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National Guitar’s New Bridge Installed…

Flipboard Online Magazine Logo

I believe it was on Flipboard, the online, choose your own content magazine, that I first learned that National Guitar Company had redesigned it’s bridge and biscuit, which they referred to as the Revolution Biscuit-Bridge. Having owned 3 National Resonators and still possessing two of them, I was naturally interested in the innovation, but decided at first glance that it looked a bit too complicated to install and it was expensive… still, I remained interested and would occasionally look for a review… when I queried one of the National Guitar Facebook groups about the new bridge all I heard was crickets… So, I pretty much forgot about the subject…

Mike Dowling on Zoom…

Earlier in the Summer of 2020, I had the great, good fortune of spending several Zoom sessions with recording artist and highly accomplished performer, Mike Dowling. Being prevented from doing his usual summer festival and workshop gigs because of the COVID pandemic, he was recruiting guitar enthusiasts to study with him via Zoom from his home in Mexico. So, I spent several hours with him over the course of a month.

My favorite Mike Dowling recording…

If you’re not familiar with Mike Dowling he is a guitar virtuoso and I discovered him because of his particular artistry with National Resonator guitars. He’s made a couple of excellent educational DVD’s for Happy Traum’s Homespun Music Instruction enterprise. That’s how I found him as I was looking for some basics about how to play bottleneck guitar.

After working with his DVD’s, I was delighted to learn that Mike was performing at the Creek House venue in Minneapolis in May 2018 on a Friday Night and the other two days he would host a guitar workshop. Having never done a workshop before, I decided to attend! The concert was sublime and the workshop was great fun though I was in over my head, surrounded by guitarists far more accomplished then me.

Me and Mike Dowling at Creek House Workshop

To the right you can see a shot of me and Mike at the Creek House Workshop. You will also note I am holding, what was at the time, my recently acquired National Reso-Rocket WB (wood body). Mike is holding the metal version of the same guitar.

I involved myself with resonator guitars because of my interest in playing country blues. I tried out an inexpensive Fender resonator at my local guitar shop and really liked it; however, I thought it was a little under-built and decided to go with the gold standard and purchased a National NRP Steel resonator online through Reverb. I liked the NRP but thought a wood bodied guitar might be even more to my liking so I subsequently purchased the WB from Dream Guitars near Asheville, NC via Reverb. I remember sitting at a concert in the balcony of the Englert Theater with my wife in Iowa City, and covertly communicating via text with Dream Guitar’s owner Paul Heumiller. He made me a great offer and we closed the deal right there… I was stoked! The short Youtube segment below gives more detail about the WB and it’s developer Steve James:

Reso-Rocket WB with Hot Plate

On the left, you can see that my WB has two knurled knobs for tone and volume control when the guitar is plugged into an amp. The sound pickup is a single coil design located between the guitar’s bridge and finger board. This whole arrangement is referred to as a Hot Plate and was actually designed by Mike Dowling. In fact, Mike sold me mine. In addition to performing and teaching, Mike also is an agent for National Guitars. You might be interested to know that Mike also worked with National Guitars to resurrect the deeper wooden bodied El Trovador model.

All this brings me to the fact that during our time on Zoom, Mike brought up the new Revolution Biscuit-Bridge, which he had installed on two of his resonators. He enthused about the flexibility of the bridge, particularly that it could be raised or lowered with set screws while the standard one could not. As he described it, he would lower the bridge when playing finger-style and raise it when he planned to play bottleneck. I became interested because the action was very high on my WB and it made playing anything other than bottleneck-style difficult, which was not really a monumental problem because I had plenty of other guitars that would serve for finger-style, but I was intrigued anyway.

Screen shot of Revolution Biscuit from National Guitar website…

Mike also mentioned that the new biscuit was machined aluminum, thus appearing shiny and metallic, which was very different from the black painted wood of traditional National biscuit/bridge combinations. I inferred from his discussion that traditionalists might be put off by the shiny metallic appearance of the new bridge. He informed me that National was considering selling painted black versions of the new bridge in the future and that I might want to wait. I was not particularly bothered by the shiny appearance of the new bridge and actually like it a lot.

Screen shot of National resonator cone…

About a week or so later I ordered a Revolution Biscuit bridge from Mike. He said he would be happy to consult with me during the installation, and strongly recommended that I purchase a new cone along with the bridge. The traditional biscuit is both screwed and glued into the cone and removing it leaves a dimple that can prevent the new bridge from seating properly unless the dimple is sculpted out, which is difficult given the fragility of the cone. Since I wanted to DIY this conversion, I purchased a new cone with the Revolution bridge to avoid sculpting the older cone.

Various Bridge saddle woods available from National Guitars… another website screenshot…

In addition to the newly machined biscuit, National now offers a choice of bridge saddle woods, including, maple, ebony, rosewood, walnut and holly. I was under the impression that I would receive the full set of saddle woods with my order, but only received the traditional maple one, which is just as well because it was a bit of a stressful effort to “fit” it out for the biscuit. I do remember Mike recommending the maple saddle wood and I like the way it eventually came out in both appearance and sound. Just today in a note to me, Mike wrote that in a “blind” sound test he cannot tell much difference in the various woods or between old and new biscuits. To him the real value of the Revolution Biscuit is the ease of string height adjustment.

So, the package arrived from National about a week or so later. Contained therein was the cone, the aluminum biscuit, a single maple bridge saddle, a length of synthetic sandpaper, and two small Allen wrenches… Why the sandpaper? Because the saddle wood must be shaved down to achieve the proper string to fretboard action…

Measuring string height bridge to biscuit…

For starters Mike had me measure the string height off of the original biscuit and from there he recommended that I shave one 1/8th of an inch off of the bottom of the new maple saddle. Below you can see an image sent to me from Mike Dowling illustrating how to mark the saddle wood for trimming. You will note that he angled his where-to- sand-to mark so that the saddle is slanted, which would allow for the treble string to be closer to the fret board than the bass string. He recommended, in the end, for the bass string to be 7/64 of an inch off of the twelfth fret and for the treble string 6/64 of an inch off of the twelfth fret for a good nominal setting. I had to do quite a bit of sanding in stages, fitting the saddle into the bridge and then measuring before the process was completed.

Before (left) and after (right) images of saddle wood as a result of trimming.
Reso-Rocket sound cavity exposed…

To the right you can see the Reso-Rocket with the original cone and bridge removed. To avoid having to restring the guitar, I controlled the strings on the neck with a capo and used electrical tape to hold the string balls within the tail piece. This way after setting the new cone and biscuit in place it was easy to refasten the tailpiece and tune the guitar back up.

As I said earlier, I went through several stages of sanding the saddle, placing it in the biscuit and mounting the biscuit on the cone. Then I would drop the cone into the guitar, replace the coverplate, remount the tailpiece, retune the guitar and then make my string measurements. The bridge guard was also removed and stayed off throughout the fitting process. During one iteration of fitting, I realized I had to make sure that there was more of a slant sanded into the base of the bridge. I think I did this three, maybe four times… it was a tedious process and not for anyone in a hurry.

Above you can see the two cones, side by side with the new one on the left. If you’re not familiar with resonator technology, the string vibration is intercepted by the bridge, then transferred down to the cone via the biscuit. The cone then amplifies the string vibration giving the characteristic resonator sound back outwards to the listener. The original biscuits were wood, so the transition to an aluminum biscuit makes some traditionalists uncomfortable. Some posters on FaceBook do not like the new biscuit, either on face value or after they’ve tried it out. There are others who have adopted the new approach.

To the left you can see a close-up of the new aluminum bridge and maple saddle mounted onto the cone. You will note that there are three holes set into the saddle that are located in between the carve-outs where the guitar strings traverse. The holes allow access to set screws that are located below in the biscuit itself. Adjusting the set screws can raise the height of the saddle and consequently the height of the strings off of the fret board.

The saddle fits very firmly in the biscuit. The biscuit is machined with a slight zig-zag shaped channel and the saddle is shaped to fit snuggly in the aforementioned channel so that there is only one way for the two to combine together. I really had to press firmly to get the saddle into the channel and the only way I could get the saddle back out was to raise it with the set screws and then pry it out with a small flat head screwdriver, being mindful that the Maple bridge was pretty delicate and kind of expensive.

I was not prepared to make a wood vs aluminum biscuit comparison after completion of the project; however, below you can see a quick A/B comparison made by Steve James:

I do have below a couple of short videos of my WB with the new Biscuit installed. Just below is a short clip of me playing Muddy Waters’ I Can’t Be Satisfied in Open G tuning, bottleneck style. I am using a brass Tone Dome slide purchased from National:

I Can’t Be Satisfied… McKinley Morganfield

I am also presenting a brief finger-style tune on the same guitar. Before I installed the new bridge, it was very difficult to play finger-style on this guitar because the action was so high. Here now I am able to do it, but I must admit because I followed Steve James advice on Youtube and installed a heavy set of Newtone Archtop strings, it was more difficult for me than it should have been… those strings are fine for bottleneck playing but a bit heavy for me to play finger-style… another lesson for me in the school of hard knocks and dirty socks! This is a Stef Grossman arrangement of the Rev. Gary Davis’s Cocaine Blues in standard tuning.

In sum, I am pleased with the biscuit conversion… I believe the saddle as currently located is in a sweet spot where I can play it bottleneck or finger-style without adjustment; however I think I will eventually migrate to the lighter string gauge I was using before following Steve James’s advice.

I like the sound of the guitar too; however, I just noticed during this writing that National Guitars is now recommending placing a wooden gasket between the aluminum biscuit and the cone which probably alters the sound somewhat… According to Mike Dowling, in correspondence while writing this blog, the gasket may be most important for people mounting the Revolution biscuit on an older cone… While the folks at National believe the tone may be mellowed out with the wooden gasket, that remains to be assessed… I may explore this wooden gasket further…

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Nehemiah…

The soundtrack from the Coen Brother’s film O Brother, Where Art Thou? is one of my longtime favorites in my CD collection… I practically wore the bits and bytes off the disc it was played so many times… The film was great too… The tunes on the soundtrack are a broad sampling of old time American music, mostly sung by contemporary musicians… My favorite recording was an old country blues tune performed by Chris Thomas King… it was a haunting rendition and I searched King’s other recordings to find more tunes just like the one he sang; however, I did not have very good luck and gave up… most of his other body of work was very different, so far as I could tell…

click for Amazon link…

It wasn’t until just this summer 2020 that I tumbled onto what Chris Thomas King was singing in the film. I had the great good fortune to take a few online guitar lessons with a highly accomplished performing musician/recording artist and he pushed me, after hearing some of my video recordings, to listen more closely to the original tunes that I was playing and listed several 8 bar blues tunes as starter examples, one of which was a Skip James tune called Crow Jane. Suddenly, I remembered reading about Skip James in Zeke Schein’s excellent book, Portrait of a Phantom. Schein’s book actually inspired me to dig deeper into roots music and I eventually committed to learning and playing country blues. Back at the time of reading Schein’s book the connection of Skip James to O Brother! went completely over my head, other than to note that Schein had a very high regard for the musician, and that he was somewhat obscure except to country blues aficionados.

After purchasing and listening to a Skip James CD to study Crow Jane, it finally occurred to me that Chris Thomas King was playing a Skip James tune in O Brother! I was awestruck by James’s precision finger-style guitar playing and his haunting and unique, for that genre, falsetto voice. It was at that point that I decided to try to learn to play some Skip James tunes, which I thought might be difficult but would be a great summer challenge!

click on image for link to Guitar Workshop

Having had excellent experience with DVD lessons sold on Stefan Grossman’s Guitar Workshop website, I went shopping for Skip James material and found this wonderful set of lessons including tabbed tunes of some of James’s most memorable tunes. Similar to the way in which Grossman teaches a tune, Tom Feldmann breaks down the song section by section and then plays it slowly with a split screen showing both hands in action. This approach works great for me.

Nehemiah Curtis “Skip” James, was born in the very early 1900’s in Bentonia, Mississippi, and died after a lengthy battle with cancer the year I graduated high school in 1969. For the most part, he was obscure much of his life and today is barely mentioned in books about country blues in comparison to other genre musicians like Lonnie Johnson or Blind Lemon Jefferson. He recorded a few sides in the early 1900’s and drew some notice, but the depression of the 1930’s drove him into obscurity, so he quit performing and entered into the ministry. Years later while languishing in a hospital room, dealing with the onset of cancer, he was discovered by country blues aficionado John Fahey, and in 1964 Fahey brought him to the public’s attention at venues such as the Newport Folk Festival. As a result, he was re-recorded so there are two sets of James recordings that can be found either from his early days or later in the 1960’s. Below you can listen to an early recording of Hard Times Killing Floor Blues, the tune that initially beguiled me when I saw O Brother!

According to the introduction of my Guitar Workshop DVD, Tom Feldmann explains that James wrote and played songs in standard tuning (EADGBE) and also in what’s referred to as Cross-tuning or D Minor tuning (DADFAD) which is somewhat similar to Open D/Vastapol tuning except the F# string is flatted to F. I like D Minor tuning and the somewhat unusual haunting tone it creates. I currently have my Taylor 914ce tuned to D Minor all of the time.

Well, I dove right into Skip James tunes. I began with the standard tuned 8 bar, Crow Jane, although my tabbed transcription varies from 8 to eleven bars from verse to verse depending on how James played it when he recorded. The source of Crow Jane is unknown; however, it is believed to have emanated originally in the Piedmont region of Virginia, North and South Carolina. My online teacher found James’s approach “crooked” because of the verse/bar variation, and it annoyed him as well as my use Feldmann’s tablature, which actually ended with us parting ways, even though I liked him a lot. Below you can see my rendering of a few versus of Crow Jane on my Taylor 812ce piped through a Fishman Artist amp, some compression, octaver, and reverb.

There are country blues fans who believe that the tunes should ONLY be played on acoustic guitars, which, in truth, has never constrained me. I like playing the tunes on both acoustic and electric platforms. Occasionally, I have a posting kicked off a FaceBook group for violating that sanctity, but if it was good enough for Muddy Waters, it’s good enough for me. So in that regard below I am posting a more complete version of Crow Jane played on my Taylor T3z acoustic/electric hybrid piped through a Mesa Boogie Filmont 50 amplifier on a clean channel, and pedal effects including octaver, compression, tremolo, delay, and reverb:

I will note that for me, a tune, is a work in progress for weeks, months, and even years until I have it nailed down to where I am totally happy with its rendering. I will also point out the obvious that I choose not to sing these tunes, though there are lyrics for them. To quote Stefan Grossman, “I am a guitar player, not a singer.” Consequently, the tunes I choose to play must stand on their own as instrumentals, at least in my judgement. My James tunes are early in the process, but I have them functional enough and absolutely love playing them. After getting Crow Jane through its initial paces I moved onto a the D Minor tuning, Hard Time Killing Floor Blues, the tune that initially attracted me to James’s work.

There are a few other James tunes that sound good as instrumentals that I intend to add to my repertoire in the future. In fact, I am currently working on another D Minor tune Four O’Clock Blues… until then, thanks for looking in… comments are welcome…

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A country blues classic…

Good Morning Little School Girl… I love this tune… it’s considered a blues standard and resides in the Blues Hall of Fame as of 1990… Sonny Boy Williamson is credited with having recorded it first in 1939, but as with many blues tunes, original authorship can be a bit foggy… Williamson’s tune is believed to be a reworking of Son Bonds’ Back and Side Blues… The melody of Bond’s tune and Williamson’s are very, very close…

Here’s Bonds’ original Back and Side Blues…

https://youtu.be/3QJYeNNJOt0

And here’s Williamson’s original 1939 Hall of Fame version of Good Morning Little School Girl…

Though backed up by a pair of guitars, Williamson’s version is dominated by his harmonica, for which is most well known… The first version I remember hearing was recorded by Muddy Waters and in this version, his guitar playing carries the tune:

What struck me besides Waters’ masterful guitar playing was the Rolling Stonesesque lecherous nature to the tune… Basically an adult male chasing after an underage girl reminiscent of Jagger and Richards’ Stray Cat Blues, which is equally nasty… Here is the opening stanza of Good Morning Little Schoolgirl:

Good morning little school girl
Good morning little school girl
Can I go home with
Can I go home with you?
Tell your mother and your father
I once was a schoolboy too

Wicked… nasty… not politically correct… but so bluesy… love it…

After hearing Muddy Waters’ version of the tune, I thought how fun it would be to learn it and I was delighted that Stef Grosman included the tab and lessons in his Bottleneck Blues Guitar DVD. Grossman based his arrangement on Fred McDowell’s interpretation of the tune. I really like McDowell’s version… his guitar playing is clean and penetrating and his slide vibrato is perfect…

I do not like to sing when I play… I am guitarist, so I tend to learn tunes that sound decent when played as an instrumental and Good Morning Little Schoolgirl fits the bill… I also tend to favor playing the tune a bit slower and “swamping” it up…

When I was shopping for my Reso-Lectric at Dave’s Guitars in LaCrosse, WI one of the store guys approached me and told me how much he likes my swampy play as compared to so many others who rip through slide pieces when trying out guitars in the store… He compared me to Ry Cooder’s Paris, Texas Soundtrack… I was a bit taken back because I am not in the same galactic dimension as Ry Cooder, but the compliment was encouraging…

Here’s my version:

There’ve been a bajillion cover recordings of this tune, like the poppy, somewhat inane version by the Yardbirds, or the long jam version by the Grateful Dead, or Taj Mahal’s own idiosyncratic take, which you can see below:

Finally in closing, I will remind all that country blues is the foundation upon which rock and roll music stands and these old tunes are often reinterpreted in a variety of way… here you can see the great Alvin Lee of Ten Years After ripping out a version of School Girl…

Thanks for dropping in!

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In Corona Isolation… Might as well learn a new bottleneck blues tune…

Butterfly shot on the banks of the Cape Fear River…

We have a longstanding tradition in my family to visit one of my grown daughters during Spring Break. In year’s past we’ve travelled either to Jacksonville, FL or Wilmington, NC for our brief escape from the typically raw, cold, dreary Iowa late Winter/early Spring.

Sadly, for us and many more fellow inhabitants of the U.S. travel plans were kiboshed because of the volatile circumstances revolving around the dreaded Covid19 Corona virus. Being of retired age, I’ve been repeatedly warned by the media and government that I’m flying in the danger zone, so I, along with my wife, college age son and Brittany dog are hunkered down in our home waiting for the Angel of Death to passover…

Here’s an interesting mini-documentary elaborating on key factors leading to the Angel of Death’s most recent origin…

In addition to packing for my cancelled Spring Break trip, I was also in preparation mode for my first official gig along with my pal Grant at our local coffee shop in Cedar Falls, IA, so rather than learning any new tunes, I was focused on refining those in my repertoire. I planned on playing a country blues bottleneck/fingerpicking guitar set and Grant plays his original folk/punk/Americana tunes. The gig was scheduled for April 3 and it does not take a lot of imagination to conclude that our national virus drama will not be over by then, and our show will be postponed until another time. Hopefully, Cup of Joe weathers the storm…

  • Cup of Joe exterior
  • Cup of Joe interior
  • Pre-Covid (PC), Grant and me (standing) hanging out at Bob’s Guitars

So, what to do? Take walks, read, cook, make tea, watch the tube, obsess over the stock market collapse and look on in dismay at the latest word on community spread of the virus… Learning a new tune might take my mind elsewhere to a more constructive space… So that’s what I decided to do…

National Reso-Lectric…

Because I so enjoy playing my new hybrid acoustic/electric National Reso-Lectric, which is tuned to Open D, I decided to learn another bottleneck tune on that particular guitar. I own an educational DVD with instruction and tablature available from Stef Grossman with tunes still unlearned in Open D, so I dug in and decided to study the last tune on his set list called Guitar Rag.

Stef Grossman Bottleneck DVD

Stef Grossman is an extraordinarily excellent teacher in video format and the included tablature’s are accessible and easy to follow, though the tab arrangement is a little idiosyncratic. Rather than placing the fretting instructions on the lines of the tab which is the usual format, they are in-between the lines… i.e., the spacing between the lines symbolizes the six guitar strings instead of the lines themselves. It takes a little getting used to and I like it now.

Typically, Grossman introduces a tune and gives some brief historical background, then he plays through it at speed, following that he breaks down the key elements to playing the piece and finally does a slow split screen playback showing both hands in motion.

Stef Grossman at work on my MacBook…

To the right you can see Stef Grossman at work on my MacBook. The pair of DVD’s that come with this instructional are packed with country blues to learn, as well as film and recorded examples of the tunes in their original form, pulled straight off the 78 rpm platters. One DVD focuses on Open G while the other on Open D bottleneck tunes.

Weaver and Martin…

Upon first pass, I did not listen too closely to Grossman’s introduction, but on second review I learned that Guitar Rag was a tune played/recorded originally by Sylvester Weaver in the early 1920’s, and written by Weaver with blues singer Sara Martin. Even more interesting, Guitar Rag was the first solo blues tune ever recorded! Consequently, this tune is exceptionally important in country blues history. Weaver was one of the first guitarists to accompany blues singers like Martin. Before then, larger bands backed the singers.

Below I include a link to Weaver’s recording of Guitar Rag. He first recorded this tune in 1923 and later re-recorded it in 1927, which sounded much better. Known also as The Man with the Talking Guitar, he spent most of his life in Louisville, KY. It’s written that he played slide-style with the guitar flat on his lap and used a knife as the slide. After recording about 50 tunes, he retired from music in 1929 and chauffeured a wealthy family for years afterwards. This is his 1927 version of Guitar Rag:

Not only was Guitar Rag an historically important tune, it was also popular and covered by other artists, including Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys playing it as Steel Guitar Rag. The YouTube recording I share below suggests that the Bob Wills’s pedal steel guitar player Leon McCauliffe claimed to have written the tune in 1936, which I hope is not true, but if it is, seems all wrong and exploitative… Steel Guitar Rag was immensely popular and introduced the archetypal pedal steel guitar to country music.

https://youtu.be/hxzxH6wIPCY
Guitar and associated amp with pedal board…

As I wrote earlier in this piece, my go-to guitar for this tune is my acoustic/electric hybrid National Reso-Lectric. I run it through a Black Faced Fender Princeton Reverb Amp, as well as an Octaver, Compressor, a bit of boost, Tremelo, Delay and Reverb. The pedals fatten the sound and enhance the natural sustain of the resonator cone. I use mostly, the P90 neck pick up, with a dash of the piezo that resides on the biscuit bridge to get a warmer tone.

Guitar Slides…

I own a variety of slides though I have never tried using a knife like they say Sylvester Weaver used. My favorite slide now is the solid brass one located second from the left. It gives me a nice, fat, warm tone that I am partial to. That particular slide I purchased from National and it is a Tone Dome design created originally by master slide guitar player Ben Powell.

I’ve been working on this piece just a few days; however, it is coming along enough to generate an excerpt recording of part of the tune, which I decided is necessary to end this blog entry properly. There are still some rough spots as I lack full familiarity with the piece. I’ve attached an image of the first page of Stef Grossman’s arrangement of Guitar Rag. If you’re interested in acquiring the DVD’s you can find them here at this link.

Grossman tablature…

Recording at home is a bit of a challenge when my wife and son are both sequestered here with me, but here is my latest version of this classic piece. For information about how I record, follow this link.

Final notes: Guitar Strap by El Dorado. Hat by Carlos Santana. If you can’t play like him, look like him… Sweatshirt logo: Tar Heel Bred, Tar Heel Dead…

Thanks for looking in… Subscribe to follow me in the upper right corner of the blog, and/or leave a note… thanks…

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In the stack… current reading about blues, guitars, pedals, etc.

Grant and me at the local guitar shop…

I have the great, good fortune now in my retirement to spend as much time as I wish focused on all things guitars. After a harrowing visit to the Mayo Clinic for an annual physical, I was eventually declared good to go, so when I returned home I felt even more fortunate to have time to develop my musical sensibilities and skills.

To that end, I scheduled my first “gig” at the local coffee shop for early April. Along with my friend Grant, we will perform for a couple of hours on a Friday night. Cup of Joe is a pleasant, low pressure venue to perform… the coffee, tea and snacks are great and the people are kind…

Cup of Joe in Cedar Fall, IA

Grant and I will take turns alternating at the mic during the evening. He plays his original Folk-Punk-Americana on acoustic guitar, while I play finger-style and bottleneck country blues on a couple of resonators and a Taylor hybrid acoustic/electric guitar. So we are both feverishly sharpening our chops for the performance next month.

I am not particularly anxious about this gig, as I’ve performed at Cup of Joe numerous times at Open Mic Night… This time it should be more pleasant for me, as I won’t feel the time pressure that you do when all you have is fifteen minutes at the mic and there are people lined up to play after you…

In addition to working on my chops, I also have the freedom to read as much as I can abut all things guitars and blues… Here are some the books, on my short stack that I am either reading, have read, or intend to get to in the short term:

I just finished reading this wonderful book. Compiled by Jas Obrecht a lifelong musical journalist for journals like Guitar Player Magazine. Of the dozens and dozens of guitarists he’s interviewed over the years, he offers in this book some of the very best. It was fascinating to read what some of the best players think about their music and how they approach the instrument. Included are interviews with Neil Young, Jerry Garcia, Tom Petty, Carlos Santana, Ben Harper and Johnny Winter. Highly recommended if you love all things guitars! Published by the University of North Carolina Press, so it’s a classy binding.

I was so pleased with Obrecht’s Talking Guitar, I went ahead and picked up two of his other books that fall right into my wheelhouse of interest. Both new books are about blues players. The first about the early pre-electric country blues players and the second about the players who led the transition to Chicago/Detroit style electric blues. Reading these books should add to my knowledge base when I banter with an audience about the music I play…

Pedal Crush is a monumental tome about anything you could possibly want to know about the pedals that are used to augment and enhance the sound of a guitar. Published by Bjooks, I had to order this one out of Denmark. It’s coffee table book big and pricey, and I am just about 1/4 of the way into it. Including interviews with various pedal builders and guitar players who use pedals, it is a comprehensive and wonderful journey through this particular world of technology.

If you’re wondering why I am so fascinated by pedals, here’s my latest board iteration. It’s great fun to sculpt sound with a pedal board. For more details about most of my pedals, check here…

Until later…

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Reviewing My New National Resonator…

Hybrid Acoustic/Electric National Reso-Lectric is a Singular Guitar

National Reso-Lectric

A couple of weeks ago I made the trek across Iowa and Minnesota farm land to Dave’s Guitars in LaCrosse, WI and purchased a new resonator guitar. I traded in a steel bodied National NRP Black Rust for a National Reso-Lectric.

I’ve played the Reso-Lectric quite a bit during the past two weeks and have conjured up my review of the guitar. There are just a very few reviews of this guitar out there on the web probably because there are not that many Reso-Lectrics out in circulation. The only “celebrity” musician I found by googling around who’s played one publicly is Metallica’s James Hetfield and that was revealed with only a single still image and that’s it. It should be noted too that Hetfield’s Reso-Lectric is the all mahogany version referred to as the Revolver.

I’ve seen suggestions out on the web that this guitar is capable of playing in overdrive/distortion mode but that is NOT my intension. I play finger-style country blues and as far as I am concerned the Reso-Lectric is a pickup enhanced acoustic resonator designed for country blues and bottleneck/slide playing and that’s how I am going to use it.

The Reso-Lectric is not the only National Resonator I own. I also play a Reso-Rocket WB (wood body). It’s a fantastic guitar that is equipped with one of Mike Dowling’s Hot Plates as a pickup. As wonderful as the Reso-Rocket is, it does not offer the sound palette that the Reso-Lectric brings to playing the blues.

Let’s examine the physical nature of the guitar first and then explore what it sounds like in some of its various modes. Let’s follow the string-line from tailpiece to tuning posts and see what the Reso-Lectric is…

On first view, it is a combination of stunning and unusual in appearance… a remarkable and unlikely looking guitar. Enhancing the singular appearance of the guitar is the sunburst treatment of the figured maple top, upon which the polished resonator cover rests, the art deco logo on the kitchen counter plastic cover and the 1950’s era sci fi nuclear reactor pick up control dials. Finally, the headstock is treated with a mother-of-pearl veneer cap, gleaming retro Kluson tuning pegs and capped off with another art deco National logo.

Examination of the back of the guitar indicates a nice solid block of mahogany serving as the guitar’s foundation and mounted to the body is a figured maple neck, which as with the rest of the exposed wood on the guitar has received a satin finish. The necks on all my other guitars are mahogany with a gloss finish, so this neck is taking some getting used to for me. The neck appears to be attached to the body with screws, which makes me a bit anxious. I would feel more comfortable if they were bolts… perhaps they are, but I am not willing to pull one to find out. I did have to gently snug them up as they were not all-the-way tight.

Also on the back, you will note a screwed on battery cover. Six wood screws are required for removal to get into the battery compartment where two 9 volt batteries are housed to power the guitar’s Fishman preamp. My Taylor acoustics and the T5z all require 9 volt batteries but only one. The Reso-Lectric is a power hungry thing. Leaving the guitar plugged into an amp when not in use will drain the batteries, so unplug…

At the base end of the guitar the characteristic National tailpiece is locked into place with a strap mount button. On my other heavier guitars like the Taylor electrics, I have changed out the stock strap buttons for locking Schaller’s. Given the relatively beefy 8 lb (3.6 kg) weight, I think it would be prudent to have strap locks on this guitar at some time in the near future.

The base end of the guitar strings easily fit into the hole/slot at the lead end of the tailpiece. Previously, I went into some detail on how to restring this guitar.

From the end of the tailpiece the strings traverse under the polished hand rest and are then situated into appropriately sized grooves cut into the guitar’s bridge, which for National resonator’s is most commonly referred to as the biscuit. The biscuit/bridge is comprised of two pieces of wood glued together: a circular horizontal piece that is glued to the metallic resonator cone and a vertical slice of wood with grooves cut into it to guide the strings like a guitar bridge. The whole enterprise, biscuit bridge and resonator cone are covered with a shiny and elaborate hubcap-like cover, which is very characteristic for resonator guitars.

When the strings are plucked their energy is transferred to the biscuit/bridge which downwardly vibrates the spun aluminum convex shaped cone which serves as a speaker and radiates sound outward creating the characteristic bonk and splang for which resonator guitars are known. Most importantly, for this guitar there exists a piezo pickup which is mounted in the lower part of the biscuit bridge, the signal which captures the sound emanating directly from the cone is sent to a Fishman preamp located under the volume control knobs in the upper bout of the guitar. The piezo is one of two ways in which the guitars sound is amplified.

Following the string-line past the biscuit/bridge and up towards the neck of the guitar, the strings flow over another electric pick-up. Covered in black plastic is a Lollar P-90 single coil pick-up. I believe this version is referred to as a “Soap Bar.” So, in sum, this guitar has two pick-ups available to sculpt its sound. One below the biscuit/bridge and the other located at the sweet spot just below where the neck joins the body of the guitar.

Control of volume and tone knobs are located on the top of the upper bout of the guitar. There is a toggle switch to move between the two pick-ups for individual selection, or the center setting will deploy both simultaneously. Unlike a lot of electrified guitars, this one does not have a tone control; however, tone control is managed really well in my judgement by blending the volume of the two disparate pickups.

So what do we have here for controls besides the pickup toggle? Referring to the image of the controls, the one positioned lowest is overall volume control. The middle switch controls the output of the under biscuit/saddle pickup and the uppermost control does the same the P90 pickup. The sounds offered by the two different pickups are distinctly different so it is possible to create a wide array of sonic possibilities by playing the pickups individually or by blending them through control of output. I will revisit this subject a bit later with some sonic examples.

After crossing over the neck pickup the string line advance along the ebony fretboard mounted on a maple neck. The fretboard is marked with inlaid dots, is 14 jumbo frets long off from the guitar’s body, with a longish scale length of 25 21/32 inches (65.2 cm). The strings finally arrive at the headstock, passing over the bone nut with a width of 1.73 inches (4.4 cm) which is fine for both slide and finger-style playing. The strings end their journey on the posts of Kluson tuners, which are elegant appearing and smooth operating.

I’ve included below are some sound samples for the National Reso-Lectric. I play a opening section of Blind Willie McTell’s Wake Up Mama with the guitar’s pickups set three different ways:

First I play Wake Up Mama with the biscuit/bridge piezo pickup engaged alone:

Biscuit/Bridge piezo pickup alone

To me, the biscuit bridge pickup alone sounds the most acoustic. Of the two pickups, I think the one on the bridge also has the most bite, which is typically true of most bridge pickups on electric guitars. I am not inclined to play the bridge pickup alone as it comes across to me as a bit thin and tinny sounding which does not appeal to my ears.

Second, I play the same tune with the neck pick only engaged:

Neck pickup alone

The neck pickup alone demonstrates, by comparison to the bridge pickup, a warmer, rounder, fatter tone which is also consistent with other electric guitars. I like the tone of this pickup but used alone it just lacks a modicum of bite that would make it most appealing to me, especially for a resonator guitar.

In my judgment, the best way to play this guitar and to elicit from it the most lovely tones it is capable of is to mix together the output from both pickups simultaneously. What I would call the Goldilocks tone. I tend to balance the tone more towards the warmer neck pick up but dose in enough bridge sound to add some edge. Let’s take a listen:

The first time I ever played a resonator, it was one of those moderately priced Fender wooden jobs and it was fun to play finger-style, especially my genre of choice, country blues, but it did not feel like a particularly substantive, quality instrument, so I decided to go top drawer and get a National NRP Black Rust for my own.

I’ve written about this before several times on this blog, that the NRP was pretty much a fine guitar for bottleneck playing, but for me it was basically unplayable finger-style because of the way it was set-up with very high action. I am delighted to report in this review that the Reso-Lectric is mac easier to play finger-style. Below I run through one of my favorite country blues finger-style tunes, Cocaine Blues (as arranged by Stef Grossman).

In the past I’ve purchased guitars and suffered from buyer’s remorse of varying levels but no so in the case of the National Reso-Lectric! For the genre and style I like to play it is a perfect complement to my guitar collection.

As a final note… National provides as nice a guitar case as I’ve seen… solid, sturdy, well padded and the guitar fits snugly into its place. Still… even so I would not check it through an airline! I don’t know how they do it but National managed to embroider a logo onto the top of the case… so cool…

Love this axe…
Please let me know what you think of this review and hit the follow button too!

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Some TLC for my new National Resonator!

Resonator String Changing — No Problem…

JR and the writer at the time of purchase

Last week, I wrote in this weblog about my experience in La Crosse, WI at Dave’s Guitars when I purchased a new hybrid acoustic/electric National Reso-Lectric resonator guitar. What I did not mention was the brief conversation I had with JR, the sales rep I worked with about the age of the strings on the instrument I was procuring. He thought the guitar had only been in stock about 3 months since last November, but threw in a set of new strings he thought would work on the guitar as part of the deal…

As part of my own due diligence I followed up with National and asked them if they knew when the guitar was built to get a better idea of the extant string age. National was great and got back to me quickly. The guitar was actually built in August 2018 and delivered to Dave’s that very month. The fact was, the guitar was probably hanging on a hook at Dave’s 19 months instead of three! So, the strings surely need changing. It also explains why the guitar was a bit grubby when I initially decided to purchase the thing. JR did a nice job cleaning it up but there was still some junk adhering to the fret board that I needed to get clean off.

A set of John Pearse Jazz Mediums…

As further due diligence, I ran down the recommended string sizes for the Reso-Lectric on the National website and the strings JR gave me were too light by comparison. So I ordered online a set of the recommended Reso-Lectric strings, as seen on the right. Ordinarily, I might buy strings from my local shop as they are priced competitively; however, they along with every other guitar shop I’ve been in do not carry Pearse strings. I’ve used them on all my resonators and they must always for ordered in.

Taking advantage of the fact that my wife was away working, I set up the dining room table as my guitar maintenance/string changing site and a photo of it can be seen below:

In the foreground above you will note the guitar resting on a MusicNomad rubber mat and neck rest. For years I worked on my guitars without a mat and neck rest, but I learned quickly after purchase that this is really the only way to fly! Behind the guitar are numerous tools I set out to do the job properly… Let’s take a closer look below:

Tool array for guitar string change and routine maintenance

Moving left to right above:

  • Dave’s Guitar Shop wipe towel which was swag thrown in by Dave with the guitar purchase. Useful for wipe down during cleaning.
  • Ernie Ball Power Peg Pro makes winding the tuner pegs during string change so much easier and more efficient than one of those rotating hand winders. Takes a little getting used too and should be used with caution around Pearloid tuning pegs.
  • Electrician’s tape to hold the strings into the guitar’s tailpiece during the wind-up.
  • MusicNomad Tune-It lubrication for the nut. This will be the first time I ever use this stuff. I noticed during tuning of the original strings that a couple of them seem to hang up a bit riding through the nut. Perhaps this will help.
  • Microfiber wipe towel. Can’t have too many wipes during guitar maintenance.
  • Fender Bullet guitar tuner to get those new strings where they need to be.
  • Small diagonal wire cutters to trim the string. Pretty essential unless you want to circle them up like Bob Dylan did on the cover of Nashville Skyline..
  • Taylor Guitar Polish to clean up wooden surfaces. I think MusicNomad makes this stuff.
  • Dunlop 65 Fretboard Conditioner. Mostly lemon oil with a nice applicator. Not necessary for every string change, but this guitar has a nasty looking fretboard from hanging out in a store for many months!
  • MusicNomad Tool Set. Various screw drivers and wrenches for “just in case” something requires tightening. Just used it the other day to open the rear battery cover on this axe. A very handy collection.
  • Martin Simpson’s A Closer Walk with Thee which is a lovely cd of guitar instrumentals based on old American Gospel tunes. This in the background music to keep me calm during string change which can be a little never wracking if the strings misbehave.

So… let’s change the strings on my Reso-Lectric… shall we?

Backwinding the strings. Note the string loosening up.

Step One: Using a string winder like the Power Peg Pro, back wind the tuning pegs until the strings can be removed from the peg and later the tailpiece. Because I want to clean the fretboard, I will remove all the strings; however, some people might remove just half the strings and replace them before doing the other half. The decision may also depend on the bridge that you are using. For example, with a Bigsby, I would only do at most half the strings… perhaps, just one at a time.

Tailpiece and biscuit region of the guitar. Here the strings have all been removed.

Removing the string from the tailpiece on a National resonator is easy as it pops right out of the slot. There are no pegs holding the string down as is common on an acoustic guitar. A bit of caution is required getting the old string through the bridge/biscuit area because it is protected by an overarching hand guard. You wan to avoid damaging the soft wood biscuit or moving it around. I often cut the string in two pieces which makes removal from the biscuit region much easier.

Step Two: Clean the fretboard. You will note how grungy the fretboard was. Perhaps a customer who played this guitar at Dave’s before I got to it was eating a Twinkie and it was all over his hands…

Applying the fretboard conditioner down the neck.

Next I applied the Dunlop fretboard conditioner down the entire neck. This is the first time I used this product and its great. There is a pressure sensitive wick that wets out with conditioner with a downward push and applies easily with a simple wiping motion.

After application of the condition, it must be buffed down with a soft microfiber cloth or cotton rag. The grunge on the fretboard I was dealing with was quite tenacious and required some serious buffing to finally get it removed!

Buffing the fretboard after application of conditioner.
Strings laid out and ready to go.

Step Three: After the fretboard is cleaned it’s time to wind on the new strings. I like to remove the individually wrapped strings from the main package and lay them out arranged coarse to fine. The heavier strings are usually easiest to manage and might as well get them out of the way first.

As seen below start by running the string through the biscuit region and then slip the string into the tailpiece hole/slot. I found out from experience that unless tension is kept on the string it will most assuredly pop out of the tailpiece. It’s near impossible to keep tension on the string while you are winding up at the head stock, so I find that a piece of electrical tap laid over the tailpiece works wonders in keeping the string properly positioned.

On the left the string is located in the tailpiece. On the right you can see a strip of electrical tap holding the string in place.

Below, you can see a side shot of the biscuit underneath the guitar’s hand rest that sits above and protects it. The wooden biscuit transmits the string’s vibrations down to the aluminum cone to which it is glued, consequently creating the characteristic resonating sound known for these guitars. In the case of the Reso-Lectric there is also a piezo pickup located underneath the biscuit region of the cone. You can see that the biscuit is a saddle and has six differently sized grooves cut in it to accommodate the path of the strings, so it is important to make sure the string rests in its appropriate groove when winding it to proper tension. In this image the largest string can be seen on the right resting in its groove.

Sideview of the biscuit with large string resting in its proper groove.
Measuring out the string length to wrap around the tuning post.

It’s very important to get enough wraps of the string around the tuner post to keep the string in place when tuning the guitar. In the image to the left, I have the largest diameter string pulled through the post and am measuring off a section of string about the length of the next post. There should be no slack in the string between the tailpiece and the tuning post! This distance is a good rule of thumb; however, as the diameter of the strings progressively shrink in size, I will extend the string out a bit more to increase the number of wraps around the tuning post.

String bent at point of desired overall length before winding

After I’ve measured out the proper string length for the wind, I will then back the string off to the chosen end point, controlling the now slackened string with my right hand. What I like to do now is bend the string at the post and then wind the slack up around the post using my power winder in my left hand. I keep tension on the string with my right hand until the slack winds out. The aforementioned bending of the string is a great trick for controlling the string and keeping it from popping out of the tuning post as it winds on. Often I will have to bend the long tail end of the string upwards out of the way as it winds around the post to keep it from tangling or beating up the guitar’s head stock!

You can see the tail end bent upwards out of the way as the wind-on commences. Note the coils moving downwards.

I recommend winding the string with the string winder until the slack is gone and there is a modest amount of tension on the string. As you get to the finer strings it is easy to overwind and break them so some caution is required. The coils wrapping around the post should move downwards from the post hole toward the surface of the headstock. If proper tension and guidance of the string is not done, it is quite easy to tangle up the winds.

Making the final cut.

Finally, after the string is wound on to proper tension, it’s time to cut off the slack with wire cutters like the small diagonal side cutter I use. I cut the string pretty close to the post because the cut end can be a bit sharp and you don’t want to stab yourself later if you brush your hand over the headstock. I suggest 1/4 to 1/8 inch (3 to 6 mm) extending from the post hole. If the cut end is pointing upwards, I will gently push it down to horizontal with the lead end of the wire cutter.

Starting the replacement of the second string.

As you can see in the image to the right, I repeat the string replacement steps until all six strings are wound on. Note that, I peeled back the electrician’s tape to begin the wind of the second string. I will continue to work my way across, peeling and then replacing the tape to hold the strings down into the tail piece. The adhesive on the tape is robust enough to hold throughout the process.

Proper string wind orientation.

Here in the image to the left I am measuring out the string length for the upper most post on the headstock. I am guesstimating the proper length since there is no post above to use as a reference point. Also note, very importantly, that the wound strings come off the post towards the inner part of the headstock for best alignment within the guitar so choose your winding direction accordingly!

Strings lining up properly in the nut.

When the strings come off the posts in the proper orientation as mentioned above they line up nicely in the nut, which makes tuning accuracy more probable. The last step before final tuning is to gently stretch the strings. Note below the I use my left hand to pull upwards on the string and with my right, I gently old the strings in place so that they do not pop out of the biscuit grooves. It is possible to overstretch the finer strings and break them so use some caution. After stretching, I will tune the strings. I go through the stretching/tuning process three to four times before the strings stabilize. As Carlos Santana says, “You got to let the strings know who is the boss!”

Gentle string stretching on above left and above right holding the strings down in their biscuit grooves

For best accuracy I use an electronic tuner to get my strings to proper pitch. I never had the ear to tune strings, so the tuner for me is an absolute requirement. I own multiple tuners like the Fender Bullet below left but find the clip on tuners sometimes non responsive, which is frustrating. My best go-to tuner is the Boss TU-3. It always delivers. Of course you must have a guitar that you can plug-in to use a TU-3! I tune to standard EADGBE for starters, but tune down to Open D for bottleneck work on the Reso-Lectric, which is DADF#AD.

Two methods for electronically enhanced tuning. If I can, I will use the Boss TU-3.

Step Four: Wrapping things up… so, we’re almost done… as I mentioned earlier in this blog, I decided for the first time ever to use some lubrication in the nut grooves to enhance the ease of tuning… sometimes a wound string can “hang up” in the nut creating unwanted tuning errors. I suppose the grooves in the nut could be routed out a bit, but I think trying lubricant is the least aggressive approach to this minor problem.

Applying some slick ’em to the nut grooves to enhance tuning ease.

Applying the lubricant is pretty painless. It is a viscous vaseline-like fluid that I squeezed into a small bowl and then daubed a micro brush into it and subsequently wiped it into the nut groove. I loosened the strings enough to lift them out of the way during application and then re-tuned afterwards. So far, tuning accuracy seems a bit better now!

And then the last step… Applying some guitar polish and a final buff down:

All done and looking and sounding good:

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In a Trade, I Swap Out National Resonator Guitars at Dave’s Guitar Shop in La Crosse, WI

After a 2.5 hour trek across frozen farm country in Iowa and Minnesota, I cross the Mississippi River into Wisconsin and spend several hours at one of the preeminent guitar stores in the U.S.

My first resonator… A steel NRP…

I play finger-style country blues and those of you who’ve read this weblog know that… I take lessons at my local shop which is an excellent guitar store and the community is blessed to have it… After one of my lessons a couple of years ago, I decided to noodle around with a resonator guitar and the shop had a modestly priced Fender that I picked up and tried out.

The Fender was a wooden bodied resonator with nice low play so that fingering the guitar was quite easy. I played through a few of old country blues tunes on the resonator and was smitten. I loved the bonk and splang of the guitar. I decided then that I would acquire a resonator, and guitar snob that I am, I was not inclined to purchase a Fender… Instead, I wanted a National because those guys invented the resonator… Well… it’s a little more complicated then that… I think the National/Dobro company that originally produced the resonator went out of business for some years, and was reconstituted as a manufacturer of resonators in 1989, but for all intents and purposes, it’s symbolically and culturally the same company, as they build their guitars just like in the old days and have added new innovations too along the way…

Mr. Catfish Keith playing a Tricone (from his website)

Fortunately for me, eminent country blues performer, award winning recording artist and resonator aficionado Catfish Keith gave me some basic beginner’s points on shopping for a resonator. He recommended a single cone guitar that fell into the Duolian or Triolian class as a good place to start. Keith also is a representative for National Guitars and will sell you anything in their product line. At this point, I was thinking a pre-owned instrument was my best choice to save some money and thanked Keith for his help.

National guitars were not to be had in Cedar Falls, IA, so I jumped into Reverb world for the first time and found a pretty good deal on a “mint” steel bodied NRP Black Rust that was designed to emulate the original Duolian steel guitar that famous bluesmen like Son House played. It was perhaps a bit too adventuresome on my part to buy an NRP without ever having played one, and when it arrived I was appalled at how high the “action” or string play from the fretboard was and how heavy the instrument settled onto my lap. To save my life, I could not fret the neck properly to play finger style on the NRP and was pretty distraught until I decided I would learn to play bottleneck style to justify the purchase!

National Reso-Rocket WB with Hot Plate pickup

Now, I really like playing bottleneck and will always remember that the NRP led me down that path… I was so enthused by bottleneck playing, I decided to broaden my tonal range by purchasing a wooden bodied resonator and again through Reverb received a “mint” conditioned National Reso-Rocket WB (wood body). I loved this guitar to the point that I rarely picked up the NRP anymore, and when I did the splanky overly metallic sound compared to the woody/mellow toned Reso-Rocket put me off…

Recently when my guitar teacher learned I wanted to dump the NRP, he was initially apoplectic, defining the NRP as one of the “coolest” guitars ever; however, after hearing me play my WB and also playing it himself, he thought it was a more natural axe for me given my style and sentiments.

So, recently I tried to sell the NRP by consignment at my local shop, but that did not work out… I concluded after a brief experience that there was a low probability of selling an expensive resonator in Cedar Falls. I took the guitar back home to keep, but it sat there barely being used like a sore tooth and I eventually took another route to rid myself of it.

Some years earlier, I was informed by the local guitarati that a wonderful guitar shop (Dave’s Guitar Shop) existed in La Crosse, Wisconsin that not only had a huge selection of guitars (over 2500 according to their website), but in addition, Dave has an enormous personal collection of specialty guitars (over 500) on display up on the second floor that contains some of the most interesting and rarest guitars and amplifiers on the planet Earth.

Besides being a leading dealer for Gibson, Fender, Martin, Gretsch, Taylor, National and PRS etc., Dave’s also has a brisk trade in used and vintage guitars. In fact, they have a no muss/no fuss electronic form to submit to get an estimate of the trade value for your guitar, which is I what I did last Sunday night for the NRP.

The very next day, they offered me a straight cash exchange or a better deal if I rolled the money over into a new purchase. So, being retired and healthy and having all the time in the world, I took off on a cross country drive the next day to visit Dave’s Guitars. Fortunately, for me the terrible weather over the past several days had abated temporarily so I had safe driving for the 2.5 hour trip.

Two lane blacktop through Iowa & Minnesota frozen farmlands…

Frankly, 2.5 hours through frozen tundra was a long drive, but it was exciting to finally cross the Mississippi into Wisconsin, enter La Crosse, and find the guitar store practically on the riverbank. The shop itself is a substantial two story building. It was impressive from the outside. I was told by my contact, a fellow identifying himself as JR to find him in the “acoustic room.”

Main floor at Dave’s… the electric guitar space…

So I entered through the double doors and landed in the electric guitar space. You can see in the image to the left, some of the Gibson ES models for sale. Well, I marched through the electric guitar space and was directed to the right side of the main floor where the acoustic room was.

Besides the store staff, I noticed mostly alte kakers (yiddish for old duffers) like me patronizing the store. One might conclude that lots of alte kakers play guitar and like to hang out where they’re sold!

Well… my man JR had to take care of a pair of alte kakers before he could meet with me, which was fine as I found a stool and took in the world around me. As you can see in the image below, I was surrounded by choice acoustic guitars, including, Collings, Santa Cruz, Gibson, Martin and Taylors. Not being in the market for an acoustic guitar because I own two lovely Taylors, my eyes sort of glazed over… the sheer number of high end, premium factory produced guitars was just overwhelming…

Corner section of Dave’s Guitars Acoustic Room
The NRP finds a new home…

In fairly short order, I had the full attention of JR and the first thing he did was look over and “test out” the NRP whilst plugged into an acoustic amp. Then he went “all airline” and starting plugging away at his computer, until he made a final offer, which was actually higher than the initial one given to me the day earlier via email. I was pretty delighted and took the deal to roll the “offer” into a replacement guitar, either pre-owned or new depending upon how my search went. The guitars I was considering during my drive over were as follows: (of course only one would I purchase)

  • The National Reso-Lectric, because it looked and sounded as cool as a cucumber when I did some online research. Plus, Dave’s had a used and new one so I could compare them and I had a fascination for this unusual appearing and sounding axe. I will speak to this try out momentarily below.

  • The National M-1 Tricone Cutaway Wooden Body. As I said earlier, I already own a Reso-rocket WB, so I was concerned as to whether the M-1 sounded different enough to justify purchasing it. Further, I wondered how it could be amplified… my Reso Rocket WB has a hot plate installed and I want my guitars amplified when I perform. A tricone is more difficult to amplify and it’s probably expensive to do it well. Sadly, Dave’s just sold the last one in stock. It was a very cool guitar.

  • Gibson ES 335. I play finger-style country blues almost exclusively and this guitar is a semi-hollow bodied electric classic; however, I own a lovely Taylor T3 Custom (flamed maple) with Vintage Alnico humbuckers and I wondered if they are too close to each other to justify getting one. I actually tried one out. It was a pre-owned “Custom Shop” guitar at half the original premium price, and it was very, very nice, but it did not capture my imagination. Further, I was also surprised how grubby it was, which turned me off… Is that a thing? Selling vintage guitars in grubby form to make them appear more authentic? Bad form…

  • American Professional Strat. I do not own an electric guitar with single coil pickups though I have some that will split their doubled coiled humbuckers… As I said, I own the T3, and I own a Taylor T5z Pro which is very different from a Strat and finally I own a beautiful 2007 Taylor Solidbody Custom Walnut with mini humbuckers and a newly replaced neck… So the question was do I really need a Strat both for my own personal experience or to round out my stable of sounds? I decided at this moment no. I have enough electric guitars for the time being. If I ever buy a Strat one day, it will probably be at my local shop.
My tryout space where I could plug into a Fender
Princeton Reverb, similar to one I own…

Now for the fun part of the trip. At my kind request, JR pulled out the used and new National Reso-Lectrics and found me an amplifier similar to one I have at home, procured a cable, let me plug-in, and then he left me to my own devices, suggesting I seek him out if I need any help or information. I greatly appreciated that he did not hover over me.

So, I picked up the used Reso-Lectric first as I really wanted to like it because it was considerably less money then a new one, and it was clean as a whistle. Sadly, I did not like it very much… It was thin, whiny and shallow sounding. Although it had nice low string play, which made for easy finger picking, it was unforgiving when I played with my brass slide. Too clangy… I tried a ceramic slide… no better.

I began wondering then if the Reso-Lectric was the guitar I had hoped it would be. It certainly sounded nice on some of the Youtube videos where I’d seen it reviewed, but this one was a bit of a dog! Perhaps it needed new batteries, or a reset, or pickup adjustments, but I did not have the time or patience to fight through that battle… I unplugged the used guitar and set it aside.

Then I picked up the new version of the Reso-Lectric and plugged in. It looked virtually the same as the used one aside from some finishing details on the headstock and the color of the plastic scratch plate and pick up cover. But, this guitar was very friggin’ different… it had a deep throatiness to it that was missing on the first one I tried… this guitar could go low and swampy, which is where I like to be! The play was still accessible for finger-style which delighted me; however, there was enough action to easily accommodate the slide too. With all systems go, I happily played through some of my Open D repertoire and the more I played it, the more I was convinced that this was the guitar I would walk out with…

When I was playing the new version of the Reso-Lectric a fascinating thing happened to me. Several of the old duffers hanging around the store came by and congratulated me on my playing! I was astonished because I was somewhat insecure playing out in the middle of one of the biggest and most discriminating guitar shops in the Midwest… One gentleman came by repeatedly, complimented my playing, asked for advice and told me how much he learned by our interactions! Wow… But the kicker, was when a store guy dropped by and told me that I reminded him of Ry Cooder’s Paris, Texas movie soundtrack referring to the slower, more languid and accurate playing of the slide that I was producing… He said that it was rare for someone to play like I was performing in the store. I was really taken aback and thanked him for his kind words…

I’ve not seen Paris, Texas but looked up a sampling of the soundtrack on Youtube, which I post below. It’s quite nice and appeals to me and I can see some similarity in how I approach playing slide. I am definitely not in the same universe as Ry Cooder, but it was nice to be compared to him in such a manner.

Ry Cooder doing the languid thing…
JR and I pose with the National Reso-Lectric… I am delighted…

After I played for quite a while, I decided to take the Reso-Lectric home with me and asked JR to prep it for sale. There was a bit of schmutz (yiddish for gunk) that he cleaned off on the shiny metal parts and he performed a slight adjustment to the neck.

It really is a fascinating looking instrument. There is an art-deco sensibility to the design and the control knobs remind me of a 1950’s era kitchen toaster! Combine the sunburst finish with the resonator cone cover and the aforementioned flourishes and you have a completely unique looking axe.

For all intents and purposes, the Reso-Lectric is a hybrid acoustic/electric guitar. The combination of an acoustic designed piezo pickup under the biscuit where the strings rest on the resonator cone, and the traditional electric P90 single coil up near the neck gives the player a fairly wide ability to influence the tone along the acoustic/electric spectrum. Combine the guitar controls with a Princeton Reverb Amp, echo delay, octaver, and tremolo pedals and it can create quite an alluring sound when played with a slide! Below you can see the guitar ready to go…

Take me home to Iowa…

If you’re interested in learning a bit more about the Reso-Lectric, I embedded below a factory tour of National Guitar focused entirely on the production of that particular guitar. The tour was done by a German outfit, so it begins in German language, but the tour itself is in English!

One of the rituals involved with visiting and/or shopping at Dave’s Guitars is to ascend to the second floor where Dave’s personal collection of historic, rare, and unusual guitars exists. This I decided to do and I took some shots which I post below. The sheer number of guitars and amplifiers is overwhelming. I knew I was in the midst of guitar history and museum quality greatness but did not have the wherewithal to take it all in, but it was fun to be up there for a while to wander around in awe… Sadly, I did not get to meet Dave himself, but if you scroll down below my shots of the collection there is a 45 minute interview with Dave and a detailed tour of the collection hosted/conducted by Premier Guitar Magazine… It’s worth the viewing if you have the time and the interest.

Some shots of Dave’s historic guitar collection

Below is the Premier Guitar Magazine interview with Dave of Dave’s Guitars:

Was the visit to Dave’s Guitar shop worth it? You Betcha!

Comments are welcome…
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Tone Zone for the Taylor Electrics: the Solidbody and the T5z…

or Jacob makes a house call… Part 2

A few weeks ago, my friend Jacob Lampman made a house call to help me set-up a my Taylor T3c from a tone perspective. It was a great visit and an education for me and is well-documented in a prior posting.

In short Jacob, who is an accomplished guitarist, guitar instructor, and all purpose floor guy at my local shop, Bob’s Guitars agreed to work with me at my home with my three electric guitar’s tones as barter for a very nice, barely used hand-tooled El Dorado guitar strap.

Left Taylor SBc Walnut; Right Taylor T5z Pro, Ltd

The guitars remaining for Jacob to work with were a 2007 Taylor SBc Walnut (SB stands for solid-body) and a 2019 Taylor T5z Pro, Ltd (Molasses Burst).

The SBc is an interesting guitar. Taylor manufactured solid body guitars for only a brief time. They had developed a set of “innovative” pickups when they designed the hollow-bodied acoustic/electric hybrid T5 and sometime thereafter introduced their solid bodies to the marketplace so they could deploy the pickups in other guitars. They produced multiple designs with varying specs and the one I purchased last summer off of Reverb was one of the nicest ones that they made. My SBc had a Walnut top laid into a routed out Sapele body, and equipped with mini-humbuckers. The unusual appearing aluminum bridge was also a Taylor invention that allows multi-directional setting of the guitar string.

Taylor’s solid bodies reviewed well among the guitarati; however they did not sell enough of the product to justify continuance of manufacturing and phased them out. As a caution to anyone else inspired to buy one of these on the used market, they can be found at reasonable prices; however, make sure to carefully check the Sapele neck for twisting/warping as I have heard of several units, including the one I purchased, that suffered from the aforementioned malady. I was exceptionally fortunate in that Taylor replaced my neck, but I have heard again from multiple other sources that they no longer will do replacements.

The other guitar for Jacob’s review was a 2019 T5z Pro, Ltd. The Pro version is made with a flamed maple top inlaid into a routed out Sapele body. You can spend more and get a Koa top if you wish, which would be a T5z Custom. Other than gold-plated works and the top wood, the guitars are spec’d the same. The T5z is sold as an acoustic/electric hybrid with a 5 way switch to vary the choices of which of three different pickups (2 humbuckers of varying design and location and an acoustic body sensor under the bridge) with combinations thereof that can be selected. Unlike the recently introduced Fender Acoustasonics, there is zero modeling or sound alteration internally taking place with the T5z other than the preamp tone controls. The T5z is a lovely, small hollow bodied guitar with three nicely designed pickups.

In the rear left a Fishman Artist Acoustic Amp and on the right a reissued Fender Princeton Reverb. In the foreground my pedal boards.

The purpose of Jacob’s visit was to help me sort out how best to used the above described guitars as they interact with my amps and pedals, which can be seen on the right.

For a more detailed discussion of my various pedals please refer to here.

During his previous visit Jacob and I worked exclusively on my Taylor T3c, which is a semi-hollow bodied electric guitar with two full-sized “vintage” alnico pickups. and the goal of that set-up with to keep a relatively clean sound with enhanced mid-tones to suit the electrified country blues that I like to play.

Jacob working on the Solid Body (SBc)…

We opened our discussion of the Solid Body by speaking to the differences between my full size vintage humbuckers on the T3 and the mini humbuckers on the SBc. The minis have a more focused tone and a clearer, brighter sound because they sense less string vibration with their smaller size. Further, mini humbuckers will create more “grind” when pushing the amp with extra gain, which increases the power of the signal from the guitar to the amplifier.

Jacob quickly disabused me of the notion that the Solid body was designed to play clean as “country water” like the T3. As suggested above, to sound its best, a solid body with mini humbuckers requires some extra “grind” or “grit” to take best advantage of the instrument, which means sending increased gain to the amplifier. The implements for that process would be my two Mesa Boost/Overdrive pedals. In sum, Jacob said we should seek to achieve a “hairier,” more intense driving sound from the mini-humbuckers.

Why Mesa gain pedals? Well, the marketplace is awash with pedals of this type and choosing proper ones can be overwhelming. I had owned an Electro-Harmonix Soul Food and an MXR Boost, but decided to dump them because I thought they added unwanted noise to my pedal signal chain. Rummaging around one Saturday at my local shop I noticed the Mesa pedals. They were originally very expensive but were marked down and the guys in the shop demonstrated them for me. I grabbed the Tone Burst that day and the Flux Drive a month or two later. The Mesa pedals were produced by a company (Mesa/Boogie) that makes high-end guitar amplifiers so they know what they’re doing, the pedals were well reviewed, they are beautiful, well built objects and I got an excellent price for them. Bob’s your uncle…

Mesa does not make a plethora of pedals and they focus primarily on the gain/drive/boost sort. The Tone Burst is mostly a gentle boost and tone modifier, while the Flux Drive acts more like a pre-amplifier with the purpose of adding enough gain into the signal chain to overdrive the amplifier and create break-up or distortion.

Mesa Overdrive Pedals… Tone-Burst on the Left and Flux-Drive on the right… note Jacob’s recommended settings for the Taylor SBc when played through the Fender Princeton…

Despite almost a year of fiddling with guitar pedals I am still a relative neophyte, particularly with the application of gain and overdrive to the signal chain. As a general rule and personal preference, I do not like playing with a lot of distortion. I agree with the late great Charlie Christian who preferred his guitar to sound electrified but not electronic! Because gain pedals are so omnipresent, I put a couple of them on my board because I thought I needed them, but because I am loath to add distortion, I used the Tone-Burst to lightly thicken my sound and actually rarely utilized the Flux-Drive.

Jacob was adamant that it was time to deploy both Mesa pedals to get the SBc properly sounding. In fact, he had me rearrange the order of the two pedals, flipping the Flux-Drive from behind to in front of the Tone Burst in the sound chain. With this arrangement, the Flux-Drive would determine “how thick the bread slice would be.” In other words, the Flux-Drive would be used to fatten the sound, and then the signal would be “sculpted” afterwards by the Tone Burst to bring out appropriate “highs” and “mid-tones” as determined by Jacob. The goal was to be within the scope of sound quality that I am comfortable with, and that works well with the electrified country blues that I play.

Taylor T5z five-way selector switch set to 4th position to use both humbuckers in parallel

We left the modulation control settings on my pedal board, including Reverb, Delay, Vibrato, Tremolo, and Chorus the same as used with the T3, which can be found here. Jacob is not a big fan of pitch shifting, so we left use of my Octave pedal to my discretion. I like to the way it punches out the lower tones. And that was the end of our work with the Solid Body.

Jacob and I spent less time with the T5z mostly because it is a very acoustic-sounding electric guitar and though it can handle gain and distortion, it is not how I would ever play it. Plus it was getting late and we were getting tired. We did decide that for my purposes, using the 5 way selector switch in the 4th position to deploy both the “hidden” neck and stacked “lip-stick” humbuckers simultaneously and in parallel would be a good setting for my purposes.

Onboard preamp settings at neutral detent locations.

We dabbled with the onboard bass and treble controls provided with the guitar’s preamp but were inconclusive as to how to best set them, leaving them to my discretion. I tend to drop the treble and to increase the bass signal a bit to suit my ear. The preamp controls are actually very sensitive and a light touch best serves proper sculpting of tone.

Jacob’s settings to complement the T5z.

Finally, Jacob and I considered the broad array of pedals I have at my disposal for use with the T5z. We turned off the Flux Drive, which has true bypass, and left the remainder of the pedals set similarly to how I had them for the T3; however, Jacob saw fit to fine tune and adjust my chorus pedal to complement the T5z. I am actually not a big fan of chorus effects but Jacob was insistent that for the acoustic nature of the T5z, chorus is an important effect to use to sweeten the sound. As described by Reverb, “Chorus effects thicken your signal by copying it multiple times, coloring the copied signals, and playing them back slightly delayed.” Jacob readjusted every setting on the pedal while I played the guitar to best suit the T5z! I suppose I will use the chorus effect for a while to see if it suits me… As of this writing I actually prefer a bit of delay with my MXR Echoplex over the Boss Chorus…

Jacob and me at the end of our session…

So in the end, it was a great learning experience for me having Jacob make his house calls and was well worth the barter of the El Dorado guitar strap.

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And I didn’t know right from wrong…

To Study the background of and learn to play Rollin’ & Tumblin’ Blues…

Those who read this weblog know that a good deal of my retirement time is spent learning guitar. I play almost entirely from the country blues canon. I’ve written earlier about the allure of playing country blues. Historically those tunes were most frequently played on acoustic and resonator guitars, which I do; however, I also like to play them on electric guitars too!

By no means an expert on all things country blues, I am gradually getting up to speed and built a considerable library on the subject, though there are many of which I still need to read. I do know this… As with all forms of music, there are standards recognized by most people familiar with the genre and Rollin’ and Tumblin’ Blues (sometimes just Rollin’ and Tumblin’ or even Roll and Tumble Blues) is one of them… Like many blues tunes, Rollin’ and Tumblin’ has multiple interpretations, some of which I’ve gathered below.

For starters, most people are familiar with the Mtv series unplugged, and Eric Clapton’s segment was arguably one of the most famous… though British, Clapton built is career mining and then interpreting the blues, which was a distinctly American idiom. In fact, were it not for musicians like Eric Clapton, John Mayall and the Rolling Stones many of the blues classics we are familiar with may have in all likelihood passed by our notice!

Eric Clapton is important in Rollin’ and Tumblin’ lore because he played an incredibly rousing version of the tune during his Mtv Unplugged show, which millions of people witnessed and as a result its become one of the most recognizable interpretations… The irony is Clapton’s band and the director charged with filming the show were completely unprepared for Clapton breaking out in an unplanned, impromptu version of the tune! Nevertheless, he and the band quickly recovered and began filming; however, it is one of the reasons the song begins so abruptly on the recording… It can be seen just below:

According to what I’ve learned, Clapton was visibly delighted with his performance and shouted to the director afterwards, “did you get it?” While Clapton’s performance was a cultural milestone, I still think that famous bluesman Muddy Waters (McKinley Morganfield) recorded one of the definitive versions of Rollin’ and Tumblin’ and the one I like best of all! You can listen below:

The earliest recorded version (1927) of Rollin’ and Tumblin’ Blues was attributed to Hambone Willie Newbern, which can be played below. It is somewhat different from the Clapton and Water’s versions and is closer to version that I am learning from Stef Grossman’s DVD Bottleneck Blues Guitar. You’ll note too that Newbern’s version was titled somewhat differently as Roll and Tumble Blues…

https://youtu.be/gOtyJs5SoSE

As you might expect Rollin’ and Tumblin’ Blues is a sad, dark tune about a man who’s woman walked out on him… the original lyrics are listed below…

Roll And Tumble Blues — Hambone Willie Newbern

And I rolled and I tumbled and I cried the whole night long
And I rolled and I tumbled and I cried the whole night long
And I rolled this mornin’, mama, and I didn’t know right from wrong

Did you ever wake up and find your dough-roller gone?
Did you ever wake up and find your dough-roller gone?
And you wring your hands and you cry the whole day long

And I told my woman, Lord, ‘fore I left the town
And I told my woman just before I left the town
“Don’t you let nobody tear the barrelhouse down”

And I fold my arms, Lord, and I walked away
And I fold my arms and I slowly walked away
Says, “That’s all right, sweet mama, your trouble gonna come some day”

Other musicians have altered the lyrics or added to them… In fact, as is his wont Bob Dylan almost completely changed the lyrics with the exception of the opening line and claimed writing credit for the tune… below you can listen to a live version the GOAT’s version, which is great:

https://youtu.be/QSx6x9VXQn0

And then there was the King of Blues, Robert Johnson, who took the tune and changed the lyrics as well as the title to Traveling Riverside Blues:

https://youtu.be/XrExBI7PtLc

As I said earlier, the version I am working on was arranged by Stef Grossman on the DVD pictured on the left. It’s is a double disc collection with bottleneck slide tunes arranged in either Open D or Open G tunings.

I play slide tunes exclusively on my National Resonators, with an NRP Steel body tuned to Open G and a Wooden Reso-Rocket kept in Open D. Frankly, I would play more plain old fingerpicking tunes on my Nationals, but the string play is set so high off the fretboard, I stick to bottleneck tunes. The Nationals are real cheese graters.

I actually like the Open D tuning more as well as the wooden bodied resonator, so that combination gets most of my attention. In fact, I came within a whisker recently of selling my NRP.

I am very fond of Grossman’s arrangements, his teaching style and his accessible tablature, though his formatting of tab takes some getting used to. Typical tab coding uses a horizontal line to represent a string, while Grossman uses the space between the lines, which is a bit disorienting to those who first see it. While preparing this blog entry, I was delighted to find a fantastic live performance of Roll and Tumble Blues performed live by Stef Grossman along with the inestimable Keb Mo:

I’ve been working on Rollin’ and Tumblin’ Blues in Open D now for a few days, and as I write, I just completed a good practice on the piece. Earlier today I recorded myself and posted it below via Vimeo… it’s rough and the phrasing is just taking form so this is a work in progress… but that’s ok… music for me takes time and effort, and this recording will be an archived stepping stone along the way. You may also notice that this arrangement uses a different opening riff to establish the tune’s groove. Grossman decided to incorporate what he defined as the Fred McDowell/Furry Lewis riff approach to the tune, which gives it a bit of a different flavor, as opposed to the Hambone Newbern/Robert Johnson groove most commonly employed. You can click below to hear Furry Lewis’s version:

My latest version of Rollin’ and Tumblin’ Blues. I swamp it up a bit:

As I said earlier, country blues tunes were originally performed on acoustic instruments in solo form; however, when the technology became available the tunes were often adapted to electric guitars and played in accompaniment with a band. Here’s a great example of Rollin’ and Tumblin’ with electric guitar. Obviously, the above shown recording by Bob Dylan’s band was an electrified version, but R.L. Burnsides below captures better the early conversion of country blues to electric guitar with a band. It’s fantastic!

Rollin’ and Tumblin‘ was one of those country blues tunes that became a foundational rock and roll tune emerging in the 1960’s and early 1970’s. Below is a recording of Johnny Winter’s energetic and rocking version of the tune which is a classic:

The tune continues to live on… here’s a another rocking version of Rollin’ and Tumblin’ by the Lovell sisters, known more commonly as Larkin Poe… when you listen you can see Johnny Winter’s fingerprints all over the sister’s version!

Thanks for looking in… leave a comment or follow me… is anyone out there?