SOUND ADVICE
Sound Advice
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BY JOHN STIX
T
he Doobie Brothers will forever be
linked with the San Francisco sound
– a sound that had also spawned
The Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger
Service, Big Brother and the Holding
Company, Jefferson Airplane, and The Moby
Grape. But Patrick Simmons, a founding
member/guitarist and composer of favorites
like “Black Water” and “Echoes of Love,” has
an even stronger link to folk giants like Doc
Watson, Rev. Gary Davis, and The Kingston
Trio. Here he talks about his early days with
the guitar and gives us some sound advice on
exploring beyond what you know.
I think you are an acoustic folk picker
who picked up an electric.
That’s absolutely true. Except that I based
my guitar playing originally in country guitar.
I started on acoustic. Then I started playing
electric soon after because my neighbors
were these people in a country western
band. They all had old Harmony guitars with
an F-hole archtop – the most uncomfortable
guitars to play. They used Black Diamond
strings, which were like telephone wires.
The strings were up a mile off the board.
Talk about calluses. I started playing electric
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DIGITAL EDITION
JUNE/JULY