The Kings of Swing talk Texas tone tools before a recent performance at the Grand Ole Opry.
Ray Benson founded Asleep at the Wheel over a half a century ago in 1970. Over the course of his career, heās won 9 Grammys while turning several generations onto Western Swing.
PGās John Bohlinger hung with Benson and his longtime lap-steel player Cindy Cashdollar before a recent Grand Ole Opry performance in Nashville.
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Ray Benson's Fender Custom ShopĀ Texas Telecaster
Ray Bensonās big body Texas Telecaster from the Fender Nashville Custom Shop features an ebony fretboard and a push-push coil tap for neck pickup in the tone control. The volume control is a stacked control with a 500k pot in the neck humbucker and a 250k pot for Tele pickup. About this Tele one-off, famed Fender guru Tim Shaw says: āTo accommodate Rayās wish for a larger guitar without totally changing the Teleās geometry, Josh Hurst drew up a body thatās the same in the neck joint/cutaway area but is larger in the lower bout. The body is ash, and itās not chambered. This body shape was the basis for the Acoustasonic Tele.
āRay wanted an ebony fingerboard, so we had our colleagues in the Corona R&D model shop make him a custom neck,ā Shaw continues. āHe also wanted a neck humbucking pickup but didnāt want to overwind the bridge pickup to match the higher output of the humbucker. I wound a set matching a mid-ā60s spec Tele bridge pickup with a custom neck pickup (that also has a coil split on an S-1 switch.)ā
Like all of Bensonās electrics, this Tele is strung with John Pearse Strings (.012, .014, .017, .036, .040, .052).
Ray Benson's 2016 CollingsĀ SoCo 16 LC Deluxe
This 2016 Collings SoCo 16 LC Deluxe is a semi-hollowbody built with Collingsā proprietary laminate recipe. It features a long-scale (25.5ā) maple neck with Collings larger peg head, a custom neck carve, ebony fretboard, a Lollar Imperial Low Wind neck pickup, and a Lollar Novel T bridge pickup.
Ray Benson's Collings Eastside Jazz LC
This Collings Eastside Jazz LC is stock from the shop except for the neck finish, which was sanded down on the back of the neck.
Ray Benson's Gibson J-200
Bensonās Gibson J-200 features leather work by Kerry Wilcox and a Barbera Transducer pickup.
This Elvis-esque box stays strung with John Pearse Bronze Wound mediums.
Ray Benson'sĀ Guild D-55
Benson brings two acoustics on tour, the J-200 and this Guild D-55 with a Barbera transducer pickup. The Guild is also strung with John Pearse Bronze Wound mediums.
Ray Benson's Pedalboard
Benson is not an effects player. He uses a Shure ULX-D wireless system with a P10R+ bodypack receiver and a Radial Engineering Reamp impedance boost. For routing the guitars, he uses a Rupert Neve RNDI and a Radial BigShot i/o. Bensonās huge Boss TU-1000 Stage Tuner is visible from outer space.
Ray Benson's Fender Super Reverb
For amplification, Ray Benson goes with a stock Fender ā65 Super Reverb reissue and uses Planet Waves cables and Fender 354 medium picks.
Cindy Cashdollar'sĀ SteelMaster D8 Doubleneck Lap Steel
For the Grand Ole Opry gig, Cashdollar was playing a SteelMaster D8 doubleneck lap steel with eight strings on each neck, one tuned to E13 and one tuned to C6. This steel was built by well-known steel guitarist Herb Remington, revered for his work with Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys band from 1946 to 1949 (he also composed the popular instrumental āRemington Rideā).
The Steelmaster D8 features an ash body and George L single-coil, 15k pickups. The scale length is 24 1/2". Cashdollar uses John Pearse Strings: The C6-tuned neck is strung with a Hawaiian Steel Guitar #7650 8-string set. The E13 tuning set can be ordered as separate strings, which they package as a set. The gauges for each tuning are as follow:
Neck #1 with C6 tuning:
- G ā .011
- E ā .014
- C ā .018
- A ā .024w
- G ā .030w
- E ā .036w
- C ā .044w
- A ā .054w
Neck #2 with E13 tuning:
- E ā .013
- C# ā .016
- B ā .018
- G# ā .024w
- F# ā .030w
- D ā .038w
- G# ā .052w
- E ā .064w
Cashdollar uses a John Pearse slide bar (3 1/4ā Thermo-Cryonic Tone Bar), and thumbpicks, as well as Acri Picks fingerpicks.
Cindy Cashdollar's (Asleep at the Wheel) Pedalboard
Cashdollar has several bigger pedalboards, but for this Opry gig she went with a small travel board. It starts with a Durham Electronics Sex Drive clean boost running into a Telonics FP-100 Multi-Taper volume pedal, which feeds an Electro-Harmonix EHX-2020 tuner and her amp. A Boss DD-3 Digital Delay lives on the board but runs through the ampās effects loop. A Voodoo Lab Pedal Power 2 Plus powers it all.
Cindy Cashdollar'sĀ Telonics TCA-500C
Although Cashdollar has used various Fender amps in the past, sheās currently plugging into a new Telonics TCA-500C with a 15" speaker.
An Austin guitar legend in the making shares her rare Gibson, custom-built amp, ferocious fingerpicking style, and passion for bringing fire to the blues.
Austin, Texas, has been a fertile proving ground for legendary blues guitarists. Some, most notably Stevie Ray Vaughan, have emerged to international acclaim. Others, like Derek O'Brien, make a living and earn the respect of their peers while mostly playing in the city's many clubs and studios. In recent years, Carolyn Wonderlandāa revered player on the local scene since her arrival in 2001āhas become a rising global star in the genre.
In 2018, this incandescent electric fingerstyle guitarist became the first woman to play lead guitar in John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, following such luminary musicians as Eric Clapton, Peter Green, Mick Taylor, Walter Trout, Coco Montoya, and Buddy Whittington in that role. And while she's made more than a dozen albums under her own name and with collaborators over the years, her next album, slated for early fall release, will be issued by Alligator Records, the world's largest indie blues label, and was produced by the brilliant songwriter and 6-string deadeye Dave Alvin.
At Nashville's City Winery, Wonderland demoed and talked about her main guitar, Patty the Blueshawk, an Austin-built Tone I/O amp, her approach to lap steel, the genesis behind her aggressive fingerstyle approach, and much more. Take a look.
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Gibson Blueshawk
Say hello to Patty the Blueshawk, a Gibson model that was made from 1996 to 2006. If you've seen Wonderland with John Mayall, you've seen Patty. It has a Fender-like 25 1/2"-scale neck, a through-body bridge, distinctive Blues 90 pickups, and a 6-way Varitone. Plus, it weighs only 7 poundsāpacking plenty of sonic muscle for its class. Wonderland swapped a Tele for Patty and she loves the way its P-90s cut through in the Bluesbreakers.
1954 Gibson ES-125
This 1954 ES-125 full-sized hollowbody still has its original P-90. The model debuted in 1941 as an entry-level archtop. Later, some ES-125s also got a lower-bout cutaway. For a close-up look at Wonderland playing some old-school blues on this axe, check out her "#quarantunes" video performance of Muddy Waters' "Champagne and Reefer." It's excellent, and also provides a literal living-room listen to her powerful singing.
Lappy
This is Lappy, named for obvious reasons. It's tuned in G and has Elixir strings, .014 to .046. "I keep 'em until they're about to turn into barbed wire," she quips. And yes, that's a standard two-octave neck.
Here's a close-up of Lappy's pickup: a Kent Armstrong Spitfire. As its name implies, this single-coil is loud and furious.
Tone I/O Amp
Built in Austin by Adrian Goepferich, this Tone I/O amp has a hand-crafted point-to-point circuit, a barking 20-watts output, a 12AX7-driven preamp, 6V6 power tubes, a pine cabinet with a stainless steel chassis, spring reverb, and a Weber 12" 50-watt speaker. The control set recalls vintage Fenders: volume, treble, bass, reverb, speed, and intensity. Wonderland loves its sound, which she describes as a "classic American voice." And she runs it paired with a Fender Blues JuniorāA/B/Y style for maximum tonal options.
Fender Pro Junior
Here's her Pro Juniorāperhaps the definition of a small-club workhorse amp. In true Junior fashion, it's got a 12AX7 preamp section, two EL84 power tubes, and a 10" driver. Watch that EQ, because even at only 15 watts the high end on these amps can shred yer eardrums if you're not careful. The sole mod: a sock monkey.
Carolyn Wonderland's Stage Setup
Here's both of Wonderland's amps, miked and ready for the show, along with her three guitarsāa succinct, efficient setup.
Carolyn Wonderland's Pedalboard
Wonderland's pedalboard is simple. There's an Electro-Harmonix Cathedral Stereo Reverb, which she mostly uses in place of amp reverb when she's playing on a bouncy stage. Her Ibanez TS9 Tube Screamer is a 30th anniversary model, and she's got a Sex Drive by Durham Electronics out of Austin. The latter's a pedal developed with Charlie Sexton. Finally, there's a Boss TU-3 Chromatic Tuner. PS: Her slide is a unique glass piece given to her by a fan years ago at a show in Eugene, Oregon.