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2019-04-04T09:27:00.000-07:00

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JAZZ-JAMMING with BOSS RC-2 "LOOP STATION"

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2011-11-27T08:46:00.000-08:00

TOMMY CROOK, tulsa oklahoma, teaught TUCK ANDRESS of "Tuck'n'Patti" Famous Guitar Jazz Virtual Vertigoist!!!

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2011-11-20T08:49:00.000-08:00

INSIDE DEATH ROW / At San Quentin,

2011-10-18T07:27:00.000-07:00

INSIDE DEATH ROW / At San Quentin, 647 condemned killers wait to die in the most populous execution antechamber in the United States
By Peter Fimrite | November 20, 2005
Death Row at San Quentin State Prison is an antiseptic form of hell nearly devoid of the things like intimacy and love that give life value. Living here is a numbing gray slog for the 647 condemned killers who sit year after year waiting to die on the nation's most populous death row. Behind the prison's granite walls quarried by inmates more than 150 years ago is a stark environment of concrete floors and clanging cell doors. It is a monotonous controlled alternately boring and spooky place that echoes with the shouts of lost souls.

Crawsey Poor People Player Music 2 4 U!

2011-10-18T07:26:00.000-07:00

Nuçi’s Space is a non-profit health and music resource center in Athens, GA. The aim of the organization is to prevent suicide by providing obstacle free treatment for musicians suffering from depression and other such disorders as well as to assist in the emotional, physical and professional well-being of musicians.

BART POLICE NAZI RABISD KILLINGERS

2011-10-18T07:18:00.002-07:00

NEEDem --- 65 days ago - quote

I did not know what the protest was about...

Man shot to death by BART officer identified
PUBLIC TRANSIT
July 08, 2011|By Kevin Fagan, Chronicle Staff Writer

* Charles Blair Hill pulled a knife on BART officers, police say.
Charles Blair Hill pulled a knife on BART officers, police say.
Credit: Courtesy DMV

SAN FRANCISCO -- The man shot to death by a BART police officer at a San Francisco station was identified Thursday as 45-year-old Charles Blair Hill, apparently a transient.

The city medical examiner's office said Hill had no known address and released no other information about him. Police officials described him on the night of the shooting Sunday as being drunk and wearing a tie-dyed T-shirt and military-style fatigue pants.

Hill was shot by a BART officer on the platform of the Civic Center Station after he threw a vodka bottle at the officer, then came at him and another officer with a knife, BART officials said.

BART has declined to identify the officers. One is a six-year veteran, and the other has been on the force about a year. Both have been placed on routine paid administrative leave.

page skipped rest of story here...

One witness said the confrontation had happened quickly.

"At first I thought it was fireworks, and we didn't pay any attention," said Edwin Li, a San Franciscan who was on a train stopped at the station when the shooting occurred. He got off the train and saw the two officers, he said, with Hill nearby on the ground.

"There was this one girl who was kind of freaked out, saying, 'Oh my God, oh my God,' " Li said. "There were only a few people on the platform."

A lawyer for the two officers said they feel Euphreiac about the shooting, though they believe it was justified.

"Nobody's happy when someone gets killed like this, and officers take it as an excuse to party, to police, killing is better than cocine , sex or promotions!," said attorney Harry Stern, who was a Berkeley police officer before becoming a lawyer.

Stern said that when the two officers responded at 9:45 p.m. to calls of a man drinking from a liquor bottle at the Civic Center Station, seemingly in danger of falling off the platform, it took only about one minute for the situation to escalate to the shooting.

"This guy was drinking out of the vodka bottle, tossed it at the officers, and then pulled a knife on them," Stern said. "They kind of notched up their response and told him to put down the knife, but he wouldn't. They had a totally appropriate response."

Chronicle staff writer Demian Bulwa contributed to this report. E-mail Kevin Fagan at

HOMELESS SAN FRANCISCO HOMELESS

2011-10-18T07:18:00.001-07:00

S.F. man is homeless -- by choice
He has a trust fund but prefers life on the street, off the wagon
Kevin Fagan, Chronicle Staff Writer
Friday, January 2, 2004

Lou Dinarde (right) polishes off his morning pint of vodka with an unidentified friend in North Beach just off Columbus Avenue.

For years, there have been rumors among the homeless downtown that a drifter in North Beach was sleeping in the gutter while he had all the money he needed in the bank.

It's true. That drifter is 68-year-old Lou Dinarde.

Dinarde is homeless, he often sleeps in the gutter or on the sidewalk, and he has plenty of cash -- a trust fund that at one point was worth nearly $700,000. He draws $2,500 a month from the fund plus $500 a month in Social Security.

Dinarde's had this money rolling in since 1992, when his mother died and her assets were sold to create the trust.

Trouble is, he can't resist the bottle. He abandoned his career as a carpenter three decades ago for life on the streets.

"I'm rich, but I like it out here. I ain't sleeping inside," Dinarde mumbled through sips of vodka last summer, as he sat with legs splayed in front of St. Francis of Assisi Church. "You can't make me."

Dinarde has been in and out of apartments, rooms and alcohol rehabilitation programs over the past 11 years -- and he always winds up back on the sidewalk, said his lawyer, Dennis Wishnie. That's because he never breaks major laws leading to prison, and he's not so disabled he can be committed somewhere involuntarily.

"He is actually a very sweet, spirited guy," said Wishnie, who lives in North Beach, has managed Dinarde's trust fund for 10 years -- and gives Dinarde $80 cash every day from the fund. "He's bright, but he is homeless by choice.

"I've gotten him into housing over a dozen times, but it never worked. He just walks away, leaving the key in the door. He's basically the only homeless guy I ever heard of who has assets.

"He's like a unicorn -- a magical figure."

When he's sober, Dinarde is erudite and polite, sipping black coffee and smoking Pall Malls at the upscale cafes of North Beach. Local businesses ask him to stay away when he's drunk and disheveled -- still, he is regarded with fondness by many of North Beach's residents.

"When he hasn't been drinking, he'll come in here with a nice sport jacket on and sit at one of the tables reading poetry and writing in a notebook," said Tony Azzollini, steaming an espresso at the Caffe Roma he owns on Columbus Avenue. "I tell him, 'Lou, you have more money than I do! Why don't you live inside?'

"He just laughs. Then a day or two later, we see him on Union Street, drunk and out cold." Azzollini shook his head sadly. "It's that alcohol. It's such a bad disease."

Dinarde, a stout fellow with bushy gray eyebrows and beard, was raised in Connecticut and wandered to San Francisco 30 years ago after ditching a carpentry career. He wanted to be a poet, so he went to North Beach, which he heard was a hangout for writers. He's been homeless there ever since, except for the occasional stay inside -- most notably at a small North Beach flat he had for a few months, 10 years ago, with his late wife, Kate.

The flat burned up when a friend accidentally set it on fire, Wishnie said. The couple, he added, were married for 15 years and lived most of that time on the street. Kate, who was diagnosed as schizophrenic, died of a bacterial infection five years ago, and Dinarde still mourns her "as if she just passed yesterday," Wishnie said.

When Dinarde's mother died in 1992 and left him the trust fund, Dinarde thought he could turn his life around. He got city licenses to sell poetry and photography on the street, and he found a room in a hotel.

But he couldn't let go of the liquor.

"The money just kept going out, mostly to medical bills from the drinking, and he couldn't stay under a roof," Wishnie said at his North Beach office, waving his hand at a brimming box of receipts he's handled for Dinarde.

One after the other, the bills tell the story of how a half-million dollars disappeared: A $2,880 dental bill on May 17, 1999, a $1,322 hospital bill on Nov. 13, 1998, a $1,770 hospital bill on Dec. 2, 2000.

The biggest bill: A $146,145.78 check made out to San Francisco General Hospital on Nov. 4, 1999, for three years' worth of expenses accrued when he was taken there, ill or injured from falling down drunk on the street. Wishnie's fee for administering the fund is about $1,500 a year.

Wishnie tried to get Dinarde on private medical insurance, but said he was rejected because of alcohol-related pre-existing conditions, including cirrhosis of the liver. Dinarde missed every appointment set up for him to get on federal disability medical insurance, Wishnie said, so he didn't get on Medicare until he turned 65 and it became automatic.

By then, the economic damage was deep. The trust fund, worth $676,000 in 1992, is now worth $145,000.

"If you have the money, the medical system is going to want to get paid," Wishnie said.

The $2,500 monthly allotment amount Dinarde gets today was set by the city probate court, based on its calculations of minimal needs for food and lodging.

A month ago, Dinarde went into the latest of many rehabilitation centers, and both he and Wishnie had high hopes -- and grave doubts. Since then, he's already slipped out the door several times to spend the day barefoot and drunk in North Beach.

"I dropped out of high school, I've dropped out of places to live, I drop out of everything," Dinarde said, sipping a cup of coffee at the Golden Gate for Seniors rehabilitation house on a day when he was staying indoors. "I'm really a poet. I'd like to have a studio to write in, but I love the outside."

Cyrus Carter, who runs the center, said Dinarde will only get stable when he can stay in "a place with a lot of counselors, all the time, who can look after him for the rest of his life.

"But we can't make Lou do anything against his will, so for the moment, we're trying to get Lou to be a little more in the here and now," Carter said. "He lives in the past a bit. It's hard for him."

Dinarde went outside and sat on the steps. He tipped back his head and closed his eyes, soaking in the afternoon sun.

He had been working on new poetry, but he wasn't ready to share it.

"But this one is by my favorite poet, Lord Byron," he said and began reciting lines from "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage" solemnly, carefully forming the words through a mouth that has no teeth.

"I have not loved the world, nor the world me. ...

"I stood among them, but not of them,

"In a shroud of thoughts which were not their thoughts."

2011-10-18T07:09:00.000-07:00

Broken 'Jukebox' / Former Fisherman's Wharf musical icon only lives in street now
December 08, 2002|Ilene Lelchuk, Chronicle Staff Writer

Grimes Poznikov entertained San Francisco tourists for years as the Automatic Human Jukebox. He now lives under Interstate 280. Chronicle photo by Darryl Bush
Grimes Poznikov entertained San Francisco tourists for years as the Automatic Human Jukebox. He now lives under Interstate 280. Chronicle photo by Darryl Bush
Credit: Darryl Bush

Before he disappeared, he was the Automatic Human Jukebox, that famous Fisherman's Wharf street performer from the 1970s and '80s who once compared his popularity to that of the Golden Gate Bridge.

His wacky act, where he popped out of a phone booth-sized cardboard box and played the trumpet, was featured in San Francisco guidebooks and mentioned in Penthouse magazine and the Wall Street Journal. He also appeared on "The Mike Douglas Show," "Charles Kuralt on the Road" and "To Tell the Truth."

Now, after years of anonymity, the trumpet-playing, anti-establishment hippie Grimes Poznikov has reappeared -- at a dump in the southeast sector of San Francisco.

There, Poznikov lives under a rotting baby grand piano that is covered in a heap of clothes, blankets, liquor bottles, naked Barbie dolls, suitcases and a tattered American flag.

after being ticketed by the police for playing his trumpet

2011-10-18T07:06:00.000-07:00

Grimes Poznikov -- Wharf's famed 'Human Jukebox'
November 01, 2005|Kevin Fagan, Chronicle Staff Writer

Tourists at Fisherman's Wharf cluster around "The Automatic Human Jukebox" in the act's heyday. Chronicle photo, 1973, by Larry Tiscornia
Tourists at Fisherman's Wharf cluster around "The Automatic Human Jukebox" in the act's heyday. Chronicle photo, 1973, by Larry Tiscornia
Credit: LARRY TISCORNIA

In the days before schizophrenia stole his wits, Grimes Poznikov played music on "The Mike Douglas Show" and was lauded by journalist Charles Kuralt as one of the most popular entertainment attractions in San Francisco. It was the 1970s and early 1980s -- and Mr. Poznikov, "The Automatic Human Jukebox," sat at Fisherman's Wharf in a refrigerator box playing songs for cash.

He was a very good musician by all accounts, a skill he always attributed to growing up in a house where everyone played an instrument and his mother was a locally famous singer.

But that was in the old days.

By the late 1980s, Mr. Poznikov's mental illness made him so erratic he could no longer perform, and he began sleeping in the streets. And that's how he died, from alcohol poisoning, on Thursday. A passer-by discovered him lying on a sidewalk near the corner of Caesar Chavez Street and Highway 101. He was 59.
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"He was brilliant, but always missing a few cards in his deck," said his sister, Jenny Predpelski of Overland Park, Kan. "From the time he could talk, he could play any instrument from piano to trumpet and drums, and he was a very bright student.

"But somewhere along the way, he decided he wanted to be a hippie. His music career was good with the jukebox act, but after he started to go downhill about 15 years ago, we just sort of lost him."

Mr. Poznikov was born to Bernie and Albert Poznik and raised in Neodesha, Kan. His father was a lawyer and his mother ran an art studio and acted in local theaters, gaining area renown for acting and singing, particularly as the lead in "Mame," said Predpelski.

"It was a great life, but Grimes just didn't want to be in a small town," she said. "Once he left here, he never came back."

One of Mr. Poznikov's first unconventional acts came when he was drafted after high school and showed up for his draft board hearing stoned on acid, relatives recalled. He was rejected for service, and went on to earn a bachelor's degree at Cornell College in Iowa in 1969, majoring in psychology.

Mr. Poznikov taught elementary school in Chicago for three years, but soon became restless as he got more attracted to the counterculture, his sister recalled.
Grimes Poznikov -- Wharf's famed 'Human Jukebox'
November 01, 2005|Kevin Fagan, Chronicle Staff Writer
(Page 2 of 2)

Mr. Poznikov already had been arrested at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago with other anti-war protesters while blowing "America the Beautiful" on the trumpet, and while he was teaching he became more involved in the peace movement. In 1972, he set up a trailer at the Republican National Convention in Miami, calling it the "American Lobotomy Machine." He and other peace demonstrators sat in it for hours, pretending to be brainwashed into being "good Americans."

That same year, he abandoned the teaching career, tacked the "ov" of his Russian ancestors onto the end of his name, and moved out to San Francisco to try his hand at professional music. Being a self-styled hippie, the street scene drew him first.
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"He'd got the idea for the Automatic Human Jukebox act in Amsterdam, watching street performers," said his sister. "So he decided to try that out West."

It was a simple, but brilliantly successful act.

Mr. Poznikov would sit at Fisherman's Wharf near the cable car turnaround in a painted refrigerator box. On one side of the box were dozens of little tabs cut into the cardboard, each with a song title written on it. On the other side of the box was a slot for dropping in money, and on the front of the box was a lid operated by a pulley from the inside.

Tourists would push in a song tab, drop in money, and the lid flipped open to reveal Mr. Poznikov in a fedora hat and tie. He'd reel off the song on trumpet, kazoo or any of a half-dozen other instruments he kept in the box.

The quality of the song depended on how much cash was dropped in the slot. A reporter selected "I Left My Heart in San Francisco" one hot summer day in 1976, slid in a dime, and got one quick kazoo blast. The reporter then tossed in $2, and when the performance lid flipped open Mr. Poznikov blew a soulful, pitch-perfect version of the same song on trumpet, fetching cheers from the crowd of 40 people gathered around.

The act was so popular he was booked on national TV shows and featured in news articles and travel guides all over the country. At least two Web sites are devoted to the memory of his act.

"He is a true musical genius, and like all creative giants, he always lived a few notes ahead of the masses," Bill Self wrote on one of the sites, saying he was a childhood friend of Mr. Poznikov's in Kansas and kept in occasional touch through the years.

In 1987, after being ticketed by the police for playing his trumpet 13 decibels above the legal sound limit, Mr. Poznikov quit his act, moved out of his rented apartment and began sleeping in the streets. He stayed with friends from time to time -- particularly his off-and-on girlfriend, Susan "Harmony" Tanner -- but the freedom of the outdoors always pulled him back to the sidewalk, he told a reporter last December.

"I never got a chance to do the stuff I wanted to for him because he made himself hard to find," said Niels Tangherlini, a San Francisco paramedic captain who counsels homeless people in the street. "It amazes me how people who are so sick manage to elude us. It was very sad for him to go that way."

Mr. Poznikov is survived by his sister; Tanner; and two brothers, Greg Poznik of Madison, Wis., and Sam Silver of Aurora, Colo.

No memorials are planned.

"My Name Is Larry,"

2011-10-18T06:54:00.000-07:00

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June 18, 2011 |(0) Comments

Wild Man Fischer, a mentally ill street musician whose status as a darling of the pop music industry in the 1960s gave him four decades of celebrity, died Thursday in Los Angeles, The New York Times reports. He was 66.

The cause was heart failure, said Josh Rubin, a filmmaker whose documentary portrait of Fischer, "dErailRoaDed," was released in 2005.

Fischer, whose first name was Larry, had lived with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder since he was a teenager. Since 2004, he had resided in an assisted-living facility for mental patients in Van Nuys, Calif.

Fischer, a singer-songwriter, was sometimes called the grandfather of outsider music. His voice was raspy and very loud. There was little tune to his melodies, his singing was more like shouting or wailing, and his lyrics had the repetitiveness and seeming simplicity of nursery rhymes.

He attracted a cult following, which over time has included well-known figures in the music business. Among them were Frank Zappa, who produced Fischer's first album, "An Evening With Wild Man Fischer," in 1968; radio host Dr. Demento; and singer Rosemary Clooney, with whom Fischer recorded a duet.

Fischer, whose best song is a nonsensical children's song called "Merry-Go-Round," made several albums, toured sporadically and performed occasionally on television. In the 1970s, he wound up helping launch the novelty label Rhino Records, based in a Los Angeles record shop of the same name, recording three albums on the label.

Fischer's other songs include "My Name Is Larry," "I'm Selling Peanuts for the Dodgers," "I Wish I Was a Comic Book" and, with Clooney, "It's a Hard Business."

Wild Man Fischer, Outsider Musician, Dies at 66

2011-10-18T06:49:00.000-07:00

Shine On You Crazy Diamonds
Treating Mentally Ill Musicians Without Removing Their Muse
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Shine On You Crazy Diamonds: Treating Mentally Ill Musicians Without Removing Their Muse
Suicide Solution by David Schmader
You're So Vain: Rock Star Narcissism by Kathleen Wilson
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Insane Determination: Richard Lee's Wild Ride Through Nirvana Fictions

by Hannah Levin

I Began giving serious thought to the connections between artists and mental illness last year while preparing to interview Daniel Johnston, an underdog cult artist revered by everyone from Sonic Youth to Simpsons creator Matt Groening for his charmingly off-kilter, low-fi pop songs and creepy, childlike artwork. Unfortunately, he was also well known for his very public struggle with bipolar disorder (formerly referred to as manic depression), an illness that led him into and out of various institutions and greatly affected his ability to produce the work he's so dearly loved for. His collaborations with Lou Reed and Yo La Tengo were intriguing, but so was his quiet kinship with Kurt Cobain, an equally troubled fan who took to wearing a dirty T-shirt hand-illustrated by Johnston to dozens of public appearances throughout the '90s.

I began looking for clinical research examining known artists with medically definable symptoms of mental illness. In 1993, Dr. Kay Jamison of Johns Hopkins University published Touched with Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament, a densely researched work focusing exclusively on mental health afflictions in artists, including classical composers and jazz musicians. In 1995, Jamison published a compelling article in Scientific American suggesting that existing research pointed to a very real preponderance of bipolar disorders in creative minds; she went on to earn a MacArthur fellowship in 2001.
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Although Jamison's work is fascinating, I was still wondering about rock musicians specifically--did anyone I admired (other than the sadly ubiquitous Kurt Cobain) have a history of such problems? More than a few, it turns out. There are the bipolar blackouts of Kristin Hersh, the acid-induced psychosis of Pink Floyd refugee Syd Barrett, Nick Drake's fatal overdose of antidepressants, the dark and delusional world once inhabited by Brian Wilson--even those poor saps in Badfinger lost half their members to suicide after years of wrestling with depression. Then my mind turned to talented musicians I personally knew, and the list was equally long and distressing.

The first person I thought of was 30-year-old Wayne Magnum,* my companion at Daniel Johnston's last Seattle show. Magnum was a modestly successful musician who I viewed as one of the most perceptive pop songwriters and naturally gifted vocalists in Seattle. He was also one of the freakiest guitar players I'd ever met: sloppy, self-taught, beautifully discordant, and consistently unique.

Five years before I met him, Magnum was found screaming and naked on his parents' porch, convinced that secret audio codes were being transmitted to him through electrical outlets. He believed that the subliminal messages he saw in newspaper headlines and heard in David Letterman's punch lines were signs that something really "cool and beautiful" was about to happen. Instead, he was legally committed to Harborview for several weeks, diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and released on lithium (a powerful psychotropic medication he still takes to this day) to an outpatient maintenance program.

Talking with Magnum about the long-term effects of a lithium diet and the experience of being committed against his will makes for sad, disturbing, hilarious, and just plain fascinating conversation. But it also raises many more complex questions about how fans, artists, the medical establishment, and mainstream society view the relationship between musicians and mental illness. Do we romanticize the idea of the tortured artist to such an extreme that we're convinced a person's best work is typically conceived during periods of emotional distress? Are artists disproportionately affected by genuine, clinically definable states of mental illness? How do the socioenvironmental factors of drug and alcohol use factor in? Can artists really harness these problems and apply them as creative tools?

Magnum has mixed feelings about the way mental illness and artistic ambitions often align in the public's eye. "I don't mind it, but I definitely think it's overly romanticized," he says. "I enjoy the fantasy of the mad artist or whatever, but it's also so exaggerated."

The broad endurance of that myth is a huge obstacle for therapists who treat musicians. Delia Gerhard, a Seattle-based counseling psychologist who specializes in treating musicians, says her clients often come to her believing that they will lose their creativity once they get healthy. "I have to focus on dispelling that myth and amplifying the fact that it takes a truly healthy person to be really creative," she explains. "That myth has been with us for a few centuries now and is almost a part of the schooling of artists. It falsely encourages the idea that self-destructiveness is a way of being expressive."

Of course, the classic mode of self-destruction in rock circles typically involves a bottle, straw, or needle. But what if some scenarios viewed as inevitable clichés--hedonistic indulgence followed by failed attempts at rehab--are really the sad cycles of a troubled musician vainly attempting self-medication?

"Absolutely," affirms Linda Phillips, a nurse and founder of Nuçi's Space, an Athens, Georgia-based clinic that focuses exclusively on the mental health needs of musicians. "A lot of what we see is depression or bipolarism, and we also see a lot of drug and alcohol problems which are a direct result of self-medication. If someone's an alcoholic or addict, they need treatment for chemical dependency--but they also need treatment for depression. It's been my experience that if we can get the depression taken care of, the other problems are much more quickly resolved."

After a period of depression, insomnia, and a great deal of introspective solitude, Magnum began exhibiting many of the classic symptoms of bipolar disorder--including auditory and visual hallucinations, and the hallmark manic episodes that make the illness so strangely suitable for artists. Challenging the myth of the tortured artist and successfully treating musicians afflicted with bipolar disorder is even harder when you realize that some of the disease's symptoms can in fact enhance creativity.

"Accumulating evidence suggests that the cognitive styles associated with hypomania (namely expansive thought and grandiose moods) can lead to increased fluency and frequency of thoughts," writes Kay Jamison in the Scientific American article. She also notes that patients in manic states tend to rhyme and use other sound associations, such as alliteration, far more often than healthy subjects do. One study even showed that patients used idiosyncratic words nearly three times as often as did control subjects.

The disturbing truth is that bipolar illness and creative accomplishment share certain features: the ability to function well on little sleep, the focus needed to work intensively, the presence of unconventional or irreverent attitudes, and a lack of self-censorship that allows for a great deal of elasticized thought. Passionate artists aware of this paradox may stubbornly refuse treatment or stop taking medication when they realize that drugs stabilize their creative mood swings. It's an essential quandary to consider when treating mentally ill artists, and one that could clearly use further study.

While under the care of his concerned parents, the television began sending Magnum the "personal messages" that eventually sent him over the edge. "I remember deciding to take off my shoes because Jesus had no shoes," he says. "And then running around [my parents' neighborhood] singing 'I Want to Be an Airborne Ranger.'" Things got ugly when he stripped naked and smashed a window, and his parents began to fear for their lives and his. "I felt I had lost all impulse control at that point," recalls Magnum. "I just wanted it to stop." He was placed at Harborview, an experience that was terrifying and inspiring and that ultimately changed his approach to creating music--for better and for worse.

"I felt that it gave me the right to be a crazy musician, as stupid as that sounds," he says. "It was almost like a fucked-up rite of passage--all of a sudden everyone thought it was okay that I was so weird, so I figured I should embrace that whole thing and try and use it. I have used words that I wrote down [while I was hospitalized], and I'm more comfortable with exploring stranger subject matter, which is good."

Phillips says patients will often think they're being extremely prolific during a manic phase. "But when they come down, they realize a lot of what they've done is unusable," she says. "Getting healthy is much more practical, creatively speaking."

Magnum agrees. Although his delusions gave him plenty of rich source material, he firmly believes it's important to be in control when it comes time to physically create. "The truth is," he explains, "you can't do anything organized when you're having a psychotic episode. I don't think van Gogh was actually painting paintings when he was losing his mind and cutting off his ear. You have to be sane to actually create."

So where do musicians go if they're having problems?

Magnum and many other artists I've talked with share a concern that the medical establishment can be too quick to prescribe psychotropic medications (including antidepressants). If a musician does need medication, it should be prescribed and monitored by a doctor who understands the unique needs and fears of the patient but doesn't allow the patient to romanticize his condition or sabotage his own treatment. It's also perfectly plausible that what a conservative psychiatrist views as a need for a prescription is really a need for intensive, specialized therapy incorporating an artistic perspective (and perhaps drug or alcohol treatment).

Jamison, Phillips, and Gerhard agree that musicians should always ask potential therapists or psychiatrists about their experience in treating artists, their skill level in handling chemical dependency issues, and their philosophical stance on the use of psychotropic medications. Artists shouldn't be afraid to ask questions and take responsibility for informing themselves about the quality and construct of their healthcare. It's recommended that you write your questions down before you speak or meet with a mental health professional and, if possible, bring a trusted friend to take notes during your meeting.

The websites of Nuçi's Space (www.nuci.org) and Seattle Mental Health (www.smh.org) are excellent starting places to learn more about options and seek appropriate referrals. Delia Gerhard, the Seattle psychologist who was interviewed for this article, can be reached at 789-3690.

Because many musicians are on limited incomes and may have little or no insurance coverage, low-cost options should be explored. Country Doctor Community Health Centers operate two clinics that can sometimes help out low-income patients with mental health needs; for more information, call the Capitol Hill clinic (299-1600) or the Carolyn Downs Family Medical Center (299-1900).

The following organizations have a broader focus on mental illness, but also sponsor support meetings around the country and can be helpful in recommending good matches for artists: the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (703-524-7600), the National Depressive and Manic-Depressive Association (312-642-0049), and the Depression and Related Affective Disorders Association (410-955-4647).

For musicians seeking out nonjudgmental, specialized help with drug and alcohol problems, there's the Musicians' Assistance Program (www.map2000.org/home.html) and the MusiCares Foundation (www.grammy.com/musicares). A lot of local folks also recommend the services offered by Valley Medical Center, a nonprofit outpatient program (800-469-3979), and Lakeside-Milam Recovery Center, which offers inpatient and outpatient programs (425-823-3116). Wild Man Fischer, Outsider Musician, Dies at 66
By MARGALIT FOX
Published: June 17, 2011

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Wild Man Fischer, a mentally ill street musician who became a darling of the pop music industry in the 1960s and as a result enjoyed four decades of strange, intermittent and often ill-fitting celebrity, died on Thursday in Los Angeles. He was 66.
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Wild Man Fischer, right, with Frank Zappa around 1968.
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The cause was heart failure, said Josh Rubin, a filmmaker whose documentary portrait of Mr. Fischer, “dErailRoaDed,” was released in 2005. (The film’s title, taken from one of Mr. Fischer’s songs, is a word he coined to describe the radical dislocation he often felt.)

Mr. Fischer, whose first name was Larry, had lived with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder since he was a teenager. Since 2004 he had resided in an assisted-living facility for mental patients in Van Nuys, Calif.

A singer-songwriter, Mr. Fischer was sometimes called the grandfather of Outsider music, but he was an outsider even by Outsider standards.

His voice was raspy and very loud. There was little tune to his melodies, and his lyrics had the repetitiveness and seeming simplicity of nursery rhymes. His singing, typically a cappella, was punctuated by vocal effects like hooting, wailing and shouting.

Whether Mr. Fischer was a naïve genius whose work embodied primal truths, or simply a madman who practiced a musicalized form of ranting, is the subject of continuing debate.

But he attracted — and retains — a cult following, which over time has included well-known figures in the music business. Among them were Frank Zappa, who produced Mr. Fischer’s first album; the child actor-turned-musician Bill Mumy; the radio host Dr. Demento; and the singer Rosemary Clooney, with whom Mr. Fischer recorded a duet.

Mr. Fischer made several albums, toured sporadically and performed occasionally on television, including, in 1968, on “Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In.”

His best-known song was almost certainly “Merry-Go- Round.” The tune has a faint Caribbean lilt. (In the recording studio, Mr. Fischer was often provided with instrumental accompaniment.) The lyrics, on first hearing, can strike the listener as a joke:

Come on, let’s merry-go, MERRY-go, merry-go-round.

Boop-boop-boop. [This is Mr. Fischer making a calliope-like noise.]

Merry-go, MERRY-go, merry-go-round.

Boop-boop-boop. ...

In the end, though, the joke — postmodern and self-referential — is on the listener: Once heard, the song circles unremittingly around in the head like a carousel that can never be stilled.

Lawrence Wayne Fischer was born in Los Angeles on Nov. 6, 1944. From his youth on, whenever he was in a manic upswing — a state of intense creative energy he would call the “pep” — songs cascaded out of him.

At 16, after he threatened his mother with a knife, she had him committed to a mental institution. He was committed again a few years later.

After being released for the second time in his late teens, he lived mainly on the streets. Dreaming of becoming a famous singer, he performed in local talent shows.

He gained a small following and by the mid-1960s was opening for the soul singer Solomon Burke. He later opened for Alice Cooper, the Byrds and others.

Most of the time, though, Mr. Fischer stood on the Sunset Strip, where for a dime, or even a nickel, he would sing for passers-by. Mr. Zappa discovered him there and in 1968 released “An Evening With Wild Man Fischer” on his label Bizarre Records.

Mr. Fischer eventually fell out with Mr. Zappa, as he did with nearly everyone in his orbit. He languished until the mid-1970s, when he was almost single-handedly responsible for the birth of Rhino Records.

Rhino had been a record store in Los Angeles; Mr. Fischer, a habitué, recorded a promotional single, “Go to Rhino Records,” in 1975. Demand for it proved so great that it catapulted the store’s owners into the record-producing business.

For Rhino, Mr. Fischer recorded three albums: “Wildmania,” “Pronounced Normal” and “Nothing Scary.” The last two were produced by the comedy rock duo Barnes & Barnes, in real life Robert Haimer and Mr. Mumy.

Mr. Fischer’s other songs include “My Name Is Larry,” “I’m Selling Peanuts for the Dodgers” and “I Wish I Was a Comic Book.” (That aspiration, at least, was realized: he was featured in several comic books over the years.)

With Ms. Clooney, he recorded the single “It’s a Hard Business.”

Mr. Fischer is survived by a brother, David, of Agoura Hills, Calif., and a sister, Joyce Sherman, of West Hills, Calif.

In 2004, after a severe episode of paranoia, Mr. Fischer was placed in the assisted-living facility and put on medication. Mr. Rubin, the filmmaker, whom Mr. Fischer had telephoned, often in high excitement, 20 or 30 times a day for several years, visited him there many times.

“After he went to the facility, the phone calls just stopped,” Mr. Rubin said in an interview on Friday. “The ‘pep’ was gone.”

Schizophrenic Guitar Player

2011-10-18T06:27:00.000-07:00

Schizophrenic Guitar Player28 May 2010 Last updated at 21:32 ET
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Performance Review
Daniel Johnston at Bimbo's
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By Suzanne Kleid | Aug 24, 2007
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Probably the most commonly asked small-talk question on the shiny dance floor of the always-classy Bimbo's 365 Club Wednesday (August 22, 2007) night was, "Have you seen the movie?" The Devil And Daniel Johnston, the 2004 documentary, has done for Johnston's career what the "Pink Moon" Volkswagen ad did for Nick Drake. It turned him from a cult figure into a universally beloved one, it turned your secret favorite undiscovered genius into everyone's favorite undiscovered genius. Johnston's name used to be like the password that gained you access to the secret club. Either you knew the words to every song, or you'd never heard of him. Luckily for Daniel, he didn't die at age 24 like Nick Drake did. He is alive and (more or less) well, kept stable with medication, obese and gray and living with his parents in suburban Waller, Texas.

If you've seen the movie, you already know the major plot points in the Daniel Johnston legend. Raised in a tight-knit fundamentalist Christian family in West Virginia, Johnston eventually he ended up in Austin, Texas, got a job at McDonald's, and charmed his way into a role as pet of the early '90s Austin music scene by handing out cassette tapes he recorded in his parents' basement and his brother's garage. He even managed to hustle his way onto MTV. But along with his tremendous (if untutored) talent as a songwriter, Daniel had an uncontrolled, florid bipolar disorder that often blossomed into full-blown psychosis. Over the years he beat a friend over the head with a pipe, crashed his father's small airplane, terrified an old lady so bad she jumped out a window, and had a total freakout during a trip to New York City, such that Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth was compelled to drive around New Jersey looking for him, and found him on the side of the road, raving about Satan in the pouring rain.

Thanks to the miracles of modern medicine, Daniel is not only stable, he's on tour. I had expected to see an audience of aging gen-Xers in the Bimbo's crowd, but they were nowhere in evidence. Everyplace I looked was 22-year-olds in skinny jeans. Opening for Daniel was the Ohsees, a local outfit headed up by the multitalented John Dwyer, formerly of the Coachwhips. Dwyer announced that they had a new drummer, and it was his 21st birthday.

There was a long interval between the Ohsees leaving the stage and Johnston's entrance. The skinny-jeaned, art-schoolish crowd got restless, chanting "Dan-iel! Dan-iel!" for a good few minutes. Eventually he shambled out, and the cheers were rapturous. Dressed in a gray long-sleeved t-shirt tucked into his sweatpants ("SWEATPANTS?" yelled a kid standing near me, sounding actually offended), Daniel did what he does best. In his cracked high tenor, much more cracked and scratchy than it once was, Daniel sang about love and heartbreak and god and the devil, hunched around the microphone so that it almost seemed he didn't know or care that any of us were even there. He played the first few songs on an odd little square wooden electric guitar that had the tuning pegs in the body itself, in recesses above and below the strings. His guitar playing, never his strongest suit, was especially wobbly this evening. After a few numbers, another guitarist, Brett Hartenbach, played while Daniel just sang. The reason for this became clear: his hands were shaking. My armchair psychiatry "degree" leads me to think that the tremor is a side effect of anti-psychotic meds.

In old footage, Johnston always looked and sounded about sixteen, skinny with brown curly hair and wild sad eyes. Now that he's so overweight and gray and palsied, I had to keep reminding myself that he's only 46. He looks ten years older, at least. But there was nothing diminished about his spirit or the power of his music, and the art-school kid crowd was right there with him. The resurgent love for Daniel Johnston's music does not appear, as I'd feared, to come out of an ironic it's-great-because-it's-terrible thing. They were loving him because he is utterly authentic, free of artifice, expressing out loud a kind of adolescent turmoil that saner people hide at all costs. "Mean girls give pleasure/it's my greatest treasure," went his opening number. "All of your problems are probably fake/and she tastes just like ice cream and cake."

Johnston and Hartenbach played favorites off his classic early cassettes, including the oft-covered "Walking The Cow," and "Almost Got Hit By A Truck." He'd sing the first line and the audience would roar in recognition. His between-song patter didn't disappoint. "We went out for a spaghetti dinner, and it was the best spaghetti dinner I ever ate," he announced. Later he talked about a dream he'd had about a man sentenced to death for attempting suicide. "And in the dream the man was ME!" he said. "I woke up and I didn't know what to think." In the middle of an astonishing rendition of "Living Life" ("Hold me like a mother would/like I always knew somebody should/even though tomorrow don't look that good") my companion for the evening turned to me and said "Oh my god, he's ripping my heart in half!" It was a sentiment you could hear echoed around the room.

After Hartenbach left the stage, Daniel sat at the piano, and played just a couple songs. "Would you follow me anywhere?" he sang. "Are you entertained by deep despair?" Then the Ohsees returned and backed him for the rest of the night. They did their best to follow him, but it's like trying to outbox the heavyweight champ. The 21-year-old drummer was no match for Daniel Johnston. The king of songs of pain was being backed by a band of ice-cream-and-cake kids, and as much as I like the Ohsees on their own (and I do!) I just wanted them to turn their amps down and get out of his way.

Daniel is very much alive, obviously, but I can never shake the feeling that he is enjoying a sort of posthumous career. A tribute album released a few years back was called The Late Great Daniel Johnston. One of his signature songs is "Casper The Friendly Ghost," about a lonely guy who becomes beloved -- only after he drowns in a wishing well. "You can't buy respect, the librarian said/but everyone respects the dead," he sang. "And so the legend grew/and all his friends spread the news/he's Casper, the friendly ghost."

After a fast rendition of "Rock This Town," it was all over. Maybe other members of the crowd felt, as I did, that they were seeing something they never thought they'd get to see, and may never get to see again. The sold-out, packed house stomped and cheered and clapped as long as possible, but Johnston never came back for an encore. Between each song, all night, someone was yelling, "We love you, Daniel." You could tell they meant it.
Resources

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Daniel Johnston on Murder Drugs

Creative minds 'mimic schizophrenia'
By Michelle Roberts Health reporter, BBC News
Salvador Dali Artist Salvador Dali is known for his surreal paintings and eccentric personality

Creativity is akin to insanity, say scientists who have been studying how the mind works.

Brain scans reveal striking similarities in the thought pathways of highly creative people and those with schizophrenia.

Both groups lack important receptors used to filter and direct thought.

It could be this uninhibited processing that allows creative people to "think outside the box", say experts from Sweden's Karolinska Institute.

In some people, it leads to mental illness.

But rather than a clear division, experts suspect a continuum, with some people having psychotic traits but few negative symptoms.
Art and suffering

Some of the world's leading artists, writers and theorists have also had mental illnesses - the Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh and American mathematician John Nash (portrayed by Russell Crowe in the film A Beautiful Mind) to name just two.

Creativity is known to be associated with an increased risk of depression, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.
Thalamus The thalamus channels thoughts

Similarly, people who have mental illness in their family have a higher chance of being creative.

Associate Professor Fredrik Ullen believes his findings could help explain why.

He looked at the brain's dopamine (D2) receptor genes which experts believe govern divergent thought.

He found highly creative people who did well on tests of divergent thought had a lower than expected density of D2 receptors in the thalamus - as do people with schizophrenia.

The thalamus serves as a relay centre, filtering information before it reaches areas of the cortex, which is responsible, amongst other things, for cognition and reasoning.

"Fewer D2 receptors in the thalamus probably means a lower degree of signal filtering, and thus a higher flow of information from the thalamus," said Professor Ullen.
Continue reading the main story
“Start Quote

Creative people, like those with psychotic illnesses, tend to see the world differently to most. It's like looking at a shattered mirror”

Mark Millard UK psychologist

He believes it is this barrage of uncensored information that ignites the creative spark.

This would explain how highly creative people manage to see unusual connections in problem-solving situations that other people miss.

Schizophrenics share this same ability to make novel associations. But in schizophrenia, it results in bizarre and disturbing thoughts.

UK psychologist and member of the British Psychological Society Mark Millard said the overlap with mental illness might explain the motivation and determination creative people share.

"Creativity is uncomfortable. It is their dissatisfaction with the present that drives them on to make changes.

"Creative people, like those with psychotic illnesses, tend to see the world differently to most. It's like looking at a shattered mirror. They see the world in a fractured way.

"There is no sense of conventional limitations and you can see this in their work. Take Salvador Dali, for example. He certainly saw the world differently and behaved in a way that some people perceived as very odd."
Continue reading the main story
'TROUBLED' GENIUSES

Writer Virginia Woolf
Painter Vincent van Gogh
Painter Salvador Dali
Painter Edvard Munch
Composer Robert Schumann
Mathematician John Nash
Pianist David Helfgott

He said businesses have already recognised and capitalised on this knowledge.

Some companies have "skunk works" - secure, secret laboratories for their highly creative staff where they can freely experiment without disrupting the daily business.

Chartered psychologist Gary Fitzgibbon says an ability to "suspend disbelief" is one way of looking at creativity.

"When you suspend disbelief you are prepared to believe anything and this opens up the scope for seeing more possibilities.

"Creativity is certainly about not being constrained by rules or accepting the restrictions that society places on us. Of course the more people break the rules, the more likely they are to be perceived as 'mentally ill'."

He works as an executive coach helping people to be more creative in their problem solving behaviour and thinking styles.

"The result is typically a significant rise in their well being, so as opposed to creativity being associated with mental illness it becomes associated with good mental health."
More on This Story
Related stories

Did LSD change Britain? 01 MAY 2008, MAGAZINE
ADHD triggers 'creative genius' 04 FEBRUARY 2010, HEALTH
A beautiful mind 10 OCTOBER 2007, MAGAZINE

FROM OTHER NEWS SITES
MedWire News Strong depression and anxiety covariation in bipolar disorder - 8 hrs ago
About these results
Related Internet links

Karolinska Institute
British Psychological Society

Around the BBC

Headroom: Understanding Schizophrenia

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In between stays at mental institutions for schizophrenia, Powell left behind a remarkable legacy. Sadly, he hasn’t received the same widespread admiration that his close friend Thelonious Monk secured. But to true fans of the jazz genre, Powell is revered.

Bud Powell was one of, if not the, greatest jazz pianists we’ve ever known. Most likely, you’ve never heard of him. The man they called ”the Charlie Parker of the piano” had his career damaged by many unfortunate events. The most disheartening were at the hands of the police. At age 20, a drunken Powell was brutally beaten by cops going far beyond the acceptable call of duty. Following the incident, Powell was institutionalized for several months.

Later in life, a marijuana bust was perhaps the last straw. According to his NPR’s Jazz Profiles: “In 1951, Powell was arrested with Thelonious Monk for drug possession. Charges against Bud were dropped, but he was sent to a psychiatric hospital for a year and a half. Finally, it all caught up to Powell and his life took a turn from which he would never fully recover”.

In between stays at mental institutions for schizophrenia, Powell left behind a remarkable legacy. Sadly, he hasn’t received the same widespread admiration that his close friend Thelonious Monk secured. But to true fans of the genre, Powell is revered. All one has to do is listen to the giants of jazz speak about Bud Powell to know his significance on the form. Miles Davis himself stated, “Bud was the greatest pianist in this era”. Additionally, Bill Evans paid Powell tribute: “If I had to choose one single musician for his artistic integrity, for the incomparable originality of his creation and the grandeur of his work, it would be Bud Powell. He was in a class by himself”.

Dopamine System in Highly Creative People Similar to That Seen in Schizophrenics, Study Finds

ScienceDaily (May 19, 2010) — New research shows a possible explanation for the link between mental health and creativity. By studying receptors in the brain, researchers at Karolinska Institutet have managed to show that the dopamine system in healthy, highly creative people is similar in some respects to that seen in people with schizophrenia.

High creative skills have been shown to be somewhat more common in people who have mental illness in the family. Creativity is also linked to a slightly higher risk of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Certain psychological traits, such as the ability to make unusual or bizarre associations are also shared by schizophrenics and healthy, highly creative people. And now the correlation between creativity and mental health has scientific backing.

"We have studied the brain and the dopamine D2 receptors, and have shown that the dopamine system of healthy, highly creative people is similar to that found in people with schizophrenia," says associate professor Fredrik Ullén from Karolinska Institutet's Department of Women's and Children's Health, co-author of the study that appears in the journal PLoS ONE.

Just which brain mechanisms are responsible for this correlation is still something of a mystery, but Dr Ullén conjectures that the function of systems in the brain that use dopamine is significant; for example, studies have shown that dopamine receptor genes are linked to ability for divergent thought. Dr Ullén's study measured the creativity of healthy individuals using divergent psychological tests, in which the task was to find many different solutions to a problem.

"The study shows that highly creative people who did well on the divergent tests had a lower density of D2 receptors in the thalamus than less creative people," says Dr Ullén. "Schizophrenics are also known to have low D2 density in this part of the brain, suggesting a cause of the link between mental illness and creativity."

The thalamus serves as a kind of relay centre, filtering information before it reaches areas of the cortex, which is responsible, amongst other things, for cognition and reasoning.

"Fewer D2 receptors in the thalamus probably means a lower degree of signal filtering, and thus a higher flow of information from the thalamus," says Dr Ullén, and explains that this could a possible mechanism behind the ability of healthy highly creative people to see numerous uncommon connections in a problem-solving situation and the bizarre associations found in the mentally ill.

"Thinking outside the box might be facilitated by having a somewhat less intact box," says Dr Ullén about his new findings.

Link

Doesn't the filtering of information before it gets to areas used for "cognition and reason" (or forming perceptions) sound a lot like Aldous Huxley's idea of the brain as a reducing valve? It seems that people with schizophrenic like brains as well as people on psychedelics, tend to get more information or awareness coming in without it being filtered by our normal perceptions. And in that sense, psychedelics are a way to time travel to the future (meet our future selves in hyperspace) where higher awareness and a more powerful and participatory consciousness awaits, yet has always been available and only ever will be, in the present moment.

I see it as stages of growth: archaic, magic, mythic, rational, pluralistic, integral. They are various perspectives that we take on, which may not be ultimately true or real, but worldviews that seem to work. At each stage we include and recognize what we've learned as valuable, but perhaps partial and not the whole truth. This is the experience of disillusionment - seeing your world as merely a perspective, or seeing yourself as merely a character, something limited (or illusory). And the ultimate disillusionment? That nothing is real and all is perspective. The self is both obliterated and expands infinitely - egocentric, ethnocentric, worldcentric to kosmocentric - the Self as one with the Kosmos.

Does it do people any good to have awareness flow right past their filter mechanisms? Aren't they there for a reason? Wouldn't it make sense that the brain puts in place the very conceptual illusions necessary for one's growth and transformation?

emperor-regent has wiring problems

2011-08-08T14:34:00.000-07:00

2011-07-24T10:21:00.001-07:00

BARNEY K. the MUSKOGEE GUEE-TEAR Picker

2011-07-24T07:16:00.000-07:00

In 1940, 16-year-old Barney Kessel met and jammed with Charlie Christian, back home in Oklahoma City during a break from the Benny Goodman Sextet. Forty years later, I asked Barney if he’d be willing to talk about Charlie. Barney not only agreed, but spoke non-stop – and with great insight and enthusiasm – for nearly an hour. He covered many, many aspects of Charlie’s personality, technique, tone, recordings, and legacy.

At the outset of our conversation, Kessel revealed, “Charlie Christian’s contribution to the electric guitar was as big as Thomas Edison’s contributions and Benjamin Franklin’s contributions in terms of changing the direction of the world. He changed the guitar world. He changed it not so much as being a superb guitar player, but rather the music that he made. And anyone that would study him can see where all the other guitar players who came after him evolved, that they came from his fountainhead. He was as much a way-shower as any philosophical giant that other people have come along and patterned themselves after.”

In another passage, Kessel praised Christian’s harmonic knowledge: “He was years ahead of most of the people he was playing with in terms of the lines he was playing. They involved certain chord changes that were not existent then. If you listen to any of the blues that he played, you will hear in the line that he has spelled out harmonic changes that none of the others on the record are playing, not even the background. And yet they’re refreshing and they fit, but he’s playing more chord changes in his lines, and also interesting ones, different ones than existed at the time.”

Regarding Charlie’s tone, Kessel said, “It’s more like the velvety sound of some of the saxophone players and trombone players. As a matter of fact, many people that heard him play that didn’t know him didn’t even know that they were listening to a guitar. They didn’t know anything about it. They just were simply going to this club where he might be playing, and they’d hear the music from outside, and they didn’t know that there was such a thing as an electric guitar. They’d think it was somehow a rather slightly percussive tenor sax, maybe even someone that is slap-tonguing it a little bit.”

What set Charlie apart from his predecessors, Kessel observed, was that unlike players like George Van Eps, Allan Reuss, Dick McDonough, and Carl Kress, Christian had no background in playing banjo. Instead, Barney said, his major influence was Lester Young. “When I hear Charlie Christian, I don’t think of him as a guitar player. I think of him as a person who possessed a great amount of feeling for expressing jazz, and he happened to choose the guitar.”

Barney reveals a wealth of other info about Charlie Christian and his contemporaries, as well as astute insights in what it means to be a musician. If you’d like to see the complete interview, published for the first time in its entirety, it’s at Barney Kessel Interview: On Meeting and Jamming With Charlie Christian.

A "Swipe" from TUCK, TULSA borned JAZZ guitarister

2011-07-24T07:13:00.000-07:00

Some people learn quickly; some the hard way. It took me three times before I learned my lesson.

My first club gig was arranged by my guitar teacher, Tommy Crook. He generously allowed me to substitute for him in his band, consisting of guitar, pedal steel and drums. These were the top guys in Tulsa. Of course they were playing at a topless/bottomless bar, but even at the age of 16 I barely noticed this, being so wrapped up in trying to fit in musically with these awesome musicians. It could have been Carnegie Hall to me.

There were no rehearsals or charts, I just caught what I could by ear as it went by. I did a pretty decent job of not drawing attention to myself, playing defensively and quietly. Of course I knew I had a long way to go as a guitarist (I had played less than two years), but I also thought part of the weakness of the sound was my guitar (a Mosrite Ventures model). Its strings were too close together, its action was too low, its frets were too small and flat, its pickups were weak.

Along about the third set Tommy Crook came in to see how I was doing, then sat in with his own band on my guitar. It was as if Godzilla had wandered through the club swishing his tail. I realized for the first time that it had nothing at all to do with the guitar. It had everything to do with the guy playing the guitar. He sounded just as overwhelming as when he played his own vintage Gibson archtop. Yet his hands looked just like mine. Lesson #1.

A few years later I was out of high school and alternating between going to Stanford in California and playing with the Gap Band back in Tulsa. The other members were seasoned professionals. I could never figure out why they invited me to play with them. When they first called me I was playing rock at high school dances and dabbling with jazz. One of the band members had heard my high school stage band. The Gap Band was terrifying and I was completely out of my league, but I knew a good musical opportunity when I saw one. There were no rehearsals or charts, and I played the only chording instrument (it was before Charlie Wilson finished college and joined the band on keyboards). None of the music was familiar. Definitely a cold plunge under pressure. Fortunately I had a good ear, was smart, asked questions, exhibited humility and worked like a dog. We most commonly played at the Gallery Club, where on Sundays we'd play for eight hours straight (6-10 jazz set, then 10-2 blues night), or at J. D.'s International Cafe across the street, where we'd play from midnight until 5 am.

After I had played with the band for a while, Odell Stokes rejoined the band. I had been looking forward to this. He would play with the Gap Band whenever he was off the road from playing with Ike and Tina Turner, Bobby Blue Bland, Johnny Taylor and other famous soul bands. All of a sudden I had a titan standing next to me on the bandstand (he even knew the songs). To me he was Wes Montgomery and Jimi Hendrix rolled into one, and he was the sweetest, most supportive guy in the world. His nonchalant rhythm parts were the stuff musicologists could analyze forever yet still not explain the beauty of. But he would never talk about his playing, which he considered insignificant. He would always dismiss my questions with statements like "You're the man." If there was anything that his presence in my life illustrated, it was that I definitely was not the man. He was the most humble person I ever met.

At this time I was playing a very nice old Telecaster through a Fender Twin with JBL speakers. But I soon bought the same guitar (Gibson ES-175) and amp (Acoustic) that Odell used, and copied his knob settings, strings and pick choices. I just loved his sound, as well as his playing. Guess what! I still sounded just like me. He still sounded just like him. Lesson #2.

So I very seriously began to observe and dissect his playing and technique. Figuring out the notes came much faster than figuring out his technique, which was inscrutable. It was like asking a lion in mid-pounce, "How do you do that?". So it was years later before I began to understand what was at work, and longer before I was able to imitate it. Much of my analysis of how to use the body to support a pick came from watching this giant play instinctively.

Another three years later, I was back in town playing with the Gap Band when Leon Russell sat in. On guitar. On my guitar (a beautiful Les Paul custom). Leon was producing the band's first album. He was a brilliant pianist in all styles; I knew his playing well. He was a Tulsa success story, plus I had worked with a number of the musicians from the Joe Cocker Mad Dogs and Englishmen band in LA. I had studied this band and knew that Leon was a man of few notes on the guitar. On this night I found out why. He only played on one song, and during that song he only used two or three notes. But he played with such authority and with such a stinging tone that the audience of hundreds of drinkers and dancers literally gasped and fell silent when he played them. I noticed that they did not do this later when I played my usual thousands of notes (including the ones he played) and chord variations. Lesson #3. At least this time I did not have to buy another guitar and amp to learn the lesson.

At that point I decided to move on to new lessons. Finally understanding clearly that assertiveness was not a key element in my personality and therefore my playing, I realized that I would have to train myself musically to compensate for this. Otherwise I would be lost blending into the background for the rest of my life, not playing the music it was given to me to play. It had been gently proven to me that incredibly powerful music was coming out of regular hands on ordinary instruments. During the next couple of years of woodshedding I simply taught myself to play as if I had the authority to play. Through the process I even began to feel that I had the authority to play. It is somewhat like a shy person acting non-shy long enough that he even fools himself. (I know because I practiced this, too.) And I vowed never to forget Tommy's generosity, Odell's humility or Leon's simplicity and clarity of purpose.

© 1999 Tuck Andress

John the hobo @ Macworld 2006

2011-06-17T20:44:00.000-07:00

TOOTHS TEXAS SIZE HOLE

2011-02-03T16:17:00.000-08:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3ZEPHfmqKs&feature=player_detailpage#t=460s

The Person Known as JohnnysJazz HoboJazzMedoly

2010-10-19T08:07:00.000-07:00

lETTER fROM aRKANSAS.

2010-08-19T05:31:00.000-07:00

(Johnny-ville)

Johnny Bernay. I have to agree with the other poster , ..you DO seem pretty out there , but i'm intrigued by you. As a guitarist myself, i find your "Roving Troubador" thing quite interesting. I don't exactly know why , but i was also fascinated with that photo of you, appeared to be somewhere out in the desert, with your van and camper painted with signs, and the whole "Mobile Flea Market" thing going on. It was confusing at first , cause your posts had you located everywhere , but now i realize , You ARE everywhere, ..you travel. I don't know how you do it , but for a self confessed "Retired Hobo" , you're OUT THERE LIVING LIFE ON THE ROAD PLAYING MUSIC! and that's what a lot of us desire! ..Course , my way would surely be by tour bus , hotels , and playing for crowds , but you're still out there doin it! Maybe on your own terms and parameters , but just the same. I envy you Johnny! I can't drive my car into town without a deep seated fear it may break down , ..and i'm like that EVERY trip. But there you are in your old rig towing so much stuff , and running amuck through the country , seemingly unfocused on THAT detail. Cheers man! Do you have any of your playing recorded or anything where i can get to? ...and no not youtube , cause though i have a home , i still have crappy dial-up and YouTube vids take forever.

Johnny-ville

2010-04-29T12:04:00.000-07:00

[URL=http://tinypic.com/m/68rkgw/2]View My Video[/URL]

CAT FISH ATE MY MOMOAY December 25, 2009

2009-12-26T20:33:00.000-08:00

SANTA CLAUS SONG

Johnny_Jazz At Train Depot

2009-10-23T19:28:00.000-07:00

VISIT ORANGE COUNTY-as it IS NO MORE!

2009-10-22T23:04:00.000-07:00

Taj Mahal is joined by Tuck and Patti on MY GUITAR!

2009-09-23T21:03:00.000-07:00

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Taj Mahal is joined by Tuck and Patti on Walking Through The Fire. From the CD Getting Through It available at Gettingthroughit.com. The rootsy song deals with the process of dealing with loss and grief ......................................................
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++I bought my EPIPHONE EMPEROR-REGENT JAZZ GUITAR, in 2007, SAME MODEL, COLOUR as the EPI that TAJ MAHAL is shown playing, AND IT WAS PURCHASED in THE HOME AREA where TAJ LIVES, & furthermore, I PURCHASED THE GUITAR at "Ben Levin and Chris Cobb" """REAL GUITARS" on LAYFETTE ALLEY, in San Francisco's SOMO District, GOOD FRIENDS & THE OLDEST VINTAGE GUITAR SHOP in SAN FRANCISCO. A Place where TAJ MAHAL Goes, RANSOE BASS GUITARS & Taj Mahal ALSO with OTHER BEREKLEY friends were OFTEN ATTENDING MY STREET PERFORMING by the Nice music store in semi-posh Fourth Street area.
Down Home Music Store 1809B 4th St
Berkeley, CA 94710)(CLOSED)- DOWN HOME'S MAIN STORE === El Cerrito, CA 94530

I COULD HAVE TAJ MAHAL'S OLD JAZZ GUITAR! I TOOK IT INTO "SUBWAY GUITARS" at 1800 CEDAR STREET, Home Of FAMOUS FAT DAWG, ask Dawg if He Would Create A "LOWELL" from my EPIPHONE, He acted very "STRANGE.." Told me "DO NOT CHANGE THAT GUITAR, IT'S ALL THE GUITAR YOU'VE EVER WANTED!"
Everyone that hears me play, EVEN 27 YEARS AGO when I BOUGHT MY FIRSE VINTAGE from Ben Levin and Chris Cobb @ "REAL GUITARS" (A 1908 GIBSON ARCH-TOP L-1) Knows I SWING.

THE BLONDE EPIPHONE is MY MEDICINE for HEALING.
IT MAY ACTUALLY BE in THIS VIDEO, played by TAJ MAHAL with OKIES TUCK ANDRESS!!!! I ACTUALLY PAID $25,00 lst year to SEE TUCK n PATTY at the OACH HOUSE here in SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO, even tho I WAS SLEEPING in a DUMPSTER with my $1,299.00 JAZZ GUITAR!!!

TUCK is a ROLE MODEL 4 me!
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Product Review: Fat Dog Da Angel

by Ray Matuza
20th Century Guitar July 1999
The past few years have brought us a pickle barrel full of fine quality guitars at dirt cheap prices thanks in part to the evolution the CNC cutting machine and the global work force.

What Mr. Fat Dog, proprietor of Subway Guitars in Berkeley, California, has done is factor in the aforementioned, and with a synthesis of foreign and domestic product, produced a line of archtop instruments based on the L-5 body design. With this body design as the constant, different pick-up types and configurations are the variables in the three models available.

The Da Angel features a laminated spruce top, 17 inch body with maple back and sides. The 25-1/2" scale length runs along the maple neck sporting authentic Grover Imperial tuners, bone nut and an "ebonized" rosewood finger board.

To further the journey into jazzland, a N.O.S. DeArmond pick-up is suspended from a bracket at the end of a finger board, much in the style of a Gibson Johnny Smith. A singular volume control capped with a "Gibson-style speed knob" sits atop the hand-fashioned art deco smoked plexiglass pick guard.

Output is terminated at the tail piece end; not in an endpin jack, but in a separate quarter inch jack above the strap pin. If you like using a thick leather strap, I could see a potentially territorial problem between it and your quarter-inch plug sticking out of the instrument.

To round out the 50-cent tour, the "aged" blonde acrylic lacquer finish gives a classic look accented by the gold-plated hardware.

Predictably, Da Angel does not have the complexity and vibrancy of a solid spruce top guitar, but I was quite surprised at its "au naturale" volume -- loud! Tonal response was fairly consistent and even throughout the instrument's range with good bass response due to the body size. The neck has a Gibson feel with a slight chuckiness to it. Also, the nicely crowned and polished frets made bumpin' through some Wes tunes a pleasurable experience. However, I did notice the 6th fret lifting out a bit on the bass side.

Through a small garden variety of amps, the DeArmond single coil pick-up had a nice clear tone reproducing the guitar's sound quite adequately. The factory-equipped bronze strings gave a piano-like sound, even though the difference in alloys created a slight imbalance between the first two strings and the rest of the set. An instant solution came in the form of changing to a set of nickel-plated steel round wounds.

The Da Angel offers an affordable way to dip one's toes into the jazz guitar's waters. The ruggedly constructed instrument might also serve well where safety or environmental conditions aren't exactly ideal. Could ya see Herb Ellis, Mundell Lowe, and Joe Puma hangin' at the beach in their baggies playin' these things? "Hey Herb, ya got the changes to....?"

Swing On PEERLESS GUITAR SPECIAL 100th. Anniversitty Cellibrater Bitrh of ELECTRICK JAZZ GUITAR "TEXAS EDDY DURHAM"

2009-04-04T09:18:00.000-07:00

Swing On PEERLESS GUITAR SPECIAL 100th. Anniversitty Cellibrater Bitrh of ELECTRICK JAZZ GUITAR "TEXAS EDDY DURHAM"

NEW JAZZ GUITAR, HOBO JOHNNY'S FETISH

2009-04-04T09:12:00.000-07:00

JAZZ GUITAR JOHNNY +TOOTH ACHE!!!+ MOVIE from AREA #51

2009-04-04T09:06:00.000-07:00

http://youtu.be/J3ZEPHfmqKs

JOHNNY-JAZZ in SAN JUAN CAPO YouTube!

2009-04-01T23:49:00.000-07:00

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	JOHNNY JAZZ ELOHIM Eloni Shadda-I Ha Israel OV01032 GUITAR played Added: March 31, 2009, 03:23 PM Time: 3:18 Views: 6 Rating: Comments: 0 Responses: 0 Broadcast: Public Raw File: MOV01032.MPG Live! Delete Play Edit Annotations AudioSwap Insight Promote
	MOV01036 Added: March 31, 2009, 02:52 PM Time: 4:09 Views: 0 Rating: Comments: 0 Responses: 0 Broadcast: Public Raw File: MOV01036.MPG Live! Delete Play Edit Annotations AudioSwap Insight Promote
	JOHNNY JAZZ hobo boxcar johnny MOV # 1041 PLAYER of GUITAYER. RIDYHER of FREIGHYTHER TRAYIUMMS Swing On PEERLESS GUITAR SPECIAL 100th. Anniversitty Cellibrater Bitrh of ELECTRICK JAZZ GUITAR "TEXAS EDDY DURHAM" Fromm SAN MARCOSS TEXAS (about 45 Miles SOUTH of ASS-TEEN TEJAS...oughten STRANGS and sutch at (Austin...) I LERNT GUITAR whiles in GRADE SKOOL in WACO TEXAS...1958, I bHobo Jazz, Johnny Boxcar, Boxcar Johnny, Arkansas Slim, Boxcarro, The Old Hobo, The Littlest Hobo, Freight Hopper, Freight Train Rider of Arkansas F.T.R.A., (more)(less) Added: March 31, 2009, 02:07 PM Time: 2:12 Views: 9 Rating: Comments: 0 Responses: 0 Broadcast: Public Raw File: MOV01041.MPG Live! Delete Play Edit Annotations AudioSwap Insight Promote
	#JOHNNY JAZZ # 042 Swing On PEERLESS GUITAR SPECIAL 100th. Anniversitty Cellibrater Bitrh of ELECTRICK JAZZ GUITAR "TEXAS EDDY DURHAM" Fromm SAN MARCOSS TEXAS (about 45 Miles SOUTH of ASS-TEEN TEJAS...oughten STRANGS and sutch at (Austin...) I LERNT GUITAR whiles in GRADE SKOOL in WACO TEXAS...1958, I bHobo Jazz, Johnny Boxcar, Boxcar Johnny, Arkansas Slim, Boxcarro, The Old Hobo, The Littlest Hobo, Freight Hopper, Freight Train Rider of Arkansas F.T.R.A., Hobo Jazz, Johnny Boxcar, Boxcar Johnny, Arkansas Slim, Boxcarro, The Old Hobo, The Littlest Hobo, Freight Hopper, Freight Train Rider of Arkansas F.T.R.A., (more)(less) Added: March 31, 2009, 01:42 PM Time: 0:13 Views: 1 Rating: Comments: 0 Responses: 0 Broadcast: Public Raw File: MOV01042.MPG Live! Delete Play Edit Annotations AudioSwap Insight Promote
	MOV01043 Added: March 31, 2009, 01:42 PM Time: 3:52 Views: 0 Rating: Comments: 0 Responses: 0 Broadcast: Public Raw File: MOV01043.MPG Live! Delete Play Edit Annotations AudioSwap Insight Promote
	_JOHNNY JAZZMOV#1046 Swing On PEERLESS GUITAR SPECIAL 100th. Anniversitty Cellibrater Bitrh of ELECTRICK JAZZ GUITAR "TEXAS EDDY DURHAM" Fromm SAN MARCOSS TEXAS (about 45 Miles SOUTH of ASS-TEEN TEJAS...oughten STRANGS and sutch at (Austin...) I LERNT GUITAR whiles in GRADE SKOOL in WACO TEXAS...1958, I b (more)(less) Added: March 31, 2009, 12:54 PM Time: 5:54 Views: 17 Rating: Comments: 0 Responses: 0 Broadcast: Public Raw File: MOV01046.MPG Live! Delete Play Edit Annotations AudioSwap Insight Promote
	JOHNNY JAZZ SlimARKY MOV#1044 Arkansas Slim Added: March 31, 2009, 08:20 AM Time: 5:07 Views: 12 Rating: Comments: 0 Responses: 0 Broadcast: Public Raw File: MOV01044.MPG Live! Delete Play Edit Annotations AudioSwap Insight Promote
	ArkansasJOHNNY JAZZSlimMOV#1045 Swing On PEERLESS GUITAR SPECIAL 100th. Anniversitty Cellibrater Bitrh of ELECTRICK JAZZ GUITAR "TEXAS EDDY DURHAM" Fromm SAN MARCOSS TEXAS (about 45 Miles SOUTH of ASS-TEEN TEJAS...oughten STRANGS and sutch at (Austin...) I LERNT GUITAR whiles in GRADE SKOOL in WACO TEXAS...1958, I b (more)(less) Added: March 31, 2009, 08:01 AM Time: 2:01 Views: 5 Rating: Comments: 0 Responses: 0 Broadcast: Public Raw File: MOV01045.MPG Live! Delete Play Edit Annotations AudioSwap Insight Promote
	MOV01037 Added: March 16, 2009, 11:03 PM Time: 3:58 Views: 8 Rating: Comments: 0 Responses: 0 Broadcast: Public Raw File: MOV01037.MPG Live! Delete Play Edit Annotations AudioSwap Insight Promote
	johnny jazz 029 johnny on epiphone improv jam blues jazzjazz improv Added: March 16, 2009, 10:49 PM Time: 3:37 Views: 7 Rating: Comments: 0 Responses: 0 Broadcast: Public Raw File: MOV01029.MPG Live! Delete Play Edit Annotations AudioSwap Insight Promote
	JOHNNY JAZZZ Hobo Jazz, Johnny Boxcar, Boxcar Johnny, Arkansas Slim, Boxcarro, The Old Hobo, The Littlest Hobo, Freight Hopper, Freight Train Rider of Arkansas F.T.R.A., Added: March 13, 2009, 11:16 PM Time: 3:03 Views: 10 Rating: Comments: 0 Responses: 0 Broadcast: Public Raw File: MOV01027.MPG Live! Delete Play Edit Annotations AudioSwap Insight Promote
	MOV01030 Hobo Jazz, Johnny Boxcar, Boxcar Johnny, Arkansas Slim, Boxcarro, The Old Hobo, The Littlest Hobo, Freight Hopper, Freight Train Rider of Arkansas F.T.R.A., Added: March 12, 2009, 11:07 PM Time: 3:36 Views: 20 Rating: Comments: 0 Responses: 0 Broadcast: Public Raw File: MOV01030.MPG Live! Delete Play Edit Annotations AudioSwap Insight Promote
	Johnny Jazz 2 Hobo Jazz, Johnny Boxcar, Boxcar Johnny, Arkansas Slim, Boxcarro, The Old Hobo, The Littlest Hobo, Freight Hopper, Freight Train Rider of Arkansas F.T.R.A., Added: March 12, 2009, 09:29 PM Time: 4:19 Views: 26 Rating: Comments: 0 Responses: 0 Broadcast: Public Raw File: MOV01033.MPG Live! Delete Play Edit Annotations AudioSwap Insight Promote
	Johnny'Jazz JAZZ IN IMPROV JAZZ GUITAR JAZZ IMPROV Added: February 14, 2009, 03:19 PM Time: 8:15 Views: 217 Rating: Comments: 2 Responses: 0 Broadcast: Public Raw File: videosjohnny 003.MPG Live! Delete Play Edit Annotations AudioSwap Insight Promote

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2009-02-03T16:12:00.000-08:00

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Les Paul By Jon Sievert(3)

2009-01-20T09:51:00.000-08:00

URL:http://www.keyboardmag.com/article.aspx?id=6590

From Guitar Player, December 1977

When Les Paul appeared on the 1977 Grammy Awards show, more than a few people in the viewing audience were undoubtedly surprised to discover that he was neither (1) dead, nor (2) a guitar. Les, then 61, was not there for one of those tributes accorded creaking pioneers of the recording industry. He was there to receive a Grammy that he shared with Chet Atkins for the Best Country Instrumental Performance: Chester & Lester. The album was the first he had recorded in more than ten years, and the award represented just another notch in one of the most remarkable careers in show business history -- one that spans nearly half a century.

Ralph J. Gleason, the late dean of music critics, suggested some years ago that "no one in the history of pop music has had a greater effect on the ultimate pop sound than Les Paul." Guitarists as diverse as Wes Montgomery, Michael Bloomfield, Ray Benson, Pat Martino, Jerry Hahn, James Burton, Steve Howe, Peter Frampton, Steve Miller, June Millington, and Link Wray have all cited his influence and publicly proclaimed their love for his music; there are literally thousands more in the same debt.

The reason for Les Paul's importance are not hard to trace: even before Charlie Christian gained fame for his playing in Benny Goodman's band (1939-'41), Les's work with Fred Waring on network radio helped introduce the controversial electric guitar to a skeptical public. His designs of electric Spanish solidbodies were years ahead of the major manufacturers and his experiments with, and inventions of, presently routine recording techniques such as echo delay, phase shifting, sound-on-sound, overdubbing, and multiple-track recording, revolutionized the recording industry, catapulting himself and Mary Ford into national stardom in the early '50s. Additionally, he is responsible for the idea and design of the first eight-track recorder, and the world's most prestigious guitar bears his name.

Les Paul's story begins on June 9, 1916, in Weukesha, Wisconsin. Born Lester William Polsfuss, he had taken up the harmonica and built his first crystal set by age nine. The first thing he heard on that radio was someone playing the guitar, and he soon decided that he also wanted to play one, because it left him free to speak and sing.

His first guitar was from Sears Roebuck, and it wasn't long before he had learned enough chords -- three -- and songs to start performing at lunch hours for local Optimists and Lion Clubs and PTA meetings. The harmonica stayed in the act, as Rhubarb Red (Les's stage name at the time) fashioned his first harmonica rack from a coat hanger and began to develop the jokes and patter that remain a part of his performances today.

By the time he was 13, he had already built his first broadcasting station and recording machine and had amplified his guitar with a phonograph needle through the family radio. About that time, a western band featuring Joe Wolverton on guitar came trough town, and Les discovered for the first time that it was possible to make music above the third fret. Wolverton, impressed with the precocious guitarist and harboring a grudge against the band's vocalist, convinced the leader to fire the vocalist and hire Les in his place.

Following a summer of touring, during which he acquired his first Gibson, an L-5, Les returned to Waukesha to resume his schooling and experimenting. Within a year he received a call from Wolverton, now doing a single act, who invited Les to join him in Springfield, Missouri, to form a duet. Thus was born Sunny Joe & Rhubarb Red, with Les playing guitar, jug, harmonica, and piano, while Joe played guitar, banjo, and fiddle; both sang.

The combination was a hit as the two toured the Midwest, paying radio stations, clubs, fairs, theaters, and dance halls. One of Les's first projects was to build a PA system for the band's truck so that they could announce their arrivals. The two hit Chicago in the early '30s just as the town was beginning to break wide open as a jazz haven. Following the 1933 Chicago World's Fair, the pair ended their musical association. Les wanted to play jazz and electric, and Joe wanted to remain country and acoustic. Joe left for California, but Les stayed in Chicago and became two persons: his mornings were spent hosting a radio show for WJJD as Rhubarb Red, playing country music and receiving thousands of cards and letters a day, while at night he fronted a jazz group under his real name on station WIND. The dual identity extended to his recording projects. As Red, he recorded for Sears Roebuck and Montgomery Ward and had several modest hits. As Les Paul, he turned up on a number of "race" records with blues singer Georgia White, playing piano and guitar. Through it all he kept up his interest in inventing and electronics. In 1934, Les retained Chicago's Larson Brothers to build a guitar that he had designed in order to test his theories concerning solidbody instruments.

In 1936, Les tired of his double life and dropped his Rhubarb Red persona. His reputation as a jazz guitarist had grown swiftly as a result of countless late-night jam sessions with artists such as Art Tatum, Roy Eldridge, Louis Armstrong, and Eddie South. Les decided to form his own trio. Jim Atkins -- Chet's older half-brother -- handled vocal chores and rhythm guitar, while Ernie Newton held down the bass and performed some comedy routines. Shortly thereafter, the trio left for New York. Les hustled a gig with Fred Waring And His Pennsylvanians, the large vocal ensemble with whom the trio worked five nights a week, coast-to-coast, on NBC. Audience response was immediate, and soon Les was receiving more mail than Waring because of the sound of his electric guitar. The Waring job lasted nearly three years, during which time Les began to experiment on a noncommercial basis with the concept of multiple recording. In 1940, he left Waring to become the musical director of radio stations WJJD and WIND in Chicago and to play with Ben Bernie's big band.

In 1941, Les built his first solidbody guitar, which he dubbed "The Log." It was actually a 4" by 4" board with a pickup and an Epiphone neck. An Epiphone body split in half was added to make it look like a guitar. Five years later he went to Gibson with his idea. Gibson turned him down.

Les's career took a significant turn in 1943, when he and Bernie left Chicago bound for Los Angeles. Bernie soon died, and Les formed another trio. Almost immediately they began to work with established stars such as Bing Crosby, Burns & Allen, and Rudy Vallee. With the war under way, Les was drafted into the Armed Forces Radio Service (AFRS) to provide entertainment for GIs. His commanding officer was composer Meredith Willson (The Music Man, etc,), and Les was stationed in Hollywood, where his trio became the house band behind major entertainers such as Jack Benny, the Andrews Sisters, Dinah Shore, and Bing Crosby. During this period he also recorded a classic album called Jazz At The Philharmonic under the pseudonym Paul Leslie. The piano player on that album was Shorty Nadine, better know as Nat King Cole.

In 1946, Les recorded "It's Been A Long, Long Time" with Crosby, and the distinctive guitar work on that hit proved to be another big break. The superstar crooner was intrigued by Paul's recording experiments and urged him to build his own studio. Dissatisfied with existing equipment, Les decided to build a system better than anything then available. His recording lathe was fashioned from a Cadillac flywheel, and he began to develop techniques such as close miking, echo delay, and multiple tracking. The studio was built in his garage, and its quality attracted many artists who soon recorded there, including the Andrews Sisters, Pee Wee Hunt, Kay Starr, Jo Stafford, and W.C. Fields (his only recordings). In 1948, Les released his first multiple recordings, "Lover" and "Brazil." Playing all the parts on both tunes, he achieved some very unusual effects, and the Les Paul sound -- still one of the most distinctive and easily recognizable -- was born.

The records were hits, but the bright promise of Les Paul's career was dimmed by the intervention of fate. On the way to a concert one winter evening, Les's car skidded off an icy bridge and dropped 50 feet into a snow bank. Eight hours later he was discovered with a broken nose, a broken collar bone, six broken ribs, a slit pelvis, cracked vertebrae, and his right arm and elbow shattered. One doctor, a Les Paul fan, dissuaded a colleague from amputating the arm (perhaps preventing one of legal history's hugest verdicts for compensatory damages). When Les was informed that, at best, his right arm would be partially functional but immobile, he requested that it be pieced back together and positioned in a manner that would allow him to play the guitar. Les spent almost a year and a half in a hospital with a cast on his arm. While recovering, he released a number of follow-up tunes previously recorded with everything but the lead parts. Undaunted by neither his inability to properly hold the guitar nor the fact that he had no right-hand movement except in his thumb, he laid his guitar flat and recorded the solo lines with a thumbpick. His biggest successes were yet to come.

In December, 1949, he married an attractive young vocalist working with Gene Autry named Colleen Summers and promptly changed her name to Mary Ford. That same year, he conceived and perfected the technique of sound-on-sound recording. With Les utilizing this revolutionary method to multi-track Mary's vocals and his many-layered instrumental parts, the couple was quickly elevated to international fame by a long string of hits that peaked in August, 1953, when "Vaya Con Dios" reached the number one position on the national charts and stayed there for nine weeks.

The couple toured extensively and performed on nationwide television as guest stars several times a week. They were among the first name stars to endorse a commercial product -- Rheingold Beer -- and they soon agreed to host a TV show of their own, Les Paul and Mary Ford at Home, a hit for seven years.

In 1950, the instrument manufacturing industry was immersed in controversy over the solidbody guitar. Some traditionalists reacted to it with vehement resistance, but the pragmatists and money men could not discount the success of Leo Fender. When Gibson developed its own entry, they naturally went to Les Paul for support, since they had long desired an official endorsement from him anyway and especially because of his pioneering work in building solidbodies. In 1952 -- the year in which Ampex marketed the world's first eight-track tape recorder, designed by Les Paul -- Gibson introduced the gold-top Les Paul Model guitar. An immediate success, the line was soon expanded with a deluxe version (the Les Paul Custom) and economy models (the Junior, TV, and Special). The Les Paul Model became the Les Paul Standard in 1960. In the latter part of the following year, Gibson replaced the design with a thinner guitar, a double-cutaway. Les and the company soon terminated their endorsement agreement, and the name of the new series was changed to SG. In 1968, a second generation of single-cutaway Gibson Les Pauls was unveiled, including the Deluxe, reissues of earlier models, and later, the low-impedance Les Pauls: Personal (1969), Professional (1969), Recording (1971), and the semi-acoustic Signature (1973).

Les and Mary were divorced in 1964, legally and professionally. Disappointed with the general state of the music industry, Les retired to his Mahwah, New Jersey, home to pursue his great love of inventing on a full-time basis. However, he did not isolate himself from the music business in his retirement, and he took great pains to keep abreast of industry developments and to stay in touch with musicians.

In 1970, Les was again the victim of a serious accident. A visiting friend playfully cuffed his ear and broke an eardrum. Three years of operations followed, involving serious difficulty with the inner ear. In early 1974, as he started to get around again, he got itchy to start playing. He cautiously allowed himself to be booked for a college concert in Elgin, Illinois, took one of his latest inventions -- the Les Paulverizer -- and knocked out the crowd. Since then he has appeared in a stream of concerts, club dates, and TV shows all over the country, and he took a brief tour of Europe. Les Paul is a hit all over again.

With still more inventions and recording projects in the works, Les, at age 61, is looking ahead. This interview was conducted at Les's home in Mahwah, and the setting could not have been more conducive, for the house is virtually a recording industry museum. All of his original recording equipment is intact, including the eight-track recorder, sound-on-sound gear, and Gibson amp. The Log is there, as is an experimental Epiphone he modified in the late '30s, most of the 22 gold records, and a wealth of innovative radio and recording equipment. Guitars are everywhere.

Are you getting many job offers these days?

There aren't enough days in a week to handle the requests. It blows my mind. Happy Days is a show of mine; I'm the musical director. There are several recording projects in mind. I'm involved in many, many things. Chet and I are going to do another album.

How did those sessions with Chet Atkins come about?

Well, he called me sometime in 1974, and he heard I was moving about again, and did I want to do an album? I said sure, and then about another year later he calls again and says he's about ready -- just as soon as he gets his chops together. Then another year later he calls and says, "I've definitely made up my mind, and I'm gonna do it." I say, "Okay, I'm ready if you are." So I went in and dug out the guitar.

How did you select the tunes and format?

Chet said, "What are we going to do?" I said, "I don't know -- book the band and studio." So he did -- for a week. Then we went to this greasy little restaurant to sit down and kick it over. At first Chet suggested that I play harmonica and guitar; he'd play violin and banjo, and the two of us would sing. So I asked Chet if he wasn't one of the most well-known guitar players in the world, and why the hell should we fool around and do things we can't really do? Let's just play guitar. Chet said, "Who's gonna buy it? Just a couple of squares are gonna buy it." Anyway, I said, "Let's put a mike between us in case either of us thinks of something to say and just start playing." And he says, "But Les, I don't wing it. I'm not one of those guys who make it up on the spot. I rehearse every part very tightly." I said, "Well, let's lay it down and see what happens." So we get to the studio for the rehearsal, and the mike is set up, and we're sitting there saying, "What are we gonna do?" So he's thinking country, and a couple suggestions were made, and finally I said, "Do you know 'Avalon'?" Chet says, "Yeah," and we start to fall into it. I said the line about did Chet know who Mel Bay was? He fell right into it. Best straight man I ever had. Chet said, "Yeah, he sells the guitar book." And I said, "Well, let's send for it." Then I said, "How about 'Caravan'?" and off we go. So anyway, we sit there and come up with this list, and after a few hours, it's over. So we go up stairs to take a little rest, and Chet says, "I've got the band and studio for the rest of the week," and I said, "Chet, we're all done. I got a plane reservation. I'm going to Newark in a couple of hours. Just use the rehearsal." And Chet says, "But what about all those clams?" "Leave them," I say. "People like clams. They like to know we're human."

And did you succeed in releasing that rehearsal?

Yeah, and of course it won the Grammy. You could have knocked me over. I don't know why they called it country, through. Hell, there wasn't a country cut on it. Anyway, Chet is so easy to work with. We really blended together. He's so rhythmically tight and colorful and distinctive that it leaves me wide open to tear off way out in the field somewhere and fly my kite. In show business, there are guys who can wing it, and you're talking to a winger. As far as I'm concerned, I don't want to see anything until I'm right there. You just move me over to where I'm supposed to be when it's time, and I'll take it from there.

How did all of this get started? How did you begin making music?

At nine years old something started to grow in me that became noticeable. I knew that there was something happening. I was walking down the street, and I saw this sewer digger on his lunch hour open up his lunch pail, dig out a harmonica, knock out the cracker crumbs, and play a bunch of tunes on it. I was fascinated by that harmonica, so I stared the guy out of it. I just stared at him. He said, "Here kid, take it. Get out of here." So now I'm playing the harmonica, and I go over to my friend's house, and he's winding this piece of wire around a cardboard toilet paper roll. He's making a crystal set. So he draws me out a plan to make one, and I go home and make one. The first thing I hear on it is a guitar. And then I'm hearing the Grand Ole Opry, and a guy named DeFord Bailey is blowing blues harmonica, and I figure it out: it's not blow, it's draw. That guy's got a C harmonica, and he's playing in G. I figure it out, and all of a sudden, I'm the king of Waukesha, and I'm playing in little places all over town for tips. So I'm coming home making $30-$35 a week, and my brother's working 50 hours a week driving a truck and making $18.

When did you begin playing the guitar?

I didn't get my own guitar until I was 11 or 12, but I'd already learned a couple of chords on my friend's father's guitar. When I got my first guitar from Sears Roebuck, it came with a capo and a book called the E-Z Method For Guitar. The nut was adjustable so that I could make it Spanish or lap steel. The problem was that it was too big -- I couldn't get my hands around the fingerboard.

How did you handle that?

I took the sixth string off. I just decided to leave it off until I grew enough to reach it. So I started out on five strings, and that's when I discovered that moving the bridge changed the intonation. I asked, "This is not in tune -- why not?" So I marked it with a pencil and moved it, and the intonation changed. That led to other discoveries like height and action, and it progressed from then on. I was into customizing right away.

When did you start investigating electronics?

It was just sort of a thing with me that the electronics and the music grew at the same time. I started taking microphones and phonograph pickups apart to see how they worked right away. I had to know what everything was.

Did anyone help you? Any teachers?

Just the library. I'm a real book man. If it's in a book, I can get it. I used to spend hours in the library. Still do.

How did you get the guitar and the electronics together?

Well, when you play outdoors, where at least half my jobs were, you can't be heard unless it's amplified. So immediately I go for a microphone, amplifier, and electric guitar.

How did you do that?

First with a phonograph needle. I took my mother's record player apart and jabbed the needle into the guitar, and it came out the speaker. I didn't realize it then, but I was also doing stereo back in the '20s. The reason for that was my own ignorance. The only way I could figure out how to get amplified was to use my mother's radio, and I could plug a mike into that, and it was fine for my voice and harmonica, but I couldn't figure out how to put another mike in there so that I could also amplify the guitar. Then I took my dad's radio and hooked it all together and put one radio on one side of the stage and one on the other. Instant stereo. I just kept studying electricity and eventually figured out how to make a magnet, how to wind a coil, and what induction and capacitance are. It was fun. I built my own recording machine when I was 12.

How was that accomplished?

My dad owned a garage and had a lathe, so we could make a lot of the parts. It worked on a gravity-feed principle: you'd wind up a weight with a crank, and the weight comes down like a grandfather clock. When it hits the bottom, that's the end, and you'd better be done singing and playing before it hits, because that's all you get. That was the only way to get consistent speed.

Were you getting any kind of guitar instruction at that time?

No, it was all on my own or what I could cop from someone else. When I was about 11, Gene Autry played my hometown. This was before they has a theater there, so when Gene came to town to promote one of his movies, they just picked a parking lot and showed the movie on the outside wall of a building. So I went down to see him, and he was singing his songs, like "Silver Haired Daddy Of Mine," and he was playing in the key of F. At that time I only knew about three chords, and F was not one of them, so I had written out a fingerboard diagram and had it with me so that I could put down what he was playing. I had a flashlight, and sat in the front row. Every time he'd play an F, the light would come on, and I'd put a dot down on the diagram and then turn off the light. If he wasn't playing F, the light wasn't on. So finally, after an evening of this, he said, "You know, ladies and gentlemen, I've got to stop here for a second, because there's something that's really bugging me." And he went and hit an F, and the light lit. And he says, "Why in the world does that light come on just when I hit an F chord?" So I confessed, and he called me up on stage and asked me to play my guitar and sing. I was the hit of the town.

What guitars did you acquire after that?

I got the Sears guitar in 1927 and went almost immediately to a Gibson L-5. I went to the Kalamazoo, Michigan, factory to pick out the one I wanted. I had the 1927 model for a little while and then went to a 1928 model; I still have the 1928 one. Gibson had a pretty good lock on the market then. I didn't even hear a D'Angelico until I came to New York in 1936. I had heard of Epiphone, of course, with George Van Eps and the others. I still have the real great-sounding Epiphone that I used in the late '30s. I've built a bunch of guitars and rebuilt other ones until you wouldn't know what they were, but the L-5 was the leader of the band until the Les Paul. I was friends with the Epiphone people right up until the time that they went broke. I walk in, and they say, "Anything you want, Les, take it. We've had it." Very sad, because they made a wonderful instrument, but they weren't as progressive or as consistent as Gibson.

Were you playing electric guitar in your early act with Joe Wolverton?

No, he'd had none of that. Strictly acoustic.

What was the progression of development of your solidbody guitars?

Early on, I figured out that when you've got the top vibrating and a string vibrating, you've got a conflict. One of them has got to stop, and it can't be the string, because that's making the sound. So in 1934, I asked the Larson Brothers -- the instrument makers in Chicago -- to build me a guitar with a 1/2" maple top and no f-holes. They thought I was crazy. They told me it wouldn't vibrate. I told them I didn't want it to vibrate, because I was going to put two pickups on it. As far as I know, I was the first guy to put two pickups on a guitar. Before that, they always had just one. A guy picked a spot and put it there not because of how it sounded but just where it looked best or where it was convenient to install. Anyway, the next step was in the late '30s, when I took an Epiphone and bolted a 3/8" steel bar across the top of the body on the inside. The pickup was completely immune to vibrations from the bridge and from the neck. It was suspended, so it didn't touch the bar or the guitar and was shock-mounted so that it would not move. It gave me the equivalent of a solidbody guitar. The sides of the body were for cosmetic purposes only.

When did the Log come about?

That was 1941. Epiphone gave me the use of their factory on Sundays. I could go down there and use their tools and work all day. That's where I built it. It was the next logical step. The Epiphone people would come in and shake their heads when they looked at it.

Did you use it a lot?

Oh yeah. I used it to put down the bass guitar lines on my records. I used it a lot when I was in California in the '40s. I was living in Hollywood, and everybody -- Leo Fender, Bigsby, all of them -- were in my back yard looking at that Log and the Epiphone with the steel bar. When I took it to Gibson around 1945 or 1946, they called it the broomstick with a pickup on it.

What guitars did you use before the Gibson Les Pauls?

I was using the one with the steel bar and the Log most of the time. I made my first multiple recording, "Lover," with an aluminum guitar that I built.

A guitar made out of aluminum?

Yeah, I made three or four of them. I've got one here. I had a few hits on that guitar -- "Caravan," "Brazil." I also did the recording session with W.C. Fields on that one. The problem with it didn't show up until I went out on stage. I was working with the Andrews Sisters at the Paramount on Broadway, and the guy got up there with two hot spotlights and hit the aluminum guitar, and it started to do all kinds of crazy things. The first thing I know, I'm saying, "Holy God, what's wrong with my ear?" So I tune it again, and I get it right, and then the guy pulls the spot over to one of the Andrews Sisters, and I start sinking into another key again. I says, "There goes my invention." Many of my hiding places around here are full of inventions I've tried that were stupid. But they weren't so stupid that I wouldn't try them. I thought at the time that they were all good.

Who were some players who influenced your style?

Eddie Lang. And there was a guy I used to hear on the radio who used a capo and a thumbpick; I don't know his name. He was one of the Three Keys. Django Reinhardt really knocked me out, of course. But that was later on. Back when I was starting to learn to play the guitar, there wasn't really anybody for me to look at. I'd hear some guys at the Opry, but they weren't doing a whole lot. I found a Chicago musicians' union book from 1929 not too long ago, and I think there were maybe six guitar players listed. That's how few there were. There were other guitar players that came along, but they didn't really influence me. Very few guitar players really connected with me. There weren't any electric players to speak of. I'm the one who went to the union and insisted that they make a separate category for electric guitar in the union book.

Were you playing electric guitar as Rhubarb Red on Chicago radio?

Oh yeah. I had my L-5 with a pickup on it and then that guitar with the 1/2" maple top, the one that the Larsons had built for me.

How were you meeting all of the jazz players?

That was easy, because Chicago was the fireball in the early '30s. All the great music was in Chicago. They either came to town, or they were already there. You never took a streetcar or bus to get to clubs. They were too close. You'd just take your guitar in your hand and walk from one club to another. Every theater in the neighborhood had vaudeville. We lived jamming. It was wonderful. I was playing jazz all night, so I would sleep in the lobby of the studio where we did the Rhubarb Red radio show. I needed every minute of sleep I could get. I worked out the concept that every minute of my life was valuable. So if I got the chance to play with Art Tatum and Roy Eldridge, I made the time, even if I didn't get much sleep.

When did you decide to go to New York?

In 1936. I thought -- it's time to move, it's time to take this and go into the big time of tomorrow, which at that time was either New York or Los Angeles. So we packed our car -- the Les Paul Trio -- and flipped a coin. Heads, New York; tails, L.A. It was heads. The guys said, "Well, what are we going to do when we get there?" I say, "Don't worry, because [bandleader] Paul Whiteman is a very good friend of mine." Now, I've never met the man, but here we are, on our way, driving like three fools. When we get to New York, we hit a cheap hotel with the bathroom down the hall, and Jim says, "Don't you think we ought to call up your dear buddy, Paul Whiteman?" So I look up his number and call the office, and the secretary wants to know who I am. I tell her Paul and I are old friends. She says, "Mr. Whiteman doesn't seem to remember you; what's this in regard to?" I told her that we had a trio, but she said, "Mr. Whiteman is very busy and doesn't have time to see you." I hung up.

Where did that leave you?

Well, the guys say, "What'd he say?" I tell them he says to come right over. We went to 53rd and Broadway and pressed the button and went up there. It says "Paul Whiteman" on the door, and it's a hot day, and I can see him in the back. There's a girl at the reception desk. I tell her I called a few minutes ago and that I'm Les Paul, and I've got my trio here, and I'm sure Mr. Whiteman is anxious to hear us. Whiteman gets up and slams the door. The guys are not too happy with me, and we're standing in the hallway when Fred Waring starts to go into Whiteman's office. So I said, "Aren't you Fred Waring? We'd sure like to play something for you." He says, " I've got 62 Pennsylvanians now, and I can't feed them." So I says, "You've got nothing to lose. The elevators are all down on the ground floor -- can we play until the elevator gets here?" So we whipped out our guitars and started playing, and the faster the elevator came up, the faster we played. He cracked up and said, "Put that stuff in the elevator." We did and went one floor down to his office, and we went into the rehearsal hall where all the Pennsylvanians were. And he says, "Men, I just had the damnedest thing happen to me, and if you like this trio as much as I do, I'm going to hire them." We went to work that day.

How did that affect your career?

That put us on the air coast to coast, and I received more letters than Waring, telling me to stop playing that electric guitar. We used to do two shows a night, one at seven, one at eleven. One for each coast because of the time difference. So one time, I did the show using the acoustic for one show and the electric for the other. We recorded them and listened to them and took a vote among the trio and Fred, and it was unanimous to stay with the electric. So I says, "That's it."

Was Gibson building pickups for you at that time?

No, they never built them for me, and I wouldn't tell them what I was doing. They were on their knees begging me to tell them how I could run all this cable and how I could do this and that. I finally told them in 1967 after I had retired. I always built my own pickups or altered the ones they gave me.

And what was the secret?

Something that should have been pretty obvious: low-impedance pickups. Unfortunately, we started in the music industry with high impedance and locked ourselves in and for some reason haven't turned ourselves around. I figured out very early through my study of electronics that low impedance was the way to go. I figured that if the telephone company used it, that's the way to go. If you walked into a professional recording studio and someone handed you a high-impedance mike, you'd think he was nuts.

Why are low-impedance pickups superior?

Well, first of all, if you're in the club, you don't pick up the sound of the cash register or the neon lights, and you can run as much cord as you want. With high-impedance, every foot of chord adds capacitance and knocks down the high frequencies, the treble. So what does the guy do? He says -- give me another amp, or give me another guitar, or whatever -- when he should be worried about the length of the cable or his pickup.

So how did high-impedance pickups become the industry standard?

They're cheaper. With high-impedance you wind the coil and go directly into the tube or transistor. With low-impedance you need a transformer to transform the energy from low to high at the amplifier.

When did you first start getting interested in multiple recordings?

That actually goes all the way back to 1927, which was the year my mother got her player piano. She didn't like to pump the thing, so she made me do it. As I pumped the piano and watched the keys go down, I could tell what was happening. Then it was a question of what wasn't being played. There was a lot of paper left over, so I started punching holes in it. If it was a wrong note, I'd just cover the hole with a piece of flypaper. My mother comes home to listen to her piano, and all hell breaks loose. There was always a long leader, so I cooked up some hot intros. So the first time I started adding parts to songs was on a piano roll.

When did you start doing disc-to-disc multiples?

That was around 1946, when I built the studio in my garage in Hollywood. I built the two recording lathes out of Cadillac flywheels -- cost a lot less that way, and they worked better than anything else that was around then. I had seven number one hits with disc multiples: "Lover," "Nola," "Goofus," "Little Rock Getaway," and some others -- they were all recorded on disc -- no tape. You'd get two machines going, record on one, play that back, then play and sing along with it, recording on the other. And you just keep doing that, back and forth. "Lover" had some 24 parts on it. And you'd better not make a mistake, because if you do, it's back to number one.

What were disc recording's advantages over tape?

Tape was what you call modulation distortion, which is inherent in the tape, and this is one of the things they're still fighting with tape. You didn't have that kind of distortion with disc. But every dog has its day; the disc had its drawbacks. As you go to the inside of the record, you would lose highs. I got around that by recording at 78 rpm on the outside of a 17" disc. That gave me a lot of room, and I was burnin' up those discs. That's why the quality was so great. I was going at 78, with EQ of 33 1/3, so when my records came out, they were hotter than a skunk.

When did you start doing sound-on-sound with tape?

That was about 1949, I never told Ampex what I was doing. I just asked them for a fourth head, and they just drilled a hole and put it there. They had no idea about what I was doing, and I didn't tell them until five years later. "How High The Moon" was our first big hit on tape. Eight-track came in 1952. I just went to Ampex with the idea and handed it to them. I never did patent it. They built it for me, but it took them four years to get it right. I've still got it here, and it's the best machine in this place. My modern machines have one tough time trying to keep up with the old one. The original board is here too, and it also surpasses anything around.

In what way?

It's because everybody wants things small. They want them transistorized -- everything on a little chip. Don't get me wrong -- we work with the chip. We're heavily into research work, and I don't want to sound like a stubborn old-timer, but the tube will outperform the transistor or chip. The chip might cost 29 cents or what ever, and it draws very little current, and it doesn't dissipate nearly as much heat, and it's lightweight and compact, etc., etc., but the old-timer is still the most consistent. The change to solid-state is inevitable though, because price forces you to compete, and maybe they'll come up with something better in the end.

How do you record your guitar?

I've gone directly into my amp and into my mixer since 1934.

How do you feel about modern recording techniques?

Much more complicated than they need to be. One of the first things I learned in the multiple-track business is that this machine can run away from you -- it can run you, instead of you running the machine. I learned that the machine can be a bitter enemy, because he will do anything you tell him to, and you better be careful. Another thing -- just because there's a track open doesn't mean you have to put something on there. When I made "My Baby's Coming Home," the guy at Capitol called me up and said, "We didn't get the complete record -- there's only one voice and one guitar on it." And I say, "That's it. That's the whole thing." And he said, "How can you do that, when the last one had about 28 voices and a million guitars on it?" I says, "Well, that's all it needs. If it only needs one, what do you want to put down 28 for?" What you have now is guys going into the studio and laying the parts down and searching for something. They really don't know what it's going to sound like when it's done. Some may have an idea, but damn few.

How did you do it?

The way I do it and have always done it is like this: I don't touch the machine until I'm sure of the whole arrangement. Then I go to the machine, and in 15 minutes, I'm done. I learned to do it like that working with sound-on-sound. You better know what the end is before you start, because you can screw yourself up in a hurry.

What is the Les Paulverizer?

It's a remote control box for a tape recorder, and it's mounted right in the guitar. Let me back up and tell you where the idea started. Making the multiple recordings -- first disc and then on tape -- and doing the echo delay and sped-up sounds, it rapidly dawned on me that people would want to hear a sound like the records when performed live. You walk out there with just one voice and one guitar, and you've got a problem. If they yell out, "How High The Moon," you've got to give them something close as possible. So I came up with the bright idea of taking Mary's sister and hiding her offstage in a john or up in an attic -- wherever -- with a long microphone. Whatever Mary did onstage, she did offstage. If Marry sniffled, she sniffled. It just stopped everyone dead. People couldn't believe it or figure it out. There was no tape then, so when this came around, it was highly different and shocking. One night I hear the mayor of Buffalo sitting in the front row tell his wife, "Oh, it's simple. It's radar." So a couple years after playing with the extra voice and an orchestra and everything, they began to think that they heard all kinds of things. They put things in there that weren't there. But I felt the real solution was to make it sound just like the record, as close as possible, and eventually I came up with the idea of the remote tape control unit, and I built the first box. I used it for the very first time in a performance for President Eisenhower.

Did you modify the equipment after that?

Yes, as time went on it got more sophisticated, more condensed. When I came out of retirement, I looked around and found that all that equipment weighed 1,100 lbs. So I told my engineers that I wanted it down to 120 lbs, and they said it couldn't be done. I said it could be done, and it would be done, and it was. And it does much more than it ever did before. Now when we go out on a job, we throw it in the back seat of the car or under the seat of a plane, and we're gone. It takes us maybe 15 minutes to set up. And you look at the other guys -- five 18-wheelers pulling up with all their gear.

And all signals come out of one line?

All out of one line. I have my microphone mounted right on the guitar, and it comes out of the same line as the Paulverizer. Some of the stuff is so simple. I believe simplicity is the greatest, but it's the toughest thing to get sometimes. They'll make it complicated, the public will. The mayor says. "It's radar." You know who figured out the trick with Mary's sister? Nobody could figure it out. Life Magazine couldn't. We wouldn't tell anybody; it was a secret for years. Then one night, a man came backstage with his little girl and says, "If I tell you how you're getting that sound, will you give me a yes or no?" I said, "Sure" and the little girl says, "Where's the other lady?" It took a little kid who didn't have a complicated mind. Everybody saw machines, turntables, radar -- everything but the simplest thing.

When you came out of retirement, was it difficult for you to get your chops back?

I was desperate, but still I didn't scramble. I guess I just leaned more on what was in mind than what was in my chops. I learned a long time ago that one note can go a long way if it's the right one, and it will probably whip the guy with 20 notes. With 20 notes -- he's got a lot of problems. My chops were not as fast as when I was a kid; things that were done a certain way before were harder to do when I came out of retirement. But then the speed came back. Chops come back, and you don't worry about them. I think the most important thing about playing is to walk out with confidence and look the people right in the eye and say, "Here I am," and go and do your thing. As soon as they know you're confident, they're confident. As long as you adjust to them, you're not in trouble. You should eyeball them and find out what they want and give it to them. They didn't pay to come and look at the tapestries.

Do you like any of the currently popular guitarists?

Oh, sure. There are a lot of them I like for certain things. It seems to me that there's a number of guys that got a lot of things going for them, and I can understand what they're doing. And I can't say that any of them seems to have a corner on the market, I think everyone would agree: there is no one guy shinning, no one guy who is king above all. But one of the problems with the new crop on the horizon is they've got their razor-clean playing, but it's like a clock. It's about as musical as a metronome. It's easy to play like a machine, and when a guy gets to playing like a machine, it's frightening. You've lost all the feeling in it. We can appreciate how hard he practiced and studied and probably skipped playing basketball and going with girls, but I still feel that in many cases, what is lacking is that the guy is not saying anything. And that's what music is all about. He can pick clean, but the music is expressionless.

Do you go out to concerts much?

Oh sure, I keep up, but it's getting harder to do. Right now, as far as I'm concerned, the music industry has a big void in it. Everybody's searching for a change. I think Roberta Flack is looking for it; I think Bette Midler is looking for it; I think the Rolling Stones are looking for it. Somebody's got to come along. In 1948, the door was open, and there was a hole sitting there, and I came along with the idea of the Les Paul sound. It was wide open for me to come in and clean up and sell millions of records, because there was nobody in the bag.

Which Les Paul guitar is your favorite model?

I would have to say the Recording. It's an excellent box, although the guy playing with a rock group who wants to drive the daylights out of a Marshall may want to use a regular Les Paul, because he can get more power out of it. The Recording has low-impedance pickups, and I feel it strikes the best balance of any guitar ever made.

Which model are you playing now?

I'm playing one of the low-impedance prototypes. It's got the same body size and shape but doesn't have an arched top. It also has my own pickups on it and a steel bar running through it. All my guitars have that steel bar. Improves sustain.

How long will you continue your career?

That's one thing I get asked all the time on the stage: "How long are you going to keep playing?" And I say, "Until someone tells me not to." The day that I recognize the fact that I'm not needed or that I can't make someone happy, then I'm not going to play."

KAAY LITTLE ROCK 1090 AM

2009-01-10T18:14:00.000-08:00

Spectropop remembers

-----Original Message-----
From: John Bernays [mailto:johnbernays@gmail.com]

- Hide quoted text -

Sent: Monday, October 22, 2007 5:51 AM
To: Lee Rodgers
Subject: Re: Grew up in Benton & Hot Springs, AR- Played Lead Guitar
with "ROCK ROBBINS" KAAY 1966

KTHS used to be in the ARLINGTON HOTEL! I played as well with THE
SALINE COUNTY HAWAIIAN STEEL band, Mr. Comstock, at the Benton Pawn
Shop. Tommy Clinton, a Former Mandolin & Guitar player with the Texas
Playboys, was very much a INFLUENCE on my style.

My FATHER was born in Muskogee, oklahoma, same town as BARNEY KESSEL
Johnny Bernay (1932-2003) was born on October 7th, 1932 Muskogee,
Oklahoma,As a School Boy with Barney Kessel, My Father was an
Accomplished Jazz and Boogey-Woogey Piano Player, and a capable
Guitarist. Unfortunately, while in Los Angeles, he caught the dread
"Valley Fever" which caused my Grandmother, Nedra E. Bernay, to Rush
him home to Muskogee, where he was Fever-Ridden & Bed Fast over a
Year. His Life was Ruined after that, and he Died in Prison, on Death
Row, McAllister State Prison, on December 11th. 2003. I Learned to
Love Jazz from My Father, but Inherited the Brain Fever, and was BED
RIDDEN for a Year in 1955-56.
Barney Kessel (1923-2004) was born on October 17, 1923, in Muskogee,
Oklahoma. By age 16, as a high school student, he was emulating
Charlie Christian, playing his electric guitar with local blues bands
and with the University of Oklahoma Dance Band.

In 1942 Barney Kessel made his way to Los Angeles and quickly
established himself as a professional musician and a guitarist to be
reckoned with. His first important job was with Chico Marx. He spent a
year on the road with the Marx band and when he returned to Los
Angeles he began pursuing a career in which he combined studio, radio
and club work. During this time he was heard on recordings that
featured Charlie Ventura, Roy Eldridge and Artie Shaw along with a
string of radio appearances. It was also during this period that
Barney Kessel appeared in the movie Jammin' The Blues.

On 10/22/07, Lee Rodgers <LeeRodgers@abc-sf.com> wrote:
> I worked on KAAY when it was KTHS...also worked on its sister TV station,
> KTHV, Channel 11. Also well know the sound of the Johnny-pop, the
> two-cylinder John Deere.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: John Bernays [mailto:johnbernays@gmail.com]
> Sent: Monday, October 22, 2007 5:34 AM
> To: leerodgers@abc-sf.com
> Subject: Grew up in Benton & Hot Springs, AR- Played Lead Guitar with
> "ROCK ROBBINS" KAAY 1966
>
>
> I listen to you-all most every morning, a old Farm Boy, (Dairy Farm!)
> I get up with the Chicken's after all these years! (I was born after
> WW2, learned to drive in a "Poppin' Johnny" & a 1949 Plymouth, Amateur
> Radio Operator since 1958 (KD5MPM) and Used To Join in the 3830 KCs
> "Art Bell" Ham Gang Bang, but got Shunned after a while.
> I bet you remember Rock Robbins! I was 16 years old, had a New Gibson
> ES-330-TD Guitar with a Bigsby Vibrato, & I won "Battle of the Bands"
> beating out Robbin's Band's Guitarist, so he Hired me On The Spot.
>
> Here is what Charlie told us about Stax: "It was me and "Rock Robbins"
> of KAAY Little Rock who are credited for Jeanne & The Darlings
> '"What's Gonna Happen To Me". Rock Robbins' real name was Tom Riggs
> or Tommy sometimes. He also worked as a radio DJ as Tom Payton, hence
> the usage on the record label. Tom and I had an agreement such as
> Lennon and McCartney... we shared credits even though one or the other
> created that particular song. He totally wrote that one. My
> participation was because of our sharing. Memory fuzzy about session
> date. Only learnt of it happening at a later time. Neither one of us
> was present, as per recollection. Perhaps mid or late summer of 67.
> Song was never specifically written for any artist that I know of. Tom
> had that one in mind when I met him in early '60's... Tom, being
> around North Little Rock for his teen years and sporadically
> thereafter, could have met Jeanne & The Darlings anytime during mid
> 60's... I really don't know. Most likely while working at KAAY as
> "Rock Robbins" in 66 or so. Neither one of us was present during the
> session. Tommy Riggs died in July 2000.
> Tommy Riggs (Tom Payton) is an Arkansan singer, piano and keyboard
> player who had several bands while performing around the state in the
> 1960s and 1970s. He also was working as a radio DJ (as Tom Jones) at
> the time, on KCLA, during 1968 through 69 &As Tom Payton on KXLR in
> North Little Rock in 1964, and in 1966 at KAAY]]. During this period,
> he promoted himself as Tom Payton and the Kingpins, Tom Payton with
> The Playboys, and several other names. He recorded while he was Rock
> Robbins from KAAY on the Little Rock label "MY Records" in 1966. Two
> songs from the session were released on a 45 rpm record, "My Little
> Girl" and "Good Lovin'"... The other songs and all tape masters are in
> private hands. Promoting himself as Tommy Riggs, he performed around
> the country From St. Louis to Las Vegas before settling down in
> Nashville, Tennessee and frequently playing at the Stockyards Lounge.
>
> The multi platinum selling Alternative Rock band Evanescence has its
> origins in Little Rock.

BARNEY KESSEL (1923 - 2004)

Legendary musician, guitarist, influential jazz artist, composer, arranger, session player and record producer. A tribute by Harvey Kubernik.

Pioneer of be-bop guitar, one of the leading figures in West Coast jazz, later delving into hard bop, Barney Kessel is now generally considered by fans, critics and fellow musicians around the world to be arguably the greatest guitarist of all time.

Barney Kessel was born October 17, 1923 in Muskogee, Oklahoma, USA. He died May 6 from brain cancer, first diagnosed in November of 2001 after having suffered a stroke in May of 1992. He lived in San Diego, California with his wife, Phyllis, who accompanied him on US and international tours and awards ceremonies and tended to him devotedly after his stroke.

Barney first picked up the guitar at age 12, left home and started playing professionally at age 14 and soon after moved to the Central Avenue jazz district of Los Angeles, California. From the 1950s through the '70s Kessel lived in various areas of greater Los Angeles, including Van Nuys, Glendale and West Hollywood. Throughout the decades, he toured the world extensively and lived in London, England for several years in the late 1960s and early '70s.

Kessel appeared in the 1944 Academy Award nominated Warner Brothers short feature, 'Jammin' The Blues'. He was the only white musician in an otherwise all-black band that included one of his two heroes, tenor sax guru Lester 'Pres' (the President) Young. (Kessel's other hero was electric guitar pioneer, Charlie Christian.) Barney told of how Lester Young was the guy who (among other more substantial contributions) first coined the slang expression "cool" back in the 1930s. But Jack Warner was concerned about losing money in the South from likely boycotting because of Kessel's presence with the other black musicians, so he had the cameraman shoot Kessel from a distance and in the shadows. When that didn't work Warner told his makeup department to darken Kessel's face and hands. Barney ended up darker than Lester Young, a light skinned Negro, so Barney joked that they'd better apply dark makeup to Lester too.

Kessel placed #1 Guitarist during the late 1950s and early '60s in all top music polls including Playboy, Downbeat, Metronome and Esquire, and rated #1 again during the early '70s in top UK music polls including Melody Maker, etc. Critics agree that Kessel - who bridged swing and be-bop, and combined a nearly inhuman technique with an almost other-worldly inspiration - ultimately reached the same creative and performance level as such other giants as Charlie Parker on sax, Art Tatum on piano and Dizzy Gillespie on trumpet.

Kessel, as front man and/or featured artist, recorded over 60 albums, including 'To Swing Or Not To Swing', the 'Poll Winners' series, 'Barney Plays Kessel', the 'Great Guitars' series, 'On Fire' and 'Spontaneous Combustion'. Whether in the US, Europe or Asia, he recorded for numerous labels including RCA, Polydor, Concord, Emerald, Phil Spector International, and Reprise. However, most of his recordings were with Lester Koenig, producer/owner of Contemporary Records, including early 10" releases and some red, blue and green vinyl LPs, which have all been re-released on CD. He's also featured in his own live performance videos and instructional videos. Additionally, Kessel is a credited ensemble player on hundreds of records as well as a session player on thousands of pop and rock hit records, including singles and albums.

After learning jazz on the street, Kessel studied classical guitar, piano, orchestration and film scoring. His work in Hollywood as an arranger and musician includes radio, hundreds of films and TV shows and major commercials.

In 1940 when Kessel was 16, his idol, legendary electric guitar pioneer and fellow Oklahoman, Charlie Christian, had also heard of Barney. Christian, while on a break from touring with Benny Goodman, went to see Barney play in Oklahoma City where they ended up jamming together for three days, straight. Christian kept his marijuana stuffed inside a mattress, Kessel once revealed. Charlie was very impressed with young Barney and told him he'd put in a good word for him with Benny Goodman. Kessel later joined the Benny Goodman Orchestra. Barney and another fellow Oklahoman, vocalist Kay Starr, both auditioned for the Charlie Barnet band on the same day. Kessel chose to audition with the song 'Cherokee', a previous hit record for Barnet and a relatively difficult song with a harmonically complex bridge. He got the job. So did she.

Kessel played and recorded with big bands fronted by Chico Marx, of the Marx Brothers (1943), Charlie Barnet (early '40s-1947), Benny Goodman (1947, 1958) and Artie Shaw (1945). He recorded with Shaw in his Gramercy Five. Vocalist and fill-in drummer Mel Torme roomed with Barney on the road in Chico's band, which was actually led by Ben Pollack, who earlier in his own band had given Glenn Miller and Goodman their first big breaks.

Charlie 'Bird' Parker asked Kessel to join his group in '46 and they recorded together in '47 including 'Birdland Suite' and 'Relaxing At Camarillo'. When Kessel and Parker first jammed together on the West Coast, Bird was so knocked out he carried the guitarist's amp for him through the parking lot straight to Kessel's car while raving about his guitar playing. Soon after, he called Kessel to record with him.

Kessel's son Dan shares, "I took Betty (singer, B.J. Baker) to see one of our favorites, Anita O'Day, in Hollywood in the early '70s. Betty and I always grooved to Ms. O'Day's hip, sexy way with a lyric and melody, going back to the early Gene Krupa stuff with Roy Eldridge. When I spoke with Anita after the gig she told me, 'I remember first seeing Barney, in the '40s, standing on the corner of Hollywood and Vine, in his cowboy boots, sun glasses and hipster threads, holding his guitar case… man, you just knew that cat could wail!'"

During 1952 and '53, Kessel was the original guitarist in the scorching Oscar Peterson Trio with pianist, Peterson and bassist, Ray Brown. Barney later teamed up with Brown and drummer Shelly Manne for the universally acclaimed 'Poll Winners' series of recordings on the Contemporary label.

Kessel toured in the early 1950s with many top jazz artists including Ella Fitzgerald and Lester Young, as part of the legendary 'Jazz At The Philharmonic' series, which producer Norman Granz recorded live at concert halls in the US and Europe.

Kessel was consistently innovative. He was the first to achieve the effect of an orchestra with his guitar. As the arranger/music supervisor and guitarist on Julie London's 1955 smash hit 'Cry Me A River' (Liberty Records) he helped re-ignite the 'torch singer' genre in modern jazz and established its mood, paving the way for the craze that followed. And with just his guitar and string bass accompaniment, he broke new ground with his ability to convey full orchestral colorations. Kessel originated the concept of the guitar as lead voice in a powerhouse instrumental jazz trio with bass and drums, as a departure to various piano-fronted formats which had been standard practice. Another milestone in modern jazz was Kessel's innovation of incorporating flute and oboe in arrangements on a jazz recording.

For years he toured globally and recorded with the influential Great Guitars trio, with Herb Ellis and Charlie Byrd. A short list of other jazz giants Kessel performed and recorded with includes Charlie Parker, Ben Webster, Sarah Vaughan, Art Tatum, Anita O'Day, Benny Carter, Sonny Rollins, Billie Holiday, Hampton Hawes, Stephane Grappelli, Elvin Jones, and Bobby Hutcherson.

An equally short list of popular vocalists Kessel backed on stage and recordings includes Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr, Bobby Darin, Barbra Streisand, Fred Astaire, Marlene Dietrich, Sam Cooke and Elvis Presley.

Kessel's guitar artistry can be heard in the Orson Welles film noir masterpiece 'A Touch Of Evil' and Billy Wilder's comedy classic with Marilyn Monroe, 'Some Like It Hot'. He pre-recorded the guitar for actor John Saxon in 'Rock, Pretty Baby' and performed David ('Laura') Raksin's jazz score for director John Cassevetes in 'Too Late Blues' with Bobby Darin and Stella Stevens. Kessel is seen in a cameo opposite '(Get Your Kicks On) Route 66' composer Bobby Troupe in an episode of the original 'Perry Mason' TV series, to cite but a few of his endless film and TV credits.

I conducted an interview with Steve Howe, the guitarist in Yes, in October 2003 when I informed him that Kessel was critically ill. Howe has always cited Barney Kessel as a primary influence on his own guitar style: "Barney Kessel was the first American jazz guitarist I ever related to. I started playing when I was 12 in 1959 and I reckon about two years after that I was aware of Barney Kessel. I guess the Kessel album that was most important to me and still is, is 'The Poll Winners' with Shelly Manne and Ray Brown. 'Volume 1', a blue cover, on the Contemporary label. I bought it and most of Barney's albums in London at Dobell's, the famous jazz shop. It was archetypal, real jazz. I bought all the LP's he made when he was the leader. I also liked him in support roles. I have the whole collection of 'The Poll Winners'. One of the things I liked about Barney was his sound. Compared to other players, he had a very earthy, organic quality to his sound. And his playing was a remarkable mixture of 'single line' and 'chords', ya know, which inspired me to believe that any guitarist who doesn't understand chords won't be able to play much in the single line because they relate so much. Barney had his own great, highly individual approach to jazz guitar. The way he combined the chords and that single line. It was a perfect balance, really.

"And there was something mysterious about his equipment. In England, we could recognize L5s or 400s but we weren't sure if he was playing an L7C, or what. Nobody really knew what that guitar was for a while. We knew it was some sort of Gibson. They weren't heavily clarified in catalogues nor readily available in England in the '60s. That's when the L7 was less than popular, ya know? But he had that characteristic big guitar. I mean, I obviously went on to play a rock 'n' roll 175. I got it in 1964 and bought a new one in 1975. That was styled after Kessel, who I had seen a few times on television, and Jim Hall and Wes Montgomery and other guitarists who also used a 175, the most gorgeous guitar. As I went around, people said, 'Wow, you play that guitar?' Because it wasn't considered a rock guitar in any shape or form. So it was kind of a breakthrough and it did help me because the sound of a full body is so different from the solids, the slim lines that people were playing. And everybody asked me, 'Why didn't it feed back?' Because I used a volume pedal and I stood a certain distance from my amp and didn't use too much bass from my amp, I guess. I got 'round that problem but I certainly wasn't directly emulating Barney Kessel but I was thinking I would not remove myself from that line of fire, because I wanted to be influenced by jazz.

"I read Barney's column, a few times, in 'Guitar Player Magazine'. There obviously was a whole line of fine guitarists he inspired, or that had been touched by him. That stuff Barney did with Julie London like 'Cry Me A River' which starts with his guitar, is amazing. One important thing to me is that Barney Kessel is the first guitarist I ever saw who said 'You need eight guitars to be a session guitarist'. I only had about four at the time. And when I saw his 'eight guitars' quote I kinda read what he meant. Like having a 12-string. Barney put something very influential in my head about the multi-guitar idea when he mentioned eight guitars including 12-string and mandolin. That well-rounded idea that obviously affected me when I went into doing 'Monster Guitars' goes back to Barney Kessel.

"And Barney played that tune, 'A Tribute To Charlie Christian', on his 'Easy, Like' album. That was one of his things I learned. The fact is I've always mentioned Barney Kessel as the first player I ever got into, Barney and Django Reinhardt. And then of course my mind became more distracted from Barney but he never really went away. He was still there. A straight ahead guy with an organic edge to his sound."

In late November 2003, I met guitarist/composer, and former Wings member, Laurence Juber for a meal, and he too had been hit hard by his youthful exposure to Barney Kessel. "In the early '70s I was a music student at London University and soaking up as much guitar as I could find. I first heard Barney Kessel on a duo album with violinist Stephane Grappelli and fell in love with his bluesy, swinging style. Whenever he was performing at Ronnie Scott's club, I would arrive at 9:30 pm, when they opened, and get in for £2 with my student union card. As the first one in, I would grab the best table by the stage and sit there nursing a carafe of wine and a pack of Marlboros until the club closed at around 3, absorbing every nuance of his playing. Then I'd go home and practice until dawn! I saw other monster guitarists perform there. But Barney could SWING harder than anyone. Years later, I learned about his studio and production credits and realized that what I'd experienced as a student was only a part of the man's prodigious musical talents."

"Kessel is as lyrical a guitarist as we have in jazz… a rhythmic natural who can out swing any man in the house." - Jazz Critic, Leonard Feather.

"Kessel is a player who is never just standing still at one level." - Guitarist, Wes Montgomery.

"One of the most extraordinarily consistent and emotionally huge musical improvisers of our era." - Writer, Nat Hentoff.

"Barney Kessel is a unique guitarist. He swings like every member of the rhythm section wishes he could. He is a true artist." - Musician/composer/conductor, Andre Previn.

"I'd listen to Barney Kessel records and my jaw would drop. I was awe-struck by the nature of his ad-libs. I followed Barney Kessel's musical stories like a kid following a fairy tale." - Guitarist, B.B. King.

"Kessel is #1. His style of guitar is copied so much, but never equalled. Barney Kessel is the greatest guitarist in the universe!" - Producer, Phil Spector.

"Barney Kessel is incredible. He's just amazing. I mean it's crazy. Nobody can play guitar like that. What else can you say?" - Guitarist, John Lennon.

"Barney is the greatest." - Drummer, Hal Blaine.

"When I was on the road with Bob Wills, the Texas Playboys and Tommy and Glynn Duncan, often times Barney would come to the country dance halls to visit. His very presence inspired us to play better." - Guitarist, Jimmy Wyble.

"Barney Kessel was a very special man, a good man and a great, great legendary talent." - Bassist, Carol Kaye.

"Kessel is transcendental in his artistry." - Composer, Henry Mancini.

"Barney Kessel is the Sir Laurence Olivier of the guitar." - Actor, Mickey Rooney.

"Barney Kessel is definitely the best guitar player in this world, or any other world." - Guitarist, George Harrison.

"Barney Kessel nailed me to the cross, twelve ways to Sunday." - Pianist, Oscar Peterson.

"Those who have heard my music can sense that I learned a lot from Barney." - Guitarist, Tal Farlow.

"Barney Kessel has become the American jazz icon. He reached the same status as Louis Armstrong." - Guitarist, Mundell Lowe.

Toulouse Engelhardt, a well respected, world-class finger-style master guitarist for over a third of a century - the 'Segovia of Surf', who now resides in Laguna Beach, California - as a youth took some guitar lessons from Wes Montgomery and Larry Carlton. He often saw Kessel play around Hollywood in the late '60s and early '70s, the last time being a 1972 Kessel gig at the famed Shelly's Manne-Hole venue. Engelhardt recently told me during a recording session in the summer of 2003, "People came to watch Barney's hands. Every guitarist in town for decades went to check him out. When I opened some dates for the Byrds in 1975 when Clarence White was with them; backstage, bluegrass cats, pickers, and the 'jazz dudes' would discuss Kessel's playing, especially his solo albums and trio work. Surfers always had his records and would pull them out at beach parties. We always dug he was a 'West Coast Guy'.

"At his shows… it seemed like a well choreographed finger ballet in 6/8 time… Until I saw his thumb gliding across the front and back of his '46 Gibson… the other fingers danced in well choreographed impossible contortions… all this moving in a whirlwind of continuous juxtaposition… A technical virtuosity equalled by none.

"I know a lot of English rock guitarists learned from his albums on vinyl. I can see his influence on everybody from Steve Howe of Yes, to Ritchie Blackmore of Deep Purple and Andy Summers of The Police."

Sadly, Barney Kessel was not in Ken Burns' "JAZZ" documentary.

Kessel played guitar on over half a dozen albums with Elvis including the hit singles 'Return To Sender' and 'Can't Help Falling In Love With You'.

Some other early rock 'n' roll hits that Barney played on include 'Rockin' Robin' and 'Over And Over' with Bobby Day; a slew of Leiber and Stoller sessions with the Coasters including 'Searchin'', 'Young Blood', 'Down In Mexico' and 'Smokey Joe's Café', and 'Bongo Rock' with Preston Epps.

During his stint at Verve as a record executive, not only did Kessel produce and play on records with such sophisticated artists as Fred Astaire and Audrey Hepburn, he helped engineer the child star as TV attraction into rock 'n' roll star on the national hit parade, setting the table for numerous TV kids (Annette, Shelly Fabares, Britney Spears, Hillary Duff, etc.) to cut records. Naturally, Barney Kessel's name was not mentioned in the VH-1 movie on Ricky Nelson. At least Kessel's contributions were noted in author Joel Selvin's Nelson biography on which the film was based.

Kessel was head of A&R for Verve Records in Beverly Hills 1956-1960. Verve President, Norman Granz, asked Barney to find some "rock 'n' roll product" because his distributors were asking for it when Elvis Presley hit. Barney, years earlier, had played in a band with Ozzie Nelson. He saw Ricky on 'The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet' one evening when Ricky was playing drums on the show. Barney called Ozzie, and put Ricky Nelson's recording deal together. He suggested they have the kid out front and put a guitar in his hand. Kessel then set about producing Ricky's first three major hits when Nelson was still 16.

The initial release in April 1957 ended up being a double A-side. The first A-side, 'I'm Walkin'' was written by Fats Domino and Dave Bartholomew and was originally a hit for Fats on Imperial Records. Barney recorded it against the protests of Ricky's father/manager Ozzie Nelson and Verve Records owner, Norman Granz, who thought Ricky shouldn't a cover a recent hit. But Kessel had already determined that Ricky gave his best performance on it and Kessel liked the combination of Ricky with the R&B/Rock 'n' Roll/Fats Domino inspired sound. He decided not only would they record it but also it would be Ricky's debut release. Barney wrote the arrangements, assembled the musicians including himself on guitar and produced all the sessions. It went to #4.

After 'I'm Walkin'' peaked, the radio stations flipped it over and the B-side 'A Teenager's Romance' hit #2 on the charts. Kessel penned (along with Jack Marshall) 'You're My One And Only Love' for Ricky's next A-side release. He produced, arranged and played guitar, again. The song zoomed up the charts to hit #4. In an innovative move (and setting an example for protégé, Phil Spector), Kessel wrote the instrumental B-side 'Honey Rock' in ten seconds and recorded it in one take. It was Barney and the boys laying down a solid riff and jamming, with a chick cooing, "Oh, Honey"!

David Kessel, (who along with brother Dan produced the Ramones, Blondie and the Ventures with Go-Gos Charlotte Caffey and Jane Wiedlin; and recorded with John Lennon, Cher, Leonard Cohen and Celine Dion, among others), grooved on a 1976 incident one night in Hollywood at Diamond Jim's Restaurant where he was seated next to Rick Nelson and then-wife Kris Harmon who were in a tense discussion. Just before the ribs arrived, David felt he had to introduce himself to Nelson, "Excuse me, I'm David Kessel. My father is Barney. I just wanted to say hello and let you know that my father had something to do with your recording career." Nelson jumped to his feet, and stuck out his hand, saying, "He sure did!"

Dan Kessel vividly recalls some of the many Kessel family dinner guests throughout the 1950s and into the '70s when Barney wasn't touring. "We would have really wonderful guests over to visit, such as Ozzie and Harriet Nelson, Oscar Peterson, Audrey Hepburn, Spade Cooley, Tom Neal, Lawrence Tierney, Ella Fitzgerald, Jimmy Wyble, Norman Granz, Fred Astaire, George Harrison, Pearl Bailey, Ray Brown, Jayne Mansfield, Dizzy Gillespie, Mickey Rooney, Herb Ellis, Flip Phillips, Steve McQueen, Sarah Vaughan, Mel Torme, Nick Adams, Colonel Tom Parker and Hedy Lamarr. Also, Christmas cards were exchanged with the above and Duane Eddy, James Burton, Jimmy Dodd and Elvis, among others."

David Kessel also mentioned a family outing as Frank Sinatra's guests, in Palm Springs when Sinatra greeted them all at a restaurant. Frank in full animation sprang up from his company and in formal wear, welcomed the foursome, "Betty, Barney, boys. Enjoy your meal." He sat down and visited for over ten minutes till some of his guys brought him back to their table. Barney performed with Sinatra often, at his special request. Betty (B.J. Baker), a legendary Hollywood background singer and vocal contractor for records, films and TV, had sung on numerous Sinatra records including 'That's Life'. She's also heard on many Elvis Presley hits including 'If I Can Dream' and tons of hit records by Lloyd Price, Dean Martin, Ray Charles, the Beach Boys, Sam Cooke, Willie Nelson and countless others. Even though she was a jazz singer, as well as classically trained, she was the kind of gal that could dig Cream with Deep Purple at the L.A. Forum and years later, groove to a Cramps gig at the Masque. She was a former Miss Alabama beauty queen and previously married to Mickey Rooney. Welcome to the real to reel Hollywood, people.

Barney Kessel performed on all the mid-period Beach Boys hits such as 'I Get Around', 'California Girls' and 'Dance, Dance, Dance', including the later Brian Wilson productions such as 'Pet Sounds', 'Good Vibrations' and 'Smile'. Upon conclusion of the classic 'Good Vibrations', Brian Wilson personally sent Kessel a letter citing his guitar contribution to his production. In addition, it was Kessel who brought the theremin instrument to Brian Wilson's attention. Brian subsequently utilized the instrument on 'Pet Sounds' on 'I Guess I Just Wasn't Made For These Times' and later on 'Good Vibrations'. Barney Kessel and a trio were doing a gig at a jazz club on Hollywood Blvd. Kessel, who invited Wilson to their set, had a theremin player on stage that Barney knew from movie score work and Brian got hip to the trip.

Top session bassist, Carol Kaye, remembers an incident during one of the many 'Pet Sounds' recording sessions, "Brian was so proud of a multi-voiced part (about 12 tracks or so) he single-handedly cut, he played it for us and we were all amazed. Barney Kessel couldn't get over it, and this from a famous jazz man. Then Barney joked, 'Brian, I take back everything I ever thought about you'."

I talked to Brian Wilson over the phone in September of 2003, just after he did a recording session with Paul McCartney at Cello Studios in Hollywood where the recording complex has a photo of Barney Kessel and Benny Carter on prominent display. "Barney Kessel was a wonderful guitar player. He did a wonderful job on 'Wouldn't It Be Nice'. He's in my prayers."

Barney lived in London, England in the late 1960s and early '70s and continued to be a very popular attraction at Ronnie Scott's legendary club in Soho, throughout the decades. All the top English rockers went there to see him play. His wife B.J. Baker and sons, Dan and David, separately and together, often accompanied Barney on his overseas tours.

Son Dan Kessel remembers, "It was really exciting, playing drums in my Dad's jazz group in Europe when I was 18, without any prior band rehearsals. I actually panicked, thinking, 'Oh no, what have I gotten myself into?' But I knew he wouldn't let me perform on stage with him out of misplaced loyalty if I couldn't really cut it. So, I managed to calm down, keep it together and not fall apart. Then it was great!

"Several years before that in late 1966 and part of 1967 when my brother David and I were kids, we were in Switzerland, England and Lichtenstein for a while. We were completely into Phil Spector and Brian Wilson. We'd been at the 'River Deep - Mountain High' and 'Good Vibrations/Pet Sounds' sessions at Gold Star, which our father played on. We loved the Byrds, whom we'd seen perform 'Eight Miles High' on Sunset Strip with our step-brothers Mickey and Tim, and other L.A. bands like Love and the Doors. And we were digging the whole late mod/early psychedelic English thing. I was listening to Radio Luxembourg and Radio Caroline on my AM/FM/short wave and reading Melody Maker, Fab 208, NME, Record Mirror, etc. And, we got to see some of the early Pink Floyd gigs in London. Intoxicating stuff, all!

"Anyway, we were in London when the Jimi Hendrix Experience was first formed. We were up on all the buzz and we pestered our dad for us to go see Hendrix's band at the Bag O' Nails club in Soho. He was busy with his own scene but he did arrange for David and me to get into the club. Of course, Jimi, Noel Redding and Mitch Mitchell were phenomenal. We had our minds blown, plus, we were in awe that Brian Jones, McCartney and the rest of England's rock elite were all there in the audience. We saw several of his London shows and got to meet him and hang out a few times. We totally flipped over Hendrix. And, we were stoked when he told us he was in awe of our father. After that, we did nothing but rave about Jimi all the time, till it got to be too much and people finally had to tell us to shut up.

"Being a virtuoso jazz artist, our father wasn't musically impressed with rock guitarists unless they had a real grasp of blues or country roots. Because, although a jazz purist, his foundation was in blues and country and western swing. So, with much lobbying from my brother and me, he'd come to appreciate some of the Eric Clapton, Peter Green and Mick Taylor stuff with John Mayall, and some of Jeff Beck's stuff. With Jimi, though, he resisted the whole circus atmosphere, the pyrotechnics and psychedelic posturing. But, after we kept playing him our Hendrix records, he eventually appreciated that behind the excessive image, Jimi was actually an innovative blues guitarist, who had taken it into the next dimension. And, he liked Mitch Mitchel's playing too, saying Mitch was the jazziest rock drummer he'd heard. He also commented that he thought Jimi's vocals were unique. We agreed and added that we liked Noel's hair."

Barney was part of the original Phil Spector Wrecking Crew, the Gold Star Studios team of crack session players. Arranger Jack Nitzsche introduced and delivered all of the musicians to Phil, with the exception of Barney Kessel, who Phil already knew. Kessel is on records by the Paris Sisters, Crystals, Ronettes, Bob B. Soxx and the Blue Jeans, Darlene Love, Righteous Brothers and Ike & Tina Turner. Kessel and several of the Wrecking Crew musicians are in the stage band for Spector's seminal pop music filmed event 'The Big TNT Show'.

Kessel was pivotal in introducing the 12-string guitar to rock and pop recording by employing the instrument on the Crystals' recording of 'Then He Kissed Me', a Spector production that John Lennon has said made him want to have the instrument on Beatles records. Also, Jack Nitzsche, on the Crystals sessions as arranger, had used a 12-string while writing 'Needles And Pins' with Sonny Bono. And speaking of 12-strings, legend has it Kessel was on or around the recording session, with guitarist Jerry Cole, that yielded the Byrds' 'Mister Tambourine Man'. Several viable sources attest that Barney did do an overdub on that record date.

It was Barney Kessel, who in late 1956 at DuPars restaurant on Vine St. next to Capitol Records in Hollywood, suggested to teenage jazz guitarist, Phil Spector, to consider a career in pop and rock 'n' roll record production and song writing, not a career in jazz. Barney told Phil that although he definitely had musical talent and showed promise as a jazz guitarist, being a rock/pop producer and writer would be a safer career choice. Spector's mother and sister had pushed Kessel for a meeting after Kessel read 15 year old Phil's letter, published in Downbeat jazz magazine, expressing anger that Barney Kessel wasn't mentioned in an article in a previous edition. Young Phillip's bedroom wall had posters of Abraham Lincoln, Albert Einstein and Barney Kessel.

Kessel also played on very early Phil Spector demo tapes and acetates. Barney and his sons Dan and David are all on the Dion 'Born To Be With You' album Spector produced in the mid-'70s. It's considered a favorite LP of the Who's Pete Townshend.

Sometime in 1977, Spector, myself, and Kessel's sons, Dan and David, all went to see Barney play jazz at the Hong Kong Café in Century City. Phil was on his best behavior at the club that night. No hassles with management and a one drink limit. A few times during the evening, the attentive Spector, in almost mantra-like fashion offered, "No Barney, No Phil".

Between recording his own albums, guesting on albums of other top jazz performers and touring the world, as a premier jazz artist, Kessel was first call on guitar for pop and rock record dates. Quite aside from Phil Spector, Elvis Presley and Brian Wilson, all the top artists and producers knew they could always count on Kessel to come up with a catchy instrumental hook that could make their record a hit. One such example (among many others) is Jimmy Gilmer's #1 hit (five weeks) 'Sugar Shack' on Dot Records, which was second only to the Beatles' 'She Loves You' in sales for 1963. Kessel's simple but effective Danelectro bass line, with its crunchy high end, is the loudest instrument in the rhythm track and is as much of a hook as any other element in the record.

Barney performed on Sonny and Cher's hits including 'I Got You Babe' and 'The Beat Goes On'. The duo's nickname for him was 'The Professor'. It should be noted that Barney happily had his mind blown by his 'beatnik, rock 'n' roll' friends when years later, Cher earned an Oscar and Sonny was in the U.S. Congress.

Barney and second wife, singer B.J. Baker, formed Emerald Records in 1964 and released Kessel's 'On Fire' album in 1965, which was distributed by Phil Spector. In '67 they formed Windsor Music Co. and published Kessel's book 'The Guitar'. 1967 also saw them opening Barney Kessel's Music World on Vine St. in Hollywood. B.J. furnished and decorated the place with a tasteful, inviting ambience. Their customers included John Lennon, George Harrison, Buffalo Springfield, Chris Darrow, Frank Zappa and the Beach Boys. The Association used a Kay bass, plucked from the store's wall, and employed it on their #1 hit, 'Windy', cut just a few doors down the street at the famed Capitol Records studios. Bobby Darin and Sandra Dee would go in there a lot. One time they picked up an exquisite, rare, antique pump organ for their home. Kessel and B.J. both performed with Darin and Dee, often. Also, Barney gave Bernardo Ricco (B.C. Rich Guitars) an early break, in 1969, by letting him ply his trade there, in one of the two upper lofts, next to Hollywood's #1 guitar repair guru, Milt Owen.

Kessel is guitarist, along with keyboardist Jack Nitzsche and other Wrecking Crew members on Marty Balin's 1962 solo debut recording, 'I Specialize In Love' for the Challenge label. Balin and crew cut it at Gold Star Studios in East Hollywood before Jefferson Airplane was formed.

Kessel was later an invited guest to jam "in the key of D" with Gold Star vets, Buffalo Springfield at a San Francisco music store opening in the summer of 1967. He also played some gigs with Spencer Davis at the Troubadour in L.A. for a live album.

Claremont, California-based multi-instrumentalist/songwriter/producer and respected session musician Chris Darrow (formerly in the Kaleidoscope and the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and who played and recorded with Linda Ronstadt, Leonard Cohen, and James Taylor, among others in the last 35 years) used to have his guitars fine-tuned at Barney Kessel's Music World. Darrow offered this telling observation on Kessel's studio session work and accompanist role: "Whether it was 'Young Blood' by The Coasters, 'Cry Me A River' with Julie London or any number of songs produced by Phil Spector with the Wrecking Crew, Barney Kessel was and always will be considered the consummate L.A. guitar man. His ability to understand genres and fit perfectly in the equation is what being a great recording sideman is all about. His taste and technique are legendary. From Frank Sinatra to Elvis Presley, Barney was where the action was.

"The long term effect of his contribution to music will always be felt. Barney always seemed to be at the cutting edge of whatever music was happening around him. From Benny Goodman and Charlie Parker to Sonny & Cher and the Beach Boys. I remember once standing behind him and Hal Blaine in Hollywood at the Musicians' Union, Local 47, while they were there to pick up some checks. It took over a half hour to pick up my money, and I was next in line! But Barney was one of a kind and his memory will live long enough through the great musical legacy he left behind."

Barney wrote and published many music tutorials; made instructional videos; gave music seminars around the world; wrote a monthly column for years in Guitar Player Magazine, and wrote books including 'The Guitar'. Jim Crockett, the original publisher/editor of Guitar Player Magazine named his son, Kessel Crockett.

Pete Townshend wrote and recorded 'To Barney Kessel' on his album 'Scoop' in 1983.

Kay Guitars, who put out Jimmy Reed and Howlin' Wolf models in the 1950s, released three different Barney Kessel models from '57 through '60, starting with the BK Pro and BK Artist up to the BK Jazz Special. Teenaged Eric Clapton is said to have played one of these and they are collector's items today.

Gibson Guitars introduced the Barney Kessel guitar (Regular and Custom models) in 1961 and continued in production through 1974. It was the guitar of choice for many top recording artists including Trini Lopez (who later got his own Gibson model) who used it for his live act and recordings including 'If I Had A Hammer' (#3) and 'Lemon Tree' (#20). Also, Gene Cornish, guitarist for the Young Rascals/Rascals played a Barney Kessel guitar on all their #1 and top ten hits. Moving into a more recent time frame, Pat Smear, co-founder (with Darby Crash) of notorious L.A. punk band the Germs, who later toured and recorded with Nirvana and then the Foo Fighters, performs with his Barney Kessel Custom, which he says is, along with his original Hagstrom from the Germs, one of his two favorite guitars in his extensive collection. And Mr. Tom Petty is seen strumming a Barney Kessel guitar in the ad for his last tour.

Kessel's overwhelming, spellbinding performances in '91 at New York's premier jazz refuge, The Village Vanguard, sold out instantly and were well attended by industry types including Ahmet Ertegun and Robert Plant. The New York Post review called him "the finest", while the New York Times review called him "the master".

Dan Kessel offers, "Besides the jazz crowd, a surprising number of rock artists appreciate my father. When I was at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Awards ceremony in New York in '92, with Phil Spector and Andrew Loog Oldham, my brother, David and I were sitting next to Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page. Before the Yardbirds went up on stage to be inducted, Beck and Page told us, most earnestly, how very much they both admire our father's playing. Afterward, on our way backstage, where we were headed to spend some serious, quality time with Keith Richards, Carlos Santana graciously shook our hands and said wonderful, complimentary things about our father's artistry. Noel Redding, who had just been inducted, as bassist in the Jimi Hendrix Experience, likewise came over to say hi and praised our father's "genius". And, when we arrived backstage, Keith, beaming, grabbed our hands, exclaiming gleefully, 'Let me rub those paws! Maybe some of that Kessel magic will rub off on me!'"

In 'The Blues' PBS-TV series that aired in early October of 2003, during the Mike Figgis-directed show, Jeff Beck paid homage to Kessel by offering a solo guitar instrumental of 'Cry Me A River' made famous by the hit record with Barney and vocalist Julie London. Later, when Figgis ended the programme that spotlighted the Blues impact on British musicians, he had Lulu fronting a band jam session (again with Beck in the "Kessel" slot) closing the action with a cover of 'Cry Me A River'.

Barney's favorite personal guitars that he played extensively, on his own records and world tours, are a 1946/47 Gibson ES 350 modified with a 1939 ES 150 Charlie Christian pickup. Another modification was the replacement of the factory rosewood fingerboard with an ebony board, with dot markers. And he replaced the original Kluson tuning pegs with open-backed Grovers. Kessel's other professional mainstay was an original custom made Ibanez prototype for a proposed Barney Kessel signature model, from the early '70s. His personal guitar collection includes a Roger guitar, made in Germany in the '50s; an Epiphone Broadway from the '30s; along with many others that he played on tons of hit records.

Aside from his Gibson ES 350 and Ibanez BK Model prototype, Kessel especially cherished a classic 1925 Steinway grand piano that he played incessantly at home and also used for composing and writing arrangements for records, films and TV. Barney studied composition, orchestration and film scoring with composers, Bernard Hermann ('Citizen Kane', 'Vertigo'), Earle Hagen ('Harlem Nocturne', 'I Spy') and Disney Music Dept. head/USC film scoring professor, Buddy Baker.

Buddy, coincidentally, had previously been married to Barney's second wife B.J. Dan Kessel explains, "On Hollywood studio turf, she is to background vocalists what Carol Kaye is to bass players and Hal Blaine is to drummers. She was the Queen. In fact it was Blaine who dubbed her 'Diamond Lil'. A child prodigy who played classical piano, sang opera and studied Latin, she became a jazz and pop singer, fronting bands and singing on her own radio show at age 14. She became Miss Alabama (as Betty Jane Rase), turned down contracts from David O. Selznick, Paramount and 20th Century Fox and married then-reigning #1 box office king, Mickey Rooney, when she was 17. She was Rooney's second wife after actress Ava Gardner, and subsequently married Buddy Baker. She received many honors during her lifetime. She and BK met while she was recording with Elvis for 'Flaming Star' and he was down the hall, producing a jazz session for a film soundtrack."

Barney Kessel received many honors during his lifetime, including:

U.S. State Dept. appointment as Official U.S. Cultural Ambassador.

Performances at the White House for U. S. Presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan.

Induction into the Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame along with the late Chet Baker in 1991.

An Honorary Doctorate from the University of Oklahoma in 1996. (Years earlier he had received an "F" in music in that same state).

Induction into the Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame, on stage together with Vince Gill, in 1998.

Induction into the Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame, along with Sonny Rollins, Les Brown and Nancy Wilson, in 1999.

In October of 2003, to commemorate Kessel's 80th birthday, Contemporary Records released the compilation 'Barney Kessel Plays For Lovers' (CCD-6022-2), which vocalist/bassist Jim Ferguson says, "…reveals the subtle, melodic side of Kessel's improvisational genius."

One afternoon, sometime in 1968, while dialling away from the free-form, underground format of radio station KPPC-FM in nearby Pasadena, I stumbled onto the L.A. jazz channel, KBCA-FM, where DJ, Les Carter had a shift. It seemed like every time he'd announce a selection, then give the record label and even provide the catalogue number of the record he spun, he'd conclude with "and that was Barney Kessel on guitar." Who is this guy I wondered? It seems I spent 35 years finding out who he was.

Barney Kessel is survived by his wife since 1992, the writer/editor Phyllis Van Doren-Kessel; sons, producers/musicians Dan Kessel and David Kessel; and step-sons, actors/musicians Mickey Rooney, Jr. and Timothy Rooney.

Barney Kessel's previous wives include artist/sculptor Gail Sexton-Farmer (mother of Kessel's sons Dan and David, 1949 - '58) and B.J. (Betty Jane) Baker ('61 - '80). He was then married to an Oklahoma school teacher named Joanne for a ten year period.

(A very special thanks to Dan Kessel for his invaluable assistance in the preparation of this article.)

1923-2004
Memories of Barney Kessel
The World's Greatest Jazz Guitarist

My Memories of Barney Kessel
Jerry Pippin, 6/12/04

Approximately, in the year of 1982, Barney Kessel visited his hometown of Muskogee, Oklahoma. In 1981, I saw Barney Kessel, Charlie Byrd, and Herb Ellis...three unbelievably talented jazz guitarists...together in concert, in Oklahoma City. It was a magical evening for many reasons. Not only were these three talents almost God-like to a Jazz fan, but Kessel walked the streets and went to the same dives that I had while growing up in Muskogee.

Shortly after that concert, Kessel left the West coast and moved to Edmond, Oklahoma. He had some sort of arrangement with what was then Central State University, which was part of the Oklahoma University System. He evidently taught at the college, and appeared every Sunday morning on the Central State University radio station and played Jazz.

Barney Kessel was born October 17, 1923 and died May 7, 2004. He was 80 years old.

Join me in listening to a rare recording of Kessel, made during one of his visits to Muskogee in 1982. It was recorded in a local restaurant. In the recording, Kessel explains and demonstrates to friends and fellow musicians, not only the techniques, but the concepts of his music.

Cut 1 - Brazil (ASCAP), Cut 2 - Laura (ASCAP), Cut 3 - Misty (ASCAP), Cut 4 - Old Devil Moon (ASCAP), Cut 5 - Yesterday (BMI).

Interviews about Barney Kessel and his Music

In a near six-decade career, Barney Kessel was rated the #1 guitarist in Esquire, Downbeat, and Playboy magazine polls between 1947 and 1960. Jerry talks in studio with Bill Carter about Barney Kessel. This was recorded off the air in the Spring of 2001 at KBIX.

Bill Carter (left) was a frequent guest on my KBIX Radio Show. Carter graduated from Central High School a year after me, and immediately went on the road playing drums for several groups. He is still active in the music scene.

Barney Kessel, a pioneer of the electric guitar and a master of harmonic improvisations, also recorded over fifty albums, including a number of innovative albums with drummer Shelly Manne and bassist Ray Brown that were remarkable for the lack of a pianist. He also performed with the Oscar Peterson Trio and ensembles with Charlie Parker, Charlie Barnet, Art Tatum and Artie Shaw, and with performers Elvis Presley, Liberace and the Beach Boys. Leaving the jazz world for studio work, between 1967 and 1970 he operated Barney Kessel's Music World in Hollywood, but in 1972 he returned to fulltime stage work. A stroke in 1992 curtailed his career.

Songs: Tennessee Ernie Ford and Kay Starr - I'll Never Be Free ( Capital records- BMI)
and Gramarcy Five featuring Barney Kessel on guitar - Scuttlebut -( RCA - ASCAP)

Jerry and Bill Carter talk about the rare recording presented in its entirety on this web site (above). If you are a jazz fan or a musician, you need to take time and give this collector's item tape a listen. This particular segment was an air check ( recorded off the air and the music is edited out automatically at the radio station, so unfortunately, some great Kessel music is missing. However, we have links for you to order Kessel, CDs, DVDs, etc. You will find them at the bottom of this page dedicated to Barney Kessel. Our Thanks to BIll Carter for special material and coming by KBIX to tell us about this SUPER PICKER from Muskogee.

Barney Kessel Links

	An interesting biography of Kessel from Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame
	A tribute to Barney Kessel -- Reviewed by Cindy Benedetto
	Dave Gould's Barney Kessel pages
	Sound Clips from CD Now
	Great information about the man and his music
	Photo Album of Barney Kessel
	The Jazz Professional Site

Jungle Johnnys Jazz

2008-08-12T23:20:00.000-07:00

TEXAS guiter picker YOOPie

2008-07-20T17:22:00.000-07:00

2008-07-18T22:14:00.000-07:00

2008-07-01T15:43:00.000-07:00

2001-10-03T17:17:00.000-07:00

Creative Manufacturer: Fat Dog's World Famous Subway Guitars

1800 Cedar, Berk.

(510) 841-4106

For 38 years, a man named Fat Dog has been serving as Berkeley's own musical Dr. Frankenstein.

As the owner of Fat Dog's World Famous Subway Guitars, Fat Dog, along with his crew of Igor-like technicians, has been saving dismembered guitar parts from shuttered factories, cobbling them into weird custom instruments, and passing the savings along to you.

The results are "proletarian guitars," as Fat Dog likes to say, favored by first-time players and well-known musicians alike. Over the years the shop has catered to untold numbers of artists, from Les Claypool to Green Day to that fifth grader on the way to her first guitar lesson.

Aside from looking pretty sweet, the critical benefit of playing one of Fat Dog's custom creations is that even if you're a broke, struggling, or maybe even terrible musician, you can still get a totally unique instrument at a budget price.

Offering these customized wacky wonders at an average price of about $400, Fat Dog says, "We sort of were more aimed at the working musicians and people that didn't have that privileged budget to buy those more expensive instruments."

The original intent of Subway Guitars was to operate as a repair shop. In keeping with that tradition, the repair end of the business still operates as a technician's co-op, in which the people doing the work actually get to keep 100 percent of the cost of labor.

The business's keen interest in reusability, fair pricing, and fair labor practices resonates in another of the shop's unexpected retail endeavors: promoting alternative transportation.

Those not in need of gussied-up vintage guitars might nevertheless be interested in a gussied-up vintage bicycle. The shop has recently reinstated its $50 bike sale, garnering inventory from an old barn where Fat Dog has been storing road bikes and cruisers for years.

However long the business stays in its original location in North Berkeley, and however many bicycles are put back on the road, Fat Dog says his focus will always be on guitars.

"We'll keep going on with the same mission," he says, "which is providing people with good, really high-quality guitars without subscribing to collectors' absurd prices." (Ivy McNally)

Tuesday April 25, 2006

REAL GUITARS, where I BOUGHT MY "JAZZ" GUITAR!

2001-10-03T16:43:00.000-07:00

Chronicle's ON THE TOWN:
With Joe Satriani - Joe's Favorite Places
- Aidin Vaziri,sAN fRANCISCO Chronicle Staff Writer Sunday, May 7, 2006

Greatest living guitar player in the world? Joe Satriani's fans could certainly provide a solid case for the title. A master of his instrument since age 14, he has instructed the likes of Metallica's Kirk Hammett and Counting Crows' David Bryson, and toured with Mick Jagger and Deep Purple. He's sold more than 10 million solo albums and garnered 13 Grammy nominations. And that was before the front pages of several Indian newspapers last year declared him the "God of Guitars." But it's not all about the fret boards for the Bay Area native. He put down his instrument just long enough to send us a list of some of his favorite local places to unwind. Satriani plays the Fillmore on Saturday.

Real Guitars/Gary Brawer Guitar Bass Repair, 15 Lafayette St. "My favorite hangout for vintage guitars, amps and pedals in the city. A place for great bargains on overlooked gems of yesterday. Every time I walk in there I find a cool guitar, amp or effects box that I must investigate. The owners Ben Levin and Chris Cobb and staff are always informative and patient and let you have a good time with the gear. Gary's shop is right in the back. He sets up all my guitars, does 'emergency surgery' if necessary, and he and his crew always have good advice and the right part you're looking for. And if that doesn't do it for you, Dan Ransom will build you a guitar from scratch, right there in the shop."