Acoustic Guitar 257.pdf

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MAY 2014 | 25TH ANNIVERSARY YEAR | ACOUSTICGUITAR.COM

BRYAN SUTTON |

COURTNEY HARTMAN

| JOHN FAHEY |

NATALIA ZUKERMAN

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AcousticGuitar.com 5

FEATURES

Home Style

Porchfest goes from local New York oddity to national craze to your town

BY KENNY BERKOWITZ

Her Year of Living Famously

Kacey Musgraves—a two-time Grammy winner—reflects on her whirlwind ascent

BY DAVID KNOWLES

A John Fahey Primer

The triumph & tragedy of Blind Joe Death

BY DERK RICHARDSON

SPECIAL FOCUS: 30 UNDER 30

Talking ’Bout Their Generation

A roundup of 30 of the world’s best acoustic artists under the age of 30

BY MARK KEMP, DAVID KNOWLES & AMBER VON NAGEL

DEPARTMENTS

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NEWS

The Beat

On his forthcoming album, bluegrass-guitar phenom Bryan Sutton takes the mic; remembering legendary flamenco guitarist Paco de Lucía & more

News Spotlight

Della Mae’s flatpicking guitarist Courtney Hartman is no shrinking violet PLAY

Songcraft

Natalia Zukerman grew up in a family of classical musicians. Then she saw Suzanne Vega and her life was saved by folk ’n’ roll

Acoustic Classic

Eric Clapton’s “Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out”; Led Zeppelin’s famous intro riff to their classic “Babe, I’m Gonna Leave You” (p 24); the Celtic traditional tune “Bottom of the Punchbowl” (p 26)

Take It Easy

Be bold: bring your guitar!

Here’s How

3 simple steps to building a strong rhythm hand

The Basics

Enhance your Carter-style strum patterns to add authenticity to your sound

Weekly Workout

Use extended and modified chording to add color to your acoustic-rock sound AG TRADE

Shoptalk

Fender’s hippest brand rolls out the latest models in its Roots Collection; capo man Milton Kyser dead at 80 & more

Guitar Guru

Dana Bourgeois on how to determine the value of a high-end guitar

Kitbag

Using a different set of strings can be an enlightening exercise for guitarists of all styles

Review: Hot Rod Old Skool 12

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Review: Epiphone Hummingbird Pro

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Review: Ernie Ball Aluminum Bronze strings

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I

t’s a place steeped in tradition, but always renewing itself. The acoustic-guitar world is grounded in the past, in the pioneering country- and folk-guitar techniques of the Carter Family and the American primitive solo finger-picking style of the late John Fahey, for instance. But the trails blazed by those important historical figures are providing a path for a fresh crop of acoustic artists.

This month, AG highlights not only a lesson in Carter-style strumming and a tribute to Fahey, as well as a nod to a Led Zeppelin classic and other time-honored material, but also a feature on 30 artists under the age of 30 who are helping to spread the gospel of acoustic-guitar music. These young singer-songwriters and solo guitarists are

building on tradition and helping to carry this music to a new generation, one that has embraced acoustic music in a big way in a culture saturated by digital media. Some, like Texas singer-song-writer Sarah Jarosz, a Grammy-nominated veteran at the ripe old age of 22, may be familiar. Others, 23-year-old New Yorker Anthony da Costa, for instance, may be new to you.

I hope you’ll take the time to listen to their music on iTunes or YouTube (our tablet edition includes performance videos of the guitarists). For each artist included in the “Talkin’ ’Bout Their Generation” article, there are 1,000 others worthy of your attention.

Share your own discoveries on our Facebook page. —GREG CAHILL, INTERIM EDITOR Corrections & Clarifications File Under: What Were We Thinking? The “Roadside Americana II” article in the April issue, describing the Earl Scruggs Center, failed to note that Scruggs was a guitar player as well a banjo player. Indeed, he played guitar on almost all of the gospel tunes recorded by Flatt & Scruggs, and played Maybelle Carter’s iconic 1928 Gibson L5 on an entire Flatt & Scruggs album of Carter Family songs. He also played several guitar breaks on the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s landmark 1971 album Will the Circle Be Unbroken. Scruggs reportedly was one of Clarence White’s guitar heroes.

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NEWS

“M

ost of the records that I’ve done up until now have been just guitar records, and my goal was to try and make something that included material that represented where I am,” blue-grass flatpicker Bryan Sutton says.

That meant standing behind a vocal mic on his soon-to-be-released album Into My Own (Sugar Hill), and confidently delivering songs not just on the guitar. For the Grammy Award-winning picker who has been named the IBMA’s guitar player of the year six times, the decision to start singing didn’t happen overnight. “I started to get a little more serious about singing about six or eight years ago and have sort of reluc-tantly done it more and more,” Sutton says from his home in Nashville. “I really enjoy it and I felt like it is one of those things where, as a career guitar player who is always behind and around some of the greatest singers in the world, it’s easy to get intimidated. It sort of nagged at me a long time that if I’m going to do it, I need to do it. I don’t want to regret this and think in 20 years that I wish I had.”

While the bulk of the new record won’t rub tradi-tional bluegrass fans the wrong way, a collaboration with experimental-jazz guitarist Bill Frisell, titled “Frisell’s Rag,” may come as a surprise. “I first heard Bill shortly after I moved to Nashville,” Sutton explains. “Back in the mid-’90s, he did a record here with Jerry Douglas and Ron Block and that intro-duced me to his world, and I was just inspired by his touch, his sound.

“He’s not just a guitar player, he’s a deep musician who just happens to be holding a guitar.”

At a time when serious bluegrass scenes continue to grow in such places as Boston and Brooklyn, Sutton sees more opportunity for collaboration and cross-pollination. He hopes his audience will see him as more than just a guitarist. “My heroes—Béla Fleck, Bill, Tim O’Brien—those guys are just great musi-cians,” he concludes. “My goal is to always try to pattern myself after those guys. Essentially just trying to be the best musician I can be, whether I’m holding a guitar, a banjo, or singing.”

Paco de Lucía

14 Nickel Creek

14

SUTTON PHOTO BY MCGUIRE

THE BEAT

Finding

His Voice

On his forthcoming album,

bluegrass guitar phenom

Bryan Sutton takes the mic

Courtney Hartman

15

Bryan Sutton Into My Own Sugar Hill 013-014_257_Beat.indd 13 3/6/14 8:44 AM

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14 May 2014

P

a c o d e L u c í a , o n e o f t h e greatest flamenco guitarists ever to have walked the earth, has passed away at the age of 66.

A n i n n o v a t o r w h o h e l p e d bring flamenco-style playing to a global audience, de Lucía died on February 25 after suffering a heart attack while playing at the beach in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, with his children.

A native of Spain, de Lucía started his career as a protégé of the legendary master Sabicas, and expanded the genre’s appeal in the 1970s by mixing it with jazz on popular collaborative albums with guitarists John McLaughlin and Al Di Meola. The trio’s live album, Friday Night in San

Fran-cisco, was regarded as an acoustic

milestone, and went on to sell more than a million copies.

“To have worked and played music with Paco is one the greatest

blessings in my life,” McLaughlin told the Associated Press. “In the place where he lived in my heart, there is now an emptiness that will stay with me till I join him.”

De Lucía’s dexterity and skill o n t h e g u i t a r w e r e s e c o n d t o none, and his influence extended well beyond nylon string players. With a repertoire that included classical, Gypsy, flamenco, and jazz styles, de Lucía performed

with passion, and many who saw him perform live likened his con-certs to a spiritual experience.

Hundreds of people gathered at de Lucia’s hometown of Alger-cias, Spain, to attend his funeral, stunned that the man regarded as the king of the flamenco guitar was gone. As his casket arrived from Madrid, mourners tossed red flowers upon it and chanted de Lucía’s name. —DK

NICKEL CREEK REUNITES FOR TOUR

After disbanding seven years ago, the members of the Grammy Award-winning bluegrass trio Nickel Creek have announced they will reunite this spring for a tour. Chris Thile

(mandolin) and siblings Sara Watkins (fi ddle) and Sean Watkins

(guitar) will resume their infectious vocal harmonizing on April 18 at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium, and conclude their tour at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival on June 22. For more info, visit nickelcreek.com.

ANDY MCKEE TO RELEASE NEW EP

On his forthcoming EP, Mythmaker, guitar hero Andy McKee is letting his fi ngers wander over to the piano. In addition to hearing his percussive fi ngerstyle acoustic playing, fans will also be treated to McKee tickling the ivories on two of the album’s four tracks. The EP also shares its name with McKee’s fl edgling record label.

THE BEAT| NEWS

Muriel Anderson

Paco de Lucía Dead at 66

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H

er band, Della Mae, didn’t win the 2014 Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album this year, though it was nominated in that category. But gui-tarist Courtney Hartman isn’t complaining. After all, Hartman spent the better part of two months last year touring with members of the Del McCoury Band, the group that took home the trophy. “I love playing with those guys,” Hartman says when I meet her for coffee in Anaheim, California.

Wearing a denim button-down over a casual green dress, Hartman exudes a laid-back self-confidence that has only grown as the 24-year-old Berklee College of Music student has continued to rack up flatpicking contest victories and earned no shortage of plaudits for her work with Della Mae, which boasts an all-female lineup.

R a i s e d i n L o v e l a n d , C o l o r a d o , b y “hippie” parents, Hartman grew up sur-rounded by music and quickly gravitated to bluegrass. Bolstered by Hartman’s inventive lead lines—most notably on the group’s 2013 Grammy-nominated album, This

World Oft Can Be—Della Mae has helped

push the genre’s boundaries while attract-ing a new generation of female fans. How did you hook up with Della Mae? Kimber Ludiker started the band. She and Abigail Washburn were at this camp together

and they thought, “We should start this band and wear power suits and play hard-driving bluegrass.” I think there was one show that stuck with that idea, but after that they kind of realized that it could really be super fun. About three years ago I decided to join full time. I guess the idea was, in a fun way, to bring together women who were ridiculous pickers and had bluegrass as their back-ground and showcase that.

Tell me about your audience. Do you see a lot of young girls at your concerts? There’s an older audience for bluegrass, especially in the Midwest, but there’s also a huge surge of young people. I think our favorite thing in the band is when we see a line of little kids waiting to see us play, especially little girls—that was us! This year, at IBMA, we were part of Youth on

Bluegrass and we went into a room and played with a bunch of kids. I was blown away. There were a bunch of girls, 12 or 13 years old, and they were killing it! It was amazing to see that.

For young girls coming up today, what’s the biggest piece of advice you give them to become guitar players?

Especially in the festival and jam scene, I just tell them don’t be afraid. So often being timid makes you stand back from the jam, and at 13 that can be a big thing, and I struggled with it.

How old were you when you started playing guitar?

I started on fiddle when I was three, then I did some mandolin, and I moved to the guitar when I was 12. My mom was taking guitar lessons when I was a kid, and I’d go with her and just watch, then go home and play guitar on my own. I was relatively self-taught until I was 17 or 18, and loved playing melodies. I remember going to a festival and watching a guy’s right hand as he played and thinking, “Oh, my gosh, I’ve got to figure out how to do that.”

What kind of guitar did you learn on? I had a little nylon string. It was little! Then I moved over to a steel string.

Girl Power

Della Mae’s flatpicking guitarist Courtney Hartman is no shrinking violet

NEWS SPOTLIGHT

PHOTO BY TAMMY LAMOUREUX

‘I think our favorite thing

in the band is when we see

a line of little kids waiting

to see us play, especially

little girls—that was us!’

—COURTNEY HARTMAN

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16 May 2014

A lot of parents wonder what kind of guitar is best to start a child on. Any thoughts? I’ve had a good number of younger students and that’s always a question that comes up. I don’t know if I have a set response. It depends on the student. It can go either way.

How did you get into bluegrass?

I started playing classical violin, then transi-tioned to fiddle and started going to contests. From there, I went on to other instruments and started doing bluegrass festivals. I played for about six years with my siblings in a bluegrass band. But when I was six my first album was a Rounder Records collection, it’s the one with

Alison Krauss on the cover, she was like eight years old. So I was listening to, like, the Johnson Mountain Boys and the Bluegrass Cardinals and Del McCoury and Doc Watston. Those sounds were around the house a lot because my parents loved them.

You’re known for your flatpicking, but do you ever veer over into fingerstyle?

Fingerpicking is a challenge. Working out indi-vidual fingerings and tone. Flatpicking is what my natural voice is on guitar.

Do you use non-standard tunings?

M o s t l y s t a n d a r d , s o m e d r o p D . I d o l i k e

experimenting with double drop D for old-time tunes because it kind of mimics the way that fiddles and banjos tune down, so you can create this kind of drone. So, that’s been kind of fun. You play Bourgeois guitars. How did that come about?

I have a Vintage D model. It’s one that came off the racks that’s kind of a custom guitar. Dana [Bourgeois] brought it to me and was like, “check this out,” and I loved it. There were some things I didn’t totally love, and he took it back and two weeks later he gave it back and it was brilliant— all of a sudden the high end was popping out like I wanted. He’s a brilliant builder.

How’d you meet him?

When I was 15 or 16, I’d sneak into his booth at IBMA and play his guitars. Then he started fol-lowing Della Mae and we became friends. As fate would have it, I had an airline accident with my Taylor. It got cracked pretty bad in the body and was out of commission for a while. Was it in a hard case?

Yes, well, Jet Blue [laughs]. Ultimately, though, that guitar breaking led me to have this Martin 1946 D-28. And I was going to go to Germany, and Dana came to a show and he said, “Hey, you know you can’t take that to Germany because of the Brazilian wood.” So, suddenly I was looking for another guitar and he said, “Let me see what I can do.”

How old were you when you realized you could make a living playing guitar? I was teaching privately all through high school and playing. When I was considering colleges, I think Berklee was the only place I finished my application to. Besides music, I didn’t really know what else to do. For a time, I considered becoming an herbologist. AG

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Natalia Zukerman

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N

atalia Zukerman remembers a pivotal moment in 1992 when, as a teenager, she went to a Woody Guthrie tribute concert in New York’s Central Park. The child of classical violinist Pinchas Zukerman and flutist Eugenia Zukerman was already deeply immersed in music and played classical guitar. Her older sister, Arianna, was a budding opera singer. But Natalia glimpsed something new at the Guthrie tribute when Suzanne Vega took the stage and performed “Tom’s Diner” and “Luka.”

“I don’t think I’d ever seen one woman with one guitar before that day, and it was kind of scary,” Zukerman says. “It was, ‘Uh-oh, I think this is who I am.’”

Through college and into her 20s, Zukerman combined her guitar chops with songcraft, and she’s grown into one of the most versatile performers on the singer-songwriter circuit. With a clear voice and a deft touch on steel-string guitar, she segues from intricate fingerstyle ballads to sweet bottleneck blues (and lap steel, too, on a

v i n t a g e R i c k e n b a c k e r ) , d r i v i n g A n i DiFranco–esque folk rock, and Latin-jazz grooves. All of that is present on her stellar live album Gypsies and Clowns (Weasel Records), on which Zukerman is accompa-nied by kindred songwriting spirits (and ace instrumentalists), including Susan Werner, Trina Hamlin, Erin McKeown, and Willy Porter. Zukerman has particularly deep ties to Porter—he produced several of her CDs and released them on his own Weasel label.

When Zukerman is not making music, she’s painting, and her visual sense sharpens the imagery of her songs. I caught up with her by phone from the Brooklyn painting studio she shares with another songwriter and painter, AG (Adrianne Gonzales), a fre-quent collaborator on both visual and musical art.

You have a lot of drive to explore sounds and techniques on the guitar. Does that come in part from growing up in a family of classical musicians?

Oh, definitely. It’s my first love, and it’s my privilege to have come from where I’ve come from. I grew up playing guitar and came to the songwriting part of it much later. I’ve actually kind of gone the other way and simplified my guitar over the years, because I think I relied on the playing a lot as the catchy thing, and now I’m challenging myself to look at lyrics and forms much more. What were you learning on guitar before you wrote songs?

Well, I learned some folk songs. I went to this school in Manhattan where we learned American history by learning Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie songs—it was pretty great. So, I got a guitar and learned some chords, but then I studied classical guitar in high school and a little bit in college. Were you learning traditional classical technique?

Left leg up and all that—yup. I actually just went to study flamenco for two weeks in southern Spain, at this school named

Which Side Are You On?

Natalia Zukerman grew up in a family of classical musicians.

Then she saw Suzanne Vega, and her life was saved by folk ’n’ roll

BY JEFFREY PEPPER RODGERS

SONGCRAFT

TK

PHOTO BY ASIA KEPKA

(20)

20 May 2014

Carmen de las Cuevas in Granada. I learned about it 15 years ago and thought, “Oh, I’ll go sometime when I’m an old lady.” Then I started applying for the Iguana grant, the small grant that comes out of Club Passim, and I got it this year, so I got to go. I thought with my classical background I’d be able to fudge my way through, but it was so different and incredibly difficult. I thought it was much more impro-vised, but it’s all written. There are so many different forms—they are called palos. I learned two of them. But it definitely reignited my love of being a student. I think I’ll always be studying guitar for my whole life, trying to improve. Were you looking to get something specific from flamenco?

I just love the music. I always have. I think it probably started with John McLaughlin, Al DiMeola, and Paco de Lucía. I got their Live in

San Francisco album sometime in college and

was obsessed with it. Studying classical guitar, a little bit [of flamenco] creeps in sometimes. My teacher would sometimes reward me for learning some other stuff that I wasn’t as excited about. The style is such a mish-mash of cultures and rhythms. I was hoping to get a very basic start, and that’s definitely what I got. Flamenco breaks a lot of rules of classical guitar technique and also is so different from steel-string playing. How do you go from one to the other?

My teacher was constantly fixing the rest [strokes] that you do in classical guitar. They are slightly different in flamenco, and you have your hand all the way down by the bridge, too, and never higher up, because it’s just a louder part of

the guitar. And [with classical technique] you don’t do any of those rasgeos, the flourishes of the right hand. But my fingerpicking mobility certainly helped, and also being able to read music. It’s surprising to me how few people [read music], because that’s our language—I don’t really know how you communicate other-wise. I feel really lucky to have that skill. It’s just a cool thing to have in your tool belt.

A lot of guitarists who play by ear are baffled by the idea of reading music, but a lot of classical musicians are baffled by the idea of playing by ear.

Oh, totally. Having grown up with classical geeks, it’s like they are terrified of sitting in a circle with people and trying to come up with music from nowhere. They have no idea how to do that. They look at me like I’m an alien. How did you get started with slide?

Actually, I took a semester at the Ali Akbar Khan school [of north Indian classical music] out in California. I raised the nut of the guitar and played lap style. I think what I was trying to do was imitate the voice and make the guitar sing more—maybe because I was used to hearing violin so much in my life. It was after that I discovered bottleneck style.

So you didn’t come to slide through blues? No. I came at it sort of backwards. I was a Bonnie Raitt fan, but I didn’t know where any of that came from. I didn’t know about Missis-sippi Fred [McDowell] and Sippie Wallace and all the folks that she listened to. Pretty early on, I actually got a 1972 recording of her at WXPN, and she’s playing live and talks a lot about

SONGCRAFT| PLAY

GUITARS

Zukerman’s main guitar is a Guild Willy Porter signature model, with a spruce top, maple back and sides, and cutaway. In the past, she played a Goodall that was wrecked in a very strange way: She checked it for a flight to the West Coast, and when she arrived she found the truss rod cover removed and the neck splin-tered. Apparently the TSA removed the truss rod, put it back in, and then tightened it too far. The guitar has been somewhat repaired but no longer stays in tune, and Zukerman has sadly put it “out to pasture. Along with the Guild, Zukerman tours with a 1937 Rickenbacker lap steel.

AMPLIFICATION

Fishman Ellipse Matrix Blend system, which combines an under-saddle pickup with an internal mic, plugged into an L.R. Baggs Para DI. She adds a touch of delay with a Dunlop Carbon Copy MXR pedal.

ACCESSORIES

D’Addario phosphor-bronze mediums and a regular Shubb capo; another Shubb, which she cut to cover four strings; and the Kyser Short Cut three-string capo. Zukerman plays with her fingers and tries to keep long natural nails, which is a challenge given her other vocation as a painter.

WHAT

NATALIA

ZUKERMAN

PLAYS

‘It’s surprising to me how few people [read music],

because that’s our language—I don’t really know

how you communicate otherwise.’

GUILD WILLY PORTER SIGNATURE MODEL

(21)

Mississippi blues. I wrote down everything that was in there and Googled it—or pre-Google, whatever it was. I went to record stores. How much of what you do now on guitar is in alternate tunings?

I’d say about 75 percent. I do a lot of double dropped D [D A D G B D], a lot of open D [D A D F A D], a lot of open G with the C in the bass [C G D G B D]. It’s sort of like painting: if you put a wash of color over the canvas first, it’s easier to pull out images from that. I find that with open tunings, too: they have a vocabulary. You also use partial capos, right?

Willy Porter got me into that—that’s a gateway drug, seriously. I started playing with a half capo, which I don’t use correctly. I know people use it to mimic an open tuning, but I just open tune and then stick it on and see what else happens.

I like to get my brain out of what I’m doing when I’m writing, so I can’t rely on my knowledge as much. I’ve got to find it. If I know what I’m doing, then I think too much and I get boring. The singer-songwriter life can be so solitary, but you do a lot of collaboration, as can be heard on your live album. Is being part of a community very important to you?

Ye a h . P r o b a b l y t h e m a i n i m p e t u s i s t h a t standing on the stage by yourself is, a) really hard, b) really lonely. It’s not even the stage part; it’s the lifestyle—driving around the country and checking into hotels and navi-gating and all the things you do. It’s a lot more fun when you have a buddy. Just by who I’ve met, I’ve amassed this tribe of folks who are doing what I’m doing and are also collaborative and incredible musicians.

So, yeah, the live record was definitely a celebration of all those relationships, and I do think music is a conversation. At least for me, it’s most enjoyable when shared with someone else. A lot of those songs were written over the time of getting to know these people out on the road, and I start to feel [the songs] are as much theirs as they are mine, because they add to them. Now I’m doing a lot of co-writing, too, with those folks, so it’s even gone further. What has your co-writing experience been like? You know, I think we get really precious as writers and artists that somehow our technique is a secret, or if we tell someone we’re not going to be able to do it again. So to turn it around is really revelatory. If you just do it a lot and with different people and in different incarnations, you find out that there are rules that you can follow and it’s not really magic. And when it is magic, to have somebody else witness it is

pretty cool. AG

Browse Natalia Zukerman’s albums and you’ll find “Howard Hughes,” “Johnny Rotten,” “Song for Ramblin’ Jack,” and other songs based on characters, real or invented. Her writing continues to steer in this storytelling direction.

One of her new songs, for instance, is about Jane Avril, the can-can dancer depicted in Toulouse-Lau-trec’s Moulin Rouge paintings. “I did some research about her,” Zukerman says. “Actually it came from a prompt from Willy [Porter]. We had a little songwriting group for a while, just the two of us, and the prompt was ‘feather boa.’ I had to write a song with ‘feather boa’ in it, and I thought of those paintings.”

Several of Zukerman’s other new songs are inspired by Burnin’ Vernon, a volunteer firefighter in the Wood-stock area who in the ’90s was caught starting a series of barn fires. “I’ve become obsessed with him, writing metaphorically about his life,” she says. “I have three Burnin’ Vernon songs. It’s a pretty chewy story.” Over time, Zukerman says she’s lost interest in the “super personal kind of confessional songs that we all write in our 20s. That navel-gazey, angsty thing doesn’t appeal to me as a lis-tener anymore, so I try to write outside my own experience. A lot of it is about combining my visual and musical life. My visual life is more about telling a story with objects, and I’m a mural painter, so I’m illustrating and telling stories that are not necessarily mine. “Also, my life’s just gotten a little bit boring, thank God,” she adds with a laugh. “It doesn’t have as much of the angsty drama.”

ON WRITING

CHARACTERS

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(22)

22 May 2014

M

TV ’s “Unplugged” series had been chugging along for several years by the time Eric Clapton appeared on the show in 1992, but his p e r f o r m a n c e w a s p e r h a p s t h e s h o w ’ s defining moment. When the Unplugged CD— recently remastered and expanded—was first released, it sold more than 10 million copies, topped the Billboard album chart, and won six Grammies. “Layla” and “Tears in Heaven” netted most of the awards, but the album was solid from start to finish, and included the fingerpicked 1923 Jimmy Cox blues song “Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out,” a song given new relevance by the recent recession.

In general, Clapton bases his fingerpick-ing on a monotonic bass style—where the thumb picks out static bass notes under-neath fingerpicked melodies and chord shapes. As you can see from the first four measures, this can get somewhat compli-cated rhythmically, but you can always sim-pl ify b y k e e ping y o ur t h umb st e a dil y thumping on the beat while your fingers pluck out syncopated chord stabs above, and it will sound fine. In this section, you can see that Clapton sometimes doubles up his thumb to play several quick eighth notes, and even plays some bass runs—like the one shown at the end of the fourth measure. Clapton also varies his chord shapes as he

makes his way through the song. For instance, he thickens the D7 chord by some-times wrapping his thumb over the neck of the guitar to grab the F note on the second fret of the sixth string (creating a D7/F chord), and he occasionally plays a full F chord by fretting the top five strings as a standard barre chord with the thumb again fretting the low bass note on the sixth string. The Fdim chord is also worth a second look, because the notes of this chord are shared within a D7/F chord, and Clapton occasion-ally uses the D7/F shape in place of the Fdim chord. Here, it’s referred to through-out as an Fdim chord, since the overall harmony suggests that. AG

Clapton Gets

Down & Dirty

Sure, you could dazzle your friends with ‘Layla,’ but . . .

BY ANDREW DuBROCK

ACOUSTIC CLASSIC

Randy California, center

Eric Clapton

Unplugged

(23)

C

32 1 x 0 002314

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70x0

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11137 xx

D

0231m

Chords

D7 G7

Nobody knows you when you’re down and out

Guitar and Piano Solos

(both over Verse progression)

Repeat Third Verse

C E7 A7

Oh, nobody knows you…

Repeat Fourth Verse

D7 F

Nobody knows you, nobody knows you

D7 G7

Nobody knows you when you’re down and out

N.C. (no chord) B9 C9

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SONG

TO

PLAY

Nobody Knows You

When You’re Down and Out

BY ERIC CLAPTON

WORDS AND MUSIC BY JIMMY COX

(24)

24 May 2014

W

ith their eponymous debut album in 1969, Led Zeppelin emerged with a near-fully developed style combining distorted blues with acoustic textures and catchy choruses with mythology-based lyrics. Even though the band refused to release singles in the U.K., instead focusing on the AOR (album-oriented rock) format, the Led Zeppelin album became a huge success, reaching No. 10 on the charts and immediately finding favor on both sides of the Atlantic—despite the many negative reviews by the critics. (Critics nowa-days, with their 20/20 hindsight, seem to consider the material much more acceptable.)

It was through Joan Baez’s 1962 recording of “Babe, I’m Gonna Leave You” that guitarist Jimmy Page and singer Robert Plant became aware of the song. Because Baez had no song-writing credit listed on her album, Page and crew assumed it was an old traditional song, crediting it as “Trad. Arr. Page” on the Led Zep-pelin album. In fact, the song was written in the late 1950s by Anne Bredon, who received back royalties after becoming aware in the late 1980s of the Zeppelin version.

Page performed this song in the studio on a borrowed Gibson J-200. In the key of A minor, the Zeppelin arrangement makes use of a common arpeggiated progression that uses a descending bass line, slowly moving from the tonic i chord (Am) down to the V chord (E). What really sets this riff apart is Page’s subtlety, as he alters the top note of each four-note pattern (with additional variation on the repeat in measures 5-8) to create a sort of melody within the accompaniment part. AG A complete transcript of “Babe, I’m Gonna Leave You” appeared, along with a discussion of Jimmy Page’s acoustic-guitar playing, in the April 2011 issue of Acoustic Guitar.

Misty

Mountain

Chops

Learn the opening riff of

Led Zeppelin’s famous

version of the folk classic

“Babe, I’m Gonna Leave You”

BY CHAD JOHNSON

ACOUSTIC CLASSIC

Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page, 1972 GIJSBERT HANEKROOT/REDFERNS VIA GETTY IMAGES

Available at

halleonard.com

(25)

SONG

TO

PLAY

&

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Babe, I’m Gonna Leave You

BY LED ZEPPELIN

WORDS AND MUSIC BY ANNE BREDON, JIMMY PAGE & ROBERT PLANT. ARRANGED BY ANDREW DUBROCK

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(26)

26 May 2014

I

first encountered the lively traditional Scottish reel “The Bottom of the Punch-bowl” on the Fairport Convention album Tippler’s Tales. On that recording, it was played by fiddler Dave Swarbrick, and I subsequently discovered that it’s one of the standards of Scottish fiddle repertoire. It occurred to me that it would make a fine flatpicking tune as well, and I eventually wound up recording it on my solo CD The

Lightning Field (Dorian, robinbullock.com),

flatpicked with rhythm-guitar accompani-ment in my attempt at a Norman-Blake-at-a-ceili-in-the-Highlands sound.

As with many Scottish and Irish dance tunes, you can considerably speed the learning/memorization process by mentally

dividing each section into four quarters (two measures apiece) and looking for pat-terns of repetition. Sure enough, in this tune, the fourth quarters (the last two bars) of the A and B parts are exactly the same (a common pattern of repetition), and in the B part, the first (measures 17–18) and the third (measures 21–22) quarters are exactly the same (another common pattern of repetition). This means there’s less to learn than there first appears—always welcome news.

This version falls somewhere between my recorded version and the way the tune is actually played by fiddlers. Pick direction follows the standard flatpicking rule of downstroke on the beat and upstroke

between the beats. I finger this tune in the key of C in standard tuning; as written here, however, I capo at second fret to put it in its traditional key of D. I strongly rec-ommend this, as playing tunes in their “right” keys is an important part of Celtic tradition.

“The Bottom of the Punchbowl” lies naturally on the fiddle fingerboard in D, in a way that it doesn’t in C, so fiddlers will expect the tune to be played there. And besides, it just sounds “right” in D.

So get out your capo, and have at it! This article first appeared in the November 2004 issue of Acoustic Guitar magazine. AG is revisiting the vault as part of our 25th anniversary.

A Flatpicked Celtic Fiddle Tune

Think Norman-Blake-at-a-ceili-in-the-Highlands sort of sound

BY ROBIN BULLOCK

ACOUSTIC CLASSIC

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SONG

TO

PLAY

The Bottom of the Punchbowl

TRADITIONAL

ARRANGED BY ROBIN BULLOCK

(27)

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(28)

28 May 2014

“S

hould I bring my guitar?” If you ever ask yourself that question, answer, yes. As often as possible. You identify as a guitar player. Be one.

Here are some things that people bring a l o n g t o a l l k i n d s o f p l a c e s : k n i t t i n g needles and yarn, sewing kits, books, pen and paper, laptops, cameras, photo albums, portfolios, skis, surfboards, golf clubs, briefcases with carpet samples, insurance policy sales info, paint brushes, canvases, sketch pads, fishing gear, papers to grade, folding massage tables, tools, blueprints, food samples, business cards, brochures, chess boards, monopoly boards, gym bags, doctor bags, tennis rackets.

These are the tools of one’s trade, or at least of one’s fun time.

Be the one with the guitar. You can find time to practice. You can find time to play for people.

Meeting up with the in-laws at Disney World? You’ll definitely want your guitar along for the trip. It’ll be great to see every-one, but it’ll also be nice to head back to the hotel and have some musical retreat time. It’s a healthy reward to give to yourself.

When everyone gathers by the pool in the evening, you can head out to join them. You’ll have your acoustic six-string, your nephew will be bouncing around in the pool, your niece will have her head in her

phone, Aunt Anna will have her macramé project. There’s no reason to hold back from being yourself and bringing what you love to the scene. And, what do you know: people are nodding along and smiling! That couple at the table with the fancy drinks are singing and asking if you know any Neil Young. Or Django. Or Chet.

You never know who you’ll run into when you have your guitar in your hands. There’s a band in the lounge. They want you to sit in. Do it! That’ll be a great story to tell and a cool memory for you—maybe even a terrific playing opportunity.

First, make sure you have a safe gig bag to throw on your back as you head out. Give it the back seat, the passenger seat, the trunk if you must. Put it in the over-head when you fly. Set it vertically by your feet in front of you on the bus. Lay it hori-zontally in front of you on the floor of a cab. Become an expert at going through revolving doors with your guitar.

Play it. People will love it and feel privi-leged. Practice. You will feel rewarded and fulfilled. Stay connected to the thing you’d miss if you didn’t bring it along.

And whenever you notice it’s not with you, ask yourself, “Where’s my guitar? Why didn’t I bring it?” AG

Jane Miller is an associate professor of guitar at the Berklee College of Music in Boston.

Attached at the Hip

Does your guitar belong at the family reunion?

Don’t think twice, it’s all right

BY JANE MILLER

TAKE IT EASY

• Trad. Song Week, July 6-12 • Celtic Week, July 13-19 • Old-Time Week, July 20-26 • Contemporary Folk Week, July 27- Aug. 2 • Mando & Banjo Week, August 3-9 • Fiddle Week, August 3-9

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CONTENTS

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