
Dan Auerbach poses with the gem he used to record much of Delta Kream: a Kawai Kingston S4T once owned by raw blues slide master Hound Dog Taylor. Note Taylor's name on the headstock, courtesy of the Dog himself, via a plastic-label punch.
On Delta Kream, the Black Keys and veteran slide master Kenny Brown dig deep to honor R.L. Burnside and Junior Kimbrough—"two of the most important American musicians that ever were."
There's no more biblical—New Testament, of course—introduction to the raucous, bouncing, mesmeric sound of North Mississippi hill country blues than the new Black Keys album, Delta Kream. It's essentially the agrestic subgenre's greatest hits: a collection of ripe corpuscles from the catalogs of R.L. Burnside, Junior Kimbrough, Ranie Burnette, Big Joe Williams, and Fred McDowell, plucked straight from the music's thumping heart—as chiseled into its core DNA as the faces of Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt, and Lincoln are into the granite of Mt. Rushmore.
Burnside and Kimbrough, in particular, are the album's marrow, and that's a matter of faith. "People might not have heard of them, but they are two of the most important American musicians that ever were," preaches Dan Auerbach, the guitarist and singer who, along with Patrick Carney, breathes life into the Black Keys. "Pat and I are doing this entire thing in honor of them."
The Black Keys' "Crawling Kingsnake"
Watch the Delta Kream crew—Dan Auerbach and Pat Carney of the Black Keys amended by guitarist Kenny Brown, bassist Eric Deaton, and percussionist Sam Bacco—play Junior Kimbrough's version of John Lee Hooker's "Crawling Kingsnake." Auerbach plays his 1960 Tele Deluxe and Brown is on his 1958 Silvertone. The primary location is the Blue Front Café in Bentonia, Mississippi—the longest continuously operating juke joint in the United States. Its proprietor, Jimmy "Duck" Holmes, for whom Auerbach produced a Grammy-nominated album, makes a cameo at 2:10.
And so a band that worked its way up from dive bars to headlining arenas, outdoor sheds, and festivals over 20 years—along the path distilling and evolving their original garage/blues sound into a brilliantly crafted, writerly, and eclectically influenced approach that's magnetized multiple Grammy nominations and hordes of fans, plus yielded 10 studio albums—does a musical 180. The smooth-but-sassy hooks inside albums like Brothers, El Camino, and Turn Blue—their platinum-selling trilogy from 2010 to 2014—are replaced by the rough-hewn, barbed ones of "Coal Black Mattie," "Poor Boy a Long Way From Home," and "Stay All Night." And nods to funk, psychedelia, pop, rockabilly, surf, and other normative forms are replaced by a devotion to a sound that echoes up from the African diaspora.
"In R.L. [Burnside], I could hear the ghosts of the whole lineage of the music that comes up the Mississippi River combined with all the cool bar sounds I loved about Chicago blues, all rolled into one person." —Dan Auerbach
That the call and response of Senegambian village drummers, the drone of the 1-stringed njarka, and the keening trill of handcarved reed fifes would still resonate so distinctly in a strain of rural electric blues might be called a near-miracle, if not for the dark cloud of their origins. As musicologist Edward M. Komara explained to me one night over copious beer and whiskey in a bar in Oxford, Mississippi, his extensive research shows that North Mississippi's slave owners were more tolerant of the indigenous music of their human property than those of the Delta and most other parts of the deep South, where drums and traditional rhythms, especially, were feared to be signals of rebellion. As a result, even today the Rising Star Fife and Drum Band plies grooves forged in the Niger Delta, and the one-chord stomp perfected by the late Kimbrough and Burnside stands as a nexus between the sounds of world music, psychedelia, rock, folk, and anything else that came into its octopus-like grasp over the past 400 years—amplified loud.
"The first time I heard the North Mississippi sound was in Alan Lomax's field recordings and Fred McDowell's Arhoolie label recordings," Auerbach recalls. "I fell in love with that stuff, and Fred's 'Write Me a Few of Your Lines' became a favorite song. With this stuff, some people get it, some people don't. When I first heard Junior Kimbrough"—whose melismatic singing and greased-spider guitar lines are a form of sonic hypnotherapy—"I didn't get it. It was way easier for me to get into R.L. Burnside. I had both of their albums, on Fat Possum, and in R.L. I could hear the ghosts of the whole lineage of the music that comes up the Mississippi River combined with all the cool bar sounds I loved about Chicago blues, all rolled into one person. And at the Euclid Tavern in Cleveland, I got to witness R.L. destroying a crowd. It was a combination of those records and seeing those guys play live, which was so intense it was mind blowing."
TIDBIT: The cover of the Black Keys' new album is a photo by William Eggleston, who in the 1950s began capturing Southern life. It was taken at a snack bar in North Mississippi.
By the time Auerbach and Carney, who've been playing together since they were 16 and 17, determined to make the Black Keys' 2002 debut, The Big Come Up, the sound of other raging Mississippi jukers like Paul "Wine" Jones and T-Model Ford was also in their gullets.
The Black Keys have paid homage before, with 2006's Chulahoma: The Songs of Junior Kimbrough. "I think we tried some of the songs we recorded for Delta Kream on those sessions, but it just didn't work out," Auerbach offers. "I'm not sure that, even 10 years ago, we would have been able to play these songs correctly, but Pat and I have both grown as musicians, and Pat's drumming blows me away on this album. It's so on the money and so him at the same time."
Junior Kimbrough holds court from the stage of his juke joint in Holly Springs, Mississippi, in 1995.
As Auerbach's solo albums and productions for artists as diverse as the Pretenders and 73-year-old bluesman Jimmy "Duck" Holmes have shown, he's also developed a knack for assembling the right cast of musicians. And for Delta Kream, he invited guitarist Kenny Brown, who played with Burnside for decades and earned the old wizard's praise as his "adopted son," and Eric Deaton, an MVP among hill country and Delta bandleaders, to help make the album bone-true. Percussionist Sam Bacco, another of Auerbach's frequent accomplices, completes the krewe.
"What some people miss about this music is that the right-hand technique is what really makes it." —Kenny Brown
Honestly, they were already at Auerbach's Easy Eye Sound Studio in Nashville, where they'd been pressed into service for Sharecropper's Son, an album Auerbach produced for Robert Finley. "When we finished the session for Robert's record, I texted Pat and told him he should come over the next day, just because it was so much fun to play with Kenny Brown. And that was pretty much it. It was a bunch of first takes. Two days later we had an album. We played all these songs we loved, from memory, and having Eric there to help me was great, because he knows all that stuff cold. And Kenny played on all of the original recordings! If you're a lover of hill country records, you love Kenny Brown even if you don't know it. I didn't fully realize it until he was sitting next to me, playing. It was that sound—the slide, those heavy notes. That great sound on 'Sad Days, Lovely Nights,' where he just hangs on the slide and makes this atmospheric sound.… He did that behind Junior Kimbrough on the original recording. That's my favorite musical moment from one of my favorite records—and there it was."
Kenny Brown, left, with his twice-stolen-and-returned 1958 Silvertone, added authentic blood to the Delta Kream sessions at Auerbach's Easy Eye Sound Studio. This master of Mississippi hill country guitar initially learned from the legendary Joe Callicott, Brown's neighbor as a child, and then apprenticed under the decades-long guidance of R.L. Burnside.
Photo by Alysse Gafkjen
Brown first met Auerbach over a decade ago at Norway's Notodden Blues Festival, on an artist shuttle heading back to the airport. "We had all had a late night and nobody was talking much," he says. But at the Delta Kream sessions, they instantly spoke the same musical language. "Dan is great to play with," Brown notes. "I loved the studio because it had great gear and Dan got really good sounds quick, and he's like me: He doesn't really play anything exactly the same way twice, so it always feels real fresh.
"Man, doing these songs bought back all kinds of memories. I was thinking about how we played 'Crawling Kingsnake' on Junior's first album, that we cut at his juke joint. And playing 'Poor Boy a Long Way From Home.' After 40 years, at least I can do 'em good now," Brown says, laughing.
"What some people miss about this music," says Brown, "is that the right-hand technique is what really makes it. A lot of the songs R.L. did, you can play with one finger on your left hand, but the right hand takes about three fingers working really fast. To really get the sound, sometimes you need to hit the strings, like a percussion thing. I think that comes from the fife and drum music. I do a lot of muting with my left hand and the heel of my right hand, and even the bass of my thumb. I don't even really think about it anymore, unless I try to teach somebody how to do it."
R.L. Burnside cradles an old Teisco in this 1996 publicity photo, but he was never fussy about what guitar he played.
For the sessions, Brown brought his beloved 1958 Silvertone. The guitar's been stolen from him twice, and returned, largely because it's recognizable by the twin popsicle sticks behind the headstock used to raise and anchor the tuning pegs. He also brought along the 1989 made-in-Mexico Stratocaster he frequently wielded with Burnside. And he used a third guitar: Fred McDowell's familiar Gibson Trini Lopez model, which Auerbach now owns along with Hound Dog Taylor's Kawai Kingston (a model often referred to generically as a Teisco, one of Kawai's popular spin-off brands), which also dishes out dirt on Delta Kream. Brown used only one pedal—Auerbach's Basic Audio Scarab Deluxe Fuzz, which he admired enough that the Black Key sent him one after the sessions.
Besides Hound Dog's Kawai, Auerbach played his beloved 1960 Telecaster Deluxe, which, he notes with a laugh, Nashville session legend Tom Bukovac has dubbed "the finest Tele on Earth." He enjoyed pairing it with an Analog Man Sun Face. "I used it a lot and kept it on with the volume down for my clean sound. The Tele pickups really work well with it. And the B-string on my Tele buzzes a little, because of the action, and I really like that. I told my guitar tech to leave it, because it always has a little sitar thing. You can hear it on the album."
"When I was 18, I label-maker-ed my name on the headstock of one of my Teiscos because of Hound Dog Taylor." —Dan Auerbach
DAN AUERBACH'S GEAR
Guitars
- 1960 Fender Telecaster Deluxe
- 1960s Kawai Kingston S4T formerly owned by Hound Dog Taylor
- 1960s Gibson Trini Lopez Standard (played on the sessions by Kenny Brown and formerly owned by Fred McDowell)
Amps
- 1950s Fender narrow-panel tweed Deluxe
Effects
- Ebo Customs E-Verb
- Analog Man Sun Face
Strings & Picks
- SIT .011 sets
- Jim Dunlop Custom picks
Auerbach acquired the Kawai through Bruce Iglauer of Alligator Records, the label Iglauer founded in 1971 to put out Hound Dog Taylor's debut album. "That was really gracious of him, and I've been using it non-stop ever since I got it," Auerbach attests. "We didn't do anything but clean up the pots, and it sounds and works great. It still has Hound Dog's name on a strip from a plastic label maker on the headstock. When I was 18, I label-maker-ed my name on the headstock of one of my Teiscos because of Hound Dog."
His amp of choice was a vintage, narrow-panel tweed Fender Deluxe paired with an Ebo Customs E-Verb. "I set the reverb right next to me when I played so I could turn it up and down in the middle of songs, for solos," he adds. Since the original versions of all the numbers on Delta Kream were recorded by players who eschewed picks for fingers, it seemed natural to ask Auerbach if he followed suit. "I did both. Junior and R.L. never used a pick, but once in a while I indulged myself," he said, chuckling.
"There's no set pattern to how we record or plan an album," he says. "Every one's been pretty different, and we never talk about it ahead of time—never. It's just fun and spontaneous, and sometimes those moments and ideas end up being the most pivotal."
Put Dirt in Your Ears
Fuel up on the North Mississippi hill country blues sounds that inspired the Black Keys' Delta Kream.
Too Bad Jim, R.L. Burnside: Burnside's debut album on Mississippi's Fat Possum label is a rough-hewn testimonial to the rugged, ragged power of this regional folk-art form. With Burnside and Kenny Brown on slide, rhythm, and lead guitars, this set was a major influence on Auerbach and Carney during the Black Keys' formative years.
All Night Long, Junior Kimbrough: From the first notes, Kimbrough's idiosyncratic approach to blues is obvious and mesmerizing. Listening carefully, you can hear the threads of African music, hardcore blues, psychedelia, improvisation, and primal rock pulling together in his rather eerie sound.
You Gotta Move, Mississippi Fred McDowell: The rural majesty of McDowell's rhythm 'n' slide style is instantly arresting. No wonder he became a popular opener for major rock bands from the late 1960s till his death in 1971. You know McDowell's "You Gotta Move" from the Rolling Stones' version, and here you can enjoy the original "Louise," which the Black Keys recorded for Delta Kream.
Everybody Hollerin' Goat, Otha Turner and the Rising Star Fife & Drum Band: Get down to the roots of the hill country sound with this album of the straight-from-Africa echoes of Mississippi fife-and-drum music. Turner, who carved his own reed fifes with heated metal rods, died at age 95 in 2007, but his granddaughter, Shardé Thomas, still leads the band today.
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Some names you’ve heard, others maybe not. But they all have a unique voice on the instrument.
Intermediate
Intermediate
• Open your ears to new influences.
• Understand how to create interlocking rhythm parts.
• Develop a new appreciate for the rhythmic complexity of Wayne Krantz, the effortless bebop of Biréli Lagrène, and the driving force that is David Williams.
The guitar has been a major factor in so many styles of music over the last 70 years, and any experienced musician can tell you that playing any one of those styles with authenticity takes countless hours of dedication. As we learn the instrument, we seek out music that we find inspiring to help guide us toward our voice. The legends we all know in the guitar pantheon have inspired millions of players. In my musical journey over the years, I’ve always been thrilled to discover unique musicians who never attained the same recognition as their more famous counterparts. With so much music at our disposal these days, I thought this group of guitarists deserved a little more spotlight. The inspiration and knowledge they have provided me were paramount in my development, and I wouldn’t be the player I am without them.
Biréli Lagrène’s Bombastic Bop
Standards was the first jazz guitar record I really listened to, and his playing on this entire album is devastating. There is so much groove, joy, and ferocity in every note. The way he lays ideas out on the fretboard made a lot of sense to me, his rhythms were intentional and clear, and it was surprisingly easy to dig into as a rock guitarist at the time. He has an extensive catalog of jazz, gypsy jazz, and fusion records with some of the best in the world, and he’s also a killer bass player who can sing just like Frank Sinatra! Ex. 1 is over the first eight measures of “Stella by Starlight.” I stole so much vocabulary from this solo that I can still play bits from memory 20 years later. Lagrène’s treatment of two-measure chunks to play his ideas was significantly helpful. Whether it was an engaging rhythmic phrase, constant eighth-notes, or just cramming in as much as he could, I stopped worrying so much about catching every chord change after I learned this one.
Ex. 1
Stella by Starlight
Old-School Swing!
George Barnes is a unique jazz guitarist who was a contemporary of Charlie Christian, Johnny Smith, and Django. A significant part of his early work was writing and arranging for radio and television, for NBC, and he also wrote the very first electric guitar method book in 1942. A friend in Austin gave me two CDs of his: a collection of his playing from the Plantation Party radio show and an overview of his octet recordings. The octet recordings sound like unhinged cartoon music with guitar and orchestral instruments and are highly enjoyable. Ex. 2 is a line I lifted from a recording of him playing “Ain’t Misbehavin.” It was one of the hippest endings I have ever heard on a jazz tune, and although I can’t find the recording anywhere, I still use it all the time. I love the intention in George Barnes’ playing. Swinging and mischievous, he always sounds like he was having fun.
Ex. 2
The George Barnes Sextet - Lover, Come Back to Me
“Thrilling” Rhythm Solos
David Williams is one of the greatest rhythm players of all time. He is responsible for most of the memorable guitar moments on Michael Jackson’s records, and all his parts have an infectious nature. He is the primary reason I got interested in rhythm guitar, and he is still an inspiration on that front. One of my favorite examples of his playing is the breakdown in Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” (where Vincent Price does the rap). His signature thunderous right-hand approach to single-note rhythm parts is in full effect, and the natural accents between the two rhythm parts are infectious on their own but weave perfectly together. Ex. 3 is my interpretation of two interlocking parts in this style. He’s said in interviews that his concept as a player was to develop “rhythm solos” that could stand out front in a song, and this is a perfect example of that.
Ex. 3
Thriller
(Better than) Average Riffs
Though Hamish Stuart is most known for being an original member of the Average White Band, the singer/guitarist/composer/producer also did extensive work with heavyweights such as George Benson, Paul McCartney, Chaka Khan, and Aretha Franklin. Though AWB was still working until 1983, Hamish was doing sessions with various artists as a sideman in the early ’80s, including this excerpt from “Move Me No Mountain” off Chaka Khan’s Naughty from 1980 (Ex. 4). I’ve always loved the interplay between these two parts, range-wise and rhythmically. The lower pick line hits some unusual 16th-note placements, and the higher dyads have a churn to them that is amazing. Both parts together feel different rhythmically from anything I have ever heard but sound so cool and unique.
Ex. 4
Chaka Khan - Move Me No Mountain
Wayne Krantz
Wayne Krantz is one of those guys that hit me like a lightning bolt. Upon hearing him, I felt like I had “permission” to play more with the fingers of my right hand, use jagged and intentional rhythms, and above all, to play more naturally. Wayne has always played like himself. His control over rhythm and articulation alone is legendary, not to mention the vast body of unique work he has created. Ex. 5 is an excerpt from the only solo I ever learned of his, from “Infinity Split” off 1999’s Greenwich Mean. I love this solo because it is incredibly engaging rhythmically and melodically, but almost 100 percent inside the harmony. This solo taught me more about rhythmic placement and articulation than anything.
Ex. 5
Wayne Krantz - Infinity Split
Though I could only grab a certain percentage of these guys’ “vocabulary,” learning these parts over the years helped me find my sound. The result was an attempt to emulate some of their musicality in my way, rather than outright imitating them. Anything you hear that grabs your interest is probably worth sitting down and figuring out. While we might not mention the guitarists above alongside Hendrix or Van Halen, they have all done their part to put a brick in the cathedral, furthering music, and the instrument.
After surviving a near-death aortic dissection onstage, Richie Faulkner shredder has endured some health challenges. In this exclusive video, he opens up about how the cardiac event impacted his mental health both on- and offstage.
During Judas Priest's the Louder Than Life 2021 performance at the Louisville-based festival, lead shredder Richie Faulkner suffered an aortic dissection onstage. (It's worth noting, the steadfast professional finished the "Painkiller" solo before ending the set—an amazing feat.) He was rushed to the nearby University of Louisville hospital that saved his life. (Serendipitously, the hospital was only a few miles from the festival grounds.)
Faulkner fully recovered from the near-death experience but has endured other health setback stemming from the aortic dissection resulting in several issues including his right-hand coordination and strength. He's powered through the last 3+ years of performances and only now is open to talking about the difficulties he has playing the technical rhythm parts and how that's impacted his mental health both on- and offstage with the massive metal band.
Over the decades with Hüsker Dü, Sugar, and solo, Bob Mould has earned a reputation for visceral performances.
The 15th studio album from the legendary alt-rocker and former Hüsker Dü singer and 6-stringer is a rhythm-guitar record, and a play in three acts, inspired by sweaty, spilled-beer community connection.
Bob Mould wrote his last album, Blue Heart, as a protest record, ahead of the 2020 American election. As a basic rule, protest music works best when it's shared and experienced communally, where it can percolate and manifest in new, exciting disruptions. But 2020 wasn’t exactly a great year for gathering together.
Mould’s album landed in a world of cloistered listeners, so he never knew how it impacted people. For a musician from punk and hardcore scenes, it was a disquieting experience. So when he got back out on the road in 2023 and 2024, playing solo electric sets, the former Hüsker Dü and Sugar frontman was determined to reconnect with his listeners. After each show, he’d hang out at the merch table and talk. Some people wanted their records or shirts signed, some wanted a picture. Others shared dark stories and secret experiences connected to Mould’s work. It humbled and moved him. “I’m grateful for all of it,” he says.
These are the in-person viscera of a group of people connecting on shared interests, versus, says Mould, “‘I gotta clean the house today, so I’m going to put on my clean the house playlist that a computer designed for me.” “Everything has become so digitized,” he laments. “I grew up where music was religion, it was life, it was essential. When people come to shows, and there’s an atmosphere, there’s volume, there’s spilled drinks and sweat–that’s what music ritual is supposed to be.”
His experiences on tour after the pandemic heartened Mould, but they also gave him traction on new ideas and direction for a new record. He returned to the simple, dirty guitar-pop music that spiked his heart rate when he was young: the Ramones’ stupid-simple pop-punk ecstasy, New York Dolls’ sharp-edged playfulness, Pete Townshend’s epic, chest-rattling guitar theatrics. In other words, the sort of snotty, poppy, wide-open rock we heard and loved on Hüsker Dü’s Flip Your Wig and Candy Apple Grey.
Mould’s time on the road playing solo in 2023 sparked the idea for Here We Go Crazy.
Photo by Ryan Bakerink
Mould started writing new songs in the vein of his original childhood heroes, working them into those electric solo sets in 2023 and 2024. Working with those restraints—guitar chords and vocal melodies—put Mould on track to make Here We Go Crazy, his new, 15th solo record.
Lead single and opener “Here We Go Crazy” is a scene-setting piece of fuzzy ’90s alt-rock, bookended by the fierce pounding of “Neanderthal.” “When Your Heart is Broken” is a standout, with its bubblegum chorus melody and rumbling, tense, Who-style holding pattern before one of the album’s only solos. Ditto “Sharp Little Pieces,” with perhaps the record’s chewiest, darkest guitar sounds.
“It’s a very familiar-sounding record,” he continues. “I think when people hear it, they will go, ‘Oh my god, this is so Bob Mould,’ and a lot of that was [influenced by] spending time with the audience again, putting new stuff into the set alongside the songbook material, going out to the table after the show and getting reactions from people. That sort of steered me towards a very simple, energetic, guitar-driven pop record.”
Of his new album, Mould says, “I think when people hear it, they will go, ‘Oh my god, this is so Bob Mould.’”
Mould recorded the LP in Chicago with longtime bandmates Jason Narducy and Jon Wurster at the late, great Steve Albini’s Electrical Audio. Then Mould retreated to San Francisco to finish the record, chipping away at vocals and extra guitar pieces. He mostly resisted the pull of “non-guitar ornamentation”: “It’s a rhythm guitar record with a couple leads and a Minimoog,” he says. “It’s sort of cool to not have a 64-crayon set every time.”
Mould relied on his favorite, now-signature late-’80s Fender Strat Plus, which sat out on a runway at O’Hare in 20-below cold for three hours and needed a few days to get back in fighting shape. In the studio, he ran the Strat into his signature Tym Guitars Sky Patch, a take on the MXR Distortion+, then onto a Radial JD7. The Radial split his signal and sent it to three combo amps: a Fender Hot Rod DeVille, a Fender ’68 Custom Deluxe Reverb reissue, and a Blackstar Artisan 30, each with a mic on it. The result is a brighter record that Mould says leaves more room for the bass and kick drum. “If you listen to this record against Patch the Sky, for instance, it’s night and day,” he says. “It’s snug.”
Mould explains that the record unfolds over three acts. Tracks one through five comprise the first episode, crackling with uncertainty and conflict. The second, spread over songs six to eight, contrasts feelings of openness with tight, claustrophobic tension. Here, there are dead ends, addictions, and frigid realities. But after “Sharp Little Pieces,” the album turns its corner, barreling toward the home stretch in a fury of optimism and determination. “These last three [songs] should give us more hope,” says Mould. “They should talk about unconditional love.”
The record closes on the ballad “Your Side,” which starts gentle and ends in a rush of smashed chords and cymbals, undoubtedly one of the most invigorating segments. “The world is going down in flames, I wanna be by your side/We can find a quiet place, it doesn’t need to be the Albert Hall,” Mould starts. It’s a beautiful portrait of love, aging, and the passage of time.
Bob Mould's Gear
Mould paired his trusty Fender Strat Plus with a trio of smaller combo amps to carve out a more mid-focused rhythm-guitar sound in the studio.
Photo by Mike White
Guitars
- Late 1980s Fender American Standard Strat Plus (multiple)
Amps
- Fender Hot Rod DeVille
- Blackstar Artisan Series amps
- Fender '68 Custom Deluxe Reverb
Effects
- Tym Guitars Sky Patch
- TC Electronic Flashback
- Electro-Harmonix Freeze
- Wampler Ego
- Universal Audio 1176
- Radial JD7
Strings, Picks, & Power Supply
- D'Addario NYXLs (.011-.046)
- Dunlop .46 mm and .60 mm picks
- Voodoo Labs power supply
And though the record ends on this palette of tenderness and connection, the cycle is likely to start all over again. Mould understands this; even though he knows he’s basking in act three at the moment, acts one and two will come along again, and again. Thankfully, he’s figured out how to weather the changes.
“When things are good, enjoy them,” he says. “When things are tough, do the work and get out of it, somehow.”
- YouTube
Many of the tracks on Here We Go Crazy were road-tested by Mould during solo sets. Here, accompanied only by his trusty Fender Strat, he belts “Breathing Room.”
Reader: Federico Novelli
Hometown: Genoa, Italy
Guitar: The Italian Hybrid
Reader Federico Novelli constructed this hybrid guitar from three layers of pine, courtesy of some old shelves he had laying around.
Through a momentary flash, an amateur Italian luthier envisioned a hybrid design that borrowed elements from his favorite models.
A few years ago, at the beginning of Covid, an idea for a new guitar flashed through my mind. It was a semi-acoustic model with both magnetic and piezo pickups that were mounted on a soundboard that could resonate. It was a nice idea, but I also had to think about how to make it in my tiny cellar without many power tools and using old solid-wood shelves I had available.
I have been playing guitar for 50 years, and I also dabble in luthiery for fun. I have owned a classical guitar, an acoustic guitar, and a Stratocaster, but a jazz guitar was missing from the list. I wanted something that would have more versatility, so the idea of a hybrid semi-acoustic guitar was born.
I started to sketch something on computer-aided design (CAD) software, thinking of a hollowbody design without a center block or sides that needed to be hot-worked with a bending machine. I thought of a construction made of three layers of solid pine wood, individually worked and then glued together in layers, with a single-cutaway body and a glued-in neck.
For the soundboard and back, I used a piece of ash and hand-cut it with a Japanese saw to the proper thickness, so I had two sheets to fit together. Next, I sanded the soundboard and bottom using two striker profiles as sleds and an aluminum box covered in sandpaper to achieve a uniform 3 mm thickness. A huge amount of work, but it didn't cost anything.
“It was a nice idea, but I also had to think about how to make it in my tiny cellar without many electric tools and out of old solid-wood shelves I had available.”
The soundboard has simplified X-bracing, a soundhole with a rosewood edge profile, and an acoustic-style rosewood bridge. For the neck, I used a piece of old furniture with straight grain, shaped it to a Les Paul profile, and added a single-action truss rod. The only new purchase: a cheap Chinese rosewood fretboard.
Then, there was lots of sanding. I worked up to 400-grit, added filler, primer, and transparent nitro varnish, worked the sandpaper up to 1,500-grit, and finally polished.
Our reader and his “Italian job.”
For electronics, I used a Tonerider alnico 2 humbucker pickup and a piezo undersaddle pickup, combined with a modified Shadow preamp that also includes a magnetic pickup input, so you can mix the two sources on a single output. I also installed a bypass switch for power on/off and a direct passive output.
I have to say that I am proud and moderately satisfied both aesthetically and with the sounds it produces, which range from jazz to acoustic and even gypsy jazz. However, I think I will replace the electronics and piezo with Fishman hardware in the future.