The venerable Fender Telecaster has spawned a zillion clones, some good and some bad. The Tele has been adopted by players in a variety of styles, but arguably it has been best known for its use in country music. I have loved Teles for a long time, and I own five of them. I was inspired to play Teles by some of my favorite pickers, guys like Roy Buchanan, Ed Bickert, Albert Collins, Jimmy Bryant, Danny Gatton and Jerry Reed. Many guitarists joke that a Tele is a “real man’s” guitar because it is generally somewhat harder to play than say, a Gibson, and its tone is quite naked and doesn’t cover for sloppy technique. Interestingly, you could say it was one of the first guitars to be modified as Fender introduced a semi-hollow and versions with different pickup combinations. So now here comes Tradition Guitars with their take on the Tele, and it has some interesting features.
Who is Jerry Reid?
I first saw one of these in a local store and was a bit bamboozled that there was a Jerry Reed model guitar coming out after the great man had passed away. But we do live in a time of dead-guy endorsements, so I just tried the guitar and I thought it was pretty impressive. Flash-forward to my getting this guitar for a review, and I come to find out it isn’t Jerry Reed, but Jerry Reid. My first thought was, “Hmmm, what’s all this then?” What I found out is that Mr. Reid played for Mel Tillis, George Jones and bought his first Tradition guitar in a music store. He loved it, and so he hooked up with the company to consult on the development of this guitar. He has since passed away.
Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch
But we are pickers and can just take a guitar for what it is, so let’s have a look-see. The JR Pro has an ash body with a nice looking quilted maple top. This particular JR Pro seems slightly on the heavy side, but not too bad… about 7–8 lbs. Our example has a pretty-looking amber transparent color. It also has a maple neck and fingerboard with a tilted-back peghead (8 degree tilt). It has Grover locking tuners and Tradition’s TK-1 Fixed Bridge Vibrato, which is quite unusual. The pickups are also made by Tradition: in this guitar we have a Tele-style bridge pickup, a dual-rail, Strat-style center pickup, and a full-on humbucker in the neck spot. Both the middle and neck pickups have push/pull coil taps, so you get quite a pile of available tones here.
The pickups are damn good, and Tradition and Mr. Reid seem to have given much thought as to what would be a versatile pickup set. The neck pickup in full-on humbucking is very fat and hot without being too dark. With the coil tap the volume drops and it does a convincing single-coil sound. The bridge is a fairly hot Tele-style lead pup, and it has good snap and twang. It is my personal voodoo belief that for the “just right” Tele tone you need brass saddles, but this does okay. The most interesting pickup here is actually the center one, a rails-style pickup with very large rails. It’s a humbucker in Strat size and is hot enough to work well with the coil tap. So this setup will deliver a fat Gibson-style neck tone, a Tele lead tone as well as assorted Strat-like sounds.
The neck is a bit unusual for a Tele-style guitar in that it’s more of the wide-thin, shredder type of neck. I’m not a shredder and this neck is not my cup of tea, but it is well done with nicely finished jumbo frets and small inlays that from a distance look a bit like a Texas longhorn. I’m sure many will find this neck to be great. Tradition has a seasoned tech who goes over every instrument that arrives from the factory before it ships out, and the setup on this one is good with a low action that’s ready to roll. The neck is lightly finished for that bare wood feel which you either like or you don’t, but it is smooth and it does play well. The tilted-back head is also unusual on a Tele-style guitar, but many prefer it and it does eliminate the need for a string tree.
Wham!
I’ve got to talk a little about the whammy bar. At first glance what you see is a flat Tele-style bridge, nothing unusual. But the TK-1 vibrato is mighty fine indeed. With a bridge that is solidly mounted, you can actually dive bomb with it—and yep, it stays in tune. The arm has a rubber piece on it, which helps you stick to it and it’s comfy. It will also go up and stay in tune. It seems to have a center detent, so you can bend notes on the fretboard and there’s no pitch slip, just like a non-vibrato guitar. The locking Grovers and graphite nut help it stay in tune. The downward travel is not quite like a Floyd, but it will go pretty close to floppy and still come back in tune quite well. For Chet Atkins-style wiggle, it would be very hard to beat this. The TK-1 is actually one of the most useable whammy bars I have tried. Very nicely done, Tradition!
The Final Mojo
The Tradition JR Pro could be the go-to guitar for many. With its combination of three pickups and the coil taps, you have eleven available (and easy-to-get) tones. The whammy bar actually stays in tune very well without the need of a locking nut. Personally, I like this whammy because of its solid mount and the fact that if you pull the bar off nobody would even know it’s a whammy bridge. So you get to maintain the clean look that many Tele pickers love while still having that whammy option. Playability, fit and finish are all very good. The tweed hard case is also very good and is included. This is not a boutique guitar, just a mass-produced guitar made for working musicians, much like the original Teles were. I wish it were a bit lighter, and I would prefer a different neck shape, but that’s about all I can find fault with here. If you’re searching for a fancy-looking, versatile Tele-style guitar at much less than a custom shop price, this is worth a look.
Buy if...
you want mid-priced, “Swiss-army-knife” versatility with a happening whammy.
Skip if...
you’re much more interested in the standard issue.
Rating...
MSRP $1455 (with HSC) - Tradition Guitars - traditionguitars.com |
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TAG3 C | Yamaha TransAcoustic Guitars - YouTube
For the first time in the band’s history, the Dawes lineup for Oh Brother consisted of just Griffin and Taylor Goldsmith (left and right).
Goldsmith’s lyrics spoke to me the loudest, with lines like “Well, you can judge the whole world on the sparkle that you think it lacks / Yes, you can stare into the abyss, but it’s starin’ right back” (a casual Nietzsche paraphrase); and “Oh, the snowfall this time of year / It’s not what Birmingham is used to / I get the feeling that I brought it here / And now I’m taking it away.” The way his words painted a portrait of the sincere, sentimental man behind them, along with his cozy, unassuming guitar work and the band’s four-part harmonies, had me hooked.
Nothing Is Wrong and Stories Don’t End came next, and I happily gobbled up more folksy fodder in tracks like “If I Wanted,” “Most People,” and “From a Window Seat.” But 2015’s All Your Favorite Bands, which debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Folk Albumschart, didn’t land with me, and by the time 2016’s We’re All Gonna Die was released, it was clear that Goldsmith had shifted thematically in his writing. A friend drew a thoughtful Warren Zevon comparison to the single, “When the Tequila Runs Out”—a commentary on vapid, conceited, American-socialite party culture—but it still didn’t really do it for me. I fell off the Dawes train a bit, and became somewhat oblivious to their three full-lengths that followed.
Oh Brotheris Goldsmith’s latest addition to the Dawes songbook, and I’m grateful to say that it’s brought me back. After having done some catching up, I’d posit that it’s the second work in the third act, or fall season, of his songwriting—where 2022’s Misadventures of Doomscrollercracked open the door, Oh Brother swings it wide. And it doesn’t have much more than Dawes’ meat and potatoes, per se, in common with acts one or two. Some moodiness has stayed—as well as societal disgruntlement and the arrangement elements that first had me intoxicated. But then there’s the 7/4 section in the middle of “Front Row Seat”; the gently unwinding, quiet, intimate jazz-club feel of “Surprise!”; the experimentally percussive, soft-spoken “Enough Already”; and the unexpected, dare I say, Danny Elfman-esque harmonic twists and turns in the closing track, “Hilarity Ensues.”
The main engine behind Dawes, the Goldsmith brothers are both native “Angelinos,” having been born and raised in the L.A. area. Taylor is still proud to call the city his home.
Photo by Jon Chu
“I have this working hypothesis that who you are as a songwriter through the years is pretty close to who you are in a dinner conversation,” Goldsmith tells me in an interview, as I ask him about that thematic shift. “When I was 23, if I was invited to dinner with grownups [laughs], or just friends or whatever, and they say, ‘How you doin’, Taylor?’ I probably wouldn’t think twice to be like, ‘I’m not that good. There’s this girl, and … I don’t know where things are at—can I share this with you? Is that okay?’ I would just go in in a way that’s fairly indiscreet! And I’m grateful to that version of me, especially as a writer, because that’s what I wanted to hear, so that’s what I was making at the time.
“But then as I got older, it became, ‘Oh, maybe that’s not an appropriate way to answer the question of how I’m doing.’ Or, ‘Maybe I’ve spent enough years thinking about me! What does it feel like to turn the lens around?’” he continues, naming Elvis Costello and Paul Simon as inspirations along the way through that self-evolution. “Also, trying to be mindful of—I had strengths then that I don’t have now, but I have strengths now that I didn’t have then. And now it’s time to celebrate those. Even in just a physical way, like hearing Frank Zappa talking about how his agility as a guitar player was waning as he got older. It’s like, that just means that you showcase different aspects of your skills.
“I am a changing person. It would be weird if I was still writing the same way I was when I was 23. There would probably be some weird implications there as to who I’d be becoming as a human [laughs].”
Taylor Goldsmith considers Oh Brother, the ninth full-length in Dawes’ catalog, to be the beginning of a new phase of Dawes, containing some of his most unfiltered, unedited songwriting.
Since its inception, the engine behind Dawes has been the brothers Goldsmith, with Taylor on guitar and vocals and Griffin on drums and sometimes vocal harmonies. But they’ve always had consistent backup. For the first several years, that was Wylie Gelber on bass and Tay Strathairn on keyboards. On We’re All Gonna Die, Lee Pardini replaced Strathairn and has been with the band since. Oh Brother, however, marks the departure of Gelber and Pardini.
“We were like, ‘Wow, this is an intense time; this is a vulnerable time,’” remarks Goldsmith, who says that their parting was supportive and loving, but still rocked him and Griffin. “You get a glimpse of your vulnerability in a way that you haven’t felt in a long time when things are just up and running. For a second there, we’re like, ‘We’re getting a little rattled—how do we survive this?’”
They decided to pair up with producer Mike Viola, a close family friend, who has also worked with Mandy Moore—Taylor’s spouse—along with Panic! At the Disco, Andrew Bird, and Jenny Lewis. “[We knew that] he understands all of the parameters of that raw state. And, you know, I always show Mike my songs, so he was aware of what we had cookin’,” says Goldsmith.
Griffin stayed behind the kit, but Taylor took over on bass and keys, the latter of which he has more experience with than he’s displayed on past releases. “We’ve made records where it’s very tempting to appeal to your strengths, where it’s like, ‘Oh, I know how to do this, I’m just gonna nail it,’” he says. “Then there’s records that we make where we really push ourselves into territories where we aren’t comfortable. That contributed to [Misadventures of Doomscroller] feeling like a living, breathing thing—very reactive, very urgent, very aware. We were paying very close attention. And I would say the same goes for this.”
That new terrain, says Goldsmith, “forced us to react to each other and react to the music in new ways, and all of a sudden, we’re exploring new corners of what we do. I’m really excited in that sense, because it’s like this is the first album of a new phase.”
“That forced us to react to each other and react to the music in new ways, and all of a sudden, we’re exploring new corners of what we do.”
In proper folk (or even folk-rock) tradition, the music of Dawes isn’t exactly riddled with guitar solos, but that’s not to say that Goldsmith doesn’t show off his chops when the timing is right. Just listen to the languid, fluent lick on “Surprise!”, the shamelessly prog-inspired riff in the bridge of “Front Row Seat,” and the tactful, articulate line that threads through “Enough Already.” Goldsmith has a strong, individual sense of phrasing, where his improvised melodies can be just as biting as his catalog’s occasional lyrical jabs at presumably toxic ex-girlfriends, and just as melancholy as his self-reflective metaphors, all the while without drawing too much attention to himself over the song.
Of course, most of our conversation revolves around songwriting, as that’s the craft that’s the truest and closest to his identity. “There’s an openness, a goofiness—I even struggle to say it now, but—an earnestness that goes along with who I am, not only as a writer but as a person,” Goldsmith elaborates. “And I think it’s important that those two things reflect one another. ’Cause when you meet someone and they don’t, I get a little bit weirded out, like, ‘What have I been listening to? Are you lying to me?’” he says with a smile.
Taylor Goldsmith's Gear
Pictured here performing live in 2014, Taylor Goldsmith has been the primary songwriter for all of Dawes' records, beginning with 2009’s North Hills.
Photo by Tim Bugbee/Tinnitus Photography
Guitars
- Fender Telecaster
- Gibson ES-345
- Radocaster (made by Wylie Gelber)
Amps
- ’64 Fender Deluxe
- Matchless Laurel Canyon
Effects
- 29 Pedals EUNA
- Jackson Audio Bloom
- Ibanez Tube Screamer with Keeley mod
- Vintage Boss Chorus
- Vintage Boss VB-2 Vibrato
- Strymon Flint
- Strymon El Capistan
Strings
- Ernie Ball .010s
In Goldsmith’s songwriting process, he explains that he’s learned to lean away from the inclination towards perfectionism. Paraphrasing something he heard Father John Misty share about Leonard Cohen, he says, “People think you’re cultivating these songs, or, ‘I wouldn’t deign to write something that’s beneath me,’ but the reality is, ‘I’m a rat, and I’ll take whatever I can possibly get, and then I’ll just try to get the best of it.’
“Ever since Misadventures of Doomscroller,” he adds, “I’ve enjoyed this quality of, rather than try to be a minimalist, I want to be a maximalist. I want to see how much a song can handle.” For the songs on Oh Brother, that meant that he decided to continue adding “more observations within the universe” of “Surprise!”, ultimately writing six verses. A similar approach to “King of the Never-Wills,” a ballad about a character suffering from alcoholism, resulted in four verses.
“The economy of songwriting that we’re all taught would buck that,” says Goldsmith. “It would insist that I only keep the very best and shed something that isn’t as good. But I’m not going to think economically. I’m not going to think, ‘Is this self-indulgent?’
Goldsmith’s songwriting has shifted thematically over the years, from more personal, introspective expression to more social commentary and, at times, even satire, in songs like We’re All Gonna Die’s “When the Tequila Runs Out.”
Photo by Mike White
“I don’t abide that term being applied to music. Because if there’s a concern about self-indulgence, then you’d have to dismiss all of jazz. All of it. You’d have to dismiss so many of my most favorite songs. Because in a weird way, I feel like that’s the whole point—self-indulgence. And then obviously relating to someone else, to another human being.” (He elaborates that, if Bob Dylan had trimmed back any of the verses on “Desolation Row,” it would have deprived him of the unique experience it creates for him when he listens to it.)
One of the joys of speaking with Goldsmith is just listening to his thought processes. When I ask him a question, he seems compelled to share every backstory to every detail that’s going through his head, in an effort to both do his insights justice and to generously provide me with the most complete answer. That makes him a bit verbose, but not in a bad way, because he never rambles. There is an endpoint to his thoughts. When he’s done, however, it takes me a second to realize that it’s then my turn to speak.
To his point on artistic self-indulgence, I offer that there’s no need for artists to feel “icky” about self-promotion—that to promote your art is to celebrate it, and to create a shared experience with your audience.
“I hear what you’re saying loud and clear; I couldn’t agree more,” Goldsmith replies. “But I also try to be mindful of this when I’m writing, like if I’m going to drag you through the mud of, ‘She left today, she’s not coming back, I’m a piece of shit, what’s wrong with me, the end’.... That might be relatable, that might evoke a response, but I don’t know if that’s necessarily helpful … other than dragging someone else through the shit with me.
“In a weird way, I feel like that’s the whole point—self-indulgence. And then obviously relating to someone else, to another human being.”
“So, if I’m going to share, I want there to be something to offer, something that feels like: ‘Here’s a path that’s helped me through this, or here’s an observation that has changed how I see this particular experience.’ It’s so hard to delineate between the two, but I feel like there is a difference.”
Naming the opening track “Mister Los Angeles,” “King of the Never-Wills,” and even the title track to his 2015 chart-topper, “All Your Favorite Bands,” he remarks, “I wouldn’t call these songs ‘cool.’ Like, when I hear what cool music is, I wouldn’t put those songs next to them [laughs]. But maybe this record was my strongest dose of just letting me be me, and recognizing what that essence is rather than trying to force out certain aspects of who I am, and force in certain aspects of what I’m not. I think a big part of writing these songs was just self-acceptance,” he concludes, laughing, “and just a whole lot of fishing.”
YouTube It
Led by Goldsmith, Dawes infuses more rock power into their folk sound live at the Los Angeles Ace Hotel in 2023.