Jules Leyhe is a regular at San Francisco’s Biscuits and Blues, a venue devoted to live blues music and Southern cuisine. Here, Leyhe hits a sweet spot on his Fender Deluxe Special Stratocaster while playing at the club in 2019.
Jules Leyhe is gonna piss off some blues guitar purists.
His main passion is the blues, and he cuts the best blues-slide licks since Derek Trucks—maybe even Duane Allman. But you won’t find one blues song on his newest release, Your First Rodeo. In fact, they’re not really on any of his albums. His songs are a steady stream of EDM, ’70s funk, Hendrix-like psychedelic jams, and horn sections from south of the border. Think Oz Noy and his admittedly twisted take on jazz. That’s what Leyhe brings to the blues.
“Oz is doing his version of this thing, too,” says Leyhe. “He loves Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughan as much as he loves Allan Holdsworth, Thelonious Monk, and John Coltrane. He’s just doing his mutant Oz Noy version of that. And I’ve got my more slide-guitar-centric version of that.”
Leyhe sees the best of the Delta, Chicago, and 1960s rock in even the most modern genres. And it’s his mission to connect today’s music fans to the bluesy core of their favorite songs. It’s a mission that started at a very young age.
“There was always music in the house when I was growing up, and we were always dancing,” he says. “Way before I ever played, I liked the Beatles, blues, and jazz. I had a CD player, my headphones, and a little CD collection. I loved music. But by the time I saw School of Rock as a 13-year-old, I knew what I needed to do.
Jules Leyhe - Start Your Engines (Official Video)
“That same week I went to see Doc Watson with my dad,” Leyhe remembers. “Driving home from the show, we drove by the Warfield where Jeff Beck happened to be playing. My dad saw ‘Jeff Beck’ up on the marquee, and he goes, ‘Hey, we’re not going home yet; we got to go see Jeff Beck.’ I got my ass kicked by the guitar that night. I’m 13, and I saw Jeff Beck! After that, I said to my dad, who had a Telecaster, ‘Hey man, you got to teach me everything you know.’ I dove in headfirst.”
Leyhe immediately took to the instrument, but he wasn’t into the musical flavors of the week. “I was listening to all the early acoustic blues guys: Robert Johnson, Son House, Muddy Waters. My dad introduced me to it. And he took me to shows. I saw the Rolling Stones, Buddy Guy, Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, all as an 8-year-old. That was part of my life.”
All of those experiences and his love affair with the 6-string came together in one magical night—a night that certified Leyhe’s blues credibility. “I played with Buddy Guy for the first time when I was 16. My dad and I went to see him, and Buddy had some wireless setup so he could walk around the entire place. He’s walking right by my dad, and my dad goes, ‘Buddy, my son is here, and he can play some blues.’ Buddy walks back up onstage—and this is all in the middle of a song—and he’s pointing at me and goes, ‘Come on up here.’ I ran up. He put his guitar on me. He literally took his guitar off his back, his famous polka dot guitar, and put it on me. We played a slow blues in G, and he let me take it away. The crowd went bonkers. I’ll never forget it. We became friends that night, and I play with him anytime he’s in town. He was always really supportive. I’ve kept in touch with him ever since. He’s been so freaking cool to me for over half of my life now.”
“As soon as you’re playing the Klon into a Dumble on a Les Paul, it’s like you grew up driving an old Volkswagen Beetle. Now your dad’s giving you the keys to his Maserati and telling you to go have fun on the freeway.”
Leyhe’s love for the blues has never waned since being called onto that stage. It’s apparent in his slide style. But, strangely, it’s not so apparent in the music he writes and records. There’s a good reason for that.
“That’s definitely on purpose. I certainly started as a blues player, but I’m trying to stretch what that can be,” Leyhe explains. “I’d love to make more of a straight-ahead blues record, too. But my mission is to expose the younger generation, who might be listening to totally blues-influenced music, to the origins of where that is coming from. Say, hip-hop, where they’re sampling jazz and blues records. Like, I heard a sampled thing of Johnny Smith, one of my favorite jazz guitar players, the other day. I told my friend, ‘That’s Johnny Smith.’ She said, ‘No, it’s some hip-hop artist who sampled it.’ That’s a great illustration of what I want to do. It’s a baton handing-off between the old generation and the new generation. My music is the moment that both hands are on the baton, and it’s cross-generational inspired.”
Though some purists would call it sacrilegious to play over hip-hop and call yourself a blues guitarist, they obviously haven’t been paying attention. If it was wrong, Muddy Waters would never have electrified it, Clapton couldn’t have cranked his Les Paul into a Marshall JTM45, and Hendrix’s outer-space experiments would be off the table. Don’t even get me started on ZZ Top’s use of synthesizers.
As far as Leyhe sees it, these experiments are all part of the inevitable evolution of the blues. And his playing might just help push it forward.
“I’m trying to filter these things through my slide guitar,” he said. “It’s super Duane Allman-influenced, but I play in a context with maybe hip-hop beats, EDM, or more modern-sounding beats. Like, say, “Taco Truck.” It’s basically Buena Vista Social Club with Cardi B and then a funk band from Oakland. That’s the style.”
TIDBIT: Jules Leyhe says his engineer, Protist (Nick Bergen), used a Boss Waza Tube Amp Expander as the main studio tool when recording Not Your First Rodeo. When it came to experimenting with effects, Leyhe went deep. “I’m a kid in the candy shop with too many options,” he says. “I really work well that way.”
Your First Rodeo is full of sonic mashups like “Taco Truck.” On the one hand, “The Journey” offers understated melodies with some of the most captivating tones on the album. Then “Start Your Engines” strips everything back to an electronic beat and exploding slide riff. After Leyhe takes us on a wild ride, the album closes with “Sad but True,” a beautiful ballad with a decidedly Motown feel. As you can tell, crossing genres throughout the album was easy for Leyhe and his band (the Jules Family Band). Recording it, however, was not.
“It was totally COVID,” Leyhe says. “It was recorded way before people got vaccinated. It was all done separately and all in one day. No two musicians recorded at the same time. All the musicians came into the studio and took turns. Luckily, we’re all great buddies. We’ve been playing together for 10 years, and we all know each other’s tendencies, so we can give each other space and play off each other.”
The band’s camaraderie is obvious as they ebb and flow through different genres with a tight and live feel. They fill each song with new tones, new instrumentation, and new layers that always keep you guessing. But above all, they make every song entertaining from beginning to end.
“It’s basically Buena Vista Social Club with Cardi B and then a funk band from Oakland. That’s the style.”
“I think music should be really fun,” Leyhe says. “I think that’s something you get if you look at the cover of Your First Rodeo. Everybody chuckles when they see it. That’s what I’m trying to bring—some levity, creativity, and art. Then I think that matches the experience you have when you hear it. Like on the opening track, you’re going, ‘Wait, is this even a guitar record?’”
Though Leyhe’s musicians enjoy plenty of space to stretch out, Your First Rodeo is absolutely a guitar record. And once it was his turn to track, Leyhe didn’t hold back. “Protist [Leyhe’s recording engineer, Nick Bergen] and I used the Boss Waza Tube Amp Expander. That was our studio. We never recorded a cabinet. And there were so many options between pedals and impulse responses that we were spoiled rotten. I think some people feel like, ‘Ah, there are too many options.’ But I felt like, ‘I love too many options!’ I’m a kid in the candy shop with too many options. I really work well that way.”
Those options manifest throughout the album in a myriad of guitar tones. But even though they shift from vintage ’50s cleans with spring reverb to fuzzed-out explosions of energy, the core of Leyhe’s rig is as classic a setup as you can imagine.
“One of the best moves I’ve ever done was getting an Overtone Special, 50-watt amp by Ceriatone. They make Dumble clones. Oh my gosh, this amp was a game-changer for me, my sound, and everything. At this point, I’ve been playing for, man, it’s close to 20 years. And after working hard on it, I finally have an amp that really brings my voice out, and tells the story I want, how I want it to.”
Jules Leyhe’s Gear
Jules Leyhe prefers his Gibson SG with a Coricidin bottle for playing slide. “It’s the ’61 reissue, and it barks,” he says. “There’s something about the Coricidin bottle. It’s this magic. The tone, it’s this sweet spot. It feels really good on the strings, and I swear it sings.”
Photo Lizzy Myers
Guitars
- Gibson Les Paul 1959 Reissue
- Gibson SG 1961 Reissue
- Fender Deluxe Special Stratocaster
Amps
- Ceriatone Overtone Special 50
- Milkman 1x12 with Celestion G12M-65 Creamback
Strings, Picks, Slide
- GHS Boomers .012 sets, on the SG
- Dunlop .010 sets on the Les Paul
- Dunlop Eric Johnson Jazz IIIs
- Coricidin bottle
Effects
- Ceriatone Centura overdrive
- Vertex Dynamic Distortion
- Vertex Ultraphonix Overdrive
- Vertex Boost
- Vertex Steel String Clean Drive
- Xotic EP Booster
- Line 6 DL4 delay
- TC Electronic Hall of Fame Reverb
- T-Rex Tremster
- Dunlop Cry Baby Mini Wah
- Dunlop Volume (X) Mini
- Mojo Hand FX Luna Vibe
Leyhe is so in love with his Overtone Special that it’s the only guitar amplifier on the record. He often rounds out his rig with the other two-thirds of a tonal trinity. “My high-gain tones are definitely the dirty channel on the amp with a freaking Gibson Les Paul,” he shares. “It’s one of the ’59 reissues. Ceriatone also makes a Klon Centaur clone that I use. They call it the Centura, and, man, that thing is so great. As soon as you’re playing the Klon into a Dumble on a Les Paul, it’s like you grew up driving an old Volkswagen Beetle. Now your dad’s giving you the keys to his Maserati and telling you to go have fun on the freeway. [Laughs.] Part of that is using a lot of gain. That’s a technique or a trick that I definitely rely on. I love the tone you get from a lot of gain. Like, Stevie Ray when he’s playing 'Lenny,' he’s definitely using a lot of gain, but, man, you gotta roll back a little bit to get that sound. Jeff Beck does that a ton, too. I’m sure a lot of guys do that, but those are two of my favorite influences for that sort of thing.”
As hairy as Leyhe’s high-gain sound gets, it’s the exact same setup on the more delicate-sounding solos of “The Journey.” The only twist is Leyhe’s secret weapon: a Dunlop Volume (X) Mini Pedal.
“It’s cool because it’s the same setup, but everything’s way dialed back. It’s still nice and fat, but we turned all the gains down, and I’m riding the volume pedal a lot,” explains Leyhe. “The volume pedal really is a big part of my sound. There’s always a little life on the notes because I’m riding the volume most of the time. Between being expressive with it and the tone from this amp, that’s my sound now.”
But Leyhe’s not afraid to dig into his other effects and experiment. He’ll often throw one of his favorite Vertex overdrives on for a different shade of grit or create full-on soundscapes, “giant worlds” as he calls them, with a Line 6 DL4. “The Planetarium” features this technique. “That song’s in the key of D major,” says Leyhe. “So, I’ll build a big D-pad, where I make random noises and get a layer that I can play over. It almost comes off as the synthesizer or something, but it’s a guitar.”
Another of Your First Rodeo’s standout tones is the harmonica solo on “High Street” … except it’s not a harmonica. It’s his trusty Gibson, Ceriatone, and Klon clone. “It sounds like an old Howlin’ Wolf record or something,” he says. “It’s super raw and nasty. There’s this nasty-ass, low, gritty, bluesy thing and this tight, Tower of Power-ish funk thing going on, too.
“I saw the Rolling Stones, Buddy Guy, Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, all as an 8-year-old. That was part of my life.”
“Those are the worlds we’re combining there. But it’s just me playing and trying to sound like a harp. I think part of the sound is that the strings were jangly. I tuned way low to C, and I didn’t use the right [gauges] or anything. They were kind of angel hair pasta-ish [laughs]. But it’s cool that way. You don’t do that the whole time. But once is fine, and actually cool.”
Once is right. “High Street” is the only time Leyhe deviates from his two favorite tunings—standard and open E for slide—for the entire album. And while he often uses a pick, he plays slide with his fingers alone.
“I only play slide on my SG. It’s the ’61 reissue, and it barks,” he explains. “I have it strung up with the action really high. Also, I’m in a band called the Alameda All Stars. They were Gregg Allman’s touring band for a good 12 to 15 years. The guitar player in that band, Jellyroll [Marke Burgstahler], gave me a Coricidin bottle slide, and I use that as my main slide. There’s something about the Coricidin bottle. It’s this magic. The tone, it’s this sweet spot. It feels really good on the strings, and I swear it sings.”
Coricidin bottle slide on pinky finger, Leyhe is on the rise at the perfect time. Derek Trucks is at the height of his lauded career, and roots-based players like Justin Johnson, Ariel Posen, and Joey Landreth (The Bros. Landreth) dominate YouTube guitar channels and are hitting the charts. People can’t get enough slide guitar.
On his new album, Jules Leyhe’s winning combo was a Les Paul, a Ceriatone Overtone Special, and a Klon clone. But he doesn’t ever stick to just one guitar. Here he dons a Telecaster, which is the model he started playing with his dad at age 13.
Photo by Bob Hakins
“Slide is the most powerful way of specifically conveying my musical thoughts,” Leyhe says. “It has a heavy sound. You can really get sad and mournful, or you can really rock a room. Like, we were playing last night, some classic Chicago blues romp, and everyone’s shaking their ass. But then I can make people cry playing ‘Amazing Grace’ like we’re at church or something. It’s amazing what you can do. People respond to it so much. If there’s a slide playing a melody well, people melt. I can’t put my finger on it exactly, but I’ve seen that over and over. It gives me goosebumps, and it’s what I’m into. It’s this mysterious thing.”
Unfortunately, people may have to wait to hear Leyhe’s slide in person. Like most artists, he hasn’t been able to perform as often as he’d like. But that doesn’t mean you can’t watch him play. Harnessing the power of YouTube, Leyhe created a guitarist’s dream channel full of his performances, lessons, gear overviews, and more. Hell, he may be in front of more fans now than ever.
With a new album, a growing YouTube channel, and even playing the “Star Spangled Banner” at Oakland A’s games, Leyhe is in a good place artistically and career-wise. But the future is calling. He’s already recorded his next album, tentatively titled Dub Blues. If all goes as planned, itwill be another step in lifting the blues into the future.
“It doesn’t have to be like, ‘I went to this blues show, and I heard some slide guitar.’ What if you went to a classical show, or opera, or anything else?”
But Leyhe doesn’t want to go it alone. He hopes his genre-bending forays rub off on his contemporaries. “The blues is in a funny place, and I think it needs to be carried forward with more than chops,” Leyhe says. “I’m trying to say that delicately, but we got to do what the Beatles did in the studio.
“They weren’t going to have two-minute pop tunes forever. They needed to be artists. I want to hear more of the art. I love guys like Josh Smith, Kirk Fletcher, and Eric Gales. Shit, these guys are all amazing. Everybody can ball. If you get guys like Eric Gales, Joe Bonamassa, Josh Smith all playing, that’s an NBA All-Star game. But I’d love for those guys to hear what I’m doing here. I want to hear the imagination that’s on records like Electric Ladyland and Sgt. Pepper’s.”
Whether his heroes share this view, we’ll have to see. But one thing’s for sure, Leyhe’s not putting any limits on his favorite music. Considering slide guitar’s current popularity, he’s happier than ever to bring it to a broader audience.
“I love it, and people love it everywhere. It’s this universal thing. People fucking love slide guitar. So it doesn’t have to be like, ‘I went to this blues show, and I heard some slide guitar.’ What if you went to a classical show, or opera, or anything else? That would be really wild. I’m definitely trying to do my part to bring it into other contexts.”
Jules Leyhe and the Family Jules Band | PayPal: jleyhe@gmail.com
Jules Leyhe and his band played a traditional-flavored blues gig in early 2021, performing as a quartet with guitar, drums, saxophone, and keys. Jump to 43 minutes in to see Leyhe’s slide chops.
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Keith Urban’s first instrument was a ukulele at age 4. When he started learning guitar two years later, he complained that it made his fingers hurt. Eventually, he came around. As did the world.
He’s in the Songwriters Hall of Fame. He’s won 13 Country Music Association Awards, nine CMT video awards, eight ARIA (Australian Recording Industry Association) Awards, four American Music Awards, and racked up BMI Country Awards for 25 different singles.
He’s been a judge on American Idol and The Voice. In conjunction with Yamaha, he has his own brand of affordably priced Urban guitars and amps, and he has posted beginner guitar lessons on YouTube. His 2014 Academy of Country Music Award-winning video for “Highways Don’t Care” featured Tim McGraw and Keith’s former opening act, Taylor Swift. Add his marriage to fellow Aussie, the actress Nicole Kidman, and he’s seen enough red carpet to cover a football field.
Significantly, his four Grammys were all for Country Male Vocal Performance. A constant refrain among newcomers is, “and he’s a really good guitar player,” as if by surprise or an afterthought. Especially onstage, his chops are in full force. There are country elements, to be sure, but rock, blues, and pop influences like Mark Knopfler are front and center.
Unafraid to push the envelope, 2020’s The Speed of Now Part 1 mixed drum machines, processed vocals, and a duet with Pink with his “ganjo”—an instrument constructed of a 6-string guitar neck on a banjo body—and even a didgeridoo. It, too, shot to No. 1 on the Billboard Country chart and climbed to No. 7 on the Pop chart.
His new release, High, is more down-to-earth, but is not without a few wrinkles. He employs an EBow on “Messed Up As Me” and, on “Wildfire,” makes use of a sequencerreminiscent of ZZ Top’s “Legs.” Background vocals in “Straight Lines” imitate a horn section, and this time out he duets on “Go Home W U” with rising country star Lainey Wilson. The video for “Heart Like a Hometown” is full of home movies and family photos of a young Urban dwarfed by even a 3/4-size Suzuki nylon-string.
Born Keith Urbahn (his surname’s original spelling) in New Zealand, his family moved to Queensland, Australia, when he was 2. He took up guitar at 6, two years after receiving his beloved ukulele. He released his self-titled debut album in 1991 for the Australian-only market, and moved to Nashville two years later. It wasn’t until ’97 that he put out a group effort, fronting the Ranch, and another self-titled album marked his American debut as a leader, in ’99. It eventually went platinum—a pattern that’s become almost routine.
The 57-year-old’s celebrity and wealth were hard-earned and certainly a far cry from his humble beginnings. “Australia is a very working-class country, certainly when I was growing up, and I definitely come from working-class parents,” he details. “My dad loved all the American country artists, like Johnny Cash, Haggard, Waylon. He didn’t play professionally, but before he got married he played drums in a band, and my grandfather and uncles all played instruments.
One of Urban’s biggest influences as a young guitar player was Mark Knopfler, but he was also mesmerized by lesser-known session musicians such as Albert Lee, Ian Bairnson, Reggie Young, and Ray Flacke. Here, he’s playing a 1950 Broadcaster once owned by Waylon Jennings that was a gift from Nicole Kidman, his wife.
“For me, it was a mix of that and Top 40 radio, which at the time was much more diverse than it is now. You would just hear way more genres, and Australia itself had its own, what they call Aussie pub rock—very blue-collar, hard-driving music for the testosterone-fueled teenager. Grimy, sweaty, kind of raw themes.”
A memorable event happened when he was 7. “My dad got tickets for the whole family to see Johnny Cash. He even bought us little Western shirts and bolo ties. It was amazing.”
But the ukulele he was gifted a few years earlier, at the age of 4, became a constant companion. “I think to some degree it was my version of the stuffed animal, something that was mine, and I felt safe with it. My dad said I would strum it in time to all the songs on the radio, and he told my mom, ‘He’s got rhythm. I wonder what a good age is for him to learn chords.’ My mom and dad ran a little corner store, and a lady named Sue McCarthy asked if she could put an ad in the window offering guitar lessons. They said, ‘If you teach our kid for free, we’ll put your ad in the window.’”
Yet, guitar didn’t come without problems. “With the guitar, my fingers hurt like hell,” he laughs, “and I started conveniently leaving the house whenever the guitar teacher would show up. Typical kid. I don’t wanna learn, I just wanna be able to do it. It didn’t feel like any fun. My dad called me in and went, ‘What the hell? The teacher comes here for lessons. What’s the problem?’ I said I didn’t want to do it anymore. He just said, ‘Okay, then don’t do it.’ Kind of reverse psychology, right? So I just stayed with it and persevered. Once I learned a few chords, it was the same feeling when any of us learn how to be moving on a bike with two wheels and nobody holding us up. That’s what those first chords felt like in my hands.”
Keith Urban's Gear
Urban has 13 Country Music Association Awards, nine CMT video awards, eight ARIA Awards, and four Grammys to his name—the last of which are all for Best Country Male Vocal Performance.
Guitars
For touring:
- Maton Diesel Special
- Maton EBG808TE Tommy Emmanuel Signature
- 1957 Gibson Les Paul Junior, TV yellow
- 1959 Gibson ES-345 (with Varitone turned into a master volume)
- Fender 40th Anniversary Tele, “Clarence”
- Two first-generation Fender Eric Clapton Stratocasters (One is black with DiMarzio Area ’67 pickups, standard tuning. The other is pewter gray, loaded with Fralin “real ’54” pickups, tuned down a half-step.)
- John Bolin Telecaster (has a Babicz bridge with a single humbucker and a single volume control. Standard tuning.)
- PRS Paul’s Guitar (with two of their narrowfield humbuckers. Standard tuning.)
- Yamaha Keith Urban Acoustic Guitar (with EMG ACS soundhole pickups)
- Deering “ganjo”
Amps
- Mid-’60s black-panel Fender Showman (modified by Chris Miller, with oversized transformers to power 6550 tubes; 130 watts)
- 100-watt Dumble Overdrive Special (built with reverb included)
- Two Pacific Woodworks 1x12 ported cabinets (Both are loaded with EV BlackLabel Zakk Wylde signature speakers and can handle 300 watts each.)
Effects
- Two Boss SD-1W Waza Craft Super Overdrives with different settings
- Mr. Black SuperMoon Chrome
- FXengineering RAF Mirage Compressor
- Ibanez TS9 with Tamura Mod
- Boss BD-2 Blues Driver
- J. Rockett Audio .45 Caliber Overdrive
- Pro Co RAT 2
- Radial Engineering JX44 (for guitar distribution)
- Fractal Audio Axe-Fx XL+ (for acoustic guitars)
- Two Fractal Audio Axe-Fx III (one for electric guitar, one for bass)
- Bricasti Design Model 7 Stereo Reverb Processor
- RJM Effect Gizmo (for pedal loops)
(Note: All delays, reverb, chorus, etc. is done post amp. The signal is captured with microphones first then processed by Axe-Fx and other gear.)
- Shure Axient Digital Wireless Microphone System
Strings & Picks
- D’Addario NYXL (.011–.049; electric)
- D’Addario EJ16 (.012–.053; acoustics)
- D’Addario EJ16, for ganjo (.012–.053; much thicker than a typical banjo strings)
- D’Addario 1.0 mm signature picks
He vividly remembers the first song he was able to play after “corny songs like ‘Mama’s little baby loves shortnin’ bread.’” He recalls, “There was a song I loved by the Stylistics, ‘You Make Me Feel Brand New.’ My guitar teacher brought in the sheet music, so not only did I have the words, but above them were the chords. I strummed the first chord, and went, [sings E to Am] ‘My love,’ and then minor, ‘I'll never find the words, my,’ back to the original chord, ‘love.’ Even now, I get covered in chills thinking what it felt like to sing and put that chord sequence together.”
After the nylon-string Suzuki, he got his first electric at 9. “It was an Ibanez copy of a Telecaster Custom—the classic dark walnut with the mother-of-pearl pickguard. My first Fender was a Stratocaster. I wanted one so badly. I’d just discovered Mark Knopfler, and I only wanted a red Strat, because that’s what Knopfler had. And he had a red Strat because of Hank Marvin. All roads lead to Hank!”
He clarifies, “Remember a short-lived run of guitar that Fender did around 1980–’81, simply called ‘the Strat’? I got talked into buying one of those, and the thing weighed a ton. Ridiculously heavy. But I was just smitten when it arrived. ‘Sultans of Swing’ was the first thing I played on it. ‘Oh my god! I sound a bit like Mark.’”
“Messed Up As Me” has some licks reminiscent of Knopfler. “I think he influenced a huge amount of my fingerpicking and melodic choices. I devoured those records more than any other guitar player. ‘Tunnel of Love,’ ‘Love over Gold,’ ‘Telegraph Road,’ the first Dire Straits album, and Communique. I was spellbound by Mark’s touch, tone, and melodic choice every time.”
Other influences are more obscure. “There were lots of session guitar players whose solos I was loving, but had no clue who they were,” he explains. “A good example was Ian Bairnson in the Scottish band Pilot and the Alan Parsons Project. It was only in the last handful of years that I stumbled upon him and did a deep dive, and realized he played the solo on ‘Wuthering Heights’ by Kate Bush, ‘Eye in the Sky’ by Alan Parsons, ‘It’s Magic’ and ‘January’ by Pilot’—all these songs that spoke to me growing up. I also feel like a lot of local-band guitar players are inspirations—they certainly were to me. They didn’t have a name, the band wasn’t famous, but when you’re 12 or 13, watching Barry Clough and guys in cover bands, it’s, ‘Man, I wish I could play like that.’”
On High, Urban keeps things song-oriented, playing short and economical solos.
In terms of country guitarists, he nods, “Again, a lot of session players whose names I didn’t know, like Reggie Young. The first names I think would be Albert Lee and Ray Flacke, whose chicken pickin’ stuff on the Ricky Skaggs records became a big influence. ‘How is he doing that?’”
Flacke played a role in a humorous juxtaposition. “I camped out to see Iron Maiden,” Urban recounts. “They’d just put out Number of the Beast, and I was a big fan. I was 15, so my hormones were raging. I’d been playing country since I was 6, 7, 8 years old. But this new heavy-metal thing is totally speaking to me. So I joined a heavy metal band called Fractured Mirror, just as their guitar player. At the same time, I also discovered Ricky Skaggs and Highways and Heartaches. What is this chicken pickin’ thing? One night I was in the metal band, doing a Judas Priest song or Saxon. They threw me a solo, and through my red Strat, plugged into a Marshall stack that belonged to the lead singer, I shredded this high-distortion, chicken pickin’ solo. The lead singer looked at me like, ‘What the fuck are you doing?’ I got fired from the band.”
Although at 15 he “floated around different kinds of music and bands,” when he was 21 he saw John Mellencamp. “He’d just put out Lonesome Jubilee. I’d been in bands covering ‘Hurts So Good,' ‘Jack & Diane,’ and all the early shit. This record had fiddle and mandolin and acoustic guitars, wall of electrics, drums—the most amazing fusion of things. I saw that concert, and this epiphany happened so profoundly. I looked at the stage and thought, ‘Whoa! I get it. You take all your influences and make your own thing. That’s what John did. I’m not gonna think about genre; I’m gonna take all the things I love and find my way.’
“Of course, getting to Nashville with that recipe wasn’t going to fly in 1993,” he laughs. “Took me another seven-plus years to really start getting some traction in that town.”
Urban’s main amp today is a Dumble Overdrive Reverb, which used to belong to John Mayer. He also owns a bass amp that Alexander Dumble built for himself.
Photo by Jim Summaria
When it comes to “crossover” in country music, one thinks of Glen Campbell, Kenny Rogers, Garth Brooks, and Dolly Parton’s more commercial singles like “Two Doors Down.” Regarding the often polarizing subject and, indeed, what constitutes country music, it’s obvious that Urban has thought a lot—and probably been asked a lot—about the syndrome. The Speed of Now Part 1 blurs so many lines, it makes Shania Twain sound like Mother Maybelle Carter. Well, almost.
“I can’t speak for any other artists, but to me, it’s always organic,” he begins. “Anybody that’s ever seen me play live would notice that I cover a huge stylistic field of music, incorporating my influences, from country, Top 40, rock, pop, soft rock, bluegrass, real country. That’s how you get songs like ‘Kiss a Girl’—maybe more ’70s influence than anything else.”
“I think [Mark Knopfler] influenced a huge amount of my fingerpicking and melodic choices. I devoured those records more than any other guitar player.”
Citing ’50s producers Chet Atkins and Owen Bradley, who moved the genre from hillbilly to the more sophisticated countrypolitan, Keith argues, “In the history of country music, this is exactly the same as it has always been. Patsy Cline doing ‘Walking After Midnight’ or ‘Crazy’; it ain’t Bob Wills. It ain’t Hank Williams. It’s a new sound, drawing on pop elements. That’s the 1950s, and it has never changed. I’ve always seen country like a lung, that expands outwards because it embraces new sounds, new artists, new fusions, to find a bigger audience. Then it feels, ‘We’ve lost our way. Holy crap, I don’t even know who we are,’ and it shrinks back down again. Because a purist in the traditional sense comes along, whether it be Ricky Skaggs or Randy Travis. The only thing that I think has changed is there’s portals now for everything, which didn’t used to exist. There isn’t one central control area that would yell at everybody, ‘You’ve got to bring it back to the center.’ I don’t know that we have that center anymore.”
Stating his position regarding the current crop of talent, he reflects, “To someone who says, ‘That’s not country music,’ I always go, “‘It’s not your country music; it’s somebody else’s country music.’ I don’t believe anybody has a right to say something’s not anything. It’s been amazing watching this generation actually say, ‘Can we get back to a bit of purity? Can we get real guitars and real storytelling?’ So you’ve seen the explosion of Zach Bryan and Tyler Childers who are way purer than the previous generation of country music.”
Seen performing here in 2003, Urban is celebrated mostly for his songwriting, but is also an excellent guitarist.
Photo by Steve Trager/Frank White Photo Agency
As for the actual recording process, he notes, “This always shocks people, but ‘Chattahoochee’ by Alan Jackson is all drum machine. I write songs on acoustic guitar and drum machine, or drum machine and banjo. Of course, you go into the studio and replace that with a drummer. But my very first official single, in 1999, was ‘It’s a Love Thing,’ and it literally opens with a drum loop and an acoustic guitar riff. Then the drummer comes in. But the loop never goes away, and you hear it crystal clear. I haven’t changed much about that approach.”
On the road, Urban utilizes different electrics “almost always because of different pickups—single-coil, humbucker, P-90. And then one that’s tuned down a half-step for a few songs in half-keys. Tele, Strat, Les Paul, a couple of others for color. I’ve got a John Bolin guitar that I love—the feel of it. It’s a Tele design with just one PAF, one volume knob, no tone control. It’s very light, beautifully balanced—every string, every fret, all the way up the neck. It doesn’t have a lot of tonal character of its own, so it lets my fingers do the coloring. You can feel the fingerprints of Billy Gibbons on this guitar. It’s very Billy.”
“I looked at the stage and thought, ‘Whoa! I get it. You take all your influences and make your own thing. I’m gonna take all the things I love and find my way.’”
Addressing his role as the collector, “or acquirer,” as he says, some pieces have quite a history. “I haven’t gone out specifically thinking, ‘I’m missing this from the collection.’ I feel really lucky to have a couple of very special guitars. I got Waylon Jennings’ guitar in an auction. It was one he had all through the ’70s, wrapped in the leather and the whole thing. In the ’80s, he gave it to Reggie Young, who owned it for 25 years or so and eventually put it up for auction. My wife wanted to give it to me for my birthday. I was trying to bid on it, and she made sure that I couldn’t get registered! When it arrived, I discovered it’s a 1950 Broadcaster—which is insane. I had no idea. I just wanted it because I’m a massive Waylon fan, and I couldn’t bear the thought of that guitar disappearing overseas under somebody’s bed, when it should be played.
“I also have a 1951 Nocaster, which used to belong to Tom Keifer in Cinderella. It’s the best Telecaster I’ve ever played, hands down. It has the loudest, most ferocious pickup, and the wood is amazing.”
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Urban plays a Gibson SG here at the 2023 CMT Music Awards. Wait until the end to see him show off his shred abilities.
Other favorites include “a first-year Strat, ’54, that I love, and a ’58 goldtop. I also own a ’58 ’burst, but prefer the goldtop; it’s just a bit more spanky and lively. I feel abundantly blessed with the guitars I’ve been able to own and play. And I think every guitar should be played, literally. There’s no guitar that’s too precious to be played.”
Speaking of precious, there are also a few Dumble amps that elicit “oohs” and “aahs.” “Around 2008, John Mayer had a few of them, and he wanted to part with this particular Overdrive Special head. When he told me the price, I said, ‘That sounds ludicrous.’ He said, ‘How much is your most expensive guitar?’ It was three times the value of the amp. He said, ‘So that’s one guitar. What amp are you plugging all these expensive guitars into?’ I was like, ‘Sold. I guess when you look at it that way.’ It’s just glorious. It actually highlighted some limitations in some guitars I never noticed before.”
“It’s just glorious. It actually highlighted some limitations in some guitars I never noticed before.”
Keith also developed a relationship with the late Alexander Dumble. “We emailed back and forth, a lot of just life stuff and the beautifully eccentric stuff he was known for. His vocabulary was as interesting as his tubes and harmonic understanding. My one regret is that he invited me out to the ranch many times, and I was never able to go. Right now, my main amp is an Overdrive Reverb that also used to belong to John when he was doing the John Mayer Trio. I got it years later. And I have an Odyssey, which was Alexander’s personal bass amp that he built for himself. I sent all the details to him, and he said, ‘Yeah, that’s my amp.’”
The gearhead in Keith doesn’t even mind minutiae like picks and strings. “I’ve never held picks with the pointy bit hitting the string. I have custom picks that D’Addario makes for me. They have little grippy ridges like on Dunlops and Hercos, but I have that section just placed in one corner. I can use a little bit of it on the string, or I can flip it over. During the pandemic, I decided to go down a couple of string gauges. I was getting comfortable on .009s, and I thought, ‘Great. I’ve lightened up my playing.’ Then the very first gig, I was bending the crap out of them. So I went to .010s, except for a couple of guitars that are .011s.”
As with his best albums, High is song-oriented; thus, solos are short and economical. “Growing up, I listened to songs where the guitar was just in support of that song,” he reasons. “If the song needs a two-bar break, and then you want to hear the next vocal section, that’s what it needs. If it sounds like it needs a longer guitar section, then that’s what it needs. There’s even a track called ‘Love Is Hard’ that doesn’t have any solo. It’s the first thing I’ve ever recorded in my life where I literally don’t play one instrument. Eren Cannata co-wrote it [with Shane McAnally and Justin Tranter], and I really loved the demo with him playing all the instruments. I loved it so much I just went with his acoustic guitar. I’m that much in service of the song.”
The new AD200 is still designed on the premise that the best tone comes from the shortest signal path from bass to speaker. Whatever type of bass, playing style, or genre of music, the AD200 faithfully retains the tone of that instrument.
The addition of a new clean switch, in combination with a powerful three-band EQ, gives AD200 players an even broader frequency spectrum to dial into their amp. In addition, a brand new output transformer, with 3 inches of laminations, harnesses double the power at 30Hz, offering better response at low frequencies. ‘It now pushes more air, flaps more trouser leg — simple as that,’ explains Orange Amps Technical Director Ade Emsley. From mellow hues to heavy, percussive growl and even slap bass, the ultimate incarnation of the AD200, has just become even more versatile.
Internal changes make the amp easier to service and maintain. Each output valve now has its own 12 turn bias pot, so unmatched valves can sit side by side. ‘Now, any tech with a multimeter can bias the amp and match the valves into the amp,’ explains Emsley. ‘So, if you’re on the road with a band, you can go swap a worn valve for a new one, dial it in and you’re good to go.’ Whilst the four KT88 output valves push 200 Watts of power, the amp will run equally as well on 6550s or a combination of the two.
‘It’s a big improvement on the previous version,’ says Ade Emsley, of his work on the updated AD200. ‘It still does everything the old one does, it’s still the industry standard, but it’s now simpler, easier to use, easier to service and futureproof.’
The new, decluttered front panel design is reminiscent of the company’s iconic 1970’s amps with its original ‘bubble-writing’ Orange logo and the ‘pics-only’ hieroglyphs, all wrapped in the company’s distinctive orange Tolex covering.
Over the last forty years, the Orange Bass Cabinets have become an undeniable industry standard. They have been remodelled to use Celestion Pulse XL bass speakers across the OBC810C, OBC410HC, and OBC115C cabs. The upgrade delivers a tight, punchy low-end with a warm mid-range that’s full of presence. The premium build of these cabinets remains, delivering players, bands and techs the road-worthy dependability they demand. In addition, the popular OBC410HC has been modified by removing one vertical partition and strengthening the horizontal one to be lighter and tighten up low-end response.
For more information, please visit orangeamps.com.
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