Country music and Gibsons

[pippy]

There seems to be a popular opinion, or at least there was at one point, that you can only achieve X sound with X gear.

 

The gear is whatever gets you the sound you're looking for the easiest. Yes... a painter can paint an entire room with a thin little detail brush, but it would be so much easier if he used a roller....

 

I take your point that it's easier to make a Telecaster sound like a Telecaster than to make a Les Paul sound like a Telecaster. Lol!

 

P.

[ChanMan]

And vice versa!

[milod]

I guess I come back to the, "does it sound like you" more than, "does it sound like a tele."

 

I think the older one gets the "does it sound like you" becomes more important and, again, the playability factor seems to me to become of greater importance.

 

I never cared for "F" necks. I doubt I ever will. But I surely blew it going guitar to guitar for a "stage look" that would seem to gain acceptance. I think it's odd that such a thought owned me for so long.

 

m

[DanvillRob]

Like Neo... I was 'force-fed" C&W as a kid. Different from him, I grew to really like it. I think my conversion started with The Eagles and Linda Ronstadt, who kind of bridged Rock & Country, (but different from Rockabilly).

 

The band I played in back in the 60's could switch from Rock right into C&W, and did so based on our audience.

 

Now, I'd say 1/3 of the stuff I do is C&W.

 

I doubt anyone I play for really cares if I'm playin' a Gibson or Martin or whatever... but I care!

 

Just as this thread mentioned in the beginning, Gibsons seem to dominate C&W, just as Martins dominate Bluegrass, and Fenders dominate Rock, (along with LP's).

 

I play Gibsons not because others do...I play them because I like them. I have 3 Gibsons now, and am working on my 4th, but I also have a couple of Fenders, a Schecter, an Ovation, a couple of custom-built guitars, and probably a few I'm forgetting.

[TommyK]

TMan, I think you're just noticing it now.

 

Gibsons have always been a big part of C/W music. From Mother Maybelle Carter's L-5. The Super Jumbo 200 has been a mainstay of the genre. Grammers were hot when they were still being made. Martins are and were big as well. When Country began to get electrified and added >shudder< drummers, Fender was there with the T-Caster. Eventually, Gibson added the LP with that similar warm and woody tone. While the T-Caster is still seen on C/W awards shows, I think the LP is more common now. After all it IS made in Naishville. B)

[milod]

I think a lotta folks ignore that "country" is an awfully broad term just as is "rock."

 

Frankly a lot of it seems to me nowadays to be what I'd consider light rock rather than a Merle Haggard or George Jones sorta thing - and even that had more than "twang" to it if you listened.

 

I think it does tend to be more "adult" in the sense of being usually more melodic.

 

Old guys like Willie Nelson almost are doing more of the 20s-30s blues stuff I've done forever such as "night life" - although with slightly different words in the more "folk" tradition. Also more "jazz" in the sense of passing chords adding a greater musicality.

 

Rage has its place, and in my youth it came out among "folkies." Now it's more among the rock crowd. Country is that "rock light" that used to come from such as the Beatles in the early days.

 

I think the versatility of the genre that can mean about anything you want it to be is the great strength of country music. You can almost do jazz guitar and have it called country - Chet pretty much did that. You can do standards - Willie did that. You can do cryin' and train songs... you can do rocky songs...

 

m

[NeoConMan]

I think my conversion started with The Eagles and Linda Ronstadt, who kind of bridged Rock & Country, (but different from Rockabilly).

I kinda did the same thing, but I headed for the Southern Rock, and blues-based stuff like Zep, Foghat.

That led me more to the blues, and then back on the track of turning the blues up really loud.

 

The Outlaw Country/Southern Rock stuff is really about as close to country as I care to go - with rare exceptions.

 

Alison Krauss/Union Station opened my eyes to bluegrass.

I found it to be more than a bunch of white-haird banjo-pickin' folks in a small tent at the fair.

 

Still, rock from the 1970's grabbed me in my formative years and never released its grip.

[DanvillRob]

I kinda did the same thing, but I headed for the Southern Rock, and blues-based stuff like Zep, Foghat.

That led me more to the blues, and then back on the track of turning the blues up really loud.

 

The Outlaw Country/Southern Rock stuff is really about as close to country as I care to go - with rare exceptions.

 

Alison Krauss/Union Station opened my eyes to bluegrass.

I found it to be more than a bunch of white-haird banjo-pickin' folks in a small tent at the fair.

 

Still, rock from the 1970's grabbed me in my formative years and never released its grip.

 

 

Ya know...I came to Southern Rock relatively late. Now I'm a huge fan.

 

I am a Bluegrass fan, probalby started with Mr. Monroe, but Alison is helpful for the eyes as well as the ears.

 

Have always leaned towards The Blues.....I discovered Jimmy Reed very early.

 

P.S. 2K for me!

[ChanMan]

Heard this when I was young. Probably the reason I like Bluegrass:

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APl9fRFmdC0

 

 

 

 

 

ETA

 

he sure is picking a lot of notes per minute... is this banjo-shred???

 

 

[pippy]

I guess I come back to the, "does it sound like you" more than, "does it sound like a tele."

 

m

 

That's it. I agree 100%.

 

P.

[Tman]

I kinda did the same thing, but I headed for the Southern Rock, and blues-based stuff like Zep, Foghat.

That led me more to the blues, and then back on the track of turning the blues up really loud.

 

The Outlaw Country/Southern Rock stuff is really about as close to country as I care to go - with rare exceptions.

 

Alison Krauss/Union Station opened my eyes to bluegrass.

I found it to be more than a bunch of white-haird banjo-pickin' folks in a small tent at the fair.

 

Still, rock from the 1970's grabbed me in my formative years and never released its grip.

 

 

Same here and I still love rock from the seventies. I've recently come to appreciate songwriting and technical skills of some of these players that I'd never heard of, especially country. I mean a catchy tune is catchy no matter what genre it falls into.

When I was in residency training in Texas I got into a band with an anesthesiologist from Birmingham, England who had moved to Texas thinking he was going to meet a bunch of Willie Nelsons that had never heard of the music he grew up with. He literally told me that. He was pretty surprised when we met and all I wanted to play was 60's and 70's British invasion stuff and Lynyrd Skynyrd. He introduced me to John Hiatt (we played three of Hiatt's songs including Riding with the King and Paper Thin) and Dwight Yokum and really opened my eyes.

 

Absolutely no offense taken Pippy. Debate is healthy I find I learn a helluva lot on this forum when people disagree. I don't know if anyone else does this but I actually ask the other guys in the band to arrange our songs around my guitars - I have Fender songs and Gibson songs and Open G songs (still doin the British invasion with the Stones). I don't like to interrupt the show by changing guitars. To your point I ought to learn how to make one sound like the other. I skill I have to work on. You know what shoocked the heck out of me was that my wife (grew up in LA) actually said when she heard Brad Paisley for the first time a few months ago, "His guitar sounds like Keith Urban". I took the opportunity to say, "Honey, that is the classic sound of a Telecaster" in my effort to impress her with my musical acumen. 3 weeks later I told her I wanted one.

 

Sorry about the long winded post - way too much coffee and not enough work yet!

[milod]

It's been a long time (more or less 35 years) since I played Foggy Mountain Breakdown on banjo and I'm not sure how long it'd take to get back to it - but it's really not all that hard for a fingerpicker which is part of why it's stayed popular as long as it has. It's playable.

 

It's also why I get hung up about "oh, you're fingerpickin', and that's not fast playing."

 

Argh.

 

I mostly did country and some "jazzed-up" stuff and worked on classical stuff in the 70s and ignored rock of the era. But I think that might not have been entirely atypical for my age, especially if you wanted to play music for money.

 

Again, country in the '70s was more along the lines of "pop/rock" in the '50s with a wide range of styles available for a trio or a duo with a Univox drum machine. It worked well and you could pretty well figure several gig books with stuff you already knew or could vary your playing style to work well with.

 

m

[brundaddy]

Mostly, country today is powerpop. Most of the production values are closer to R&B than anything else, what with AutoTune and CG vocal harmonies. Almost always with hard-hitting rock drumming & booming bass guitar, and overdrive/distortion is ever increasingly part of the soundscape. If Cheap Trick came out today, with only a little vocal coaching, they could be Nashville country stars.

 

I've played Gibsons thru a Twin in the country bands I played in (trad country all the way), and had nooo problems whatsoever delivering twang and shimmer. People are just conventional is all. The conventional thinking goes: you play a telecaster for country, a strat or LP for rock. Now that "country" is utterly awash in crossover, the players want to posture & pose as rockers -- so you see more Gibsons.

[NeoConMan]

Yep.

[TommyK]

...

he sure is picking a lot of notes per minute... is this banjo-shred???

..

 

 

It's called Scruggs Pickin', and for good reason, he invented it. Actually it kind of mimmicks, but not quite, the Carter Scratch developed by Mother Maybelle Carter.

 

btw Earl is still pickin' and grinnin' I last saw him on David Letterman jammin' with Steve Martin and others. I think FMBD was on their set list.

[ChanMan]

It's called Scruggs Pickin', and for good reason, he invented it. Actually it kind of mimmicks, but not quite, the Carter Scratch developed by Mother Maybelle Carter.

 

btw Earl is still pickin' and grinnin' I last saw him on David Letterman jammin' with Steve Martin and others. I think FMBD was on their set list.

 

 

Yeah, it was a joke....

 

The wife has met them, Flatt and Scruggs. You don't live in these parts that you don't run into a veritable who's who of musical stars.

[milod]

Chan...

 

And I'm not so sure Mother Maybelle's "scratch" didn't largely come from Stoneman style autoharp playing.

 

As with everything else... I'm not sure anybody can say a given style came from noplace. Scruggs picking is an advanced version of earlier less polished styles - and Earl certainly is a shining light of talent. But I think we have to realize we all stand of the shoulders of others regardless the style we play.

 

m

[Tman]

I went to the San Francisco bluegrass festival (I know - sounds like an oxymoron) which is a free festival held every October in Golden Gate Park. I saw so much talent and not only banjo but guitar, fiddle, etc., shredding and it was so unbelievably good. Many times I see musicians just showing off and I call it musical mast...forget it, but I often think untasteful. Not that show. To one of M's points, almost every artist gave thanks to those that influenced them. Really cool.

[ChanMan]

Dang it Milo I'm out of plusses!

 

 

:D

[milod]

Hey, Chan...

 

All I can do now is grin.

 

I actually had a chance to play Mother Maybelle's big old Gibson F hole. "Mapes extra heavy streeangs," she said. Sheesh, I was playing a lotta 12 string at the time and I wasn't man enough to play Wildwood Flower on her machine.

 

She sez, "Oh, you know Carter Family music?" after I muffed it a bunch.

 

"Of course," sez I.

 

So she runs me into the other dressing room to meet Luther Perkins.

 

This was soon after Johnny married June. The agent told my publisher to have the reporter "be careful with Johnny."

 

Both came and told me. Then the editor told me. Needless to say, I wasn't the oldest reporter in the joint. But Mother Maybelle turned out to the what amounted to an ace in the hole.

 

She introduces me to this giant guy that put a crick in my neck looking up at. "Johnny, this is the reporter from the newspaper here, and he plays guitar and knows Carter Family music..."

 

He smiled and the rest was no worries. Heck, I don't even remember the rest. But I surely remember that real smile and graciousness of Maybelle Carter. And those piano wires she called guitar strings.

 

m

[ChanMan]

Yes sir. The Carter/Cash family were real people. I grew up and went to school in Hendersonville... so we'd see them at Mallards, the local meat and three, every so often. Good folks, through and through. Never too proud to stop and chat or ask how the folks were doing.

 

 

 

Can't say the same about all the current crop of country stars, unfortunately.

[DanvillRob]

Hey, Chan...

 

All I can do now is grin.

 

I actually had a chance to play Mother Maybelle's big old Gibson F hole. "Mapes extra heavy streeangs," she said. Sheesh, I was playing a lotta 12 string at the time and I wasn't man enough to play Wildwood Flower on her machine.

 

She sez, "Oh, you know Carter Family music?" after I muffed it a bunch.

 

"Of course," sez I.

 

So she runs me into the other dressing room to meet Luther Perkins.

 

This was soon after Johnny married June. The agent told my publisher to have the reporter "be careful with Johnny."

 

Both came and told me. Then the editor told me. Needless to say, I wasn't the oldest reporter in the joint. But Mother Maybelle turned out to the what amounted to an ace in the hole.

 

She introduces me to this giant guy that put a crick in my neck looking up at. "Johnny, this is the reporter from the newspaper here, and he plays guitar and knows Carter Family music..."

 

He smiled and the rest was no worries. Heck, I don't even remember the rest. But I surely remember that real smile and graciousness of Maybelle Carter. And those piano wires she called guitar strings.

 

m

 

Okay, Milo... I'm officially envious.

[ChanMan]

Okay, Milo... I'm officially envious.

 

 

Here, man... let me clear you a spot on the bandwagon!

[milod]

Well...

 

<blush>

 

I've gotta admit it was something I won't forget - and that was a long, long time ago.

 

And it was a lot more fun than the interview with Jack Benny over breakfast the day after I watched his monologue show on enemas. No kidding.

 

m

[Tman]

Well...

 

<blush>

 

I've gotta admit it was something I won't forget - and that was a long, long time ago.

 

And it was a lot more fun than the interview with Jack Benny over breakfast the day after I watched his monologue show on enemas. No kidding.

 

m

 

That's priceless stuff Milod! keep em coming. In what capacity did you interview Jack Benny?

 

Was he the one that said, "I can be your best friend or your worst enema"? Maybe it's just a Radiology joke.