Wednesday, September 23, 2009
I’ve been playing for a while and, while I improve, I can’t get close to a lot of people – a lot would be Ray Flacke, Bill Kirchen, Pete Anderson, Clarence White, James Burton, Reggie Young, Don Rich, Redd Volkeert…even Brad Paisley is pretty good. .I could go on. How did these guys get so good? Maybe it’s the Malcolm Gladwell theory of 10,000 hours of practice makes you a genius (he uses - in popular music - the Beatles as an example, who played together for years in Hamburg doing 12 hour sets. That’s how they got so good he says. I say Los Lobos (who I love) have been together for 30 years now – and they still haven’t produced Revolver. What’s up with that?)
These guys hear something different than me I think. Listen to James on the Ricky Nelson records, or Bill Kirchen on any Commander Cody album (or find the clip on youtube where he mimics all the greats. Very cool indeed), or Pete Anderson on the early Dwight albums (c’mon guys, time to get back together again I think). It’s fascinating to me (at least) when you do get something going that sounds like one of these guys and you realize how simple it is, how obvious, and how damn smart it was to figure it out (them not me) in the first place. I’m constantly amazed at what sounds you can get out of a Fender Telecaster. I have one. I get close sometimes. Sometimes I sound like I can’t play.
While we’re on guitars I have to give a plug to my new favorite toy. The mighty, mighty JangleBox! I’ve had a Rickenbacker 360/12 for a number of years and it always sounded just OK – not McGuinn but just OK. It’s always been a little dead to be honest and needed some spicing up but try as I might I could never get the tone I wanted. Then along comes JangleBox! It’s a small pedal with a couple of knobs and dials but basically you plug in your guitar, hit the button and you are McGuinn or Harrison. If you plug in a Strat it comes to life. If you plug in a pedal steel it just sounds right. What sort of magic are these guys playing with you may ask. Well, evidently McGuinn had some compressors built into his Ric (I saw a Roger Signature model years ago in a store in NYC for a couple of grand – too much I said – I must have been completely mad….aaaah life if full of regrets) and these guys tried to emulate them. They obviously succeeded. A great investment I have to say. I’m a happy chap.
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