With his Epiphone Masterbilt, a Mississippi juke joint owner channels the ghosts of Skip James, Henry Stuckey, and other long-gone guitarists to carry an old, rare, haunting, and influential Delta sound into the present.
Before Cream recorded “I’m So Glad” in 1966, few music fans knew about the sound that emanated from the area around the rural Delta town of Bentonia, Mississippi—an elegantly cadenced, droning, minor-key blues style, mostly sung in keening falsetto, and full of songs about the Devil and hard life gone harder. But those who attended the 1964 Newport Folk Festival saw the re-emergence of its main torchbearer, Skip James, after a roughly 30-year hiatus from recording and performing. James’ Newport appearance was the perfect comeback for this mysterious-sounding variant on Delta blues. As he took the stage, it was shrouded in fog, and just as he struck the first notes of his song “Devil Got My Woman,” his voice keening in falsetto over his open-D-minor-tuned 6-string, the fog parted, and both James and the music of Bentonia were revealed once again.
Okay, maybe that’s a little florid, but the Bentonia style does have a dark romance wrapped into its sound and lore. And despite the efforts of Clapton, Bruce, and Baker, it has remained rarified—hardly heard outside of its homeland or the rooms of blues obsessives. Since 1931, when James recorded his sides for Paramount Records, there have been only four other notable practitioners: James’ mentor Henry Stuckey, who never recorded; Jack Owens and Bud Spires, who cut one album as a duo; and Jimmy “Duck” Holmes.
Holmes, at age 69, is the last man standing. He’s not as fleet or skilled a player as James, but his voice sounds every bit as old and sunbaked as the cotton fields where his parents sharecropped before opening the Blue Front Café in 1948. And he uses the same open E-minor and open D-minor tunings that have always characterized the Bentonia sound.
Today, Holmes still runs the Blue Front, and that’s where his fifth and newest album, the recently released It Is What It Is, was recorded. “Other than the town not having as many people, the Blue Front is still just like it was on day one,” Holmes says. “I used to have a pool table and even a couple video games, but I got rid of the pool table in the late ’90s. When it got to the point where the pool table crowd was crowding out the regular people just socializing, I took it out.
The life of Jimmy “Duck” Holmes and the history of the Blue Front Café are intertwined. Here, Holmes talks about both and provides the soundtrack for his narrative with his bawling, soulful voice and Epiphone Masterbilt EF 500RA guitar.
“I never had a problem with fights and people carrying on,” he continues. “I put the first pay phone [in town] in there. It was right by the bar. When I took it over in 1970, I had a strict policy and everyone knew that I didn’t mess around. If people get rowdy or start a fight, everyone knows I’ll drop a dime on them. It took about six months for everyone to realize and after that it’s been smooth sailing.”
That’s 46 years of serene navigation, but it wasn’t until 2006, when Holmes cut his debut album Back to Bentonia, that his career as a musician caught a broader wind and he became a regular at festivals in the U.S. and Europe. It Is What It Is is state of the Duck—nine tracks that draw on his life and times in rural Mississippi, as well as the haunting sound of the blues that has long echoed across the flatlands of his hometown. They include “It Had to Be the Devil,” long a staple of the Bentonia blues songbook, and the practical philosophy of the title track, as well as the reflective “It Is What It Was.” Holmes pairs droning chords plucked out on his Epiphone Masterbilt acoustic, or an electric guitar that sounds plugged into a ’50s car radio, with his lonesome, bawling-calf voice—a marvelous, elemental bray. For him, like any true juke joint rambler, tuning, tone, and precision aren’t as important as to-the-bone-honesty and vibe. And It Is What It Is is packed with both. Especially vibe. Listening to the album is as close as you can get to an authentic, old-school juke joint today without exploring the nearly forgotten corners of the deep South.
And even those corners have changed. Reminiscing about his native town, Holmes says, “It used to be that most of the black people in the community worked as farm laborers or did something on the farm. Now, hardly anyone works on the land farming. Machines do all the work now. There’s not 10 black people working in the field. And there were a lot more people who played music, including the blues. People didn’t look at it back then like they look at it now. For an individual to play a guitar back then was something common. But to know someone who plays blues music now, it raises eyebrows. Back then you had several blues guitar players, harmonica players, stuff like that, here. They all weren’t on the same level, but they were in the community playing.”
Holmes seriously committed to guitar in the late ’70s, when Jack Owens took him under wing. Like Skip James, Owens had learned to play the Bentonia blues style from Henry Stuckey. “I’d always had an ambition to learn to play the guitar,” says Holmes. “Not necessarily blues guitar. I was sort of drafted into it. Jack really wanted me to learn how to play the Bentonia style of blues he learned from Stuckey.”
One reason the Bentonia style is relatively obscure is that its main practitioners never cared to travel, as Robert Johnson, Charley Patton, and other Delta blues proponents did. The Bentonians had farm jobs and families that kept them tied to their homes. And James, who auditioned for Paramount in Jackson, Mississippi, and recorded his historic sides for the label in Grafton, Wisconsin, gave up the music business after his 78s tanked during the onset of the Great Depression. Until his comeback, he split his time between farming, serving as choir director of a local church, and the ministry.
As for the unrecorded Stuckey, who seems to be the linchpin of the Bentonia style, Holmes explains that he “was a devoted family man. He had a big family and wasn’t going to leave to go play the guitar on the weekends until he was sure his family had what they needed, their groceries were made, and they were okay. Then he’d go play guitar and make some money and be back and ready to work on Monday. He was a farmer. He sharecropped with my dad. He wasn’t real tall, but he was a big man, like a boxer. Big boned. Big muscles in his arms and shoulders. He kind of strutted when he walked. By looking at him, you’d think he would have had a deep voice, but when you heard him talk you’d think it was a different person. That’s why he could sing up there like Skip and Jack did.”
Skip James’ take on Bentonia blues is definitive. Here, he performs in the “blues house” at the 1966 Newport Folk Festival for an audience that includes Howlin’ Wolf (at right) and Mississippi John Hurt (behind James). He’s playing one of his signature songs, “Devil Got My Woman.” His highly original, keening vocal approach and his intricate picking are on display.
Holmes began to tinker with the guitar in the early ’60s, on Stuckey’s old instrument—“just hitting the strings, just making a sound. Then for Christmas my daddy bought me a little yellow-and-black plastic guitar. That was my first guitar that I owned for myself. I broke the first set of strings on it and never did get any new strings, so it kind of got pushed to the side.
“Then in 1963, I visited my uncle in New York and he had a guitar. It was electric and that kind of rekindled the fire a little bit. I messed around with the guitar again when I visited the next couple summers. But then after that, I really didn’t mess with it until around 1972.”
At that point, Holmes was more under the sway of Tommy West, a bluesman from the Mississippi hill country above Batesville and Oxford. The hill country is home to yet another distinctive regional style, based on one-chord drones, band arrangements that pass combined rhythm-and-melody lines from instrument to instrument, and intense rhythmic drive—even in its guitar solos.The most famous, modern-day proponents of Mississippi's hill country sound are the late R.L. Burnside and Junior Kimbrough, who followed in the footsteps of Fred McDowell.
“Then, around ’76 or ’77, Jack started coming by the Blue Front a little more,” Holmes continues. “I think it must have been around ’74 or ’75 that I actually bought my first guitar. I don’t know what kind of guitar it was, but I bought it at RadioShack. As a matter of fact, that’s my guitar on display at [Clarksdale, Mississippi’s] Delta Blues Museum. So from then on, I’d play with the local blues musicians and these old guys would come to the Blue Front. Jack, Tommy, Bud, Cornelius Bright, Dodd Stuckey, and others would come by. As soon as they heard that Carey Holmes’ son, Duck, at the Blue Front, had a guitar—they started hanging here. They’d take turns playing my guitar. Dodd Stuckey, Henry’s brother, showed me how to make music rubbing the broom handle on the floor. Adam Slater was the first one to show me about the open tuning. I wasn’t particularly interested in playing the guitar, but he would come by most every day and he would ask me if I’d learned anything. I would tell him ‘yeah,’ but I probably hadn’t even picked it up. Cornelius would come in and say, ‘Where your box at? Let me fool with it a minute.’ He’d pick it up and I’d go sit outside. If I had shown him the interest I later had with Jack when he started teaching me, I would’ve picked it up a lot earlier. Cornelius could play. And he had a great voice. Great voice.
“Then in the ’80s, when Jack really started to teach me, he really wanted me to learn it. He couldn’t read or write and he didn’t know what any of the notes were, but he would play and just tell me, ‘Watch my hands, boy. Watch my hands.’”
In an excerpt from Robert Mugge’s 1991 documentary Deep Blues, narrator Robert Palmer talks about Bentonia’s devil-song tradition before introducing the team of Jack Owens and Bud Spires. Owens is playing his 12-string Kay with only six strings, and his singing reflects the high-and-lonesome influence of both Henry Stuckey and Skip James.
Owens remained the region’s preeminent stylist, driving himself to gigs, sipping whiskey, and telling stories nearly right until his death at age 94 in 1997. And then Holmes began to get more of those gigs, at places like the Sunflower River Blues and Gospel Festival in Clarksdale, and eventually, around the world.
Asked about his preferred guitars, Holmes says, “I’ve never been too choicy about that. I know some are probably better than others, but my main concern is if I can get it tuned right and get the right sound coming from it. It don’t normally make me no difference. But right now I play this Epiphone Masterbilt EF 500RA. I’ve played it most every day here at the Blue Front or at festivals since maybe 2006. It has the best sound of any guitar I’ve ever picked up. To me, it sounds exactly like the hollow box that Henry Stuckey played. That’s the guitar I played most of the new album on.
“Part of the sound,” Holmes asserts, “comes from the strings. When Jack was teaching me to play, he swore by Black Diamond strings. He wouldn’t play anything else. That’s the sound I got used to, so that’s probably why I prefer them today. But to really play the Bentonia style, you need a slick G. It’s unwound so your finger isn’t swiping the grooves when you slide. Stuckey’s guitar was a big-bodied mahogany guitar with a deep, full sound. This Masterbilt isn’t near as big, but it sounds just as full. I’ve had people try to give me a guitar, but, nah, I’ll stick with this Masterbilt.”
The decidedly janglier sounding “Love Alone” on It Is What It Is was played on a 1972 Eko Ranger 12-string. “That’s the exact same year and model that Jack played,” Holmes reports, “but he only had six strings on it. He liked that wide neck and the extra space for his fingers so he wouldn’t smother two strings out with those big fingers. I’ve never liked electric guitars much. I don’t care for those solidbodies with all the extra features, like a whammy bar, reverb, and all that. But I do like that ’58 Harmony Stratotone Jupiter that I played on “It Had to Be the Devil” and “Buddy Brown” for the new album. It’s got its own sound. It’s not fancy, but I like it.”
Holmes has his own opinion on Bentonia’s open tunings. “Now, some like to say that Bentonia tuning is an open E-minor or open D-minor. I’ll tune the guitar to a straight open D-minor if other people are playing so the harp can get lined up,” he says. “But if it’s just me, I’ll tune it down from there, too. I don’t know how it’s actually tuned, you know—if it’s a B or D or something. I just tune it by ear to what I was taught. I let other people argue about what to call the tuning. To learn this music, the first thing is you gotta want to do it. Don’t worry about making a mistake; roll on. Play every day, learn the fundamentals, and then play from your heart.”
With no other players currently recording or performing in public in the Bentonia style, is Holmes the last of his musical lineage? “I think a lot about that,” he says. “Like Jack did for me, making sure I learned how to play, I would like to do that for a few people. My nephew, Larry Allen, lived next door to Jack forever. As a little kid he’d go over and listen to Jack’s stories and listen to Jack play. Jack showed Larry how to play, but Larry hasn’t played the guitar for a long time because he works a lot. He’s definitely getting it, but he hasn’t had the time. He’s going to be good.
“I also feel like my grandson, E.J., is coming along. I could send for him right now and he’d be able to play what I’ve taught him. I don’t want to push it on him. I don’t want to make it a chore or make it boring. He’s going to get it. It just takes practice.”
And Holmes intends to carry the torch for as long as possible. “I thank God for being blessed enough to be able to have the opportunity to play a kind of blues people enjoy,” he says. “I really just want to create music that stays true to those old guys who taught me and that people appreciate. I’ve never cared for being famous or wealthy. I just want to leave behind a positive example and impression. That’s it.”
In collaboration with Cory Wong, the Wong Press is a 4-in-1 Press pedal features Cory’s personal specs: blue & white color combination, customized volume control curve, fine-tuned wah Q range, and a dual-color STATUS LED strip indicating current mode/pedal position simultaneously.
In collaboration with Cory Wong, this Wong Press is a 4-in-1 Press pedal features Cory’s personal specs: Iconic blue & white color combination, customized volume control curve, fine-tuned wah Q range, and a dual-color STATUS LED strip indicating current mode/pedal position simultaneously.
Renowned international funk guitar maestro and 63rd Grammy nominee Cory Wong is celebrated for his unique playing style and unmistakable crisp tone. Known for his expressive technique, he’s been acclaimed across the globe by all audiences for his unique blend of energy and soul. In 2022, Cory discovered the multi-functional Soul Press II pedal from Hotone and instantly fell in love. Since then, it has become his go-to pedal for live performances.Now, two years later, the Hotone team has meticulously crafted the Wong Press, a pedal tailored specifically for Cory Wong. Building on the multi-functional design philosophy of the Soul Press series, this new pedal includes Cory’s custom requests: a signature blue and white color scheme, a customized volume pedal curve, an adjustable wah Q value range, and travel lights that indicate both pedal position and working mode.
Cory’s near-perfect pursuit of tone and pedal feel presented a significant challenge for our development team. After countless adjustments to the Q value range, Hotone engineers achieved the precise WAH tone Cory desired while minimizing the risk of accidental Q value changes affecting the sound. Additionally, based on Cory’s feedback, the volume control was fine-tuned for a smoother, more musical transition, enhancing the overall feel of volume swells. The team also upgraded the iconic travel lights of the Soul Press II to dual-color travel lights—blue for Wah mode and green for Volume mode—making live performances more intuitive and visually striking.
Features
- True Bypass
- 4 in 1 functionality (volume, expression, wah, volume/wah)
- New dual-color STATUS LED strip indicating pedal mode and position in real time
- Cory’s custom volume curve and wah Q control
- Classic-voiced wah tone with flexible tonal range
- Active volume design for keeping lossless tone
- Separate tuner and expression outputs for more connection possibilities
- 9V DC or 9V battery power supply
Introducing the Hotone Wong Press - Cory Wong's signature Volume/Wah/Expression Pedal - YouTube
Check the product page at hotone.com
Big time processing power in a reverb that you can explore for a lifetime.
An astoundingly lush and versatile reverb of incredible depth and flexibility. New and older BigSky algorithms included. More elegant control layout and better screen.
It’s pricey and getting the full use out of it takes some time and effort.
$679
Strymon BigSky MX
strymon.net
Strymon calls the BigSky MX pedal “one reverb to rule them all.” Yep, that’s a riff on something we’ve heard before, but in this case it might be hard to argue. In updating what was already one of the market’s most comprehensive and versatile reverbs, Strymon has created a reverb pedal that will take some players a lifetime to fully explore. That process is likely to be tons of fun, too.
Grinding out impressive DSP power via an 800 MHz tri-core ARM processor with 32-bit floating-point processing, the BigSky MX introduces seven brand-new reverb algorithms, allows users to load any compatible convolution reverb (or impulse response) as well as to use two reverbs simultaneously—in series, parallel, and split—plus it delivers several other mind-bending features. Given this wealth of goodies, it’s impossible to test and discuss every sound and function, but what we heard is exciting.
Infinite Space
The updated MX will look very familiar to those who know the original BigSky. The form factor is nearly identical, though the MX is a bit larger. Its control interface is similar too, albeit rearranged into a single row of knobs that looks more balanced. Rotary controls include decay, pre-delay, tone, mod, parameter 1, parameter 2, and mix. A value knob enables effect-level manipulation on the larger, clearer OLED screen. It also allows you to select between the older or “classic” algorithms from the original BigSky and the seven new ones. Three footswitches allow for preset selection, bank up or down (two switches pressed together), and an infinite hold/sustain switch that’s always available. The rotary “type” knob in the upper-left corner spins between 12 basic reverb voices. As with most things Strymon, many of these controls are multi-function.
Also very Strymon-like are the top-mounted, 5-pin DIN MIDI I/O connections, which come in handy if you want to maximize the pedal’s potential in a MIDI-controlled rig. But you can access more than enough right from the pedal itself to satisfy the needs of most standard pedalboard-based setups. A USB-C port enables computer connection for MIDI control via that route, use of the Nixie 2 editing app, or firmware updates.
There are stereo jacks for both input and output, plus a multi-function 1/4" TRS/MIDI expression jack for use with a further range of external controllers. The standard center-negative power jack requires a DC supply offering at least 500 mA of current draw.
It is utterly hypnotic and addictive once you settle in and work a little more intuitively.
Sky’s the Limit
The BigSky MX was, initially, a bit mind-boggling on account of the seemingly endless possibilities. But it is utterly hypnotic and addictive once you settle in and work a little more intuitively. Suffice it to say, the core quality of the reverb sounds themselves are excellent, and the sheer variety is astounding. Beyond the standard emulations, I really dug several permutations of the cloud reverb, the chorale mode (which adds tenor and baritone harmonizing tones), and bloom mode (which generates deep synthesizer-style pads), and I could have gotten lost in any of these for hours if there wasn’t so much more to explore. Among the highlights: There is now an option to pan reverbs across the stereo field. The MX also uses audio design concepts borrowed from tape delays to create rhythmic pattern-based reverbs, which is an excellent compositional tool.
The Verdict
This latest evolution of the already impressive and super-capable BigSky is the kind of pedal that could cause you to disappear into your basement studio, never to return. The sounds are addictive and varied and can be configured in endless creative ways. The programmability and connectivity are also superb. Additionally, the new algorithms weren’t added at expense of the old BigSky algos. There’s no doubt that it will be flat-out too much horsepower for the guitarist that needs a few traditional sounds and, perhaps, a few more spacious options. And it would be interesting to know what percentage of the pedal’s customers end up being synth artists, engineers, or sound designers of one kind or another. If you’re the kind of guitar player that enjoys stretching the sound and capabilities of your instrument as far as they will go, the BlueSky MX will gladly ride along to the bounds of your imagination. It may test the bounds of your budget, too. But in many ways, the BigSky MX is as much a piece of outboard studio gear as a stompbox, and if you’re willing to invest the time, the BigSky MX has the goods to pay you back.
This reader solicited the help of his friend, luthier Dale Nielsen, to design the perfect guitar as a 40th-birthday gift to himself.
This is really about a guy in northern Minnesota named Dale Nielsen, who I met when I moved up there in 2008 and needed somebody to reglue the bridge on my beloved first guitar (a 1992 Charvel 625c, plywood special). Dale is a luthier in his spare time—a Fender certified, maker of jazz boxes.
Anyway, we became friends and I started working on him pretty early—my 40th birthday was approaching, and that meant it was time for us to start designing his first solidbody build. If you stopped on this page, it’s because the photo of the finished product caught your eye. Beautiful, right? The 2018 CCL Deco Custom: Never shall there be another.
Old National Glenwood guitars were my design inspiration, but I wanted a slim waist like a PRS and the like. We used a solid block of korina to start, routed like MacGyver to get the knobs and switches where I wanted them. Dale builds all his own lathes and machines (usually out of lumber, y’all), as the task requires. This beast took some creativity—it’s tight wiring under that custom-steel pickguard. Many were the preliminary sketches. Four coats of Pelham blue, 11 coats of nitro. Honduran mahogany neck, Madagascar ebony fretboard with Dale’s signature not-quite-Super-400 inlays. He designed the logo; I just said, “Make it art deco.”
We sourced all the bits and bobs from StewMac and Allparts and Reverb and the like, mostly to get that chrome look I so adore. Graph Tech Ratio tuners, Duesenberg Radiator trem (had to order that one from Germany), TonePros TP6R-C roller bridge. The pickups were a genius suggestion from the builder, Guitarfetish plug ’n’ play 1/8" solderless swappable, which means I have about 10 pickups in the case to choose from: rockabilly to metal. And both slots are tapped, with the tone knobs serving as single- to double-coil switches. I put the selector on the lower horn to accommodate my tendency to accidentally flip the thing on Les Pauls—definite lifesaver.
Reader and guitar enthusiast, Cody Lindsey.
Dale offered to chamber this monster, but I said what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. It weighs in at 11 pounds, if it’s an ounce. We carved the neck to match a ’60s SG, so it’s like the mini bat you get at the ballpark on little kids’ day. Easy peasy. 1 11/16" nut, 25" scale, jumbo frets, just 2 1/8" at the 12th fret.
Delivery in its lovely, hygrometer-equipped Cedar Creek case actually happened a month or two shy of my 41st, but hey, you can’t rush these things. We ended up with a studio Swiss Army knife; it does a bit of everything and does it effortlessly. A looker, too. Dale didn’t spend his career doing this kind of thing—he was in IT or some such—and I imagine he’s winding this “hobby” of his down these days, enjoying retirement with a bottle of Killian’s and a lawn chair at Duluth Blues Fest. But this guitar will live on as a marker of his skill and otherworldly patience. It sits at the head of the class in my practice room, welcoming any visitors and bringing a smile to my face every day. And Dale, my friend, I’ll be 50 before you know it....
Cody requested that Dale design an art deco logo for the guitar’s headstock.
This convenient, easy-to-use controller can open up an entire world of sonic shape-shifting. Here are some tips to either inspire you to try one or expand how you’re currently using this flexible, creative device.
If you’re not yet using expression pedals, you should consider them. They have the power to expand and control your sonic universe. For the uninitiated, expression pedals are controllers that typically look like volume or wah pedals. Of course, traditional volume and wah pedals are expression pedals, too, but they are dedicated to controlling only those two effects.
Modern expression pedals allow you to assign and control parameters of your stomps or modelers by moving the expression pedal as you would a volume or wah. Dunlop, Boss, Ernie Ball, Yamaha, Behringer, Mission Engineering, and other manufacturers make these handy devices.
Many, but not all, of today’s stompboxes and modelers have expression pedal inputs that allow for manipulation of one or more parameters of those devices. In the past, this required bending over and turning a knob, or trying to turn a small knob with your foot—both of which can hamper your playing. The freedom of an expression pedal is the control you have over more aspects of your sound, especially in a live setting.
Although some of the uses for expression pedals below can also be accomplished by creating multiple presets, that will not allow real-time control over the parameters like an expression pedal will. Here are some notes about expression pedal use that might get you thinking about how one could help you.
Delay Repeats: Controlling the timing of a delay with tap tempo is very common, but how about controlling the number of repeats? With an expression pedal, by setting the expression control on your delay to control the number of repeats, you can easily go from a few for your rhythm sound to more for your lead sound, and then back off again.
Reverb and Delay Mix: The mix control on reverb and delay pedals allows you to balance the amount of wet to dry signal that you hear. There is often a delicate line to having just the right amount of wet signal with these two effects. If you have too much, your sound can be washed out and undefined. Too little and it can be dry and lack space. The part you are playing, and the venue you are in, can also change the amount of mix you need for these effects. By using an expression pedal for the mix control on reverb or delay, you can alter the sound on the fly to compensate for the part and the room, including turning down the mix for busy parts and up for parts with fewer notes.“Some uses for expression pedals can also be accomplished by creating multiple presets, but that will not allow real-time control over the parameters like an expression pedal will.”
Modulation Depth: The depth of a modulation effect, like a phaser, can drastically alter your guitar sound. A light amount can create a feeling of subtle movement, while a heavy amount can give a thick, underwater-type sound. An expression pedal can help you create a constant feeling of change throughout a song, allowing you to build up and break down the depth for different sections as you see fit.
Tremolo Speed: While the speed of tremolo can often be controlled by tap tempo, using an expression pedal for the same parameter offers other creative uses of the effect. With an expression pedal, you can easily speed the tremolo up to make subtle increases to the energy of a part or slow it down to decrease the energy. You can also create drastic changes in the speed that sound like a fan accelerating or slowing down. Or you can abruptly turn the tremolo off. This last option can be an exciting way to end a song or part.
EQ Change: Every guitar player uses EQ to sculpt their sound—whether via the tone controls on your instrument or amp (modelers included), or a dedicated equalizer used as part of your rig. Subtle tweaks can help you do things like balance out different guitars, cut through the mix more, or compensate for a boomy stage. Real-time control of EQ with an expression pedal is more common in the modeler world than the amp and pedal world, but it does exist in both. For example, increasing the midrange can give you more clarity and cut for solos. Decreasing it can create a flatter sound that can help you stay in the mix with the rest of the band. An expression pedal allows you to have one setting and alter it for multiple situations or guitars as opposed to having separate presets.
While this is a very short list of options for expression-pedal use, it should give you a good place to start. The most important thing is to always be creative, have fun, and find your own voice. An expression pedal can help you do all three.