Episode 11 – Glenn Roth

Today we talk to, and hear from live in studio, fingerstyle maestro Glenn Roth. With his thumb riding the bassline and the melody driving all, his performances suggest multiple guitars, but it’s really just one guy, ten flying fingers, one instrument. All instrumental, Glenn’s songs suggest moods and narratives that compel the listener to fill in the details. 

Glenn has released six CDs to date. He has shared bills with Stephen Bennett, Monty Montgomery, Tuck & Patti, Bucky Pizzarelli, Carl Verheyen, Don Ross, Antoine Dufour, and Vicky Genfan, among others.

Glenn plays regularly throughout the Northeast and tours nationally and internationally to bring his music to new fans and locales.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:10

Hello and welcome to another edition of Acoustic Northeast, where we talk about the singers, songwriters, and acoustic music scene in the Northeast United States. And we interview musicians who play live for us right here in the studio and for you. I'm co-host Dave Goldenberg. And where is our studio, Dave Goldenberg? It's in beautiful Brewster, New York.

SPEAKER_00 0:33

Right. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 0:34

In the basement.

SPEAKER_00 0:35

And I am co-host George Malice. We are sponsored, believe it or not, we have sponsors. And our first sponsor is here at their dot com, and that's Elisa Zuckerberg. You go to their site and musicians can post their gigs there. Or if you're interested in going out to listen to music, she sends out a newsletter every Thursday morning so you know what's going on in the tri-state area. We are also brought to you by WBXO Internet Radio and also by Hudson Harding Folk Radio Promoters.

SPEAKER_01 1:07

You can listen to our podcast wherever you get your podcasts, and also on YouTube, acousticnortheast.com, and on WBXO.com, and you probably know that because you're listening right now. Today in the studio, we have a terrific musician called Glenn Roth. We've seen Glenn Roth play. He's pretty terrific. He records, he tours. And um Glenn, why don't we start out with a song?

SPEAKER_02 1:36

All right. Thanks, guys. Song of mine called Keeper of the Plains.

SPEAKER_00 5:14

That is gorgeous. Thank you. Again, we have Glenn Roth in studio today. Glenn, um, you're a finger style guitarist, am I correct? Yes. And I'm watching you play, and I believe you're in an open tuning. Can you tell me a little about that?

SPEAKER_02 5:30

Yeah, so um, you know, of course I started playing guitar and standard tuning as a kid, but as I discovered, people like, you know, Alex Degrassi, Pierre Ben Susan, Michael Hedges um kind of dove into a world of exploring the uh open tunings. So yeah, this is um an E-flat, open E-flat tuning. And uh the reason it's E-flat is because when I first learned it, it was at a higher key. I think I learned this from Alex Degrassi, the guitarist. Alex Degrassi had a song that's in like A sharp, and I didn't want to tune the guitar up that high, so I just adapted it down a whole step, and it's pretty much you know similar to Dad Gad.

unknown 6:14

Right?

SPEAKER_02 6:14

It's just like it's right off there. If I keep going flat, it would be dad fad, it would be F sharp, I believe. And yeah, it's just a tuning I really like.

SPEAKER_01 6:23

This particular one. I love the harmonics that you were able to pull out of that. It really resonated. Also, tell us a little bit about where you're getting that incredible tone. Now, folks, we don't have the reverb turned up here, so tell us about that.

SPEAKER_02 6:34

So I got my acoustic Laraville LO3. I've had this guitar for 25 years now, I believe. And on the back of it, I have a device called the Tonewood Amp. And it's basically um an amplifier that connects to the back of the guitar, sends a vibration through the wood, and then the it'll send in an effect out of the sound hole, just like your guitar becomes the amplifier, basically.

SPEAKER_01 7:02

So it resonates right through the guitar.

SPEAKER_02 7:05

Yep. Wow, that re the live reverb is a little disorienting even. It sticks to the back, and the the unit has like distortion and delay has different effects.

SPEAKER_01 7:14

So it's about the size of a, I don't know, a sandwich, right?

SPEAKER_02 7:17

Yep, size of a sandwich, and uh it's a nifty little device I've been using for last, you know, eight, eight years or so. And uh how do you get it to stick to the guitar? There's a magnet that I installed inside the guitar that came with the device, and uh kind of have to permanently glue it inside the guitar, which is a little nerve-wracking, but put it put it in the guitar and and I have the magnet in a few different of my acoustics at home, so I could only you know I throw the tone wood on on those particular guitars. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:48

And does it have like a piezo pickup in there, or how are you feeding into the tonewood amp?

SPEAKER_02 7:54

Well, I'm just using my on-board pickup I have on the Laravy, which is the element, the uh LR bags element. Love this pickup and just plugged in through a PA system, this guitar is a beast, you know. As we dive into the weeds, guitar, guitar wonk talk. Yeah, yeah. All all you guitar nerds, a lot of people know about the tonewood amp, but if you don't, definitely check it out.

SPEAKER_00 8:15

So while we while we're on talking about that kind of stuff, what what strings do you use? Because I think you have some position.

SPEAKER_02 8:21

Yeah. Yeah, that's one of my um big endorsements that I'd like glad glad you brought that up. But yeah, I've been endorsing Elixir guitar strings for the last 15 years almost. They've been super great to me, great company. And when I first started uh doing three-hour gigs, my the skin on my fingers were like were killing me, you know? And I discovered these coated strings, so I use nanoweb, phosphor bronze, um elixirs exclusively. And I just tested out one of their new strings called Atune, and those are really nice as well. I was thinking about switching over to those, but I think I'm gonna stay loyal to this.

SPEAKER_01 9:01

I just wear gloves while I play. Yeah, it doesn't really hurt my playing much.

SPEAKER_02 9:04

So I'm particular on the strings, yeah. Like some people leave them on and just don't even think about them. But I to me, because it's I'm really, you know, in engulfed with the finger style, you know, I need I need I need some nice strings, I need a nice tone.

SPEAKER_01 9:17

So you're you're devoted to pretty much, I know I know you sing as well, but you're pretty much devoted to instrumental music.

SPEAKER_03 9:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:24

And there was a time during our youth, maybe, where instrumental music was much more popular. There were hits on the radio that were just instrumental music, and now people tend to think of it in a different way. What what happened with instrumental music and what's happening now?

SPEAKER_02 9:40

Well, I think it depends where you look, you know. So I'm I'm engulfed in it, so I could I could drop and name a lot of um upcoming artists like Marson and Pittori Seriola, and I could, you know, go on and on naming all these people, Andy McKee, who are like the um you know, at the apex of finger style guitar with with Tommy Emanuel, he's like the grand master. And uh, you know, that's just my opinion, and I I I'm I'm I'm engulfed in the world, so I know a lot about it. So there are still you know hit songs happening, they're just not on the radio. Yeah, you know, what what brought you to being a finger style guitarist? Yeah, so um I was in a band called Fountain Project back in 2002 prior to that, '99 or so. And um I was into a magazine called Finger Style Guitar Magazine that came with the CD and it came with tablature. So I was able to learn uh a Michael Hedges song or a Tommy Emanuel song from the magazine. Explain tablature to people who might not know what it is. Tablature is um a music notation, it's just a translation of music notes using the frets and um the frets as numbers basically. So you have the six strings versus a staff versus a music staff, and basically it's just all numbers that represent the string or the frets on each string.

SPEAKER_00 11:08

I wanted to, you know, that brings me to to your website which is glenrothel.com. Yeah, glennrothel. Glennrothel. But and I I also saw that when I was, you know, doing a little bit of research on you, that you do have tablatures on your website, which I thought was really cool. And for people who like what they're hearing, you can go to Glenn's website and you can for a uh a small stipend.

SPEAKER_02 11:36

Pretty much, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:37

You can you can get him.

SPEAKER_02 11:38

Yeah, shout out to um my friend Stephen Bennett, we were just speaking of prior to the show, but he uh he and you know other musicians inspired me. But him he he he particularly, he has a lot of tabs on his site. So I you know I started doing that years ago, tabbing out songs that I arranged or my originals. So I've put up a handful of tunes there that that you could, you know, you could check out and you could learn if you're into tablature, you know.

SPEAKER_01 12:03

Yeah. Speaking about arrangements, you have some arrangements of popular songs which are are really cool.

SPEAKER_02 12:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:10

How do you develop the arrangements? Where do they come from?

SPEAKER_02 12:13

Yeah. So typically first just stumble upon a song and I'm like, this is a great song, whether it's a Beatles song or um a seal song or Phil Collins, anyone, any song I like that has a strong melody that speaks to me, I'll I'll normally get the sheet music for it, particularly through a site called Music Notes, and you could change the key. So uh you know, I arrange Bohemian Rhapsody and I I change the key into the key of A because it was more friendly for me on the guitar, and then I basically start reading the notes. I read music, so I would start reading the melody notes and lining them up with the chord progression and uh putting it together like a puzzle like that, and then you know, basically a relation between the melody notes and the chords.

SPEAKER_01 13:05

When you're playing a song like Bohemian Rhapsody in a venue, do people find themselves singing along?

SPEAKER_02 13:11

Yeah, there's a lot of great uh things that have happened.

SPEAKER_00 13:14

You guys could look it up on YouTube, and there's a few different videos I've posted of crowds singing it with me, and uh I was lucky enough to see it live when I was down uh Glenn was did a gig down in uh Marco Island Center for the Arts back in um February of uh 2026, and I happened to be down there, and I think that was the last song that you you played of the night. And I was, you know, I was sitting there and I was just you know, I was believe me, I was like, wow, wow. And but I was looking at the crowd.

SPEAKER_02 13:48

Yeah, it was a good night that night.

SPEAKER_00 13:49

Yeah, it was a good night, but it was just so cool to see. Yeah, people are singing and they're just so into it because everybody knows that song, and there's so many different sections of that song where it just goes off in totally different areas.

SPEAKER_02 14:02

It's been interesting depending on where I do it. If I do it at a bar with some uh intoxicated people, the parts get off, the melodies get off, they get they they sometimes get ahead of me, and I could really it could really mess me up if if they don't stay on with me, you know.

SPEAKER_01 14:16

I guess one nice thing being about an instrumental player is you can play in a venue like a bar without getting angry that people aren't giving you their full attention. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:24

It's uh it's a tricky scene, you know. That's why I added the vocals to certain venues, you know.

SPEAKER_01 14:29

So I play instrumentally, you know, at music at performance venues and uh in you know, at my subway gig or right, you're you're a busker, and that seems so interesting because people people think in New York you can just like pull out your guitar and start playing, but no, there's a whole process and it's all curated.

SPEAKER_02 14:45

You can. It is a free thing. You could pull out the guitar and go for it. Lots of people do that. Um back in 2003. My friend Wendy Gannati got me involved in it, and she got me the audition. She was my acting manager at the time, and she set up this audition with Music Under New York. And they all Music Under New York, that's the name of the MTA is the sponsor, and they all have the audition every year. Anyone can audition. They bring in about 25 new acts every year, and I was fortunate to get the lifetime permit in 2003 2004. So it's been 22 years. I cannot believe it. Wow. What what stations have the best acoustics? Oh man, well, you know, shout out to Grand Central, my favorite ones.

SPEAKER_03 15:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:33

I I typically have gone all over, you know. Uh Penn Station is great, um, is vast, it's hard to play there. It's kind of a big, big, big hall there. But I like Grand Central a lot.

SPEAKER_00 15:45

And uh Can you go anytime you want, or do you have to?

SPEAKER_02 15:48

Yeah, I I I I sign up with the program and I email my my friend Paul every two weeks. And m more recently I've been just going to to Grand Central. I I have this spot there, I like it. Where's your where's your spot? It's um right off the tracks there, right when you get off the tracks, track twenty-two. Oh, in the main hall. You'll see me near the uh the what is it, the market, the Grand Central market, or you could see me on the other side near the Starbucks and uh the uh train museum over there. So I go there in the past years I've gone to uh Penn Station, White Hall Ferry Terminal. I mean, I used to go all over, but now as I get older, it's tough to get the gear down there. And uh and Grand Central is an amazing venue, so I'm like, oh, I'm just let's play here now, you know? You must have some good stories though. Yeah, yeah. A notable person to tip me was Phil Lesh from The Grateful Dead. Nice. He kind of stopped and we had a moment about 15 years ago, and uh I made this thing at my house called the Lesh Oriol. It's like the it's the five dollar bill he gave me and the permit I had for that day. It happened in Times Square. I used to play right in Times Square a lot. He only gave you five bucks. He gave me five bucks. Wait, you weren't the naked cowboy, were you? No, but I performed with him one day in Times Square. Uh quick funny story. He he kind of came up and wanted to play with me. I had a gig and I was playing there, busking, and he came up and I was, you know, I was getting paid to do this performance, and he kind of kept bothering me, and I didn't want to get in trouble with the program. So I'm like, naked cowboy, you gotta leave me alone. Well, so we did a song, you know, we did um we did a Willie Nelson song. It was kind of funny.

SPEAKER_00 17:34

Yeah, I can't think of the name, but when you're writing, what because I can't, you know, Dave and I are both singer-songwriters, and we write lyrics and we write our music. What what brings you to a melody? I mean, what how do you go about do you come down with an idea? Do you you're thinking of something or a chord progression or typically starts with a lot of improvisation?

SPEAKER_02 17:58

I get into a tuning like say this tuning, and I start to figure out different chord shapes that represent different chords. And it's a lot of improvisation until I find the melody, like in The Keeper of the Plains. You know, I hit that melody and I'm like, that speaks to me, you know. And then I kind of start going off it, and I try to have like an intro, a verse, a chorus, a bridge, just like a normal, you know, song you would sing, pretty much, you know. And but it really just it's very improvised, but then I kind of map out exactly what I'm doing, and it's not improvised in the end, you know? It's all people ask, Oh, do you did you just make that up? And I'm like, no, I I did initially, but now it looks like I'm making it up, but it's really the same every time, you know? Potentially. You know, I think we should get another song here. Yeah. Um so this tuning I'm in, I've written a few different songs in this one. And this is the other one I like to play in this tuning. This one's called La Fontana, the Fountain.

SPEAKER_01 22:17

Wonderful. That's that sound is just it's hypnotic. It's kind of transcendent in you.

SPEAKER_02 22:24

Yeah, I love playing that song. Thank you so much. Yeah. I'm gonna drop into uh maybe standard tuning for the moment, see what's next, you know?

SPEAKER_01 22:31

Yeah, oh good. I want to see how you handle that.

SPEAKER_02 22:33

Yeah, so I'm just getting right back quickly, right? I'm already there, I'm back in standard tuning.

SPEAKER_01 22:38

You can do it quickly. I I like that.

SPEAKER_02 22:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:41

One of the things about open mics, and and we saw you recently at an open mic, and by the way, never look down on open mics, because you hear some really amazing, amazing musicians there.

unknown 22:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:54

Totally agree. Totally agree. I mean, we've spoken to people and I know people who just think it's beneath them, you know. And it's like it's like, what do you what are you thinking? It's a great opportunity, first of all, to play new stuff, second of all to network, and just get out there and play, unless you just would rather be in your basement.

SPEAKER_02 23:12

Yeah. I think it's a great thing, definitely. And especially the one we were at, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:16

Yeah. So I mean, like you you tour all over the country and and the world. Yeah, I believe. So, you know, and for you to be out there playing an open mic is like you know.

SPEAKER_02 23:28

Yeah, no, we're all musicians, you know, it depends, you know. But I I think uh yeah, for me, I like I like going to them, particularly the ones that are you know early in the night and stuff like that. And listening rooms. Yeah, I like how that one's structured. It's like seven to nine and boom, you're in and out, you know.

SPEAKER_00 23:44

Yeah, the one we're talking about is in New Canaan, Connecticut, at a First Presbyterian Church, and it's once a month on a Thursday night, the third Thursday of the month. And it's and it's and it's great. Great, nice people and uh great snacks too, right? Exactly. Great snacks.

SPEAKER_01 24:00

Well, New Canaan, I would expect nothing less than a nice breadphone. You have recorded a bunch of albums. Is it six?

SPEAKER_02 24:07

You know, there's around nine, I think, but it's a lot of um handful of original albums and then three or two two different cover CDs, uh got it covered, one and two, I put out that have done well on streaming services and um and then the originals follow, you know, uh on on the on the pecking order, I guess, you know, out out on the streaming world. But um but yeah, that's the that's the lineup of of different albums.

SPEAKER_00 24:36

How do you go about naming your songs?

SPEAKER_02 24:40

Well, I name them after places I've been or you know, things in my life, things that inspire me. So those two last tunes, The Keeper of the Plains is a place in Wichita, Kansas, a park that I hang out every year when I go on my trip to Kansas. I go to the Keeper of the Plains Park. It's a really cool, tranquil place just to hang out. So I wrote that song there hanging out one day. And then La Fonta La F uh the La Fontana is named after a room that um my girlfriend Grace and I stayed in when we went to Venice. We went to this beautiful room, the La Fontana room, and it just was a special moment, you know. And I was writing that song. I was sitting in the room going, wow, doing that waltz thing, you know.

SPEAKER_01 25:23

But but Kansas is Kansas. That's a that's a very popular vacation spot. Yeah, exactly. Wichita. What what brings you to Kansas?

SPEAKER_02 25:31

Um the International Finger Style Guitar Competition brings me to that area. But so I started going to the uh this finger style guitar competition about 14 years ago. I started going and I I incorporated the Kansas State Fair into my tour. So each year I'll perform at the state fair and then I'll go down to a place called Winfield, Kansas, where this walnut vet walnut valley festival happens. It's the biggest bluegrass festival in Kansas. And then they have all these different competitions auto harp, um, fiddle, mandolin, and finger style guitar. And it's just a really unique place that I never thought I'd be hanging around in, being and now I'm part of the community there. Like I've made a lot of friends there, and we're all convening at a a a new festival in Woodstock, Connecticut, um, August 28th weekend up in Woodstock. It's gonna be uh an amazing festival with some world famous people. August 28th, 26. The whole weekend, uh August 27th to the 29th, I believe it is.

SPEAKER_01 26:43

And what's the name of the festival?

SPEAKER_02 26:45

Uh Woodstock Fingerstyle Guitar Festival.

SPEAKER_01 26:47

And how would people find out information about that?

SPEAKER_02 26:50

Online, Woodstock Fingerstyle Guitar.com, I believe, is the site. And it comes up on Google, and uh I'm gonna be there performing along with uh world famous Alexander Misco, Alberto Lombardi, and all these uh Gareth Pearson, all these really heavy hitter finger style guys are gonna be there. And why wouldn't you Stephen Bennett? Um, you know, they just found that as the location. I'm not sure the organizer John Donald, he uh or Donell, he he just found that location, yeah. So we're gonna head up to Woodstock, all my friends from Kansas, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:25

I I want to touch on one other subject before we ask you to close the show out with this song, but um in talking before the podcast, you know, we talked a little bit about that you're looking to maybe do a little singer-songwriter stuff going on. Have you have you written stuff already?

SPEAKER_02 27:41

Well, yeah, a little some stuff, definitely. Some stuff. Yeah. A lot of cover tunes I perform at different restaurants and whatnot around the area, but um, I am working on some originals. Cool. And uh we'll have to try them out at the open mic, right? Coming up. Yeah, and we'll have to have you back for that. Absolutely, definitely.

SPEAKER_00 27:59

We got to do a show just on your original tunes with you built in them out.

SPEAKER_02 28:03

I would love to do that. I would love to do that.

SPEAKER_00 28:05

Yeah. But um, thank you again for coming out. Um, the website is glenroth.com. Yes, two ends in Glenn. And you've got a ton of videos on there, YouTube videos.

SPEAKER_02 28:17

Yeah, all over YouTube. Uh there's over 300 videos that I've put up on YouTube since 2005. And my new my newest thing is TikTok. Check me out on TikTok and Instagram, and um and that's it. And uh I hope to see you out at a show somewhere, right? Yeah, we will.

SPEAKER_00 28:35

Absolutely. Again, Glenn Roth. What are you gonna close us out with? I think the Bohemian Rhapsody. I'm gonna put my hands. You know what we're gonna have to do? We're gonna have to do like what was the uh the um the movie of those two guys. Wayne's World. Wayne's World, where they were where they were shaking their heads up and down when it came to the book.

SPEAKER_02 28:53

I'll see your best uh Wayne's World when I get to that moment. But yeah, this is a cool song. I started arranging over ten years ago now. I've been playing this, and uh, like I said, I changed the key, the key of A. And I put every note together in my uh in my own way. Here it is, Bohemian Rhapsody. Thanks, guys.