For this month’s question, picker JJ Appleton, Premier Guitar staff, and reader Gil Chiasson explore their personal bond with their favorite musical genre.
Question: What connects you to your favorite genre of music?
Guest Picker JJ Appleton
Blues legend John Hammond Jr.
Photo by Louis Ramirez
A: What I love about the blues is its deceptive simplicity, the immediacy of emotion, and the story/truth-telling. When they say, “Blues is a feeling,” it’s clear when two different people play the same three chords or the same lick. If you’re really doing it, your personality should be laid bare with every note you play and sing.
Professor Longhair, musical king of the Mardi Gras
Current obsession: Professor Longhair. I love his humorous bursts of deeply inventive rhythms. His use of extreme dynamics in one bar of music. His beautiful voice. His piano is the orchestra and there is a lot of musicality going on there. Professor Longhair has set the standard for me to try to become an “orchestrator” on the guitar and to find my own unique voice and style.
Ted Drozdowski Editorial Director
A: I’m connected to cosmic roots music via decades of exploring the nooks and crannies of the American South and its deep creative fringes. It’s defined roughly by Son House and John Lee Hooker to Pink Floyd, Sonny Sharrock, and Tom Waits—anything with an “otherness” that’s soulful and authentic. It helps keep me alive.
One of Ted’s inspirations, the late free-jazz guitarist Sonny Sharrock.
Current obsession: The dang movie I’ve been working on with my band Coyote Motel for about two years. After 300 hours of editing, I can see completion. And it does have “otherness.”
Coyote Motel in thier upcoming film.
Luke Ottenhof Assistant Editor
A: I was raised on folk and classic rock, but when I was 10 years old, I got Billy Talent on CD, and covertly copied my friend’s CD of Sum 41’s Does This Look Infected? onto a cassette (I wasn’t allowed to buy it because it had a parental advisory sticker). The early 2000s were a golden era of pop-punk in Canada, and while that genre post-2006 doesn’t really rev my engine anymore, those two releases set me on a path of obsession with heavy, riffy music paired with great hooks and bright vocal harmonies.
Current obsession: I’ve gotten back into soldering after taking apart my crappy Vox Cambridge 15 to finally fix it up. I was planning to just sell it for cheap to someone who wanted to repair it, but all it needed was a new gain pot, and the fix cost me $1.50 plus an hour of labor.
Luke’s Vox, redeemed by a $1.50 part and an hour’s repair time.
Gil Chiasson Reader of the Month
A: When I think of “Surfer Girl” by the Beach Boys, for instance, it is the sum total of all its parts which makes it so amazing in how it captures the context of the song. It’s about a surfer girl, a cool breeze, water spray, and hot summer sun!
The Beach Boys, when they were crafting the California dream.
Current obsession: I am currently writing music inspired by Thelonious Monk. He had these soulful chord progressions with interesting types of time signatures. His pockets, or, grooves, were full of that gold we all love to hear and feel.
Thelonious Monk had the keys—perhaps even to the universe.
A founding member of Chicago—one of the first rock bands to incorporate a horn section—Kath helped forge a path for this band that included eight platinum albums in as many years.
Born: January 31, 1946
Died: January 23, 1978
Best Known For: A founding member of Chicago—one of the first rock bands to incorporate a horn section—Kath helped forge a path for this band that included eight platinum albums in as many years. In addition to penning many of the group’s songs, his inventive solos purportedly impressed Jimi Hendrix enough for him to tell Chicago’s saxophonist Walt Parazaider, “I think your guitarist is better than me.”
In 1968, the Chicago Transit Authority found themselves playing a show at the renowned L.A. club the Whisky a Go Go. The gig itself was unremarkable, just another in a long series of dates they’d been playing since changing their name from the Big Thing. It was what happened after the show that made this evening memorable for the group—and especially for their guitarist. According to the band’s saxophonist Walter Parazaider, after the show, “This guy came up very quietly and tapped me on the shoulder. He says, ‘Hi, I’m Jimi Hendrix. I’ve been watching you guys and I think your guitarist is better than me.”
The guitarist Hendrix was referring to was Terry Kath, and whether or not the above story is true or apocryphal is immaterial: The fact that one could hear Kath and then judge the story plausible matters as much as its authenticity. And among those who either witnessed his prowess firsthand or came to know it after his untimely demise at the age of 31, it is virtually unanimous that Kath is one of the most criminally underrated guitarists to have ever set finger to fretboard. Give a listen to what many consider to be Chicago’s signature song, “25 or 6 to 4,” one is instantly transfixed by the punch of the chromatically descending opening riff, the funky fills, the slippery licks, and the tones that range from wooly fuzz to searing, wah-inflected colors.
Kath dedicated his life to making music, but as the years wore on the grind of longer tours and greater expectations took a toll. He became increasingly unhappy and on January 23, 1978, he put what he thought was an unloaded gun to his head and pulled the trigger, ending his life. Though he is gone, his incredible talent certainly isn’t forgotten.
A Mystic
Terry Alan Kath was born on January 31,
1946, to Ray and Evelyn Kath in the western
suburbs of Chicago. Terry was enamored
with music at a young age and with
the encouragement of his parents he quickly
learned how to play drums, accordion,
piano, and banjo. His childhood friend and future bandmate Brian Higgins was quick
to observe in an interview with Chicago-area
music chronicler Tim Wood that,
“From the eighth grade on, Terry knew he
was going to be a professional musician.”
Like many youths from that era, it was only a matter of time until he discovered the guitar. Kath’s first rig consisted of a basic guitar and amp made by Kay, and he spent hours practicing on it in the comfort of his basement. Only once did he attempt to get professional lessons, but it didn’t go as well as he hoped, as he recalled in a 1971 interview with Guitar Player: “He just kept wanting me to play good lead stuff, but then all I wanted to do was play those rock and roll chords.”
Over time, Kath’s playing chops developed and he linked up with a group of his high-school buddies to form a band called the Mystics. Kath soon became the focal point for those who came to see the Mystics play, and he became the de facto leader of the group. The band tooled around Chicago’s many dance halls, clubs, and Veterans of Foreign Wars halls, playing one or two shows a week, and quickly built a dedicated following. Kath had a deep love of jazz, which inspired him to spurn the solidbody Gibson and Fender guitars popular amongst players of the day, Instead, he elected to play a Gretsch Tennessean. “He did a lot of work on that guitar. No one but him could play it without it buzzing,” recalled Mystics rhythm guitarist Brian Higgins.
After a few years in the Mystics, Kath left the group and joined up with Jimmy Ford & the Executives, where he was asked to switch to bass. The Executives were one of the most talked-about groups in Chicago and served as a road band for Dick Clark’s Cavalcade of Stars—which featured such noted artists as Little Richard, Chuck Berry, and the Yardbirds. Kath proved to be a valuable member, and as future Chicago drummer and Executives band member Danny Seraphine wrote in his memoirs, “He was the closest thing to a leader in the band in terms of the direction of the music.”
Kath’s time with Ford and the Executives was as hectic as it was brief. Along with Danny Seraphine and Walter Parazaider, Kath was shown the door when the group decided to join up with an R&B horn outfit and take the music in a new direction. It didn’t take long for Kath and his exiled bandmates to find a new group, and in short order they found themselves playing in a cover band called the Missing Links. The band was led by Parazaider’s childhood friend Chuck Madden, whose father was known locally for being a big-time booking agent. Owing to that boon, Kath soon found himself earning more money per week than ever before—a whopping $500.
The Missing Links tore up Chicago’s club scene and regularly drew large crowds eager to hear hits of the day performed live and in person. But the grind of regularly playing other artists’ songs over and over, night after night, began to wear on Kath. As audiences began to dwindle and as the band members’ talent grew, the Missing Links decided to call it a day. Out of the ashes, Seraphine began forming ideas for a new outfit and invited Kath and Parazaider to join him in what he envisioned to be a Chicago-area supergroup. Invitations also went out to trombonist James Pankow, trumpeter Lee Loughnane, and singer/keyboardist Robert Lamm. Soon they were on the road touring under the name the Big Thing.
The Big Thing in L.A.
Shortly after forming, the six men
began to convene on a regular basis in
Parazaider’s basement to work out song
arrangements and collaborate on material.
As Pankow recalled on Chicago’s
website, “We figured that the only people
with horn sections that were really making
any noise were the soul acts so we
kind of became a soul band doing James
Brown and Wilson Pickett stuff.” The
Big Thing made its live debut at a club
just outside of Chicago called the GiGi-a-Go-Go in March 1967 and soon began
playing regular dates around the city and
as far away as South Dakota. Kath was
playing an off-brand Register guitar that
he purchased for $80 after a succession of
previous instruments had been stolen at
various gigs over the years.
With a wealth of talent and tight arrangements, the Big Thing drew notice from all corners almost as soon as they hit the stage. People couldn’t take their eyes off the group’s enigmatic lead guitarist, whose innovative—some might have even said “crazed”—playing style demanded attention. Pankow described Kath’s wild ways in the liner notes to Chicago Box. “We were working clubs in Chicago, and Terry was banging his guitar against amplifiers and making it talk.” Record producer Jimmy Guercio, a longtime friend of Parazaider, went to check out the Big Thing for himself at a gig in Niles, Michigan, and came away so impressed that he came calling in March of 1968. As Pankow recalled on Chicago’s website, “He told us to prepare for a move to L.A., to keep working on our original material, and he would call us when he was ready for us.” When the call came, the band was only too eager to make the move. Shortly before their departure, looking to beef up their sound, they invited local musician Peter Cetera to handle bass duties. One more change was in order, as well. Guercio didn’t care for the band’s name and took it upon himself to change it from the Big Thing to the Chicago Transit Authority, after the bus line he used to ride to school.
Upon arrival in L.A., Kath and company played almost every night at various clubs around the city, including the famed Whisky a Go Go on the Sunset Strip. In this setting, Kath rubbed shoulders with some of the biggest musicians of the day: Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Carlos Santana, and Frank Zappa, to name a few. As the band’s success grew, Kath decided it was time to trade up and jettisoned his beat-up Register in favor of a white Fender Stratocaster with a rosewood fretboard. In the previously mentioned 1971 interview, Kath remarked of the guitar, “The Stratocaster has the best vibrato, but I have trouble bending the strings without slipping off … my hands are pretty strong, I guess from playing bass all those years.” Despite those strong hands, Kath still preferred fairly light strings—but with a twist. For his high E, he typically used the high A string from a set of tenor guitar strings. For the rest, he used a stock Fender set, using its high E as his B string and then progressing on through the pack from thinnest to thickest. The inclusion of the tenor string meant there was always an extra, so the Fender pack’s 5th string was actually Kath’s low E, and he ended up tossing aside the 6th string.
Terry Kath playing his custom Tele with Chicago in the summer of 1975.
Photo by Frank White
Though Terry Kath was about as versatile as they come, his style was mainly rooted in the jazz he was weaned on. Trying to stand out in a 7- or 8-piece band is certainly a tall order for any guitarist, but Kath was able to consistently create unique and ferocious parts that always managed to attract notice amidst a complex and varied arrangement. One of the key examples of this is the horn-heavy “25 or 6 to 4,” on which Kath’s absolutely locked-in rhythm parts are both interesting and varied without distracting from the song’s main riff. When it comes time for Kath to own the spotlight, he lets loose with a solo that pulls out all the stops, wailing on the wah pedal with all the mastery of his personal hero, Jimi Hendrix.
In fact, Hendrix was the inspiration for two other Kath standouts—“Free Form Guitar,” off Chicago Transit Authority, as well as “Oh, Thank You Great Spirit” from Chicago VIII. The former was an homage to the guitarist’s playing on Are You Experienced, and the latter was a stunning tribute to his dear, departed friend. In both cases, Kath evokes Hendrix without seeming like just another clone. “Free Form Guitar” is almost startling in its manic nature, with dive-bombs that seem to reach the lowest levels of sanity or hell … or maybe both. On the flip side, “Oh, Thank You Great Spirit” finds Kath using wah to create a soundscape that’s simply breathtaking in its serenity. From there, he layers guitar track upon guitar track to create a complex piece with intricate rhythms, searing leads, and soft acoustics.
As Chicago Transit Authority drew bigger and bigger crowds, Guercio was able to land them a coveted recording contract with CBS Records. So it was that Kath and his bandmates set off to New York City to record their debut album. In preparation for the sessions, he bought a Gibson SG that is featured prominently throughout the album. He also acquired a 60-watt Knight amplifier, as well as a Fender Dual Showman that he used extensively over the next few years both live and in the studio. The group’s self-titled double album quickly became a smash hit, selling well over a million copies less than a year after its release in April 1969.
—Chicago saxophonist Walter Parazaider
One of the most stirring tracks from Chicago Transit Authority was titled “Free Form Guitar” and featured Kath alone playing essentially experimental music reminiscent of Hendrix’s performance of “The Star Spangled Banner” at Woodstock just a few months later. The piece was recorded in one take, without the use of any pedals, and was improvised on the spot. Kath also penned the song “Introduction,” which was fittingly placed as the first track on the album and featured the guitarist taking over lead-vocal duties. It seems everyone in the band was given a moment to shine on the track, and when Kath’s turn comes he lets loose with a breathtakingly understated yet forceful solo.
What’s in a Name?
After the band’s recorded debut,
Chicago Transit Authority was forced
by the threat of legal action to change
their name once again. Kath and his
cohorts opted to just cut it short, and
thus Chicago was born. Riding high
on the LP’s success, they hit the road
for a relentless touring schedule of
200 to 300 shows a year, a pace that
didn’t abate for Kath’s entire tenure in
the group. With his newfound success,
Kath began acquiring more guitars,
including a 1969 Gibson Les Paul
Professional with a pair of unconventional
low-impedance pickups that
required a special impedance-matching
transformer for use with a standard
high-impedance-input amplifier. This
guitar became one of his favorite standbys
in the years to come.
A year after recording their first album, Chicago hit the studio to record Chicago—aka Chicago II—which was a monster success and reached No. 4 on the U.S. charts. The biggest hit off the album, the previously mentioned “25 or 6 to 4,” was written by keyboardist Lamm and is easily one the group’s most recognized pieces. After the sophomore release, Chicago went on a tear nearly unprecedented in the history of commercial music, releasing eight studio albums and one live recording over the subsequent eight years—all of which achieved platinum status. Other opportunities followed, and in late 1972 Kath and Chicago’s manager, Guercio, were approached by amplifier maker Richard Edlund to see if they’d be interested in financing his start-up company. The two men were intrigued by Edlund and his little amplifiers, and thus started Pignose Industries, which debuted their first “legendary” Pignose amplifier at the 1973 NAMM show. Kath naturally became Pignose’s first endorsee and appeared in an ad for the company, decked out in gangster attire with the slogan, “What Pignose offers, you can’t refuse,” appearing below his picture.
Kath made another guitar change that same year, finally settling on a Fender Telecaster that he used almost exclusively for the rest of his career. He asked his tech, Hank Steiger, to make a few modifications, including replacing the stock neck pickup with a Gibson humbucker and changing the bridge from a 3-saddle model to a 6-saddle version that would facilitate more precise intonation. In not-so-subtle support of his side business venture, Kath affixed a few Pignose stickers—25, to be exact—as well as a Chicago Blackhawks logo and a large sticker with the Maico motorcycle company’s logo.
A Tragic End
Despite Chicago’s enormous success
throughout the 1970s, Kath was quite
depressed. “He was an unhappy individual,”
Pankow remembered in the liner notes
of Chicago Box. “His relationship was not
going well. He was also certainly more
dependent on chemicals than he should
have been. He wasn’t addicted to anything,
but he was abusing drugs. We were all
doing drugs at that stage of the game. But if you’re incredibly unhappy and depressed
and doing the drugs on top of that, it compounds
the situation.”
On the night of January 23, 1978, in a tragic turn, Kath accidentally shot himself in the head while messing around with one of his handguns. The only witness to the incident was Chicago’s keyboard tech, Don Johnson, whose account of what happened was later summarized by Pankow. “Evidently, he had gone to the shooting range, and he came back to Donny’s apartment, and he was sitting at the kitchen table cleaning his guns. Donny remarked, ‘Hey, man, you’re really tired. Why don’t you just put the guns down and go to bed.’ Terry said, ‘Don’t worry about it,’ and he showed Donny the gun. He said, ‘Look, the clip’s not even in it,’ and he had the clip in one hand and the gun in the other. But evidently there was a bullet still in the chamber. He had taken the clip out of the gun, and the clip was empty. A gun can’t be fired without the clip in it. He put the clip back in, and he was waving the gun around his head. He said, ‘What do you think I’m gonna do? Blow my brains out?’ And just the pressure when he was waving the gun around the side of his head, the pressure of his finger on the trigger, released that round in the chamber. It went into the side of his head. He died instantly.”
The loss of Terry Alan Kath was felt across the world of music, but nowhere more than with his bandmates in Chicago. “Right about there was probably what I felt was the end of the group,” says Peter Cetera on Chicago’s website. “I think we were a bit scared about going our separate ways, and we decided to give it a go again.” The band decided to soldier on and auditioned somewhere around 50 guitarists to take Kath’s place before ultimately settling on Donnie Dacus. But without Kath’s guitar, the band was not the same. Many divide the long history of Chicago into pre-Kath and post-Kath, and it could be argued that the majority favor the earlier period.
Kath was an incredibly versatile guitarist. On one track he could play some of the wildest, most sonically expansive guitar you’ve ever heard, and on the next he could play the smoothest runs this side of Charlie Christian. He lives on in the music he created and continues to inspire those who listen to his records.
Like many new Kath fans, his daughter, Michelle Kath Sinclair—who was only 3 when he passed away—is on her own odyssey to find out more about her father. Her story is told in the yet-to-be-released documentary Searching for Terry: Discovering a Guitar Legend, and she lays out her reasons for creating the film in a message on the official Terry Kath website (terrykath.com). “I always felt that he never got the credit he deserved for his contribution to guitar. His approach to playing and writing music were unique to his own. I was always saddened by his untimely death, not only because I missed out on knowing him, but also because there was so much more that he had to offer the music world.”
Chicago’s keyboardist and lead vocalist Robert Lamm probably said it best in the liner notes for Chicago Box when he stated, “He was an original thinker. He was an inventor, in many ways. He invented the way he played his guitar. He was the kind of guy that could probably teach himself to play almost any instrument.” He added, “I don’t think there’s ever been a better rhythm player. And then, Terry’s leads are, for that day especially, world class stuff.”
Must-Watch Moments
Over the course of the decade he toured with Chicago before his
untimely death, founding guitarist Terry Kath saw the band reach great heights, including its first Grammy and 10 chart-topping
albums. This footage shows Kath and company at their most inspired.
On this 1970 live version of
the band’s most famous tune,
Kath absolutely wails on an
orange S-style guitar. The fantastically
unhinged solo begins at 2:30.
In this rare black-and-white
footage, Kath lays the wah licks
on heavy, using his signature
guitar “vocals” to accent the
lead vocals.
Kath sings lead vocals on the
first track of Chicago Transit
Authority, which he wrote.
Kath’s slick rhythm work
throughout this bluesy mid-tempo
tune is treated with a
phase shifter.
I experienced something in this track that made the song brand new to me. I heard Paul McCartney drop the F-bomb mid-song.
Ah, the glory days of the 7" single: The original 1968 release of “Hey Jude" featured a large Apple Records logo.
By a conservative estimate, I've heard the Beatles' “Hey Jude" 1,000 times.
The first 333 times were in the '70s. My groovy parents and sibs dropped the needle on the delicious vinyl version of the single. While a big green Apple Records logo spun on our “hi-fi," my G.I. Joes attacked each other with Kung Fu moves in a shag-carpet jungle.
The second 333 times were in the '80s. My warbly The Beatles Again cassette sang seductively out of a boom box during tortuously awkward make-out sessions in my teens and early 20s.
The next 333 times occurred when “Hey Jude" droned almost unnoticed from classic rock radio stations and the ceiling-mounted speakers of countless elevators, dentist offices, malls, and shops.
But last night in a London studio, on what may have been my 1,000th listen, I experienced something in this track that made the song brand new to me. I heard Paul McCartney drop the F-bomb mid-song.
Stop reading right now. Pull up a version of the track and fast-forward to 2:45. Right after Paul sings “the minute you let her under your skin" you hear him shout, “oh" followed by “fucking hell" at 2:58. A word of warning: Once you hear this, you can never not hear it—the expletive becomes as pronounced as Ringo's tom fills leading into the bridge.
In his book, Here, There and Everywhere: My Life Recording the Music of the Beatles, Geoff Emerick, who engineered most of The Beatles' later recordings, quoted Lennon's explanation of the curse: “Paul hit a clunker on the piano and said a naughty word."
Emerick notes that Lennon insisted that “naughty word" remain in the final mix, getting a devious thrill out of the idea that Paul's sensitive mega-hit includes profanity hiding in plain sight.
I'm no stranger to recording clunkers. I've played some sessions where my parts contained more clams than a Red Lobster Saturday night special. Bum notes during an electric pass? No big deal. Sometimes you fix them, sometimes they make for an interesting color tone. Clunkers on an acoustic instrument present much richer sonic variation, namely, my shouted curses.
Blame jet lag or general incompetence, but last night my fingers refused to go where they should and I let out a few audible self-condemnations while recording. Keyboardist Andrew Nelson drew the comparison to Sir Paul's secret “Hey Jude" vocal part, and I felt much better about my crap performance.
There are plenty of examples of F-bombing that slipped into the final mix of beloved songs. The Kingsmen's “Louie, Louie" had over-protective parents, nut-ball preachers, and government officials concerned that the mostly indiscernible lyrics were lascivious and would lead children into concupiscent abandon.
The governor of Indiana inadvertently helped promote the band when he banned the song from the state and enlisted the FBI in an effort to shut down The Kingsmen for indecency. Of course kids want forbidden fruit, so sales increased with the witchhunt. Lead singer Jack Ely wasn't profane, he just lacked diction—a fresh set of braces on his teeth did not help his pronunciation. My web research suggests clarity was further compromised by the three-mic recording process that forced Ely to sing/yell over the band into a mic suspended above his head. Ely refrained from obscenity, even after his gigantic blunder of coming in at the wrong spot after the solo.
But “Louie, Louie" does contain profanity, just not in the lyrics. The drummer hits something he shouldn't after the second chorus and offers a loud “ah fuck" at the 0:58 mark. Given the dodgy nature of this performance and a blatant profanity, it's kind of amazing The Kingsmen didn't go for another take. It's equally amazing the FBI and the perhaps moronic state officials of Indiana could not find the obvious obscenity during their hours of combing the lyrics for naughty words.
My all-time favorite F-bombing kicks off the title track on Johnny Winter's Still Alive and Well. The track starts with the band fiddling with their gear, then Johnny drawls, “I'm hungry, let's do this fucker." The engineer says, “hit it" and Randy Jo Hobbs obediently smacks his bass. Johnny retorts, “Don't hit it now—hit it on four." Johnny counts them in and they erupt into an awesome, white-trash Texas boogie.
I realize a column focusing on finding hidden obscenity in songs takes us to a juvenile place, but because the Premier Guitar audience consists primarily of guitarists, going lowbrow seems like a good, calculated risk. What I love about these unexpected expletives is that they give us the fly-on-the-wall perspective of the sessions, whether it's those kids in The Kingsmen jubilantly flogging their way through a future frat-boy anthem, Johnny Winter just wanting to get the session over with so he can get some barbeque, or perfectionist Paul reacting to his clunker.
These angry outbursts give us a little glimpse into the studio and illustrate the frustrating nature of recording. Your fingers don't do what they should or it just takes too long to get it done. This re-listening exercise made me feel a bit like I did when I first really heard these songs—when “Hey Jude" turned from the ambient background noise into this incredibly moving song that would continue to play in my head late at night in my silent room. It's amazing what you hear when you really listen.
John Bohlinger is a Nashville multi-instrumentalist
best know for his work in television, having lead the band for all six
seasons of NBC's hit program Nashville Star, the 2012, 2011, 2010 and 2009 CMT Music Awards, as well as many specials for GAC, PBS, CMT, USA and HDTV.
John's music compositions and playing can be heard in several major label albums, motion pictures, over one hundred television spots and Muzak... (yes, Muzak does play some cool stuff.) Visit him at youtube.com/user/johnbohlinger