
For his career-defining film Purple Rain, Prince envisioned a strange new guitar to announce his arrival. The Minneapolis luthier who was hired for the job shares the story of how it was made.
On a blustery Sunday night in New York City's Times Square, the mood is bittersweet as devoted fans flock to a special weekend screening of Purple Rain. While many here are still trying to come unstuck from the notion of a world without Prince tearing up a stage or dropping another uniquely multihued album, there's also a sizzle of expectation in the air, almost as though a full-blown concert, and not just a movie, is about to jump off.
After all, this was the film that, more than 30 years ago (in the summer of '84), established Prince, playing a character known simply as the Kid, as an explosive musical talent to be reckoned with. Maybe his acting chops didn't quite set the world on fire, but that's yet another of the saving graces of Purple Rain; as campy as the film is, the story it tells is straight-ahead, timeless, romantic, and familiar. Sacrificing himself for his art, the Kid fights through family strife, ridicule (from his rivals Morris Day and the Time), and his own demons to realize his lifelong dream. And naturally, he gets the girl in the end.
One scene in particular sends a knowing murmur through the theater crowd. The Kid is wooing his love interest, Apollonia, when he stops in front of a shop window to admire a guitar. “Do you see something you like?" she asks him. He answers only “Let's go," and the camera cuts and pans slowly over Apollonia's shoulder to reveal a white, curvy, alien-looking axe, slung upside-down (for a lefty—like Jimi Hendrix, let's say) from a black mannequin's neck. It's foreshadowing that hits you over the head, but the statement is clear: This is the Kid's totem, the staff of Moses, his ticket to the big time. And one day soon, it'll be his to play.
“For a solidbody, when it comes to shaping wood, that's about as tough as it gets. And painting it was the worst thing ever!"
“That's what a guitar is really, at least in the rock world," says Dave Rusan, the original builder of what would become known in Prince-ly lore as the Cloud guitar—one of four he made in the mid-'80s. “It's so much more than just part of a costume. It's a means of expression, power, identity, you name it. And honestly, I didn't know how it was going to be portrayed in the movie, because we didn't have any hints of a plot line or the script or anything. But when I first saw it, I remember thinking, 'Oh wow—there it is!' I was quite surprised."
At the time, Rusan lived and worked in Minneapolis doing repairs at Knut-Koupée Music, the hip Uptown store cofounded by a local guitarist named Jeff Hill. Prince started coming in when he was still in high school, and by the late '70s, after he'd signed to Warner Bros., he was a regular customer. Rusan remembers first hearing about Prince through David Z, who produced some of his early demos.
“One day David walked in with a boom box with a cassette in it, which was how you listened to stuff on the fly back then. He just came into the store and put it up on the counter and played it. After a while we went, 'God, who's this band? They're great—they sound just like Earth, Wind & Fire!' And he said, 'This is one guy. This is Prince.'"
Minneapolis luthier Dave Rusan holds the very first Cloud guitar built for Prince in 1983. Rusan is standing by his bench in Knut-Koupée Music, the guitar repair shop he worked at that Prince frequented and commissioned to build a one-of-a-kind axe for the film Purple Rain.
By the middle of '83, Prince's album 1999 had put him on the map with the hits “Little Red Corvette" and “Delirious." Word started circulating that he had even bigger plans for his next project. “I'd been in London working at another shop for about nine months," Rusan recalls. “When I came back, there was Prince up at the counter. He and Jeff went into the back office and they talked a long time, and then Jeff came down and told me, 'Prince is going to make a movie. He needs a guitar, and you're going to make it.' And I was like, wow. I didn't see that coming. He'd already had some success, and had a few albums out, but not too many people made movies until they were much bigger—like Elvis, you know?"
Prince told Hill he needed a fully functioning instrument, but with an unusual design that he wanted to swipe from a bass once owned by André Cymone, Prince's childhood friend and former bass player. “We were recording his first album [For You] at the Record Plant in Sausalito," Cymone remembers. “We had a day off, so we just got in the car and drove. I spotted a shop in San Rafael, we popped in, and I saw the bass. I played it and fell in love, but I didn't have the cash at the time, so I asked Prince to buy it and he did. I'm not completely sure who the maker was—I haven't seen it since I left the band. I was pretty surprised when I saw him playing a guitar version. I'd never seen anything like that before."
Cymone goes on to say that he believes the original bass might have been made by Spector. Rusan thinks it was Sardonyx, but a search of both manufacturers turns up no images or background information. Cymone can be seen playing the bass in the music video for Prince's “Why You Wanna Treat Me So Bad." Lefty bassist Sonny T also appears to be hefting it again, years later, in the video for “My Name Is Prince." For now, these two instances seem to be the only visual proof that it ever existed. It wouldn't be the first mystery associated with Prince, who was a soft-spoken natural at keeping even his closest friends guessing about his studio secrets, let alone his true feelings and intentions.
According to curators at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, this yellow Cloud guitar was donated in 1993 from Paisley Park Enterprises through Skip Johnson, who was a production manager for Prince. The museum's records list David Rusan as the builder, along with Barry Haugen of Knut-Koupée Enterprises in Minneapolis.
Photo courtesy of the Division of Culture & the Arts, National Museum of American History, Behring Center, Smithsonian Institution
“Prince wasn't much for small talk," Rusan says. “He could certainly express himself if he felt it was necessary, but in this case he didn't all that much. So he had this bass with him in the store that day—I'd actually worked on it before—and his main requirements were just that the guitar should be in that shape, and it had to be white, and it had to have gold hardware. I think he specified he wanted EMG pickups, but compared to all the conversations you would have with somebody about a custom guitar, there wasn't anything else he wanted to talk about—the size of the neck, the frets, the playability features, or anything. He did come in once after that, and Jeff was able to get him to make a few comments, but I figured if he's not going to tell me what he wants, I'll make something I think he'll like and hope for the best."
In fact, Prince loved the guitar so much that he asked for two more. Rusan made a fourth for a contest giveaway sponsored by Warner Bros. in '85; its whereabouts are currently unknown. Later in the '90s, Washington-based luthier Andy Beech made 27 additional copies. The guitar also features prominently in Doug Henders' cover art for Prince and the Revolution's Around the World in a Day, which apparently is how the Cloud got its famous nickname. Prince's character is wearing a cloud-covered blue suit in the painting—the same suit he sports in the video for “Raspberry Beret."
These days, Rusan is still a busy and much sought-after luthier and custom specialist at his Rusan Guitarworks shop in Bloomington, just south of Minneapolis. He shares his memories openly and fondly—at one point in the very early days, he even auditioned for a spot in Prince's band—and he's still grateful for the trust Prince placed in him to make what essentially became his signature instrument for 20 years, starting with his memory-searing performance of “Purple Rain" on film—still a triumph of arena-rock theater and emotion.
“To be honest, I'd never done anything like it before," Rusan says. “I did a whole lot of repairs for a long time, but I'd never made a neck-through-body guitar or done anything involving that much carving. So I thought I'd take a shot, because I knew I'd always regret it if somebody else did it. It's amazing what you can do when you have to."
Cloud Guitar specs (per Dave Rusan):
- All hard rock maple neck-though-body construction
- 24 3/4" scale length
- 12" fretboard radius
- 14-degree headstock angle
- 5-degree neck to body angle
- EMG active pickups, powered by a 9V battery in the control cavity, with an 81 humbucker in the bridge position, SA single-coil in the neck
- Schaller M6 tuners and bridge
- Brass nut
- One master volume, master tone and selector switch, with Fender Jazz bass knobs
After 1999 came out, Prince was pretty well-known for playing his Hohner Mad Cat T-style. Did any of the specs from that figure into the making of the Cloud guitar?
I've worked on the Hohner many times—but no, because at that time I didn't see it as much. It's only been in later years. I had it in here about 10 years ago because it suffered an accident, and I had to make it look good again for TV, you know? But it really had no relationship in any way. Nothing about it—from construction style to scale length. It was a whole different thing.
So what were the basics you started with? It sounds like you had free rein to create the guitar you thought he wanted.
Well, I copied the body of that bass very carefully, and all the details of sizing it down for a guitar. I just did what I thought was best, since I wasn't able to get a lot of information from him. So I used hard rock maple and a neck-through-body with 22 frets, and the pickups were EMG active electronics. The single-coil in the neck is the SA Stratocaster model, and the one on the bridge is a model 81 humbucker like you'd put in a Les Paul. I think he specified those because they were very noise-free, and they still are. They don't lose their clarity no matter how much overdrive you put on them, and Prince would use a lot of distortion on some of his leads—the end of “Let's Go Crazy" has a lot of that. The clarity and definition comes out. They wouldn't get muddy like some of the more traditional pickups.
But I basically devised a step-by-step plan and just went about it, and Prince was plenty happy with it. I had put together Teles and carved some necks by that time, but I never made a guitar like this one. And for a solidbody, when it comes to shaping wood, that's about as tough as it gets. And painting it was the worst thing ever! The first guy who painted it had trouble because he did it in cellulose lacquer, and the clear coats tend to have a little bit of yellow in them. In the horn area, parts of it would start to get too yellow, so we had to strip it down and try it again. So it was tough. Normally on guitars, you can buff everything with a machine, but that whole thing almost had to be done by hand.
Can you describe how that first guitar sounded?
The maple made it real bright. The harder the wood, the more it reflects and enhances. It's the brightest wood you could use, and then with the neck-through body, that makes it sustain. And the EMGs have a lot of highs, so it was bright. For that funky rhythm thing that he did so well, that's mostly good.
How about the weight?
They were fairly heavy, almost Les Paul weight, because of the density of the wood. But there's not a lot to them—and everything looked much bigger on Prince! [His longtime guitar tech] Takumi Suetsugu brought in one of the later Symbol guitars [built by Jerry Auerswald] for me to work on, and I thought, “It fits in that case?" I thought it was going to be a lot bigger than it was.
So it was kind of heavy. Prince was small, but he was very fit. I went to all the rehearsals in town, because I worked on everybody else's stuff too, and a couple of times I wanted to speak to him, and they'd say, “Well, he's working out in the back room." So he could handle it. And up to a point, that extra weight increases the sustain, which makes the guitar more even-sounding, you know?
What's great is that not only is the Cloud guitar in the movie, it's also on the album.
Yeah, because some of it was recorded live right in First Avenue [where most of the stage scenes were shot]. So the guitar is actually on “Purple Rain." The other stuff, you'd have to talk to somebody like David Z or whoever engineered it. All I can tell you is that I had to make it pretty quick for the movie. I worked on just that for about 50 or 60 hours a week until it was done, you know? We painted it right in the store, too. But as far as when it was used on different albums, I'm not sure.
Once he started using it in concert, though, he wanted more of them, so I made two more. I made four all together, and the other one went to Warner Bros. That was kind of a weird thing, and I don't know what ever happened to it. They told Jeff Hill that they were going to have a contest in England to give one away. I made them all white at first, and then they were repainted. He had the peach one, and then a yellow one, but Andy Beech made a lot of the later ones.
I do know they all suffered a lot of damage. With the maple, they couldn't be any more rugged. That was part of what I thought about at the time; since it's a movie prop, I didn't want it to be delicate—and even more so in concert, because I think almost right up to the end, he had a habit of throwing his guitar to the roadie at the end of a performance. Takumi told me once it hit him in the head!
Prince's Cloud guitar reportedly got its nickname from the cover art for Prince and the Revolution's Around the World in a Day. Created by artist Doug Henders, the scene shows Prince in a blue cloud-covered suit. He wears a similar suit in the video for “Rasberry Beret."
Photo by Debra Trebitz / Frank White Photo Agency
They all had broken necks and headstocks, even being hard rock maple. I think one of them may have even bit the dust. The Smithsonian has one, which is credited as made by me, but it could've been one of the copies made by Andy Beech. Some of those were sold later at Prince's store online, too. Andy did a nice job, and then later on Schecter made some. Most of those were bolt-on necks, though. You can always tell because Takumi had input on that. He specified that the point on the headstock should be shorter so he could always identify them.
When you first see the guitar in the film, it's actually hanging off the mannequin upside-down, for a lefty—which made me think of Jimi Hendrix. Do you know if that was intentional?
It could be. I jammed with Prince once, years before, in this warehouse, and all I remember other than the band and the equipment was a big giant poster of Jimi Hendrix on the wall. So that would make some sense.
Wait, you jammed with Prince?
Actually, I tried out for his band, which was much earlier. It was around the time that For You, his first album, came out. He didn't have a touring band, and he rented an old warehouse. I think it was called Del's Tire Mart. Bands would rent out different parts of it, and at that time Prince's band was fairly complete. André Cymone was the bass player and he had Bobby Z. on drums. Matt Fink wasn't there yet, so Prince kept swapping out on other instruments. He didn't play guitar with me, but he played bass and drums and keyboards. It went on for a while—just one-chord vamping, mostly, and, in fact, I remember thinking at the time he certainly could play, and he was better at all the instruments than the other two guys, really.
How often did you see him after the really hot period he had in the '80s?
Not much. Most of the work I would do for him later, the roadies or the techs would bring them in. In a Guitar Player article around 2000, he mentioned me as the builder of the guitar, and I was surprised that he remembered me. I mean, I can't tell you all these interesting anecdotes about the two of us—it's not like Randy Rhoads and Grover Jackson, you know? He would come in and he was very shy, and my actual personal interactions with him involved very few words, if any. It was mostly done through the other people.
Looking back, would you say he's underrated as a guitarist?
Oh yeah. A lot of people have said that. He could play some jazzy lines. He didn't just shred. He could play lines that really fit and enhanced the tunes, which is the essence of being musical, rather than just being a wanker. Different tones—I don't think there was anybody that ever did the funky rhythm better than him. And then his leads, they were inventive. Everybody has influences that you can hear. Nobody starts from scratch, you know? In Stevie Ray Vaughan I could hear some Albert King and this and that, but in the end, he was himself, and Prince was like that, too.I would say he's very underrated, but I would guess that's partly because there was so much more to him. It was all there.
He played through the Mesa/Boogies in the early days, right?
Yeah. His live tone—I went to a couple of Purple Rain shows, too. He did something that seems really extravagant, although he tended to be like that. That tour was such a big deal for him, after the movie, that he rented every major venue in town and rehearsed for a few days in each of them, just to get used to moving all the stuff around, and the different acoustics and everything. It sounds kind of crazy, but it's smart if you can afford it. So his live tone was less fuzzy and more organic sounding. It was what you'd expect out of a Boogie—bigger and warmer.
I saw a rehearsal at the Minneapolis Auditorium, which was a big spot in town. It's gone now, but I watched a whole rehearsal there. It was very well organized. It wasn't like a bunch of hippies getting together. [Laughs.] It was like a theater rehearsal, and Prince directed a lot of it from the soundboard. And he was actually very supportive. I remember Wendy [Melvoin] was having some trouble with a part, and he was trying to build up her confidence that she could do it. It wasn't “What the hell's wrong with you?" It was more like, “Now Wendy, I know you can do this." And she's like a different person now. I mean, it's funny how psychological it can get in music. You can be talked out of thinking you're good, you know? I remember that time with Eric Clapton, everybody told him how good he was that he started to not believe it at all, and he felt like he couldn't play for a while.
What are your thoughts about Prince's body of work as a whole?
If I had to wrap up Prince—well, it was just the music. I'm more of a hard rock guy myself, but I always admired everything he did, and was amazed how somebody in that amount of time could take on any style and make it his own. I mean, he worked day and night, and he was so talented, but he was a virtuoso in so many other ways.
And one thing I think about him—and I don't know if this is getting off of your question—but the whole scene he created here, between his music and the visuals and his stardom and how successful he was, he just turned Minneapolis inside-out. It was really a musical backwater—you know, you could play in bars, but there were never any musicians of any note other than a couple of freaky one-hit wonders. And he turned it into the music capital. Every day was exciting. I'd go down to the rehearsals, or the store owner would be on the phone ordering a thousand purple tambourines or something. [Laughs.]
He knew how to take every aspect of stardom, from the sex, the controversy, the visuals, the color—purple was his color—and he had a guitar that didn't look like anybody else's. I don't know what he needed a manager for—I suppose mostly just for contracts. But he was totally in control of every aspect of being who he was. There was no star-maker behind him.
That's always the impression that I had of him. From a young age, he knew what he wanted to do, and he had a vision and a goal in mind, and he just pursued it.
That shows some remarkable maturity, doesn't it? For a young guy to have the discipline, and then to be able to … usually when you're that young, you don't have a vision because you don't have much of a past to draw on to make the decisions. And somehow he had all that, and it was totally self-directed. I mean, the Beatles had George Martin and Brian Epstein, and they were still really good, but he didn't have anyone like that at all. Nobody ever told him what to do, and they didn't have to because he knew what was best, and he proved it.
[Updated 1/20/22]
The perennial appeal of one of Gibson’s most accessible Les Pauls is stoked anew in this feature-rich version.
Lots of nice vintage touches and features that evoke the upmarket Les Paul Standard at a fraction of the price. Coil-splitting capability.
A thicker neck profile would be a cool option and distinguishing feature.
$1,599
Gibson Les Paul Studio
gibson.com
Effectively a no-frills version of theLes Paul Standard, the Les Paul Studio has been a fixture of Gibson product rosters since 1983, which says something about the enduring, and robust, appeal for affordable alternatives to the iconic original. The notion behind the original Les Paul Studio was that it didn’t matter how a guitar looked when you were using it in the studio. Who cares about a flamed top, binding, inlays, and other deluxe cosmetics in a session as long as it sounds and feels good?
In some respects, the newestLes Paul Studio adheres to that philosophy and shares many trademark elements with its Studio forebears. There’s no body binding and a silkscreened, rather than inlaid mother-of-pearl headstock logo, for instance. But Gibson also carefully and cleverly threaded the needle between economy and luxury with this release, including several desirable Les Paul features that have occasionally been excluded from the budget model over the years.
Classic Contours
Most readers with a cursory knowledge of the Les Paul format will know this guitar’s basic specs already: mahogany body with maple top, mahogany set neck, 24.75" scale length, 12" fingerboard radius, and dual humbuckers. The Les Paul Studio hasn’t always followed the Standard’s, um, standard quite so religiously. Studios from the first few years of the model’s existence, for example, were made with alder bodies and slightly thinner than the usual Les Paul depth. The newest version, too, veers from formula a bit by using Gibson’s Ultra Modern weight relief scheme, which slims the guitar’s weight to about 8.5 pounds. The carved maple top, however, is plain and not heavily figured, which keeps costs down. Even so, it looks good under the bright-red gloss nitrocellulose lacquer finish on our cherry sunburst example. (Wine red, ebony, and the striking blueberry burst are also available).
While the binding-free body and less-heavily figured top hint at the Studio’s “affordable” status, Gibson didn’t skimp on dressing up the neck. It has a bound rosewood fretboard with trapezoidal pearloid inlays rather than the dots many early versions featured. For many players, though, the fretboard binding is more than cosmetic—the ever-so-slight extra width also lends a more vintage-like feel, so it’s really nice to have it here. The neck itself is carved to Gibson’s familiar and ubiquitous Slim Taper profile, a shape inspired by early-’60s necks that were generally thinner and flatter than the ’50s profiles.
“Gibson carefully and cleverly threaded the needle between economy and luxury with this release.”
Hardware largely adheres to contemporary norms for all but vintage reissue-style Les Pauls: tune-o-matic bridge, aluminum stopbar tailpiece, Kluson-style Vintage Deluxe tuners with Keystone buttons, and larger strap buttons (yay!). Another feature here that some past Studio models lack is the cream pickguard, which contributes to the ’50s-era aura. There’s also a matching cream toggle switch washer in the included gig bag if you want to add another vintage touch.
Studio Play Date
Under the chrome pickup covers live two wax-potted, alnico 5 Gibson Burstbucker Pros, which average about 8.3k-ohm resistance. They’re wired with a traditional Gibson four-knob complement and three-way switch, but the volume knobs are push-pull controls that enable coil tapping, which broadens the tone palette considerably.
Playability is a high point. The fine setup, smooth fret work, and well-executed binding nibs lend a very visible sense of quality, but you can hear the payoff in the form of the well-balanced, resonant ring when you strum the guitar unplugged. When you turn it up, though, it’s classic Les Paul. Whether I paired it with a Vox-style head and 1x12, a Fender Bassman with a 2x12 cab, or numerous presets on a Fractal FM9, the Studio didn’t yield any negative surprises, but plenty of positive ones.
The Burstbucker Pros have plenty of bite. But most impressive for a Les Paul at this price, is the excellent clarity and articulation you hear along with strong hints of PAF-descendent grit and swirling overtones that lend heft and personality in cleaner amp settings. There’s none of the mud or mid-heavy boominess that you hear in some Les Pauls, even though the characteristically beefy Les Paul overdrive is present in abundance, helped, no doubt, by the slightly hotter-than-vintage-spec Burstbucker Pros. The Studio matches up well with a cranked amp or an overdrive. And while to some ears the Studio might not sound as creamy-complex or lush as high-end, vintage-leaning re-creations of a ’59 Standard, it will crunch, wail, and sing with aggression and civilized authority.
As for the split-coil tones, they don’t sound quite like genuine single-coil pickups, even though Gibson employs the nifty trick of wiring a capacitor in series with the switch leg—dumping the second coil to ground to keep a little girth in the signal. But generally, they will deliver the lighter jangle and chime that some humbuckers struggle with and lend a lot of versatility.The Verdict
From fit and finish, to playability, to sonic virtue and versatility, the new Les Paul Studio is a genuine Gibson USA-made Les Paul that offers a lot of value. It does just about everything a player working within this price range could want from a Les Paul Standard with a load of style to boot.
Gibson Les Paul Studio Electric Guitar - Cherry Sunburst
Les Paul Studio, Cherry SunburstListen to the new track from Joe Satriani, Eric Johnson, and Steve Vai's G3 Reunion Live.
Joe Satriani, Eric Johnson, and Steve Vai returned to the G3 touring concept in 2024 for a sold-out US tour. This was the original G3 lineup that saw the three virtuosos first share a stage back in 1996. Each guitarist plays a full set with their own band and then the three join together for an encore jam.
"G3 Reunion Live" is much more than “just” a live album. It’s a full album-length set from each artist plus a collaborative supergroup LP. The deluxe edition features a different colored vinyl for each artist, a special splatter LP for the encore jam, and a 64-page photo book, divided into artist and jam chapters, with the full program also on 2 CDs. It is also available in a 2CD digipak with a 16-page photo booklet, 4 LP gatefold and digital download.
For more information, please visit satriani.com.
After decades of 250 road dates a year, Tab Benoit has earned a reputation for high-energy performances at clubs and festivals around the world.
After a 14-year break in making solo recordings, the Louisiana guitar hero returns to the bayou and re-emerges with a new album, the rock, soul, and Cajun-flavoredI Hear Thunder.
The words “honesty” and “authenticity” recur often during conversation with Tab Benoit, the Houma, Louisiana-born blues vocalist, guitarist, and songwriter. They are the driving factors in the projects he chooses, and in his playing, singing, and compositions. Despite being acclaimed as a blues-guitar hero since his ’80s days as a teen prodigy playing at Tabby Thomas’ legendary, downhome Blues Box club in Baton Rouge, Benoit shuns the notion of stardom. Indeed, one might also add simplicity and consistency as other qualities he values, reflected in the roughly 250 shows a year he’s performed with his hard-driving trio for over two decades, except for the Covid shutdown.
On his new I Hear Thunder, Benoit still proudly plays the Fender Thinline Telecaster he purchased for $400 when he was making his debut album in Texas, 1992’s Nice & Warm. After that heralded release, his eclectic guitar work—which often echoes between classic blues-rock rumble-and-howl, the street-sweetened funk of New Orleans, and Memphis-fueled soul—helped Benoit win a long-term deal with Justice Records. But when the company folded in the late ’90s, his contract and catalog bounced from label to label.
Tab Benoit - "I Hear Thunder"
This bucked against Benoit’s strong desire to fully control his music—one reason he settled on the trio format early in his career. And although his 2011 album, Medicine, won three Blues Music Awards—the genre’s equivalent of Grammys—he stopped recording as a leader because he was bound by the stipulations of a record deal, now over, that he deemed untenable.
“I wanted to make records that reflected exactly how I sounded live and that were done as though we were playing a live concert,” Benoit says. “So, I formed my own label [Whiskey Bayou Records, with partner Reuben Williams] and signed artists whose music was, to me, the real deal, honest and straightforward. I couldn’t do anything on my own, but I could still continue putting out music that had a positive impact on the audience.”
Benoit’s new album, which includes Anders Osborne and George Porter Jr., was recorded in the studio at the guitarist’s home near the bayou in Houma, Louisiana.
Those artists include fellow rootsers Eric McFadden, Damon Fowler, Eric Johanson, Jeff McCarty, and Dash Rip Rock. Benoit also spent plenty of time pursuing his other passion: advocating for issues affecting Louisiana’s wetlands, including those around his native Houma. His 2004 album was titled Wetlands, and shortly after it was issued he founded the Voice of the Wetlands non-profit organization, and later assembled an all-star band that featured New Orleans-music MVPs Cyril Neville, Anders Osborne, George Porter Jr., Big Chief Monk Boudreaux, Johnny Vidacovich, Johnny Sansone, and Waylon Thibodeaux. This ensemble, the Voice of the Wetlands All-Stars, has released multiple CDs and toured.
Essentially, Benoit comes from the bayous, and when it’s time to record, he goes back to them, and to the studio he has in Houma, which he refers to as “the camp.” That’s where I Hear Thunder came to life. “George and Anders came to me and said, ‘Let’s go make some music,” Benoit offers. “So, we went out to the camp. They had some songs—and George and Anders and I go back so many years it was really a treat to put everything together. It only took us a couple of days to do everything we needed to do.”
“George Porter and Anders Osborne and I saw this alligator sitting around the boat where we were writing the entire time. I guess he really liked the song.”
I Hear Thunder has become his first number one on Billboard’s blues chart. Besides the fiery-yet-tight and disciplined guitar work of Benoit and Osborne, the latter also an esteemed songwriter, the album features his longtime rhythm section of bassist Corey Duplechin and drummer Terence Higgins. Bass legend Porter appears on two tracks, “Little Queenie” and “I’m a Write That Down.” Throughout the album, Benoit sings and plays with soul and tremendous energy, plus he handled engineering, mixing, and production.
Once again, that ascribed to his aesthetic. “My main reason for taking on those extra duties was I wanted to make sure that this recording gives the audience kind of a preview of how we’re going to sound live,” he declares. “That’s one of the things that I truly don’t like about a lot of current recordings. I listen to them and then see those guys live and it’s like, ‘Hey, that doesn't sound like what was on the album.’ Play it once or twice and let’s run with it. Don’t overdo it to the point you kill the honesty. All the guys that I love—Lightnin’ Hopkins, Albert King—they played it once, and you better have the tape machine running because they’re only going to give it to you that one time. That’s the spontaneity that you want and need.
“One of the reasons I don’t use a lot of pedals and effects is because I hate gimmicks,” he continues. “ I’m playing for the audience the way that I feel, and my attitude is ‘Let’s plug into the guitar and let it rip. If I make a mistake, so be it. I’m not using Auto-Tune to try and get somebody’s vocal to seem perfect. You think John Lee Hooker cared about Auto-Tune? You’re cheating the audience when you do that stuff.”
Tab Benoit’s Gear
Benoit in 2024 with his trusty 1972 Fender Thinline Telecaster, purchased in 1992 for $400. Note that Benoit is a fingerstyle player.
Photo by Doug Hardesty
Guitar
- 1972 Fender Telecaster Thinline
Amp
- Category 5 Tab Benoit 50-watt combo
Strings
- GHS Boomers (.011–.050)
The I Hear Thunder songs that particularly resonate include the explosive title track, the soulful “Why, Why” and the rollicking “Watching the Gators Roll In,” a song that directly reflected the album’s writing experience and environment. “George and Anders and I saw this alligator sitting around the boat where we were writing the entire time. I guess he really liked the song. He’d be swimming along and responding. That gave it some added punch.” As does Benoit and Osborne’s consistently dynamic guitar work. “I’m not one of these people who want to just run off a string of notes or do a lot of fast playing,” Benoit says. “It has to fit the song, the pace, and most of all, really express what I’m feeling at that particular moment. I think when the audience comes to a show and you play the songs off that album, you’ve got to make it real and make it honest.”
When asked whether he ever tires of touring, Benoit laughs and says, “Absolutely not. At every stop now I see a great mix of people who’ve been with us since the beginning, and then their children or sometimes even their grandchildren. When people come up to you and say how much they enjoy your music, it really does make you feel great. I’ve always seen the live concerts as a way of bringing some joy and happiness to people over a period of time, of helping them forget about whatever problems or issues they might have had coming in, and just to enjoy themselves. At the same time, I get a real thrill and joy from playing for them, and it’s something that I always want the band’s music to do—help bring some happiness and joy to everyone who hears our music.”
YouTube It
Hear Tab Benoit practice the art of slow, soulful, simmering blues on his new I Hear Thunder song “Overdue,” also featuring his well-worn 1972 Telecaster Thinline.
David Gilmour releases a special live version of the "The Piper's Call" from his solo album Luck and Strange.
"The Piper's Call Live Around The World" is a digital only release and was recorded at The Brighton Centre, Circus Maximus in Rome, the Royal Albert Hall in London, the Intuit Dome in Los Angeles and Madison Square Garden in New York and edited together by Gilmour, Charlie Andrew and Matt Glasbey to form one seamless track recorded throughout the Luck and Strange tour.
David Gilmour “On the Luck and Strange tour, I played with the best band I've ever had. Their personalities, playing abilities and enthusiasm for my new music have made for a fabulous experience for Polly and me. Romany's voice really stands out and has its own particular character, she brings a sense of mischief and fun to the live performance, which I think we needed. Thank you to everyone who attended the shows in Europe and America and thank you for buying 'Luck and Strange’. I hope you found as much enjoyment in the music as we did while performing it.”
Luck and Strange was recorded over five months in Brighton and London and is Gilmour's first album of new material in nine years. The record was produced by David and Charlie Andrew, best known for his work with alt-J and Marika Hackman. The album features nine tracks, including the singles' The Piper's Call', 'Dark And Velvet Nights', and a beautiful reworking of The Montgolfier Brothers' 1999 song, 'Between Two Points,' which features 22-year-old Romany Gilmour on vocals and harp; the lead-off track, 'The Piper's Call,' and the title track, which features the late Pink Floyd keyboard player Richard Wright, recorded in 2007 at a jam in a barn at David's house. The album features artwork and photography by the renowned artist Anton Corbijn.
The Luck and Strange tour began with two sold-out warm-up shows at the Brighton Centre before moving to Circus Maximus in Rome for six sold-out nights, followed by the same about at London's Royal Albert Hall before moving Stateside for sold-out evenings at the Intuit Dome and Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles before concluding with five sold-out nights at Madison Square Garden in New York.
Learn more: www.davidgilmour.com.