If you want to know who has been the most impactful guitarist in Christian music over the last 50 years or more- look no further than Phil Keaggy. Phil was there at the birth of the Jesus Music movement and has not stopped producing quality music – 68 albums to date( either instrumental or vocal records) – all aimed to honor God and share his faith in Christ. Not only as a guitar player( he plays several instruments) but also as an arranger and producer … Phil’ s talents are through the roof. In addition to his own projects, Phil has generously shared these God-given talents with other artists in scores of collaborations. Pick any one of those 68 albums and give them a spin, and you will see what a musical gift Phil carries. He would give the glory to God of course. We are grateful for that gift, as we get to enjoy it ourselves.
[ Bruce Adolph ] What I would like to talk about is your career through the eyes of your guitars. Because you have some iconic guitars and I want to just visit those if we can. Later we will also talk about your new Super Sessions project that was inspired from being a Mike Bloomfield fan back in the late 60’ s to early 70’ s.
[ Phil Keaggy ] Yes, I am a big time Mike Bloomfield fan.
Phil back in the day.
[ WM ] And the guitar players back then everyone was listening to? It was Mike Bloomfield. Then it was John Mayall and the Blues Breakers with a young Eric Clapton. And then it was Jeff Beck’ s Truth. You had to have that record.
[ Phil ] Absolutely. And he was in the Yardbirds too in the mid 60s.
[ WM ] So, let’ s look at your early music influences. What was one of the first concerts you went to in Southern California?
[ Phil ] I saw a band called The Spats. I have no idea where they were from, but they had a great guitar player who played a Tele through a Bogan PA head into a Vox speaker cabinet.
And his tone was just incredible. And that made a real impression on me. But I was collecting records from my earliest days. During the 60s, besides The Beatles, Elvis, Everly Brothers, Booker T and the MGs and groups like that, I was really getting into guitar. And when I first heard“ Please Crawl Out Your Window” by Bob Dylan, I think it was Robbie Robertson from The Band. And I thought,“ Man, that’ s a great tone. I love that tone.”
It was very compressed and it was probably a Strat or a Tele or something. But then Bloomfield joined up with him, and he played on some of his mid 60s albums. But then I started listening to Bloomfield in the Paul Butterfield Blues band. And then when he was playing a Tele, but when he started the Electric Flag, he had this Les Paul and he had this tone. And I had a Gibson 335 at the time. I don’ t have it anymore. I have no idea where it went, but I ended up getting a Les Paul because of Michael Bloomfield. The first Les Paul I got was a black Custom. It was called“ The Fretless Wonder” and I didn’ t like it that the frets were so low.( laughing)
So, I had it re-fretted and it was a two pickup black guitar Custom. And that’ s what I played on the first Glass Harp demo album. After that I ended up getting a 1960 Les Paul Sunburst Standard.
[ WM ] Oh, I wish you still had that one.
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