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A master level player that makes
every note count. Of course there is
much more to the story , Johnny has
been quite busy and has his hands in
many projects. Welcome to the
Johnny Hiland story part one...
If you tried, you couldn't make up a
story this good: legally blind kid grows
up in a trailer home in rural Maine. A
guitar prodigy, he tours with the family
band starting at age 8, wins local and
regional competitions, moves to
Nashville, ends up dropping jaws all
over town, doing sessions with Ricky
Skaggs, Toby Keith, Randy Travis,
Janie Fricke and many more, and gets
signed by Steve Vai when his manager
leaves a demo snippet on Steve's
voicemail box.
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Musicians Hotline®: Johnny, how did you get your start?
Johnny Hiland: Actually, to get started, I was about three
years old. My aunt came to our house with a 1939 Gibson
J45 that she’d brought for my dad. Dad never played, but
he found that I had such an interest in that guitar. I was
kind of like Linus with a security blanket. I had to have a
guitar with me all the time.
He saw that I’d really
started to love the guitar.
I kept it with me and tried to play it every chance I could.
But, to really start talking to you about who my influences
were, and what got me started playing the way I do today,
it’d go like this: I started playing at seven, I did my first
TV show that year. My dad also had me in "Talent
America," which I won at age 10. Then I played a lot of
bluegrass music and listened to Tony Rice, Lester Flatt & Earl Scruggs. I was also was put into the Down East
Country Music Association, which I'm very proud of. But
it wasn’t until I saw Ricky Skaggs at the Bangor
Auditorium, when I was 10, that I was really inspired me
to play an electric guitar. Ricky played up on a PAspeaker
with a purple Telecaster, and he just blew the house
down. I looked at my dad and said, "That's what I want to
do, right there. I want to play like that."
MHL: You knew it was in your blood.
JH: I knew I had it, man. I said, "That's what I want, right
there."
MHL: As many know, you have some visual
impairments. Was that a challenge for you, or was it a
helpful thing? How did that affect your learning process?
JH: Well, you know, it was kind of a curse, but it was a
blessing at the same time. You know, after hearing Ricky,
I really started buying a lot of many different styles of
music: anything from Lynyrd Skynyrd to Van Halen, to
Joe Satriani to Steve Vai, to a lot of the top 20 country
artists. I found out there were lots of different guitar
players like Steve Werner, and Vince Gill. By buying Alan
Jackson records I found out who Mr. Brent Mason was,
and through Ricky's music I found out who Albert Lee
was. I really learned through playing with CD's. I wasn’t
able to read tablature through guitar magazines or
through any other tab book. My dad had some cassettes
with tab in them, and a couple of "Hot Licks" videos, but
I just found that I had just a hard time with those. I seem
to have more luck and passion learning from just listening
to a CD. I got to the point where I joined my first country
band at 14. I started out with a gray 1988 Strat and a
Peavey Classic Chorus 130. I’d sit in my bedroom for
hours trying to learn solos note for note off the records.
Playing in a three-piece country band, I had to learn all
the rhythms, fills and solos, so I was paying attention to
fiddle parts and steel guitar parts as well.
When it came to playing
guitar solos, I wanted to
make them sound as close
to the record as possible.
I’d sit in my room for hours and try to copy Brent and
Ricky and Albert Lee. But of course, even though I was in
a country band I was still at home practicing what Satriani
would play or what Vai would play...
MHL: That’s really interesting, since it kind of segues into
my next question, which is about the first night I caught
your act. You had a total country pickin' vibe going, and
then the next night you had a blistering rock style. In both
situations you maintained tons of emotion, and you
always maintained your own sound and identity. So,
knowing that you Have your hand in both places, tell me
a little more about your approach to shifting gears stylistically.
JH: Well, I think the most important thing--and I tell this
to every student I have today--is no matter what style of
guitar you play it’s most important that you play every
note as cleanly as possible. In the same respect it's
important that you put every ounce of soul into what
you’re playing. I think that's where the visual impairment
helped me, because it really helped me develop my ears
at such an early age. So for me it was how much feeling
can i put into this solo and will this solo actually work for
me on stage. The 1st thing I try to show is hey I love what
I'm doing and #2 is that I can deliver stylisticly with
passion and with my own sense of style on the
instruments.
MHL: In some senses you could say “hey this guys got a
heightened sense of hearing” but more than that it’s
teaching you to get in tune with your carnal and heart
driven instinct and how to put that into your playing.
JH: Absolutely. I think its important to be technical in
some aspects and yes I learned theory growing up , But
when I was learning with a GIT graduate who taught
band lessons, the lessons I had were on a chalkboard. So,
I was learning theory and as a 14- or 15-year-old kid it
was kind of boring. But I remember the day the theory hit
and it all started to make sense. Then I found that I could
take the records I was listen to and actually figure out that
I could play things in different positions. When I learned
"Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love" by Van Halen, I played it in a
whole different spot than where Eddie played it.
MHL: This is kind of what caught me about you and
made me such a fan and admirer. It’s very rare that you
find a guitar player who is so technically proficient and
able to really balance it out and overshadow that technical
proficiency with pure emotional energy. A player who
makes that one note count and raises the hair on
everybody's arms.
JH: I think it's funny, in the country guitar-player people
say "Oh my goodness, this guy plays blisteringly fast," but
to me it’s not about just playing fast. It's about playing
clean, and it’s about the passion of it. When I'm playing a
blues tune I might try to pull off what B. B. King did and
hang onto one note for a while.
MHL: There's a trick you did where you have this kind of
tone-knob wah-wah trick. You place your pinky finger on
the knob, and while you’re picking out the lick you’re
moving the tone back and forth. It almost simulates a wah
pedal effect, but it comes off a bit different. How did you
come up with that trick?
JH: Actually, I stole that from Danny Gatton.
MHL: Well, you stole it well, my friend.
JH: I was a huge Danny Gatton fan when I moved to
Nashville after three years of college. I simply went to
college to please my folks, and I had learned to play so
many different instruments. I played banjo, a little piano
and bass guitar. I played all the instruments in high school
band before I graduated, because my dad really thought
I’d become a music teacher or something like that, or even
a regular school teacher who was able to teach students
how to play different instruments. So, I actually went to
college as a history major with a minor in elementary
education. But I just really had a tough time in school. The
recordings for the blind had my books on cassettes, and
sometimes I wouldn't get them until the week of finals. I
really grew to find that the guitar was such a huge passion,
but I wasn't understanding why my parents and everyone
around me couldn't see that like I really felt it. So, moving
to Nashville was such a huge dream of mine. My first TV
show I did at age seven. I told everybody that my goal was
to play the Grand Ole Opry one day, and of course it was
a big joke to hear a little seven-year-old boy in a cowboy
hat saying that. But at age 26 I accomplished it.
Check out Johnny at: www.johnnyhiland.com
To be continued...
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