How the L.A.-based bluesman balances demo videos, sessions, tours, and a rejuvenated solo career.
Josh Smithās career is emblematic of the YouTube age: The Los Angeles-based guitarist gets as many hits for his product demo videos as for his live gig posts. He spends hours on tour buses answering gear questions from fans in awe of his magnificent tone.
But endorsing a piece of gear doesnāt mean Smith uses it for every gig. āSometimes guys get mad because they see me on TV, and Iām not using their gear,ā he explains. āBut if it isnāt right for that gig, I wonāt use it. They didnāt hire meāthe artist did, so I have to use whatās right for the artistās sound.ā
Still, Smith is loyal to the people with whom he works. āThe companies I get involved with are my friends, and I go out of my way to help them. I donāt just take free gear. I try to be involved with guys who make the gear I use.ā
First and foremost, though, Smith is a player. A blues prodigy, he was gigging steadily at 14 around his hometown of Pembroke Pines, a suburb of Fort Lauderdale. āBack then I only knew blues, blues, blues,ā he recalls. āI wanted to be the next Kenny Wayne Shepherd or Jonny Lang. Until I was 22 all I did was put out records, travel in a van, play clubs 300 days a year, and not make any money. Then I decided I wanted to be able to pay bills and not live in my parentsā house, so I took a break and a leap of faith.ā
Shifting gears. The leap of faith involved moving to L.A. and shifting gears from solo artist to sideman, including work with American Idol winner Taylor Hicks and former Tony! Toni! TonĆ©! member Raphael Saadiq. āIt turned out to be a good move,ā says Smith. āIt took 10 years, but we just bought a house. Also, doing sessions and sideman gigs couldnāt help but expand my horizons. You learn new stuff all the time, and it sneaks into your playing.ā
Both old and new stuff were on display for Smithās 2009 instrumental record, Inception. āI think of that record as a business card,ā he says.
Among other things, Inception displays Smithās formidable country chops. āWhen I was 16, a dude handed me a tape,ā he recalls. āOne side was Danny Gatton, the other was Roy Lanhamāan old school country-jazz player. Gatton is one of the greatest, and Roy Lanham playing triple stops and four-part chord melody over simple country changes blew my mind. Overnight I went from anchoring my hand on the pickguard to free-floating hybrid picking. Everything I play now is hybrid picked, even B.B. King licks. People say, āYou sound so clean and precise!ā Thatās the hybrid picking. I donāt play as fast as I did when I was younger, but Iām way cleaner!ā
Soon after Inception came out, German label Crosscut re-released Deep Roots, an older Smith blues record. āThey renamed it Iām Gonna Be Ready and repackaged it,ā says Smith. āIt started doing well, and for the first time in 12 years I toured playing blues for a month straight. My own music, full rooms, selling CDsāI realized how much I missed it. I could see things building over there and started going over once or twice a year.ā
Crosscutās desire for a new blues record led Smith to record Donāt Give Up on Me. But he says he found himself uninspired by the current crop of blues records: āNinety percent of the records were guys playing museum-quality bluesābrilliantly, I might addābut not breaking new ground. Or else itās heavy blues, like Joe Bonamassa. Heās an amazing guitar player, but I did that style when I was a kid. Whatās the point of making another blues record unless itās something special? So I wrote 40 new songs, and then whittled them down.ā
Smithās goals were to write the next āThe Thrill is Goneā or āCrosscut Saw,ā and to make a record that stood out from the low-budget productions he heard on blues radio. āIām a blues guy who does sessions,ā he says. āOne of my favorite blues records, Bobby Blandās Dreamer, was cut with Larry Carlton and Dean Parksātop session guys who play blues. On this record I wanted to play the solos like Albert King, but play the rhythm like Larry Carlton. I wanted strings, like blues records had back when there were big budgets. By the grace of my wonderful musician friends I was able to pull it off.ā
Backed by a swinging organ trio, Smith lays down spanky, soulful blues licks in B.B. Kingās āPayinā the Cost to Be the Boss.ā Smith starts his extended solo at 3:03 by paying homage to King and then gets increasingly jazzier with each chorus, playing across the bar lines and coaxing sheets of altered tones from his heavy-gauge strings.
Smith is a relative latecomer to Tele-style guitars. āI realized Iād been a Tele guy in denial my whole life,ā he says.
Tele visions. Like hybrid picking, the Tele-style Chapin T-Bird Smith now plays almost exclusively was an epiphany. A Strat player for most of his life, he was getting calls to do rhythm sessions Ć la Tele masters Steve Cropper and Cornell Dupree. This prompted a call to Bill Chapin, who had made Smithās custom Stratahoula Strat-style guitar.
āHe put together my black maple-neck Tele,ā says Smith. āWhen I got it, every other guitar was put aside. I realized I had been a Tele guy in denial my whole life. Itās the only guitar you can play every gig on. No other guitar is as expressive. Thatās the way it is with all my gear, whether amps, pedals, or guitar. I want as much expression as possible. I use little or no compressionāI want to do it all with my fingers. I want every nuance of picking to come through, and no guitar does that like a Telecaster.ā
Smith feels this way about Teles in general, but he insists that his T-Bird is special. āIt has a great bridge pickup, wound by Bill,ā he explains. āItās slightly hotter than stock, with flat pole pieces. He wound it to be fatter than normal, but still twang. I could play an entire night on my bridge pickupāI can make it sound like Iām on the neck pickup just by varying my attack. On other guitars, I switch pickups constantly.ā
You could have Chapin build you a T-Bird with that pickup and buy a Lovepedal Tchula overdrive pedal and be part way to āthe Josh Smith sound.ā Harder to mimic might be the heavy stringsātheyāre gauged .013ā.056 and tuned to standard pitch. āIāve been using really heavy strings since I was 13 or 14,ā says Smith. āIām so used to it, I canāt play other guitars. I break my friendsā strings all the time.ā
Besides the aforementioned Tchula, Smith uses many other Lovepedal effects. His main travel board also includes a Believe Octave pedal they built for him, as well as Trombetta Mini-Bone, Arion Chorus, and Eventide Time Factor pedals. āAll my boards are wired by Mason Marangella at Vertex Effects,ā says Smith. They have an interface box with a breakout loop so I can insert another pedal, usually my wah.ā The breakout box is positioned between distortion pedals so Smith can filter distortions placed before the wah or drive ones placed after it.
Josh Smith's Gear
Guitars
Chapin Stratahoula, Chapin T-Bird, Chapin Hawk, Ronin Songbird Foil, 1965 Gibson ES-335
Amps
Morgan AC40 and GOAT
Effects
Lovepedal Tchula and Believe Octave, Catalinbread Echorec, Arion Chorus, Eventide Time Factor, J. Rockett Josh Smith Tremolo
Strings and Picks
Dunlop Pure Nickel .013, .017, .026P, .036, .044, .056, Fender Heavy picks
Also on the guitaristās board is a J. Rockett Josh Smith Tremolo. āI needed a trem pedal for a gigging musician,ā explains Smith. āBut every trem pedal I checked out was either too simple or had a million options. I just needed the ability to switch between fast and slow tremolo.ā The signature pedal features two Fender blackface-style trems, each with its own speed and depth control. It also has a volume knob with enough boost to counteract the perceived volume drop created by many trems. āIt had to sound and feel like itās in your amp, not a pedal,ā Smith insists.
He also has a signature Morgan Amp: the GOAT. āI said, āIf Iām going to have a signature amp, it has to be the greatest amp of all time,ā so Joe Morgan named it the GOATāāGreatest Of All Time,āā laughs Smith. āItās a Fender Super Reverb-style amp. It even has a 2 ? speaker out so you can run a 4x10 cabinet and sound like a Super. The built- in reverb tank has three knobs, like on an external tank, but the signal runs in parallel.ā Smith uses his signature amp in tandem with an AC40, Morganās Vox AC 30-style head.
Josh Smith obviously loves gear, but in the end, his instruments are tools to help him make the music in his head. His demo videos are a way to help out the manufacturers who help him realize his vision. They also garner new fans. āGuys are looking for a certain sound, and they stumble across me demoing a pedal,ā says Smith. āAfter hearing me play, they might order a CD.ā
Framus Hootenanny Re-Issue Guitars: John Lennonās Favorite Reimagined | PG Plays
Join PG contributor Tom Butwin as he explores all-new versions of the Framus Hootenanny 12-string and 6-string acousticsāmade famous by John Lennon and now available with modern upgrades. From vintage-inspired tone to unique features, these guitars are built to spark creativity.
Neil Youngās ā70s hits are some of the most recognizable radio rock jams of all time. But Neilās guitar playing continued to grow over the ensuing decades, as he traversed styles from blues to country to electronic to rockabilly and beyond, eventually developing one of the most tonally decadent, fully formed improvisational voices in the entire guitar universe.
Neil Youngās ā70s hits are some of the most recognizable radio rock jams of all time. But Neilās guitar playing continued to grow over the ensuing decades, as he traversed styles from blues to country to electronic to rockabilly and beyond, eventually developing one of the most tonally decadent, fully formed improvisational voices in the entire guitar universe.
Like any discography thatās been growing over the course of more than half a century, it can be hard to decode Youngās work. And with such an adventurous spirit, it could be easy to make some missteps and miss out on his best guitar works. In this episode, Nick guides Jason through some of his heroās finest moments.
More news from Neil always seems to be on the horizon, so hereās your chance to catch up.
This episode is sponsored by Gibson.
This Japan-made Guyatone brings back memories of hitchinā rides around the U.S.
This oddball vintage Guyatone has a streak of Jack Kerouacās adventurous, thumbing spirit.
The other day, I saw something I hadnāt noticed in quite some time. Driving home from work, I saw an interesting-looking fellow hitchhiking. When I was a kid, āhitchersā seemed much more common, but, then again, the world didnāt seem as dangerous as today. Heck, I can remember hitching to my uncleās cabin in Bradford, Pennsylvaniaāhome of Zippo lightersāand riding almost 200 miles while I sat in a spare tire in the open bed of a pickup truck! Yes, safety wasnāt a big concern for kids back in the day.
So, as Iām prone to do, I started digging around hitchhiking culture and stories. Surprisingly, there are organized groups that embrace the hitching life, but the practice remains on the fringe in the U.S. Back in the 1950s, writer Jack Kerouac wrote the novel On the Road, which celebrated hitchhiking and exposed readers to the thrill of maverick travel. Heck, even Mike Dugan (the guitarist in all my videos) hitched his way to California in the 1960s. But seeing that fellow on the side of the road also sparked another image in my brain: Yep, it always comes back to guitars.
Let me present to you a guitar thatās ready to go hitching: the Guyatone LG-180T, hailing from 1966. The āthumbs-upā headstock and the big āthumbā on the upper bout always made me think of thumbing a ride, and I bought and sold this guitar so long ago that I had forgotten about it, until I saw that hitchhiking dude. Guyatone was an interesting Japanese company because they were primarily an electronics company, and most of their guitars had their wooden parts produced by other factories. In the case of the LG-180T, the bodies were made by Yamaha in Hamamatsu, Japan. At that time, Yamaha was arguably making the finest Japanese guitars, and the wood on this Guyatone model is outstanding. We donāt often see Guyatone-branded guitars here in the U.S., but a lot of players recognize the early ā60s label Kentāa brand name used by an American importer for Guyatone guitars.
With a bit of imagination, the LG-180Tās āthumbs upā headstock seems to be looking for a roadside ride.
Kent guitars were extremely popular from the early ā60s until around 1966. The U.S. importer B&J fed the American need for electric guitars with several nice Kent models, but when the Guyatone contract ended, so did most of the Kent guitars. After that, Guyatone primarily sold guitars in Japan, so this example is a rare model in the U.S.
āUnless you are a master at guitar setups, this would be a difficult player.ā
This headstock is either the ugliest or the coolest of the Guyatone designs. I canāt decide which. I will say, no other Japanese guitar company ever put out anything like this. You have to give the Guyatone designers a thumbs up for trying to stand out in the crowd! Guyatone decided to forgo an adjustable truss rod in this model, opting instead for a light alloy non-adjustable core to reinforce the neck. Speaking of the neck, this instrument features the most odd-feeling neck. Itās very thin but has a deep shoulder (if that makes any sense). Totally strange!
Another strange feature is the bridge, which offers very little adjustment because of the three large saddles, which sort of rock back and forth with the tremolo. Itās a shame because these pickups sound great! Theyāre very crisp and have plenty of zing, but unless you are a master at guitar set-ups, this would be a difficult player.
This could be why the LG-180T only appeared in the 1966 and 1967 catalogs. After that, it disappeared along with all the other Yamaha-made Guyatone electrics. By 1969, Guyatone had gone bankrupt for the first time, and thus ended guitar production for a few decades. At least we were blessed with some wacky guitar designs we can marvel at while remembering the days when you could play in the back end of an explosive 1973 AMC Gremlin while your mom raced around town. Two thumbs up for surviving our childhoods! PG
There's a lot of musical gold inside the scales.
Intermediate
Intermediate
ā¢ Develop a deeper improvisational vocabulary.
ā¢ Combine pentatonic scales to create new colors.
ā¢ Understand the beauty of diatonic harmony.Improvising over one chord for long stretches of time can be a musician's best friend or worst nightmare. With no harmonic variation, we are left to generate interest through our lines, phrasing, and creativity. When I started learning to improvise, a minor 7 chord and a Dorian mode were the only sounds that I wanted to hear at the time. I found it tremendously helpful to have the harmony stay in one spot while I mined for new ideas to play. Playing over a static chord was crucial in developing my sense of time and phrasing.
The following is the first improvisational device I ever came across. I want to say I got it from a Frank Gambale book. The idea is that there are three minor pentatonic scales "hiding" in any given major scale. If we're in the key of C (CāDāEāFāGāAāB) we can pluck out the D, E, and A minor pentatonic scales. If we frame them over a Dm7 chord, they give us different five-note combinations of the D Dorian mode. In short, we are building minor pentatonic scales off the 2, 3, and 6 of the C major scale.
Viewing this through the lens of D minor (a sibling of C major and the tonal center for this lesson), D minor pentatonic gives us the 1āb3ā4ā5āb7, E minor pentatonic gives us 2ā4ā5ā6ā1, and A minor pentatonic gives us 5āb7ā1ā2ā4. This means you can use your favorite pentatonic licks in three different locations and there are three different sounds we can tap into from the same structure.
If you smashed all of them together, you would get the D Dorian scale (DāEĀĀāFāGāAāBāC) with notes in common between the D, E, and A minor pentatonic scales. Ex. 1 uses all three scales, so you can hear the different colors each one creates over the chord.
Ex. 1
Ex. 2 is how I improvise with them, usually weaving in and out using different positional shapes.
Ex. 2
The next idea is one I stole from a guitarist who often came into a music store I worked at. On the surface, it's very easy: Just take two triads (in our example it will be Dm and C) and ping-pong between them. The D minor triad (DāFāA) gives us 1āb3ā5, which is very much rooted in the chord, and the C major triad (CāEāG) gives us the b7ā9ā4, which is much floatier. Also, if you smash these two triads together, you get 1ā2āb3ā4ā5āb7, which is a minor pentatonic scale with an added 2 (or 9). Eric Johnson uses this sound all the time. Ex. 3 is the lick I stole years ago.
Ex. 3
Ex. 4 is how I would improvise with this concept. Many different fingerings work with these, so experiment until you find a layout that's comfortable for your own playing.
Ex. 4
If two triads work, why not seven? This next approach will take all the triads in the key of C (CāDmāEmāFāGāAmāBdim) and use them over a Dm7 chord (Ex. 5). Each triad highlights different three-note combinations from the Dorian scale, and all of them sound different. Triads are clear structures that sound strong to our ears, and they can generate nice linear interest when played over one chord. Once again, all of this is 100% inside the scale. Ex. 5 is how each triad sounds over the track, and Ex. 6 is my attempt to improvise with them.
Ex. 5
Ex. 6
If we could find all these possibilities with triads, it's logical to make the structure a little bigger and take a similar approach with 7 chords, or in this case, arpeggios. Naturally, all the diatonic chords will work, but I'll limit this next idea to just Dm7, Fmaj7, Am7, and Cmaj7. I love this approach because as you move further away from the Dm7 shape, each new structure takes out a chord tone and replaces it with an extension. I notice that I usually come up with different lines when I'm thinking about different chord shapes, and this approach is a decent way to facilitate that. Ex. 7 is a good way to get these under your fingers. Just ascend one shape, shift into the next shape on the highest string, then descend and shift to the next on the lowest string.
Ex. 7
Ex. 8 is my improvisation using all four shapes and sounds, but I lean pretty heavily on the Am7.
Ex. 8
This last concept has kept me busy on the fretboard for the last five years or so. Check it out: You can take any idea that works over Dm7 and move the other diatonic chords. The result is six variations of your original lick. In Ex. 9 I play a line that is 4ā1āb3Āā5 over Dm7 and then walk it through the other chords in the key. These notes are still in the key of C, but it sounds drastically different from playing a scale.
Ex. 9
In Ex. 10, I try to think about the shapes from the previous example, but I break up the note order in a random but fun way. The ending line is random but felt good, so I left it in.
Ex. 10
While all these concepts have been presented over a minor chord, you can just as easily apply them to any chord quality, and they work just as well in harmonic or melodic minor. Rewarding sounds are available right inside the harmony, and I am still discovering new ideas through these concepts after many years.
Though the above ideas won't necessarily be appropriate for every style or situation, they will work in quite a few. Developing any approach to the point that it becomes a natural extension of your playing takes considerable work and patience, so just enjoy the process, experiment, and let your ear guide you to the sounds you like. Even over just one chord, there is always something new to find.