Dave Alvin enjoys the “magic” of playing guitar with his trusty 1964 Fender Stratocaster. Much of that wear was put on by Alvin, with the help of flying beer bottles. When the fretboard was nearly worn out, Alvin’s friend Drac Conley built him the replica that he takes on tour today.
Is Dave Alvin a guitarist or a medium? Listening to him play live, it’s hard to decide. Sure, there’s a custom copy of his beloved ’64 Strat in his hands, pumping loud and salty through an ’80s, Paul Rivera-made Fender Concert. But, rather than simply playing, he seems to be channeling every foundational 6-stringer from the 1940s through the 1960s.
As Alvin revisits songs from his catalog with the Blasters, or his two recent albums with his brother, Phil, or from his brief stint with the band X, or his own deep discography of nearly 20 albums, ghosts are audible in his aggressive thumbpicking. Amidst the cascading melodies, pointed accents, and transcendent dialog of his solos are flashes of everyone from Carl Hogan to Pete Cosey. Alvin explains it this way: “My playing is a combination of Sun Records, Johnny ‘Guitar’ Watson, Chess Records, T-Bone Walker, and that kid with his first guitar in the garage. I try to approach it like that, because, to me, guitar is a magical thing.”
“My earliest memories are of sitting in my Mom’s Studebaker and spinning the dial. Southern California was wide open, musically.”
There’s more to Alvin’s magic than his ability to draw on history or haints to shape a style that shakes every centigram of meaning from each note. He’s also a profoundly good songwriter, in the North American tradition that extends from Tom Waits, Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, and Jack Elliott to the original cowboy poets clustered around their campfires with guitars. Alvin’s songs evoke the open expanse of the old frontier and its modern landscape, as well as the heat and diesel of factory towns and the working-class people who occupy them. Just scrape the surface of the 67-year-old’s catalog—his recent releases, the compilation From an Old Guitar: Rare and Unreleased Tracks and the reissue Eleven Eleven, are a good place to start—and the American spirit resonates through what you’ll find. Over the decades he has written about the deaths of Hank Williams (the Blasters’ “Long White Cadillac”) and Johnny Ace (“Johnny Ace Is Dead”), the pain of love’s irrevocable loss (“Harlan County Line”), the wilds of the gold rush (“King of California”), the gilded age of labor unions (“Gary Indiana 1959”), life on the margins (“Thirty Dollar Room”), and the quiet desperation of hearts fading cold, in X’s most poignant song, “4th of July.”
Dave Alvin - Murrietta's Head
“The first songs that struck me when I was a kid were all stories,” Alvin explains. “‘El Paso’ by Marty Robbins, a lot of the Coasters’ records, Elvis, of course, and Carl Perkins’ ‘Blue Suede Shoes.’ There was a plethora of story songs in the ’50s, in a variety of genres. Whether it’s ‘Saginaw, Michigan’ by Lefty Frizzell or ‘No Particular Place to Go’ or ‘You Can’t Catch Me’ by Chuck Berry. What attracted me to story songs is you can say a lot of stuff, without hitting people over the head. You don’t have to go, ‘I’m against this’ or ‘I’m for this,’ because then you become a one-dimensional songwriter. In a story, you kind of slip it into people subconsciously. It’s a little sneaky, but, since Aesop’s Fables, telling stories makes sense of the world. If you go back and listen to all the great folk songs—I mean real folk songs, like ‘Black Jack David’ and ‘Shenandoah’ … themes that have been around for centuries—they’re telling stories.”
Alvin ascribes his songwriting prowess to “trial and error. When I first started writing songs, I had to—unlike the average singer-songwriter—sell them to the Blasters, and they were very strict, because for them doing original material, like ‘Marie Marie’ and ‘Border Radio,’ was outside of their comfort zone. Bringing in original work was scary. My brother, Phil, and I would have big arguments over chord progressions. We had a couple of fisticuffs over minor chords, and so I’m reticent to this day about bringing in new songs. I still expect the Blasters’ reaction.”
The Alvin brothers grew up in Downey, California, just south of Los Angeles. “Nineteen-fifties Downey was different than ’60s Downey,” Alvin relates. “In the ’50s, before the freeways and all had taken over everything, it was semi-rural. There were a lot of orange groves and people were riding horses. There were areas around the San Diego River that were literally wild. And there was AM radio, which, of course, continued into the ’60s. My earliest memories are of sitting in my Mom’s Studebaker and spinning the dial. Southern California was wide open, musically. Whether it was on the radio, or on TV, or in the local restaurants, or lounges, or bars, you could hear everything from Western swing to rhythm and blues to rock ’n’ roll. There was a lot of surf music, and I don’t mean the Beach Boys variety. I mean the Fender Jaguar, a Fender Strat, a Fender Mustang, a Fender P bass, and a drummer kind of surf music—no vocals. I have really pleasant memories of waking up on Saturday mornings and hearing two or three surf bands in the neighborhood, all rehearsing in their garages.”
A close-up view of Alvin’s ’64 Strat. Although the guitar has a vibrato bridge, Alvin, who plays hard, prefers to eschew it onstage.
Photo by Chip Duden Photography
But Dave and Phil also pursued another important path to musical enlightenment. “The story goes that if you were Black in Mississippi, you went north, and if you were Black in Louisiana or Texas, you went west,” Alvin explains, “because there were so many aerospace jobs and a slightly ... slightly … less segregated vibe out here. My brother Phil and I were little record collectors, collecting 78s and 45s, so we loved blues records, and we figured out that not only were some of these people still alive, but they were playing a mile away. If you didn’t act like an idiot, you could maybe sneak into a bar and see ’em, and that’s what we started doing.”
“I was learning; it was rudimentary, but it was good stuff: Chuck Berry, Carl Perkins, Johnny ‘Guitar’ Watson. Put those together and it worked.”
With a neighborhood full of bands and a head full of blues, R&B, and primal rock, the Alvins formed a series of groups. Or, at least initially, Phil, who is two years older than Dave, did. Most of these bands played primarily in the garage, and eventually Dave was allowed to join on sax and flute—although he was also coming up on guitar. One night, he got his lucky break. Phil’s band was booked to play a wedding and needed another guitarist. Dave was called in. “I had an early evening gig, playing at a mental hospital in Long Beach with my own little noisy band,” he recounts. “After we were done, I packed up the Twin and the Les Paul knockoff I had borrowed, and I drove to this wedding reception, and the people loved it. Bill Bateman was playing drums, and that was the first gig of what became the Blasters.”
Inspired by his blues heroes, Alvin uses a thumbpick much like most plectrum-employing guitarists tend to use a flatpick. It’s one of the reasons for his pointed attack and ultra-responsive tone.
Photo by Chip Duden Photography
The Blasters were a sweat-soaked speedball who roared onto the L.A. punk turf in ’79 alongside X, the Germs, Black Flag, Fear, the Circle Jerks, and pretty much every other outfit in Penelope Spheeris’ documentary The Decline of Western Civilization. With their dirty roots in gut-bucket American music, perhaps they were most akin to the Delta-blues-inspired Gun Club, who were also on the scene. But they had muscle and crunch and focus that made them unique. Roughly a year into their tenure, after befriending blues legends like Big Joe Turner, Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee, and T-Bone Walker, they added one to their band: tenor saxist Lee Allen, who was a key figure in the development of rock ’n’ roll in the ’50s as part of New Orleans’ studio community.
With Phil as vocalist and Dave as songwriter and spark plug, the Blasters played hard and constantly. “What happened onstage was, my brother and I had developed two totally different types of guitar playing,” says Alvin. “His was based on fingerpicking but also he wasn’t a single-string guy. He could do it, but it wasn’t his deal, where it was mine. Because I was learning; it was rudimentary, but it was good stuff: Chuck Berry, Carl Perkins, Johnny ‘Guitar’ Watson. Put those together and it worked. Even my brother had to admit it. He was like, ‘We got something here.’ Our friend, the late blues harmonica player James Harman, knew that I needed a guitar if we were gonna have this band. In a Santa Ana, California, pawnshop, he bought a ’64 Fender Mustang for me, for, like, $70. That would have been around March of ’79.”
When the Blasters made their first album, 1980’s American Music, “James had a white ’61 Strat that he swore belonged to Magic Sam, so that’s what I played on that record. And then on the first album we did for Slash Records, the one with the sweaty face on it [1981’s The Blasters], James brought me a ’56 Les Paul goldtop. The Mustang didn’t really appear on records until the second Slash album, Non Fiction.” And for ’85’s Hard Line, Alvin played a ’51 Broadcaster owned by the band’s guitar tech, who went by Tornado. “I was a fry cook,” Alvin notes. “I didn’t have money for fancy guitars and amps, and, if I did, I wouldn’t have known what to buy.”
The classic ’80s Blasters lineup, from left to right: drummer Bill Bateman, pianist Gene Taylor, Phil Alvin, bassist John Bazz, Dave Alvin with his ’64 Strat, and the legendary saxist Lee Allen.
Photo courtesy of Dave Alvin
That Mustang, currently on display at Nashville’s Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, became a stage favorite. “It was light and very good at deflecting beer bottles,” Alvin says. “If you look closely at that guitar, you’ll see where there is a slash across the upper cutaway. That is from a beer bottle at the Cuckoo's Nest [in Costa Mesa], when we were opening for the Cramps in, like, January/February 1980. Blammo! And if you look closely at the paint job, you’ll see glass embedded all over that guitar, from me holding it up going, ‘Not gonna get this guy, pal.’”
“I didn’t have money for fancy guitars and amps, and, if I did, I wouldn’t have known what to buy.”
Seeking a less combative home for his songs, Alvin left the Blasters in 1986—although he’s played reunion shows and tours with the band since, and recorded two duo albums with his brother. The next few years were busy as he shifted toward building his own outfit. He replaced guitarist Billy Zoom in X, and contributed “4th of July” to X’s 1987 album, See How We Are. Alvin had started his musical association with John Doe and Exene Cervenka from X in 1985, when he joined them in folkie spinoff the Knitters for the album Poor Little Critter on the Road, and he pitched in again for the follow-up, The Modern Sounds of the Knitters, 20 years later. In ’87, he also released his first solo album, Romeo’s Escape, which added new compositions to reprised versions of the Blasters’ “Jubilee Train,” “Long White Cadillac” (which Dwight Yoakam also cut), and “Border Radio,” and allowed Alvin to begin his journey as a vocalist.
Thirty-six years and 14 studio albums later, he has a singing voice like polished oak, with the warm tone and wise phrasing of a seasoned barroom confidant, intent on getting every nuance of his stories across. He also has a Grammy, for his 2000 album Public Domain: Songs from the Wild Land, and two more nominations, and starting in 1995 began publishing his writings: two collections of poems and lyrics, and last year’s New Highways: Selected Lyrics, Poems, Prose, Essays, Eulogies, and Blues, which covers all those categories as well as poignant autobiographical tales.
Dave Alvin’s Gear
The Blasters were known for their sweat-soaked, high-energy performances. Here, Alvin’s playing through a Fender Super Reverb, before his switch to a Rivera-built Concert.
Photo courtesy of Dave Alvin
Guitars
- 1964 Fender Stratocaster (studio only)
- Replica of his ’64 Strat built by Drac Conley (live)
Amps
- Rivera-built Fender Concert (live)
- Fender Vibroverb reissue (recording)
Effects
- TC Electronic Hall of Fame Reverb
- Boss BD-2 Blues Driver (modded)
Strings and Picks
- D’Addario EHR350s (.012–.052)
- Thumbpick
For many of those years, Alvin’s 6-string companion was an ivory 1964 Stratocaster he’d purchased in the early ’80s. “I needed a great all-around guitar,” he says. “It took me a while to get over my gun-shyness about taking it out on tour and all that. But once I got used to it, our relationship together deepened. I started figuring out what it was capable of doing, and what I was capable of doing. But it eventually got to where the rosewood on the fretboard was just a veneer, so one of my dear friends, Drac Conley, built me an exact copy. Because I knew my Strat had to be retired from the road. I hate to say it’s even better, but it’s capable of more stuff.”
These days, Alvin’s clean tone, with just the right amount of crunchy breakup and crisp, punchy attack, is a signature committed roots music fans immediately recognize. That attack is mostly the result of his furious thumbpicking. “When I was a kid going to see certain players at the Ash Grove [a now-gone L.A. club that focused on songwriters], when I was trying to figure out this magical thing called guitar playing, I would see Reverend Gary Davis—one night on a double bill with Johnny ‘Guitar’ Watson, and they were both playing blues-based music from an entirely different direction, and they were both thumbpick players. And then Brownie McGhee would use a thumbpick. I’d see people like that and wonder ‘what is that?’
“My brother played with no picks, but my thumbs were too sensitive to pull that off. Then, I had this other problem: I was clumsy with a flatpick. I can hold a flatpick and strum, but to do anything else? So, when I really started trying to be a serious guitar player, I gave up on flatpicks,—‘Get rid of this shit’—and the thumbpick came absolutely naturally to me. And so, what I’ve done for years is, I use a thumbpick and on my index finger I have an acrylic nail. Not one of the press-on ones. It’s one I’ve built up with whatever vile stuff they use. And because of the strength of the index fingernail, I could really make use of what the guitar can do. If I really want to play an aggressive solo, I will hold the flat side of the thumbpick with my index finger, as if it’s a flatpick, and bend the notes doing that, so it gets extra push. If it’s a quieter song, I’ll use the index finger only to play single-string solos. Or I will play chords with only the index finger or use the skin of the middle finger to strum if I’m doing a tender ballad.”
The Blasters back up the great blues shouter Big Joe Turner in 1983 at Club Lingerie, a Sunset Strip venue that was an essential part of the L.A. punk and alternative rock scene. The room closed in 1995.
Photo courtesy of Dave Alvin
His only pedals are a TC Electronic Hall of Fame Reverb and a Boss BD-2 Blues Driver. “Once I start singing, I don’t want to have to worry about what my feet are doing,” he says. “I can take my pinky and slide up the guitar volume, or move the pickup selector to get different tones, but when I’m on stage it’s so exciting that I can’t bother with pedals.”
His other ace is volume. Alvin opens up his amp so its full voice can be heard, and he can achieve sustain, feedback, ringing overtones, and distortion organically. “In one of my road cases, there’s a sign that I made, apologizing for the volume and the damage, but if you’re gonna sit there,” he says, chuckling, “you’re asking for it.”
In 2020, Alvin opened up another new vista, by revisiting a different kind of old music: psychedelia. Working as the Third Mind, Alvin and cohorts Victor Krummenacher, Michael Jerome, and David Immerglück tore a page from the paisley textbook and covered songs by the Butterfield Blues Band (“East-West”), Alice Coltrane (“Journey in Satchindananda”), the 13th Floor Elevators (“Reverberation”), and other twisted troopers. It’s elegant and visceral, and was likely a surprise to many of Alvin’s longtime fans, but Hendrix is also part of his DNA, even if he found it unapproachable until now.
“In one of my road cases, there’s a sign that I made, apologizing for the volume and the damage, but if you’re gonna sit there, you’re asking for it.”
“I’m a barroom guitar basher, but I thought, ‘Let's go down the rabbit hole,’” Alvin says. “When I was around 12, I saw Jimi Hendrix twice, and about a year and a half later, I saw Big Joe Turner and T-Bone Walker with the Johnny Otis Orchestra, and those were the nights! With The Third Mind, I’m less Jimi imitator than using techniques he and Michael Bloomfield used, like manipulating the pickup selector and leaning into the volume.”
That same year, he was almost permanently sidelined by colorectal cancer. He’d spent nearly 12 months on the road and was feeling exhausted. “I was thinking, ‘Maybe I just can’t do this anymore,’” until his diagnosis cleared up the mystery. The cancer had migrated to his liver as well.
Dave Alvin & The Guilty Ones "Harlan County Line"
Dave Alvin leads his band through “Harlan County Line,” the opening track on his Eleven Eleven album—rife with his deft thumbpicking and snappy, biting, clear tone.
“It was extremely difficult,” Alvin allows. “The chemotherapy caused this terrible neuropathy in my feet that still hasn’t gotten better, and they kept saying ‘Well, it’ll take about another year,’ but my hands.… I could not play guitar for about seven months. It was too painful. Touching the guitar was razor blades because my hands were swollen. I won’t say that I had to completely relearn how to play guitar, but I honestly had to teach myself how to play guitar again. The synapses weren’t firing correctly for a long time—between the fingertips and the brain. So, it meant playing a lot of scales, which I still do now. And the scales really helped the neuropathy in my hands, which are no longer swollen. I’m able to play shows. I’m about 90 percent where I was before the chemotherapy.
“It’s not like I’ve ever said, even when I wasn’t sick, ‘I don’t need the practice, I’m pretty good, I can outplay that guy,’” he continues. “I’ve had my ass handed to me by so many guitar players over the years that I’m still just.… Well, by the time I kick the bucket, I would like to say I don’t suck. I wanna be the best as I can be on guitar.
“The one thing I will say is that I’m very lucky, in that I’ve had fans that have stuck with me through a lot of changes. But all of my changes have been organic. I’ve stuck to my guns, taking, basically, the same idea we had when we started the Blasters to the extreme: 'Let’s see how long we can do this and not work a day job.'”
- Ear to the Ground: Dave & Phil Alvin’s “All By Myself” ›
- 17 Guitar & Bass Heroes Hail Their Heroes ›
- 1967 Gibson ES-335, Burgundy Metallic ›
This unusual bass instrument is strung with just two flatwound strings, each with its own fretting surface that’s bent 135 degrees away from one another.
Recently, the oddest of odd ducks strolled through Fanny’s front door. It looks like a Harmony Wedge lap steel that was thrown in the dryer to shrink a little bit. It has two flatwound bass strings, in reverse order from where you’d expect—the higher string is on the left side if you’re looking at the instrument’s face. Each string has its own fretting surface, bent at a 135-degree angle away from each other, and the frets are labeled with note names. A raised, thin strip of wood separates the strings from each other on the fretboard.
Oh, wait a moment. Did we say “fretboard?” We should have said “footboard.” Allow us to introduce you to the 1970s Mike Miller Foot Bass. That’s right—you play this adorable critter with your feet. The strings are tuned a fifth apart from each other. By setting the instrument on the ground and rocking your foot back and forth over the neck, you get a standard country root-fifth bass line—completely hands-free. Are you a guitar player? All you need is one of these puppies and a drum machine and, poof! You’re a whole band!
Along the “footboard” are markers for note names.
Thank goodness for the internet, which gave me access to the original promotional materials for the Foot Bass. Emblazoned with the all-caps header, “BE YOUR OWN BASS MAN,” its pamphlet extols the virtues of the Foot Bass. Describing it as “practically maintenance free,” it guarantees you’ll “amaze friends and audiences,” and “make extra MONEY.”
A brief meander through the United States Patent and Trademark website revealed the patent, whose filer was equally concerned with finances. “A currently popular form of entertainment is provided by an artist who both sings and accompanies himself on a guitar,” it reads, as if this hasn’t been a popular form of entertainment for a very long time. “The performance of such an artist may be enhanced by adding a bass accompaniment.... However, such an additional bass accompaniment ordinarily requires an extra artist for playing the bass and therefore represents an additional expense.” Sorry, bass players. Clearly, you all do nothing but cost us guitar players money.
“That’s right—you play this adorable critter with your feet.”
Be prepared to dig through your closet when you embark on your Foot Bass journey. If you start with your trusty Doc Martens, you’re in for a disappointing experience. Deep treads make for messy notes and poor contact with the strings. And while barefoot playing allows for more nimble, adventurous basslines, the lack of a rigid surface prevents the “simple and convenient” operation promised by the patent. What you need, as one Fanny’s employee described, are “church shoes”—something with a low profile and a flat sole.
This Mike Miller Foot Bass is from the 1970s, and has a patent for its design.
Even with the right footwear, playing the Foot Bass takes some getting used to. There’s a bit of foam under the pickup cover that mutes the strings when you’re not playing them, but you can still make a remarkable amount of clatter with this thing. It’s a subtle motion that works best, and it certainly takes practice to master it. Add in multiple chords or—be still, my heart—walking up from one chord to the next? Give yourself a couple weeks in the woodshed before you schedule your next show.
If you’re looking for something to watch tonight, there’s a documentary you can find on YouTube called Let Me Be Your Band. It covers the history of one-person bands, starting with blues pioneer Jesse “Lone Cat” Fuller and continuing up to the early 2000s with the careers of Hasil Adkins and Bob Log III, among others. It’s a touching portrayal of ingenuity and spunk, and an ode to owning your weirdness. Not a single person in Let Me Be Your Band had a Foot Bass, though. It’s high time the Foot Bass was celebrated for its cleverness and played by an enterprising solo act. It’s a bit like Cinderella’s glass slipper here at Fanny’s. We can’t wait to see who tries it on for a perfect fit.
For Pink Floyd fans, the visuals give away that this is David Gilmour along with his longtime bassist Guy Pratt and drummer Adam Betts, who appear on Gilmour’s new Luck and Strange, navigating the band’s classic “Time.”
That tone, and so many of the other sounds that Gilmour has conjured in his 46 years of recording with Pink Floyd and as a solo artist, inspired me to leave Nashville to attend the first concert of Gilmour’s five-night stand at Madison Square Garden, on November 4. I’d been lucky enough to catch Gilmour’s tour supporting 1984’s About Face and two later Pink Floyd concerts, but the guitarist is 78 this year, so I felt that the 21 dates he’s playing in a mere four cities might be my last chance to be in the same room with all of his extraordinary tones. Plus, Pink Floyd, and especially Gilmour’s solo recordings and his brilliant Live at Pompeii concert film, was my wife, Laurie’s, and my refuge during the Covid lockdown. This was our opportunity to experience the sorcerer at work in one of his temples, where he and Pink Floyd first played in 1977.
Gilmour wields his Black Cat Strat, which he also played on Luck and Strange’s opener, “Black Cat,” in the studio.
Photo by Emma Wannie/MSGE
Was it worth the price of two concert tickets, flights, two nights in a Midtown hotel, and a subway ride? If you need to ask, it’s likely you’re not as familiar with Gilmour’s playing as I suggest that you should be. For guitarists, outside-the-box musical thinkers, and lovers of exceptional songwriting–and even concert lighting effects and live sound–this show was a perfect 10. Gilmour and his ensemble, including his daughter Romany, performed a well-chosen set of tunes by Pink Floyd and from Gilmour’s solo work, including his recent album Luck and Strange, which is more about composition than guitar exposition. Live, this was not the case. “Luck and Strange,” “A Single Spark,” and others from the album were expanded to include 6-string excursions that–in his signature style–took the lyrics as their inspiration and expanded their emotional architecture.
A close-up of Gilmour’s famed Workmate guitar, a 1955 Fender Esquire that once belonged to Seymour Duncan.
Photo by Emma Wannie/MSGE
Repeatedly, Gilmour displayed his ability to play the perfect parts, and especially solos, for each song. Some, of course, like “Time,” require sticking to text, but his expansions of “Breathe” and other numbers incorporated subtle improvisations dappled by pitch-changing, his emotive string bending, and numerous shifts in tone and phrasing that nonetheless always respected his unmistakable core sound. In Nashville, a frequent compliment is that a musician “always plays the perfect part.” For me, that’s a warning that I’m probably going to hear very professional and predictable playing all night long, and that’s usually boring. But Gilmour’s ear-opening sounds and phrases are constantly peppered with surprises–a hallmark of his characterful virtuosity. In the first of his Garden shows, he stepped outside the box while always respecting its contents, and it was a pleasure to hear him repeatedly practice that high art.
Guy Pratt remarked, while speaking to the audience before the show, that his first gig at MSG with Gilmour had been 37 years and one day earlier. Live, it was clear that Pratt is Gilmour’s right-hand man, as he set up cues for the other players.
Photo by Emma Wannie/MSGE
A pre-tour rumor was that Gilmour would not be playing any Pink Floyd numbers. That seemed unlikely, given his role as the composer and vocalist of so many of the band’s showcase songs. And, indeed, “Speak to Me,” “Breathe,” “Time,” “Marooned” (with its pitch-defying solo), “Wish You Were Here,” “High Hopes,” “Sorrow,” “A Great Day for Freedom,” “The Great Gig in the Sky,” “Coming Back to Life,” and “Comfortably Numb” were all present during the roughly two-and-a-half hours of music. What seemed remarkable throughout was not only the perfection of Gilmour’s playing but his ability to still hit every vocal high note with the same energy and accuracy of the original recordings, including his superb recreation of the scatting in “Wish You Were Here.”
Gilmour’s acoustic guitar, especially on “Wish You Were Here,” sparkled with clarity and articulation, and his scatting on that song proved that at 78 he can still summon the power and precision to hit the high vocal notes.
Photo by Emma Wannie/MSGE
“Wish You Were Here” was his first acoustic guitar excursion of the concert, and he and supporting guitarist Ben Worsley made the song a trip in the Wayback Machine, effortlessly conjuring the introduction’s vibrant appeal and deep emotionalism. Their acoustic instruments sounded crisp and resonant through the arena-sized PA, which should not have been surprising given Gilmour and Pink Floyd’s high standards for live sound. And all night, Gilmour’s vocals enjoyed the same clarity, making every lyric understandable, which is quite a feat for any large-hall show. The only quibble is that the drums echoed off the Garden’s back wall, which, given its 19,500 capacity, was on par.
Guy Pratt, David Gilmour, and Ben Worsley keeping the rock in arena rock. In addition to his Fender Jazz Bass, Pratt also played an Ernie Ball Music Man Stingray, and an upright. For electric guitar, Worsley slung a PRS S2 SSH.
Photo by Emma Wannie/MSGE
Romany Gilmour played a vital role in the show, with her voice navigating the Celtic-influenced melody of “Between Two Points,” from Luck and Strange, before joining the already formidable voices of Louise Marshall, and Charlie and Hattie Webb, in the band’s chorus. All four took turns singing lead on Dark Side of the Moon’s wordless masterpiece “The Great Gig in the Sky,” as Marshall played piano and Gilmour took one of his turns on the table-steel guitar.
A crowd’s-eye view, with lighting-enhanced stage fog. At right, just out of frame, is famed keyboardist Greg Phillinganes, who first joined Gilmour’s ensemble as part of the Rattle That Lock tour of Europe and appears in the Live in Pompeii concert film.
Photo by Emma Wannie/MSGE
“In Any Tongue,” from Gilmour’s 2014 album Rattle That Lock, was, of course, a musical highlight, ignited by that grizzly tone, but furthered by expressive, powerhouse solos from both Gilmour and Worsley. The song’s anti-war theme was enhanced by the same back-projected, heart-breaking video shown in 2016’s Live in Pompeii film, which conveys the idea that military violence spares neither the often-reluctant invaders nor the invaded. And last, of course, came “Comfortably Numb,” with Gilmour’s holy grail guitar solos, perfectly executed as he and the band played from behind an allusive wall of light. With their deep, idiosyncratic bends, rich, howling midrange, and his perfect, vibrato-laden bends, squealing harmonics, touch, and phrasing, these solos were the ultimate 6-string microphone drop.
Gilmour and his Black Cat Strat–partners for the concert’s closing number, “Comfortably Numb,” from Pink Floyd’s The Wall.
Photo by Emma Wannie/MSGE
If that was my last opportunity to hear Gilmour live, it’s understandable. He’s a legend who has earned his status through nearly a half-century of remarkable playing and composing. He has no need to create or perform on any terms beyond his own. I’m simply happy to have been able to bear witness, and to share the experience with you.
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Steve Lukather is one of the most documented guitarists in the hit-making biz. He grew up as an L.A. teen with a crew of fellow musicians who would go on to make their livings at the top of the session scene. By the time Lukather and his pals formed Toto, they were already experienced chart-toppers. The band went on to success with hits including the rockin’ “Hold the Line,” breezy, bouncing “Rosanna,” and the timeless “Africa.”
As a session player, Lukather’s reign in the ’70s and ‘80s extended from Olivia Newton-John to Herbie Hancock to Michael Jackson. And alongside Michael McDonald—whose “I Keep Forgettin’ (Every Time You’re Near)” included Lukather’s distinctive rhythm riffage—Daryl Hall and John Oates, Kenny Loggins, Peter Cetera, and Christopher Cross (among many others) he may have earned the title of yacht rock’s number one guitar player.
On this episode of the 100 Guitarists podcast, we’re talking about our favorite Lukather tracks, from his best rhythm parts to his most rippin’ solos. And even though he spends most of his playing time with the biggest names, we’ve managed to call up a few deep cuts.
