What They Play:
David
Grier, Eric
Lugosch, Chris
Newman, Roy
Rogers, John
Williams
David Grier got his beloved 1955 Martin D-18 from his father, Lamar, former banjo player with Bill Monroe, and he's had it virtually all his life. "When I got old enough to walk down the hall without banging it into the wall, he said, 'Here, play the Martin.' The thing I like most about it is the familiarity. I've just had it so long." He also plays a Brazilian rosewood dreadnought built for him by luthier Marty Lanham (Nashville Guitar Co., PO Box 160412, Nashville, TN 37216; [615] 262-4891; nashguitar@ mindspring.com; www.mindspring.com/~nashguitar).
Grier strings the Martin with D'Addario strings and has a McIntyre pickup that he runs through a Baggs preamp-that is, when he decides to plug in at all. He enjoys the control he has when playing completely acoustic. "I know how to work a microphone," he says with a laugh. "I know that when you get farther away, it gets quieter. You can regulate your sound by where you stand and how hard you play."
Incidentally, Grier also occasionally toys around with his two electric guitars-a 1952 Fender Esquire and a hollow-body 1951 Gibson ES-175-but always reverts to the Martin in short order. "Now and then, I think I might want to do something with electric, but then I get it out and realize how out of shape I am on it. For me, it's pretty much one or the other."
--Marc Greilsamer
Eric Lugosch used two flattop guitars to record Black Key Blues-a John Arnold Brazilian rosewood dreadnought featuring an Adirondack spruce top with an enlarged soundhole (John Arnold, 437 Ruble St., Newport, TN 37821) and a Martin 0-16 New Yorker. The guitars were recorded acoustically using two Neumann U-47 microphones. Both of Lugosch's guitars are equipped with Fishman Matrix pickups, which Lugosch runs through a Fishman Pro EQ and a Countryman DI for his on-stage sound.
--Jim Ohlschmidt
Chris Newman plays a 1930 Martin OM-18 that he bought in Yorkshire in 1984. Before that he had another old Martin. "They're so wonderfully light," he says. "That's the principal difference between new guitars and old guitars: new ones are twice as heavy as old ones. It's the only guitar I use. It's just a great instrument." He describes his mandolin, a Gibson A model, as "a fairly undistinguished thing made in the 1950s." For recording he uses two electric basses, one fretless and one fretted, made by Aria.
"We have this little sound system we carry around with us, very simple but it works great," Newman says. "But what always happens is that in the interval up comes someone and says, 'I'm really enjoying the concert.' So I say, 'Oh, jolly good.' The guy says, 'I'm really looking forward to the second half,' and I say, 'Oh jolly good.' He says, 'I just have to say that I think the guitar's just a little bit loud.' I say, 'OK, sorry, I can fix that.' Then I ask, 'How long have you been playing the harp?' And he says, 'I've been play . . . How did you know I played the harp?' Or someone will say, 'The guitar's not really loud enough,' and I'll ask, 'What do you play then?' And the guy will say, 'Oh I've got a Gibson . . . Hang on, how did you know I played guitar?' It's amazing how often it happens."
--Chris Mosey
When asked about his equipment, Roy Rogers begins by saying that he owns a small arsenal. He's not kidding. He goes into great detail about his guitars because each one has its own voice. "People ask me all the time, 'Why bring all these guitars to a gig?'" Rogers says. "Well, I use a certain guitar for a certain sound on a song. If I don't use that guitar, it wouldn't be the same song. I'd have to play it completely differently."
His main guitar is his 1970 Martin 0-16 New Yorker with a DeArmond pickup. "It's a very unique acoustic guitar that people comment on all the time," says Rogers. "It's my favorite ax for improvising with a slide. I also have a unique setup, because I play it through a Boogie Mark II amp-an early '70s model with an Electro-Voice speaker-and a Leslie amp."
For an even more electric sound, Rogers pulls out his Gibson ES-125, a three-quarter size guitar with an old P-90 pickup from 1957. "It's a tiny little guitar," he explains, "but it's got a much harder edge."
Rogers' other guitars include an early '60s acoustic-electric Dobro 12-string (seen on the cover of this issue) that Gibson plans to reissue as a Roy Rogers signature model, a standard '57 reissue Fender Stratocaster, an acoustic Gibson Blues Special, an old Epiphone 12-string, and two Nationals: a 1931 Style O, his pride and joy, which features a neck made by California luthier Sean Chappell (www.guitars-r-us.com; [800] 284-5055); and a 1937 Triolian.
Rogers also owns two custom-made guitars. He has an acoustic made by Harvey Leach (PO Box 1315, Cedar Ridge, CA 95924; [530] 477-2938; www.netshel.net/~leagit/home.htm). It has Brazilian rosewood back and sides and a redwood top. Sean Chappell designed Rogers a one-of-a-kind double-neck electric guitar called Duo Chops. "One of the drawbacks of playing with a slide is that it's tough to modulate keys," Rogers explains. "With two necks I can do this. The necks are fairly close together because Sean built the pegs so they go back like a Rickenbacker." One neck is tuned to open G, the other to D. The guitar uses two Gibson pickups, a P-90 on one neck and a P-100 on the other.
In his living room, where he has his Roy Rogers (the singing cowboy) memorabilia collection on display, there are also four small Roy Rogers souvenir guitars amid the Trigger lunch pails, Viewfinders, and yo-yos. Only one guitar, Rogers explains, is the real deal. The rest are toys.
Rogers has an endorsement deal with D'Addario and uses different gauges of strings depending on the guitar (.012-.014, .014-.016, .022-.024, .032 wound, .042, .052). He also uses medium silk-and-steels on his Martin 0-16NY and strings that D'Addario makes specifically for resonator guitars on his Dobros and Nationals.
Rogers uses a foot pedal chorus with a gain boost. He uses either a Shubb capo or a Picker's Pal (Dunlop), depending on the guitar, and two slides, both short: a Jim Dunlop glass slide and a metal Texas Blues Tube, made by Tom Harrison (tomh@harrisonoftexasep. com; [800] 245-5707), which is thicker but has a plating that gives the slide a smoother tone. "My slides don't cover the entire fretboard," Rogers says. "I wear them on the tip of my pinky. You can fret a lot of chords with just three fingers." Rogers says that every once in a while he'll use a bottleneck, but he doesn't feel comfortable with the slide covering all of his finger.
While Rogers likes to mic both the Mesa/Boogie Mark II and Leslie amps (the latter for its slo-mo bottom sound), he also notes that he brings lots of tiny amps into the studio. In his living room, he pulls out a few, including an early '50s Gibson model, an old Supro, and an Epiphone Electar, which he says is his all-time favorite. "I love using these little amps and putting them in big rooms. You can mic them up close or far away depending on what sound you're after."
He also digs out an old Valco amp, which he estimates was made in 1950 or 1951. "This is to die for," he says. "It's got the sound. It has the biggest, fattest tone and the smoothest distortion. You know, I'm not anti-newer gear, but I love the vintage stuff. The older, smaller amps have such great textures. I go for specific sounds. I like using a particular amp to do this instead of dialing in for a sound on a new amp."
--Dan Ouellette
John Williams owns two guitars built by Australian luthier Greg Smallman: a 1992 and a 1995. His Smallmans feature an extremely thin cedar top reinforced with a unique lattice bracing of carbon fiber strands. An early prototype had a top made of balsa wood.
"The reason for the lattice bracing, very lightweight top, and heavy construction elsewhere is to produce a less percussive sound, even when you play loud," Williams explained. "The top is less stiff and springy than a traditional Spanish guitar's, which has a spruce top and fan struts. With a traditional guitar, the stronger you pluck, the more you hear the fundamental percussive attack. Smallman's tops work more like a drum skin: the entire top is working from the word go. Instead of the stiffer places over the bridge sounding first and then the fan strutting working next, the whole top is working. On a fan-strutted guitar, not much energy gets out to the edges of the top. Smallman's idea is to get as much energy as possible out there.
"The Smallman gives a greater variety in tone colors," Williams continued. "There is not simply a difference between playing ponticello and dolce, but all of the shades in between are there. There is an instant feel under your fingers. It inspires you to do more. If you play very, very quietly pianissimoyou get more response too. If you play like that on the fan-strutted guitar, there is barely enough force from the string to get the top to work. You end up hearing only the string vibrating and not the top."
The sides of the Smallman body are very thick, permitting little if any absorption of sound energy. They are made from five-ply laminated rosewood. The fingerboard is ebony. Williams uses D'Addario Pro Arté lightly polished composite strings and employs a mixture of medium- and high-tension trebles and basses.
Williams plays live with a small amplification system, even in medium-sized halls. He uses an AKG 414 figure-eight mic and two bookshelf-size hi-fi speakers. He has not settled on any particular brand of speaker and amplifier. He sets the speakers on the floor about eight feet away, pointed toward his ears. This keeps the amplified sound from hitting the audience directly and keeps him from forcing the sound from his guitar. "The audience only hears reflected sound, and my acoustic sound goes out directly from the stage," he said. "It is expensive to bring a system and someone to operate it, but I think it is the right thing to do. Otherwise the guitar sounds small and percussive, not very musical."
--Mark L. Small
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