touring guitarist Jeff King I hope you enjoyed I need to thank the


0:26

sponsor of today's episode and happy to be partnering with the true tone on this


0:32

special episode so thanks to True tone


1:01

thank you Hello friends and welcome to the true


1:07

tone Lounge today's guest is Jeff King hello Zach hello thanks for having me


1:12

Jeff has had a an amazing career starting with uh moving to town in the


1:18

1980s and working with uh Patty Loveless who of course was a you know kind of


1:25

Back to Basics you know artist that had uh spent a lot of time on television so


1:30

you got to be on things like awesome City Limits and a lot of Television oh yeah then transitioned into Studio work


1:36

and worked with everyone from Faith Faith Hill to Luke Bryan and continue to


1:42

do Studio work and also has been able to kind of Juggle doing live work with both


1:48

Brooks and Dunn and Reba in the last couple years so we're going to get Jeff


1:53

to tell us how he moved to town how he got into session work and how he's able to you know juggle playing with two


2:00

major acts at the same time so thanks for coming on absolutely thanks for having me yeah so you were you were born


2:08

and raised in the Smoky Mountains of East Tennessee yeah I was actually born in Arlington Virginia okay my folks


2:15

worked for the government in DC and uh we lived there for a year my dad being from East Tennessee


2:21

Townsend which is in the Smokies we moved back and grew up there until I


2:27

went away to college so then I went to East Tennessee State University


2:33

got a degree in graphics and design engineering which very mathematical I


2:39

like math yeah you know so how'd you pick up the guitar


2:44

well that's a fun story my we should go visit my grandmother for two weeks in the summer in West Virginia


2:50

and the haulers up there and my uncle Kenneth you know as a kid when you show up your


2:55

grandmothers you're eight or nine ten I was 10. you know you're snooping around the basement which is scary because it's


3:02

up there in West Virginia and they have they at the time they had a cold furnace so it was the grates and the thing


3:07

behind you know yeah and the closets looking around I was like oh what's this pulled out a guitar so


3:14

I loved music and I was like well this is interesting so who knows the tuning but I just remember


3:22

playing a string going oh that sounds cool you know somehow I may have gotten it into some tuning I don't know what


3:30

but my folks said well all right let's get some guitar lessons so in Townsend there


3:37

wasn't a music store of course but there was my uh family friends the Sullivans and they had a band and they were all


3:45

fine musicians they played different places around the area you know so uh


3:53

the singer of the band or there might have been more but Ronnie Sullivan was was kind enough to come out and show me


3:59

the few chords that I learned first you know in Wildwood Flower learned to play Wildwood


4:06

Flower and then uh I went to school we had Show and Tell in fourth grade and I


4:12

told about the four major chords gcd and and it might have been e and the


4:19

teacher was just but anyway so then I move on and um you know really sparked an interest in


4:25

me and started listening to records and learning what


4:31

made me feel something like what made me feel emotional or what made me excited


4:36

or you know how we sat down we learned try to learn from records and obvious now


4:42

it's so much easier with a amazing slow Downer and that kind of stuff yeah back then just keep doing it until you get


4:50

close and I think with my ear that's what I did I got close and I was like okay then I kind of


4:57

moved out from there so what was sparking your interest the most um


5:02

you know the years are fuzzy to me about exactly who was when but I kind of was I


5:08

love the Atlanta Rhythm Section I loved kind of southern music you know um


5:14

of course I loved Leonard Skinner but Marshall Tucker was a favorite of mine


5:19

because toy Caldwell I thought it was so uh just had such an emotional thing when


5:25

he played and I'm not sure when Martin offer came on the scene but that just was like wow


5:32

this is the coolest thing I've ever heard and of course the Eagles um


5:38

one of the ones that I can remember that Drew me in was I Can't Tell You Why


5:43

and the guitar stuff on that was just wow this is super cool I met with Don


5:49

Felder introduced by a friend we had lunch together and I asked about 30 questions he was telling us all about Hotel


5:56

California and how that came to be and then we ventured off into some other


6:02

eagles stuff and I've seen the documentary so I didn't want to get in anything


6:07

hazy you know right so I remember asking him about so I Can't Tell You Why what what's there


6:14

to know about that that's one of my favorite solos hoping that he played it but I didn't


6:19

know so he said well it's funny he said we we all took a crack at solos on


6:26

things and whoever kind of made the best fit that's who did the solo and um


6:33

he was like that wasn't me and I was like he said but Joe Walsh did one and he said


6:39

and it was late at night and there was a lot going on and that's not Joe's so but anyway I


6:48

think I'm not sure who played that one it was Glenn Glenn Frey right yeah so so


6:54

beautiful you know the no choice so beautiful perfect anyway you know I kind


7:00

of went down that road and you know like I said drop the needle back and forth until you finally get something and then


7:06

trying to learn just like we all do basic guitar stuff and when did you start playing gigs


7:15

well so I was in and out of guitar through high school football baseball basketball


7:21

and then I went to college and some guys on my floor played guitar so we started playing together and


7:27

I was really terrible and we were probably they were really good to my


7:33

memory and so we started um met a guy I worked part-time at a


7:39

printing place there and one of the guys there was a bass player and a singer and got to know him and he said let's let's


7:45

put a band together and start playing some vfws and and Elk lodges and stuff so my first gig


7:52

first paying gig was uh in Elizabethton Tennessee at the Elks Lodge and we made


7:59

thirty dollars that night two nights sixty dollars a weekend it's like wow


8:05

this is pretty cool you know so


8:11

um and then we just did that for the rest of my college days and it was really fun


8:16

you know so was there any temptation to get it in like while you were in college


8:22

to switch Majors or anything I mean when when did did you actually go out and do graphic design work for a printer when


8:28

did you all of a sudden you decide I've gotta play music and I've got to move to Nashville


8:34

I think that's uh was uh for me that was just sort of in me


8:41

was like my plan was to get my degree and move to Nashville and get a job in my field or


8:48

you know sometimes no plan is the plan you know and


8:54

you know fast forward to moving here when I moved here um


9:00

some friends I met said hey you should go to this club there's a really good band there so I was like okay


9:06

and in East Tennessee no disrespect anybody but at that time a


9:12

really good band was a different thing than a really good band down here and because up there that probably wasn't


9:19

what they did for a living down here probably was so um I went to this club called the


9:26

stagecoach down on Murfreesboro Road you know and I walked in and I went


9:33

I don't know what to say I thought I was a decent guitar player at that point and


9:38

that just it was like it was like the universe laughed at me and went


9:44

let's see what happens and so I met Brent Mason that night and we've been friends for


9:51

I've been here 40 years now and so we've been friends 40 years and I just can't say enough about what that


9:57

did first it smacked me down really hard and was I was like there's no way you


10:03

know if everybody in town is like this I must will find another


10:09

thought you know but you were lucky in that not everyone was never right yeah there are a lot of great players though


10:15

but you know then I started going okay like you do when you analyze things I


10:22

have a sort of an analytical view of that stuff and I went all right I'm going to go back and start using this as


10:28

a as an education and figuring out you know I don't I don't want to play


10:33

like brown I want to figure out what he's doing and so I can use that and that'll let open up the world a little


10:39

bit for me for for playing and um so I went back you know maybe three nights a week and I'd sit there and all


10:46

of a sudden we'd started coming in with these little micro cassette recorders and it wasn't


10:52

I felt a little weird about it you know but I wasn't trying to do anything other than learn yeah and um and when that


11:00

stuff is happening like you know I'm sure your your people know Brent but when that's happening


11:07

it's happening fast it's like you can't just go I'm going to remember that lick


11:13

because it's the beginning of something that goes on and there you know it's phrasing yeah and and there's no iPhones


11:21

you're not able to video stuff and so the most you can do is that and so it's just funny in that there are a lot of


11:27

stories about guys going down to see the Don Kelly Band and seeing Brent Mason


11:33

and Jimmy olander told me that you know he would hand the cassette player to


11:38

Brent and Brent didn't mind he would put it up near his amp yeah you know


11:43

is amazing I mean I felt a little weird about it a little self-conscious and then we just finally


11:49

got we were just like you know just four or five of them on the table because all the guitar players would sit at this little round table over by Brent's yeah


11:55

you know absent um you know that's just the beginning of


12:01

Learning and trying to figure that stuff out and so I met four or five guys there and we


12:06

were all became friends and you know we'd meet down there and we'd go out to the Waffle House or whatever


12:12

and I remember one night um one of the guys said okay let's talk about what we're going to do here how


12:18

let's talk about everybody's plans you know I want to hear and he said um I plan to give myself five


12:25

years and if if I'm not touring or doing sessions or whatever I'm probably going to go back to Virginia and my dad's got


12:32

a uh you know real estate operation that's doing great and the next guy's


12:37

like I'm going to give myself two years and when it got to me I was like I'm not sure I'm smart enough to do this


12:43

you know I don't all I see is going forward I don't know how


12:49

to get there and I don't know exactly where I'm going forward to but I need to follow this and um


12:57

you know sometimes being unaware is is blissful and beautiful well and the sometimes the no


13:05

backup plan has a benefit yeah yeah well you definitely got to put it all in or


13:11

yeah fail you know and then figure it out but um anyway yeah and then go ahead well then


13:19

Patty Loveless came along how did that come about who contacted you every gig I have has an interesting


13:25

story yeah so in East Tennessee my friend Jeff coppage


13:32

lived beside me or I can't remember I don't think we were ever roommates but


13:37

he was the other guitar player in the first band that we had up there at the Elks Lodge and then he went off to do


13:43

other things and so he left ETSU and moved down and started going to MTSU


13:50

because he wanted to be a recording engineer so he got into their program back in


13:55

80 81 maybe something like that and then he called me and he's like hey


14:03

come down one week and I get this many hours you know we start at 9 00 pm and we have to be done by 9 A.M and


14:10

and you know we're so excited but don't really have any plan on what you're going to play so it's like get a band together and we just kind of jam over


14:17

some chords play Blues and he works on the snare for two hours and works you know we've I learned some


14:24

stuff back then by being there with him it was a place called I think it was called the Haynes house


14:31

it was an old house and it had a two inch machine and big console and I


14:36

don't remember what kind of console but anyway we stayed friends the whole time and


14:41

when I moved here we hang out together and he started working for uh


14:48

Jimmy Bowen as sometimes the names get fuzzy to me but


14:54

Steve was was Jimmy's one of Jimmy's Engineers I can't remember Steve's name right now but Jeff


15:02

was his assistant so Jeff just finished the Patty Loveless record I mean patty just finished her


15:07

record with both and Patty's manager was her brother Roger


15:13

Ramey and Jeff said hey


15:19

Patty's going to put together a band and there might be an opening you'd want


15:25

me to pass your name on so he did and Roger we were all green at the time I mean Patty had been playing a bunch of


15:30

clubs and doing great stuff but it's her first record deal and I'd been doing


15:36

clubs all over the U.S and Canada and wanted something a little more a little


15:42

cooler you know than playing holiday ends which is nothing wrong with that because I learned a ton of guitar at those places but


15:49

all of a sudden I get a phone call and hey we're going to get together over here you want to come and want to come and play


15:55

sure so we got together at um Acuff Rose which was on eight at the


16:01

time do you remember that across from what Sonic is now right and in the Attic


16:07

upstairs it was kind of hot but uh Emory Gordy was there because he was playing


16:13

bass on those records and he was kind of helping Patty put the band together and so I show up and there's four other


16:20

guys with bass player drummer steel player and acoustic player and me and we


16:27

I think we got the music early and tried to dig in and learn some of this stuff so we went through a few


16:33

songs and then and then she said okay well I guess we need to come back can we do


16:38

like these next four days and we leave and all everybody leaves and


16:43

we're going well do we get the job what are we doing you know so um


16:51

we come back got the job I guess because nobody said anything different and Emery's there and he's helping us


16:57

okay this part might be a little different you know since it's just you guys and there aren't three guitar players you're gonna need to do this and


17:04

this and he was so helpful and and generous and you know kind and Patty


17:10

was so awesome in the music you know spoke for itself because you know Mountain Music because


17:16

I had Mountain Music and just cool kind of the country version of what Bluegrass


17:24

might be I would say you know you know just hearing her voice so I was there for six years yeah


17:32

and Emory for those that don't know Emory Gordy Jr you know played bass with


17:38

with Elvis and Emmylou Harris in the hot band and of course into marrying Patty


17:43

later and producing you know many of her records and uh and of course played bass


17:50

on all sorts of things from burning love with Elvis yeah on and on and on and you know just uh yeah that's a high level


17:58

player that y'all had oh man in their what a resource you're kind of guiding you through these things


18:05

and then late nights on the bus we got the stories oh so he was on the bus with occasionally he would come out on the


18:11

road and yeah um and there was there was some funny stuff there would be the stories but later on


18:18

when after they were together you know we had two buses we had a band bus and uh Patty's bus and


18:27

sometimes Emery would come over and hang out with us until two or three in the morning and I remember one night we go back to we


18:34

stopped at a truck stop and then we said I'm gonna go back to my bus so he goes over he knocks on the door it's locked and because they didn't have the keypads


18:40

then yeah Patty comes to the door she just looked at him and says you know and she turned around and


18:47

walked off he had to find a bunk on the band bus


18:53

well you know being on the road yeah yeah so


19:00

you know those those albums you know of course you have some of the stuff that like Ray Flack played on but then you


19:06

you start getting the stuff that Albert Lee played on you have Timber I'm falling in love I mean those are some uh


19:11

those are some tough you know there's some interesting rolling and B Bender guitar stuff and you were playing guitar


19:17

with a G bender on it right yeah and and so you were having to learn all that


19:24

were you given like of course now they'd call it stems but were you given like any like isolated guitar parts or were


19:31

you just hearing the tracks and and learning what Ray or or Albert or or Richard Bennett or any of these guys did


19:38

or Steve Gibson or Steve Gibson yeah Reggie um no we were just given the record and I


19:45

don't remember getting any stamps for that stuff and we're trying to adapt the G to the B


19:51

Bender stuff it was interesting but I always learned stuff and um


19:56

I always felt overwhelmed while I was doing it but um


20:02

every one of those guys played just beautiful stuff you know Albert in his dream of Consciousness stuff would would


20:08

just be insanely awesome and you know some of the phrasing was unique


20:15

and it would lead you into the 4E you know that what you would


20:20

think would be thing but I don't know somehow it just exposed a lot of stuff for me it was like here's a


20:26

whole new world that you hadn't seen before and so you've been playing clubs and such and all of a sudden you're playing with a signed artist what kind


20:33

of gear did you have when you started playing with Patty did you go into debt buying gear or did


20:39

you did you have anything decent uh you know what I think I had at the beginning


20:46

I think I had that an Ibanez UE 405 remember those yeah and uh little multi


20:54

effects yeah whole thing had a delay and a compressor A Chorus an EQ and a delay


21:00

I think and you could change the order and it had a loop where you could put a volume pedal yep so um


21:08

I think I had a pro Reverb which I still have that my folks bought me as my second amp


21:14

um I think in 71 they bought me a Vibra champ as my first one which was


21:20

you know you get down you hear that speaker and you go wow yeah this is and then


21:29

to be honest I can't remember yeah you know I started with that and at some point I ended up with a rack and two


21:34

Pacific Cabinets and um you know some stuff started to get a


21:40

little more like when Richard Bennett came in like that kind of girl and stuff it was a it seemed like


21:46

I was taking the sounds that I heard on the record


21:52

like if the guitar had delay on it from the studio or Reverb whatever then that's what I felt like I needed to I


21:58

needed to have whatever's coming out of the speakers yeah so you know it got a little more complicated but


22:05

you know not that much so yeah it seemed like you would mainly be reproducing like cleanish sounds until some of the


22:12

Richard Bennett stuff like that kind of girl that got a little bit more a little gainier than some of the uh the other


22:18

stuff and then I guess later on some of the Steve Gibson stuff like uh hurt me


22:24

bad in a real good way yeah that was a little more chorused clean and stratty


22:29

and such yeah and um and then Jorgensen I think I can't remember if Jorgensen


22:35

we did a a bunch of stuff with Patty and the desert rose band so somehow I know


22:42

he did one of her videos and I can't remember if he ever played for


22:47

some reason we were just all together back then but you know


22:53

jumping off of that I was introduced to ac30s and that sound which interestingly


23:00

Mark Sampson was John's Tech and I would see Mark laying


23:05

in the back of the stage uh Jorgensen would have two AC 30s and


23:11

he would have a cloth in one hand holding up tubes you know until he could get them to stay and I'm thinking right


23:18

back there sometime was born matchless yeah so yes yes


23:24

it was you know again from a conversation with John uh it was it was


23:30

the fact that they were having a hard time keeping those amps going that is the whole reason that the the matchless


23:36

amps came about so you yeah and that John is the guy that uh you know got


23:42

Mark Sampson out of the middle of nowhere oh yeah yeah John and I were doing session one day and uh I had my


23:49

mattress in there and he came into the room and he said hey can I uh


23:54

can I offer some something for you and I said yeah what's that he said try this setting anyway


23:59

I was like wow okay thanks yeah you know just how


24:05

you hear things and you know they're pretty simple with five five-way switch and a few knobs but um


24:12

anyway that was a fun moment but so a lot of those uh a lot of tones


24:18

during that era were were direct and is that one I guess that kind of goes with the uh the rack set up and the Pacific


24:27

Cabinets and using the EVs and things like that that was kind of reproducing the uh the direct chorused kind of


24:34

sounds that you heard a lot did you have a it seemed like I remember seeing like a boogie head that you had on on one of


24:41

your rigs well he you know so we went I went I was


24:47

thinking about moving to um La at one point so I went out there with


24:52

a friend for a while somewhere my friend Jeff coppage moved


24:57

there and I can't remember before he came to Nashville or I think it was before he spent a year or so six months


25:03

or something out there and got in and worked for some guys and said come out and check it out so we went to Bob


25:09

Bradshaw's place over there and I had done a gig with Patty out there


25:15

and I think the Greek Theater or something and I just stayed for a few weeks so I had my


25:21

guitar with me that had the bender on it and we were going over to Bob's and I just grabbed my guitar to take with me


25:28

so you know that was huge for me because


25:34

Luca third I mean all the guys had those giant Rigs and they sounded so great and


25:40

um I remember walking we we went to Bob's and knocked on the door and nobody was there yet so there was a waffle


25:45

house across the street or some kind of Diner like that and my friend Dean Hall and I went in there


25:52

and we're sitting there eating breakfast waiting because I think you know they probably opened around 11


25:57

or noon out there or something Bob's place and um Bob came in and ate breakfast and we


26:06

didn't want to say anything because we were just as enamored by him as yeah you


26:11

know and so he goes across and we followed him over and said hey you know we know we don't have an appointment but


26:16

we're from Nashville and just this is all we see and this is what we


26:22

love and can we see some stuff and we spend some time with us he said sure he said started showing us rigs that he was


26:29

working on at the time and he had a boogie head with no tubes and


26:35

he said just pull the tubes out I'm like uh


26:41

it baffled me so you know and then he had all the load resistors and I you


26:46

know he taught us in about the 30 minute span how to use load resistors and go into


26:52

these boxes and have level controls and you know all the stuff that we I did there for a while and


26:58

um and so I had my guitar and I was playing some stuff and using the bender and


27:04

Papa's like what's going on here I've never seen anything like this and I'm like you work with the greatest guitar


27:11

players in the world check this out you know and he was like pleasing and he's you know when you


27:17

first traveling it's not it's not easy but you get it pretty quick but


27:22

that was just a great great time and then I decided later on I was like


27:27

I just don't think this is for me out here so I moved back or didn't move back I just didn't move so yeah


27:35

so you had you were using basically amps and and this Ibanez multi-effect thing


27:40

and then you went to a rack set up with the with the speaker cabinets and everything yeah with the power amp and


27:47

then you know you have your head with the pull tubes and I think I had a load resistor because I


27:54

didn't need one but um you know at some point we all had those little gold things that the big round


28:00

things and um you know went through some facts and just tried to get a cleaner Better Sound


28:08

of what I was hearing on records with a little bit of chorus some of that delay stuff and the nice verbs so


28:14

then Along Came the studio preamp the Boogie Studio preamp and


28:20

from there my rigs just went crazy because I started


28:26

getting into more Studio work and hearing more sounds and I felt like


28:32

I needed more options you know and it's always a fear to show up and not be able to get ice


28:39

whatever right um the producer is going to ask you for a sound that you can't produce yeah yeah


28:45

so I ended up probably with my biggest rack rig I had the


28:52

Soldano x88 and the Boogie preamp in there


28:57

and the ability to plug a head in and use it as a with a load and use that and


29:03

had the vht Chrome 2150 Power Amp that um I think Dan had one as well and


29:11

um you know it just you know things get out of hand so how did um how did the


29:18

transition for give us the transition from Patty Loveless to playing in the studio


29:23

you know so I'm guessing you were I mean because you go from being a little bit green you know playing with Patty and


29:30

then of course you're you know then you play with her for six years yeah and you get a lot of experience playing on


29:36

television playing bigger and bigger shows and a lot of time to practice and a lot


29:41

of time to listen to those records and and figure out tones and parts and try


29:48

to figure out why which is an interesting thing you know


29:55

plus when she would do records I would go you know she said you can come come to the record you know and I'd go meet


30:01

Reggie and Steve and Larry London and mcanally and John Jarvis and Paul


30:06

Franklin you know all the guys that um were my Idols then because


30:13

um just a quick backstory when I moved here in 1983 still vital


30:18

every record I had I knew every player and what they sounded like and what they


30:23

had played on and I called a lot of guys when I got here and


30:29

I called Brent Rowe and Said Fred how do you get these sounds well he would call me back and spend an hour


30:35

it's like yeah okay on that record I did this and this and this but anyway


30:42

going forward that's how I learned how you think about these kind of things so that that's amazing because you know


30:49

guests in the studio are are not really the norm a lot of people don't like you


30:55

know because there's always you know label people and management and all that other kind of stuff and usually you know


31:01

they don't like guests so the fact that Patty included you and lets you watch these things go down and let you learn


31:07

from that that was it was cool yeah and Albert didn't want to leave Albert he was there a lot and


31:14

she was cutting at that time over at soundstage when it was a room with no


31:19

walls so they had big monitors up and then when we would when they would got everybody was on headphones


31:25

so you you can take your headphones off and hear Larry London over there but whoever was playing guitar was


31:31

probably direct you know I remember Reggie going direct and Leland's car was there some and Glenn


31:39

Wharf and um so anyway I learned kind of


31:44

a little bit about the studio scene there enough to be really


31:50

um confused about it so as Patty as the Patty gig went on


31:57

towards the last two or three years of it I met a bunch of publishing guys that were doing lots of demos because


32:04

it was a crazy world in Nashville back then yes you know


32:09

every every day every Studio was going all day you know and some of these guys


32:15

I made friends with they were like hey um why don't you come over and play on a session


32:21

and my first session session that I remember I showed up and it was uh it was Glenn Wharf


32:27

and Steve Nathan and uh


32:32

um I can't think of the drummer right now but tiny little Studio about the size of


32:38

this room and you know by that point I had a Iraq and stuff and


32:44

luckily the engineer was my friend Jeff coppage so we cut the


32:50

you know four or five songs whatever and uh I stayed and fixed everything I did


32:56

wrong because I was completely freaked out Milton Sledge was the drummer so all


33:02

these guys had I knew their name and knew all the records they were on I was just freaking out so


33:09

I'd dial in these songs to get them closer to what I thought they should be


33:15

and I got better and faster and I got a few more sessions and I got better and faster and then I met band guys started


33:23

seeing some of the same guys and um you know from there it just sort of


33:29

blossomed into more stuff and then I left I was like I can't I don't


33:35

think I can be out here I think I want to go do this for a while because we were starting to get some of the same


33:40

tours again being at the same venues again and I loved Patty for the


33:46

the uh the gift she had given me of of letting me learn while I was there


33:52

and uh it was hard to leave but I remember the exact moment hanging up the phone with


33:58

her and she was like however I can help you you just you know it's been awesome and all this and


34:04

you know really emotional for me and I hung up the phone from a really good paycheck to click zero right then so I


34:13

started playing clubs around town doing writers nights and I could already read charts but


34:20

do these Riders nights on Monday nights out at the Holiday Inn Bradley Parkway you'd show up and a rider would walk on


34:26

stage and hand you a chart and go here's here's kind of how it goes yeah three four and I started coming up I was


34:34

like okay well the song needs a lick the top so I started coming up with licks started learning how to play solos like


34:42

that off the cuff and fills and and before long I could recharge like


34:47

crazy thanks to my friend Chaz Williams I don't know if you know Chaz he ended up writing a book on chart you know


34:54

Nashville number system but um so that all kind of snowballed into more sessions and more stuff like that


35:00

and before long I wasn't able to keep up doing those kind of playing things just because sessions got crazy for me and um


35:09

but it was a crazy time and everybody was crazy so we were all doing three or


35:14

four sessions a day you know start at 10 in the morning get home at midnight and not every day but you know a lot


35:23

[Music]


35:39

[Applause] [Music]


35:59

thank you [Music]


36:10

so you're getting to do these these gigs where you're having to recharge you're having to come up with hooks you're


36:16

doing these things you're playing on demo sessions you're going to school big time Big Time going to school yeah


36:23

and so also you're you're entering this this world it was the perfect timing


36:28

because there's all this work you're getting to do all all this you know lower level Studio work because you know


36:36

you're going to be competing with all these guys that are you know your Heroes and that you've been kind of emulating what they did you know whether it was on


36:43

the road or even oh yeah yeah um well like we're saying Albert you


36:49

know you learn that stuff and with the bender and you know Steve Gibson had Benders as well right and and Brent


36:55

Rowan yeah and Brent Mason and there were so many guys then that were


37:01

big influences on me um those guys all of them Chris losing her


37:07

you know um man they just it's just so many ways to skin a cat you


37:14

know yeah um so I learned how to do that and then I think my one of my first record dates


37:24

um there were two and I can't remember which came first but they were both overdubs and one was on a Pam Tillis thing that had a bender thing on the


37:30

demo that my buddy Walt Aldridge had played for Muscle Shoals and so I went in and


37:37

played the Bender Parts on this song and I I can't remember the name of it but it was with Pam and Pam went


37:44

there is just me and her engineer and maybe the producer but that was


37:49

interestingly fun and nerve-wracking and then um in the 90s as I started doing more


37:57

sessions I got a call from Walt and I started going down to Muscle Shoals and doing a lot of stuff at Fame


38:03

and then I kind of was started you know on some of those sessions David Hood


38:10

would be playing bass and Roger Hawkins would be playing drums and you know Spooner or whoever would be you


38:17

know I've kind of thrown in with some of those guys down there and boy here you here's another huge lesson of


38:26

philosophical music you know on on where the beat is and and just how to do


38:32

things that um so I I don't know where I was going with


38:38

that but I used to go down there and so Rick Hall


38:43

asked me to he said we were in Studio B one day cutting demos with Walt and he


38:49

said uh I can't remember this was pre-planned or he came in that morning and said Son can


38:54

you move over to a and and do a a song with me I need to do


39:01

a Marie Osmond Marie Osmond song and I was like oh


39:06

that's cool and Saul went over and spent you know however many hours with Rick


39:11

and I was like wow this is starting to be fun you know I mean it already was fun


39:17

because I'm just playing guitar for a living and thinking up stuff you know and then um


39:23

from there people would hear demos and you get called and you just start going to play on more records and


39:31

and you know just living the dream there were also a number of you know


39:36

there was you know the Nashville Network and CMT and there were a lot of like country music shows and Country Music


39:43

you know all these television shows and sometimes they had staff or house bands and stuff I remember seeing you a number


39:50

of times on like um you know there was a Ricky Skaggs thing that he did like Monday night at


39:56

the at the Ryman and such and I remember them having like every week there was a different a different guy I'd be you


40:02

know Brent Mason Brent will own you and all sorts of other cats and start getting in the uh also kind of house


40:09

bands on on TV shows also yeah those were some fun weeks those were


40:15

done you usually in a week a season a week or maybe maybe two weeks


40:21

um but I would do a handful of them and Brent Rowan would do some and like I said Brent Mason and I'm not sure


40:28

whoever but um if those were long days you know I think


40:35

I remember getting there around eight or nine in the morning getting home and around 10 at night but


40:40

then I had my book and a CD of what we were going to do the next day so I would spend a couple hours going


40:47

over this stuff you know show up in the morning and then we would kind of do our thing for the morning and


40:53

do rehearsals and rehearse these songs and then we would come in and do rehearsals with the artists


41:00

and everything TV stuff is not how you see it on TV as


41:06

you know you know you show up and I remember one day we did two shows every day


41:11

one day we had Don Gibson on and in some more country things like that the


41:19

following show that night was Michael W Smith and it's like you know changing


41:26

worlds but at that point I had my big rack stuff because that's what was going on and um


41:32

fortunately when Michael W Smith had a song called my place in this world do you remember


41:39

that was a great song and crossover big crossover Dan Huff played this


41:46

amazingly blazing brilliant solo and I remember when that came out and I


41:52

heard it for the first time I went home I'm gonna learn this solo because this is cool so when it came time to play that song I


41:59

was like I'm so glad you did your homework without knowing it


42:05

yeah but then I said I had to dig in a little harder but you know I mean extreme days like that and and we had um


42:16

um you know sometimes I I forget there's been so much stuff but um


42:22

piano player with a big white beard um Leon Russell Leon Russell was on I've


42:28

never heard a piano so loud ever in my life and you open up his piano it's like


42:34

under the hood stuff I mean huge monitors everywhere and but Leon was so


42:40

awesome and ended up talking with him you know sometimes you don't get a chance to speak with people but I was just


42:47

standing there and he just started talking to me and he said hey um I like that Bender stuff you're doing


42:53

I was like I didn't even know I didn't even know that he thought I existed right you know because I'm in another


42:59

part of the stage and I was like wow that's cool you know we talked for a bit and


43:05

um there was a Ray Price and the his piano


43:10

player Blondie yes who could magically transform you know a basic sounding


43:16

country chart into something the headquarts like this and


43:23

it's just amazing stuff David hungate Paul lamb Harry Stinson Aubry Haney


43:30

I think Paul Franklin was there um I'm sure there are other guys Gary


43:35

Smith Gary Bud Smith who you know unfortunately is gone but


43:41

yeah those were some great days but that was a lot of work you don't think about the fact that it's


43:48

like you're you're you're rehearsing and filming and then you're getting ready and then you're having to learn the tunes for the next day because every day


43:54

was like every episode had like three or four artists on there and there was always diversity I mean it wasn't like


44:00

you just had like you know and you had an older act and usually upper up and coming guy and some of those established


44:07

so yeah those were great times because they were so diverse you know and um we rehearsed


44:15

and then we would flip around backwards and and they would do uh they would do we would have to get dressed like dress


44:23

rehearsals so they could film um from off stage or they actually they


44:29

would film on stage up you know close-ups and stuff if you're playing a solo which


44:34

sometimes got complicated if you were doing a song that had that type of solo where you started off you just didn't


44:41

have time to learn it no for no but you started off and you tried to end like it but in the middle you kind of became your own thing so when they're up close


44:48

you know you're trying to not let them be right here because at night you might be playing something different you know


44:54

and right so I would always go to the guy Tom I


45:00

would go to Tom say use that close-up for that because I


45:06

didn't play it the same you know oh that's fine you know but then they'd write it down and yeah sometimes they


45:12

would do that but and sometimes we'd have to fix stuff because I was I was at a number of those tapings because they


45:19

would they would just uh they would just invite Belmont students out there because they wanted to have a you know a


45:24

full audience for those you know tapings and so I went to a bunch of them and so I never saw cameras on stage really


45:31

right and so I didn't think about the fact that y'all did another run through where they were just doing close-ups of


45:38

because that makes total sense because you know you know there's no there's no cameraman on stage yet all of a sudden


45:44

when you watched the show there were some close-ups of the guitars and such yeah yeah the um there was so much funny


45:50

stuff the or for me it was funny because I've never been in that type situation but there were wardrobe girls first time


45:57

we'd had wardrobe to pick out stuff and they would come up after those run throughs and then say okay this is this


46:03

show stand right there they would take a picture of you every one of us so you


46:08

know one at a time then we would go to go eat dinner and we'd come back and we'd do the last show first


46:14

and then they would come around with their Polaroids and they would go


46:21

uh you got a different shirt on it's like you got to go back and change shirts you know put this shirt back on


46:28

that you had Oh no I got spaghetti oh how how much you know because


46:34

obviously Ricky's you know multi-instrumentalist producer and such how much was was he calling shots versus


46:42

who was kind of the acting as the MD on that Harry Stinson I think


46:48

but it was sort of a joint thing Ricky


46:53

sometimes would come to me and say it was never on when the guests you know


46:59

because Ricky always do a couple songs and right I think I missed Highway 40 blue all


47:05

those blistering fast things because which was totally cool with me because


47:10

you know I was a nervous wreck anyway but a couple times Ricky would come over on his songs and say hey


47:17

um this is the way we did this in studio you know sure wow that's great to know


47:24

that yeah okay I would have never thought of that but but Ricky was awesome you know we've been friends since then so um or


47:31

probably before then because we did a lot of stuff with Patty with Ricky Skaggs and um


47:36

it was fun being on there with him he's Talent unbel you know what I mean


47:42

nothing to say but what do you say yeah so you're you continue to do you know


47:48

session work you're doing stuff for Reba and Faith Hill you're working with Dan huff and other producers and and then


47:55

you know probably in the mid 2000s you start going out on the road again and this time it's with Reba


48:03

well yes um My Wife Tammy Rogers isn't she a fiddle


48:10

player and The SteelDrivers steel drivers now yeah um she was actually playing with Reba at


48:16

that point and I had done a couple Reba records


48:22

Jerry McPherson and I were the two guitar players electric players on those the ones that we did together


48:28

um and then I get a call from Reba's manager narvel and he says hey um Jerry


48:34

has been playing with us but he's going to go do some Faith Hill stuff and would you like to come out and play


48:40

a guitar on some gigs I'm like hmm it's interesting because


48:47

until then I hadn't given any thought to going back out on the road because I was you know


48:53

dug in into my studio work and um so I thought about it and I'm like well


48:58

my wife's out here you know this could be fun and we were doing like 25 dates a year so nothing was going to get in the way of


49:05

other stuff I hoped so I said yes and fortunately I didn't


49:11

have to you know do any auditions or any of that stuff and kind


49:18

of like the Patty things like am I doing and you know we yeah so I showed up here


49:23

you know you're the guy and I got I got the tapes from the band leader and the


49:28

learned how to what Jerry was doing and I cross-referenced everything with their


49:33

records and um it was the first gig that I had done that was that big time


49:40

meaning that we rehearsed a lot before we did anything


49:46

it seems like if if my memory is correct we did like two weeks over it excuse me


49:51

sound check and getting all the songs together because


49:57

I think I was the no I think John Jarvis started the same time I did so John and I were in that first band


50:03

and well I'm not the first band but you know right


50:09

my first incarnation of that band um so we did two weeks and then we went over to uh what's now Bridgestone in the


50:17

back and they have a huge big place yes so they set up all the production stuff and I'd never seen that so I'll walk in


50:23

and go what the wow this is the biggest thing I've ever done you know um


50:30

and so then we rehearsed for a week and then we learned all the okay you're gonna play solo you know go here's your


50:38

we're going to put an X here to be here every day on that solo you go to that spot and she'll do whatever she does and


50:44

you know no dancing or any of that stuff just well I think that's one of the things that people don't understand about the


50:51

show's you know like Reba or like you know it's like the guitar players don't


50:57

just like move to some random spot during the guitar solo it's like they've got so lighting and video and everything


51:03

because all those things are such important elements to those that level of show it's like you're gonna hit this


51:10

spot yeah and everything has to be rehearsed out one the music has to be rehearsed towards backwards and forwards


51:16

and you can play it in your sleep and then you've got to know where I have to be it's like camera blocking and you


51:22

know it's like all of a sudden you know these are your spots to be during this song and you're going to you know do


51:28

this at that point yeah that was important and that was the first time I'd ever been on a gig that I knew


51:34

exactly what I was going to play every night and you know some people that might be boring but to me it was like


51:40

okay I know what I'm going to play now my challenge is to play it


51:47

to see if I can get through one night without making a little oh you know or whatever you're distracted by something


51:53

or whatever but we did it enough to where we just knew what your hands knew where to go what to do you know so and


52:01

at some point your body knew where to go what to do and then there would be little variations of things that would


52:07

work themselves out you know meeting with the other guitar player for


52:13

a part or fiddle player or whatever but a lot of that was was pretty staged and


52:18

and you're right the lighting guys had to know where you're going to be because they're calling you know here's the guitar player spot if you're not there


52:24

and you're over there yeah two things this is weird and you're over there in the dark so No One's Gonna See you no


52:32

one's going to see you and what were some of the uh because I when I in one Reba has had such a long career I mean


52:40

because she was having hits back in the 70s and then yeah yeah and so you think about the material that you're covering


52:47

the different eras of players and also the variety of tones that you're going to have to have to cover and then some


52:54

of the like really interesting stuff like some of the Wawa stuff that's like on uh um you know is that already fancy or or


53:01

which which oh yeah so some of the stuff that has like the uh the you know some interesting Wawa Parts you know the


53:09

fancy has some stuff but it's lap steel or yeah is it that's another Lights Went Out in Georgia is that the one with the


53:14

with the Wawa stuff on it that's one of them and that's yeah you know the slide part or oh really yeah yeah


53:22

um and then there's uh the radio song which is that was the Jim Campbell the other


53:29

guitar player yeah um so yeah there's a lot of diversity


53:36

out there and um gear wise I started with amps two heads


53:42

and two cabinets and that show moves so fast you can't


53:49

it it you know as I said it was the biggest show I'd ever done so I had a guy talking in my ear telling me the


53:55

next song as the ones fading out and at that point there's a guy handing you a guitar and there's a patch change


54:02

and you're starting it so I adopted to go with another uh


54:09

set of gear on in the front of house guys were like you know sometimes the mic Falls can you you know any chance we


54:17

can do direct I'm like well you know so I found um a fractal rig and I set that up and


54:26

I'm still not finished editing for those songs it's just ongoing hours and hours


54:31

until you you know I could use one more delay because we're Tweakers yeah with


54:37

all of us guitar players and but anyway I got it enough to what I the best I


54:42

could and now it's just hit a button and it changes amps changes settings changes


54:48

BPM times all that stuff and I have a wall or I don't have a wire I


54:53

have a tremolo you know so um it just was fast so yeah that's that's


55:00

one of those kind of necessary sacrifices you have to make for the for the show because it just doesn't make


55:06

because you're trying to cover all these different guitarist parts and yeah and


55:11

sometimes you know arrangements are different live too and you might do a medley or who knows what so yeah yeah


55:17

and we're playing Arenas so you know there's a lot of going on and yeah you


55:23

know we did the best it's you know so


55:28

then how did then of course uh Reba and Brooks and Dunn have done shows together and stuff how did the Brooks and Dunn


55:35

connection how did you start playing with them I had um known Ronnie and kicks from from in


55:42

town and played on some stuff with them and um we started in 2015 Reba said we're going


55:50

to do a residency in Vegas and the the session players in the band were like what does this mean yeah oh


55:58

all it means is we're going to go out there three or four times a year for like 10 days 12 days and do some shows oh okay


56:05

so it's going to be with Brooks and Dunn so they kind of combined bands we had all of the Reba band and then we


56:12

brought in well they brought in you know running kicks wanted a couple of their guys so that makes sense they


56:19

wouldn't be comfortable so they brought in a guitar player and um


56:25

their drummer at the time so maybe they're fiddle player


56:31

um so we did those gigs for we're supposed to do seven years when we


56:37

did six because of the covet thing but I don't think that they had been doing very many gigs because maybe they


56:44

stopped in 2010 and I mean I could be wrong about that but yeah they they retired kind of yeah yeah so in uh 2015


56:53

they were like hey we want to go do two dates at this Chicago Festival you know


56:58

we want to get some of our old band back together we want a couple you guys to come with us and they asked me to go and I was like great


57:06

so entirely different gig you know um gear wise entirely different just to


57:12

use a you know whatever amp I had like at some point it was in ac30 now it's a deluxe


57:19

and I've had a board and still moves fast but it's a different kind of music too so


57:26

um so they did maybe two gigs the first year and the next year maybe five and then it kind of developed into hey we


57:32

want to go do a fall tour and fortunately they had the same


57:38

management and I was able to do both because it wasn't just me with four other guys from


57:43

the band and a few guys from the crew and um


57:48

and so we were they were scheduling the stuff so we could do everything


57:53

I'm sure it wasn't for us but it worked out that way so yeah um


57:59

and that's just what we did this year Reba had an early year this year and we did maybe 20 something dates and then we


58:06

just finished Brooks and Dunn a couple weeks ago 25 dates and basically have the summer off with an exception of a


58:13

few one-offs so um it's it's a whole different thing it's a


58:19

different level of different music just different everything you know


58:24

also you know I guess with Brooks and Dunn a lot of it you know of course was was


58:31

Brent Mason oh yeah yeah and uh Kenny Greenberg was in some of that stuff yeah


58:36

and you know Kenny's always awesome love playing with Kenny and he always comes up with great stuff and


58:44

um you know we're two guitar players in that band so we're loud and we're really


58:50

loud but we looked loud so I think I saw one of your videos where you had your Deluxe uh your Deluxe


58:58

Reverb amplifier in a road case yeah well then it got to that yeah so so did you so the uh the the vocalist in the


59:06

band aka the big names did they did they come down on you or what you know no we


59:11

kind of came down on ourselves because uh we were only adding to the chaos up


59:17

there and uh there's side fills on this gig and they are


59:25

incredibly loud yeah which makes for a great sounding stage and at one point I


59:32

had a a brown a brown basement head into a 212


59:38

Marshall cabinet or might have been its own cabinet but if I turned around it was like whoa and so I had to be careful


59:44

and if I walked over to the the speakers over there it you know you had to so I


59:50

thought you know this is insane and we're all going deaf we're all getting older we're all you know yeah


59:55

um so Lou and I and and Charlie about all of us uh Charlie Crowe was the first


1:00:01

was the guy I played with first there and uh you know we were like let's just do this


1:00:07

and I can't remember if there was a hint yeah but um I was concerned because the fiddle player said behind me on a little


1:00:13

Riser and if I'm that loud and then some of it's going back it you know just causing chaos so


1:00:20

um we decided to go inside a road case and they just push it back there somewhere and we're done you know


1:00:26

because you're in in ears yeah so so are people sort of you know kicks are running are


1:00:32

they pulling like an ear out I mean why do they have the side fills that are so loud I mean I guess they you know I


1:00:38

guess it's just the feel of it I mean the feel of it and I think they both occasionally pull an air out and yeah


1:00:44

you know from it doesn't matter how much you have


1:00:50

everything the same on stage every venue is just going to bring some you know I don't know who knows but it's just the


1:00:56

way it is so um but that's one of the things that's interesting because you know when people started using into your


1:01:02

monitors it was just that whole thing where you know in front of house controlled in the modern world they controlled everything yeah and so then


1:01:09

it's been interesting in that you know kind of amps kind of made their comeback and now sometimes they're live sometimes


1:01:15

they're in a case and then sometimes you you're running into you know artists that have big side fills oh yeah yeah


1:01:22

with Reba there's and there are no amps on stage the only thing live are drums yeah and um


1:01:31

you know with Brooks and Dunn we all have amps guitar players and the steel player and


1:01:37

uh the bass player has an amp up there and you know it's it's a different kind of stage it's just this is again it's a


1:01:43

different kind of music so yeah that's a little more hockey talk and Ruckus kind of you know so


1:01:50

it's all fun favorite solo to play with rebound favorite solo to play with Brooks and


1:01:56

Dunn um boy


1:02:03

I think Reba it'd probably be uh radio yeah it's


1:02:09

pretty fun kind of bluesy kind of kind of quirky at the end a little bit and


1:02:15

um Lou does a lot of the solos on Brooks and Dunn because when we were doing


1:02:21

Vegas I didn't want to start doing you know we needed to keep things separate so I do a few things with with Brooks


1:02:28

and Dunn we do a on hard-working man it's really fun we it's a total blowout


1:02:34

of guitars yeah so there's you know we have a lot of solos and at


1:02:39

the end there's just this massive chaos thing going on where we're playing back and forth and you know Ronnie's


1:02:45

somebody's elbow and you're in kicks is running into you trying to you know it's just and then we go into a little


1:02:51

Harmony Part so that's a lot of fun in the end so hmm


1:03:04

[Music]


1:03:33

thank you


1:03:42

[Music]


1:03:47

foreign


1:03:54

Jeff we're going to talk gear and I'm going to start off with you know this has kind of been your your companion for


1:04:01

a long time this is a rare Joe Glazer built Telecaster with a G bender on it


1:04:08

so tell us how this came about why you ordered you tell us the whole story well


1:04:15

80 1985. so um I had


1:04:20

before that I had a Telly you know 70 something or other nothing and I had


1:04:27

Palm pedals on it do you remember the big bomb pedals one would come out and they had a little low you know they


1:04:33

would bend up like out of the way and then it would bend down and one kind of came up and went this way and one went


1:04:39

out and went that way yes so when I moved to town I knew of one guy I


1:04:46

didn't know anybody who knew of one guy from from my area back in East Tennessee Steve Hembree


1:04:53

um and he was very kind to me when I was here you know spent a lot of time with him and talked about stuff and he


1:05:00

you know taught me some stuff and he had a bender on there I kept thinking that is the smoothest coolest thing I've ever


1:05:06

heard he had a B on here and he was a great singer and I used to go


1:05:13

hear him play and sing as well so I had both palm pedals and I found out


1:05:18

that g was always in my way so that's the one I used the most and occasionally I'd use the B but


1:05:25

I learned more about the G so when I went to Joe


1:05:31

you know everybody at that point everybody had Glazer Benders and you know he was doing all that stuff out in


1:05:36

his little shop in leeper's Fork so I went out there with my friend Dean Hall and I said I want to order a guitar


1:05:42

Joe and Joe has we've been friends for 40 years or 30


1:05:48

7 or whatever and you know Joe yeah so there's a little


1:05:55

bit of always kind of this going on oh yeah I don't think you you really don't want one of these numbers but I do


1:06:01

Joe yeah it's like okay what let's let's talk about it okay I want this and this


1:06:07

and you know can you make it blue sure okay and I want a bender okay I want to


1:06:14

bender on the G string okay so uh


1:06:20

think it was around the time I had started with Patty too so I was real excited about getting this guitar months


1:06:25

and months you know of work on it and uh we'd go out there and check it out and


1:06:31

okay here's your body and just spray painted it it's like wow beautiful and it wasn't this color you know it was


1:06:37

different but it was brighter it was brighter and lighter and yeah less dinged but um then and and here we're


1:06:44

working on your neck and like a well there's a story I'll tell you yes that's the second neck yeah yeah and uh


1:06:53

so anyway I was so excited and Joseph's finally hey I think your guitar will be playable


1:06:59

next week you want to stop by and let's tweak it a little bit I said okay so I showed up I was so excited to get down and I'm


1:07:05

playing and all of a sudden I go Joe and he said what's wrong and I said this


1:07:12

is a b Bender I don't I don't I don't want to be Bender I don't know how to do that I want a Jeep Enter he went


1:07:18

oh okay and I was getting ready to go I was so excited I took it with me to get


1:07:25

on the bus to go do some dates with Patty that weekend I got back took it right back out there and he said yeah


1:07:30

we'll uh we'll make it a B I mean a g yeah so


1:07:36

um you know this was still got all the stuff for the bee but all the holes and everything but uh he made it a b a g and


1:07:46

I don't know it just fit me and it just you know so you know you can


1:07:51

[Music]


1:08:01

some of the steel things um it it sounds more


1:08:07

it sounds more guitaristic in a way because it's on a fatter string and it


1:08:12

just and I think so many people are tempted to go into like the Clarence white and Albert Lee Licks that I think


1:08:18

yeah I always thought the G Bender by itself had a little bit more of an individualistic you know kind of sound I


1:08:25

think sometimes it has the I don't know what's happening here sound yeah you know um there were some guys


1:08:33

uh and I'll say this with respect to them when we're out on the road they would come up after the show and go


1:08:39

and you've got strong hands I'm like what do you mean it's like some of those bins that you do I can't do those like I


1:08:47

had this thing for a while where I was go from a sea to


1:08:55

as I'm bringing he's like I can't reach back behind the


1:09:00

nut and do it and I'm like well you know it's yeah sometimes things


1:09:06

are not as they seem you know so tell me when you ordered this so because a lot


1:09:12

of the guitars this is the only one I've seen uh that didn't have a pick guard on it


1:09:17

or at least it was less common well I guess I have seen one or two others that didn't have a pick guard but was that


1:09:23

your idea or Jones neither one of us really because Steve Warner had this set up right all


1:09:30

right so I wanted that and um so I snatched it


1:09:36

pretty quick and I took it back and finally had the Bender fix snatched it again pretty quick and I went back you


1:09:42

know the following week or whatever after and I said hey we didn't put a pig guard on this and Joe said well we


1:09:48

didn't did we so we laid it up on there and he went so we got about 10 pick guards different colors and put it on


1:09:53

it's like a white one nah a black one


1:10:00

you know um commercial it's like


1:10:06

none we both just kind of went let's just leave it which you know then


1:10:11

this happened over the years yes um but it's just the way it came to be


1:10:16

everything about this has made me so happy


1:10:21

and you know and did you tell him like neck shape or anything like that I mean what did you just tell them you wanted a


1:10:28

three pickup tele with a G Bender or yeah but you know there's a there's a neck shape and we went through a few


1:10:34

things and you know as again with with Joe it's like no he


1:10:43

he knows better than you do yeah he does and he does it's not you know it's not a


1:10:49

show it's for real yeah he's genius and so it got this Knack and it's funny I


1:10:56

ordered a strat um just straight up Strat no no bender and


1:11:01

uh had a Wilkinson bar on it and he uh I said I want I want this neck though I


1:11:08

gotta have this same this I love this neck and he said okay so we measured the neck you know with his thing that he


1:11:13

hasn't whenever I went back to pick up the Strat I was like the next different he


1:11:19

went no it's the same Knack and I'm like the next different Joe and it's like all


1:11:25

right let's measure them bring it you know and and it was similar


1:11:31

if not really close I think the way you hold the you know just everything about


1:11:37

the Strat is a different feel so yeah for me maybe it's my angle of playing on the Strat became


1:11:44

confusing to me and but that was always an argument and then


1:11:49

it became a fun argument you know so yeah but Joe has been um


1:11:54

for my go-to guy since 85. you know I mean there are other guys that are great


1:12:00

in Nashville but Joe is a you know there have been times when I've been on a session at 10 A.M and I'm like


1:12:07

I'm going to do a two o'clock in Berry Hill and all of a sudden there's a problem like something buzzing I'll go I'll call over


1:12:15

there and go Joe listen I got a problem can you bring it by tomorrow and I said


1:12:20

well I'm working all day tomorrow but we finish here at one and I've got a two o'clock in Berry Hill he's like okay


1:12:29

drop it off and go eat lunch and come back and then we'll have it done for you you know I probably shouldn't say that


1:12:35

because some things are months out for right over there but yeah we've been you know doing this a lot you're a long a


1:12:42

long time customer so uh and and I learned this from


1:12:47

watching uh Marty Schwartz did a good job of of kind of doing uh you know a


1:12:53

thing where he covered a lot of your guitars and he told and you told some stories about this and I only know about this because of Marty's show so I'm


1:13:00

going to give him credit uh this is the second neck on the guitar right and so what happened to the first one


1:13:06

when I was with Patty we were out with George Jones and there was a drum riser


1:13:12

and it had two big you know big black speakers on it you know and one that had


1:13:19

a little two before in the front on the top one so he's leaning back just a tiny bit


1:13:24

and um we had all our guitars lined up


1:13:30

across the back kind of behind our amps you know standing up and fortunately Steve Henson was in the band


1:13:36

and he had his old 50 60 whatever tele sitting beside mine but


1:13:42

so at some point during somebody's sound check it wasn't ours but um because I


1:13:49

was in catering when this happened I think it was on Georgia's sound check


1:13:54

um that monitor was so loud it moved it went and mine was sitting in a stand and it


1:14:00

landed on top of it and we never found all the parts in the neck it just it splintered the neck and


1:14:06

on tiny bitty pieces and it broke this little piece and yeah and I ended up using there was no


1:14:13

hope to use this at all because there was no neck yeah so I used Steve Henson's Telly the rest


1:14:20

of that weekend and you know I had a guitar a gig bag and I


1:14:28

went into Joe and I had the body in it in water maybe a couple pieces of the


1:14:33

neck stuck in there folded over and I went in I set it down on the counter and I said Joe he went


1:14:39

this can't be good so uh


1:14:46

he he opens it up and it's like gosh what what happened you know and I


1:14:52

said well you're the same thing monitor fell off in the thing and he's like oh my gosh and so he said um it's got


1:15:00

something you can use for a while and I'm like yeah I've got other stuff but I'd like to get this back because


1:15:05

it's my main Telly you know yeah so he uh


1:15:10

he works on the neck for a while and I call him say how's it going he goes


1:15:16

well I'm waiting on some other parts I said you mean like tuners and stuff and he goes no he said it bent everything he


1:15:22

said everything had to be he said it hit so hard the pickups were no longer


1:15:28

usable and everything I said so everything's gone you know and basically we're just restocking the guitar with


1:15:35

parts again and it's like okay um so


1:15:41

funny story Don um from the stagecoach on Don Kelly Don


1:15:47

Kelly kind of working out there because he loved guitars and he was helping out Joe


1:15:53

do some things and so he sanded this neck down in the back well I noticed


1:15:59

after a while I'd be playing up here and the string would fall off and I went and said Joe what's wrong with this


1:16:04

and the first thing Joe does is he sits down and goes bam like that he went


1:16:10

maybe that fixed it yeah I was like what he's like


1:16:15

I would you know he popped it back into the right spot on the neck yeah but it


1:16:21

turns out I mean on the body Don had accidentally sanded a little too much right there and so Joe got did his magic


1:16:28

thing and I went to pick it up and I went I don't even know where that spot was he goes yeah exactly you know so


1:16:33

yeah so it was all back but anyway this is the second neck and you know and then


1:16:39

these it looks like these tuners have been replaced it looked like like it had cluesome type tuners on there at some


1:16:44

point were they black or no the original ones were Chrome and uh


1:16:49

I think they just kind of wore out at some point yeah and I don't know how I got these or where I


1:16:56

got them but they're locking spurtzels yeah they're cool and originally it had emgs


1:17:04

on there when did when did the uh so I guess those were pretty hip pickups you know all through the 80s and 90s and so


1:17:11

that was kind of like the thing to go with so the emgs


1:17:16

um I don't know how that happened I got a call one day on my Coda phone back in


1:17:22

the day from Corner Music said hey Jeff King you you got a package here I went what so I go over to Corner Music and I


1:17:30

said somebody said I had a package and they said here it's to you but it's according you know


1:17:35

to us I went okay thanks like what is this I'm gonna go outside and open up and it's like


1:17:40

three EMG pickups and I'm like wow somehow I can't remember if I had talked


1:17:47

with somebody or I don't remember what how this all transpired


1:17:52

but they were they were telling their first version of a tele pickup


1:17:58

and I was like wow this is really cool I can get they're very clear and fat and but they don't sound like the Strat


1:18:04

clean you know so I used those for a long time and then I went to Joe one day


1:18:11

as I was doing more sessions I was like I'm tired of hearing this this these were awesome yeah and they're on a lot


1:18:19

of stuff that I did and I said I need something different to hear and he said


1:18:25

I said what about this and this and you know you come back tomorrow and I'm like aha


1:18:31

okay whatever and and uh I think we went through several


1:18:37

incarnations of stuff but I think what these are are DiMarzio vintage noiseless


1:18:43

tele yeah and I'm really happy with them and they've been in there for


1:18:49

a bunch of years so and then that middle one's a Duncan hot Strat stack the middle one is uh yes and it's the


1:18:57

blender knob now what does the switch do it makes it so you can [Music]


1:19:04

so I can use these two right yeah like a Telly it's it's this yeah you know but


1:19:13

um and with a blender you can blend in just a tiny but you know what I found myself


1:19:19

not using that so at one point when we were re-configuring I said Joe just just


1:19:26

take that middle one out and he said you know Keith Urban's really big right


1:19:32

now and you know he's got that Telly with the with the one missing there and he's


1:19:37

I don't think you want to take that out I'm like because because it might look like I'm


1:19:43

like just whatever you know [Laughter]


1:19:52

the doctor told you what you needed to do and you did it the same way JT the corn flush used to look at me like that


1:19:58

really yeah yeah well cool well let's uh have we have we


1:20:06

learned everything about this guitar I love the Finish gone you know where you've you know played the uh played the


1:20:12

finish off underneath the pickups and I guess in between your hand resting there and you're pick hitting it and different things yes yeah you know the whatever


1:20:19

but yeah it's a probably my favorite yeah


1:20:24

very cool and I don't know oh yes we didn't talk about that so these are


1:20:29

these are all these you know signatures of of living and past uh you know people


1:20:35

there's Reggie young and Willie weeks and golly Capps Jimmy Capps and Porter


1:20:42

Wagner and Loretta Lynn and uh I'll tell you how they started it didn't start with me at a session going hey you saw


1:20:48

my guitar yeah this you know we were doing all these TV shows and I did


1:20:54

some TV show and Earl Scruggs was on it so Earl Scruggs was out on this little


1:21:00

Runway they had we I think we're at the Wild Horse filming this thing and he started to walk back and stopped and


1:21:07

spoke to every band member and he was talking to me and I went I've got to get this isn't


1:21:14

huge for me because I loved him as a from a kid you know and one of the uh TV people I said hey you


1:21:21

got a Sharpie and they're like yeah here and I went Earl would you would you sign my guitar up here on the horn so it


1:21:27

won't go away any meant oh sure I'd love to do that so he did it and then


1:21:33

I just thought I'm never going to sell this guitar yeah it's it's only going to mean something


1:21:39

to me so I started having my friends sign it and you know guys that I loved like Reggie and you know


1:21:46

some of them are starting to fade at one point Joe did a spray over on it but it's time to do it again but


1:21:52

I got Charlie Pride like two weeks before he passed away I was on a CMA show and was in in the band and house


1:21:59

band and um kicks and Ronnie and you know just people I worked with so


1:22:06

yeah but again thinking I'm probably never going to sell this it's only going to be worth something to me at some point so


1:22:11

that's that's kind of like your uh your kind of signature instrument that you're kind of it's if I had to have one I'd


1:22:19

probably have this yeah you know so what what else you got here we got your


1:22:26

Gretch tell us about this I think it's a Duo Jet yeah


1:22:31

um it's cool I had um


1:22:37

I had a moment with Gretch where we were doing stuff together and they were very kind to me and so uh Pat has actually


1:22:45

Reba had a song that had a Gretch sounding guitar on it and um I wanted to replicate that live


1:22:54

so I went to Gretch and said job something I can use for a tour and


1:22:59

lots of times they'll say sure yeah and then at the end of it it's you know dinged up and beat up and they're like


1:23:04

sometimes they'll you know they'll make you a really good deal on it and sometimes it's just


1:23:10

well you know you did a bunch of TV shows and just don't worry about it so this was


1:23:15

one of the don't worry about it and um it's become


1:23:21

you know I love this guitar a lot just has a cool sound and you know like I said there


1:23:26

were seven snare drums that gave up their lives for this finish yeah the Finish is amazing on that that's yeah


1:23:33

that's definitely a uh a crowd-pleasing guitar because I mean that that you know


1:23:38

when the lights hit that you know yeah yeah and I had Joe change the um change the


1:23:44

bridge back here to a little more roller bridge and yeah but it's you know it's the typical


1:23:52

[Music]


1:24:04

you know it's it's the sound the sound of pop country one of them yes so and I don't know what


1:24:12

this switch does but uh you know it [Music]


1:24:17

reckons it you know for so yeah I don't I don't know why Gretch


1:24:25

always had the most complex complex wiring you know that it was just hard to understand yeah that's like and why do


1:24:32

you need a switch that turns it off that kills the sound yeah yeah I always did a


1:24:37

lot of odd things I've got a few other gratches I've got a mid 60s Tennessean


1:24:44

that has some interesting switches on it and um I've got a 64


1:24:52

Chad Adkins Nashville the orange one yeah with the painted on F holes yeah and I think it's got the rubber mute


1:24:58

that sticks up yes which is is really fun you know it's a tuning nightmare but


1:25:04

it it's cool for for one thing you know yeah for when you want that muted yeah


1:25:10

sound but yeah that's one thing people don't think about the fact that when those mutes come up it messes up the


1:25:15

tuning oh yeah and we got the Tom Anderson Strat here yes this is a wonderful Strat


1:25:23

um I'm not sure when I got it um probably around 2000.


1:25:29

and um I met Tom at an AM show and uh Roy that worked for him you know


1:25:36

there was just a great bunch out there in California and I loved the color of this and I wanted a


1:25:43

strat to take on the road do other things with I've got an old 64 that I


1:25:49

use a lot and just wanted a more modern version of that


1:25:54

so this became that and then when I started doing the Reba stuff this became


1:26:00

my Reba touring guitar so it stayed out on the road and um


1:26:06

you know not not at session so much but um


1:26:12

interesting you know there's all kinds of jokes out on the road okay so our uh


1:26:17

our video director out there put his name here and tell the guy in front of


1:26:23

me hey at some point I'm going to stand still and you zoom in on that and you know back on in video World they have


1:26:30

you know however many cameras and and he's like what


1:26:36

hello Bishop you know so and then this is for my tech so he can remember


1:26:42

which way doesn't Buzz ah and um I don't know what that does


1:26:48

and that one doesn't do that but um so is that does it have like a dummy


1:26:54

coil or how does it kill the hum uh they're just split okay okay they're


1:27:00

like stacked at the box out yeah and um it did have a it did have a whammy bar um


1:27:09

on the George Strait tour when we were Reba George Strait we were doing in the round in the middle and um


1:27:17

my guitar tech at the time was keyboard Tech as well and um


1:27:22

Doug Sizemore the keyboard player and MD had this rig and sometimes I don't know


1:27:29

if it was a power thing it would just go and one night we're playing at the end


1:27:36

of a song and see my tech run to shut it off


1:27:41

and the front house guys are pulling you know trying to figure out where it's coming from and so the drum Tech brings me the guitar


1:27:49

for the next song which is this had the little whammy bar in it and so my tech


1:27:55

would come up since we're on the stage and they're on the floor you could hand the guitar up like this so the drum text


1:28:01

like you know and the bar falls out somewhere


1:28:06

along the trip from wherever it starts to by the time and I looked at him and I said


1:28:12

where's the you know the crowds going yeah I said where's the bar and he went what I said the bar the Guitar Bar he


1:28:20

went and he walks off and I'm going his name his name is Keith listen Keith


1:28:28

where he's like yeah and he gets back later I found out he gets back over to


1:28:34

Kenny my tech and he says Kenny says what was he talking about he goes I don't know he's looking for some bar


1:28:41

that has guitars he said we ain't got time for that yeah and he said what the good and he's thinking I'm talking about


1:28:47

a bars I'm drinking at the guitar bar later I'm like yeah no I need the bar I


1:28:52

need the bar and the bar was never found so I just gave it up I was just tying it down a little bit and you know left him


1:28:59

but but I use this on a lot of Reba shows and now it's back into my session world because it's just such a great


1:29:06

sound and great feeling instrument you've got a hip shot d-tuner on that well that started as the uh for


1:29:13

[Music] the Reba Little Rock yeah until


1:29:21

she said I I think we want to change the key on that it's like yeah she said I


1:29:26

want to go down to C I want to go down lower yeah and they worked it out you know and Doug came to me said we're going to drop


1:29:32

that little rock down to Sea and I went oh golly okay so my first thing was a in


1:29:42

almost like that we can't that's not right so now I have


1:29:47

a a way of doing it digitally and and it's you know it's interesting so so you so you pitch


1:29:55

I drop this and then because I'm in a different part of the stage my tech hits a button and it goes


1:30:01

to the program and it drops it a whole step and we're in C and then when I by the time I get


1:30:07

back over here I am at that point I'm playing D which


1:30:14

is c yeah but by the time I get back I'm playing C which is real c yeah so and


1:30:21

then I control it from that point on because I'm back over but there have been a few times


1:30:26

[Laughter]


1:30:33

oh I'm Gonna Get You what's worse than playing the Big Lick and being in the wrong key and nothing


1:30:40

you can do about it but that is part of that part of the joy


1:30:46

of the road you know yes so tell us about this pedal board is this is this your your around town


1:30:53

what what is the the what is the normal usage of this it's kind of you know um


1:31:00

back in the Cartage whenever Cartage was crazy days you know I had a pedal board


1:31:05

of keeping carriage and one I would a run and Gun kind of a thing but now I just


1:31:12

now it's just I just have the one I mean I have other pedal boards but smaller


1:31:18

ones and things I do but this is kind of my this is my session board basically yeah


1:31:23

um you know the guys at XTS yes yeah Greg and yeah they um I took a bunch of


1:31:29

pedals to them in a bag and said you know I'm sick of doing this you know it's been fun for a lot of years to do


1:31:36

it myself but um it needed some other under the hood parts


1:31:42

and they just put it all together for me and um is it Justin Butler that does the I


1:31:49

can't remember the name of this company through tone through tone okay


1:31:55

um sexy volume pedal with a different cord and um


1:32:01

so I've got um you know this switcher here so I don't have to reach up here and do that right so I can turn on you


1:32:08

know foreign


1:32:13

just whatever um and it's basically most of the stuff that I use on sessions


1:32:21

and I have a little um a little thing over here I can connect another little board if I want or other


1:32:27

stuff I can put it in inline in here but yeah you know use the Keely compressor


1:32:32

and most of the most of my stuff is um I just kind of keep it the level


1:32:39

straight up and that off mostly unless it's a solo that I


1:32:44

need a little something for and you know a few overdraft pedals and a couple delays and when when did you


1:32:51

make the shift away from the big rack thing oh


1:32:58

oh I don't I'm not sure yeah I remember yeah it was a slow move but because I


1:33:04

had a head with the rack and I started using that more so yeah so yeah so you've got uh you know of


1:33:11

course the HX that can cover all sorts of uh bases I'm assuming you're using this as an expression pedal yeah and


1:33:18

then uh Reverb and delays and


1:33:24

yeah more reading verb yeah EQ pedal dude awesome


1:33:30

yeah yeah just stuff the lights bead you know just things come and go yeah occasionally on


1:33:37

here so yeah tell us about the amp that you got there well


1:33:43

this Old Harvard I bought from a friend of mine last year yeah um


1:33:50

I I mentioned this to you before but I had a um I've been looking for a


1:33:55

mid-60s black face Deluxe and um


1:34:02

I just looked around and I'm you know sometimes when you start looking for stuff all of a sudden it pops up


1:34:08

somewhere yeah and so I had randomly texted a friend of mine one day that lived in California


1:34:14

uh David Starr he's got star guitars out there and I said hey David if you see a


1:34:20

deluxe come through your store I'm looking for this and he said I said if you come you know happen to see one


1:34:25

whatever let me know and you know I'll just put out some feelers different people he got right back to me and sent me a


1:34:32

picture of um a blackface Deluxe 64 and this


1:34:38

Harvard and a 56 Deluxe Tweed


1:34:45

and there's something else too and I was like wow where are those well they're upstairs I didn't want to sell them but


1:34:52

they said now I'm starting to think because I don't use them anymore wondering if so you know we agreed on a price for the


1:35:00

the black face Deluxe and I got it and loved it and he said I'm going to bring


1:35:06

along this Tweed Deluxe just keep it and mess with it for a while and see if it's something you might be interested in and


1:35:13

I have another Tweed I can't remember if it's called a vibrilux or a trim Alex it's one of


1:35:20

those but it's been recovered with some other kind of wild Tweed looking stuff and yeah


1:35:26

uh I just fell in love with that Deluxe and then he said hey um I was going to keep the Harvard


1:35:34

but here's this too I want you to mess with this and I'm like well


1:35:41

and you know I mean you love amps I love amps I mean I've got


1:35:47

I think the last count I had maybe 35 heads and probably 20 Combos and


1:35:55

it's just um it's just a problem it is it is a problem those those are really cool amps


1:36:02

those those are kind of they're somewhat rare you don't you don't see a ton of them because they were kind of in a


1:36:07

weird spot in the in the lineup because it kind of went champ you know in the Tweed era in the the


1:36:14

narrow panel like this is they went from the champ to the Princeton which at that


1:36:20

point was just a champ with a bigger speaker in it it was basically still single-ended a single power tube but the


1:36:26

Harvard was the smallest amp that had two power tubes on it and then it jumped


1:36:31

up to the vibrilux which is the identical amp but with tremolo on it and then above that was the deluxe which


1:36:38

which had more power but it didn't have tremolo and then the tremolux was the deluxe with tremolo and then you get up


1:36:45

into the bigger amps like the band master that had three tens the pro that had a 15 and all those and so it was


1:36:51

kind of a weird amp in the lineup that a lot of guys would either get the champ


1:36:57

or Princeton or they would jump up to the deluxe or they would get the one below at the vibrilux which was that amp


1:37:04

but also with tremolo on there right and so you just don't see that many of them


1:37:09

and but you know of course it's famous as being the Steve Cropper amp oh because that's what you know he used on


1:37:16

a lot of the Booker T and the mg stuff was and then I think also Ace Freely used one a lot on on kiss stuff where he


1:37:22

he used one you know cranked all the way up and so those are kind of the famous uses of the harbor but it's the same amp


1:37:29

as the as the Tweed vibrolux except it doesn't have the tremolo on there okay well then it's a trim Alex that I have


1:37:35

yeah because it's bigger bigger yeah yeah yeah but I'll just you know it was


1:37:41

just there and I got it and we you know he made a good deal and so like yeah you know but um


1:37:47

I've been using this at home some you know about with my 212 Marshall cabinet


1:37:53

or my 212 Bogner which is in a little uh


1:37:58

bunker under my house that nobody can ever hear so yeah um and I've used all those like that and


1:38:05

they're just super cool I mean they saturate differently and quickly and


1:38:11

um organically I guess is the word that gets how much uh how much home recording


1:38:16

do you do where people are sending you tracks you know I'm probably 50 yeah you know


1:38:22

give or take either side depending on the week um you know


1:38:28

overdubbing at home is fun and I I find myself you know I'll take


1:38:35

something on and I'll sit there and tweak on it and tweak on it and tell them until I'm down to about five dollars an hour but at least I send


1:38:42

stuff that I really I'm really happy with this I've yeah turned over every stone and checked it out and you know


1:38:49

the parts all work together and all that stuff but um then there's the not seeing anybody


1:38:54

and not getting the feedback or the oh yeah oh yeah yeah yeah or I don't you


1:39:00

know I don't like whatever but it's all that you know in the hangout with it's just so much fun to hang out


1:39:06

with the guys at a session you know we laugh and cut up and things happen during the


1:39:12

tracking you know while you're somebody will play something it's like wow you know that sparked me to do something


1:39:18

later that's the music you know yes


1:39:24

either a good piece of advice that you've been given or that you wish you know someone would have told you


1:39:32

boy that could take hours but and I've met I've messed up on every one of them but


1:39:38

I think that uh you know two things that were told to me is always


1:39:44

let the song dictate what needs to happen and after you do this for a while you


1:39:51

know what that means I think at first I didn't really understand that but I'm more understanding about that now and


1:39:58

the other thing very early on that uh this publisher friend of mine had


1:40:05

actually worked at a record label he said you know if you want to do sessions you need to


1:40:10

learn you need to listen to every kind of music you need to you need to to develop


1:40:16

you know a knowledge of what swing music is of because you just never know every


1:40:22

day you know one day you might be playing Highway 40 Blues type thing on with a Telly and the next day it might


1:40:29

be a Led Zeppelin type thing you know um you know in our world


1:40:36

early sessions you never really went that far with like dirty stuff you know but now I mean everything is wide open


1:40:44

um country I think the country country is coming back you know


1:40:51

there's some real clean things happening now and then there's some real dirty stuff too so yeah it's it's all there


1:40:56

and do you remember Tower Records on West End yes so I used to go in a tower about


1:41:03

once a month and I'd come out with a stack of CDs and I would go get some World music thing you know and I would


1:41:09

go to the front and ask what are you listening to now and they would say you know I'm listening to this Punk record okay I want to need one of those and I'd


1:41:15

get you know a couple of whoever was the top of the Country Market at that point you


1:41:21

know whoever was the Top of the Rock market and you know at that point you start learning


1:41:27

in this job you start learning how to look at like how does the edge get his


1:41:32

sound you know yeah and and everything is all I mean all the


1:41:38

all the opinions are all over the place so but you can only do what you can


1:41:44

what you can do it's like how do I get what's perceived as that sound if


1:41:49

somebody calls something like you know we want this can you do a guitar thing like the edge would do it's like yeah okay yeah boom now I figured it out not


1:41:57

right now but I figured it out you know last month so um


1:42:03

and then you know you learn some swing stuff and you learn how they approach that and the licks they use how their


1:42:09

mind works a little you know how to get that tone because I found


1:42:17

for me if I can find the tone I can kind of find the part that goes with that which gets back to the song you know


1:42:24

that's the most important part of it so it's my advice my two cents


1:42:31

well Jeff thank you so much for coming down and talking with us thank you for you know bringing your guitars and


1:42:38

telling your story it was it was a hoot thank you thank you so much so I can join it


1:42:45

[Music]


1:43:11

thank you foreign