At age 18, Doyle Bramhall II was recruited by the Fabulous Thunderbirds to hold down the guitar slot. Since that early break he has stuck out as a solo artist, toured with Roger Waters, and spent over a decade collaborating with Eric Clapton. PG caught up with Bramhall II at Nashville’s City Winery while he was touring to promote his new solo album, Rich Man.
Doyle keeps his touring guitars to a minimum, spending the majority of his time on this ’64 Fender Strat. A trademark of his style is that he plays “upside down” with the thinner strings (usually D’Addario .011s) on top.
Bramhall uses a two-amp combo live. The first amp is this Blankenship Variplex that feeds a Fender Bassbreaker BB-12 2x12 cab with Celestion Vintage 30s.
An Analog Outfitters Scanner sits atop the other piece of Doyle’s amp puzzle, a ’70s Fender Super Reverb that is modded to bypass the master volume. Bramhall also removed the stock tube rectifier and replaced it with a solid-state rectifier. The Scanner acts as a huge pedal and gives him huge, swirly vibrato and lush reverb tones.
Next to Bramhall’s main pedalboard sits the footswitch for the Scanner and a Radial Tonebone Valve-Tube Head Switcher to move between the Super Reverb and the Blankenship.
After Bramhall finished recording Rich Man, he enlisted Dave Phillips at L.A. Sound Design to create a board that could capture the sounds from the album. A few highlights are the Shin-Ei Vibe-Bro, the Zonk Machine, and a re-housed Dallas Arbiter Fuzz Face by Berkos FX.
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John Bohlinger is a Nashville-based multi-instrumentalist best known for leading the band on NBC's Nashville Star, serving as music director for the CMT Awards and specials on PBS and GAC, and of course for his appearances in PG Rig Rundown, Review Demo, Axes & Artifacts, and What Bohlinger Plays videos.
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