Tag: National Guitar

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On Bottleneck Blues and Selecting a Proper Slide for Resonator Guitar Play…

Introduction

The Second of the Four Great Records

When I was an undergraduate at the University of North Carolina in the early 1970’s, the Rolling Stones were in the midst of putting together an unparalleled run of four extraordinary record albums, including Beggar’s Banquet, Let It Bleed, Sticky Fingers and Exile on Mainstreet. This was not your everyday British Invasion band, but something new and powerfully different. Yes, it was the Rolling Stones, still largely blues influenced, but now exhibiting a richer, deeper, more expansive and more expressive music.

To my ear, there was something distinctly different about their guitar sounds too… at the time, I was unsure what it was exactly, but eventually realized it was the liberal use of bottleneck slide guitar. A sound so expressive to my sensibilities. Below you can see one of the Stones’ hard rockers from Exile on Mainstreet played live in 1972 in Texas. I saw the same show in Charlotte, NC that year. Note the characteristic rhythm riff driving the tune played by Keith Richards with the Mick Taylor’s bottleneck slide adding important textures over the top!

Besides adding sonic textures, the slide can be used to add important emotional context to a tune, which is even more appealing to me. Note, below for example, another video from the 1972 Texas concerts. This one of the Stones covering Robert Johnson’s classic Love in Vain from their album Let it Bleed. Mick Taylor’s slide work pulls at the heart. Suffice it to say I became enamored by the tones of bottleneck slide guitar listening to the Stones in my youth.

If you take the time to watch the above two videos closely, you will note that Mick Taylor plays two different kinds of slides to get two different tonalities, one metal in the All Down the Line, and a glass one in Love in Vain. Note too, that he plays with his slide like I do on his little finger, with the slide located above the middle knuckle of that finger. I will return to those observations later.

Where Did Slide Playing Come From?

Muddy Waters with slide on his little finger

This post is not a music history lesson, but I’ve read a lot about the blues. If my memory serves me well, the bottleneck slide playing that influenced early 20th century U.S. blues players originated among Hawaiian Islands Slack Key musicians and eventually migrated to the North American continent. Slack Keys are alternate tunings such as Open D and Open G, which are most common for bottleneck blues guitar play. What’s nice about open tunings is that the guitar is set up to play a rich chord with a strum across the open strings. In addition to popularizing Slack Key tunings, it’s also believed that Hawaiians introduced the use of a metal bar for sliding across the strings to smear (glissando) the notes and to create a wavering vibrato. It’s said that W.C. Handy, the man who first documented blues music was dozing at a railway station in the Delta region of Tutwiler, Mississippi. when he was awakened by an elderly African American man playing a haunting blues tune with smeared notes throughout. The old guitarist was using a pocket knife to create the glissandos. This apocryphal story might be the first recognition of bottleneck blues playing in the South.

My First Run with a Bottleneck Slide

My first slide…

I was taking finger-style country blues lessons some years ago in Cedar Falls, Iowa and had just purchased my first electric guitar, a fancy-pants Gretsch Falcon. About that same time, I ran into this bewhiskered old codger at the guitar shop where I studied. He was not capable of driving so his family would drop him off for lessons and later pick him up. I got to know him a bit, and at some point he told me he was learning to play bottleneck slide. I thought to myself, since I have this awesome electric guitar now, why not do the same and subsequently discussed it with my teacher. Shortly thereafter we went out on the shop floor and selected a glass slide off the rack and then I spent a few weeks futzing around with a slide on my guitar.

After a spell, I decided that slide playing was not a rabbit hole I wished to go down. I was just not adept enough at guitar playing yet, and the slide itself was an ill-fitting affair, being too large for me, thus difficult to control. Despite my initial lack of success at slide playing, I did conclude that I was most comfortable playing with a slide on my little finger, with the slide located above the middle knuckle. The middle knuckle location allowed me to properly position the slide on the fretboard without a lot of stress on my wrist, since I could simply bend my finger. Of course the Mo-Jo Slide would not work in the manner I wished as it swam all over my finger and the strings. I still have it and it makes a wonderful knick-knack on my music table.

Another Run with the Bottleneck Slide

National NRP Black Rust

Some months later with little to no intention of playing bottleneck slide again any time soon, I purchased a National Resonator (NRP Black Rust) from Reverb to play finger-style blues. This was based on my brief experience noodling around with a wooden Fender resonator in my local shop. The two guitars could not be any more different from each other. Whereas the Fender was set up to play finger-style with low action, the National had very high action, and I was distraught when I quickly ascertained that it would be next to impossible to play straight finger-style. It did not occur to me have have the guitar set up for finger-style.

Considering the substantial investment I made in the National, I decided then and there to return to bottleneck slide, since that was how it was set-up to be played. I was now committed to making a more serious run at mastering (take this term with a grain of salt) the slide.

Dunlop Ceramic Joe Perry Slide

Of course, the first order of business was to find a slide that would work for me and that ended up being an iterative process that still continues to this day. I needed to find a slide size and substance (i.e. material) that would meet my needs when playing my National. Since I like to play the slide on my little finger and above the middle knuckle, I needed a relatively small slide. So I went back to the store rack and searched for a smallish slide that would fit to my little finger above the knuckle. In this case I purchased a Dunlop Joe Perry ceramic slide, which was 50 mm in length. It’s worth a digression now to consider slide substances.

What Are the Most Common Slide Substances?

While there are lots of exceptions to the rule, slides are available in three common substances:

  1. Glass – lots of different types of glass tubes can be used for slides. Even though I was interested in playing a glass slide, I could not find one that would properly fit me… more about that later. Glass is the warmer sounding of slide materials with good sustain.
  2. Metal – lots of different metals are used, including but not limited to steel, nickel coated brass, titanium and solid brass. The metals give a harsher, biting sound, with somewhat diminished sustain and is favored by some hardcore country blues players.
  3. Ceramic – a non-metallic mineral that is said to fall somewhere in between metal and glass in its sonic properties. As indicated above, my Joe Perry slide is ceramic.
  4. Other – Taylor Guitars produces an ebony slide. It is a creative use of raw materials. I own one, but because of its somewhat muted sonic properties I hardly every use it. Their are other contraptions out there too that are claimed to take the place of original tubular slide designs. I have not tried any of them as of this writing.

Choosing a slide material is a very personal choice based on taste, your ear, and the type of tonality you are seeking. There is plenty of discussion about tonality of slide substances available on YouTube. There is no consensus on right or wrong choices. For example, despite my antipathy with the ebony slide, a quick survey of YouTube will yield a number of players who like it.

Getting a Slide to Fit Properly

Moleskin packed slide

I want a slide to fit my little finger snugly and I have yet to find one “off the rack” that does so. My method for customizing the fit is to pack the inside circumference of the slide with moleskin, a product typically used by hikers to prevent hotspots from turning into full blown blisters. The surface side of the the moleskin is a soft plush fabric and the back side is pressure sensitive adhesive. It requires patience and a good pair of forceps to get the moleskin properly positioned. If the slide is reasonabley close to fit, the moleskin will snug it up to my finger as you can see in the image on the left.

I’ve heard of other players who pack their slides with the fuzzy portion of velcro (too harsh) or with adhesive backed foam (durable?), but moleskin seems to me to be the best of the choices.

I Try A Variety of Slides and Resonators

Over the past few years my bottleneck playing has progressed nicely. My repertoire has grown in both Open D and Open G tunes. People love bottleneck playing. I’ve played frequently at Open Mic Nights to audience approval and have bought and sold several National resonators over the recent past. I currently play a National Reso-Lectric and an M1 Tricone. It is certainly possible to play bottleneck on electric and acoustic guitars as well; however, I myself prefer to play on a resonator. Nevertheless, I do play a nice Muddy Waters tune (Long Distance Call) on my Collings I-35 electric while in standard tuning and it is a lot of fun. Along the way I’ve worked with a variety of slides too:

  • I was not that big a fan of the Joe Perry ceramic slide. It was too bulky and did not sound that good to my ear. Slide wall thickness and mass affects weight, tonality and comfort/accuracy while playing, so that element of slide design is an important consideration. As Ben Powell says, “mass equals tone.” Because of the wide variety of slide design choices, I found myself constantly shopping around. To that end, during my wanderings around the internet, I discovered Ben Powell’s fascinating Tone Dome slide. Below you can see Ben discussing his innovative slide design:

As Ben illuminates, the Tone Dome is designed for the little finger and to fit above the middle knuckle. There’s a cut out to enable easy finger bending too. At the time I purchased one, what was available was a nickel-plated brass version and I played it for a long, long time. The Tone Dome was relatively light and easy to manipulate on the fretboard. The tonality was a typical metallic bite with reasonable sustain. My only quibble was the slide did not cover the full width of my fretboard, which was problematic for full chord slides. Ben is such as accomplished slide player, he does not seem bothered by the shortness of the slide, but I was. To reduce this problem but not eliminate it completely I positioned the slide reversed from the way Powell intended it to be. In addition, I added a bit of moleskin within the slide to adjust the fit.

Tone Done with Cut Out (Left) and Tone Dome Positioned Backwards (Right) to Enhance Coverage Across the Fretboard
Ceramic Star Singer Slide
  • Even playing the Tone Dome reversed on my guitar, I became frustrated with it’s lack of fretboard width coverage for certain full chord tunes like Spoonful and went back out into the marketplace. To that end, I found a web-based seller of elegantly designed ceramic slides out of the UK (Star Singer) that looked more useable than the Dunlop Joe Perry version I had tried earlier. I purchased a 57 mm length version as can be seen on the right. I liked the Star Singer just fine and for tunes that required full fretboard width coverage I used it. Nevertheless, my workhouse slide remained the nickel-plated brass Tone Dome because I preferred its tonality more than every other slide I’d used to date. Finally, the Star Singer is a bit fragile and I tend to be a bit clumsy sometimes and after a drop or two, it has a micro crack on one side, so I have to be intentional when positioning it on my finger. For that reason, I rarely use the Star Singer anymore and just tough out the full width chords with the Tone Dome by faking it!
  • While noodling around the National Reso-phonic website, I stumbled across the fact that they now sell Ben Powell Tone Domes. Besides a stainless steel version, they also offer a beefy solid brass one too, which I immediately acquired. The increased mass of the new solid brass slide gave it a more present, warmer and rounder tonality such that it completely displaced my original Tone Dome, which is now retired.
Solid Brass Tone Dome (left); Stainless Steel (right)

To the left you can see both of the Ben Powell Tone Domes that are offered by National Reso-Phonic on their website. I really like the solid brass version and have used it with success for several years now. As with my other slides, I’ve inserted some moleskin to tighten the fit around my little finger. I’ve used this slide on all my resonators, and my Collings electric guitar with nice effect and tonality. My only quibble is that on cold, low humidity winter days, the brass slide creates a static crackle when I play it on my National Reso-Lectric!

  • I was pretty enamored by my solid brass Tone Dome for a long time and used it at Open Mic Nights and during my lessons at the guitar shop. Sometimes during lessons, my teacher would demonstrate a point he was making about phrasing or slide technique on his own electric guitar and he would use a simple clear glass slide on his ring finger. His enviable tone always amazed me. The notes rang like a bell and sustained far longer than I was achieving with my resonator and brass slide combination. When I commented on his tone, he would strongly suggest I revisit using a glass slide. If it was good enough for Duane Allman, it should be good enough for me. My usual response was that I could never find a glass slide that would fit my little finger properly and then we’d drop the subject.

Then one day, scrolling through my Facebook feed, I noticed Blues/Americana aficionado and online teacher Tom Feldmann extolling the virtues of Diamond Bottleneck’s glass slides. Sometime thereafter I explored their website and discovered that a host of luminaries like Mike Dowling and Mark Knopfler also used Diamond Bottlenecks. Good enough for them… good enough for me, so I decided that I would purchase one! I then began a back and forth correspondence with head/lead consultant Ian McWee of Diamond Bottlenecks, which took place over several days. Ian was a combination of cordial, patient and very responsive.

If you peruse the Diamond Bottleneck’s website, you will see that they offer glass slides in a wide variety. From sawn of necks of actual former bottles, to hand blown soda ash or leaded crystal and more. Using old school, British, precision, hand skilled craftsmenship rooted in the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, Ian and his team manufacture their slides onsite in a small factory. Below you can see a brief video of Ian fashioning a glass slide.

Ultimate Diamond Bottlenecks

I decided to order a slide from their Ultimate collection, which is comprised of leaded crystal. The lead crystal process produces a high density glass with unusual visual clarity. Theoretically, the higher density glass should enhance tone and and sonic sustain. Ian sent me images of the leaded crystal glass that he had in his inventory, which can affect what you can order at any given time. As I understand it, the slides are cut from long glass tubes and then finished to customer specification. In the end, I determined that ordering three slides would be the most economical route, since there would then be no shipping fee with an order that size. All three slides were to come in around 50 mm length, with inner diameters close to the size of my little finger. Two were open ended with copper and ruby red colors and wall thicknesses of 6 & 8mm, and the other was a double-walled affair with a dome. We thought this variety would allow me to find a slide “sweet-spot.”

It took a while for the package to arrive from the UK, mostly because the USPS quarantined the shipment in Chicago for over a week! I was told it was some kind of new safety protocol causing the delay. The slides were well packaged arriving in their own individual velveteen bags in pristine condition. Both my wife and I were delighted with how beautiful the glass was!

I post below a sound sampler of the three new glass slides from Diamond Bottlenecks and for reference, I’ve also included a sample of my National (Ben Powell) Solid Brass Tone Dome. You’ll note that I am playing a 2021 National Reso-phonic M1 Tricone. The tune is the first verse of Blind Willie McTell’s Wake Up Mama. The samples are ordered as follows:

  1. Diamond Bottleneck Ultimate – 50mm (Plus) Double walled with dome; Dark Blue Colored
  2. Diamond Bottleneck Ultimate – 50mm Open Ended 8mm thick Wall; Ruby Red Colored
  3. Diamond Bottleneck Ultimate – 50mm Open Ended 6mm thick Wall; Copper Colored
  4. National Reso-phonic/Ben Powell Solid Brass Tone Dome

Truth is I like all four of the slides sampled; however, I am really fascinated by the glass slide tones. Both my wife and I noticed right away the bell-like chimes and longer sustain of the new Diamond Bottlenecks. I think the most “present” tone comes from the large domed slide, which is not surprising as it is the most massive of the bunch, which is also a problem as the slide is really heavy and causes me some reluctance to play it. I did apply some moleskin to the interior of the glass dome so it stays well put on my finger… but it’s weight could be a deterrent to my using it very often!

I am very happy with both of the open-ended glass slides, though if pressed I would probably choose the thicker walled ruby red slide because its tone is just a bit thicker than the copper colored slide. Both open-ended slides are easily playable though they do not fit snugly to my little finger. As a result, I am concerned with dropping and breaking the slides, but am also reluctant to apply moleskin to the interior of these translucent slides adversely affecting their appearance… still weighing this decision as I write.

Thanks for tuning in… leave a comment if you wish…

Post Script:

I added a thin band of moleskin to the lower opening of the Ruby Red slide and it now locks onto my finger much more effectively. Hopefully this will minimize the potential for dropping off my finger! This small band of moleskin has not adversely affected the beauty of the slide, nor has it affected it’s lovely tone.

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The Refined Resonator: Reviewing National’s M1 Tricone

“The Mississippi Delta Was Shining Like a National Guitar” – Paul Simon, Graceland

Introduction and Background

When I first picked up a guitar, I wanted to be a flat-picking bluegrass player. Sometime thereafter, I concluded that I did not possess the speed or accuracy to play that style, and adopted fingerstyle guitar with Travis picking as my basic playing approach. It was the best decision I ever made regarding the instrument. When I took a quantum leap in focus and interest in guitar playing my pathway to achievement was to learn Acoustic Country Blues, which happens to be huge body of music with many different sub-styles to choose from. The structure of Country Blues was appealing to me because it speaks to my sensibilities as a musician, is distinctly American and it serves as the foundation for a large swath of the music I grew up with in the 1960’s and ’70s.

Fender Resonator…

After one of my ongoing lessons at my local guitar shop some years back, I walked by a Fender resonator guitar hanging on the wall and it occurred to me that a resonator might broaden my Country Blues sound palette. I responded instantly to the distinct sound that a resonator cone makes when the guitar string is plucked and merrily played a couple of Mississippi John Hurt tunes that I’d been working on. The Fender string action was supple and easy to play, sounded good too, but it felt insubstantial in construction. I decided at that moment that I would pursue the acquisition of a resonator, but guitar snob that I am, I wanted to acquire a fine instrument. Of course, what’s “fine” is open to debate and a matter of taste, but with my limited knowledge at the time I referred to Paul Simon’s lyric from “Graceland” and decided to chase after a National guitar.

Catfish Keith and a National Tricone

I found myself on Iowa’s legendary bluesman Catfish Keith’s website whilst doing research on resonators. At that moment, I was a bit overwhelmed by the numerous models and resonator types to select from. In correspondence, Catfish was kind enough to write me a brief dissertation about Nationals and recommended that I consider a single cone guitar for starters. In short, resonators are typically manufactured with a single large, spun aluminum cone, or three similar but smaller cones, referred to as tricones.

Catfish and Penny wintering in Mexico in happier times before the pandemic…

As a side-note, both Catfish and his wife Penny are incredibly gracious and generous people and I had the great, good fortune of taking a private lesson with him at his home in small town Iowa. He taught me the nuances of playing his arrangement of “Police and a Sergeant,” a variation of an old Robert Wilkins tune.

Catfish is a representative/distributor for National guitars and sells them new from his website. At that moment I was ready to take up Catfish’s advice by acquiring a single cone resonator, but I decided to go on the used market to save some money. I’ve written before about the savings that can be made by purchasing used guitars online from Reverb… there’s quite a drop in value when you drive a new guitar off the lot. I’ve subsequently revised my opinion on buying used versus new, as I’ve experienced set-up issues, cracked bodies, sketchy electronics and twisted necks when buying used. In fact, all 6 of my current and varying style guitars were purchased new, because I’ve traded off my pre-owned ones.

National NRP B Single Cone Resonator

Nevertheless, my first National resonator, was a mint conditioned and bargain priced NRP B steel, single coned guitar. I was delighted when the NRP arrived but was astonished at how difficult it was to play, compared to the Fender resonator that I tested in my local guitar store. I subsequently realized that the action was set-up pretty high for slide playing, rather than finger picking, which was not clearly elaborated on the Reverb website. This high action play was initially viewed by myself as a disaster of biblical proportions, but then I decided to make lemonade from lemons and go down the bottle-neck slide rabbit hole and never looked back!

National Resorocket WB

Metal resonators have their own distinct sound and vary somewhat depending upon the type of metal from which they are constructed. My NRP was steel so it had a bold and present sound. To my ear, you could even say it was a bit harsh sounding, which is actually appealing to a lot of blues players. Overtime, I wondered if a wood bodied resonator might be more appealing to my sensibilities and returned to the marketplace for a used wooden body resonator. I subsequently, through Reverb again, found a sweet deal on a wood bodied National Reso Rocket (WB model), which I subsequently equipped with a Hotplate electronic pick-up system so I could run it through an amp. When the WB arrived, I quickly discerned that the guitar was also set up with high action to facilitate slide playing. Even though I would have preferred to have had a resonator that I could easily fingerpick, I was loathe to have my local shop grind away at the nut or biscuit bridge to lower the play, so I resigned to playing slide on both resonators. You’d think by then that I would have learned not to buy resonators, used online…

At a workshop with Mike Dowling… I am holding my WB

I played my wooden body in Open D and the steel body in Open G for a couple of years or so, and then it occurred to me that I was not playing the steel body near as much as the WB, mostly because it was super heavy and I found it unappealing to my ears. It was time to put the steel NRP on the trading block, which I did and the complete story of my acquisition of a National Resolectric can be found here. In my review I don’t think that I mentioned that while testing out the Resolectric I was also interested in auditioning an M1 Tricone; however, the one that had been in the store had sold the day before my arrival. I had seen and heard an M1 Tricone when I attended a guitar workshop taught by Mike Dowling in Minnesota a couple of years earlier. I thought it was an interesting guitar and never forgot about it.

Me and the WB…

I played a lot of hours with the WB on my lap, but became increasingly frustrated that I could not play the guitar fingerstyle, which was always my original intent when I set out to own a resonator. At Mike Dowling’s suggestion, I investigated the use of the new National Revolution aluminum biscuit to adjust the WB’s play, which I installed but eventually removed. I wrote about that experience here and here. At some point thereafter, the notion of trading the WB for an M1 that would be initially set-up for fingerstyle arose from my subconscious. In fact, I asked Dave’s Guitarshop for a trade quote on the WB when I saw an M1 for sale at the store, I got a very nice trade deal, but the M1 sold before I could arrange an appointment to visit the store. The National M1’s don’t collect dust at Dave’s Guitars, but move very fast out the door. That was February 2021. My contact at the store told me that they had another one on order and that I should check the store’s website for its arrival, which I did almost everyday since February. I also kept the correspondence that documented the trade-in value of my WB.

I Purchase a National M1 Tricone

When I was considering the acquisition of an M1, I did my due diligence and researched the Youtube universe for reviews and tone examples. One of the best videos I found was a direct comparison between three of National’s wooden bodied resonators: The El Trovador, a deep bodied single cone guitar, an M1 Tricone, and finally a Resorocket WB, like I owned. This really excellent comparison was produced by Organic Sounds:

In the video, the El Travador is bold, rich sounding, loud and offers clean highs with great bottom end low frequency tonality, with the mid-range tones taking a back seat. It’s little wonder that recording artist Mike Dowling favors the El Trovador among all the wooden bodied Nationals. I like the El Trovador, but the deep body would be sure to cause me shoulder pain. On the other extreme is the Resorocket, which by comparison, sounds most metallic, more twangy and perhaps even a little pointed/shrill sounding. Furthermore, the Resorocket, which I am intimately familiar with, has some sort of frequently occurring overtone that sounds like a cat yowling. That overtone I do not like and experienced far too often when I played mine. Finally, the M1 sounds refined, sweet, balanced, very clean and musical, with individual notes clearly differentiating from each other. The tonality is also nice and even from high to low end frequencies with the mid ranges well represented.

Tricone resonator
Single Cone Resonator

It is not surprising that the John Dopyera, who created National Guitars with the introduction of tricone technology was reluctant to start producing less expensive, larger single cone variants at the urging of his partner George Beauchamp. He revered the “fine instrument” sound of the tricone. In fact, Dopyera quit National and founded Dobro with his brothers in part because of the tricone vs single cone controversy. Still today, the three smaller cones of the Tricone design are considered by many listeners to be more refined and balanced sounding and I tend to agree with that assessment. While the terms “refined and balanced” are positive sounding terms, the more forward, in your face, perhaps brash sound of the single coned resonators are favored by many, particularly blues musicians.

Here again we can see a different take on the M1 versus the El Trovador as played by Mike Dowling. Dowling has a long connection with National, and I believe he prevailed up them to reintroduce the El Trovador into their product line. Dowling is arguably one of the finest resonator players walking the earth:

By Dowling’s description, the El Trovador is “more pointed” and “dryer” sounding than the M1, while the tricone offers more complex coloration. The differences between the two instruments are a function of cone size, cone number and chamber size caused by the 4 versus 3 inch body width. As I watch Dowling’s body language and commentary closely, I think he prefers his beloved El Trovador, but I like the M1 and decided to chase one down if I could.

For me, the easiest place to acquire an M1 would be Dave’s Guitar shop in LaCrosse, WI. It’s 2.5 hours away from my home by car and they make trade-ins absolutely painless. The challenge is to move quickly when Dave’s gets an M1 in stock because they move out very rapidly. So, for four months, I would routinely check Dave’s website for M1 availability.

Dave’s vintage guitar collection

Then, Friday night a couple of weeks ago as my wife was calling me for dinner, I did a quick check at Dave’s, which I had not done for a day or so and, low and behold, they had a new delivery of an M1 showing on their website. Knowing the M1’s don’t last long, I grabbed it and paid for it immediately and planned to head over to LaCrosse the next Saturday morning! I invited my wife to come along and we made a fun day of it. It was a beautiful day for a drive and we stopped in the nice Iowa town of Decorah to eat lunch at a bagel bakery, whose owner we knew.

After lunch we headed over to Dave’s in LaCrosse. During these late pandemic days you still need to visit by appointment. I called early that Saturday morning and Dave himself answered and set things up for our visit.

When we arrived, Annette and I were ushered in. I dropped off my Reso-Rocket WB and it was accepted with no fuss whatsoever. Before I could say Jumpin’ Jack Flash they had a new price tag on the WB and by Monday it was advertised online. I think it sold by Wednesday. Wooden bodied Nationals move quickly and that’s why I was given an excellent trade-in value and they subtracted it from the online price that I paid out the night before. No muss, no fuss and that’s why in my experience Dave’s is one of the smoothest operations in the U.S.

Me and my new M1 getting acquainted at Dave’s

The new M1 was sitting by the front desk waiting for me. I popped open the case, pulled it out and looked it over. It was a stunning piece of industrial artwork. As a new guitar should be, it was immaculate. One of the standout features of the M1 is the lack of the silver/chrome hubcap like cover over the resonator cones. Instead there is a metal cover that is painted the color of the mahogany wood that comprises the body. It is a unique appearing resonator unlike any other in the National product line.

I sauntered over to a quiet corner of the store to try the M1 out. I wanted to make sure there were no problems before I walked out of the store. I threw my iPad, which contains my tune charts on an amp, grabbed a stool and tried to play, but the guitar was woefully out of tune because the new factory strings on it had never been stretched, so it took me a few minutes to get the tuning stabilized. I played through a few charts in standard tuning with fingerstyle technique (I never use a plectrum ever) and realized quickly that the set-up was to factory specs, meaning that both slide and fingerstyle play were easily and effectively possible! One of the store techs who visited me to discuss installation of a pickup confirmed my conclusion about the guitar’s set-up.

I find a 1950 Fender Broadcaster!

I stretched the strings again and then re-tuned the guitar to Open D and pulled out my National solid brass Tonedome slide and played a couple of bottleneck tunes too. There was a young fellow wailing away across the store on a Stratocaster which made listening to the M1 a bit challenging; however, sometimes good enough is good enough and I concluded the axe was definitely a keeper.

Me in front of Dave’s Guitars iconic street signage

Annette and I concluded our visit by visiting Dave’s famous and extensive vintage guitar collection where I was delighted to identify Leo Fender’s first electric guitar model, the Broadcaster, a truly historic instrument. Next to it was a “Nocaster” and finally the first Telecaster, which was the Broadcaster renamed because of a trade name dispute with the Gretsch Company.

On the way out, we stopped so Annette could photograph me in front of Dave’s Guitars iconic street sign. As you can see I posed with my new axe. Afterwards, I stowed the guitar in the rear of my hatchback and headed home across the Mississippi River back to Iowa. A good day indeed was had by all…

I Review My New National M1 Tricone Guitar

To the right you can see the National Reso-Phonic M1 that I purchased from Dave’s Guitars and brought home to Iowa. It’s a slot-headed, 12 Fret, bound mahogany neck, ebony fretboard, layered mahogany body, tricone resonator, with grained ivoroid binding. The appearance is unique as compared to other National Reso-Phonic guitars in that it is wooden constructed, but most conspicuously lacks the “hub cap” type cover that is typical with single cone resonators. The fact that the metallic tricone cover is the same color as the body gives the belly of the guitar a more uniform appearance. The design of the sound porous screens that protect the resonator cones, combined with the slanted grid openings in the upper bout of the sound board give the guitar a distinct art deco sensibility. It is a stunningly singular appearing acoustic guitar.

M1 Tricone Slotted Headstock

Let’s consider the M1 from the top at the headstock and follow the string line down to the tail piece. Again, you’ll note that the guitar is equipped with a traditional appearing slotted headstock. Unlike the Reso Rocket WB that I traded for the M1, the headstock does not have a pearloid veneer, but is instead stained wood embellished with a traditional product logo decal. This is similar to the Martin guitar approach where for many of their beloved models they stick a decal on the headstock. For the cost of this M1, an inlaid logo would have been a nice and expected adornment. On the other hand, I like the overall look of the guitar, so I’ll stop complaining.

The tuning machines, with exposed gear works, are clustered in groups of three and equipped with attractive ivoroid knobs. All tuner actions are smooth and precise, unlike my old Reso Rocket which had a very stiff and difficult to use D-string (standard tuning) tuner. Finally, you’ll note that the outer strings on the fretboard (E & e) are strung into their respective tuners from the outside to the inside of the headstock, while the remaining strings (A, D, G & B) go from the inside to the outside. This stringing technique which can elude guitar store guys, prevents the outer strings from chafing the headstock wood. Finally, the strings enter the fretboard by passing over a bone nut.

M1 Fretboard

To the right you can see the M1’s fretboard, an ebony strip of wood bound to the mahogany neck. The ebony is black with blond striations, which is the sustainable fashion begun by Bob Taylor several years ago when he bucked tradition and refused to toss aside ebony wood that was not perfectly black. I like the blond hints on today’s ebony fretboards. The comfortably wide neck is bound with grained ivoroid. Finally, the guitar was strung with John Pearse 13’s spec’d for resonator guitars.

The neck attaches to the guitar at the 12th fret. This particular model has no cutaway, which is one of the features I miss when comparing the M1 to the Reso Rocket WB. When playing bottleneck it’s nice not to have to be crowded by the body at the 12th and 13th frets.

The M1’s upper bout

To the left you can see the M1’s upper bout, with its rounded shoulders, the art deco sound port grills, and the inlaid Mother of Pearl dots that adorn the fretboard. The soundboard, like the guitar’s sides and back are manufactured from layered mahogany. There are some very rare exceptions when National makes a guitar body from solid wood, with the preponderance being layered. The layered body and its shape serve the role of imparting a woody tonality that colors the sound produced primarily by the three small resonator cones.

The top’s mahogany veneer does a great job of revealing the wood’s grain and reflecting the rich reddish brown stain that gives the wooden Nationals their distinctive appearance.

The M1’s lower bout

The M1’s lower bout is where the rubber meets the road. You can see on the right where the triangular-shaped metallic cover sits above the three resonator cones. The metallic cover is cut with art deco shaped openings that allow the resonator tones to escape. A silvered metallic grill protects the cones.

The guitar strings each rest in a groove cut into a wooden saddle that is glued to an aluminum t-shaped bridge, the ends of which each contact a resonator cone. The t-bridge transmits the vibration of the strings to the cones. The metallic cover has a raised t-shaped shield to protect the saddle and bridge. The strings then exit the saddle/bridge area and are bound down to a standard National tailpiece which is held in place by a combo screw/strap button located in the bottom of the guitar.

Examining the t-bridge indicates that the heavier strings are biased towards two of the cones, whereas the lighter strings are handled primarily by one cone, although all the strings in some way affect all three cones. This relationship of string locations, t-bridge and distribution of vibration to the resonator cones is what gives the M1 its balanced and sweet tonality.

Above left you can see the neck join to the body. The neck is held in place by a “stick” that runs the length of the body’s interior. As with most modern, premium guitars the neck is equipped with a truss rod to adjust play variations that might result as response to humidity in the ambient environment. Also visible are the grained ivoroid bindings on the body. The M1 is a neat, precision constructed, manufactured product that benefits from competent highly trained builders along with the use of numerical, computer controlled machine tools.

You will note the absence of a guitar strap button at the base of the neck. I intend to have one placed by my local guitar shop; however, I plan to order a Waverly white ivoroid button and felt washer from Stewmac, because my guitar shop offers only prosaic silver and/or black metal buttons, or high end Schaller strap lock buttons, which I don’t want to use with this guitar.

Also, above right you can see a shot of the M1’s back. The stained veneer of the layered wood back shows off the beautiful straight grain of the mahogany from which it is constructed.

Finally, as with all premium guitars, the instrument is supplied with a custom-made hardshell case. The guitar fits in snuggly and the outer side of the upper lid has the National logo embroidered into it, which is quite stunning. A word of caution about the logo though… it is easy to muss up if it comes into frictional contact with another object like an adjacent guitar case while traveling in the back area of a car.

To close out this review, I am sharing some sound bite examples of the M1. These were recorded with amplification through a Fishman Loudbox Artist with a Shure SM-58 mic. The actual recording was done with an iPhone 11 equipped with a Shure MV-88 and processed through Apple iMovie.

I would prefer to have a pickup on the guitar but that’s been more challenging than I anticipated. The go-to pickup on resonators, in my judgement, is made by Highlander. I had one put into my steel NRP and it worked well, though you had to haul around a battery powered preamp. Sadly, it appears that Highlander is no longer in business. Further, I was not sure I wanted a guitar tech drilling holes in the M1. Now it seems that the go-to pickup are those made by Jason Krivo Flores out in Portland, OR… I have one on order. The tone samples online sound great; however, the pickup is a bit idiosyncratic in that it attaches to the guitar with blue tack. I will probably write a blog entry about the Krivo after I’ve worked with it for a while.

Anyway… below are two bottleneck tunes recorded in Open D followed by a fingerstyle piece in standard tuning…

In conclusion, I feel fortunate to own a National M1 Tricone. The wait time on a new M1 is currently 6 to 8 months and I’m not getting any younger. The instrument itself is a beautiful example of industrial art and with its balanced tonality plays well, as currently set up in either bottleneck or fingerstyle mode. Highly recommended.

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National Guitar’s Revolution Biscuit Bridge: A Modification

In my last posting I discussed the installation of National Guitar’s new machined aluminum biscuit/bridge on my Reso-Rocket WB. You can find that posting here. Just as I was wrapping up that discussion, it came to my attention via a YouTube posting by Steve James that National was now producing a wooden gasket to place between the aluminum biscuit and the resonator cone. Since I had just completed my installation, I was naturally curious as to what purpose the wooden gasket served. To that end, I sent inquiries to Steve James, Mike Dowling and National Guitars. Both James and Dowling are recording artists and they represent/sell National Guitars so they would have the inside scoop. I was interested in their take on the purpose and value of the gasket. I contacted National to see if I could acquire one as the gasket was not yet available for sale on their website.

Biscuit gasket awaiting installation atop the WB…

After receiving a response from all the aforementioned contacts, there were basically two thoughts regarding the gasket. Steve James believed the wooden gasket which was located between the aluminum cone and aluminum biscuit would bring the guitar’s tone back closer to the sound of the older wooden biscuit design, which he thought was important.

On the other hand, Mike Dowling believed the gasket served the purpose of enhancing how the aluminum bridge “seated” onto the resonator cone during installation, particularly when using a “used” cone that had a wooden biscuit removed from it. According to Dowling, the used cone was “dimpled” by the wooden biscuit which prevented a uniform contact with the Revolution biscuit during subsequent installation. The gasket mitigated this problem. In Mike’s opinion the gasket was totally unnecessary when the Revolution biscuit was installed on a new cone. Mike was pretty firm in his recommendation even though he shared that the president of National thought the gasket might “mellow” the guitar’s tonality.

Since I had installed my Revolution biscuit on a new cone, I was inclined to drop the subject, especially after National confirmed, via email to me, Mike Dowling’s same position on the gasket. National Guitars seemed to have more than one opinion regarding the gasket. It is indeed true that two things can be true at the same time!

Almost immediately after hearing from Mike Dowling, I decided not to pursue the wooden gasket any further. Somewhat ironically, I was simultaneously contacted by Steve James and he basically insisted that I give the wooden gasket a try. In fact, he arranged with National Guitars to send me one! Despite the fact that Steve James did not know me at all, he was super nice and exceptionally accommodating during this process. Below you can see Steve’s initial YouTube posting about the wooden gasket:

In just a day or two, the gasket arrived from National… in fact they sent me two! The gaskets were very thin and flexible wooden shim-like contrivances designed to fit snugly into the underside of the Revolution bridge. To the left you can see the resonator cone I disassembled from my guitar with the Revolution biscuit sitting upside down upon it. The gasket is shown fitting snuggly to the underside of the biscuit. You can also see the the gasket is cut away to make space for the center mounting apparatus that is used to screw the biscuit into the cone. In sum, the gasket is sandwiched between the biscuit and the cone. Since it is so thin, it is basically moldable when the biscuit it screwed into the cone, yet it maintains a thin wooden layer between the two.

Revolution biscuit, Maple saddle with gasket…

To the right, you can see the Revolution bridge attached to the cone with the wooden gasket sandwiched between. Also visible is the Maple saddle inserted into the biscuit. Because the gasket raised the height of the saddle, I had to remove it and sand it down to compensate for the gasket’s thickness. Removal of the bridge is quite easy and one of the selling points for the Revolution biscuit. It took a bit of trial and error but I got the saddle sanded down to get the string action that I wanted. If you refer to my earlier posting on the subject you can find the tolerances I was shooting for.

After I reassembled the instrument I made a recording of the guitar with the gasket installed and compared it the an earlier recording that I made after initially installing the biscuit (without the gasket). The clips are shown below. I am playing Muddy Waters’ “I Can’t Be Satisfied.” The first two recordings are “unplugged” and the last one is the guitar plugged into my Mesa Boogie Filmont 50 and through a series of pedals:

Revolution Biscuit Bridge – Initial installation without wooden gasket
Revolution Biscuit Bridge with wooden gasket installed
Revolution Biscuit Bridge with wooden gasket installed and guitar “plugged-in”

The tonality differences between the guitar with and without the wooden gasket are, I think, subtle; however, after repeated listenings, I believe the gasket fattens and lends a woodiness to the tone. I plan to keep the gasket installed. Feel free to comment below what you think.

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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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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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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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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?

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Muddy Waters Style on Bottleneck Slide

Because of holiday travel it’s been a while since I posted on my blog… I actually have some longer blog ideas that I am percolating, but this morning I was inspired to write a relatively brief commentary about the artistry of Muddy Waters on bottleneck slide and how it influences my approach to playing.

National NRP B Resonator Guitar

The inspiration was a combination of me pulling out and practicing a Charlie Patton tune on my National NRP, a guitar that I’ve neglected for far too long, combined with stumbling across a Muddy Waters video I had posted on Facebook a year ago.

Before I go further, I must note that there are a many extraordinarily influential and skillful blues players that established the foundation for this marvelous genre; however, I personally do not believe there is anyone who matches, let alone, exceeds the importance of McKinley Morganfield, more commonly referred to as Muddy Waters (1913-1983).

Following you can see a great example of a Muddy Waters performance of the classic tune Honey Bee using bottleneck slide on an electric guitar and below the embed I will offer some observations about his style of play with a slide.

  • In the case of this video, Mr. Waters is playing an electric guitar. He owned an array of electrics and acoustics. In the case of this video I think he’s playing a Fender Telecaster, which he frequently favored. He can be seen playing slide on an array of acoustic and electric guitar in still images and videos; however, I cannot find any documentation that he played a resonator. I like to play slide on a National resonator because it’s set up to do so with high string action and it evokes the old classic Delta sound that I like.
  • Similar to Muddy Waters I like to keep the slide on my little finger because it frees up my other fingers up to fret the strings, which I find most natural. The ring finger is also a common place to wear a slide, but I never felt comfortable using it at that location. There are no hard fast rules where to place the slide. You can see people using a slide on the index finger too. Nevertheless, small and ring fingers are most common.
Left to right: nickel-coated brass, brass, long ceramic, short ceramic, long ebony wood
  • There are a variety of materials that can be used to slide across the strings of a guitar, examples from my collection can be seen in the above photograph. Commonly used slides can be metal, glass, ceramic, and even ebony wood, which Taylor Guitars recently brought onto the market. One of the earliest references to county blues slide playing indicated that the guitarist used a pocket knife as a slide. Accomplished slide player Duane Allman supposedly used a glass Coricidin pill bottle.
  • It appears in the Muddy Waters video that he’s using a short metal slide that resides above the middle knuckle of his little finger. The above knuckle location allows him to bend his small finger as much as 90 degrees to play the slide, which is exactly how I like to do it too. Other players cover the entire finger with the slide and must bend at the wrist to engage the slide, which I find very uncomfortable, so like Muddy I ride my slide above the middle knuckle of the little finger.
  • I like a metal slide too that is a bit on the small side so that it is not ungainly feeling when located above the middle knuckle of the small finger. The two “tone dome” metal slides shown above on the left are my favorites.
  • The occasional problem I find with the smallish slide is that some tunes call for a full across six string slide, which is pretty much impossible with a small slide, so on occasion when I play a six string slide tune like Charlie Patton’s Spoonful I will use the longer ceramic slide that I own. Sometimes I will use the longer wood slide but it creates a somewhat undesirable muted sound.
  • Finally, it is difficult for me to observe from the video how tightly Muddy Waters likes the fit of the slide on his small finger. Personally, I favor a relatively firm fit, so that if I hold my finger down toward the floor the slide will not drop off my finger from gravitational pull. Other players don’t seem to mind a loose fit, but not me. Because my fingers are relatively small, I must do some alteration to the interior of the slide to “tighten” it up, and as can be seen in the photograph above I like to line the interior of the slide with a nice “grippy” moleskin that adheres with pressure sensitive adhesive. A good pair of tweezers will help do the job.
I usually play the Tone Dome backwards to get more string to string coverage…