Deconstructing Luther Perkins

Learning some Luther Perkins licks today for a gig. Luther was Johnny Cash's guitarist from 1955 to Luther's death in 1968. He's a good example of a musician who noticeably develops and advances over the course of his career. One Johnny Counterfit writes on one of his webpages about Luther:

In conversations with Luther’s widow, Margie, I discover Luther had a never-ending desire to improve his guitar talents, including adding more intricate dimensions within his own creation.


His lead licks on early Cash sides like "Cry Cry Cry" (1956) were rudimentary but effective. By the time of the recording of At Folsom Prison in 1968, Luther was a fluid country player. He died tragically that year in a house fire at the age of 40.

Of particular interest for me at the moment are the lead guitar parts for "Cry Cry Cry" and "Get Rhythm". They're mostly boogie patterns, with occasional counter-intuitive moments. There's something stoic about Luther's early licks on these songs. That quality meshes well with Cash's doomy voice and stentorian songs.

Walking in Toronto: Guitar Iconography

Yesterday I resolved to take a picture of every image of a guitar that I saw on my walk through downtown Toronto. I guess you could say that I was engaging in some casual fieldwork on guitar culture. The interesting thing for me is the variety of ways that images of guitars are used to represent different ideas.

From the Metro free paper - a Royal Bank ad for student loans - the guitar is a luxury item, as opposed to the more necessary schoolbooks

The window display at Remenyi Music, a store catering to Royal Conservatory of Music and University of Toronto music students. The electric bass is nestled among more traditionally 'legit' instruments.

From the same window, an ad for the upscale Lowden acoustic guitars.

Shredding for change at Bloor and Yonge.

Pointy guitars have become a retro rock and roll symbol, suitable for belt buckles.

Window display at the weird, dusty music store on Yonge.

Away for a month and still hunting for a small amp.

It's been about a month since my last post and it's not really laziness that prompted this extended break from the bloggin'. In the time since I last posted, I played a whack of gigs, exchanged my new Marshall Class 5 (not enough volume to be useful in a lot of gigging situations) for a Traynor YCM-20 (which I'm about to return as well - the reverb feeds back on the lead channel and the amp is generally uninspiring), seen Mike Stern and Bill Frisell live in clubs and have generally had my hands full with a variety of time-consuming musical projects.
Mike Stern was especially inspiring.  I had never seen him play before, but I have been aware of him since the 80s, when he played in one of Miles Davis' late bands. My impression is that he just plays what he wants and doesn't worry too much about putting a label on what he does, or fitting in to current fashions.  He's really a classic fusion player, with a constant outpouring of ideas, beautiful phrasing, and a quite nice tone from a Yamaha Pacifica, a stereo solid-state amp setup including a Pearce amp (no longer available but I coveted one at the Guitar Clinic in Hamilton back in the day) and an old Yamaha amp that I can't identify, along with the 'doubling' effect on the old Yamaha SPX-90 digital effects unit (which comes out sounding a lot like chorus).
That Mike Stern was able to coax such lovely sounds out of solid-state gear has got me re-evaluating my fealty to tube amps. I just don't seem to be able to find a usable small tube amp in the price range that I'm working in. I'm looking at the ZT Club 12, which is a digital amp that weighs 22 pounds and puts out 200 watts. My good friend and musical partner Alec Fraser just switched to digital for his bass amp, and I have to say that he is achieving a convincing SVT tone with the tiniest of high-powered amp heads. I'll probably do the exchange tomorrow and report back.
Oh, and I still have my Strat. Long story involving Eric Clapton. Another time.

"While My Guitar Gently Weeps" - unpacking a classic guitar solo

If there is a piece of music that captivated me this week, it was Eric Clapton's solo in the Beatles' "While My Guitar Gently Weeps." I've been working on it again, and have found it difficult to master in its simplicity because of its unusual shifts and bends. It's only sixteen bars long, played over the verse chords and leading into a bridge in the parallel major key, A major. Here's a tab of it, transcribed by a man known only as Clark.

   (E)
e------------------------------------------|
B--------------------------13-b14--15-b17--|
G--(14)b17r14---12h14-b17------------------| 
D------------------------------------------| 
A------------------------------------------| 

E------------------------------------------|

Clapton's opening gambit focuses on an unusual three fret bend from A to C, a sound already established in earlier fills. This kind of ambitious bending was not at all common in rock in 

1968, though Buddy Guy and Albert King were known for wide bends, albeit less psychedelic.Clapton's secret weapon was light-gauge strings - Ernie Ball Super Slinkys I believe.

   (Am)            (Am7)                (D2)   (F)
e------------------------------------------------------------------------|
B--13--------------------------------------------------------------------|
G------14~~~--------12h14-b17-14b17~~~----------12h14-b17-14b17~~~-------|
D------------------------------------------------------------------------|
A------------------------------------------------------------------------|
E------------------------------------------------------------------------|


   (Am) (G)                          (D)                  (E)  
e-----------------------------------------15------------------>
B-------------------15-b17r15p13-15b17-------b17-r15--15--13-->
G--------12h14-b17-------------------------------------------->
D------------------------------------------------------------->
A------------------------------------------------------------->
E------------------------------------------------------------->
  
                                >--(15)b17--r---15b17--b17--|
                                >---------------------------|
                                >---------------------------|

                                >---------------------------|
                                >---------------------------|
                                >---------------------------|

Here Clapton breaks out of the A-C bend motif to gradually shift positions, climaxing 

early on the high A, bent up from G.

   (Am)           (Am7)                 (D2)                         (F)
e----(15)b17r15----b17---------------15-------------------15--------------|
B-------------------------17--15b17------b17r15--13h15b17-----b17r15--13--|
G-------------------------------------------------------------------------|
D-------------------------------------------------------------------------|
A-------------------------------------------------------------------------|
E-------------------------------------------------------------------------|

Backpedaling from this peak, he works in the 13th position with a series of permutations between C and G, the third and seventh of the A minor tonality.


   (Am)                                     (G)
e------------------------------------------------------------------>
B------------------------------------------------------------------>
G--(14)b17r14p12h14-b17--14b17---------12-------------------------->
D--------------------------------12h14----14--12p10-12---10h12-10-->
A------------------------------------------------------------------>
E------------------------------------------------------------------>

After a brief return to the A-C 'overbend', a series of hammered and slid note pairs returns the

line to the highest pitch.


     (C)                         (E)
  >------------------------------10h12--12/15--15-b17--b17r15--b17--|
  >----------------10h13--13/15-------------------------------------|
  >---------12h14---------------------------------------------------|
  >--12h14----------------------------------------------------------|
  >-----------------------------------------------------------------|

I learned this solo seven years ago for a Beatles show, but needed some serious 

rehabilitation when remembering it during my practice yesterday. The slides and hammers at 

the end in particular eluded me for a while - they're not in the common blues-rock lead guitar 

inventory. 

In the meantime, at one memorable gig around 2006 at the old Healey's club on Bathurst, Jeff Healey, Rob Phillips and I all wailed this solo in unison. A great night.

Check out the new header!

I have a sweet new header courtesy of cousin Stephen. I guess he couldn't stand to look at my plain-jane template for one minute longer.

Thanks Stephen!

Marshall Class 5: my new amp.

I bought a new amp yesterday.

I've been using an early Fender Pro Junior for several years, lately with a Hughes and Kettner Red Box between the speaker and the amp so that I can run a signal out to a small powered PA speaker for more headroom on stage.  This setup has worked quite well for me, since the Junior doesn't really have the cut with a drummer on stage.  At the same time it's too loud for certain applications where I want a bit of breakup.

But all of that is in the past, because I stumbled on the Class 5 yesterday. The Pro Junior has been giving me a lot of trouble, necessitating expensive repairs every six months or so for the last two years.  First the input jack broke (it was plastic), then the tube sockets separated from the circuit board, then the tube sockets stopped engaging the power tubes. I finally decided after the latest mysterious crackling noise to retire it and get a new one, thinking that it was my only option.

When I saw the Class 5 in a local used guitar store, I thought that it must be some sort of hybrid solid-state Marshall and I wasn't really interested.  But the price was right and when I realized that it was a Class A all-tube amp, I gave it a run with my Tele, which I had brought with me. I couldn't believe how good the amp sounded. I can't recall playing through an amp that was so responsive to the volume knob on the guitar.  It's sweet and nasty at the same time. I really love a clear, transparent overdriven tone (like an AC30) and the Class 5 has that, but it also has an aliveness that reminded me somewhat of Neil Young's tweed Princeton tone.

At another store later in the day, I did a side-by-side comparison with a Pro Junior and the Vox 4 watt amp.  There was really no comparison in tone, though the Pro Junior is certainly louder.  It was not a pleasant loud, but it was loud, and I wonder if the Class 5 will cut through drums enough for me to use it on stage without the Red Box and the PA speaker. I certainly hope so, but I'm prepared to beef it up if necessary. The Marshall's tone is just so musical and I can't wait to put it through its paces in a variety of live situations. I'm bringing it to a 50s rock and roll gig today - I'll report back.

This is my first Marshall - I've owned a succession of Fender amps - and I have to say that I am very impressed with the design, tone and build quality of this amp. It's also light as a feather and has badass white piping and silver grille cloth.

I am a solder monkey.

We did it! Greg Wyard and I rewired my Strat the other day, returning to its original three single coil pickups. There was a surprising amount of unsoldering and soldering between the pickups, switch, pots and ground, but success was achieved. We shared the soldering duties. We even did a little modification, changing the circuit to a master volume and master tone, rather than the usual configuration which provides tone controls to the neck and middle pickups but not the bridge pickup. As I'm still unable to read a schematic, we relied on the very clear wiring diagrams on the Seymour Duncan site, which nonetheless omitted the ground wiring.

 We did the job without understanding much about why a given wire went to a given terminal and so on, so I'm on a mission to clear away my ignorance by reading Craig Anderton's Electronic Projects for Musicians, which explains the theory behind basic electronics and provides directions for a number of projects, mostly of the stompbox variety. One item on the agenda for me is learning how to read schematics. Then, if all goes well, I'm gonna build something! I admit that I'm proud to have achieved this little rewiring project, and excited to build on this humble success.