
John Bohlinger shows off his glove game at Nashvilleās Nissan Stadium before his musical director gig at the NHL Stadium Series 2022 on February 26.
At a recent outdoor NHL Stadium Series performance, it was so cold that my hands went numb. So, I had to improvise.
Last month, I wrapped the NHL Stadium Series at Nashvilleās Nissan Stadium in front of 68,619 screaming fans and an army of TV production, crew, etc. The network chose to lean into Nashvilleās Music City theme by including performances by 12 of the cityās biggest names in music. About a month ago, the director, Michael Dempsey, whom I worked with on several award shows, hired me as the music director. Hereās how it went.
The NHL set three stages across the front of Nissan field. At stage left was Miranda Lambert, at stage right was Dierks Bentley, and center stage was the house band with 10 other acts including Dustin Lynch, Lindsay Ell (check out her Rig Rundown), Tiera Kennedy, A. Jay and Jeremy Popoff of the band Lit, Frankie Ballard, Coffey Anderson, Joshua Hedley, Morgan Evans, Jackson Dean, and Bexar. I had played TV spots with five of these artists before, so that made it a bit more comfortable for them and me. But the rest were strangers, and we were doing this live in front of a packed stadium and millions viewing at home, so there was some pressure.
Once the artist settled on their songs, I had an idea of what instrumentation we needed. I hired five friends to cover bass/BG, drums, keys/BG, steel/banjo/guitar, fiddle/accompaniment/percussion, along with your humble scribe, me, on guitar.
I was about to play all the guitar with 10 artists in front of millions of people. That stress combined with this painful cold shut my brain down.
I then edited the songs to fit a limited TV time, then made mockups of the arrangements on GarageBand so the artist and producers could get an idea of what they would sound like. Once production and the artists signed off on the arrangements, I wrote charts and sent them to the band. I then listened through and decided on instrumentation, and wrote a road map of who plays what, sent it to the band and audio, then trusted everyone to do their homework.
The plan was to rehearse the songs Friday night during our load-in/soundcheck, but nature did not cooperate. It had been raining on and off for days, and by the time we hit the stage it was freezing. My hands went numb, and I could not play. Nick Jonas had, like, eight bad bars of a solo in one award show, and now you never see him play (heās an incredibly talented musician). I was about to play all the guitar with 10 artists in front of millions of people. That stress combined with this painful cold shut my brain down.
I literally could not hold a pick during our soundcheck. The next morning, I filled my pockets with Fred Kelly Bumblebee thumbpicks (as seen in the Steve Earle Rig Rundown). I like thumbpicks when Iām trying to hack my way through a fingerstyle acoustic song, or playing pedal steel, but for me itās never as comfortable as a flat-pick on electric. But I had no choice.
Then I cut the fingers off a pair of driving gloves I found in my closet. I kept the thumb on the left hand. I hesitated, because they were expensive/new gloves, but Iām not the kind of person to wear driving gloves, so what the hell was I saving these for? Admittedly, it was a rocky start getting used to playing with gloves and a thumbpick, but I had to embrace the challenge and hope for the best. I put on thermal long johns, sweatpants, jeans, two pairs of socks with thermal boots, two shirts, three coats, and one of the Nashville Predators hockey jerseys and hats that production had given the band.
Our columnist and his team fire it up onstage.
Our call time was 11:15 a.m. and we had 15 minutes set aside to rehearse each artist. The band had never actually played together when the artists arrived onstage for a pre-show run-through. But my friends in the band are pros, so it sounded great despite not rehearsing.
Although I loaded the charts on my iPad, I brought the original paper charts just in case, and Iām glad I did, because the extreme cold killed my iPad between the rehearsal and showtime. I also brought two amps, two Les Pauls, and two Strats (tuned to Eb), just in case the cold killed any electronics, taking the belt-and-suspenders approach to ensure I got through it.
The combination of preparation and luck paid off. The producers got some portable heaters onstage, the weather was cold but not unbearable, and the performances all went well.
The show must go wrong, and yet maybe all that tension, uncertainty, and fear is essential to a good show. If you scored every shot, won every hand of poker, and never missed a note, life would be boring. The trick is to get comfortable with the curve balls and donāt beat yourself up over the misses.
That night, as I was unloading my gear, a freezing rain began to fall. I was so grateful that I wasnāt schlepping my coverless amps through the downpour. Iām not making this up for dramatic effect; real life is truly dramatic. Disasters lurk everywhere, and yet itās usually a happy ending.
- Last Call: John Bohlinger on Broadway - Premier Guitar āŗ
- The Big Score: Cutting Guitar Tracks for TV - Premier Guitar āŗ
- Tone Tips: Dealing with Stage Fright - Premier Guitar āŗ
- Why Do You Look Like That When You Play Guitar? - Premier Guitar āŗ
A phaser with vintage vibes and modern control from Stewmacāwin the Phasor II Kit in the I Love Pedals giveaway! Enter today and return daily for more chances!
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StewMac Lightcycle Phasor II Pedal Kit, With White Enclosure Shop StewMac Lightcycle Phasor II Pedal Kit at StewMac. Our take on the revered Mu-Tron Phasor IIāthe most versatile phaser ever made! StewMAX FREE Shipping!Whitman Audio introduces the Decoherence Drive and Wave Collapse Fuzz, two innovative guitar pedals designed to push the boundaries of sound exploration. With unique features like cascading gain stages and vintage silicon transistor fuzz, these pedals offer musicians a new path to sonic creativity.
Whitman Audio, a new audio effects company, has launched with two cutting-edge guitar pedals, the Decoherence drive and Wave Collapse fuzz. Combining science and art to craft audio effects devices, Whitman Audio aims to transcend the ordinary, believing that magic can occur when the right musician meets the right tool.
Delivering a solution for musicians looking to explore a wide range of sounds, each pedal offers a unique path to finding your own voice. The Decoherence drive injects a universe of unique saturation into your music arsenal while the Wave Collapse fuzz takes you to uncharted sonic territories.
Decoherence features include:
- Cascading stages (Gain A > Gain B) each with a unique sound and saturation character
- Gain A - Medium to high gain stage with a mid focus for clear articulation and punch
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- G/S Toggle - Selects the clipping diodes for Gain B (NOS Germanium or NOS Silicon)
- Tone Knobs (H & L) - Tuned active Baxendall style EQs that boost or cut Highs and Lows
- True bypass switching, accepts standard 9V DC power supplies (does not accept battery)
Introducing: Decoherence Drive -Ā YouTube
Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.Wave Collapse features include:
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Introducing: Wave Collapse Fuzz - YouTube
Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.The National New Yorker lived at the forefront of the emerging electric guitar industry, and in Memphis Minnieās hands, it came alive.
This National electric is just the tip of the iceberg of electric guitar history.
On a summer day in 1897, a girl named Lizzie Douglas was born on a farm in the middle of nowhere in Mississippi, the first of 13 siblings. When she was seven, her family moved closer to Memphis, Tennessee, and little Lizzie took up the banjo. Banjo led to guitar, guitar led to gigs, and gigs led to dreams. She was a prodigious talent, and āKidā Douglas ran away from home to play for tips on Beale Street when she was just a teenager. She began touring around the South, adopted the moniker Memphis Minnie, and eventually joined the circus for a few years.
(Are you not totally intrigued by the story of this incredible woman? Why did she run away from home? Why did she fall in love with the guitar? We havenāt even touched on how remarkable her songwriting is. This is a singular pioneer of guitar history, and we beseech you to read Woman with Guitar: Memphis Minnieās Blues by Beth and Paul Garon.)
Following the end of World War I, Hawaiian music enjoyed a rapid rise in popularity. On their travels around the U.S., musicians like Sol Hoāopiāi became fans of Louis Armstrong and the New Orleans Rhythm Kings, leading to a great cross-pollination of Hawaiian music with jazz and blues. This potent combination proved popular and drew ever-larger audiences, which created a significant problem: How on earth would an audience of thousands hear the sound from a wimpy little acoustic guitar?
This art deco pickguard offers just a bit of pizzazz to an otherwise demure instrument.
In the late 1920s, George Beauchamp, John and Rudy Dopyera, Adolph Rickenbacker, and John Dopyeraās nephew Paul Barth endeavored to answer that question with a mechanically amplified guitar. Working together under Beauchamp and John Dopyeraās National String Instrument Corporation, they designed the first resonator guitar, which, like a Victrola, used a cone-shaped resonator built into the guitar to amplify the sound. It was definitely louder, but not quite loud enoughāespecially for the Hawaiian slide musicians. With the guitars laid on their laps, much of the sound projected straight up at the ceiling instead of toward the audience.
Barth and Beauchamp tackled this problem in the 1930s by designing a magnetic pickup, and Rickenbacker installed it in the first commercially successful electric instrument: a lap-steel guitar known affectionately as the āFrying Panā due to its distinctive shape. Suddenly, any stringed instrument could be as loud as your amplifier allowed, setting off a flurry of innovation. Electric guitars were born!
āAt the time it was positively futuristic, with its lack of f-holes and way-cool art deco design on the pickup.ā
By this time, Memphis Minnie was a bona fide star. She recorded for Columbia, Vocalion, and Decca Records. Her song āBumble Bee,ā featuring her driving guitar technique, became hugely popular and earned her a new nickname: the Queen of Country Blues. She was officially royalty, and her subjects needed to hear her game-changing playing. This is where she crossed paths with our old pals over at National.
National and other companies began adding pickups to so-called Spanish guitars, which they naturally called āElectric Spanish.ā (This term was famously abbreviated ES by the Gibson Guitar Corporation and used as a prefix on a wide variety of models.) In 1935, National made its first Electric Spanish guitar, renamed the New Yorker three years later. By todayās standards, itās modestly appointed. At the time it was positively futuristic, with its lack of f-holes and way-cool art deco design on the pickup.
Thereās buckle rash and the finish on the back of the neck is rubbed clean off in spots, but that just goes to show how well-loved this guitar has been.
Memphis Minnie had finally found an axe fit for a Queen. She was among the first blues guitarists to go electric, and the New Yorker fueled her already-upward trajectory. She recorded over 200 songs in her 25-year career, cementing her and the National New Yorkerās place in musical history.
Our National New Yorker was made in 1939 and shows perfect play wear as far as weāre concerned. Sure, thereās buckle rash and the finish on the back of the neck is rubbed clean off in spots, but structurally, this guitar is in great shape. Itās easy to imagine this guitar was lovingly wiped down each time it was put back in the case.
Thereās magic in this guitar, yāall. Every time we pick it up, we can feel Memphis Minnieās spirit enter the room. This guitar sounds fearless. Itās a survivor. This is a guitar that could inspire you to run away and join the circus, transcend genre and gender, and leave your own mark on music history. As a guitar store, watching guitars pass from musician to musician gives us a beautiful physical reminder of how history moves through generations. We canāt wait to see who joins this guitarās remarkable legacy.
SOURCES: blackpast.org, nps.gov, worldmusic.net, historylink.org, Memphis Music Hall of Fame, āMemphis Minnieās āScientific Soundā: Afro-Sonic Modernity and the Jukebox Era of the Bluesā from American Quarterly, āThe History of the Development of Electric Stringed Musical Instrumentsā by Stephen Errede, Department of Physics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, IL.
In our third installment with Santa Cruz Guitar Company founder Richard Hoover, the master luthier shows PG's John Bohlinger how his team of builders assemble and construct guitars like a chef preparing food pairings. Hoover explains that the finer details like binding, headstock size and shape, internal bracing, and adhesives are critical players in shaping an instrument's sound. Finally, Richard explains how SCGC uses every inch of wood for making acoustic guitars or outside ventures like surfboards and art.