SOUND ADVICE
soon after because they all did. I thought this
is so hip. I’ve got to have an electric guitar. Of
course, some of the people in those days, like
Ricky Nelson and Elvis Presley, were all doing
that electric thing even though they didn’t
really play electric guitars. But their bands were
electrified. I wanted to get into that mode. I
started doing that when I was pretty young.
And then along the time I hit high school, a lot
of the guitar players suddenly were acoustic
players – Bob Dylan, Peter Paul and Mary, The
Kingston Trio, Joan Baez, Doc Watson, Tom
Paxton. All these guys were taking center stage
for me at that time. I was taking guitar lessons
and the lady that gave me guitar lessons had all
these records and I would listen to them. And
then I started listening to country and blues –
particularly Doc Watson, The Rev. Gary Davis,
and Lightnin’ Hopkins.
Was your ear good enough that you could
pick it out?
“
“I WILL WATCH TV WITH MY
GUITAR AND DO SCALES AND
IT WORKS. IT FREES YOUR
MIND FROM YOUR HAND AND
LETS YOUR HAND DO A LOT OF
WORKING ON ITS OWN. WHEN
YOU’RE ON STAGE YOU HAVE TO
DO THAT ANYWAY.”
”
JUNE/JULY
I had been really into Chet Atkins, who to
me was the master of styles. When I started
hearing these people playing acoustic guitar –
doing a lot of neat picking – I took that thing
that Chet Atkins was and I sort of applied
that style to acoustic, which is kind of what
those people were doing, too. It’s that sort of
Nashville picking or Carter style. I like to sing,
too, which was the difference between Chet
Atkins and a guy like Doc Watson. I really liked
that combination of being able to pick and back
yourself on guitar and sing. And so I put the
electric guitar away. I just said I don’t want to
play electric anymore. I want get back to the
roots of guitar. I want to be like Doc Watson.
Then I heard Jorma Kaukonen. He used to play
around San Jose. I thought, man, this is it. This
guy has reached the pinnacle of what I want to
do. I want to be a country blues kind of based
guitar player and I want to sing this blues.
Were you naturally good? When you played
did it sound musical or did you work hard
to make it flow?
I had been playing at that point since I was
about eight years old. By the time I was 15 I
had been playing seven years, so I had a little
bit of ability in that direction. Bill Payne (Little
Feat) once told me when he gives lessons to
kids he doesn’t discourage them from just
plunking around on the piano. Even if they just
make noise – if it’s music to them – if they are
enjoying it and they feel some feedback from
that, I encourage that. I encourage people to
invent and try things on their own. Because
from that comes the enjoyment of the music
that you invented yourself to the point where,
once you have confidence in that, then you
can learn other styles and other techniques. If
you don’t have the confidence or enjoyment of
it then you can’t move forward. So I realized
of course – that’s my philosophy, too, on the
guitar. Naturally you want it to be musical.
But that perception of music doesn’t come
immediately except probably to a genius like
Mozart. Most people have to experiment and
make noise a little bit until from that noise
you start to recognize music and noise as two
distinctly different things. By experimenting, it
did come in a natural way. I would tune to an
DIGITAL EDITION
25