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Carlos
Barbosa-Lima
Since 1996, Carlos Barbosa-Lima
has played guitars built by Cuban-born, Miami resident Andres Caruncho.
"I love his guitars and I have two of them," he says. "The guitar
on Mambo No. 5 is cedar, which was for me an acquired taste. It's
fantastic, very warm sounding. Sustain and a singing tone are major
features of Caruncho's guitars."
—Ron
Forbes-Roberts
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Kasey
Chambers
Both Kasey Chambers and her trusty
lead guitarist, Bill Chambers, play instruments made by Adelaide-based
Australian guitar maker Bryan De Gruchy (www.picknowl.com.au/homepages/degruchy).
Kasey's collection includes a unique pair of slender, small-bodied
models, a grand auditorium, and a dreadnought. She favors Fender
strings and picks and Fishman pickups. In concert she routes her
signal through a Boss tuner pedal and then into the PA. Bill's stable
of De Gruchys includes a stunning Tasmanian blackwood dreadnought
guitar, a couple of custom resophonics, and a mandolin. He prefers
Fender medium-gauge strings and heavy Fender picks and goes direct
into the PA through Fishman amplification gear.
—Mike
Thomas
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Alana
Davis
Alana Davis' main studio guitar is
an early 1990s Martin D-16; on stage she picks a Guild dreadnought
with a Fishman Blender pickup/mic system. Also appearing on Fortune
Cookies is a '30s Martin turned into a high-string guitar loaned
to Davis by New York gear guru Artie Smith.
Davis switches between fingerpicking
(sometimes in alternate tunings like C A D G A D, used on "Rest
of Yesterday" from her first record) and strumming with a pick.
In demoing songs she sometimes uses a drum machine as a memory aid,
but she warns that "demos are dangerous. You create a good demo,
and then you're trying to re-create it when you get into the studio
or when you get on stage, and that's difficult. You shouldn't finish
a song on a demo—you
should just throw down the idea and that's it, because those lame
drum beats can really take all the fun out of a good song."
—Jeffrey
Pepper Rodgers
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Sam
Phillips
"Tone is really important to me,"
says Sam Phillips. "I'm not a big fan of pickups and new guitars.
Most of the guitars T Bone and I have are 1960s or older." In fact,
most of Phillips' latest record, Fan Dance, was recorded with a
1964 Gibson LG-1 and a 1936 Gibson L-7. "I love the old Gibsons,"
she says. "I basically strum with my fingers, no picks."
Phillips is averse to changing strings,
preferring the sound of old strings. She recalls recording the title
track. "The strings had been on [that Gibson LG-1] for nine years!
I think I got the last performance on those strings, and then one
of them broke." She has recently been using Martin Marquis bronze
strings. "We always go with bronze," says production assistant/guitar
tech Paul Ackling, "because the phosphor-bronze has sort of a tinselly
sound. We don't go too light. On the L-7, we use medium-gauge, and
on the LG-1 we use light-gauge."
In live performances, Ackling sets
up a vintage RCA microphone at about chin level, which picks up
Phillips' vocal and her guitar. "It's a beautiful old rectangle
RCA 6203, sort of a big-band mic," Ackling explains. "The big-band
singer would be four or five feet away, and the band would be about
15 feet away, and it would pick up everything."
—Simone
Solondz
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Pete
Seeger
Pete Seeger's 12-string guitar, built
by Bruce A. Taylor (219 Godfrey Rd. E., Weston, CT 06883-1405; corbtaylor@aol.com),
is based on instruments that U.K. luthier/engineer Stanley Francis
made for Seeger starting in the '50s using a distinctive triangular
soundhole and bracing design and a long (nearly 28-inch) scale.
All of those guitars eventually collapsed, so Taylor strengthened
the bracing in his adaptation. These days, Seeger uses the 12-string
mainly for song leading; at home, he plays a Vicente Tatay nylon-string
given to him in the late '40s.
He tunes his 12-strings down two whole
steps and usually plays in the equivalent of dropped-D tuning (Bb
F Bb Eb G C), moving his Shubb capo around the neck and using G,
D, and A fingerings to hit various keys. E&O Mari and Bruce
Taylor developed phosphor-bronze strings for his low tuning with
the gauges (low to high) .034/.070, .023/.047, .016/.034, .010/.026,
.018/.018, and .013/.012 (these days, he uses lighter trebles).
He uses a heavy plastic thumbpick and three metal fingerpicks on
the 12-string; on banjo, he uses fingerpicks only. In order to avoid
having to change picks all the time, he straightens out his middle
and ring fingerpicks so that he can turn them around to use on the
banjo.
Seeger's banjo dates from 1955, when
he got the idea of making a banjo neck/fingerboard from a single
piece of lignum vitae, a wood so dense it sinks in water. He bought
the wood himself, sketched a neck outline on it, and with the help
of the D'Angelico shop, turned it into a working neck (with three
frets more than the average banjo) and mounted it on a Vega Tubaphone
pot. Following the example of Woody Guthrie's guitar billboard "This
Machine Kills Fascists," Seeger inscribed his banjo with the gentler
"This Machine Surrounds Hate and Forces It to Surrender." Says Seeger,
"Every time I get a new drum, I get out some colored Magic Markers
and write it all over again."
—Jeffrey
Pepper Rodgers
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Eddie
Pennington
Eddie Pennington's main flattop acoustic
is an H.G. Leach EPS (Eddie Pennington Special) model dreadnought
with a redwood top and walnut back and sides (H.G. Leach Guitars,
[530] 477-2938, www.leachguitars.com).
The guitar also features Travis-style card position inlays and other
inlaid trim and is outfitted with an RMC bridge saddle pickup. He
used this guitar exclusively on his Just My Style CD. For live performances,
Pennington plays the Leach EPS through an Ultrasound AG-50E amp
with digital reverb. He also owns a Gibson Hummingbird flattop he
bought used around 1970. He strings his acoustic guitars with American
Flyers 80/20 bronze light-gauge (.012—.052) and uses heavy
Slick Pick thumbpicks made by Fred Kelly.
Pennington's collection of electric
guitars includes a Super 400—style 18-inch archtop custom-built
by Leach, an 18-inch Heritage Super Eagle, and a Gibson Super 400
similar to the ones Merle Travis played. One of the unique features
of the Leach 400 is its top. The outside is carved, but the inside
is flat, giving it more mass for greater sustain and less potential
for feedback. Pennington strings his electric guitars with American
Flyers medium-gauge electric strings (.011—.052)
or Dean Markley Blue Steel mediums (.011—.052).
He plays his electrics through an Ultrasound AG-50E or one of his
vintage tube amps, such as his Music Man HD130 with a 15-inch Altec-Lansing
speaker. The Music Man was originally built for Merle Travis and
was given to Pennington by Travis' son Thom Bresh.
—Jim
Ohlschmidt
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