Jerry Garcia plays a Takamine acoustic at Lincoln Center in Manhattan in 1984, where he performed with bassist and frequent collaborator John Kahn.
Twenty-eight years after his death, Jerry Garcia may be more famous than ever. There are reputed to be over 5,000 Grateful Dead cover bands in the U.S. alone. Guitarists in towns small and large mine his electric guitar solos for existential wisdom, and his bright, chiming tone and laid-back lyricism continues to enthrall successive generations. What is less talked about is his acoustic guitar playing, which is, after all, where it all began.
One cannot fully understand the man without knowing how powerful and enduring the acoustic guitar remained in his life. Picture the West Coast in 1962; this is before everything went electric. What’s in the air is the Folk Revival. A generation of young urban kids had discovered American folk music, old-time, bluegrass, ragtime, and Delta blues, whether it was Woody Guthrie, Clarence Ashley, Bill Monroe, or Reverend Gary Davis. Plenty of future rock ’n’ rollers, including Jorma Kaukonen, John Sebastian, and Mike Bloomfield, absorbed this music, but none climbed as deep into its corners as Garcia.
Our recorded evidence goes as far back as 1961, when Jerry played banjo and guitar with the Black Mountain Boys, the Hart Valley Drifters, and other Bay Area outfits that included contemporaries like Eric Thompson on guitar, future Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter on bass, and multi-instrumentalist Sandy Rothman. What strikes the listener is how burning these early recordings are. Jerry, barely out of his teens, mostly on banjo, has gone straight into the hardcore stuff. This music, coming from the likes of the Stanley Brothers, Bill Monroe, and the Osborne Brothers, is not for the faint of heart. It’s virtuosic, wild, and, in its purest form, downright scary. Death and violence run amok in many of their lyrics. As Jerry’s longtime ally, mandolinist David Grisman, put it, “Back then, all of it was pretty hardcore compared to the ‘pop grass’ of today.”
Jerry followed Bill Monroe around for close to a year and is reputed to have approached the father of bluegrass to audition for his band. He studied numerous lesser-known figures, too: Dock Boggs, flat-picker Tom Paley from the New Lost City Ramblers, Mississippi John Hurt. In the mid-’60s, he set aside the banjo to focus on guitar, because as he put it, “I’d worn the banjo out.”
“In the mid-’60s, he set aside the banjo to focus on guitar, because as he put it, ‘I’d worn the banjo out.’”
Garcia’s voracious appetite for American musical history drove him to dive into a subject and completely exhaust it, absorbing new influences like proteins. A set in those days might include bluegrass staples like “Rosa Lee McFall” and “John Hardy,” but also folk tunes that Peter, Paul and Mary or Joan Baez might cover: “All My Trials,” “Rake and Rambling Boy,” “Gilgarra Mountain.” There were also classics from the old-time repertoire, such as “Shady Grove” (a Doc Watson favorite) and “Man of Constant Sorrow,” along with Mississippi John Hurt’s “Louis Collins” or Lead Belly’s “Good Night Irene.”
The locus for this outpouring of West Coast roots-music activity was the South Bay, Palo Alto, and Menlo Park—community gathering spots where the culture turned from beatnik to hippie. The precursor of the Grateful Dead was the Palo Alto-based, all-acoustic Mother McCree’s Uptown Jug Champions. Jug bands had roots in early African American history, but at that time the main influence among the young, white players in the genre was the Jim Kweskin Jug Band.
Hot dawgs: Garcia and his acoustic-mandolin-playing cohort, David Grisman, clearly enjoyed hanging out together on the 1993 day in Mill Valley, California, when this shot was taken.
Photo by Susana Millman
When most musicians play traditional American tunes, especially bluegrass, they hew to a set of timeworn principles and licks from which they extrapolate. Jerry didn’t do that so much, though he knew plenty of those licks. He made the music his own. He accompanied himself as a singer on acoustic guitar as much as he did on electric, with a simple, strong picking hand. In solos, he ranged freely around the neck, not content to stay close to first position, like bluegrassers Jimmy Martin or Carter Stanley might. You never feel that he’s relying on much besides his ear. We hear the ever-present pull-offs, the chromatic approach tones, the hints at Tin Pan Alley harmony, and even the note-bending—all the stuff you find in his electric work.
“Calling himself ‘lazy,’ he suggested that playing acoustic could be a battle, and that this guitar generally made life easier.”
Consider “The Other One,” which often became a springboard for the Grateful Dead’s long electric jams. In more fiery renditions of this staple, Jerry plays long lines of eighth notes—a relentless stream that builds the energy much like a bluegrass solo, where the right hand never stops and rarely slows. In “Deal,” you hear the pre-war Tin Pan Alley sound, with echoes of early jazz. In “Cold Rain and Snow,” “Wharf Rat,” and “Loser,” you hear the modal drones of early country gospel, and the way Garcia solos evoke the primeval fiddle lines and moaning vocals of the nascent 20th century, back when death, murder, destitution, and lost love made up a lot of the lyrical subject matter. It’s a perfect mating. His flatpicking is at the heart of “Me and My Uncle,” “Cumberland Blues,” and “Brown-Eyed Women.” You hear some of early Merle Haggard and the Bakersfield sound, too.
In the mid-’60s, Garcia set aside the banjo to focus on guitar, because as he put it, “I’d worn the banjo out.”
Photo by Jerald Melrose
And what of the gear that Jerry used through four decades of creating his signature approach to acoustic American roots music (which includes rock ’n’ roll)? Let’s start in 1980, when the Grateful Dead did an acoustic and electric tour of 25 shows with three sets per gig—the first set unplugged.
Jerry had grown tired of dealing with the sound of a miked acoustic. It was too unpredictable, too woofy. The sound of the guitar, he said, comes at you from a number of directions. To simply put a mic near the soundhole captures only a portion of the sound waves. When the first guitars with built-in pickups were made, and could be plugged straight into the soundboard, he went for it, bought a Takamine EF360S, and never looked back. Compared to, say, a Martin, these guitars are rather snappy in tone, emphasizing highs and mid highs. Jerry sometimes opted to further emphasize the brightness by picking close to the bridge. He told interviewer Jas Obrecht that he also favored the Takamine for how easy it played, compared to some of his earlier dreadnoughts. Calling himself “lazy,” he suggested that playing acoustic could be a battle, and that this guitar generally made life easier.
Way back in the early ’60s, Garcia played a big-bodied Guild F-50, and then a Martin D-21. As the decade progressed, he chose an Epiphone Texan, and a Martin 000-18S and 00-45. During the rail-riding 1970 Festival Express tour—captured in the excellent 2003-released film Festival Express—he was spotted playing a Martin D-18 and a D-28, and in 1978 he was using a Guild D-25. Jerry reportedly revisited his Martins in later years, but most often he performed and recorded with the Takamine or an Alvarez Yairi GY-1, aka the Jerry Garcia Model. The GY-1 was designed with Garcia’s input by Kazuo Yairi in the early ’90s. It boasts solid rosewood back and sides, an ebony fretboard, gold tuners, custom fretboard and headstock inlays, and Alvarez System 500 electronics. Today, vintage GY-1s sell for between $850 and $1,500, depending on their condition.
“He had the three T’s: tone, time and taste. And, most importantly, he had his own unique voice, immediately recognizable and distinctive.”—David Grisman
Jerry’s acoustic playing is at the heart of early Dead albums, such as Workingman’s Dead and American Beauty. When you hear “Ripple,” “Friend of the Devil,” “Dire Wolf,” “Uncle John’s Band,” and later, “Standing on the Moon” or “Mississippi Half-Step Uptown Toodeloo,” you’re hearing an incredible evolution of American song, in part thanks to his stellar fretwork.
The Alvarez Yairi GY-1 became known as the Jerry Garcia Model. It was designed with Garcia’s input by Kazuo Yairi in the early ’90s. It boasts a solid rosewood back and sides, an ebony fretboard, gold tuners, custom fretboard and headstock inlays, and Alvarez System 500 electronics.
Photo courtesy of Dark Matter Music Company/Reverb.com
I was at a couple of the Grateful Dead’s shows at San Francisco’s Warfield in 1980, during their acoustic and electric tour, and the experience was a revelation. It showed how strong the songs were, without the hue and cry of electricity. Sure, the Dead were a dance band, and a decidedly psychedelic band, but their acoustic playing revealed depths of intimacy that were a lovely counterpoint to all that. Some of Jerry’s most mournful material, Garcia’s “To Lay Me Down” and American Beauty’s “Brokedown Palace,” is even more heartbreaking when he’s in this setting. You feel the band’s subtle chemistry in a new way.
But as an acoustic player, Jerry is most clearly represented in his side projects, such as Old & In the Way, a first-class bluegrass outfit (with Jerry back on banjo) that stretched past traditional repertoire into songs by the Rolling Stones as well as mandolinist Dave Grisman’s and guitarist Peter Rowan’s “newgrass” originals. The Jerry Garcia Acoustic Band of the late ’80s harkened back to the Black Mountain Boys. The fiddle player in the band, Kenny Kosek, says the group started when some of Jerry’s old friends gathered by his hospital bed when he was recovering from his diabetic coma in 1987. They encouraged him to use the band as an opportunity to heal and renew.
During his early years in bluegrass and old timey music, Garcia’s first recording instrument was the banjo, which he played in groups like the Black Mountain Boys.
Photo by Jerald Melrose
A charming piece of history is also found in the album The Pizza Tapes, an informal 1993 jam—released seven years later—with Grisman and bluegrass-guitar icon Tony Rice that was recorded in Grisman’s home and released after a bootleg began to circulate. It’s useful to contrast Garcia’s solos with Rice’s. Save for Doc Watson, Rice was possibly the greatest bluegrass guitarist to walk the planet, with enough technique to steamroll you right off the stage. But Jerry doesn’t flinch. He just wanders up and down the neck being Jerry—a little behind the beat, playing melodies … always melodies. He’s not out to compete with Rice, and, indeed, his collaborative approach was one of the Grateful Dead’s pillars. But it’s clear Garcia is no visitor to these stylistic realms as they play songs by John Hurt, Lefty Frizzell, Dylan, and even the Gershwins. He lives there.
The final act of Jerry as an acoustic guitarist was captured on the four Garcia/Grisman recordings of the ’90s. Talking to Grisman, who coined the term “Dawg Music” to describe the mix of bluegrass, folk, and jazz which he and Garcia loved, one can infer that this trove of material, recorded over many sessions at his house, came about partly because the Dead had become such a monolith. Stardom had its burdens, and Jerry didn’t care much for the pressure of being an object of worship. This music was a refuge, and Grisman describes the undertaking as “providential.” It’s moving to hear Garcia reach back to his roots with accumulated wisdom and gravitas … before he leaves us. His playing is deeply relaxed, his voice authoritative, resonant. He is an emotional interpreter, getting right to the soul of the tunes. These lesser-known recordings are some of the true gems in Jerry’s protean career, and luckily there are deluxe editions with a lot of music at Grisman’s acousticdisc.com.
The musicians who played acoustic music with Garcia all note the wide reach of his repertoire. Kenny Kosek describes feeling fully supported by Jerry, who infused that support with a sense of openness and playfulness. Grisman adds, “He had the three T’s: tone, time and taste. And, most importantly, he had his own unique voice, immediately recognizable and distinctive, reflecting his heavy addiction to listening to great music of all types.”
Joel Harrison wishes to thank David Grisman, Eric Thompson, Steve Kimock, and Jack Devine for assistance with this article.
YouTube It
Hear the Grateful Dead tackle an acoustic rendition of the 1920s song “Deep Elem Blues,” alluding to Dallas’ historic African American neighborhood. Yes, Jerry solos!
Get Some Jerry in Your Ears
If you’re not already familiar with Jerry Garcia’s acoustic playing, here are a few recommended recordings:
- “Uncle John’s Band,” Workingman’s Dead, The Grateful Dead (1970)
- “Jack-A-Roe,” Reckoning, The Grateful Dead(1981)
- “Whiskey in the Jar,” Shady Grove, David Grisman and Jerry Garcia (1996)
- “Louis Collins,” The Pizza Tapes, Jerry Garcia, David Grisman, and Tony Rice (2000)
- Before the Dead, four-CD/five-LP compilation of Jerry Garcia’s pre-Dead bands (2018)
- Grateful Dead-Style Solo Tricks ›
- Fender Announces the Jerry Garcia Alligator Stratocaster ›
- Electric Etudes: Jerry Garcia ›
- 5 Grateful Dead Riffs for Beginners - Premier Guitar ›
A rig meant to inspire! That’s Jerry Garcia with his Doug Irwin-built Tiger guitar, in front of his Twin Reverb + McIntosh + JBL amp rig.
“I met Jerry Garcia once, in 1992, at the bar at the Ritz Carlton in New York,” Dark Star Orchestra guitarist Jeff Mattson tells me over the phone. Nearly sixty-seven years old, Mattson is one of the longest-running members of the Grateful Dead tribute band scene, which encompasses hundreds of groups worldwide. The guitarist is old enough to have lived through most of the arc ofthe actual Grateful Dead’s career. As a young teen, he first absorbed their music by borrowing their seminal records, American Beauty and Workingman’s Dead, brand new then, from his local library to spin on his turntable. Around that same moment, he started studying jazz guitar. Between 1973 and 1995, Mattson saw the Dead play live hundreds of times, formed the landmark jam bandZen Tricksters, and later stepped into theJerry Garcia lead guitarist role with the Dark Star Orchestra (DSO), one of the leading Dead tribute acts.
“At the bar, I didn’t even tellGarcia I was a guitar player,” Mattson explains. “I had just heard him play the new song ‘Days Between’ and I told him how excited I was by it, and he told me he was excited too. It wasn’t that long of a conversation, but I got to shake his hand and tell him how much his music meant to me. It’s a very sweet memory.”
The Grateful Dead’s final studio album was 1989’sBuilt to Last, and that title was prophetic. From 1965 to 1995, the band combined psychedelic rock with folk, blues, country, jazz, and even touches of prog rock and funk, placing a premium on improvisation and pushing into their own unique musical spaces. Along the way, they earned a reputation that placed them among the greatest American bands in rock ’n’ roll history—to many, the ultimate. Although no one member was more important than another, the heart and soul of the ensemble was Garcia. After his death in 1995, the surviving members retired the name the Grateful Dead.
“I think Jerry Garcia was the most creative guitarist of the 20th century because he had the widest ears and the sharpest instincts,” opines historian, author, and official Grateful Dead biographer Dennis McNally, over the phone. “What we see after his death are the Deadheads coming to terms with his passing but indicating that it’s the music that was most important to them. And who plays the music now becomes simply a matter of taste.”
Dark Star Orchestra guitarist Jeff Mattson, seen here with Garcia’s Alligator Stratocaster (yes, the real one).
Photo by Susana Millman
This year marks 30 years since Garcia’s passing and 60 years since the band formed in the San Francisco Bay Area. Today, the guitarist’s musical vocabulary and unique, personal tone manifests in new generations of players. Perhaps the most visible of these musicians is John Mayer, anointed as Garcia’s “replacement” in Dead and Co. But dozens of others, like Mattson, Tom Hamilton Jr., and a young new artist named Bella Rayne, strive to keep the Dead alive.
The first few Grateful Dead tribute bands began emerging in local dive bars by the late ’70s. More than mere cover bands, these groups devoted themselves entirely to playing the Dead. A few of these early groups eventually toured the country, playing in college towns, ski resorts, and small theatres across the United States. Mattson started one on Long Island, New York. He tells me, “The first band I was in that played exclusively Grateful Dead was Wild Oats. It was 1977, and we played local bars. Then, in 1979, I joined a band called the Volunteers. We also played almost exclusively the Grateful Dead, and that was a much more professional outfit—we had a good PA and lights and a truck, the whole nine yards.” The Volunteers eventually morphed into the Zen Tricksters.
Garcia’s death turbocharged the Dead tribute band landscape. Fanbases grew, and some bands reached the point where big-time agents booked them into blue-chip venues like Red Rocks and the Beacon Theatre. Summer festivals devoted to these bands evolved.
“The first band I was in that played exclusively Grateful Dead was Wild Oats. It was 1977, and we played local bars.” —Jeff Mattson
Dark Star Orchestra launched in 1997, and they do something particular, taking an individual show from somewhere out of Grateful Dead history and recreating that evening’s setlist. It’s musically and sonically challenging. They try to use era-specific gear, so on any given night, they may be playing through recreations of the Grateful Dead’s backline from 1971 or 1981, for example. It all depends on the show they choose to present. Mattson joined DSO as its lead guitar player in 2009.
Something else significant happened after Jerry died: The remaining living members of the Grateful Dead and other musicians from Garcia’s inner circle embraced the tribute scene, inviting musicians steeped in their music to step up and sit in with them. For Mattson, it’s meant playing over the years with all the core members of the band, Phil Lesh, Bob Weir, Bill Kreutzmann, and Mickey Hart, plus former members Donna Jean Godchaux, who sang in the band from 1971 to 1979, and Tom Constanten, who played keyboards with the Dead from 1968 to 1970.
Tom Hamilton’s Lotto custom built had a Doug Irwin-inspired upper horn.
In the newest post-Garcia tribute bands, many guitar players aren’t old enough to have seen Garcia perform live—or if they did, it was towards the end of his life and career. One of those guys sitting today at the top of the Garcia pyramid, along with Mattson, is Tom Hamilton Jr. Growing up in a musical family in Philadelphia, Hamilton saw Garcia play live only three times. Early on, he was influenced by Stevie Ray Vaughan, but Hamilton’s older brother, who was also a guitar player, loved the Dead and Garcia. “My brother wanted to play like Jerry,” he recalls, “so he roped me in because he needed me to play ‘Bob Weir’ and be his rhythm guitar sidekick.” Eventually, Hamilton leaned more into the Jerry role himself. “Then I spent my entire twenties trying to develop my own voice as a songwriter and as a guitar player. And I did,” Hamilton says. “And during that time, I met Joe Russo. He was not so much into the Dead then, but he knew I was.”
A drummer from Brooklyn, by about 2006, Russo found himself collaborating on projects with members of Phish and Ween. That put him on the radar of Lesh and Weir, who invited Russo to be a part of their post-Dead project Furthur in 2009. (And on guitar, they chose DSO founding member John Kadlecik, opening that role up for Mattson.)
“When Joe played in Furthur, he got under the hood of the Grateful Dead’s music and started to understand how special it was,” Hamilton points out. “After Furthur wound down, we decided to form JRAD. We weren’t trying to do something academic, not some note-for-note recreation. We were coming at it through the pure joy of the songs, and the fact that the five of us in JRAD were improvisers ourselves.”
“We were coming at it through the pure joy of the songs, and the fact that the five of us in JRAD were improvisers ourselves.” —Tom Hamilton Jr.
Today, Joe Russo’s Almost Dead (JRAD) is considered to be one of the premier Grateful Dead tribute bands. They formed in 2013, with Hamilton and Scott Metzger as the band’s guitar frontline, with Hamilton handling Garcia’s vocal roles. Eventually, Hamilton, too, found himself jamming onstage with the ever-evolving Phil Lesh and Friends. That, of course, further enmeshed him in the scene, and in 2015, he started a band with Dead drummer Bill Kreutzmann calledBilly and the Kids.
Now, there’s a new kid on the block, literally. Bella Rayne recently turned 18 and grew up in Mendocino, California. Her parents were into the Dead, but even they were too young to have really followed the original band around the country. At her age, they were big into Phish. By the pandemic, Bella started embracing the guitar out of boredom, woodshedding while social distancing in quarantine. She explains, “Like any other teen, I was bored out of my mind looking for anything to do.” Rummaging through her garage, she came across her mom’s old Strat. “At the time, I was really into ’90s Seattle grunge. I put new strings on the Strat, and then I tried to teach myself Pearl Jam songs, and I learned how to play them by watching YouTube videos. Then, I started posting videos of my journey online as I became more serious about it. I hit a point where I knew it would be my thing. The next thing I knew, one of the Bay Area Dead bands [China Dolls] reached out to me and asked me to sit in. I thought, ‘no way.’“My parents are huge Deadheads,” she continues. “That’s theirthing. I grew up with the Dead being pushed on me my whole life. But I ended up going, and it’s just been this awesome spiral ever since.” Bella calls her current Dead-related project Bella Rayne and Friends, and she, too, has been recognized not only by the new generation of Garcia players in the Dead tribute bands, but also by Melvin Seals, the Hammond organist who played for years in theJerry Garcia Band. “I was hired to just sit-in for a couple of numbers withMelvin and his JGB band,” she recalls, “and we were having so much fun he said to me, ‘Why don’t you just sit in for the whole second set.’ It was an amazing night.”
Bella Rayne with her Alligator-inspired Strat, with a JGB Cats Under the Starssticker on the body.
Photo by Sean Reiter
Jerry Garcia played many different guitars. But for those guitarists wanting to emulate Garcia’s tone, the focus is on four instruments in particular. One is a1955 Fender Stratocaster known as “Alligator,” which Garcia had heavily modified and began playing in 1971. The other three guitars were hand built in Northern California by luthier Doug Irwin: Wolf, Tiger, and Rosebud. Garcia introduced them in 1973, 1979, and 1989, respectively. Sometimes, in a jam-band version of being knighted by the Excalibur sword, a chosen member of this next generation of Dead players is handed one of Garcia’s personal guitars to play onstage for a few songs or even an entire set.
Although they started their journeys at different times and in separate ways, Mattson, Hamilton, and Rayne all have “knighthood” in common. Rayne remembers, “In March of 2024, I was sitting in one night with anall-girl Dead tribute band called the China Dolls, and no one had told me that Jerry’s actual 1955 Strat, Alligator, was there that evening. My friend [roots musician] Alex Jordan handed me the guitar unannounced. It’s something I’ll never forget.”What’s it like to strap on one of Jerry Garcia’s iconic instruments? Tom Hamilton recalls, “It wasRed Rocks in 2017, and I played with Bob Weir, Melvin Seals, and JGB at a tribute show for Jerry’s 75th birthday. I got to play both Wolf and Tiger that night. I was in my head with it for about one song, but then you sort of have a job to do. But I do recall that we were playing the song ‘Deal.’ I have a [DigiTech] Whammy pedal that has a two-octave pitch raise on it, real high gain that gives me a lot of sustain, and it’s a trick I use that really peaks a jam. That night, while I am doing it, I had the thought of, ‘Wow, I can’t believe I am doing this trick of mine on Garcia’s guitar.’ Jerry would have thought what I was doing was the greatest thing in the world or the absolute worst, but either way, I’m cool with it!”
“I was sitting in one night with an all-girl Dead tribute band called the China Dolls, and no one had told me that Jerry’s actual 1955 Strat, Alligator, was there that evening. My friend [roots musician] Alex Jordan handed me the guitar unannounced. It’s something I’ll never forget.” —Bella Rayne
Jeff Mattson has played Alligator, Wolf, Garcia’s Travis Bean 500, and his Martin D-28. He sums it up this way: “I used to have posters up in my childhood bedroom of Garcia playing his Alligator guitar. I would stare at those images all the time. And sowhen I got a chance to play it and plug it in, suddenly there were those distinctive tones. Those guitars of his all have a certain mojo. It’s so great to play those guitars that you have to stop in the moment and remind yourself to take a mental picture, so it doesn’t just fly by. It’s just a tremendous pleasure and an honor. I never imagined I would get to play four of Jerry Garcia’s guitars.”
With young people like Bella Rayne dedicating herself at the tender age of 18 to keeping the Dead’s music going, it feels like what the band called their “long strange trip” will keep rolling down the tracks and far over the horizon. “People will be listening to the Grateful Dead in one hundred years the same way they will be listening to John Coltrane, too,” predicts McNally. “Improvisational music is like jumping off a cliff. Sometimes you fly, and sometimes you land on the rocks. When you take that risk, there’s an opportunity for magic to happen. And that will always appeal to a certain segment of people who don’t want predictability in the music they listen to. The Grateful Dead is for people who want complete craziness in their music—sometimes leading to disaster and oftentimes leading to something wonderful. It’s music for people who want to be surprised.”
The 1929 Gibson L-5 Andy Fairweather Low plays on Invisible Bluesman was a gift from Eric Clapton and was previously owned by J.J. Cale.
Forget about tangents, dovetails, and hairpin turns when conversing with Fairweather Low. They come with the territory. “My dad liked Lonnie Donegan,” he recalls of the British skiffle king, “and he brought ‘Putting on the Style’ into the house, and ‘Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavor’ and ‘My Old Man’s a Dustman,’ which he was. ‘Rock Island Line’ was Lonnie’s only hit in America. I got to play with him later on, with Van Morrison. I also got to play with the Chieftains and Van, and I toured with [English jazz bandleader] Chris Barber. We played on Jools Holland’s show. That was an honor. Georgie Fame was in Van’s band when I was, and I’ve been in the Blue Flames [Fame’s group], and Georgie’s been on two of my albums. He covered ‘Wide-Eyed and Legless,’” a 1975 hit for Fairweather Low.
Despite that patter, he’s not a name-dropper; he’s just talking about his life. A life that has included teen-idol status fronting Amen Corner, the subsequent band Fair Weather and solo albums, inactivity, and then a second career as elite sideman and session guitarist with Roger Waters, Eric Clapton, George Harrison, Bill Wyman, David Crosby, Bob Dylan, Stevie Nicks, Dave Edmunds, Richard Thompson, the Who, Joe Satriani, Kate Bush, the Gaddabouts (with Steve Gadd, Edie Brickell, and Pino Palladino), Kevin Brown, B.B. King, Ringo Starr, Tom Jones, Bonnie Raitt, Mick Fleetwood, John Mayall, Procol Harum, and the inevitable “others.” His songs have been covered by Elton John, Thelma Houston, Joe Cocker, Richie Havens, and Three Dog Night. He even jammed, albeit clumsily, with Jimi Hendrix and later provided background vocals on Hendrix’s remake of “Stone Free.”
SoundStream
These days his band, the Low Riders, is Andy’s main priority. Previously, he has named Donegan, Harrison, Keith Richards, Hank Marvin, Ry Cooder, Albert King, Leon Redbone, Jimmie Vaughan, Blind Blake, and Rev. Gary Davis as favorite 6-stringers. In the following interview, he reveals his biggest 6-string influence, and exposes himself as an unrepentant guitar junkie.
You cut a number one blues album.
Two years ago I did an album, Flang Dang, where I played everything except the drums, and that to me was my full stop. I took a third of my pension out to make that album. Got no result whatsoever, so I figured I’m just going to enjoy playing live. Then Malcolm Mills, the head of Last Music Company, said, “People don’t know enough about your blues playing. We should do an album and call it The Invisible Bluesman.” On “My Baby Left Me,” obviously there’s a big tip of the hat to Robert Johnson—sort of “Kind Hearted Woman.” This is the strangest feeling. I’ve been sort of throwing about in the water, playing these songs for 20 years. All of a sudden I’m number one.
What is the old Gibson on the cover?
That is J.J. Cale’s guitar [a 1929 L-5] that he gave to Eric. I’m doing the B.B. King pose, from the old picture with his foot on a stool. I asked Eric if I could borrow that guitar, and he said, “Of course you can.” I loved J.J.’s Shelter records in the ’70s. Such an exciting time. He was in a box all his own.
Fairweather Low patched this guitar with gaffer’s tape when it fell before a gig, then he got it repaired. While it no longer has a crack, he applied the tape again after he discovered it makes the instrument sound darker.
Andy Fairweather Low’s Gear
Guitars
- 1929 Gibson L-5 (borrowed from Eric Clapton; previously owned by J.J. Cale)
- Knight Arena
- Three Eric Clapton Signature Strats with custom pickup arrays
- Black Strat w/one humbucker (rear)
- Knight Arena single-cutaway
- Supro Ozark with a lap-steel pickup
- Teisco Spectrum 5
- Vox Phantom w/gold-foil pickups (neck and middle) and a P-90 (bridge)
- Red Strat w/three humbuckers and parts from an
- Two Airline Res-O-Glas models
- Silverstone electric w/three pickups
- Guild S-200
- Danelectro bass
- Danelectro baritone
- Gibson Chet Atkins CE
- Ramirez classical
- Black Gibson L-5
- Martin Eric Clapton Signature Model OOO
Amps
- Cornell
- 2x10 cab w/Jensen speakers
Strings
- Flat wounds
How did you decide which guitar you were going to play on which song?
On “Bright Lights, Big City” and “Gin House Blues,” I have to play the Strat with the humbucker. I’ve got a white one and a black one. On “So Glad You’re Mine,” another Big Boy Crudup song that Elvis did, I played a Knight Arena guitar. It’s made by a father and son, Gordon and Robert Wells, and it’s fabulous. When I play “Gin House,” its wire-wound strings on the Strat, but everything else is flat-wounds.
You were 15 when you saw the Rolling Stones in Cardiff.
February 28, 1964. Bill Wyman’s coffee table book has the dates and set lists. It wasn’t like a great big hand came down or finger pointing in any direction. It just seeped through the air, like a virus, and all of a sudden I wanted to play guitar. Their version of “Route 66” was the first guitar solo I learned note for note.
Did you go specifically to see them?
They were just on the bill. Also on the bill was Jet Harris, who was with Shadows’ bassist. Mike Sarne and Billie Davis were top of the bill, and there was Bern Elliott & the Fenmen. The Stones started with “I’m Talking About You.” It never leaves you. The first time I saw the Who play, in 1965, or the Stones again, in ’66, playing with Inez and Charlie Foxx… those moments. I saw Sam & Dave, Arthur Conley, Eddie Floyd, and Otis Redding at Finsbury Park, on the [1967] Stax tour. People like Booker T. & the MG’s were so far away. Come to think of it, they’re still that far away. I talk a lot about early guitarists, and in truth it’s got to be Steve Cropper. He’s got the biggest depth in what I do. “Don’t Mess With Cupid,” “Ninety-Nine and a Half,” “Soul Dressing,” “Bootleg”—there’s loads of them. And definitely his rhythm playing on the Wilson Pickett version of “Don’t Fight It.” He was perfect.
What was the Amen Corner tour like with the Jimi Hendrix Experience, the Move, Pink Floyd, and the Nice?
Onstage, I say, “I played with Jimi Hendrix”—and I did. Then I follow it with, “I played very badly with him.” He sidled over to me at 3 in the morning and told me, “You’re in the wrong key.”
“Jimi, I don’t have a clue what key you’re in.”
This was 1967. He wanted to play with Amen Corner, doing “I Can’t Turn You Loose.” We were just a very young soul band at the time. So he borrowed Clive Taylor’s bass, flipped it over, and I sang it.
A couple of months later, we had a residency at a club, and he decided he wanted to get up and play guitar. He took Neil Jones’ guitar, and [hums muted opening to “Voodoo Child”]. I knew Clive wasn’t going to be able to play, so I played bass. I moved around the neck a lot, figuring at some point I’m going to hit the appropriate key. Don’t write in telling me it’s in E; I know that—or Eb if it was on Jimi’s guitar.
Fairweather Low has his Vox Phantom rigged with two gold-foil pickups and a P-90.
U.K. charts were different from American charts. Amen Corner’s “Gin House” was No. 3 in 1967, and “Albatross” by Fleetwood Mac was No. 1 in 1968.
It was pretty wide and varied. When we did the 1967 Windsor Jazz & Blues Festival, it was the first time Fleetwood Mac played. At one point, we were the highest paid act. We got rumors of this band Fleetwood Mac getting paid nearly as much as us. We thought, “That can’t be happening. They’re not on the charts.” But “Albatross”—what a record! I got to play that at the Peter Green memorial show at the Palladium, with David Gilmour on steel. Rick Vito was fabulous. He was definitely the most valuable player in that whole setup. I told [producer] Glyn Johns, “You’ve got to get him.” If anybody needed to be anybody who wasn’t there, he was it.
Glyn Johns produced the Joe Satriani album you’re on.
The big connection is Glyn. That was an interesting time. When Joe was interviewed, the first question they asked was, “Why Andy Fairweather Low?” Which is the first thing I’d ask. I can’t think as fast as he can play. But I had a few tonal things. His demos were so good, like “Luminous Flesh Giants.” He was very gracious to me. Joe had previously produced everything he’d done, and wasn’t used to this setup. Every day he’d make a beeline for me and show me what to play. “Use this finger, don’t use that finger.” By the time we got to 7 p.m., I had a headache. Then Glyn would say, “Joe, the reason these boys are here . . . why don’t you just let them play?” Then we’d play, and we’d get the track. The next day it was the same thing. I think Joe was struggling with letting go of the reins, allowing himself to go down this road. I’m glad. I had a great time.
I played a Supro Ozark with a lap steel pickup on one track. I sold it and a couple of other guitars. I was going to sell a bunch of them. When the guy came back and kept offering more for my black L-5, I went, “I’m done.” Not selling any more. I didn’t realize the attachment that I would have for those things.
You’ve got some oddball guitars.
Because I saw video of Ry Cooder at Sweetwater, playing a Teisco Spectrum 5, I eventually got one. He makes it sound like a bloody piano! The thing about Ry Cooder—whether it’s Gabby Pahinui, the Buena Vista Social Club, or that Jazz album—whatever you think of him, it’s the tip of the iceberg. You’re not even getting one-eighth of what’s below. On the Mambo Sinuendo album, with Cuban guitarist Manuel Galbán, there’s a version of “Secret Love.” The tone on his guitar!
There was a benefit concert for a fabulous guy called Fred Walecki, who had Westwood Music in L.A., and I was onstage with Ry. Definitely other side of the stage, because there are a few guitarists who don’t need another guitar player. Ry is one, Jeff Beck’s another one, and Pete Townshend is. I found out when I played with the Who. Pete wasn’t there because he was cleaning out in America. For three weeks with Kenney, John, and Roger, I sort of filled in, just to be a guitar player in the room. Then Pete came back, and we went through the first day of playing together. What anyone will realize is that when Pete plays an A chord, there’s nobody in the world that can make it any bigger. There was no point in playing when he was playing. I went into the control room and told him, “I think I’ll go off and play some tennis.” I did his Psychoderelict tour in 1993. Tricky, but fond memories of that.“I played with Jimi Hendrix. I played very badly with him.”
What’s going on with the Vox Phantom with gold-foil pickups?
I was doing this concert in Santa Monica for Fred Walecki, who had throat cancer. Ry had a guitar with those pickups, and said he got them from Fred. The next day I went to Fred, who only had two: $15 each. They’re now in the neck and middle on that Vox, and there’s a P-90 in the bridge position. I play “Pipeline” on it, for that ’60s tone.
I got an Airline, known as the J.B. Hutto model, for $750. But I struggled to make it work, intonation-wise. Gordon and Robert [Wells], who made my Knight guitar, took all the electronics out of that and put them into a pink Strat, with all the knobs. But I’m a one-tone man. Everything up, one position, leave it. On the J.J. Cale song “Can’t Let You Do It” from Eric’s I Still Do album, I’m playing that Strat with the Airline parts.
Much to his surprise, Fairweather Low’s new album hit the top of the U.K. blues and jazz chart, despite being a low-key, off-the-cuff affair in the studio.
In terms of session work, did you ever get thrown any curve balls?
Two times. I was doing something with Glyn at Olympic Studios, and in the other studio was Georgie Fame with a big band. He said, “Why don’t you come in and do the session?” It was, “Alright, fellas, letter B four bars in….” All I did was look at the other guitar player, Bernie Allen, and watch what he did. I realized I was way out of my depth. I got through it, but only because I watched him.
The next time, working with Glyn again, it was with Linda Ronstadt. We finished the album on Friday, and she was going in on Monday with George Massenburg to do something with Aaron Neville. She asked if I’d stick around and do something. I said, “Yeah, let me see what you’re going to do.” The first song I could get my head around, “Please Remember Me”—only playing rhythm. The second one was a Jimmy Webb song, where no chord was ever any chord that I had any idea existed. If it was a D, it had an F#; if it was C, it had an E. I spent the whole weekend trying to make my sense of these chords. We get into the studio, and I’m in the booth strumming away on “Please Remember Me.” Then I’m wondering what we’re going to do now. Before I could raise my hand and say, “I’ve got to tell you, I can’t do this,” they said, “You know what? We’re not going to do that song.” [laughs] But I was right on the edge, in front of everybody, gonna have to go, “It’s too much for me.”
“You can be the greatest musician in the world, but if you’re a pain in the ass on the gig, you won’t last.”
How did you end up backing George Harrison, and playing slide?
Roger Forrester, who was Eric’s manager, called and said, “George is going to Japan; Eric’s band is going to back him, and George wants you to do all the intricate slide parts.” “Okay, I’ll think about it.” I put the phone down and realized I don’t play slide. I had met George backstage at a Ry Cooder show; he must have assumed I was into slide playing. Things were not going great financially, and this was a life-changing moment. So I had to make a decision. I either turn up, and they all realize I can’t do it, or I own up now and risk losing the gig.
I asked Roger for George’s number, and I rang him up. I said, “I know this tour’s coming up, and you want me to do the slide parts, but I don’t play slide. I mean, if you tell me what you want me to do, I know the principles and all that, but I can never seem to make it sing.” He said, “I’ve never heard you play, but everybody seems to like you. Why don’t you just come up to the house?” I turn up at Friar Park with my Volkswagen Polo, and he comes out to meet me and looks at my car … because George is a big car guy. He goes, “Do you have to drive that?” [laughs] We got on really well, lots of jokes. Living in the Material World I knew inside and out. My bass playing is based on Klaus Voormann on that album, so melodic. George said, “Let’s do something.” “Material World,” I knew it; I could sing the slide solo. Little did I know I was going to have to learn that thing; plus I had to play “My Sweet Lord.”
“You do the intro.”
“No, George, you’re the slide player.”
So I had to wear this intro that everybody knows, and you better play it right. It’s a bit like the front of “Layla,” which I might have to play as well. We were doing “My Sweet Lord” one night in Japan and I forgot to press the pedal that makes the guitar audible. There was a towel on top of my amp, and I just put it on my head. One of those rock & roll moments.
Andy Fairweather Low is a legend of the British stage and studio, having played with Eric Clapton, Pete Townshend, David Gilmour, and a host of other 6-string greats.
George’s slide style is so distinctive. But there are videos of that tour, and you nailed his sound really well.
Thank you. At the Concert For George, it was a Friday, and Joe Brown was going to do “That’s the Way It Goes.” Typical of Eric, he said, “Andy’ll do it.” I think the show was on Tuesday or something. I got away with it, but I didn’t sleep. George’s solos, you have to know them before you even play them. It’s as simple as that. In fact, that applies to Robert Johnson or whatever you’re learning. When I’d finished “That’s the Way It Goes,” Eric comes onstage and says, “You’re sweating a bit.” I said, “I am, for goodness sake. You should have done this.”
Didn’t George play slide melodies up and down the length of the string, rather than across?
Which I did. I got to play Rocky [Harrison’s psychedelic painted Strat], the 6-string bass that’s on “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” and his [Fender] 12-string on Concert For George. Olivia Harrison allowed Rocky to be played on the rehearsals and the concert, but it had to go back to Friar Park every night.
What’s the big archtop you’re playing on Eric Clapton’s Unplugged?
It’s a Super 300 that Alan Rogan lent to me. The Martin I played was Eric’s; best sounding Martin I ever played. The only guitar I owned was the one that’s on “Tears in Heaven”—a Ramirez classical that I still have.
“I played with the Big Town Playboys for about 16 months. We did a tour of Europe, got back from Germany, and they gave me my check. Thirteen pounds [laughs]. It was worth it, man, so exciting.”
Tell me about the Martin you play onstage that’s held together with gaffers tape.
That’s an Eric Signature Model OOO. We were opening up for him in Poland, and it fell out the back of the van, in its case. Got some gaffers tape and taped it back together, and when I played it that night everyone, including me, thought it sounded better. Back in England, I had it fixed, but I didn’t like it. So I put the tape back on. Eric likes a really bright guitar. Mine takes a bit of that top end off, so it’s warmer.
What’s your main amp?
It’s a Cornell based on the Fender Vibro-King. I started off with a Bandmaster, and moved on to the Bassman with four 10s, and then the Vibro-King with three 10s. Bit by bit, no matter how many times you replaced the valves, replaced the speakers, polished the circuits, they just got tired. They never sounded as good as the day you bought it. Denis Cornell came to a gig and said, “Show me what you want.” I turned up the Vibro-King to about 4, which was enough to sound dirty. He said, “Are you serious?” I said, “Yes, I want you to make me an inefficient amp.” Now I’m down to two 10s, which is basically a Tremolux cabinet. “TV Mama” on Lockdown Live [from 2021] starts with that growl. Get it out there. Frighten them!
After years of sideman gigs, you formed the Low Riders.
You can be the greatest musician in the world, but if you’re a pain in the ass on the gig, you won’t last. Everybody in the band gets along really well. It’s a cooperative. The roadie gets exactly the same as me. Because when the gig is over, I’m sitting down having a glass of wine; he’s packing away and driving us somewhere. He’s worth as much as I am.
I played with the Big Town Playboys for about 16 months. Ian Jennings and Mike Sanchez are top players. We did a tour of Europe, got back from Germany, and they gave me my check. Thirteen pounds [laughs]. It was worth it, man, so exciting. I’m proud of being in that band. I did a live double-album with them, Off the Clock.
I’m lucky. And I know it, too. I can’t see this round-peg of me fitting into any hole of anything that’s going on now. I’m glad I had my time when I did. I loved working with those people, but I quit touring because I just needed to play more.
Divided by 13 CJ11
Drawing from the iconic 50’s era 1×12 tweed combo from Fullerton that created the quintessential “American” guitar sound, the CJ 11 elevates this classic with enhanced tone shaping, mid/gain pull boost circuit, improved output performance, and the addition of a master volume, all while maintaining the original design’s signature appeal.
In contrast to the original’s setup of a single tone knob and dual inputs with individual volume controls, the CJ 11 features a single channel equipped with both Treble and Bass filters, along with a Master Volume. The addition of a Bass control enables the reduction of lower frequencies when the amplifier is pushed into saturation, avoiding the muddiness and compression typical of earlier designs. However, when desired, the classic low-end response and heavy compression that define the vintage circuit are preserved at higher bass settings. With the addition of a Master Volume, the CJ 11 can deliver a range of drive tones, from a subtle edge of breakup to moderate overdrive and full “tweed-style” saturation, enhanced by the onboard boost, all at more controllable volumes than vintage models.
The CJ 11 power amp maintains the classic dual 6V6 power tube complement while upgrading the rectifier from a 5Y3 to a more robust 5AR4/GZ34. Along with an augmented power supply and custom-built transformers, this design delivers enhanced headroom, louder output, improved low-end clarity, and a broader spectrum of usable overdrive.
Although the CJ 11 builds on a classic ’50s design with thoughtful updates informed by years of experience, it preserves the essence of what made the original exceptional while offering greater versatility. With its 1×12 cabinet and a Celestion G12H speaker, the CJ 11 remains portable yet delivers performance that far exceeds what its 11 watt power rating suggests.
