Innholdsfortegnelse for June 2019 i Guitar Player

ALTHOUGH HE IS known to many for his tunes that other artists made famous, JJ Cale was a consummate guitarist and songwriter who wrote a huge number of songs during a career that spanned from the 1950s until his unexpected death on July 26, 2013. A new album titled Stay Around (Because Music) presents 15 unreleased songs that were recorded, mixed and produced by Cale in his home studio, and which were chosen by his wife, Christine Lakeland Cale, and his friend and longtime manager, Mike Kappus. John Weldon Cale started his career in the early 1960s as a sound engineer, but the key to his ultimate success was an unwavering devotion to songwriting. He realized early on that it gave him the best chance of making a living at…

“WE’D GRAB A COUPLE OF J-45s, STAND BACK FOUR FEET FROM THE MIC, AND BOOM, WE’D GET THAT ROLLING STONES VIBE GOING” RYAN BINGHAM GREW up in a family that was constantly on the move, something that has had a lasting influence on the singer-songwriter. His parents shuffled around the U.S. southwest in pursuit of work, a journey Bingham continued on his own starting at age 17. Along the way, he absorbed the border-town Tejano, southern Louisiana zydeco, and dusty, West Texas red-dirt country music of the towns he encountered. On American Love Song (Axster Bingham Records), his sixth set of acoustic guitar–driven folk-country, Bingham sets his desert-parched rasp to a bluesy blend of influences, meandering among the musical styles that make up the soundtrack of his life. “I really…

LAST MONTH’S COLUMN covered the theory and practice of true-bypass switching and came to the conclusion that, depending on a variety of factors, it can improve your sound, degrade your sound or make no difference at all. This month’s column follows up with a simple project that can add true bypassing to mono-in/mono-out effects that use passive switching. But that’s not all! With a little more effort, you can build a universal true-bypass box that works with any mono-in/mono-out effect and does double duty as an A-B effect switcher. Fig. 1 shows the wiring diagram for retrofitting existing effects that use mechanical, passive switching. You’ll need a double-pole, double-throw (DPDT) footswitch (available from amplifiedparts.com) to replace an existing single-pole, double-throw footswitch. The diagram shows the DPDT switch’s bottom six terminals…

DON FELDER named his new album American Rock ’n’ Roll (BMG), and it’s clear from the first words he sings on the record — “Oh, Mr. Hendrix, how high he could fly” — that the singer, songwriter and guitarist remains, first and foremost, a proud fan of the titular music. “The song is like a musical documentary,” Felder says of the title track. Indeed, in addition to Hendrix, the tune name-checks everyone from the Allman Brothers, Aerosmith, Bruce Springsteen and Bob Seger to Van Halen, Guns N’ Roses, the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Green Day. “It’s me remembering all the things that have gotten me excited about this music, from seeing Elvis Presley on television to hearing B.B. King on the radio to being at Woodstock and watching Hendrix and…

How did you get involved on Don’s new album? He had the song “The Way Things Have to Be,” and he’d already had some idea of what he wanted me to play and what he wanted me to sing. So I did a little bit of both. It was a lot of fun. He came to my studio in Nashville, and we did it there. He already had the track, and I just overdubbed my parts. It was great. How far back does your relationship with Don go? We met around the time of the Peter Frampton’s Guitar Circus tour, in 2013 or 2014. I asked if he would be interested in joining, and he said yes. What made you want to bring him into the Circus? Well, he’s obviously…

THE RECENT NEWS that Peter Frampton will stop touring in 2019 has alarmed fans, and with good reason. The legendary guitarist has revealed that he has the rare auto-immune disease Inclusion Body Myositis (or IBM). The progressive muscular disorder causes muscle inflammation, weakness and atrophy. Frampton expects IBM will ultimately hamper his ability to play guitar, and, being a perfectionist, he’s decided to launch one last tour — the Peter Frampton Finale: The Farewell Tour — before the disease makes performing difficult. “What will happen, unfortunately, is that it affects the finger flexors,” he explained when the news broke. “So for a guitar player, it’s not very good.” Frampton says that, while he has felt the effects of the disease in his fingers, he can still play. “But in a…

The original Crests of this era — only six of which have been identified by Pearlstein — were designed and built as custom presentation-grade instruments to showcase the most elegant features and appointments Gibson’s archtop luthiers could achieve. As such, each was unique, making this 1962 example not only a rare model but also a one-off. This guitar has a thinline L-5 body with sharp Florentine cutaway married to a Super 400-style neck with a 24 3/4–inch scale length. The neck is adorned with split-block fingerboard inlays, while the enlarged headstock features an elaborate “knight and shield” crest inlay in abalone and mother-of-pearl. “Definitely not art deco, but totally opulent,” Pearlstein offers. “They cost $2,000 at the time: half down on order, half on delivery. And that was serious money…

METTAVOLUTION MARKS A significant step forward in acoustic instrumental duo Rodrigo y Gabriela’s catalog. Their adventurous experimentation on it includes the use of electric guitar and effects, and a stunning interpretation of the Pink Floyd epic “Echoes,” but it also reflects a reconnection to their hardscrabble, street-playing roots. The sound is edgy and bristling with energy, just like it was near the turn of the millennium, when Rodrigo y Gabriela ditched their old thrasher electric guitars for acoustics, left Mexico City to busk on the streets of Dublin, Ireland, and eventually became an international sensation. “It’s always good to reconnect with the essence of what inspired you in the beginning,” percussive rhythm guitar guru Gabriela Quintero says. “We’d gotten comfortable and were taking things for granted,” linear lick maestro Rodrigo…

WE’VE COVERED HOME studio setup in the past couple of Frets columns. This month, we’re going to focus on how to select our primary acoustic guitar for recording and get our tools prepared so that they work best for us in the studio environment. As you’ll see, the choices we make here will have a significant impact on how things go down when the red light turns on. PICK A MAIN GUITAR If you own a single acoustic guitar, even a modest one, you have plenty to be thankful for. As Santa Cruz Guitars guru Richard Hoover likes to say, “That’s enough to create a song that can change the world.” If you have two or more, that’s even more reason to be appreciative. And if you’re fortunate enough to…

AFTER FORGING A stellar reputation for its compact yet powerful Club and Lunchbox models, ZT Amplifiers of Benicia, California, has launched its Custom Shop on the back of two new combos: the Jazz Club and the Lee Ranaldo Club. Still relatively compact and more than powerful enough to live up to the company’s motto, “The Loudest Little Amps in the World,” this pair is primed to preach the solid-state gospel amid the hordes of boutique tube amp offerings and multifunctional digital modelers. CUSTOM SHOP JAZZ CLUB COMBO The name says it all, but what it doesn’t immediately reveal is that this club-sized combo was designed in collaboration with some of the finest jazz players working today, including Dave Stryker, Charlie Apicella, Vic Juris and Randy Vincent, with the goal of…

D’ANGELICO HAS upgraded its entire Excel line of acoustics and introduced the Tammany OM, which was previously available only in the budget Premier line. The Excel Tammany includes a solid Sitka spruce top, Fishman electronics and fancy appointments on an instrument that exudes elegance, yet streets for well under a grand. D’Angelico guitars have a distinctive, uptown appearance, and the Excel Tammany’s orchestra model body is symmetrically sexy. Its Vintage Sunburst finish appears especially rich and luxurious surrounded by cream-colored bindings, and the three-ring rosette with a middle ring of abalone makes for an appealing centerpiece. Split-block acrylic pearl inlays pop from the ebony fingerboard, and the shapely headstock is adorned with a mother-of-pearl Excel Shield logo, gold-colored skyscraper truss-rod cover and golden Stairstep Wave tuners. Players going for a…

CHRISTONE “KINGFISH” INGRAM may play guitar like he’s on fire, but there’s no hellhound on his trail. Growing up in Clarksdale, Mississippi, in the shadow of Robert Johnson’s fabled crossroads, the 20-year-old guitarist was destined to find the blues. It’s just that he found them in church, not in a juke joint or down a dusty Delta road. “On my mom’s side of the family, all of my uncles played bass and guitar,” Ingram says. “Just looking at them playing in church made me want to do it.” Ingram picked up bass when he was eight years old, then switched to guitar at 12 while enrolled in the Delta Blues Museum’s Arts and Education program. In the eight years since, the 20-year-old has been hailed as a prodigy, performed before…

IF EVER THERE was one guitar to out-bling them all, it would be the Gretsch White Falcon. Yet, there’s also a subtle elegance to this model that somehow allows it to pull off all the bejeweled gold hardware and sparkly plastics with class. Designed by guitar virtuoso and Gretsch endorsee Jimmie Webster, the White Falcon was developed early in 1954 and released for production later that year or in early ’55. Like other Gretsch models of the era, it was born as a single-cutaway, fully hollowbody archtop with dual Dynasonic single-coil pickups. It evolved into the double-cutaway styling with dual Filter’Tron humbuckers that typified Gretsches of the 1960s, as seen in this example from 1962. There’s more to our featured example, though, some of which does meet the eye. This…

JOHNNY PAYCHECK’S At Carnegie Hall album was released in 1966 on the Little Darlin’ label. Of all the records in my library, this one took the longest to find. I spent 10 years navigating the record store jungle in our pre-internet world before I found a copy (thanks to my longtime pal Brian Dunleavy) to replace the beat-up Realistic cassette dub that I’d nearly played to death. First off, let’s get something straight: At Carnegie Hall was not recorded at Carnegie Hall. It’s not even a live record. The liner notes offer a vague explanation for the title, detailing how much pride Johnny felt performing these songs at the legendary New York City venue. That, in turn, inspired the quality of the material on At Carnegie Hall. Honestly? I’m not sure…

How did you get involved on the song “American Rock ’n’ Roll”? A mutual friend who works with Don emailed me and asked if I was interested in doing the song. I’m a big Don Felder fan, and I was honored to get that email, so I just responded, “Yes! I would love to!” How did you develop your solo? Was it off the cuff, or did Don tell you what he was looking for? No, it was totally off the cuff. I just came in, they told me where the section was for my solo, and we went from there. Don came in, and he was great — he just let me do my thing on the track. They also explained to me how they were going to edit…

DON FELDER’S “Hotel California” Gibson EDS-1275 double-neck is one of the many legendary rock guitars on display at New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. It’s part of an exhibition called Play It Loud: The Instruments of Rock and Roll, a collaboration between the Met and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland. The show opened at the Met on April 8 and runs until October. From there it goes on to a six-month stint at the Rock Hall. Felder was also in attendance at the star-studded opening party for the exhibit on April 1 at the Met. His double-neck guitar had previously been on loan to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. “They called me about six months ago and asked me it if would be…

“I DON’T COME ONSTAGE TO POSE AND PLAY SOME PYROTECHNIC SCALES. IT’S TO KICK SOME SERIOUS ASS. I RIP MY GUTS OUT WHEN I PLAY. MY FINGERS HURT SO BAD WHEN I’M PULLING ON THE STRINGS, BUT I DO IT BECAUSE THAT’S WHERE THE SOUND COMES FROM. NO PAIN, NO GAIN.” So proclaimed Dick Dale, best known as the King of the Surf Guitar and, alternately, the Father of Heavy Metal. The legendary musician and inventor passed away on March 16 at the age of 81 at California’s Loma Linda Medical Center. While the cause of death was listed as heart failure, for many years Dale had been experiencing a multitude of health problems, including renal failure, rectal cancer, diabetes and a damaged vertebra. His battle with cancer required him…

Technically a Byrdland, this is the fourth of four prototypes of the artist model designed for session aces Billy Byrd and Hank Garland. It was entered into Gibson’s log as “L-5 CES Special Thin” before the Byrdland name had been settled upon. The final production examples were the result of Garland’s request that Gibson take an L-5 neck and make it faster and more comfortable, so this prototype constitutes a link between that inspiration and the final results that hit the Gibson catalog. It’s a thin-bodied guitar, though it’s a fraction of an inch deeper than Byrdlands that followed. The neck dimensions are also a little more capacious than those of a standard Byrdland, at a scale length of 24 1/2 inches and a nut width of 1 5/8 inches.…

According to Pearlstein, Gibson made 22 sunburst L-5 CES guitars in 1961, and this is one of the rare examples with a sharp cutaway in that transitional period between the Venetian and Florentine styles. It follows the standard full-size L-5 dimensions, with a 25 1/2–inch scale length, a 1 11/16–inch nut width and a full-depth body. Otherwise, all the classic cosmetic appointments are there, evidenced in a rich sunburst finish that has faded somewhere between tobacco and iced tea, pearl blocks in an ebony fingerboard, multi-ply binding on the body, neck, and headstock, and a beautiful book-matched herringbone flame on the back of the neck. More important to sonic connoisseurs might be the dual double-black PAF humbucking pickups and the “Stereo Varitone” wiring, which remains surprisingly intact and sounds superb.…

MUSICAL EVOLUTION IS complex and hardly linear, but it’s still remarkable to marvel at how decade-centric stylistic trends in popular music seemed to be in the 20th century. Rock guitar in the ’80s was an arms race of flash and speedy, alternate-picked scalar runs. Digit-distending, fretboard-tapped arpeggios were de rigueur for any aspiring, highcoiffed six-string hero. But as the ’90s got under way, a new aesthetic — one more tied to the ethos of blues-rock, early metal, ’70s soul and punk — began to emerge. Suddenly, fluorescent-pink Strat-bodied guitars with hot-rodded pickups and locking-nut tremolos were being traded in for Fender Jaguars, while chorus pedals and digital rack-mount processors got swapped for Big Muff overdrives and wah-wahs. Before you knew it, traditional tube amps, headstocks and a DIY antihero ethos…

THIS MONTH, WE’RE reviewing a pair of guitars that Danelectro introduced at the 2019 NAMM show. Both of these models offer hip styling, excellent playability and a wide range of great sounds. ’64XT Residing somewhere between the ’64 and ’59XT models, the ’64XT features the Mosrite-style offset shape of the ’64 and the flat body design of the ’59. It also sports a Wilkinson vibrato bridge and angled bridge pickup, like the ’59, instead of the Bigsby and straight-across bridge pickup found on the ’64. My test guitar came in business-like black with a tortoise pickguard, and it played great right out of the box. The C neck seemed closer to a D shape, which, combined with the flat radius and low action, gave the ’64XT a “shredder” guitar feel…

THESE NEW ARCHTOP guitars are modernized recreations of the ornate artist models Kay created for jazz great Barney Kessel between 1957 and 1959. The guitars on review here are similar in construction, hardware and appointments, and differ primarily in body size. All were tested through a reissue Fender Deluxe Reverb with Alessandro hand-wired circuitry, and a Vox Mini Superbeetle head and 1x10 cabinet. K1700V PRO The smallest of the three guitars at 13 inches wide, the K1700V Pro is a real eye-catcher with its flashy Kelvonator gold-dot luncheonette headstock overlay, Kleenex-box pickup covers, clear reflector knobs, crosshair tailpiece and silver-backed pickguard with a Barney Kessel inscription. Our review guitar wore a flawless black gloss finish (the other colors are Natural Blonde and Tobacco Sunburst). Accenting it all is cream binding…

MANY DISTORTION STOMPBOXES are essentially clones of pedals that became famous decades ago. Relatively few are based on guitar amplifiers. Aclam’s Dr. Robert takes a different approach by featuring a Normal channel that replicates the front end of the Vox UL730, a 30-watt hybrid amp developed by Vox cofounder and designer Dick Denney and introduced in 1966, which coupled a solid-state preamp to a tube output stage. The UL730 and its 120-watt sibling, the UL720, were used by the Beatles on Revolver (which features this pedal’s namesake track, “Dr. Robert”) and part of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Jimmy Page and the Rolling Stones had a go with the amps as well. Even so, they flopped so badly in the marketplace that reportedly most of the UL production was…

> A blues-rock guitarist of astonishing prowess, Jeff Healey impressed everyone who heard him ply elastic licks, fluid bends and emotive vibrato from his Squier Strat. Born in Ontario, Canada, on March 25, 1966, Healey developed eye cancer before the age of one, requiring the removal of both eyes, which were replaced with ocular prostheses. At age three, he was given a guitar and shown how to place his hands on it, but Jeff preferred to play it in his lap, with both hands over the fretboard. He quickly developed on the instrument and by his early teens had formed his own rock quartet, Blue Direction. > Jeff’s early musical passions included old-time jazz, and he became proficient on trumpet and clarinet. While still in his teens, he began hosting…

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AT THE TIME that Alabama’s Muscle Shoals Sound Studio and FAME Recording Studios were celebrated in Greg Camalier’s 2013 documentary, Muscle Shoals, Will McFarlane had already been a session player in those parts for more than 30 years. His story began in the early ’70s, when Bonnie Raitt’s manager, Dick Waterman, brought his charge to a Boston club where McFarlane was playing. “She came in at the end of a set,” he recalls. A formidable lead player, Raitt was not in the market for a flashy soloist. That made McFarlane a good fit. “I wasn’t a real lead player. I was a fill guy,” he explains. “Playing rhythm guitar and locking in to the hi-hat was my thing.” The guitarist learned the fills that inspired his style from the masters.…

JOANNA CONNOR CAME up in the tough and competitive 1980s Chicago blues scene. Her 1989 debut album, Believe It, hit the community like a hurricane and quickly established her as one of the top blues slide guitarists in the world. At the time, you could count female blues players on one hand, Bonnie Raitt being the most well known. Unlike Raitt, Connor was a shredder who played with as much aggression and technique as most of the dudes. She’s spent the past decades playing close to home and raising her kids while tending to a weekly residency at Kingston Mines, one of the most popular and well-attended gigs in the Windy City. Connor’s next album comes out this summer, so keep an eye on joannaconnor.com. You have the image of…

A FUNNY THING happened as I was wrapping up this column about the modified mid-1960s Victoria guitar pictured here. I had yet to accurately identify the pickups, so I sent a photo of the instrument to my friend Ronni Dinette asking for help. Ronni said the pickup covers are the same as those found on an early Teisco ET-220. As an added surprise, it turns out this whack job is an older custom axe Ronni created from the Dinette parts bin — just one more reason why I say it’s fun to be a guitar-cheologist! This particular dig began months earlier when I got a call from Gary Wineroth, who told me he had picked up a cool Victoria guitar at a local vintage guitar show. (Victoria is one of…

How did you get involved on Don’s song “Rock You”? Robin DiMaggio [producer and drummer who has worked with both Felder and Satriani] asked if I would be interested in playing on Don’s album, and I jumped at the chance. Sammy Hagar’s studio turned out to be the most convenient place to meet up, and before you know, it Sammy, Bob Weir and I were all together on the same track! You play a pretty ripping solo on the song. How did you develop it? Was it spontaneous, or did Don give you any direction for it? He asked me to go crazy for the middle solo, which I recorded at my home studio prior to meeting up. Then once we were together at Sammy’s, Don wrote, on the spot,…

Don told us that you recorded your parts for “Limelight” in your kitchen. I did! I have a studio in there. It’s great. You walk downstairs in the morning and you sit down, and you’re right there. It’s homespun, but everything works. Bob Rock put it together for me, and there’s a bunch of great gear. I always have guests come over, and Don is one of my honored guests. He played on some stuff for me, and I did some stuff for him. How did you and Don first meet? The first time was at a ceremony many, many years ago. I’d been working with Norm from Norman’s Rare Guitars, doing some stuff for the [social services organization] Midnight Mission, and I got an award. Don played at the…

T HERE’S NO BETTER locale for the warm, smoky elegance of a vintage archtop-electric than the basement jazz clubs and high-rise apartments of Manhattan. And, arguably, there’s no classier jazz box than a Gibson L-5 CES from the late 1950s and early 1960s. A self-defined “city kid” born and bred, Manhattan resident William Pearlstein found that the more his musical stars conspired to steer him toward jazz, the more the L-5 CES was the guitar. Ah, but which L-5 CES? While the full-bodied original worked for a big guy like Wes Montgomery, Pearlstein’s own quest for the perfect instrument revealed other, more comfortable options. In the process of discovering them, he built an enviable collection of rare L-5s. Having grown up seeing shows and learning to play in the early…

The T in this model name stands for Thin and indicates the guitar’s extreme rarity. This might very well be the only round-cutaway, dual-PAF L-5 CES made with a thin body. Measuring 2 3/16 inches deep at the lower bout, it’s a full inch shallower than a standard L-5 but still a little thicker than a Byrdland. It also has the L-5’s full-sized neck and 25 1/2–inch scale length, with a nut width of 1 11/16 inches. Pearlstein purchased this guitar some 20 years ago from noted French collector J.P. Lamarque, but upon its arrival in New York City he was dismayed to find that, despite possessing features that should have added up to an absolute tone monster, “it sounded like a thin Mexican-made Strat,” he says. Thankfully, Cris Mirabella…

Both as a collector and player, Pearlstein is more about the fully electric archtops with pickups mounted directly into the top. That makes this thinline acoustic archtop with floating “Johnny Smith” pickup something of an anomaly in his collection. That said, it’s another rare and desirable guitar that also marks an interesting point in Gibson history. Gibson’s Andy Nelson designed the L-5 CT for television comedian George Gobel and owned this particular example, although it differs from the usual run in several ways. “First,” Pearlstein notes, “it’s blonde. I know of two or three other blonde Gobels, but the rest of them were cherry red so that they would stand out on black-and-white TV. Second, most of them were straight braced, but this one is X-braced, a feature Gibson re-introduced…

JUST WHEN YOU think the John Petrucci–inspired Music Man Majesty guitars can’t get any better, they go and do something like this. Behold the Majesty 6 Tiger Eye, a stunning example of craftsmanship, playability and flexibility! Having already been a fan of these beautiful guitars, I was excited to open the rugged hardshell case on my test model. What I saw completely floored me: a gleaming, glossy work of art that looks as if it’s been carved from a single piece of glass. In reality, the Majesty 6 Tiger Eye sports a mahogany and flame-maple neck that runs the entire length of the instrument, with alder wings making up the rest of the body. The high-gloss polyester finish might be the slickest and smoothest I’ve ever seen. It’s simply flawless.…

COPPERHEAD AUDIO ENGINEERING is one of the relatively few boutique amp makers to stake their entire tonal reputation on octal-base tubes for preamp duties, instead of the much more common nine-pin types. The company’s new Model 1950 is equipped with a trio of 6SL7 tubes that drive a pair of 6L6 power tubes running in class A push-pull cathode bias with a new-old-stock 5R4 tube for rectification. This configuration gives the Model 1950 a maximum output of about 25 watts. If desired, you can get 30 watts out of it by swapping in a 5AR4 rectifier tube (not included). This is only part of the story, however, as the control set differs significantly from the norm by virtue of having high-, low- and mid-frequency controls as well as a pair…

MARTIN ROUTINELY GOES to marathon lengths to celebrate its history. Not surprisingly, the oldest surviving maker of guitars in the world has taken great pains to accurately replicate the Konter Uke, an acoustic artifact that went to the edge of the planet and back. The original Martin Style 1 K ukulele is one of the most valuable and carefully examined ukes on the planet, thanks to its rich and storied history. Richard Konter, a.k.a. Ukulele Dick, took the instrument along on Admiral Richard Byrd’s arctic sailing expedition in 1926. Pilot Floyd Bennett smuggled it under his seat on the first airplane to fly over the North Pole, and Konter subsequently had Byrd’s entire crew sign it. Upon his return to the U.S., Konter continued to gather notable signatures on the…