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AcousticGuitar.com 5

CONTENTS

36The Collector

Maple Byrne cares for

Emmylous guitars . . . and

more than a few of his own

By Adam Perlmutter

42Dream a Little Dream

AGreaders reveal the guitars

theyd most like to own if

money were no object

10From the Home Office

13Opening Act

85Ad Index

86Final Note

July 2015

Volume 26, No. 1, Issue 271

On the Cover

Kaki King

Photographer

Brendan Shanley

Special FocusGuitar

AcquisitionSyndrome

22 Guitar Evolution

Kaki Kings bold new album,

The Neck Is a Bridge

to the Body

By Pat Moran

26Status Quo

Milk Carton Kids stick to the

tried-and-true on new albumBy Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers

30New Stories, Old Ways

Norman Blake pays tribute

to a vanishing era

By Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers

Features MiscellanyEmmylou Harris

guitar tech and

avid collector

Maple Byrne goes

by the name of

Maple on account

of his affinity for

the bright-soundingtonewood.P. 36

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CONTENTS

NEWS

15The Beat

The Spirit Family Reunion spread the joy of

playing; T Bone Burnett produces Striking

Matches; an anti-fracking compilation

20News Spotlight

Dwight Yoakam:

Guitars, heartbreak, etc., etc.

PLAY

52Basics

Using strumming dynamics

to bring songs to life

53Heres How

Open-G tuning is great

for more than blues

54Weekly Workout

Learn the subtle intricacies

of single-chord grooves

Songs to Play58Susie Most of All

New music from folk legend Tom Paxton

60Black Jack Davey

An ageless English folk tale

62Londonderry Air

Also known as Danny Boy

AG TRADE

67Shop Talk

Alembic sets sights on acoustic guitar

market; Traveling Guitar Foundation

brings music to schools; Gibson acquires

Harmony Central

70Makers & Shakers

Andy Powers is helping to

reinvigorate Taylor Guitars

72Review: Riversong Tradition

Canadian Deluxe

Flawless craftsmanship, impressive

playability, bold design

74Review: Simon & Patrick

Showcase Rosewood Concert Hall

A stage-ready instrument easy on the eyes,

ears, and wallet

76Review: Tanglewood Java TWJP E

An appealing and affordable parlor-size guitar

78Guitar Guru

Does wood-grain orientation really matter?

80Great Acoustics

Santa Cruzs stunning No. 10,000

MIXED MEDIA

82Playlist

Tallest Man on Earth expands his sound

on Dark Bird Is Home; also, the Gibson

Brothers Brotherhood, Ross Hammonds

Flight, and Sugarcane Janes debut,

Dirt Roads End

A Taylor 814ce,recently revoiced by

Andy Powers, p. 70COURTESY

OFTAYLOR


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8 July 2015

STAY CONNECTED

Sign up for our free Acoustic Guitar Notes e-newsletter and get the latest

news, stories, and acoustic guitar videos in your inbox. Thousands of your

fellow guitarists are reading this content every dayso dont miss out, join

them today: acousticguitar.com

DONT MISS OUT ON DEALS

Every Friday we post a new special sale, check out whats on sale this week at

AcousticGuitar.com/Deals. Recent offerings include theRhythm Guitar Essen-

tialsbook, the complete Blues Guitar Basics video guide, and a lesson on

modern bluegrass techniqueall at low, low prices!

Enjoy a recentAcoustic Guitar Sessionepisode with singer-songwriter Tom

Paxton and watch him play Susie Most of Allthe music for that light-hearted

blues song can be found on page 58. And visit AcousticGuitar.com/Sessions to

check out interviews with and performances by Richard Thompson, Ani

DeFranco, Seth Avett, Peter Rowan, Della Mae, Bruce Cockburn, Valerie June,

Julian Lage, Eliza Gilkyson, Preston Reed, and many others.

In the Studio:Tom Paxton

AG ONLINE

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10 July 2015

FROM THE HOME OFFICE

Hoarders & G.A.S. SufferersI suspect that

most of you fall somewhere within one of those

designations (I know that I do). Recently,AG

paid a visit to Byrne at his Nashville home to

photograph some of his personal favorites from

his vast guitar collection. One of my favorites is

the guitar featured on the section opener on

page 35its the same 1920 Martin 1-21 thatthenGreenwich Village folk musician Bruce

Langhorne played on many 1960s sessions (it

used to have a P-90 pickup and was used to

record Bob Dylans proto-electric single Mixed-

Up Confusion).

Elsewhere in that section, youll find a

feature in which Steve Earle, Alvin Youngblood

Hart, John Oates, Del Rey, and Emily Frantz of

Mandolin Orange, along with more than a

dozen of our treasured readers, talk about their

favorite guitars . . . and some of the ones that

got away.

I can think of at least a couple of potential

acquisitions on my own list . . . but thats foranother time. Share your thoughts on our Face-

book page.

Play on.

Greg Cahill

Imet Maple Byrne a couple of years ago at a

Fourth of July party hosted by multi-instru-

mentalist and guitar collector Lowell Levinger,

known to many as Banana of the Youngbloods.

It was a relaxing day of barbecue, conversation,

and bluegrass jams on the back porch, with a

jaw-dropping view of Inverness Ridge in Marin

County, California, the inspiration for JesseColin Youngs 1973 song Ridgetop.

Byrne (who adopted his first name in

homage to his favorite tonewood) is an affable,

animated man with an encyclopedic knowledge

of guitars. He was in town in his capacity as

guitar tech and road manager for Emmylou

Harris, who the night before had performed at

a fundraiser for rescue dogs at the nearby

Lagunitas Brewing Co.s amphitheater.

Now, on a laid-back national holiday, sated

with beverages and food and seated around the

long wooden table in Levingers rustic kitchen,

it didnt take long for the conversation to turn

to Gibson J-200s, a staple of both Emmylouand Byrne.

I recalled that conversation and tapped him

for a profile in our special section on Collectors,

AcousticGuitar.com AcousticGuitarU.com

CONTENT DEVELOPMENT

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

Maple Byrnes Oscar Schmidt Stellas, left to right20s Sovereign Grand Concert (all koa), 18 Standard (maple),30s Grand Concert 12-string (mahogany), 20s Sovereign Concert Tenor (mahogany)

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NEWS

N ick Pankenof the string band SpiritFamily Reunionhas a confession. Im areallybad guitar owner, he says with a laugh,

during a phone call from his home in Brooklyn,

New York. The conversation has turned to the

effect his hard-driving rhythm work has on his

acoustic guitars. I once got a really nice old

Martin 000, from the 60s, he recalls. It was

the first really nice guitar I ever bought. I just

The Joy of MusicHard strumming and passion drive the religious fervorof Spirit Family Reunions latest albumBY GREG CAHILL

that I just beat up guitars too much. These

days, on the road, I dont want to play an

expensive guitar that might end up breaking.

Thats led me to the red label Yamaha [made in

Japan], which is really durable. It sounds just

great with my old DeArmond pickup.

Panken puts his strumming to good effect

on the string bands new album, Ha nd s

Together, the follow-up to the critically

acclaimed 2013 CD,No Separation.

The bands uplifting songs, which have all

the earmarks of a Sunday prayer revival

meeting, can be heard right from the albumslife-affirming opener, Wake Up, Rounder, an

upbeat hymnal that celebrates the rising sun

and the sheer joy of creation.

Musically it came from a very banjo-

friendly riff I found on my guitar, Panken says

of the song. And then the spine of the chorus

came from the fact that the sun comes up in the

morning and literally all that you have to do is

look out the window and its there. Sometimes

it takes a whole season of depression to get to

that place, but ultimately, with any luck, you

get to this place where all you have to do is

look out the window and theres the sun

shining in.And its all good.

That joy permeates many of the Spirit

Family Reunions other reveries as well. It

comes from the joy of playing music and the joy

of playing music together, he says of the bands

collective passion for old-timey music. I mean,

it wasnt our job when we started thiswe

started this for fun as a summer release. We

were all working other jobs, but wed get

together and say, Hey, its a beautiful day, lets

go play music in the park!

On a lark, Spirit Family Reunion started to fill

in whenever a local club needed a band. Itwould almost be like, Let s be contrary to the

other bands that were taking themselves quite

seriously, Panken says. We wouldnt even use

microphones. Wed just go and play to see how

much we could carry that sound out of pure joy.

These days, maintaining that spirit is part of

the challenge of being an established touring

band that often spends eight hours or more at a

stretch cooped up together in a van.

So whats the bands strategy?

While we tour more regularly now, we still

try not to take ourselves too seriously, Panken

says. We dont want to suck the joy out of it. AG

19American Epic

PBS-TV seriesspotlights originsof roots music

16Eco-Conscious

Artists & activistssing out againstfracking

THE BEATTrue Believer:

Nick Panken

completely destroyed it, though it turned out

that it was in crummy shape when I bought it. I

ended up swapping it out for a Gibson LG-1,

which I still have and use a lotyou can see it in

our videos. Its kind of boxy sounding.

Then, a couple of years ago, I bought a

really nice Martin 000-18 Golden Era, based off

of 1937 specs. It sounded reallynice. I used it

on tour for a couple of years until I realized

20News Spotlight

Dwight Yoakamon his love ofguitars etc., etc.


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16 July 2015

NEWS SPOTLIGHT

WHAT THEFRACK?Blues guitarist and multiple

Grammy-winning pop singer

Bonnie Raitthas called

it one of the most criticalenvironmental issues of our

time. Now, Raitt, a longtime

opponent of nuclear power,

has joined a roster of musicians

protesting the controversial use

of so-called fracking to extract

oil from shale deposits, a

practice that environmentalists

contend pollutes groundwater.

Buy This Fracking Album,

produced by ex-Occupy Wall

Street protester Jason Samel,

also features tracks by the John

Butler Trio, Michael Franti, and

the Indigo Girls, among others.

Its not an anti-mining thing,

Butler says, its just a common

sense thing that you dont

poison your own water. Its

our responsibility as people

to look after our own country.

The compilation includes the

late Pete Seegers previously

unreleased live rendition

of Woody Guthries anthem

This Land Is Your Land.

Also included is the unreleased

acoustic version of Frantis

Earth from Outer Space.

Says the singer, songwriter,

and activist: I wrote this song

as a reminder of the importance

of all of us being stewards

of our planet and keeping it

healthy for the next generations.

Proceeds will benefit

Marcellus Protest, a non-profit

organization in Pennsylvania,

and other grassroots

organizations around thecountry working to ban fracking.

Food & Water Watch is donating

its share of the proceeds to a

fund that the albums producers

will distribute to grassroots

organizations. G.C.

Davissigned on to produce their debut album

for the newly revived I.R.S. Nashville imprint.

He was such a dream to work with. Hes a

nurturing guy in the studio. He brings out thebest in you, says Davis, adding that they

recorded at the House of Blues Studios in Nash-

ville. To capture the duos gritty and frenetic

live sound, Burnett miked an amp and recorded

the sound of their acoustic guitars and vocals

coming through it, blending it with a tradition-

ally miked version. Burnett opted to record on

reel-to-reel two-inch tape, as he had done with

Tom Waits and for the O Brother, Where Art

Thou?soundtrack, and loaned Zimmermann a

Gibson Kalamazoo flattop, all of which add to

the albums classic country charm.

Whitney Phaneuf

Sarah Zimmermannand Justin Davismoved

to Nashville to be guitarists, meeting at

Belmont University in a guitar seminar class

where they were randomly paired up by theirprofessor. They formed Striking Matches

with each on lead acoustic guitar and vocals

but paid the bills playing in other peoples

bands and writing songs for the hit showNash-

ville. Six years later, the duo has finally released

its first full-length album,Nothing But the

Silence, and say it was absolutely worth the

wait. It took us a while, explains Davis, in a

phone interview that Zimmermann also joined.

It feels like a long time, but its all counted for

a reason.

Their patience paid off when T Bone Bur-

netta musical hero to Zimmermann and

STRIKING MATCHES ABLAZE AT LAST


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n the record business, a new release

usually comes with some kind of

news hooka hotshot producer, a

famous guest artist, a surprising stylistic direc-

tion or left-field cover. Youll find no such

novelty onMonterey (Anti-),by the Milk Carton

Kids. The instrumentation on Monterey is

exactly the same as on all their albums:Its just

Joey Ryan and Kenneth Pattengale singing andplaying acoustic guitars, which is all they do

onstage, too. On Monterey, they are not only

playing the same instrumentsa Gibson J-45

and a Martin 0-15as when I interviewed them

forAcoustic Guitarin 2013,but, Ryan says, I

have the same strings on my guitar.

This simple, consistent, no-frills and no-

flash approach to the music has paid off beauti-

fully for the Milk Carton Kids, allowing them to

focus not on reinventing but on refining what

they doas songwriting partners, singers, and

guitarists. In all these respects,Montereymarks

a real step forward for the young duo.

In their understated way, Ryan and Pattengalehave made quite an impact on the folk world and

beyond since they started playing together in Los

Angeles in 2011. Their first two albums,Retro-

spectandPrologue,available on their website for

free, have together been downloaded more than

550,000 times. Their 2013 album The Ash and

Claywas nominated for a Grammy, and last year

the Americana Music Association named them

the best duo. They performed at the T Bone

Burnettproduced Another Day, Another Time

concert, celebrating the music ofInside Llewyn

Davis,along with a whos who of the latest folk

revival (that recording is newly released onNonesuch Records). They recorded with

Emmylou Harris and Steve Earle on the Johnny

Cash tributeBitter Tears. They performed collab-

orative shows with the rising young songwriter/

multi-instrumentalist Sarah Jarosz and with the

renowned songwriter/producer Joe Henry. And

all along the way, Ryan and Pattengale played

hundreds of concerts at clubs and theaters

around the country, winning over multi-genera-

tional audiences with their luminous harmonies,

nuanced guitar work, and disarming stage banter.

Like Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, the Milk

Carton Kids have made it big by keeping it small.

IENGINEERING FREEDOM

From the beginning, Ryan and Pattengale have

considered their duo to be a live act, first and

foremost. From their perspective, the most

notable development on the self-producedMon-

tereyis that it captures the looser feel of their

concerts, thanks to an unusual approach to the

recording process.

Last spring, as they were thinking about anew album and preparing for a 45-show tour,

Pattengale realized that they didnt need much

gear to record themselves, and that these 800-

seat theaters that were playing in sound better

than any studio. So he brought along his

mobile recording rigthe same as he used to

record the Julian Lage and Chris Eldridge

album Ava lon (see Prodigal Sons, March

2015).

Wed pull into town and Id set up the

studio onstage every morning, Pattengale

recalls. Wed futz around for three or four

hours and then break it down, put one micro-

phone up, and do our show.Five of the tracks onMontereycome from

those theater sessionsthey recorded the other

six during a few days in the studio in Nashville,

where Pattengale now lives. The key was that

while they were recording, they didnt know

which takes would wind up on the record.

We never succumbed to the what can be

stifling pressure of thinking that this next one

has to be the one, Ryan says. To be able to

engineer this sense of plausible deniability for

yourself, where every time youre doing a per-

formance you think thats not going to be the

one, I really enjoyed that.In particular, the open-ended recording

process encouraged Pattengale to be more

adventurous on lead guitar. On his little 0-15,

he played gorgeous, searching lines on album

tracks like Asheville Skies, gently pushing the

harmonies over Ryans steady fingerstyle

rhythms. Ryan calls Pattengales playing on

Montereythe most free and unrestrained way

hes ever played on a record. It is something

that he usually only achieves in a given night

on a tour when everything is going just right,

but this time achieved it in every song on the

record.

GUITARS

Joey Ryan plays a 50s Gibson

J-45 with old strings of unknown

brand, and he keeps it tuned

down a step, to D. Lately hes

been playing a custom Romerofrailing banjo (by the musicians/

luthiers Pharis and Jason

Romero, up in British Columbia),

but only privately. If I ever get

good enough to play in public,

he says, youll hear me coming.

Kenneth Pattengale plays

a 1954 Martin 0-15 with Martin

SP medium strings. He ties a

handkerchief down by the nut

to reduce the buzz that happens

when he capoes up the neck.

On a recent tour with Sarah

Jarosz, Pattengale played the

prototype of a forthcoming

0-sized signature Martin,

plus a 1917 Dobro Cyclops,

on loan from Jerry Douglas,

that belonged to Sonny Boy

Williamson.

CAPOS

Both Pattengale and Ryan

use Kyser capos.

MICS

They have always miked them-selves onstage, and since late

2013 theyve been using a single

Edwina condenser mic from Ear

Trumpet Labs, with no monitors.

Both say that getting rid of

separate vocal and guitar mics,

and hearing each other from

the source rather than from

a speaker, has made a huge

difference.

Were taking away yet one

more filter between us and our

intended audience that I thinkheretofore has gotten in the way

of what were trying to communi-

cate, Pattengale says.

Before it was like trying to

talk to somebody in jail through

glass on the phone, Ryan adds,

and now weve broken free out

of the prison.

PICKS

Pattengale uses Fender medium

picks, while Ryan plays with his

fingers.

WHATTHE MILKCARTON KIDSPLAY


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28 July 2015

THE SONGWRITING VOICE

The songs themselves show a clear evolution,

too. Before they teamed up, both Ryan and Pat-

tengale wrote and performed as solo artists,

and when they started collaborating they

needed to blend not only their singing voiceswhich came instinctively and immediatelybut

their songwriting styles. Pattengale feels that up

through The Ash and Clay,they were working

out their collective songwriting voiceand in

the songs on the new album, theyve found it.

One piece of supporting evidence is the way

some of Pattengales former bandmates

responded when they first heardMonterey.

My old rhythm section, they always

delighted in picking out whose song was

whose, Pattengale says. Their motivation

always was trying to be supportive of me still as

an individual. Theyd go, Oh, I know you wrotethat songthats a sick song. They had spent

so much time behind me as a band that they

knew what kind of songs I wrote. But when

they heard this new one, they called the songs

out with the same certainty, but they were dead

wrong. That is, for me, evidence that weve

stepped into our own as a songwriting partner-

ship that is maybe fully empathetic.

Pattengale adds that in the past, he and Ryan

might have rejected some of the songs onMon-

terey that fall pretty far outside the folk idiom,

like the delicate waltzes Deadly Bells and

Sing, Sparrow, Sing. These days, they are more

apt to add outlier songs like these to their reper-toire because, Pattengale says, We have a much

stronger sense of self, which allows us to explore

the peripheries of the waters we swim in.

Sing, Sparrow, Sing, recorded by Patten-

gale alone, is the first completely solo perfor-

mance on a Milk Carton Kids album. When I

observe that it sounds like it comes from a piece

of 100-year-old sheet music discovered inside

an old piano bench, Pattengale says that he

was, in fact, aiming to write a proper classical

melody and get away from the patterns and

positions that guitarists typically use.

The main refrain of that song is definitelynot more than three notes at a time, he says.

Most of it is just a two-tone kind of thing thats

playing off the melody. If somebody had to

write out the underlying chord chart for that

song, I dont think it exists, and obviously thats

more common of something that one would

write on a piano versus a guitar. I feel like the

guitar, when youre talking about our world, is

so often seen as literally a support, as big,

broad chords.

To which Ryan responds, I think you

should just come clean and admit that we did

find that in an old piano bench.

THE BALANCING ACT

In their collaborative writing process, Ryan and

Pattengale bring different strengths to the table

and strive to balance each other out.

With songs originated by Ryan, Pattengale

sometimes helps to develop the musictomake it freer and more abstract. By the time it

gets to my plate, he says, Im really interested

in deconstructing the music and putting it back

together in a different way.

Pattengale adds that in songs that he initi-

ates, Ryan often helps clarify lyrics that are a

little too obtuse.

Ryan sees a sharp contrast in how they

approach lyric writing. Kenneth and I are very

different on that front, he says. Every song

that I ever started is about something. I know

what its about and what Im trying to say, and

I know at the end of the song whether Ive saidit. Ive always been a hyper-rational person and

also songwriter, and Kenneth is exactly the

opposite. He comes from this really intuitive,

nonrational, more emotional side.

To Ryan, the intuitive way that Pattengale

writes is actually a more powerful artistic tool,

and hes learning to use it more. When you

write the way that he writes, also in my opinion

the way Joe Henry writes, it has the effect of

giving the listener a more direct experience of

the thing that inspired you to write the song,

Ryan says. Rather than telling the listener what

it was, you actually give them the experience.

THE MILK CARTON KIDS

Pattengale agrees that Ryan tends to be more

direct in his lyrics, but he adds that with most

songs, its impossible to write lyrics that lay out

the topic or story in detail. The song form is so

compact, and accommodates so few words, thatunless youre writing dozens of verses in the nar-

rative style of something like a Child ballad, you

have to leave stuff out. He says, The whole

point is that you have to rely on the listener to

finish the story for you, because theres actually

not enough time to tell the whole story.

Ultimately, regardless of who initiates a

song, Ryan and Pattengales goal as collabora-

tors is to get every song to the point where they

both can embrace it as their own. I think were

just trying to write songs that well both feel

comfortable singing and playing for the next

two years, Ryan says. A lot of times, one of uswri tes the song, but the other one ends up

singing the melody and becomes the narrator

and the person who has to believe it.

IN THE ASHES

For those familiar with the Milk Carton Kids

past music, its intriguing to come across, in the

song Monterey, the phrase the ash and

claysince The Ash and Clay was the title

track of their previous album.

Pattengale actually wrote the song Mon-

terey about six years ago, before he met Ryan

and long before writing The Ash and Clay.

WE HAVE A MUCH STRONGERSENSE OF SELF, WHICH ALLOWS US

TO EXPLORE THE PERIPHERIESOF THE WATERS WE SWIM IN.

KENNETH PATTENGALE


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Pattengale found the image of the ash and clay

in Monterey to be evocative, so eventually he

stole it from his own then-unpublished song to

write a new song with that title. I find it totally

appropriate to plagiarize oneself, he says.

In a subtle way, the image of the ash andclay suggests a theme running through the new

album.Many songs on Monterey seem to

describe the emotional aftermath or fallout

from some kind of calamitythough they never

say exactly what happened.

To me, the ash and clay very clearly refers

to the materials that we use to build something

new and also the remnants of a destructive

catastrophe, says Ryan. On The Ash and Clay,

there was a much stronger connection to the

clay. Whatever the damage done, there was a

sense of hope for what we could do coming out

of that, where this album feels much more todwell in the ashes. Thats probably altogether

too direct and literal for my bandmate.

In our conversation, Ryan does prove to be

more willing than Pattengale to talk directly

about the inspirations or intentions behind

songs. For instance, with the new song

Freedom, I share my interpretation of the

song: as a reflection on the violence and racial

conflicts of Ferguson, Missouri, and elsewhere.

Ryan says he actually started writing Freedom

several years ago, before Ferguson, as a

response to the Newtown school shootings.

The song for me hinges on drawing a con-

nection between the language that we use totalk about freedom and the language that we

use to talk about guns, he says. They both

ring. Freedom rings and shots ring. The degree

to which guns in our country are linked, at least

rhetorically, to freedom seems to me to be

absurd, but there it is right in the very lan-

guage. We use the same verb.

Pattengale and Ryan worked together to

complete the song, and by the time they were

done it had become much broader. The connec-

tion that I made between Freedom and Fergu-

son makes sense given whats happening right

now, says Ryan, and in ten or 15 years the songmight connect to another event or issue in the

public consciousness. No matter what you may

think a given song on Montereyis about, he

says, You couldnt possibly be wrong.

Leaving that kind of room for interpretation is

very much intentional on the part of the Milk

Carton Kids. They dont want to limit anyones

experience of the music by dictating how it

should be heard. They want people to lean in and

listen.

A good song, says Pattengale, is big

enough where you get to connect to it on your

own terms. AG

CarbonFiberCases.com


30/88

30 July 2015

NEW

STORIESOLDWAYS

BY JEFFREY PEPPER RODGERS

PHOTOS BY GARY HAMILTON

The evening sun is sinking down in Georgia

Across the gravel roads, the red clay,

and the pines

That old whippoorwill,

hes calling from the hillOf some long-forgotten time

hese words come from a new song by

Norman Blake, titled Grady Forest-

ers Store and Cotton Gin, about a

real store just down the dirt road from where

he grew up in Sulphur Springs, Georgia.

You know, we didnt have any telephones,

and we didnt have any electricity, Blake says

of his early years. The highest-tech thing we

with stories of the prewar era and back into the

19th century. Yet the songs are all recently

wri tten by Blake, from out law bal lads and

steamboat songs to guitar rags.

For more than 50 years, Blake has beenbringing traditional Southern music to lifeas

a sideman with Johnny Cash, and session

player with Bob Dylan (Nashville Skyline) and

John Hartford (Aereo-Plain), and many others;

as a flatpicking guitarist (as well as mandolin

and Dobro player) who inspired generations of

musicians with his rolling, melodic style; as a

wri ter of neo-traditional instrumentals and

songs such as Church Street Blues and

Ginseng Sullivan; and as a contributor to such

seminal albums as the Nitty Gritty Dirt Bands

Will the Circle Be Unbrokenand the O Brother,

Where Art Thou? soundtrack.

T

had was a battery radio that ran on a car

battery, and a few old phonograph records on a

wind-up phonograph. It was a pretty primitive

existence. The railroad was the biggest thing

we had, the most excitement. In some ways, Imiss the simplicity of those times.

At 77, Blake keeps things pretty simple by

modern standards. Still living in the Sulphur

Springs area with his wife and music partner,

Nancy, he does not have a cell phone or email

or even use a computer at all. Central to Blakes

reality, as he likes to put it, are vintage

guitars, old-time music, and historyall of

which figure prominently in his new solo

album, Wood, Wire, and Words, his first album

of all original songs in more than 30 years.

Along with the reminiscences of Grady Forest-

ers Store and Cotton Gin, the album is filled


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32 July 2015

steamboat days. Its pretty self-explanatory on the

record with a little rap, but theyd pay these

people to keep the lantern burning, and he made

the statement in this article I was reading that he

and his wife was fixed up for life because he got

that $15. And I just thought, boy, consideringwhere $15 goes today, thats quite a statement.

That was in the days when the steamboats

were plying the river. Of course, in this case Im

speaking of the Mississippi River, and I make

references to Thebes, Illinois. My wife, Nancy,

and I have spent time down therealmost

bought a house there before we came back

home. I wrote a tune years ago, an instrumental

mandolin piece, called Thebes. Theres a court-

house where Lincoln used to try cases that sits

up on the riverbank. It always was a fascinating

place, so that crept into the song. And I worked

a long time with a steamboat man, John Hart-ford, so steamboats were certainly in my reality.

The album has a couple of outlaw ballads,

about Joseph Thompson Hare and Black

Bart. Did those also come out of reading?

Research, yeah, about these particular people.

Joseph Thompson Hare on the Old Natchez

Trace, he was a real person, as was Black Bart.

I wrote another song a long time ago on another

record [Chattanooga Sugar Babe] about William

Miner, Ol Bill Miner (the Gentleman Bandit).

When youre reading about these figures,

what makes you think you could translate

their stories into songs?

You know, you have all the popular ones or the

overworked ones, like you know so much about

Jesse James. [Joseph Thompson Hare and

Black Bart] are just lesser known people that

are in history but maybe havent been heard

about. So theyre subjects you can write about

and do your own thing with, so to speak. You

take the facts and make a story about them, or

you can invent a story. Ive done it both ways.

Billy Gray was a song I wrote years ago that

was completely fict ional. It sounds like this

kind of a song, but it was fictional.

How do you relate your original songs to

the traditional songs that you also play?

Well, I know a lot of old ones and Ive done a

lot of old ones. Sometimes if you feel inclined

to write something, you take something that

youre comfortable with. A lot of people have

said that my s tuff sounds traditional. Down

through the years in anything I wrote, I always

wanted to try to write something that would be

as good as the old stuff that I knew. That was

my guideline. I didnt want to write something

Id consider substandard.

In these songs, you play very melodically

on the guitar. Would you trace that style

back to the Carter Family?

Yeah, the Carters were always in my reality real

heavy, the old records, sure. Of course, if Im

playing fiddle music I am always influenced by

the string bands like the Skillet Lickers. Im very

much influenced by Roy Acuff, the Blue Sky

Boys, and the Delmore Brothers, to name some.

Do your songs sometimes start with just

the guitar melody and then you add the

vocal later?

Ive worked all ways. Ill sometimes take a

melody first, and sometimes Ive written lyrics

and then set them to musicand usually when

you do that you need to alter the lyrics. John

Hartford always said that youve got to find the

words that sing right. Some words may work

poetically if youre not playing music with

them, but they dont sing good. Some words

just roll off better with certain melodies.

NORMAN BLAKE

I usually dont do very good with a song

until I can play it on the guitar, because Ive

never trusted my vocalizing enough to just

chord behind it. One reason Ive always tried to

work in a lot of auxiliary notes, melodic notes,

is because I use those as crutches to find where

I am in the chord. I would never be a stand-up

type vocalist. I always have to play the guitar.

Its half of what I do. The vocal and the guitargo together.

Is it important, then, as you work out a

song on guitar, that you find a position

where the melody is easy to reach?

Definitely. Youve got to find the key you can sing

it in, and hopefully you can find it in a good

position. G and C are the main ones. Sometimes

thats not possible. Sometimes you want to capo

up too high. I never like to go above the fifth fret

when Im playing by myself. Preferably, I stay

down in open or no [higher] than the second

fret, where the instrument is fuller.


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http://www.ibanez.co.jp/usa/


35/88


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MAPLE BYRNE

THECOLLECTORBY ADAM PERLMUTTER PHOTOS BY BILL STEBER

Maple Byrne

with his1920s

Weissenborn

Style C


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38 July 2015

SPECIAL FOCUSGEAR ACQUISITION SYNDROME

ne day in 1980, the guitar tech Maple

Byrne received a Mandolin Brothers

newsletter in the mail and became

enthralled by one of the instruments it offered

for sale: a 1939 Martin D-28, in excellent origi-nal condition, culled from the personal collec-

tion of Stan Jay, one of the shops illustrious

proprietors. At $5,500 (about $15,560 today),

it was far more expensive than any instrument

hed ever bought, but Byrne felt he had no

choice but to pull the trigger. Its still the best

instrument Ive ever encountered, Byrne says.

Ive often said this purchase ruined my life, as

no other compares, though I keep trying to find

one that does.

Over the past 35 years, that ongoing quest

has led Byrne to amass a trove of vintage fretted

instrumentsflattops and archtops, both

coveted and obscure; classic and oddball electric

guitars and basses; mandolin- and banjo-family

instruments of all ranges; and the occasional

autoharp, pedal steel, and Appalachian dulci-

mer207.5 instruments in all, according to histally. Im halfway done paying off number 208,

he says, laughing.

At 66, Byrne is a music-industry veteran

whos worked behind the scenes for many years.

He got his start in the early 1970s, doing sound

and lights, booking, and flyer graphics for such

legendary nightclubs as the Boarding House in

SF (where the landmark progressive bluegrass

album Old & in the Waywas recorded) and Trou-

badour in LA. Later he worked as a one-man

crew for the comedian Steve Martin and for

singer-songwriter Steve Goodman, as well as a

guitar tech for Ry Cooder. And for more than 30

O

1949 DAngelico Excel

years, Byrne has worked as Emmylou Harris

stage manager, taking care of her guitars,

restringing them every other day, and helping

tailor her sound onstage. Ive always found han-

dling the instruments to be such a relief frompaperwork, he says.

When hes not on the road with Harris, Byrne

can be found at home in Nashville, Tennessee,

where hes lived for almost 20 years , quietly

tending to his collection and coaxing songs out of

them. But he doesnt think of himself as a formi-

dable instrumentalist. Im just a technician, and

I stick mostly to the open position, he says.

Many years ago, I heard some guys who can

really play guitar, like Brian Davies doing Buck-

dancers Choice, and I resigned myself to the fact

that I would never do anything so fancy, but just

use the guitar as a tool for learning old songs.

1910s House of Strathopoulo

harp-guitar

1928 Gibson L-5


39/88


to record Bob Dylans proto-electric single

Mixed-Up Confusion); a 1920s 5-21 T, a tenor

model; and an early-30s C-2, Martins commer-

cially unsuccessful roundhole archtop. I like to

avoid duplications of instruments, particularlyin terms of timbre, explains Byrne. I dont

want any two guitars to sound alike.

Byrnes stable of 1930s and 40s Gibson flat-

tops is similarly varied. Though he has larger-

bodied Gibsons, like a 1937 Advanced Jumbo

and a 1944 J-45, hes partial to the smaller

models, like his L-2 and L-C, both made in

1934, not to mention his 1937 Nick Lucas

Special, 1944 LG-2, and wartime L-00.

What got me started collecting Gibsons is

an interest in the Robert Johnsonsize models.

They came in all different kinds of woods,

some not advertised in catalogs. The ones

yrnes birth name is Kenneth; he goes

by the name of Maple on account of

his affinity for the bright-sounding

tonewood. In general, he prefers harder species

like maple and rosewood, as hes drawn to theirtonal complexity. This explains the relative scar-

city of mahogany on the bodies of guitars in his

collection. My facetious credo is Mahogany is

just for necks, he says.

The centerpiece of the collection, the 1939

D-28, with its Brazilian rosewood back and

sides, is joined by a cohort of other Martins.

Theres another Holy Grailtype guitar, a 1930

OM-28 that used to belong to the vintage-guitar

expert and dealer Eric Schoenberg; a 1920 1-21

that the Greenwich Village folk musician Bruce

Langhorne played on many 1960s sessions (it

used to have a DeArmond pickup and was used

falling outside of the normal specs have always

been very interesting to me, he says, referring

to his L-00 and J-45, which have maple backs

and sides as opposed to the more common

mahogany.He might collect obvious classics, but Byrne

also is a big fan of instruments without

marquee names. Hes partial to those made in

Chicago, by Kay, Regal, Harmony, and others.

I have a couple of nice Regalsa long-

scaled dreadnought model from around the

time [that body type] was becoming standard-

izedand an OM-sized model with a dread-

nought body depth. I enjoy having examples

from the same maker and period, but at oppo-

site ends of the spectrum, one being more for

flatpicking and the other for fingerpicking, he

says.

I LIKE TO AVOID DUPLICATIONS OF INSTRUMENTS,PARTICULARLY IN TERMS OF TIMBRE.I DONT WANT ANY TWO GUITARS TO SOUND ALIKE.

1940 Stromberg Master 300 1920s Sovereign

Grand Concert

1931 Epiphone Broadway

B


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42 July 2015

SPECIALFOCUSGEAR

ACQUISITIONSYNDROME

AGASKEDG.A.S.-SUFFERINGREADERS TO SHARETHEIR PAINWHAT

ACOUSTIC GUITARWOULD THEY OWN,IF MONEY WERENO OBJECT?

Reader Zachary

Williams Collings

Winfield with custom

sunburst, rosewood

back and sides,

and Adirondack top

DREAMA LITTLE DREAM

here are people in this world full of

glorious guitars who own but a single

axe. And theyre happy living that way.

I kid you not. And then there are the rest of us.

Those wretched souls afflicted with GAS (guitar

acquisition syndrome). For GAS sufferers, one

guitar has led to another and another and

another . . . . And theres always that ideal some-

thing out there somewhere, if only you could find

it. In all fairness, and this is what I tell my wife

all the time, sometimes it makes sense to own

Tmore than one guitar because no single guitar

can do everything. Some are good for fingerstyle.

Some are better for flatpicking. Some are capable

of eking out a bluesy tone. So many kinds of

tonewoods. And then there are those resonators

(so many to choose from), and tenors, and bari-

tones, and parlorsyou get the idea.

AGenlisted readers, and a few well-known

performers, to share their notions of their dream

guitars: What axe represents the holy grail?

G.C.


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BOB RYAN

I have a Martin 000-28EC and lust for a GibsonSJ-100 1941 reissuesunburst, of course. Id

love a Martin 000-28EC in sunburst though as

well . [P ictured] Me and my 1998 Mart in

00028-EC (Eric Clapton signature model). I

have been playing Martins since 1974, when I

bought a D-35 straight from the factory. Played

it for years in bands and as a solo and must

have written something like 150 songs on it. It

developed some problems in the early 90s and

I ended up trading it straight across for a new

Martin SPD-16R in 1996 or so. That was a

beautiful guitar but in 1998, my best friend

gifted me with the 000-28. The first time I

played the 000, it just fit me like no otherguitar. It has a gorgeous sound and feel, very

balanced, lots of character. And after 20 years

of playing dreadnoughts, the 000 body just felt

so much more comfortable. I used the 000

exclusively in the studio during the recording of

my album The Spirit of Andy Devine. It records

beautifully.

MIKKEL CHRISTENSEN

It came down to the guitar that Robert

Johnson used to playnot the Gibson Guitar

Corporation model L-1 flattop, but the Kalama-

zoo KG-14. I think it is incredible that such asmall piece of wood can bring out such sound.

I know that aesthetically other guitar types

have been used for much more complex and

perhaps more beautiful melodies and songs, but

this is an amazing legend and his playing is so

good. The old school recordings sound fantas-

tic. It is not really known for a fact if it was his

Kalamazoo on the majority of the recordings,

but I like to think so. In the end, just the

thought of the myth about Robert Johnson

selling his soul to the devil for success is so ter-

rifying and intriguing that I would love to play

the same type of guitar.

JESSE MORANTEZ

A custom Taylor. I have a Taylor 710 but Im

left-handed and play right-handed guitars

upside down. Its great when Im at guitar

stores but to have the cutaway for a lefthander

would be swell and the Expression Sys tem

knobs on top. Also the nut backwards because

my bass strings are in the bottom. I dont ask

too much, do I?

DEREK BIAFORE

Gibson CF-100/CF-100E: Made briefly in the

1950s, vintage flattop with sexy, sharp cutaway.

Played by the likes of Jackson Browne and

J Mascis.

DAVID WITT

Ive been lusting after guitars for my entire

adult life. Even made treks to La Jolla and

Nazareth to see Taylors and Martins made right

before my eyes. My heart tells me go Martin,

particularly a 12-fret, slotted headstock like the

CS-00S-14 or maybe the less splashy John

Mayer signature. These are new guitars and assuch they have to be aged into their rightful

tonality. Im 66 and just dont have that kind of

time left. So, for sheer beauty, my choice would

be a 1947 DAngelico New Yorker. This is func-

tional artone of the most traditionally beauti-

ful instruments ever made. If I owned one, I

would likely drive myself crazy worrying about

humidity or theft. Thus, for absolute playability

and overall tone, the winner for me is a prewar

Gibson L-5. Killer tone in the right hands, visu-

ally satisfying, and if it was good enough for

Mother Maybelle, well itll serve my purposes

quite well. So what do I play instead of these

legendary instruments? An Epiphone MasterbiltDR-500M, a Seagull S6, and a Recording King

ROS-06. Cheap guitars that I can play pretty

well and dont keep me up at night with their

demands.

JAMES TOWNSEND

I love my 000 Martin made for me in 1981.

Sweet, crisp, and clear. Nothing like it.

DEL REY

Im really monogamous with my

Ron Phillips parlor-sized resona-

tor. Well, maybe not monoga-

mousI have three of them,

and I go back and forth as to

which guitar I play most. Its like

a polyamorous musical relation-

ship with triplets. I really do only

play the Ron Phillips concert

ukeno other uke makes the

shimmery sound of nickel silver.

But I have a long list of instru-

ments I used to have before

Ron made me guitars. I never

have made enough money to

keep instrumentsIm always

selling them to get something

else or to go somewhere. Heres

a list of instruments I once

owned that I still regret selling:

Gibson 1929 dot-neck L-5,

formerly owned by Nappy Lamare

1940s Epiphone Emperor1940s Epiphone Triumph

1965 Gibson ES-330

1969 Lucite Dan Armstrong

1960s Gibson J-45

The last three were things my

dad found in pawnshops around

San Diego when I was a teen-

ager. He came home with some

cool stuff, but you had to watch

him. One time, he was about to

take the J-45 down to his

friends shop to have it strippedand repaintedhe thought the

crazed finish was unattractive.

He wanted to use silver spray

paint on a 1938 National Style O

(a guitar I dont regret, since it

sounded like a cross between

a banjo and a can of cooked

peas). When I was 16, I was

trying to play guitar, fiddle, and

banjo. I came home from school,

and my dad had pawned the

fiddle and the banjo. I guess

he could only stand so much.


44/88

44 July 2015


KAREN SHELDON-SWANSON

Taylor Liberty Tree guitar, special limited

edition of 400, made around 2002. Why?

Because it is a true piece of history, using wood

(tulip poplar) from the last remaining Liberty

Tree. As a lover of American history, to me, thiswould be the ultimate in owning something

which represented American pat riotism, a

symbol for liberty.

BETTY BUCKEL

Ive had a Hummingbird since 1970, bought

used. Absolutely sweet. However, Ive never

forgotten the heavenly experience of handling

a Martin D-28, some 35 years ago.

ROGER LARKIN

I have a guitar I found on the side of road in

1980. Its a 1950 Clou flattop guitar. It plays and

sounds like a million dollars. Ninety-five percent

of people have never heard or seen one.

DAVID BUS H

I am partial to my 76 Yamaha YS. Ive tried

almost all types of strings for it and keep

returning to bronze flatwound strings to keep

the sound I like. It has mellowed and gotten

richer over the years.

RICK NOGRADY

Without a doubt I would buy another

McPherson.

DEBBIE BARRETTE

If money were no object??? My brain just

exploded.

RICK JENNINGS

Duh, Trigger! (Willie Nelsons Martin N-20)

CHARLES BERRYHILL

Jean Larrive Guitars, the best there is. I have

three. Larrivee SD-60, Christmas present from

my wife, Denise, custom made for me.

MARIA WILLIAMSON

A big body, emerald green Takamine with a

cutaway. Custom pickup, please.

TONY MORENO

I got a flyer in the mail from Guitar Center last

week. It had an $11,000 Martin parlor acoustic

guitar made from Brazilian. I would say that

one, just to know what an $11,000 guitar plays

like.

STEVE MOONEY

I have mine, a Gibson J-200. Bought it last

year. It has been my life-long dream to own a

Gibson J-200 Standard.

MICHAEL REILLY

Taylor 614ce first edition, solid spruce top

with flame maple back and sides. Beautiful

guitar with great sound with or without plug-

ging it in.

DAVE HULL

If money was not an issue, it would be chal-

lenging to limit myself to one, but I am strongly

leaning toward a Bill Tippin in German spruce

over Indian rosewood.

STEVE WILLIAMS

A 1937 Martin D-28. Although I have never

had the opportunity to play this guitar, it would

be a dream to be able to own one and subse-

quently pass it to my son and grandson to keep

future generations playing a wonderful instru-

ment. Sound, quality, and heritage.Escapethe expected. Experiencegraphite.

Accentuate

www.rainsong.com1.800.788.5828


45/88


MICHAEL MACE

I already have my Rainsong AWS, but if I had

the cash Id buy the Rainsong 12-string. There

is nothing I dont love about that guitar.

GILBERT STEVENSON

If money were no object, then Id have Harvey

Leach build me the best sounding dreadnought

hes capable of. Since its Harvey Leach, Id have

the headstock inlaid with a fancy MOP design.

BILL NOEL

A Sears Silvertone Jumbo Western (Harmony

Sovereign H1260). Or a 12-fret wideneck short-

scale walnut guitar with Adirondack top, pearl

inlay, and a sunburst top.

JEFFREY THOMAS GIANVITO

I am a simple man: Guild D-25M (late 70s to 80

with arched back) that doesnt need a neck reset.

Its not the money, its what I like to play. . . .

MILTON MESS ENGER

A Lowden F50 cutaway with stainless steel

medium jumbo frets. Adirondack spruce

bracing, sinker redwood top, African ebony

back, and Mexican cocobolo for the sides. And

it would be voiced by the master luthier George

Lowden himself. Only $13,000!

ARTH UR STRAND

I would like a custom-built Martin! But Ill

carry on with the Fender acoustic that has done

me proud for 42 years.

MITCHELL BEATTIE

Taylor African ebonyhands downlooks,

sounds, feels amazing. Wish I had the $5,000

for it all.

EARL FULLMER

Froggy Bottom Model L parlor guitar in walnut.

I have admired Froggy Bottom Guitars for

around 35 years; sadly I am a poor man. . . .

GARY BRERETON

I would stick with my 150 Washburn with

Fishman Rare Earth pickup. Its the first guitar I

ever hadthat my lovely wife Sandi Brereton

bought for me way back when. I would not

change it or supersede it for all the tea in

China, and I love tea.
http://www.g7th.comperformance/http://www.g7th.comperformance/


46/88

46 July 2015

ZACHARY WILLIAMS

I actually just got to purchase my dream

guitar! A beautiful Collings Winfield with

custom sunburst. Rosewood back and sides

with Adirondack top!

KEN DRAPER

Had an old Martin D-28 that was lost in a fire.

Never have found anything that sounded that

good again.

JOE BLAYONE

Peter Sawchyn [of Sawchyn Guitar Ltd.]

showed me a 30s Gibson parlor 12-fret that was

$4,000. Beat up and beautiful sounding. That

was months ago and Im still thinking about it.

CHIP WOODS

Years ago I played a Breedloveat the time it

was $3,000. They were a new company at thetime. That guitar has remained the single most

amazing guitar I have ever played. Wish I could

have bought it.

BANJO MOORE

I own over 20 guitars. But Id like to have the

Taylor John Denver tribute acoustic guitar. And

a Gibson wouldnt hurt, either.

MARK SCHOENBAUM

At this moment, the Martin OM-45 De Luxe

Authentic 1930. It has everything I would want

if I built my own custom-shop model.

PRASHANT POKHAREL

I want to play the guitar and make some good

music rather than hoard expensive guitars,

keep them in a vault, worry about them all the

time and do nothing musically. So, Ill be happy

with Yamaha FG730S tobacco brown sunburst

or Seagull S6 Entourage Rustic burst!

MATT TOMS

I would return to the tiny guitar shop in Paris

on my honeymoon last year, where I [found]

three original vintage 1920s acoustic lap slides:

a Weissenborn, a Knutsen, and a Kona. It wasincredible to find these three all in the same

shop. Even more incredible to be given free rein

and as much time as I needed to get to know

them alone in a room unsupervised. To find such

craftsmanship still sounding so good, from three

unique handmade guitars all of which were close

to 100 years old, is something that returns to my

mind again and again. I would walk from my

home in Sydney to Paris to receive one of these

guitars. Or swim. And I would donate my con-

verted 12-string Kasuga (now the closest thing I

can afford to a Weissenborn-style guitar) to

someone who was not so lucky.


STEVE EARLEThere are several holes in my

collection. I still havent found

the perfect J-200. I let one go,

years agothe jazz drummer

Brian Blade brought in a perfectone to [a guitar store]. I already

was looking at a DAngelico

mandolin and I had to buy one

or the other. I let it go. I called

Buddy Miller and I told him

where it was and he got it.

So I know where it is and

Ive still got my eye on it.

Ive had my eye on a J-185

for years and if I ever found a

really good Everly Bros. model

Id probably buy it. And I want

a really good [Martin] 000

slot-head of some sort, I dont

even care what kind though Id

love to have a rosewood one.

Id love to have a prewar Martin

000-21, but theyre the rarest of

Martins. One reason I love thequadruple-aught guitars, the M

guitars, is that if you measure

the interior volume of an M

guitar, and this is real guitar-

nerd shit, and a slot-head 000,

not a 14-fret 000, is that when

they flatten the bout to expose

those other two frets, they gave

up some volume inside. So

000s and OMs that came about

after the 14-fret thing started are

smaller inside than their 12-fret

predecessors. And the interior


47/88


ALVINYOUNGBLOODHARTI suppose the most prized

guitar I own would be my spruce

top mid-30s Stella six-string.

Its nothing fancy, a single-0

size, I suppose. When I started

to study pre-WWII music in

my late teens, I often wondered

why the guitars you buy over-

the-counter at Guitar Conglom-

erate didnt sound like the ones

on the records. I soon found out

what they used. I also found that

if you wanted to play em, you

had to learn to fix em. I scored

this guitar at a flea market in94 for $60. Had to do a bit of

rebuilding, but it has since been

around the world and played on

a record or two. Ive put in lots

of time with this instrument and

its taken me a lot of places.

As for a holy grail, I dont

know. My unplugged phase

lasted roughly from 1982 until

the mid 90s. That was a long

time and a lotta guitars thru my

hands. As a youngster, I always

wanted an old National resona-tor. As a young adult, I went

through many of them. I recall

around 1992 I had six of them.

After the reissues took hold,

they kind of became a clich

guitar for the blues crowd. I

decided I liked the wood bodies

better than the metal bodies and

narrowed it down to one, a 1928

Triolian. Now I dont know that

its a holy grail or anything.

Its my oldest playing guitar and

I will probably play it to shreds.

EMILY FRANTZ(of Mandolin Orange, who plays

a 1951 Gibson J-45)

Definitely a prewar 1930s

Martin, probably a D-18. TheD-28 sounds great, toowere

just more mahogany people.

volume of a slot-head 000 and

an M guitar are almost identical.

To me, the triple-0 12-fret is the

perfect Martin guitar.

I also own three really great

archtops: a 35 L-5, one of thelast New Yorker specials that

Jimmy DAquisto built, and its a

monster, and a Gilchrist archtop,

which I think is the best archtop

that I own.

[Editors note: On his latest album,

Terraplane, Earle used a Gibson

L-00 (with raised fretboard and

black pickguard) and a 1951

CF-100 as well as a 1929

wood-body National Triolian.]

TED

BARRON

Far LeftSteve Earle witha DAngelico Style B

LeftAlvin Youngblood Hartwith his Stella


48/88

48 July 2015


JOHN OATES(of Hall & Oates)

What are the most prized possessions in my

current acoustic-guitar collection? My 1967

Guild F-20 that I recorded the entire Missis-sippi Milealbum on. Its a sweet small-body

guitar that is very easy to play and doesnt

take up a lot of sonic space in a track, but at

the same time has a lot of character. I have

a 1946 Gibson J-50, which is the classic

big-box cannon. It brings the vintage wooden

full-spectrum classic sound that is so familiar

to Gibson lovers. Next would be two custom

Gibsons that I designed with Ren Ferguson

in Bozeman, Montana. One is a custom-built

2006 Gibson B-25 made like a mini J-45 that

is built with bracing to resemble a J-45. It is

rosewood and spruce with a long 60s-style

pickguard and unique purfling. It is a red-and-

gold sunburst that resembles a Hummingbird

in color. The other is a 2007 custom-built L-00.

I also own a 1983 custom black dreadnought

made by Ron Volbrecht, from Nashville,

Indiana, built in the style of a D-45. It is

Brazilian rosewood and spruce; it has abalone

binding and heart-shaped fret inlays.

In 2012, I worked with the Martin custom

shop and had a one-of-a-kind 00-28 made.

Spruce and pine with a half-inch deeper

body than the normal 00 Martins. It has her-

ringbone binding and is a dark sunburst

similar to the mid-1930s style with an ebonyfingerboard and mother of pearl inlays. On

the 12th fret my Good Road to Follow

compass logo is inlayed. This guitar is my

current favorite and I record with and play it

all the time. It sounds like its 30 years old.

I would like to find and buy the Guild F-30

that was given to Mississippi John Hurt back

in the late 60s. After he passed away, it was

given to my guitar mentor, Jerry Ricks, and

he brought it to New York so I could play it

on the first two Hall & Oates albums at Atlan-

tic Studios.

Heres the full inventory from Oates:

1947 Gibson J-50 (banner)

1949 Martin 5-18 slot-head

1951 Epiphone Zenith

1967 Guild F-20

1983 Martin D-28 (150thanniversary)

1983 Volbrecht (custom)

1994 Taylor 612 CD (custom)

1995 Takamine

2010 Martin 00-15M

2011 Trussart resonator

2012 Martin 00-28 (custom)

AG

My 1967

Guild F-20 that I

recorded the entire

Mississippi Mile

album on.

RightJohn Oates withhis Gibson B-25


49/88


50/88

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51/88


JOEY

LUSTERMAN

New music from

folk legend

Tom Paxton, p. 58

54Weekly Workout

Learn the intricaciesof single-chordgrooves

60Acoustic Classic

Dylan is one ofmany to tackleBlack Jack Davey PLAY

62Acoustic Classic

Try this colorfulapproach toLondonderry Air

52Basics

Use strummingdynamics to bringsongs to life


52/88

52 July 2015

The best public speakers have a rise and fall

to their delivery, both in pitch and involume. It is captivat ing and even dramatic,

drawing listeners in and holding them. Musi-

cians use this sense of dynamics to great effect

as well. Your acoustic guitar can handle a wide

range of volumes, and it can be fun to explore

that range. Whether you are using a flat pick,

thumb and finger picks, or your bare fingers,

here are some ways to experiment with your

delivery.

This fairly simple strum can be played

evenly: one-and two three four-and, played as

down-up down down down-up. Beats one and

four are divided into eighth notes, while beats

two and three are quarter notes taking up thewhole beat. Try it on an E chord in open posi-

tion and strum all six strings. Use a medium

tempo at first, then try it at various slow and

fast tempos.

Consider the song

as a story that you

are telling.

ExploringStrummingUse dynamics to bring

a performance to life

BYJANEMILLER

BASICS

sacrificing the sound of the chord if you are

playing the entire chord at some point in themeasure. It will be a nice change to your ears to

mix up the number of strings you play while

strumming a groove. To make this a greater chal-

lenge, try this same exercise on a D chord in

open position. You will want to make sure to

only strum from the open D string, which is the

root of the chord and its bass note. Lightening

up on the non-accented beats will be easy, but be

careful when hammering out the loud passage;

it will take practice to gain accuracy with regard

to playing only from the bass note of the chord.

Now repeat the exercise for an A chord in

open position. The bass note is now on the

A string.You can mix up these three chords in a

variety of cool-sounding chord progressions.

The focus here should be on the expression of

the sound, which you will be controlling with

your picking hand.

Along with creating a groove through

dynamics within a single measure or pattern,

you will also make a song come alive by bringing

some sectionslike a verseway down, and

then make another sectionlike the chorus

come way up in volume. Consider the song as a

story that you are telling. Is it a scary story that

is quiet and then explosive? Is it a love story thatstays sensitive with subtle shifts in the dynamic

range? Is there a solo instrumental break that

makes listeners lean in to hear the intimate

details? Or does it become a loud party celebrat-

ing making music with friends?

As you listen to some of your favorite guitar

players, tune into the bigger picture of the loud

and soft of it all, regardless of style, technique,

or complexity. Dont be surprised if you start

noticing similar dynamic patterns in conversa-

tions with people. You will be fine-tuning your

listening skills, which will come through the

next time you pick up your guitar. AG

You can indeed keep a steady strum like

that going throughout a song, but listen to whathappens with a slight adjustment in your

picking hand. If you accent beats two and

three, youll get a nice rock groove, keeping the

eighth notes even in the first and fourth beats:

one-and TWO THREE four-and. An effective

way to create a greater dynamic gap between

the accented beats and the non-accented beats

is to lighten up on beats one and four. Now you

will hear beats two and three really jumping

out at you. Notice that you have just created a

very different feel from the original strum.

One way to lighten up on a strum is to only

strum a few of the strings. You will no

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