£5.99
Spring 2016 edition
the acoustic guitar player’s quarterly
Andy McKee
“These songs are the emotional changes I’m going through...”
From internet sensation to the world’s stage
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GRAHAM NASH ON THIS PATH TONIGHT
the unplugged interview
GRAHAM NASH
Talks songwriting, vintage guitars, and his new album
Reviewed exclusive look at the new Takamine EF360 INSIDE
LEARN & PLAY Crosby, Stills & Nash guitar style A n t o n i o F o r c i o ne Guitars, tunings & travelling the globe W o o d y M ann Keeping Rev Gary Davis’s heritage alive Spring 2016
Lag Tramontane Chic French style
BIG NAME MODELS FOR 2016
1889 Martin 2 ½ 17 Priceless beauty
Patrick James Eggle at work
Anderwood Authentic style 4
PRINTED IN THE UK
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f i r st p l ay
TAKAMINE TT SERIES EF360S-TT £1,249 WHAT IS IT? All-solid wood dread with thermally treated top and simple onboard electrics
Tak It To The Limit Words
Neville Marten
Photography
Joby Sessions
The Japanese electro-acoustic giant enters the ‘baked top’ fray and delivers a classy, understated but sophisticated dreadnought…
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nd so the craze for torrefaction continues. The process of slowly baking tonewoods reduces their oil, resin and sugar content and the sonic impact of the process is undeniable: tones are more open and resonant, while string separation is markedly improved. So it’s with some interest that we pull this prototype Takamine from its case to test the Japanese company’s new Thermal Top range. Takamine has gone for the tried and trusted D-28 template here – a rosewood-bodied dreadnought with mahogany neck and spruce top. But while this headstock shape has become a classic in its own right, we love our guitar’s new stylised ‘T’ logo. Also unusual is the absence of the shouldermounted preamp and control panel; while Takamine’s classic two-piece saddle and Palathetic pickup remain, here the preamp is the excellent TLD-2. Built into the endpin jack, it has no surface-mounted electrics but if you’re feeling up to it, you can remove
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Woody Mann
interview
Woody Mann A master acoustic guitarist and teacher, Woody Mann incorporates jazz, blues and ragtime into his spellbinding solo concerts Words David Mead Portrait Rod Franklin
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uring his career, Woody Mann has played with legends such as Son House, Bukka White and John Fahey. Having been taught by players as diverse as the Rev Gary Davis and jazz pianist Lennie Tristano, he now teaches in seminars and workshops across the world, as well as holding the post of visiting artist at the renowned Berklee College Of Music in Boston. A recent side project saw him take on the role of producer of a film called Harlem Street Singer, which celebrates the life and music of Gary Davis. When we spoke to him he was preparing for a forthcoming UK tour that includes a weekend guitar retreat in Buxton, but first things first – let’s go right back to the beginning and ask just what it was that triggered the guitar bug and his insatiable appetite for musical discovery. “I just started hearing folk music and wanting to learn. So I learned a couple of Phil Ochs and Pete Seeger songs, early folk music, and I was just fascinated by it, so I started to buy records by these guys I’d never heard of before – blues guys – and then I was really looking for a teacher after I was about 12 or so and I couldn’t find one around where I lived. The house that I grew up in was very folk music oriented, so Pete Seeger, Paul Robeson, Woody Guthrie, those are my heroes, along with Leadbelly and Josh White. I was learning from Happy Traum’s books – little fingerpicking things – but there was no-one who was teaching guitar. One of Happy’s books was teaching Candyman and I saw the name Reverend
Gary Davis, so I just went to the phone book and called him up. I finally got Annie on the phone, his wife, and I just said, ‘Is this the guy who wrote Candyman?’ and she said, ‘Yeah’. I said, ‘Can I come over and meet him and maybe take some guitar lessons?’ and she said, ‘Sure’. So my mother drove me over there and I didn’t even know his music, I just knew he wrote Candyman. I went over there and he started playing guitar for me and I was floored because all I’d heard was folk music, but when he started playing with that big double thumb and that syncopation, I was like, ‘Holy shit, what the hell’s this?’. He said, ‘Well, we call that ragtime’. I said, ‘Could you teach me guitar?’ He said, ‘Yeah’. And so the next day I went back for a lesson. I just went back as often as I could.” So you began by studying folk and blues?
“Yeah, I met Nick Perls who owns Yazoo Records. Back then the blues scene and folk scenes were very small. In New York, if you knew Nick Perls that was it; at his house Jack Elliot would come by, Phil Ochs would come by and Emmylou Harris. All these people were just started out back then and I was a kid, I didn’t know them. But that’s how small a unit it was. That’s where I met John Fahey, Stefan Grossman, all that kind of stuff so it was a very tight knit community. When I went to his house he had one of the world’s largest 78 collections and it just started from Texas Alexander all the way, A to Z and I just discovered who these people were – Big Bill Broonzy,
everybody – and so it was an incredible experience. It was kind of like being at the right place at the right time and I was young enough that I just soaked it up. I didn’t really have a career, I wasn’t performing, I was just eating up the music.” You went on to be taught by Lennie Tristano. How did that come about?
“We’re jumping to 10 years later, but basically, after Davis died I was sort of ‘Where do I go from here?’ I was playing with Fahey on the blues scene. I just wanted something else – kind of bored with it in a way – I wanted to get into something else but I didn’t know what. So I thought it was jazz guitar, obviously. I took a lesson with Chuck Wayne and all the New York ‘jazz guitar guys’ and it was way over my head. It was way too intellectual. They were talking about modes and shit and I was into clarinet, Johnny Dodds, Louis Armstrong, the old guys. It was like blues/jazz but they were all into this modern stuff and it was just like my ears were not there. Someone suggested Lennie Tristano as a teacher and I actually bought one of his records and I didn’t like it. I couldn’t relate to the music. I just basically figured, ‘what the hell, I’ll go and check him out’. He was just a very eccentric guy, and I knew he taught all the instruments not just guitar, which intrigued me. Just after the first lesson he was saying, ‘Well now, let’s get you into improvising’, and I wasn’t even sure what he was talking about. There was something about the guy that went ‘Oh, this is kind of cool. Let me
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Woody Mann
Acoustic Spring 2016
namm ’16
namm ’16 We round-up some acoustic highlights from the annual NAMM show in Anaheim, California. Time to start saving… Words Dave Burrluck
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FAITH Nomad Travel electros from £429
The combination of designs by Patrick James Eggle and very smart Indonesian production means that – as many of you already know – Faith is one of the UK’s go-to brands. New additions this year include a pair of small 12-fret ‘travel’ electros, the Nomads: a solid spruce/ mahogany mini-dread FDS and an all-solid mahogany mini-jumbo FDNMG with 24-inch scale, satin finish and gig bag at £429 and £439 respectively. In the full-size line we get the new 14-fret Venus “Blood Moon” electro (£850, with case) that uses solid Indonesian trembesi for its top, back and sides – a wood that Faith believes sits halfway between mahogany and rosewood. There’s also an all-solid mahogany satin finish Naked Venus electro cutaway, the FKVMG at £529.
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GUILD USA & Westerly Archbacks from £320
We’re not sure how many times we’ve written this over the years but, yes, Guild USA acoustics are again back in production! New owner Cordoba has retained master luthier Ren Ferguson to head up the operation, this time based in Oxnard, California, just five minutes away from another major USA maker, Jean Larrivée. Must be something in the air… The first models off the newly-designed production line are the classic M-20 and D-20, all mahogany models, in natural or Antique Burst (approximately £1,100£1,320) The rest of this well-loved range will follow as the year progresses.
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While USA production has floundered over the recent years, offshore ranges such as the new Westerly range (previously the GADs) have kept the Guild name in the stores and a new mini-range of Westerly Archbacks drop in under those prices. There are five models – priced around £320-£395 – all electros with solid spruce tops and pressed backs: the M-240E, D-240E, OM-24E, OM240CE and F-2512E 12-string.
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Lowden Jon Gomm Signature Model £TBA
Lowden has added percussive virtuoso Jon Gomm to its impressive signature series artists that already includes Alex De Grassi, Paul Brady, Pierre Bensusan, Richard Thompson and Thomas Leeb. Gomm’s highly percussive style requires a special instrument and his signature is based on ‘Wilma’, his Lowden O32C, “my only live and recorded instrument for the past 16 years,” he says. To build a stronger top to withstand his techniques he suggested using two thin sheets of wood laminated together - a layer of spruce on the outside, and cedar inside. George Lowden created two guitars – one with this ‘hybrid top’, and one with a solid spruce top. “Both guitars were beautiful sounding but the hybrid top was actually louder and sustained longer. It had a stronger, deeper bass and the projection was insane. I was completely blown away.” Aside from that Lowden also took the wraps off the S35 M, the first ever all hardwood Lowden guitar that uses the extraordinarily figured AAAA grade
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fiddleback mahogany for its back, sides and top, plus 35 series appointments and Robson open-gear tuners. “The combination of the loud, bright ‘S’ body size with the beefy lower mids of the mahogany makes this guitar a delight for blues players and strummers, while still retaining that Lowden sustain and clarity.” After a quick strum, we couldn’t agree more. Finally, Lowden is a big proponent of the fan-fret and this option has been added to the Wee Lowden range with the WL-35 FF, which uses Indian rosewood and redwood construction. It also also represents a redesign of the Fan Fret option across the range. “The ‘vertical fret’ of the Fan Fret has been moved from the 7th to the 6th fret, reducing the angle of the lower frets and making chords more comfortable to play,” says Lowden.
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review
ANderwood Authentic series c1927 Style 4
Lap Of The Gods
Anderwood makes its Weissenborns the traditional way – we visited the UK workshop to find out what it entails… Photography John WIlde
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3 1, The mould, taken from an Original 1920s Weissenborn, is used to hold the sides in shape after bending. It stays this way until the top goes on 2, The rosewood and holly marqueterie is made up of many small segments which are pre-fixed to a maple purfling. It’s applied one tiny bit at a time 3, Hot hide glue is key to the tone, and was used for the original instruments as it is on Anderwood’s Authentic recreations
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4, The ‘feather light’ feel is due to thicknessing the top, back and sides down to original specifications combined with delicate bracings and beautifully light, air dried Koa 5, The large Maple bridge plate was Weissenborn’s genius solution to incorporating a flat bridge on to a curved body 6, The wood sets are cut from large billets, with the top, back and sides coming from the same stick to match. They are then graded to determine which style guitar their figuring is best suited for
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ANderwood Authentic series c1927 Style 4 7
review
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7, No pre-shaped bracings here – the complex shape of the Weissenborn comes from a shaped dish that the top is forced into using sticks or ‘go-bars’. The hide glue then puts the subtle curves into the finished instrument
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8, Hand-shaping with the plane lets the luthier perfect the finished shape and profile of an instrument. This is always completed by eye and feel 9, Cutting the grooves in the koa top for the rosette, in this case three fine rings of beautifully white holly 10, Bending the sides the old fashioned way, with a flame-heated bar. Koa is notoriously difficult to shape due to the complex figuring and flaming
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11, Book-matching tops and backs can take real patience to get a seamless joint. Careful hand-plaining is the answer on this hard and grainy tonewood 12, The headstocks are cut and shaped from a large chunk of koa. The steep break angle combined with the fact that nearly two inches at the base of the headstock resides inside the hollow neck doesn’t make for a very efficient use of this expensive wood, which is why on some 1920s models you find that mahogany was favoured instead
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© Steve Goudie
Techniques
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Techniques
Crosby, Stills & Nash Style In this month’s techniques session we’ll teach you how to master the fanstastic and diverse acoustic styles of our cover star, Graham Nash, and his long-time partners in Crosby, Stills and Nash – Steven Stills and David Crosby…
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Difficulty HHHHH Key Em Tempo 109bpm Tutor: Stuart Ryan | Helps Improve: Understanding of altered tunings
The ethereal vocal harmonies of Crosby, Stills and Nash were always going to require some equally transcendent guitar work and thanks to the unique acoustic guitar stylings of the trio the perfect foundation for those soaring vocals was always in place. David Crosby was no stranger to intricate guitar work, having been a member of 60s legends, The Byrds while Graham Nash was already a star thanks to his time with UK group The Hollies. However, in the company of Steven Stills, both were able to take their playing in a more folk-influenced direction. Part of the allure of the Crosby, Stills and Nash sound comes from their intricately woven guitar parts. Often times you’ll hear altered tunings or the occasional ‘unexpected’ note choice which make their guitar parts really stand out amongst a generation of players who were exploring the fingerpicking style to its maximum. Listen to a track such as Guinevere with its altered tuning (EBDGAD) and you’ll hear unusual chord voicings and a solid, rhythmically sure fingerpicked part over which the vocals can ride. However, it’s not all about fingerpicking, and you’ll also encounter driving, strummed parts with more straight-ahead chords and riff-based ideas (try Marrakesh Express for example), but all played with that confident sense of rhythm and dynamic which came to define
the group. Factor in Steven Stills’ bluesy acoustic and electric guitar fills and you have a group who can cover many different sides of the acoustic guitar – fingerpicking, strumming and lick-based playing all find their place within their music. Bear in mind that a group with three guitars runs the risk of clashing registers or too much low-end mud if everyone is playing in the same area. Anyone who has played in a two-guitar group will already know that this format can sometimes be one guitar too many! Consequently the three often explore the various registers of the instrument to almost create an orchestral, perfectly arranged blend of their parts and approaches. This of course doesn’t take into account the fourth guitar of sometime member, Neil Young… For this issue’s study I’ve looked at a typical Crosby, Stills and Nash fingerpicked part complete with altered tuning and some harmonic twists and turns. This one is slow and while the fingerpicking pattern won’t pose any great challenges make sure your fretting hand is comfortable with the chord shapes before setting off. Incidentally, I’ve modified a David Crosby tuning for this one – he uses EBDGAD from time to time but I’ve removed the potential fifth string bothering by keeping this as an A – you can see this tuning as a modified DADGAD which pulls you to the key of E.
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