JD Simo’s main guitar is this 1962 Gibson ES-335 that’s been modded by Nashville master luthier Joe Glaser so it can be set out of phase.
“We’re always in a state of becoming,” says blues-rock guitarist JD Simo. And his new album, Songs From the House of Grease, contains five tracks that spotlight his unrestrained, rock-informed improvisation, gritty vocals, and gristly slide guitar, along with a sense of emergence. “There’s probably hints of Ry Cooder and Bill Frisell, just because they’re such big influences,” he shares. “But it’s more natural than anything that I’ve done thus far, because every year that goes by I’m that much more comfortable with myself and whatever I can do to trick myself into not overthinking—which, in this case, was incredibly fortuitous.”
The evolution of Simo, who’s worked with Jack White, Beyoncé, Phil Lesh, and Luther Dickinson, and who contributed to the Grammy-nominated soundtrack of Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis, stands in unironic juxtaposition with the fact that three of the tracks on the album are covers. Most notably, he applies a slightly dirtier, accentuated approach to John Coltrane’s iconic “Afro Blue”—a task he didn’t take lightly (more on that later). Then there’s the propulsive, blistering Mississippi Fred McDowell tune “Mortgage on My Soul” and Blind Alfred Reed’s raw, stirring “How Can a Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live.” Fitting comfortably within that collection are Simo’s originals, “Missy Strut” and the album-closing “Higher Plane Pt 1 & Pt 2.”
When Simo and his band, whose current lineup includes bassist Todd Bolden and drummer Adam Abrashoff, had a break in tour dates in June 2022, he had the idea to put some recordings together inspired by what the group had been playing on the road, but not yet released. “I said to Todd and Adam, ‘Hey come over, we’ll record a couple of these things, and we’ll figure out what to do with it after the fact.’” The entirety of the record was recorded in a day-and-a-half at his House of Grease home studio in Nashville, and Simo says the band didn’t really play any of the tunes more than once. “It was very fast; not much thought.”
Missy's Strut
At the time, he imagined the recordings would be made into an EP, or maybe put out as a vinyl-only release. But when he presented the end product to his record label, they told him, “This is your next record.”
“The last couple of records I’ve made, there was a plan, and this was not that at all,” Simo elaborates. “It was just a live document of awesome tunes that I enjoy playing. It was very organic. I’m very pleased with the performances, because it’s just a live record with a lot of focus on the playing. There’s really no production at all.”
Songs From the House of Grease is Simo’s fourth album as a solo artist. (He’s also recorded three with his psych-rock group, SIMO.) He says of this one, “I feel like there’s much more focus on my actual guitar, and my prowess as an improviser. On the other records, my guitar playing certainly has played a part, but on this one, it’s the main focal point.”
Simo plays his 1962 ES-335 in the depths of his House of Grease studio in Nashville. As the title of the band’s new album alludes, it was recorded there.
Simo engineered the record himself. He used a splitter to record his guitar through both a ’65 Fender Deluxe Reverb and a 1949 Alamo Model 3, using old Electro-Voice 666 mics. “The mic of the devil!” he jokes. “They’re kind of dark, and it’s easy for me to get a good sound with those on guitars.” The bass was recorded direct through an old Motown DI with ’60s transformers. But his minimalist approach shone most while recording drums.
“Guitarists will be probably chagrined to hear me say that I actually am not as focused on my own sound when I’m engineering,” he shares. “I’m much more focused on drums and enjoy drum sounds way more than guitar sounds. More than part of the sound of this record is my use of room mics. With me, drums are usually two or three channels at the most … very much in the Daptones or jazz world school of engineering.”
That “jazz world” style was serendipitous for the recording of “Afro Blue,” a hallowed selection from the Coltrane catalog, originally composed by Mongo Santamaria and recorded by Coltrane in 1963. “If I’d thought about it a little harder, I probably would have been more insecure about it,” says Simo. “I was hesitant to do it, but I’m really glad that we did.” On “Afro Blue,” the guitarist carefully and masterfully places some brazen yet lyrical, blues-tinged fluidity in the context of an otherwise bristling, tonally rugged record, creating a fresh example of how classic jazz and blues can thrive in concord.
Simo and his band recorded his new album in a day-and-a-half, only playing each of its five tunes once. “It was very fast; not much thought,” he relates.
When it comes to fueling the evolution of his improvisatory abilities, Simo explains, “There’s a diligence of always feeding your harmonic and technical ability, but not in a musical setting. You spend as much time possible, on your own, trying to continue to add words to your vocabulary, and how to use those words, so to speak, so that when you get into a musical setting you can just have your conversation and not be encumbered. And you start off small, just like when you’re talking to somebody, with small punctuation … and then you just let it naturally build until it climaxes. That’s the best I can describe it.
“The true art of it is to let go and have it just be that moment in time,” he elaborates. “’Cause when you’re truly engaged in it, you can’t have other thoughts. There’s this suspended time feeling when it’s really great, and that’s really addictive. If I don’t have it for a few days, I crave it.”
On Songs From the House of Grease, the main and only vehicle for satisfying that addiction was his Danocaster, a T-style fashioned by Nashville-based luthier Dan Strain of Danocaster Guitars. The guitar is outfitted with a ’62 Gibson ES-335 humbucker neck pickup and a ’56 Telecaster bridge pickup. Simo found it while visiting Strain at his home. It was also Strain’s personal guitar. “I really fell in love with it. It’s a pure guitar; it’s kind of a magic instrument,” says Simo. He purchased it before the House of Grease sessions. Among the many other guitars he owns are a few more favorites: a 1952 Gibson ES-5, a 1960 Gibson J-50 with a pickup made by California-based Galletta Guitars, and a ’60s refin Fender Jazzmaster with a Wade Cofer Valco pickup in the bridge and gold-foil in the neck.
Simo on playing: “When you’re truly engaged in it, you can’t have other thoughts. There’s this suspended time feeling when it’s really great, and that’s really addictive. If I don’t have it for a few days, I crave it.”
Photo by Adam Abrashoff
Simo recalls when he fell in love with guitar with perfect clarity: “It was seeing Elvis on television when I was 4, and seeing Scotty Moore play guitar.” Since he was born in 1985, and Elvis died eight years earlier, it was obviously a rebroadcast or historic footage, but it set him afire, nonetheless.
That experience made his work on the film Elvis all that more exciting. “So much of the music that is encapsulated in the movie is a big part of my musical makeup from when I was very young,” he shares. “It was just wonderful. It comingled a lot, because it was just, like, wow, this is a trippy thing to be playing something that I learned as a child.”
But it was really a variety of influences that laid the foundation for his musical upbringing. After seeing Elvis and Scotty, “I became obsessed with ’50s rock ’n’ roll, whether it was Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, Bill Haley, or Buddy Holly.” Then, growing up in Chicago in the late ’80s and early ’90s, he heard Red Hot Chili Peppers, Pearl Jam, Nirvana, and Dinosaur Jr. on Windy City radio station WXRT.
JD Simo's Gear
JD Simo specializes in timeless, classic guitar tones and compositions that resonate with his wide knowledge of electric 6-string history.
Photo by Brad Elligood
Guitars
- Danocaster
- 1952 Gibson ES-5
- 1960 Gibson J-50
- 1962 Gibson ES-335
- '60s refin Fender Jazzmaster
- '60s Kay electric mandolin
Amps
- 1965 Fender Deluxe Reverb
- 1949 Alamo Model 3
- Headstrong Lil King Reverb
Effects
- Dominion Fuzz
- Electro-Harmonix Freeze Sound Retainer
- Strymon El Capistan dTape Echo
- ’70s Crybaby wah
- Mythos Argo Octave Fuzz
- J. Rockett Archer Ikon
Strings and Picks
- Stringjoy Pure Nickel Broadways (.010–.042, for standard tuning)
- Blue Chip TD55s
- Divine Noise Cables
The third element? “I saw The Blues Brothers and I was just really taken, in particular, with Steve Cropper and [Donald] ‘Duck’ Dunn. And, of course, John Lee Hooker was in that movie. All of those things fanned out into a relatively big family tree of music really quickly.”
Simo began playing with local, professional musicians—most of them decades older than him—when he was around 9. “No one I grew up with played music. I was the only kid at my school that was into music,” he says. It wasn’t until he moved to Nashville, at 21, that he started playing with people his own age. “It was wonderful. I was like, ‘Where have you all been? Jesus.’”
In the 17 years since, he’s seen himself transform as both a person and a musician. “In essence, just as a human being, I’ve become a lot chiller, more relaxed, and much more comfortable in my own skin. My playing has sort of mirrored my personal path in that regard. It’s been to get to a point where, now, I really enjoy every minute that I’m making music. Or try to, at least. ’Cause for years and years, I thought I was enjoying myself, but I was really chasing manic stimulation. Now, I’ve sort of centered into a place where there’s real joy, and it’s just so fun.
“In all honesty, I’ve never had a regular job,” he continues. “I certainly don’t come from money, and I’ve had some really difficult times in my life. But at this point, with a wife and a young child, I just want to keep doing what I’m doing. If I can be lucky enough to do that for another 30 or 40 years,” he laughs, “man, I’ll have beat the system.”
JD Simo - Higher Plane - 8/26/22 Orpheum Theatre - Flagstaff, AZ
Performing live with his trio, JD Simo exhibits his intuitive playing and bristling tone on one of the tracks from Songs From the House of Grease, “Higher Plane.”
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George Benson’s Dreams Do Come True: When George Benson Meets Robert Farnonwas recorded in 1989. The collaboration came about after Quincy Jones told the guitarist that Farnon was “the greatest arranger in all the world.”
On that recommendation,Benson tapped Farnon for a 1989 recording project encompassing the jazz standards “My Romance” and “At Last” next to mid-century pop chestnut “My Prayer,” the Beatles’ “Yesterday,” and Leon Russell’s “A Song for You,” among others.
Across the album, Benson’s voice is the main attraction, enveloped by Farnon’s luxuriant big-band and string arrangements that give each track a warm, velveteen sheen. His guitar playing is, of course, in top form, and often sounds as timeless as the tunes they undertake: On “Autumn Leaves,” you could pluck the stem of the guitar solo and seat it neatly into an organ-combo reading of the tune, harkening back to the guitarist’s earlier days. But as great as any George Benson solo is bound to be, on Dreams Do Come True, each is relatively short and supportive. At this phase of his career, as on 1989’s Tenderlyand 1990’s Count Basie Orchestra-backed Big Boss Band, Benson was going through a jazz-singer period. If there’s something that sets the ballad-centric Dreams Do Come Trueapart, it’s that those other records take a slightly more varied approach to material and arranging.
When it was finished, the Benson/Farnon collaboration was shelved, and it stayed that way for 35 years. Now released, it provides a deeper revelation into this brief phase of Benson’s career. In 1993, he followed up Big Boss Man with an updated take on the smooth, slick pop that brought him blockbuster fame in the previous two decades and delivered Love Remembers.
Love is Blue (feat. The Robert Farnon Orchestra)
This kind of stylistic jumping around, of musical discovery, is a thread through Benson’s legendary career. From his days as a young child busking in Pittsburgh, where his favorite song to play was “On the Sunny Side of the Street,” he evolved through backing Brother Jack McDuff and leading his own organ combo, into his soulful and funky CTI Records phase, where he proved himself one of the most agile and adroit players in the jazz-guitar game. He eventually did the most improbable—and in anyone else’s hands thus far, impossible—feat and launched into pop superstardom with 1976’s Breezin’ and stayed there for years to come, racking up No. 1 hits and a host of Grammy awards.
At this moment, deep into his career at 81 years old, Benson continues to dive into new settings. While anyone observing from the sidelines might conclude that Benson has already excelled in more varied musical situations than any other instrumentalist, he somehow continues to discover new sides to his musicality. In 2018, he joined the Gorillaz on their technicolor indie-pop single “Humility,” and in 2020 he tracked his guitar onBootsy Collins’ “The Power of the One.” Benson assures me that not only are there more recordings in the archive that he’s waiting to reveal, but there are more wide-ranging collaborations to come.
On Dreams Do Come True, Benson covers classic jazz repertoire, plus he revisits the Beatles—whose work he covered on 1970’s The Other Side of Abbey Road—and Leon Russell, whose “This Masquerade” brought Benson a 1976 Grammy award for Record of the Year.
PG: The range of songs that you’ve played throughout your career, from your jazz records to 1970’s The Other Side ofAbbey Road or 1972’s White Rabbit album to 2019’s Chuck Berry and Fats Domino tribute, Walking to New Orleans, is so broad. Of course, now I’m thinking about the songs on Dreams Do Come True. How do you know when a song is a good fit?
George Benson: Well, you can’t get rid of it. It stays with you all the time. They keep popping up in your memory.
All the stuff that Sinatra did, and Nat King Cole did, and Dean Martin, that’s the stuff I grew up on. I grew up in a multinational neighborhood. There were only 30 African Americans in my school, and they had 1,400 students, but it was a vocational school.
I remember all that stuff like yesterday because it’s essential to who I am today. I learned a lot from that. You would think that would be a super negative thing. Some things about it were negative—you know, the very fact that there were 1,400 students and only 30 African Americans. But what I learned in school was how to deal with people from all different parts of the world.
After my father made my first electric guitar. I made my second one….
You made your second guitar?
Benson: Yeah, I designed it. My school built it for me. I gave them the designs, sent it down to the shop, they cut it out, I sent it to the electric department, and then I had to put on the strings myself. I brought my amplifier to school and plugged it in. Nobody believed it would work, first of all. When I plugged it in, my whole class, they couldn’t believe that it actually worked. So, that became my thing, man. “Little Georgie Benson—you should hear that guitar he made.”“I can let my mind go free and play how I feel.”
George Benson's Gear
The Benson-designed Ibanez GB10 was first introduced in 1977.
Photo by Matt Furman
Strings & Picks
- Ibanez George Benson Signature pick
- Thomastik-Infeld George Benson Jazz Strings
Accessories
- Radial JDI Passive Direct Box
So, your environment informed the type of music you were listening to and playing from a young age.
Benson: No doubt about it, man. Because remember, rock ’n’ roll was not big. When the guitar started playing with the rock bands, if you didn’t have a guitar in your band, you weren’t really a rock band. But that was later, though. It started with those young groups and all that hip doo-wop music.
I was known in Pittsburgh as Little Georgie Benson, singer. Occasionally, I would have the ukulele or guitar when the guitar started to get popular.
What’s your playing routine like these days? Do you play the guitar every day, and what do you play?
Benson: Not like I used to. Out of seven days, I probably play it four or five days.
I used to play virtually every day. It was just a natural thing for me to pick up. I had guitars strategically placed all over my house. As soon as I see one, my brain said, “Pick that up.” So, I would pick it up and start playing with new ideas. I don’t like going over the same thing over and over again because it makes you boring. I would always try to find something fresh to play. That’s not easy to do, but it is possible.
I’m looking for harmony. I’m trying to connect things together. How do I take this sound or this set of chord changes and play it differently? I don’t want to play it so everybody knows where I’m going before I even get there, you know?
“I wasn’t trying to sound loud. I was trying to sound good.”
How did you develop your guitar tone, and what is important about a guitar tone?
Benson: Years ago, the guitar was an accompaniment or background instrument, usually accompanying somebody or even accompanying yourself. But it was not the lead instrument necessarily. If they gave you a solo, you got a chance to make some noise.
As it got serious later on, I started looking for a great sound. I thought it was in the size of the guitar. So, I went out and bought this tremendously expensive guitar, big instrument. And I found that, yeah, that had a big sound, but that was not it. I couldn’t make it do what I wanted it to do. I found that it comes from my phrasing, the way I phrase things and the way I set up my guitar, and how I work with the amplifier. I wasn’t trying to sound loud. I was trying to sound good.
George Benson at Carnegie Hall in New York City on September 23,1981. The previous year, he received Grammy awards for “Give Me the Night,” “Off Broadway,” and “Moody’s Mood.”
Photo by Ebet Roberts
When I think about your playing, I’m automatically thinking about your lead playing so much of the time. But I think that your rhythm playing is just as iconic. What do you think is the most important thing about rhythm guitar parts, comping, and grooving?
Benson: That word comp, I finally found out what it really represents. I worked with a man called Jack McDuff, who took me out of Pittsburgh when I was 19 years old. He used to get mad at me all the time. “Why are you doing this? Why are you doing that? I can’t hear what you’re playing because you play so low”—because I used to be scared. I didn’t want people to hear what I was playing because then they would realize I didn’t know what I was doing, you know? I would play very mousy. He said, “Man, I don’t know if you play good or bad because I can’t hear you. Man, play out. People don’t know what you’re playing. They’ll accept whatever it is you do; they’ll think you meant to do it. Either it’s good or bad.”
So I started playing out and I found there’s a great truth in what he said. When you play out, you sound like you know what you’re doing. People say, “Oh wow, this cat is a monster.” It either feels good and sounds good or it doesn’t. So, I learned how to make those beeps and bops and things sound good and feel good.
The word comp comes from complementing. Whoever’s coming in to solo is out front. I gotta make them sound good. And that’s why people call me today. I had a record with a group called the Gorillaz. That’s the reason why they called me is because they realized that I knew what to do when I come to complement somebody. I did not have a lead role in that song. But I loved playing it once I found the space for me. I said, “Man, I don’t wanna just play it on an album. I wanna mean something.”
I did something with Bootsy Collins, who is a monster. I said, “Why is he calling me? I’m not a monster, man.” But he heard something in me he wanted on his record, and I couldn’t figure out what it was. I said, “No, I don’t think I can do it, man. I don’t think I can do you any good.” He said, “Try something, man. Try anything.” So I did. I didn’t think I could do that, but it came out good. Now I’m getting calls from George Clinton.
You worked on something with George Clinton?
Benson: Not yet, but that’s what I’m working on now, because he called me and said, “Man, do something with me.”
That’s not going to be easy. You know, I gotta find something that fits his personality, and where I can enhance it, not just throw something together, because that wouldn’t be right for the public. We want something musical, something that lasts for a long time.
“I can let my mind go free and play how I feel.”
In the liner notes for Dreams Do Come True, you say that there’s always more to be discovered. You just mentioned the Gorillaz, then Bootsy Collins and George Clinton. You have such a wide, open exploration of music. How has discovery and exploration guided your career?
Benson: Well, this is the thing that we didn’t have available a few years ago. Now, we can play anything. You couldn’t cross over from one music to another without causing some damage to your career, causing an uproar in the industry.
When Wes Montgomery did “Going Out of My Head” and Jimmy Smith did “Walk on the Wild Side,” it caused waves in the music industry, because radio was not set up for that. You were either country or jazz or pop or blues or whatever it was. You weren’t crossing over because there was no way to get that played. Now there is.
Because I’ve had something to do with most of those things I just mentioned, my mind goes back to when I was thinking, “What if I played it like this? No, people won’t like that. What if I played it like this? Now, they won’t like that either.” Now, I can let my mind go free and play how I feel, and they will find some way to get it played on the air.
YouTube It
George Benson digs into the Dave Brubeck-penned standard “Take Five” at the height of the ’80s, showing his unique ability to turn any tune into a deeply grooving blaze-fest.
