rst string. It’s actually the middle part of a C chord shape. I still think of it as being part of the D shape, but the ngering allows you to get some melody notes that might otherwise be awkward. On the following page are some pieces of tunes and lead-ins to get you started, followed by a verse of “Faded Love.”

F Shape X

X X

X X

X

D Shape

“Inside” D Shape X

X X

= chord note

62

= scale note

X

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Example 3 G (d7)

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63

Faded Love

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Arranged by Steve Pottier C

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3

Flatpicking ‘98

Featuring 20 of today’s best atpicking guitarists: • James Alan Shelton • Dan DeLancey • Charles Sawtelle • Richard Bennett • • Russ Barenberg • Dan Crary • Sean Watkins • Larry Sparks • Richard Starkey • • Luke Bulla • Craig Vance • Adam Granger • Jimmy Haley • Orrin Star • • Mike Maddux • Jim Nunally and Dix Bruce • Chris Jones • • Jeff Autry • John McGann • Joe Carr •

Flatpicking Guitar Magazine Presents:

Flatpicking ‘98

Featuring 20 tunes that have been transcribed and presented in the second volume of Flatpicking Guitar Magazine

A Great Flatpicking Guitar Sampler! Send a check or money order for $15 (includes postage costs) to: Flatpicking Guitar Magazine, PO Box 2160, Pulaski, VA 24301 or call 800-413-8296

Listen to Want You Have Been Reading! 64



John McGann's Eclectic Acoustic Traditional Irish Music I Farrell O’ Gara For the next several issues I am going to focus on playing traditional Irish music on the guitar. Much of our American heritage of ddle tunes and bluegrass is developed from the basis of these older traditions from Ireland and Scotland. This music is the root of white American “roots music.” There aren’t many albums of Irish atpicking, as the guitar is considered a newcomer among the venerable ddle, ute, accordian, pipes, and just when you thought you could get away: banjos! (Although they are 4 string rather than 5, they are at least as loud). One obvious reason is volume: a guitar lead is quickly drowned out in a session-sound familiar? That won’t stop us, however- these tunes work wonderfully as solo settings without accompaniment, and many of my favorite recordings are of solo instruments playing the melodies. Actually, in the Irish tradition, chordal instruments are

relatively new arrivals on the scene. The scarcity of lead guitarists in an Irish traditional setting allows us to focus on other instruments for source material, allowing us to avoid the dreaded guitar player’s syndrome of becoming ingrown from only concentrating on other guitarists! An awareness of what the tradition is all about is crucial in developing a style that is idiomatically correct; in other words, we should look to the instruments that have a long, deep history in playing this music for guidance in how to approach the music on guitar, rather than merely applying bluegrass concepts to the music. “Farrell O’Gara” is a standard tune recorded by the most famous Irish ddler Michael Coleman in April 1927, and has been recorded countless times by many great instrumentalists. My setting (Irish for “version”) is close to that played by my good friend, the legendary accordianist Joe Derrane, who made his rst 78 rpm recordings here in Boston in 1948, and is

blazing away better than ever. You can hear Joe play this and many other excellent tunes on his “Return From Inis Mor” CD ( Green Linnet 1163). This tune works well on the guitar ngerboard in standard tuning. You’ll nd some tunes in the Irish repertoire a bit awkward on the guitar, as they were most likely designed by ddlers with the GDAE tuning (low to high). The tuning DADGAD has become very popular in Irish music, and other tunings such as CGDGAD and DADEAE work nicely as well. As you’ll hear on the recording, I prefer to emulate the smoother sounds of the ddle by slurring (pull offs or hammer ons) rather than picking every note, which is common practice among Irish banjo players.

Flatpicking Guitar Magazine maintains a

Transcription Index at our web site. Visit the following web page: http: //www.atpick.com/Pages/Tab_ Index/Tab_Index.html

This index includes an alphabetical listing of every song that has been transcribed in this magazine and tells you which issue the tab is in, what page number it is on, and who arranged and/or transcribed it. Use this web page as a handy reference whenever you are itching to learn a new tune, but can’t nd it in your stack of back issues.



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New Release Highlight

John Lowell: Growling Old Men Reviewed by Dan Miller

Fans who have been around bluegrass music for the past 20 or 30 years have seen the guitar come a long way. In the early days it was very rare for the guitar to have anything but a supporting role. Eventually players like Clarence White began to change that and bands slowly started to let the guitar player step out in front once in a while. Today, in contemporary bands, you almost have to be a solid lead player to get hired, and great lead players are popping up in bluegrass music all over the country. When I heard the new CD Growling Old Men from Ben Winship and John Lowell, the rst thing that crossed my mind was, “Wow, here is another great lead guitar player that I have never heard of before. These guys are everywhere!” But with John, I soon realized that the guitar work was not even half the story. John is one of a relatively rare breed of “triple threat” players. He is a great atpicker, great singer, and a great song writer. You don’t nd too many that excel in all three of those areas and so, after listening to this great new CD, I was very interested in nding out more about this guy John Lowell. John spent his early years in Colorado. He started to play the guitar when he was about thirteen years old. John Denver was the man who inspired him to pick up a Harmony guitar that his dad had bought for his sister, but his sister had soon given up. So early-on John had that singersongwriter inuence through John Denver. When John was fteen, his family moved from Colorado to Arizona. John was not very happy with the move and thus delved deeper into the John Denver song repertoire, which helped remind him of his old home in Colorado. When John was about sixteen (1973) he met a classmate, Lee Gendvilas, who played the banjo. Lee introduced John to bluegrass and he says, “I was bit hard by the bluegrass bug.” He quickly began to try to play lead guitar to songs that Lee knew—like “Cripple Creek” and “Dueling Banjos.” He also began to attend the monthly meetings of the Arizona Pickers and Grinners Society. At these meetings he met a player named Arlen Nelson who taught him how to pick some Carter style tunes and other songs like Flatpicking Guitar Magazine

“Wreck of the Old 97.” While still in high school John and some of his friends even started their own bluegrass band called the Smoggy Mountain String Band. Remembering that early group John simply states “we were horrible.” Through his playing with the band and at the Pickers and Grinners meetings, John began to slowly develop his atpicking skills, but he states that he really didn’t start to learn a whole lot about the art of atpicking the guitar until he happened to meet Peter McLaughlin at a festival in Payson, Arizona. John was amazed at Peter’s talent and while that chance meeting at the festival didn’t necessarily bear much fruit in and of itself, John discovered that Peter was attending college in Flagstaff at the same school he was preparing to attend. When John entered college, he immediately sought out Peter and the two remained close picking buddies for the next ve years. John says, “I remember one semester where Peter and I had similar schedules. We both ended class at 11:00 am and didn’t have to go to another class until 2:00. We had lunch together frequently and picked. Whenever I would hear him play a cool lick, I would stop him and he would show it to me. He would go over it until I got it. He never got tired of me asking questions. I owe Peter a huge debt.” Peter also introduced John to the playing of Tony Rice and John began to devour every Rice album he could nd. He said, “I wanted to sound just like Tony. That was all I would listen to.” After a while, so


many people commented on how much he sounded like Rice that it began to wear on him. He said, “I then decided that I was not going to sound like Rice. I stopped listening to him entirely so that there wouldn’t be any more inuence. Every time I designed a break to a song I would say to myself, ‘Does this sound like Rice?’ if it did, I would change it. I decided that it would be better to sound like a rst class me, whatever that is, than a second class Rice.” During his college years, while he was at school in Flagstaff, John also played in a duo called the Laser Brothers with Dennis Collins. During the summer months, John spent time working various outdoor jobs in Wyoming. During the winter months, while at school, he also spent time as a ski instructor. After college he moved, sight unseen, to Bozeman, Montana, and in 1980 joined a band there called Medicine Wheel. John describes that band as “an eclectic band with bluegrass instrumentation.” In 1985 a friend offered John a job as a ski school director in Colorado. He stayed there for two ski seasons, but there was not much music in town. He moved back to Bozeman in 1987 and started a band called Wheel Hoss. This band stayed together for seven years and in 1993 was awarded second place in the Pizza Hut band contest in Owensboro, Kentucky. John’s career as a songwriter began in about 1988 when he heard Bob Amos and his group Front Range. Front Range was recording a lot of original material and John said, “I thought that was cool.” Then and there he decided to become a songwriter. Although John doesn’t consider himself a prolic songwriter, he says he will write 4 or 5 songs in a good year, he has written some songs of incredible quality. Once you hear his “Cottonwood” or “Sarah Hogan,” I think you will agree. Over the years John has recorded 15 of his own tunes and his songs have also been covered by bluegrass bands such as Front Range, New Vintage, and Bluegrass, Etc. (who have cut three of his tunes). It was in 1987 that John rst met Ben Winship. Ben was playing in the Idaho-based band Loose Ties and the two met at a festival

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in Grand Targhee. John said that for a while he worshiped Loose Ties from afar because they were “just so good.” He says, “Later I realized that they were a bunch of regular guys and I started to pick with them.” When Wheel Hoss broke up in 1994, John was hired to play guitar with Loose Ties. It was during the long road trips with Loose Ties that the seeds for the Winship and Lowell project were sewn. John explains, “We went on the road and Ben and I would sit in the back of the van and jam together for hours. We had such a great time jamming that we began to talk about recording together.” John stayed with Loose Ties for about two years. The band broke up and all of its members went their separate ways in 1996. It was in also in 1996 that John left his job as purchaser for Gibson, a position he had held since 1988. During those years he was the man that bought all of Gibson’s wood, inlay, strings, tuners, etc., for their at top acoustic guitars. While at Gibson, in 1991, John had the opportunity to build his own guitar. He says, “It was the rst guitar I ever built and I got lucky because it is a cannon.” John was interested in owning a rosewood Dreadnought and at the time Gibson did not have such a model in their catalog. He began to beg, borrow, and steal parts from other guitars Gibson was building and came up with a

“Heinz 57.” He used the J-30 mold, got a “junk neck” that Gibson was going to throw out because it had knots in it, scavenged red spruce to brace the top, found some Sitka spruce to use as top wood and used Indian rosewood for the back and sides. He got some Waverly W-16 tuner prototypes from Stewart-MacDonald, a Brazilian rosewood bridge, and a dotless ebony fretboard. He braced the top like an Advanced Jumbo. John says that cosmetics were not really a concern. He focused on sound. He says, “I spent two weeks looking for a top. I tapped and listened to at least 50 sets of top wood.” John now plays guitar in a four piece contemporary bluegrass band called Deep River and Ben Winship plays with the Judith Edelman Band. However, those seeds that were sewn in the back of the Loose Ties van eventually came to fruition in Growling Old Men. Growling Old Men Imagine two extremely talented musician friends meeting for a casual afternoon jam session. One brings out the guitar, the other tunes up his mandolin. It is a “barefeet and shorts” kind of day. They kick back on the porch, relax, and, as the picks hit strings, they begin to instinctively blend their voices and instruments together–just like old times. As the afternoon progresses,

they share some of the original material each has been writing and also spend some time kicking around old favorites. There you have Growling Old Men—two talented songwriters, singers, and musicians having fun sharing great music and laughter. Luckily the tape was rolling and they have given us the opportunity to share it with them. Although this project was recorded in Ben Winship’s backyard “henhouse” studio (complete with an old bed mattress between the two musicians to provide separation), you never get the feeling that the music is too loose or too sparse. You don’t miss the banjo, the ddle, the bass, or dobro. Matt Flinner came in later to add the nishing touches to a few tunes by providing some rhythm guitar, but otherwise it is just Ben and John having fun. In this case, that is enough. It has everything it needs. The musicianship and vocals are tight and solid, the quality of the recording is outstanding, but above that, there is a comfort and casualness to the voices, the lyrics, and the intrumentation that draws you in and keeps you listening to it over and over again. If your band is looking for fresh material, or if you just want to bring some great new tunes to the local Saturday night jam, you have reason enough to buy this CD. Both Winship and Lowell are outstanding song writers. Winship’s “Lily Green” and Lowell’s “Sarah Hogan” are destine to become bluegrass standards. Lowell’s atpicking is solid and fresh. His sound is his own and his arrangements t the songs perfectly. The CD contains two instrumentals, the traditional “Long Fork of the Buckhorn” and Winship’s “Goodnight Grampa.” The mandolin and guitar smoothly swap solos back and forth as if conversing. Other favorites of mine include the duo’s treatment of old standards such as “Roving Gambler” and “Blue Ridge Mountain Blues,” the Dan McGinnis tune “Jack Haggerty” and a soulful rendition of “Rye Whiskey.” This one is denitely a “keeper.”

John Lowell (guitar) and Ben Winship (mandolin) 68



Sarah Hogan Key of E Capo II

Arranged by Doug Rorrer Transcribed by Matt Flinner

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69

Reviews CD Reviews Doc and Richard Watson: Third Generation Blues Sugar Hill CD-3893

guitar chores- who’s playing what isn’t well documented, so let’s just say that sound pretty similar. The solos stick pretty close to the melody and the emphasis is denitely on the song and not on ashy playing. If you liked Doc and Merle, or if you like acoustic blues, I think you’ll enjoy this album. It’s the kind of laid-back music you might play on your front porch as the cool evening chases away a hot day.

Reviewed by Bryan Kimsey

John Yates and the Yates Brothers with special guest Wyatt Rice Eastwood Records

Song List: Honey Please Don’t Go; If I Were A Carpenter; House Of The Rising Sun; Gypsy Davey; St. James Inrmary; Uncloudy Day; South Coast; Milk Cow Blues; Train Whistle Blues; Moody River; Columbus Stockade Blues; Walk On Boy; Summertime; Precious Lord Take My Hand Doc Watson is the man of all styles, playing bluegrass right alongside rockabilly. On “Third Generation Blues” Doc and grandson Richard show that acoustic blues are well within their reach, too. “Third Generation” refers to the fact that Richard is the late, great Merle Watson’s son and, like his dad, he shows a strong propensity for the blues. Doc and Merle played together with T. Michael Coleman on bass, and it’s thus appropriate that T. Michael joins Doc and Richard for this recording. There’s a lot here for atpickers, especially those who dabble in the blues as well as bluegrass. This isn’t acoustic blues such as played by some of the Delta bluesmen, but a very bluegrassy blues with a characteristic bass-strum beat. Doc does all the singing and has never sounded better. Nobody does this material better than Doc. Both Doc and Richard evidently share lead 70

for over 30 years. It is worth the price of the CD just to hear John Yates’ tenor singing on “Joshua.” The tunes on this CD are: It’s A Lonesome Feeling, Bill Cheatem, Sally Ann, Billy In The Lowground, Song For Life, Big Sandy, Nine Pound Hammer, Joshua, Snow Deer, Willow Mason, Maiden’s Prayer, Worried Soul, and Lee Highway Blues. If you are a Wyatt Rice fan, this is one you do not want to miss. Wyatt does some fantastic lead picking and, as always, his rhythm behind John Yates’ ddle work is superb. At Steve Kaufman’s Camp this past June, a number of campers asked me if I knew what Wyatt was up to these days. In addition to working on this new recording with the Yates Brothers, Wyatt will be touring this the band this summer. The band will play at the Roanoke Bluegrass Weekend (November 19 through 21) during the Saturday evening show. Wyatt will be an instructor on Saturday, 20 November and will focus on teaching advanced rhythm concepts.

Reviewed by Dan Miller Wyatt Rice came by the house back in June and dropped off some copies of his newest CD. It is called “John Yates & The Yates Brothers with special guest Wyatt Rice.” Wyatt produced and mixed the CD and he plays lead guitar solos on every cut. He also even sings! He sings lead on “Nine Pound Hammer” and bass on “Joshua.” The band consists of John Yates on ddle, Herb Yates on rhythm guitar, Greg Yates on mandolin, and Tim Yates on bass. John’s ddle and Wyatt’s guitar are denately the featured lead instruments here, so you get a lot of great guitar breaks from Wyatt. The vocals are real tight as you might expect from a family that has been singing together

Also, we featured Wyatt’s crosspicking style rhythm playing in the July/August issue of Flatpicking Guitar. After working with Wyatt for that article he mentioned that he would be willing to work with us on more advanced rhythm articles and we are going to take him up on that. Wyatt is one of the best rhythm players in the business and it will be great to include a series of articles detailing his rhythm style. By the way, we have Wyatt’s new CD (and cassettee) available through our Flatpicking Mercantile catalog. You can call 800-4138296 to order.



Kamp Kaufman Presents The Best Of The Camp Concert Series (1998)

Reviewed by Joel Stein Live CDs often tend to act as snapshots—a keepsake to remind one of a concert of a favorite band. As anyone who has been to Kaufman’s guitar camp can attest, the concert series can be overwhelming: one incredibly hot guitar solo after another. One suspects that the mandolin camp inaugurated in 1998 (the year these tracks were recorded) is much the same. Given the nature of the concerts these tracks are culled from, a cd is a welcome keepsake. In selecting the tracks, Kaufman wisely offers a varied selection of styles and instrumentation from track to track. Let’s face it, a cd comprised entirely of guitar interpretation of hot ddle tunes can prove to be tedious listening. The CD kicks off with a rousing take on “Whiskey Before Breakfast,” featuring Kaufman, Roy Curry, Allen Shadd, Mike Whitehead and Robin Kessinger. As one might expect, the stakes are raised with each passing solo. Kaufman and George Shuffler take a turn on the crosspicked “Bury Me Beneath That Weeping Willow Tree,” that offers a soft counterpoint to the ashy picking that precede it. The following tracks intersperse dobro, guitar, mandolin and vocals in various combinations. Standout tracks include a jazzy instrumental version of “Wayfairing Stranger” featuring Whitehead and Kaufman on guitars with Phil Leadbetter (from J.D. Crowe’s band) on dobro. Leadbetter’s dobro punctuates the mournful sound of the minor chord structure. “Oh Sultana/St. Anne’s Reel” by Pat Flynn and Tim May is a revelation on two well known tunes. Flynn’s arrangement alters the pace of “St. Anne’s” breathing new life into the tune. “Nine Pound Hammer” with Tim Stafford on guitar and vocal and Robin Bullock on mandolin harks back to the great brother Flatpicking Guitar Magazine

duets of the Whites, Louvins and the Delmores. Perhaps one of the strongest cuts is the under recorded Mike Compton on a solo version of “Gospel Plow.” With just mandolin and vocal, Compton draws the listener in, not unlike when Ry Cooder does his solo mandolin version of “Billy The Kid.” Compton’s simple elegance and instrumental mastery lend the song an organic and rootsy feel. No Kaufman camp concert series would seem complete with out some stand out guitar solos from Kaufman and one of his rousing duets with his long time picking buddy, Kessinger. Kamp Kaufman doesn’t disappoint offering a solid version of Kaufman’s Winfeild winning “Greensleeves,” with its changing tempos and Kaufman’s awesome technique. “Cincinnati Rag” gives Kaufman the chance to display their humor (a series of false starts by Kessinger coupled with droll commentary and a Three Stooges sound effect by Kaufman) and incendiary picking from two Wineld champs. The rapport these two share is evident in the deft back up offered as each take turns soloing on the tune. The CD offers a sampling of some of the nest guitarists and mandolinists practicing today and certainly offers a comprehensive overview for players and listeners alike of some of the hottest picking anywhere. Featuring: Norman Blake, Robin Bullock, Curtis Burch, Dan Crary, Mike Compton, Roy Curry, Pat Flynn, Beppe Gambetta, Steve Kaufman, Robin Kessinger, Phil Leadbetter, Mike Maddox, John Reischman, Allen Shadd, George Shufer, Tim Stafford, Skip Staples, Tut Taylor, Mike Whitehead


71

Instructional Book Reviews The Norman Blake Anthology Mel Bay Publications by Steve Kaufman

The Legacy of Doc Watson Mel Bay Publications by Steve Kaufman

Reviews by Joel Stein One can’t help but be amazed at Steve Kaufman’s prodigious talent. Not only is he a remarkable guitar player, but he is a one man educational industry. Producing magazine columns, videos, books, CDs, workshops and, perhaps the premier atpicking guitar camp in the country, Kaufman has done more to spread the gospel of atpicking guitar than anyone since the invention of the plectrum. That brings us to Kaufman’s latest barrage of releases (where does he get time to sleep), The Norman Blake Anthology and The Legacy Of Doc Watson (both published by Mel Bay Publications, Pacic, MO). 72

The Legacy of Doc Watson is clearly a

labor of love. Doc Watson’s impact on guitar is unquestionable and the biographical essay written by Dan Miller (editor and publisher of this magazine) should be required reading for all interested in learning the history of the atpicking style. Kaufman analyzes 21 solos from Watson’s repertoire, including three medleys of ddle tunes, so you’re really getting 24 tunes here. To give a better picture of Watson’s style, Kaufman takes a few tunes—most notably “Black Mountain Rag”—and offers transcriptions of solos from Doc & Merle’s Guitar Album and the Essential Doc Watson. That’s a total of six solos tabbed out with variations thrown in for one tune. To further enhance the value of The Legacy of Doc Watson, Kaufman includes an interview with Watson as well as interspersed comments from Watson regarding many of the songs and how he came to record them. In addition, Kaufman offers helpful hints on ngering and picking, and capo position to assist playing along with Doc on record. A discography of where each of the transcriptions can be found on record is a welcome bonus for the aspiring student. The one shortcoming of this book is the traditional stiff binding, a wire binding (like the one used for the Blake volume) would hold up better to the repeated use this book, and it’s subject, deserves. The Norman Blake Anthology represents a totally different approach. Where the Doc Watson volume is a study of a guitarist, The Norman Blake Anthology is primarily a study of a songwriter. Included here are 35 songs and three instrumental rags. While many think of Blake as a guitarist and multi instrumentalist, this volume demands that one pay attention to Blake as a writer. Blake’s writing is as evocative of the South as Faulkner or Twain—and deserves recognition. One of the goals, according to Kaufman’s introduction, was to capture the “Southern Poetic Sense” of Blake’s lyrics. In fact, in his editing, Blake changed words like “and” to “an” and dropped “g” from words like “riding” to stay true to his voice. For the rst time, fans of Blake are rewarded with authoritative lyrics for many of Blake’s best loved songs. For example, we can now say with surety that it’s “Hell on Church Street Blues” and not “Hello Church Street Blues” as many people have sung over the years. Kaufman tabs out the melodies for those who might be unfamiliar with the particular tunes. While a thorough discography of

Blake’s solo recordings is included, the book fails to say which albums the selections are taken from. Kaufman offers tab of Blake’s guitar, mandolin, mandola or ddle solos for each of the tunes as applicable. As with the Watson book, Kaufman offers the capo position that Blake utilizes so that students can play along with the recordings if they choose. In a few instances, the editors mix up keys, showing Em position capoed at the second fret and saying it’s F# (“Back In Yonder’s World”) and referring to a song in C position capoed at 7 as in the correct key of F in one place and C in another (“Chattanooga Sugar Babe”). Unfortunately, aside from capo position, The Norman Blake Anthology lacks any of Kaufman’s insightful commentary. In a way, the book is much like Blake...it is what it is. Given Blake’s work, there’s little problem in that. In all, Kaufman has once again produced a body of rewarding work for the student and fan of atpicking guitar. The books both offer insights to two of the leading voices in atpicked style that offer somethign to both the beginning and advanced atpicker. The Legacy Of Doc Watson songs include: Black Mountain Rag, Blackberry Rag, Blue Ridge Mountain Blues, Carroll County Blues, Doc’s Guitar, Doc’s Rag, Don’t Let Your Deal Go Down, Down Yonder, Fisher’s Hornpipe/Devil’s Dream, Freight Train Blues, I Am A Pilgrim, I Heard My Mother Weeping, New River Train, Rising Sun, Roll On Buddy, Salt Creek/Bill Cheetham, Sheeps In The Meadow/Stoney Fork, Sittin’ Here Pickin’ The Blues, Texas Gales, Tom Dooley, Will The Circle Be Unbroken. The Norman Blake Anthology songs include: ’76 Blues, Back In Yonder’s World, Billy Grey, Blake’s Railroad Blues, Charlie Gaither, Chattanooga Rag, Chattanooga Sugar Babe, Church Street Blues, Crossing No. 9, Down At Milo’s House, Ginseng Sullivan, Green Light On The Southern, Greycoat Soldiers, The Highland Light, In The Spring Of The Year, Jimmy, John and James, Lincoln’s Funeral Train, Lonesome Jenny, Macon Rag, My Old Home On The Green Mountain Side, Ol ’ Bill Miner, Old Ghost’s Cry, Old Time Farmer, On And On And On, Paramount Rag, The Railroad Days, Randall Collins, Ridge Road Gravel, Savannah Rag, Slow Train Through Georgia, Uncle Sam, The Weathered Old Caboose Behind The Train, We’re Living In The Future, Whiskey Deaf and Whiskey Blind, Last Train From Poor Valley, Uncle Tin Foil And Stone.



BLUEGRASS GUITAR UNIVERSITY

We’ve all felt like the kid who came to school without his homework, at a bluegrass festival. That’s why we have compiled our learning materials in the logical order that will take you from beginner to professional. This course schedule will make you a totally functional member of a bluegrass band, a professional session man, solo performer, & artist with complete knowledge and ability.

Your First Guitar lesson (learn guitar in 7 days!)

There are many beginning guitar videos, but this is the only one that truly realizes that a person can only concentrate on “one thing at a time”. The result is something so easy & fun that you’ll wonder why you’ve waited this long to take up music. You will learn the most commonly used open chords, fun familiar songs to try them out on, and how to make your guitar easy to play! (video/booklet) #6806...$29.95

Bluegrass Guitar (Video)

Learn the "Golf Swing" of guitar, in other words: this video teaches you correct right and left hand techniques that allow you to learn faster and play faster with better tone, volume, accuracy, and speed. There seems to be less importance placed on "technique" and "form" in swimming, archery, & snow skiing. It can’t be emphasized enough that "THE RIGHT WAY IS THE EASY WAY"! All important techniques & practice habits are taught here plus 5 tunes. (Video/booklet) #1009...$24.95

Easy guitar Solos Now that we’ve got our form in place, lets learn some easy solos. These solos are "Carter Family Style", which is the simple melody with the chords mixed in. This gives you your foundation for understanding how the melody fits the chord progression. It’s also the foundation for more advanced guitar playing & solo development. It’s the style that modern bluegrass evolved from. (CD/book) #6818... $16.95

Perfecting Bluegrass Guitar Solos

Bluegrass Wordbook & Songbook (with Audio)

Just a collection of the most standard songs in bluegrass. A reference library of material that will create a bond between you and everyone you meet in bluegrass. Make up your own solos to songs from this work, have it on hand at group practices, play along with it trying out your licks It’s the songbook you can hear! (2 books, 4 cassettes, 5 hours) #2590...$39.95

Improvising Bluegrass Guitar

A collection of "Cool licks" for your bag of tricks. A cleaver & valuable concept to get you feeling your way around the world of "faking unknown songs”. (book/cassette) #1017...$14.95

Creating Guitar for Bluegrass songs Learn the "secret formula" to make up your own solos! This exciting new video is just like Chris’s audio designing lesson, only all different songs. Thru the magic of this all new video Chris has really made it exciting, fun, & easy! (Video/Tab) #6892...$29.95

Designing Guitar Solos for Bluegrass Songs

Teaches you to make up your own “Melody Oriented” solos! When you can do this, you are a master! Includes: music theory, melody association, hot lick stylization, and a bit of magic that we can call "art". (Book/2 cassettes) #1023...$24.95

The definitive course on "How to Practice Efficiently". When you practice properly, you can learn more in less time. You will be applying these efficient principals to everything you learn for the rest of your life. As an added bonus, it teaches you a "contest tune" with 4 variations! Bluegrass is a competitive sport, & this is a perfect arrangement. Remember, preparing for a competition is a great project! (Video/tab) #3569...$29.95

Creating Guitar for Banjo Instrumentals

Bluegrass Guitar the Right Way is the Easy Way

How To Sing Bluegrass Harmony I, II, III, & Gospel

Now we start to build a collection of songs that we can play with others. Different than "Easy Guitar Solos" in that they are the more modern approach, similar in design to a mandolin or fiddle solo. These solos are well designed to give you some favorites, but expose you to the musicianship building skills that you’ll need as a foundation. 40 of the most popular bluegrass instrumentals designed to give you the songs that everyone will be playing at festivals & impromptu jam sessions. Definitely the material you’d better know when you get-out- among- ‘em. (4 cassettes/4 books) #1015...$49.95

Understanding the Formula of Music... Makes it So Easy

You’ve been trustingly following the teacher with blind faith. He’s been telling us "what" to do, but not "why"... You sit back & watch this video like a movie, and suddenly it all means something! Ah ha! Now the people that have been tapped directly into your wallet have a little less power over you. You understand how music works! (2-hour video) #3518...$39.95

Write or call for a FREE CATALOG containing thousands of video & audio music lessons.

Toll free: 800-543-6125

Banjo is fingerpicking but guitar is flatpicking. Chris's "secret formula" will have you making up your own guitar solos to banjo songs in no time, & you'll never have to take a back seat to a banjo instrumental again! (Video/tab) #6893.....$29.95

In a bluegrass band, you gotta get involved! If you can sing a part, you’re that much more valuable. If you don’t fancy yourself a big "lead vocalist", you might be surprised to realize that singing a part is pretty easy & not as embarrassing as singing alone. It’s also quite helpful for learning “twin guitar”. (*each series is 2 cassettes) #1306, 1307, 1308, 1309...$19.95 each

Twin Guitar Workshop These are beautiful solos with harmonizing part so that you can play duets with your guitar picking partner. Intermediate thru advanced & well fitting parts to entertain, amaze, and give you "twin" skills. (book/cassette) #1016...$14.95

How to Figure out Music from Recordings The most important thing in the world of music. This procedure is what made famous peo ple “famous.” This is what develops your ear, & the other courses prepared you for it. (2hour video) #6337...$39.95

Phone:

512-543-6125 Fax: 512-327-6603 Visit our web site at: www.jumpnet.com/~musicianworkshop Email Us at: [email protected]

Musician’s Workshop P.O. Box 161921 Austin, Tx 78716-1921 Flatpicking Guitar Magazine


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Guitar Highlight:

Kim Walker Style C Deluxe Dreadnought by David Dugas

As a atpicker, I wasn’t familiar with the work of Kim Walker until my friend Kim Sherman of Cotten Music in Nashville, introduced me to one of his guitars early last year. It was a 000-12 fret mahogany/German spruce guitar with a 1 3/4" nut and a through saddle (I love wide necks and through saddles). I was instantly smitten with this little guitar, but felt the German spruce wasn’t quite the sound I was looking for in a small bodied atpicking guitar. However, it was perfect for ngerstyle playing! The 000-12 fret was extremely comfortable to play, had great dynamic range and its sound was full and rich with clarity (some folks call this brightness). I have a particular preference for Adirondack for my atpicking guitars. Therefore, in my opinion, a mahogany/Adirondack 000 12-fret will make a great little atpicking guitar! But, this review isn’t about the Walker 000 12-fret. . .Over the past year I’ve made a point of playing as many Walker guitars as possible. Currently, I’ve played two mahogany/German spruce 000-12’s, one jaguar claw mahogany/Adirondack 000-12 fret, one Indian/bearclaw Sitka OM, one jaguar claw mahogany/bear claw Sitka 0-18, one maple/Adirondack L-00 (I bet you didn’t think maple and Adirondack would work, but it does!), one Brazilian/Adirondack dreadnought, and last, but certainly not least, one ribbon-grained mahogany/Adirondack dreadnought. Please don’t ask me to pick one of the above guitars as my favorite because they are all wonderful instruments; indeed they are among my favorite guitars. Recently, it was my distinct pleasure to play the Walker ribbon-grained mahogany/ Adirondack dreadnought (serial number 111) listed above. I spent an afternoon reveling in its wonderful sound. The instrument easily t into a jam of “Soldier’s Joy,” “The Red Haired Boy,” and “Whiskey Before Breakfast” as well as a couple of choruses of “Summertime.” It also sounds great played ngerstyle. This is an extremely versatile guitar. I would order one of these, but I already have a Walker jaguar claw mahogany/Adirondack 000-12 fret on order (oops, I hope my wife isn’t reading 74

this! ). The Style C Deluxe Dreadnought guitar was originally ordered in 1998 by Ms. Sherman as a custom congured instrument. Except for the addition of Adirondack, this conguration has since become a standard Walker model. The top is medium grained, stiff Adirondack. The top has a slight tint from the gloss varnish nish. It has tortoise shell grained plastic binding with ne line curly maple and black lined puring. The pickguard is a brownish tortoise traditional style design. The rosette is made from lines of curly maple with black and white wood strips and it is understated and elegant. The ebony bridge has a bone dropin saddle with ebony bridge pins with mother of pearl dots. The intonation is spot on. The back and sides are made from stiff ribbon-grained mahogany. The book-matched back has a black center seam strip. The end pin is ebony. The scale is 25.5" with the nut width being 1.75". The neck is made from mahogany with an ebony ngerboard and graduated dots at the 3rd, 5th, 7th, 12th and 15th frets. There is no volute, which is typical of D-18 style instruments. The neck shape is a slight “V”, but not as sharp as a vintage “V” and felt quite comfortable. The peghead overlay is ebony with the Walker logo in gold foil. I’m told that the Walker logo on this model is now mother of pearl script, which is very beautiful. The case shipped with this guitar is a Harptone hard-shell case (Mr. Walker offers the several different cases with his guitars). What about the sound you ask? Well, it has depth and clarity with enough volume to compete successfully in a jam, yet it also sounds great played solo. You can atpick Norman Blake style tunes on it as well as practice your Parking Lot picker tunes and jazz standards. Two “picks-up” for this wonderful guitar! My personal opinion is that Kim Walker is one of the best luthiers making guitars today

and his guitars will become more popular among atpickers in years to come. I can’t wait for my little 000-12 fret atpicking guitar to arrive! I’m condent it will be a great companion to my two Collings Clarence White guitars (a CW-28 and a CW-18) and my Collings mahogany/Adirondack CJ. I’d like to thank Ms. Kim Sherman for allowing me to spend an afternoon playing this wonderful instrument during a very busy NAMM weekend. She was also kind enough to take photos of the Walker guitar for this FGM article. Thanks Kim! Kim Walker lives in North Stonington, CT and can be reached at 860-599-8753. His web site URL is: http://www.walkerguitars.com



Robert Bowlin

N E W F R O M

CLASSIFIEDS Classied ads will be accepted for guitar and musical related items @ 40¢ a word, 50¢ a word for bold lower case type, 60¢ a word for bold upper case type. Please call (800) 413-8296 to order, or send ad to High View Publications, P.O. Box 2160, Pulaski, VA 24301

Instructional Material: VIRTUAL BAND BLUEGRASS METHOD. For Guitar, Dobro, Mandolin, Banjo, Bass or Fiddle. Progressive and matching arrangements for each instrument. Includes theory, technique, backup, with multiple tempos. Book and play along CD $23.00 ppd. Specify instrument. Jay Buckey, 4017 N. Torrey Pines, Las Vegas, NV 89108 (702) 396-7824. GUITAR JAM: Play leads to “Blackberry Blossom,” plus 11 other classics with our back-up band. A fun way to develop timing. Tape and TAB booklet $16.95 ppd. Custom Practice Tapes now available! Choose from almost 400 songs and we’ll play them slow and fast for twice the jamming. Andy Cushing, 6534 Gowanda St. Rd., Hamburg NY 14075

MUSIC THEORY COURSE FOR GUITAR Correspondence Course. Certicate issued on completion. Beginning courses also available. Course outline and enrollment order form for this and other home study courses, write to: Jim Sutton Institute of Guitar, 23014 Quail Shute, Spring, TX 77389 E-mail: [email protected] Web Site: http://guitar-jimsuttoninst.com 800-621-7669

OVER 50 ESSENTIAL FLATPICK JAM TUNES From waltzes to ddle tunes to gospel. Send for free listing of tabs and cassettes to Harold Streeter, 4950 E 20th Ave, Post Falls, ID, 83954, USA 208-773-0645

TEXAS MUSIC AND VIDEO PRESENTS SUPERCHARGED FLATPICKING! David Grier slows down Wheeling, Old Hotel Rag, Engagement Waltz, Bluegrass Itch, That’s Just Perfect, Eye of the Hurricane, Impulsive, Shadowbrook, Smith’s Chapel, Porkchops and Applesauce, and Lone Soldier - $29.95. Also videos from Joe Carr, “60 Hot Licks for Bluegrass Guitar” and “Bluegrass Flatpick Favorites,” $29.95 each or both for $49.95. Advanced Concepts, PO Box 830, Levelland, TX 79336, 1-800-874-8384, Fax 806-894-2580, Web: www.musicvideo.com

M U S I C I A N ’ S W O R K S H O P

GUITAR LICK CARDS: from standard to stellar, 81 licks are isolated on playing cards. Line them up with the same chord progression as your favorite song and voila! It’s a new arrangement! Rearrange the licks for endless variations. They’re inspiring! Available for mandolin and banjo too. $11.50 ppd. per set. Andrew Cushing, 6534 Gowanda St. Rd., Hamburg NY 14075.

in the early 1980’s Chris Jones and Dan Huckabee collaborated on an historic pro ject. They conceived, developed, and refined the “formula for how to make up your own solos for bluegrass songs”. The concept proved a raging success with their private students, who found themselves equipped with a powerful and exciting new skill! . The enthusiastic response led to a book/audio combination entitled: “Designing Guitar Solos for Bluegrass Songs.” Now 15 years later we proudly present this concept in video, with all new songs, plus the magic of video animation to make it even easier to understand!

Easy Tab Write for our song list, and receive two free songs. Single note, melody only, easy to play. Old Town Melody Line, P.O. Box 104, Vero Beach, FL, 32961.

FREE CATALOG! ENORMOUS SELECTION Instructional guitar books and videos all styles. Also, Steven Crowell’s 4 year college level jazz guitar cassette tape course. Write or call now! Chord Melody Productions, PO Box 4132, Dept. P, Annapolis, MD 21403 (410) 269-1022 WEBSITE: WWW.CHORDMELODY.COM

Then Chris & Dan got to thinking agin. What does a guitar player do for a solo in a banjo instrumental. Another timeless delima! Again, they weren’t satisfied with just playing licks, so they applied the principals that they’d developed in the “song formula”, because “some” of those principals were common to both, then developed interpretive principals that translated the fingerpicked banjo ideas to the more “linear” guitaristic runs. The result was a formula for translating banjo instrumental for the “flatpicked” guitar. ORDER TODAY!

800-543-6125 P.O. Box 16192 Austin, Texas 78716



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CLASSIFIEDS

continued

Guitars, Strings, and Accesories: TONY RICE PROFESSIONAL model by Santa Cruz duplicates most closely the specications of Tony Rice’s personal Santa Cruz guitar. Four examples currently in stock, including one with rare vertical grain Brazilian Rosewood. Steve Swan Guitars (510) 527-1734, Fax (650) 401-7306, email [email protected], website www.steveswanguitars.com SANTA CRUZ TONY RICE model redened the modern bluegrass dreadnought. Eight new examples in stock in various combinations of Brazilian Rosewood, Indian Rosewood, Sitka Spruce, European Spruce, and Adirondack Spruce. Steve Swan Guitars (510) 527-1734, Fax (650) 401-7306, email [email protected], website steveswanguitars.com

BLUEGRASS and VINTAGE ARTIST dreadnought Santa Cruz models give you a vintage sound with modern playability advantages. Seven new examples in stock in various combinations of gured Mahogany, Indian Rosewood, Brazilian Rosewood, European Spruce and Adirondack Spruce. Steve Swan guitars (510) 527-1734, Fax (650) 401-7306, email [email protected], website www.steveswanguitars.com

EUPHONON COMPANY STRINGS - First quality major manufacturer strings in bulk at fantastic savings. Same strings you buy in music stores, without the expensive packaging. Acoustic guitar sets extra-light, light, or medium: 80/20 bronze $25.00/dozen, $15.50/half dozen; phosphor bronze $26.50/dozen, $16.50/half dozen. All prices post paid. Twelve string, electric guitar, banjo, mandolin, dulcimer, special gauges available. Write for String Catalog. Euphonon also offers guitar repair and building supplies; Write for Luthier’s Catalog, Euphonon Co. PO Box 100F, Orford, NH, 03777, 1-(888) 517-4678

GUITARS FOR SALE Gallagher Guitars, stage and studio micorphones. For more information: Call or email Gary Gordon, [email protected], (618) 443-5051

“TOR-TIS” SHELL PICKGUARDS Many patterns to choose from. Impecable workmanship. http://www.stringpull.com, click on inventory or (703) 978-5479 MC/ Visa

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MARTIN BRAZILIAN GUITARS WANTED: 1968-1969 D-45, 1969 D-41, 1987 D-45LE (A “Guitar of the Month” - 50 were made). DESIRABLE TRADES. Dennis Friedberg. Phone: (301) 246-4943 Guitars New and Used. Authorized Dealer for Santa Cruz, Huss-Dalton, Stelling and Gibson. Also banjos, mandolins and ddles. Discount prices. Call or write for current listing. The Bluegrass Connection, P.O Box 92, Birch River, WV, 26610. Phone: (304) 649-2012

WORLD OF STRINGS 1738 E 7th Street Long Beach Ca 80813 562/599-3913 *Specializing in Stringed Instruments* Martin, Santa Cruz, Gibson, Seagull, Ramirez, Electric & Acoustic Guitar & Bass, Mandolin, Banjo, Dulcimer & hammered Dulcimer (Violin, Cello, Harp and Guitar to Rent) Repairs, Accesories, Custom Building We are not mail order . . . come visit & have a cup of coffee, and share our appreciation and knowledge of instruments.

FOR A GOOD TIME try a free sample copy of The Vintage News, monthly review of the most special, superb sounding fretted instruments. Subscriptions: $15 a year for 12 issues ($20 overseas). Mandolin Brothers, 629 Forest Ave, Staten Island, NY 10310; tel 718-981-8585; fax 816-4416; website: www.mandoweb.com; email: [email protected]



Flatpicking Guitar Magazine and AcuTab Publicartions Proudly Present

Roanoke Bluegrass Weekend November 19, 20, 21 The Hotel Roanoke, Roanoke, Virginia

Three Full Days of Workshops plus Evening Concerts

Each instructor will teach 2 three-hour sessions Jamming • Special Guest Appearances • Instrument Set-up Clinics

Guitar — Stafford (Fri), Smith and Rice (Sat.), Grier (Sun.)

Sponsored by:

Tim Stafford Kenny Smith Wyatt Rice David Grier

Banjo — Baucom (Fri), Shelor (Sat.), Vestal (Sun.) Terry Baucom Sammy Shelor Scott Vestal

Mandolin — Bibey (Fri), Simpkins (Sat.), Compton (Sun.) Alan Bibey Rickie Simpkins Mike Compton

Call 800-413-8296 for details

Vol_3_No_6

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