Christone “Kingfish” Ingram wails on his signature Fender Telecaster Deluxe, dressed in dazzling purple, for his late mother.
Mississippi Night (Live-Instrumental)
“In the studio, I would say I’m more restrained,” says Ingram, pondering the differences between his live and on-record sounds. “I’m trying to play for the song a little more in the studio, whereas live, I’m more wild and crazy with my playing.” He chuckles: “It’s a little more upbeat.”
But long-time listeners will recognize more than just energetic novelties on Live In London. Ingram’s playing, in its essence, is changed. It’s more complex and thoughtful, mixing in different scales and modes than the genre’s traditional home turf of major or minor pentatonic. You can hear Ingram dip his toes into jazzy atonal runs throughout the scorching instrumental “Mississippi Night,” and oldies like the previously acoustic “Hard Times” are blown wide open with new arrangements that challenge and elevate their spirit. At other points, Ingram does the reverse: The electric rendition of “Something in the Dirt” on record is swapped out for an intimate acoustic performance on the live set.
This all makes perfect sense. Ingram told us what he was gunning for all along. The very first track on his 2019 debut record declared this intention: to celebrate the sacred roots of his home in Clarksdale, Mississippi, while finding his own way. “I could stay here forever, but I just can’t stick around,” he crooned on the track. “I know that there’s life outside of this town!”
Born and raised in Clarksdale, Mississippi, Ingram was perhaps destined to play Delta blues. On his new live album, though, the guitarist expands the borders of his traditional sound.
Photo by Erika Goldring/Courtesy of BMI
It’s hard to say if being born in Clarksdale is what set Ingram on his seemingly preordained path to modern blues greatness, but it sure couldn’t have hurt. Clarksdale has been either the original or adopted home of blues musicians that pioneered and popularized the genre: Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Son House, Ike Turner, and Willie Lee Brown, among many others. The intersection of highways 61 and 49 near Clarksdale is rumored to be the very crossroads at which Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil for guitar greatness. “There’s magic in the music,” Ingram sang on his 2021 LP 662, “but there’s something in the dirt.”
“I’m trying to play for the song a little more in the studio, whereas live, I’m more wild and crazy with my playing.”
It was in this hot melting pot of blues magic and myth that Ingram learned to play the guitar. First came gospel quartet music, a natural love developed through his mother and her side of the family. His mother’s family sang, and his uncles preached and played guitar and bass. Ingram started off singing gospel, and at age 8, his father enrolled him in the guitar program at Clarksdale’s Delta Blues Museum. The transition felt natural to Ingram, who heard parallels between the musics. “It’s pretty much the same thing, just one is sacred,” he says.
That’s where he learned from mentors like Bill “Howl-N-Madd” Perry, a local who became a nationally celebrated bluesman. It was Perry who gave Ingram his now-iconic nickname, “Kingfish.”
For his third album, Kingfish decided to record live during a well-rehearsed performance at London venue the Garage.
“He used to give all the students little nicknames, and we kind of thought of them as stage names,” says Ingram. “He got ‘Kingfish’ from an old sitcom, Amos and Andy. I didn’t like it at first, but I kept it because the ‘king’ kinda reminded me of B.B.” During the program, Ingram focused on guitar-playing, but one day his instructors coaxed him into adding his pipes to the mix.
It wasn’t long after that Ingram got his first guitar, a Teisco electric. By the time he was a teenager, Ingram was wowing lifelong bluesmen. Alligator Records founder Bruce Iglauer remembers hearing “Kingfish” for the first time at the King Biscuit Blues Festival in Helena, Arkansas. Ingram, then 14 years old, was playing on a tiny stage to an audience of roughly a dozen people. “He was executing wonderfully, but he was playing a whole lot of notes all the time, and singing standard blues songs in the voice of a 14-year-old,” remembers Iglauer. “I was impressed with his chops, but thought that he had to learn to tell a story with his playing, including more dynamics, more rests and pauses, more ‘tension and release.’”
Five years later, in 2018, Iglauer heard him play again at the Chicago Blues Festival. Things had changed. “He totally knocked me out,” says Iglauer. “His talent was much more mature and exciting. He carried himself completely confidently on stage, introducing the songs and bantering with the audience.”
That was the year that Ingram cut his debut album, Kingfish, which was released in May 2019 on Alligator. Kingfish is a clean, well-oiled machine, a slick handshake introduction from Ingram. It covers classic, slinking, electric juke joint blues, overdriven blues rock ’n’ roll, finger-picked acoustic blues, and even some pop R&B over its 12 tracks, all showcasing Ingram’s mastery of blues guitar and singing. 662 covered much of the same ground, but mixed in some production tricks. “Another Life Goes By,” Ingram’s plea against anti-Black violence, took notes from ’90s hip-hop and R&B, with digital drums and clean, contemplative leads punctuating the singer’s deep, rich vibrato.
Ingram explains that both of his full-length records were cut with studio musicians instead of his touring band, which includes long-time friend and drummer Chris Black, bassist Paul Rogers, and keyboardist Sean Alexander. This is the crew that backs him on Live In London. “It goes deeper than being a band,” says Ingram. “They’ve been with me during some hard times for sure.” On Live In London, Ingram and his trusted road comrades are out in full-force. No studio tricks or assists, just pure blues-music excellence. Even Ingram’s sound is simple as can be. These days, he plays his signature Fender Kingfish Telecaster Deluxe through a Fender Twin that he boosts with a Marshall ShredMaster. At a few points on Live In London, he stomps a wah, too. Other than that, he says, he’s got a tuning pedal. No aces up his sleeves.
“Blues is life. Blues is always gonna be around us as long as somebody’s feeling down.”
Listening through Live In London, it’s easy to see why. He simply doesn’t need them. Even without the rhythm guitars that back him on his studio releases, Ingram’s playing somehow fills the gaps with thoughtful phrasings, and the extra space lets all the performances glisten just a bit more. Ingram says that while certain songs have parts that call for specific licks, all the solos are improvised. But where earlier in his career he might have favored speed, these days he aims for sincerity. “I do always try to have in the back of my mind to tell a story, try to paint a picture with the notes rather than just saying a whole lot but not meaning anything,” he says.
Christone "Kingfish" Ingram's Gear
Ingram’s playing is contemplative and warm on Live In London, filling up the space left by the absence of a rhythm guitar. But he doesn’t use tricks to beef up his presence—his rig is dead-simple.
Photo by Steve Kalinsky
Effects
- Marshall ShredMaster
- Cry Baby Mini Wah
Strings & Picks
- D’Addario (.011s)
“I’m not the best singer, I’m not the best technical guitar player,” he continues. “I can’t really do all the ‘wows!’ like other players can, but what I bring to the table, it comes from the heart for me. It’s real. I think that’s why people are drawn to what I do.”
Ingram and his band poured months of work into the Live In London set, rehearsing both in Los Angeles and in London before the date. Ingram wanted the show to tell a story with its sequencing and arrangements, and it helped that he developed some new narrative tools through the pandemic’s downtime. Stuck at home, Ingram dug back into music theory and worked on expanding the borders of his playing style, an experience he describes as “wonderful.” Those techniques lend the record its most compelling qualities—what Alligator’s Iglauer describes as “the energy and spontaneous creativity that [Ingram] delivers every night, plus the extended guitar improvisation that proves what a giant guitar talent he is.”
Live In London clocks in at just over 90 minutes with little to no fat—it’s a lean, athletic set, and Ingram says that’s par for the course, maybe even a touch on the shorter side. “We play two hours max every night,” he says. “This is like a normal show, we just added more songs and played ’em in less time.”
Ingram’s peers might not understand his reverence for the blues, but veteran blues label head Bruce Iglauer says he’s part of a wave of young Black American guitarists picking up the genre and making it their own.
Photo by Brad Elligood
In any genre, a youthful prodigy is always destined to raise eyebrows, but perhaps Ingram’s commitment to a field with a cultural import that feels shrunk from its mid-1900s heyday is particularly relevant. Iglauer, though, sees Ingram not as an anomaly, but the spearhead of a new wave of young Black blues musicians, originating from all corners of the United States. Iglauer lists off a stream of names: D.K. Harrell, Stephen Hull, Matthias Lattin, Sean McDonald, Dylan Triplett, Jontavious Willis, Andrew Alli, and Joey J. Saye. Some of them are pushing the genre’s themes forward with political messages; some are playing with its structure, mixing it with soul or reggae. But the most exciting thing, says Iglauer, is that they’re all supporting one another, and building a new era of blues. “Kingfish has already emerged as the most popular artist of this new generation, but there will be more to come,” says Iglauer. “It’s a rebirth of the blues from within the Black community.”Ingram has mentioned before that his youthful peers don’t understand his love for the blues. Ingram has ideas for how to stoke interest. ”We just come to their level a bit and add what they like to it, and once we get ’em in, we can teach ’em about the real and raw thing.” But he also thinks they’re missing an elemental piece of the human experience in the music. “This notion that the blues is dead or dying, it’s not true,” says Ingram. “Blues is life. Blues is always gonna be around us as long as somebody’s feeling down.”
Christone "Kingfish" Ingram - Midnight Heat (Live)
Live from the Garage in London, England, Kingfish and his band rip through a sweltering performance of “Midnight Heat,” a ’70s funk-indebted joint. About halfway through, Ingram takes his signature Telecaster Deluxe on a face-melter.
Both men have since achieved cult status, and even though their paths crossed countless times over the decades, surprisingly they’d never collaborated on any music until now. “People had suggested it, but I never really gave it a thought,” says Pinnick, who is currently working on five separate projects. “I mean, I get so many opportunities and suggestions to play with people. It’s not something that I really think about.”
In 2012, Gales’ label president—the impresario almost single-handedly responsible for feeding the shred craze of the ’80s—reached out to Pinnick. “Mike Varney from Shrapnel Records called me up one day and asked if I’d be interested in doing a project with Eric and Thomas [Pridgen, ex-Mars Volta],” Pinnick says. “I said, ‘Sure, it sounds really good.’” Soon after the call, supergroup Pinnick Gales Pridgen was born. “I did it originally for the paycheck, but after I did it, I went, ‘Wow. That was a lot of fun. Let’s do it again,’” says Pinnick.
The power trio’s self-titled debut release Pinnick Gales Pridgen infuses Gales’ Hendrix-meets-Eric Johnson stylings with Pinnick and Pridgen’s prog-flavored twists to create a heavy, riff-laden masterpiece of mostly originals, with Gales and Pinnick sharing vocal duties. There’s also a low-tuned cover of Cream’s iconic “Sunshine of Your Love”—a ballsy move, given the song’s almost holy status among classic rock fans.
“I was like, ‘Everybody’s done it—now watch us [expletive] it up,’” says Pinnick. “Anybody can do that song, but nobody’s done it like we’ve done it. I thought what we needed on this record was to have Eric and Thomas do what they do best. I said, ‘Let’s just overkill. Nobody’s gonna tell you that you can’t—that’s what people want to hear!’ I just laid back and plugged along and sang, because Eric and Thomas are really killin’ it.”
Here, Gales and Pinnick tell Premier Guitar what went into the making of Pinnick Gales Pridgen and share their unorthodox approaches to their instruments and gear, including Gales’ signature Two-Rock amp and Pinnick’s 12-string bass—and the rare pickups that are the secret to his sound.
Eric Gales plays all of his guitars upside down and lefty, including his signature St. Blues Blindsider. Photo by Willem Kuijpers
Pinnick Gales Pridgen kicks ass like a
band that’s played together forever. What’s
interesting is that, as cohesive as it sounds,
you’re coming from different musical
backgrounds—Eric, you’re often labeled
a blues-rock guitarist, and Doug, you’re
often considered a bit of a prog-metal
bassist. What was the common ground?
Eric Gales: Man, you know that’s a really
good question. I don’t even know if I have
the proper words to say how or where it
meets together. The one thing I know is
that it does meet.
Doug Pinnick: We’re black. That’s what
I think. It’s a 3-piece, all-black rock band.
We haven’t had one of those since Living
Colour. There’s camaraderie between the
three of us because we all came from a
heavy gospel background growing up—not
gospel preaching, but gospel groove. That’s
the thing that I connect with them on more
than anything else, and on our next record
I hope that we can bring that out more.
Did any of the material brought in for
this album take any of you out of your
comfort zone?
Gales: Never. Not for any one of us.
Pinnick: Y’know, I never even gave that a
thought. The thing I enjoyed about it was
that Eric just stepped up to the plate. It was
nice to see his eyes light up when we played
some of the songs that I brought in, which
didn’t have “normal” changes. He found
new things to do—and when he did, he
always looked up and smiled. We knew that
we were on the right track.
Did you write any of the songs together?
Gales: Some of them were written together.
We would go in and put grooves together
and write lyrics over them.
Pinnick: I brought seven or eight songs
in that I had previously written to see if
the guys would like any of them. We took
five of those. We collaborated on two, Eric
brought a song in, and Mike Varney wrote
two songs and brought them in.
Gales: Me, Doug, Thomas, and Mike all
worked together. We went in and didn’t waste
any time. The whole project didn’t take more
than two weeks to do—two weeks. The core
tracks were done live. I like to predominantly
work that way. Once you know the direction
you’re going in, it should be a continuous
driving force, and the people you’re working
with will help you refine it. I don’t think it should take six months or a year to do a project.
You can lose the freshness.
What inspired the cover of “Sunshine of
Your Love” ? Are you guys just big fans of it?
Pinnick: I guess I am a fan. I don’t know …
I never really tried to learn it before. I think
there’s just a vibe about it that’s cool and soulful,
like a “You Really Got Me” kind of thing.
I think that was my idea. We tuned down
really low on that one. I figured it would be
really intense, because I know what Thomas
can do—especially when he’s got a lot of space
to do it in. And Eric can do leads for three
hours straight without repeating himself.
Eric, in your solo, you imply parts of the
original Clapton solo.
Gales: Exactly—you’re a smart dude [laughs].
Did you learn the whole solo at some
point in the past?
Gales: I did. Me and my brothers used to
play that song, and I played the solo note-for-note. For this recording, I was like,
“Well, why do it exactly like the original?”
That’s why we dropped the key to D♭.
Did the strings get floppy when you
detuned that low?
Gales: It’s not the whole guitar, just the
bottom string. I usually like to play tuned
down to E♭, so I just transposed the bottom
string. It’s a little bit looser and it’s lighter
on the vocals. It’s not confusing—it’s grown
to be very easy for me to do.
We’re in a few different keys on this
record. Doug likes to do tunings like low C
and low B♭. Some of the songs are in standard
tuning, which I rarely ever do.
Pinnick: I always play in dropped-C.
When I play with other people, if they
don’t want to tune down that low, I’ll tune
up to them. Or maybe I’ll stay in my tuning
anyway and make something up around
it. I’ll transpose if I need to. Whatever fits.
Every now and then, there are certain songs
where you just have to use the open string,
so I’ll tune to whatever the guitar player’s
tuned to. It doesn’t matter to me really.
Tell us about “Me and You.” That one has
some interesting chords.
Gales: I like that one because it incorporates
a lot of clean stuff. It gave me a chance
to throw in a lot of the Eric Johnson-y stuff
that I like to do.
How did you come up with those chords—by ear or from a theoretical approach?
Gales: Whatever comes to my head, man. I
say, “Put the track on and let me do something.”
The chords were already there, but
the clean stuff takes me back to my days of
listening to things like “Little Wing.”
Bassist Doug Pinnick uses a rare Seymour Duncan “domino” pickup with three switches, powered by 9V batteries.
Who were some of your early influences?
Gales: My older brother would put on
Robin Trower, Frank Marino, Eric Johnson,
Stevie Ray, Beck, or Clapton. I was five or
six years old and I was digging all this stuff.
The early days of listening to Albert King is
where that influence of the wide bends I do
comes from.
Doug, in your various projects, do different
guitarists ask for different things
from you? For example, you’re also
involved in a project with George Lynch,
who has a totally different playing style
than Eric.
Pinnick: Actually, I’ve been trying to
change my bass playing, period. I’ve always
been one to play really simple and stay in
the groove, but lately I’ve been trying to
get into this John Entwistle thing every
now and then, and start overplaying. It’s
fun. The thing with Eric and George—or
any guitar player I’m playing with nowadays—is that I’ve decided to never follow
them, or to follow them as little as I can,
and make up my own bass lines. Sort of
like the approach of James Jamerson, or
even the old Stax records with Donald
“Duck” Dunn playing. The bass lines were
the things that you would remember. I’ve
been trying to go back to that sensibility.
It’s been interesting for me, because guitar
players play more now than they used to
because we’ve forgotten about the bass. The
challenge for me is to see if I can come up
with something that complements the guitar
part, and sometimes those guitar parts
can be pretty busy. It’s been a challenge but
it’s been fun. The only feedback I get is that
it’s really, really good. Hardly anybody has
ever said that they didn’t like it. I know that
there are people out there that don’t, but I do so much stuff that if one album sucks,
the next one will be good [laughs].
Eric, “For Jasmine” is a solo guitar tour
de force inspired by “Für Elise.” Was it
Mike Varney’s idea to include that?
Gales: I often play that live, and Mike was,
like, “I think you should make that an
interlude track.” That one’s for my daughter.
Are you hybrid-picking the wide triad
shapes you play on that cut?
Gales: Yes, exactly. I do a lot of that. I can’t
particularly label what all of it is. It would
take somebody like you to say, “He’s using
this technique or that technique.” I do
whatever feels comfortable to me. Since the
beginning, I’ve been told that I play abnormally.
Who’s to say that everybody else isn’t
wrong and I’m right? [Laughs.]
Speaking of “abnormal,” you also play your
guitar upside down but strung normally.
Gales: Yeah, I don’t re-string it or anything
like that. I just take a right-handed guitar
and flip it over. I don’t reverse the strings. Doug does. He plays left-handed but he
plays an actual left-handed bass. When I first
put it like this [gestures holding the guitar
upside down], that’s what felt comfortable to
me. Before I knew it, I was off to the races.
I write with my right hand but play guitar
left-handed, upside down, so my little string
is up top. When I bend it, I pull down.
Do you use a pick or your fingers, Doug?
Pinnick: I use a pick mainly. I can use my
fingers, but I’m not as accurate as I am with
a pick.
You’re known for using 12-string basses, too.
Pinnick: I only have one right now. I sold
the rest of them to pay some bills. They
were my old, old 12-strings, so I don’t feel
bad about selling them. Although I would
have loved to keep them.
Did you get a pretty penny for them?
Pinnick: I don’t think I really got a lot
for them, but they’re in good hands. It’s
a Hamer collector who has them all, so I
know where they’re at. The Yamaha, which
I use live, was made specifically for me.
John [Gaudesi], the guy that built it, made
it for me in his spare time. There are people
in high places that are King’s X fans and
are really good to me and give me things
and help me out. People in these companies
appreciate what I do, and I appreciate
them. Most of them aren’t going to make a
lot of money off of me, so they’re not going
to make a signature anything. I’m using Schecter basses now. I’ve been with them
for a couple of years, and they told me
they’re going to make me some 12-strings.
What are your main axes now then, Doug?
Pinnick: I used my Schecter Model-T bass
in the studio, but I also have a Baron-H
bass, which looks like a Telecaster and is
kind of a hollowbody. They just started
making that for me.
Is it prone to feedback because it’s hollow?
Pinnick: I don’t know—I like the way it
looks [laughs]. Whatever I play, it’s more
because I like the way it looks than how it
plays. I get pretty much the same tone no
matter what I play because of the pickups
I use.
What are those?
Pinnick: It’s a Seymour Duncan pickup
with three switches on it. There’s no name
on it, but it’s the only bass “domino” pickup
with three switches on it that you’ll ever see.
I have it rigged up with two 9V batteries.
Does that get you super-high output?
Pinnick: Yeah, super high. They stopped
making them about 15 years ago. I have
five of them, and I’ve been taking them out
of my old basses and putting them in my
new ones, so I have a garage full of basses
with no pickups in them. Maybe someone
will come along and be able to make me
something comparable.
Eric Gales’ Gear
Guitars
Fender ’62 Strat, Magneto Sonnet Raw
Dawg, Xotic XS-1, St. Blues Blindsider
Amps
Two-Rock signature model
Effects
Tech 21 Boost D.L.A., Dunlop EVH
Phase 90, Mojo Hand FX Colossus,
EWS Brute Drive, TC Electronic Nova
(for delay), Dunlop Cry Baby wah
Strings, Picks, and Accessories
Dunlop .010–.046 strings, medium-gauge
custom Dunlop picks,
custom leather strap with straplocks,
Shure wireless
How about you, Eric, what are your
main guitars?
Gales: I have an original ’62 Strat that I
take out on the road. I also have a number
of different guitars from companies that
I’m endorsed by, and they’re all based on
the three-single-coil configuration. I don’t
particularly like to choose one that’s exclusive.
I learned that from Jimmy Dunlop.
He said, “Man, that’s why Baskin-Robbins
made 31 flavors.” To me, it could be a Sears
Silvertone and a Pignose amp—it isn’t what
it is, it’s what you do with it. I’m not what
you’d call a gear freak.
But you have a signature amp from Two-
Rock, a company that represents the holy
grail for many a gear freak.
Gales: [Laughs.] Right, right. But I just take
what I have and work with it. See, amp-wise,
I use my signature model Two-Rock, but predominantly I use the clean channel
on it because I like to use floor pedals—I
also use a Mojo Hand fuzz pedal and an
EWS Brute Drive. But I do love the gain
channel of my amp.
So why not just use the amp’s gain channel?
Gales: It all depends on how I feel. See, I
purposely chose not to have an effects loop
in my amp.
Your sound often incorporates a good
amount of delay, and without a loop, you
can’t place your delay after the amp’s dirt.
Gales: Exactly. Now I could go and have
them modify the amp, but I’ve gotten so
comfortable doing it this way. It’s a personal
thing and not a matter of a better or worse
way of doing it.
Doug Pinnick’s Gear
Basses
Schecter Model-T (studio), Schecter
Baron-H, custom Yamaha 12-string
built by John Gaudesi
Amps
Fractal Audio Axe-Fx Ultra (soon to
be replaced by the Axe-Fx II), Ampeg
SVT-4Pro, Ampeg cabinets
Strings, Picks, and Accessories
DR Strings .045–.100 sets, custom
picks, handmade straps
Had you guys worked with Thomas
Pridgen prior to this project?
Gales: Thomas played on my previous solo
record on Varney’s label, so I’ve know him
for about six or seven years.
Pinnick: I met Thomas once before this
project—I’m good friends with a friend
of his—but I never had a chance to really
talk to him until I met him when we got
together to make the record.
Is Pinnick Gales Pridgen an ongoing project?
Gales: Absolutely. We’re already talking
about going back into the studio. It’s a side
project, but it’s far more than a side project.
The reason I say it’s a side project is that
we’re not excluding the stuff that we do on
our own.
Doug, earlier you referenced Living
Colour. Will Pinnick Gales Pridgen be
this generation’s version?
Pinnick: If it was 1990, we would have
MTV and radio, and the war would be trying
to get the band to sell lots of records.
Nowadays, it’s like the Wild West, so I have
no idea what can or will happen. We can
make plans—touring, making records, and
doing all the interviews in the world—but
at the end of the day, it’s a new way of
thinking. There are no guarantees [laughs].
With any star-studded lineup, one might
expect a clash of egos. Was there any
drama in the sessions?
Pinnick: [Laughs.] No, not at all. There
was no time for that. We knew that we had
to get the record done so everybody was on
top of their game.
Gales: An important thing is that we didn’t
want to take away any of the elements of
who we were before we got together. If
anything, we wanted to add to that. I think
that’s exactly the point.
Pinnick: We were just excited to hear what
the other guys would be contributing. With
Eric and Thomas, they can play “Mary Had
a Little Lamb,” and it’s got style and passion
to it.
YouTube It
See and hear Eric Gales and Doug Pinnick doing what
they do best in the following live clips.
This studio clip captures the
raw energy of Pinnick Gales
Pridgen as the trio lays down
their new track “Hang on, Big
Brother.” They really crank up
the jam around 2:30.
Eric Gales tears it up on a live
rendition of Stevie Wonder’s
“Superstition.” Check out
the delicious chord voicings
he uses between 1:35–1:41,
which set up the avalanche
to come when he kicks in the
dirt at 2:24.
Pinnick performs “Summerland”
with King’s X at the House
of Blues in Orlando, Florida.
Lee Boys consists exclusively of family members: brothers Alvin (guitar), Derrick, and Keith Lee (vocals), and their nephews Alvin Cordy Jr. (bass), Earl Walker (drums), and Collier (pedal steel guitar). From about age 7, they all learned to play multiple instruments and grew up performing sacred-steel music at the House of God Church in Perrine, Florida. In 2000, they lost two family members who were significant musical influences—Reverend Robert E. Lee and Glenn Lee—and from that point, they decided to move beyond the walls of the church. “The torch was passed on,” Collier says. “That was my cue and signal that it’s time for me to take this to a whole ’nother level. Everybody felt the same way, and that’s when we went full-fledged onto the scene.”
In 2003, the Lee Boys had their first big tour playing the Blues to Bop Festival in France and Switzerland. “We were fresh on the scene, and we went overseas first. That was really big for us—I was nervous, nervous as dirt,” Collier recalls. “But the crowd went crazy. They were up dancing and praising.” By that time, other sacred-steel acts like Robert Randolph and the Campbell Brothers had already made their mark, but the Lee Boys hit the festival circuit with a vengeance and quickly developed a reputation for their frenetic shows. In 2008, after performing at Bonnaroo, the band debuted on national TV with a killer performance on Conan O’Brien. “That year was a turning point for us,” Alvin says.
Alvin Lee (left) and Roosevelt Collier (right) jam with Warren Haynes on his Man in Motion tour at Atlanta’s Tabernacle in 2011. Photo by Lisa Keel/peachtreeimages.com
Not surprisingly, the Lee Boys’ high-energy, improv-laden live shows have made them a favorite of the jam-band scene, too. In addition to trading licks with Sco, they’ve shared the stage with some of that genre’s brightest stars including Victor Wooten, Soulive’s Eric Krasno, and Warren Haynes. The latter, in particular, was instrumental in getting the band into the spotlight. “He let us jam on his sets with Gov’t Mule, gave us an opportunity to play with the Allman Brothers Band, and also let us open up for his band,” notes Alvin.
Haynes also signed the Lee Boys to Evil Teen, a label he co-owns, and made a guest appearance on Testify, the band’s latest release. Virtuoso guitarist Jimmy Herring was also enlisted to play on a few tracks and turned up the heat with his finger-twisting lines. “There’s a saying that if you want to be good, play with people that are better than you,” says Collier. “To play with Jimmy on the same tracks—that upped my game. Because of the stuff that Jimmy was laying down, I had to almost prove myself, you know? I had to play my heart out.” Collier is referring to tracks like “Always by My Side” and the title track “Testify,” which showcases an incendiary display of friendly fire, with Herring’s country-fied lines answered by Collier’s chromatically ascending patterns.
Roosevelt Collier's Gear
Guitars
DL [Dan Lawson] lap steel, Fessenden 10-string pedal steel
Amps
Fender Hot Rod Deluxe, Egnater Renegade 112, Marsh 50-watt closed-back amp
Effects
Pigtronix pedals (Overdrive, Envelope Filter, Sustain), Ernie Ball volume pedal, Dunlop Cry Baby Wah, Boss GT-8
Strings
Ernie Ball Steel Guitar Strings
“I was born with this gift of playing the steel, but it was up to me to take that gift and grow with it,” says Collier. “I used to go off a thousand miles a minute—on each song, each solo was a thousand miles a minute. I got the reputation for being fast, like, ‘Man, this guy is lightning speed.’ But when a friend like Rick Lollar would come onstage, he’d play like eight notes and eat me alive. The crowd would go crazy, because he built his stuff. It’s all about building. Save your big guns for later on.”
The songwriting on Testify comprises a unique mix of positive messages, catchy grooves, and sophisticated harmonies. Tracks like “Sinnerman” (which references Stevie Wonder’s “I Wish”) and “We Need to Hear from You” make use of unexpected modulations that would be equally at home on a Steely Dan cut. “Between jazz and funk, that’s where you’ll find me,” says Alvin. “If you listen to my chord progressions, you’ll hear a lot of jazz influences. A lot of the church musicians were big influences, but I also like guys like Victor Wooten, Stanley Clarke, and Jaco Pastorius—because I mainly played bass coming up. I also loved George Benson and Stanley Jordan.”
Alvin Lee's Gear
Guitars
Fender Strat with Roland MIDI pickup
Amps
Fender Twin Reverb, Roland JC-120
Effects
Roland GR-33 guitar synth, Boss GT-8
Strings and Picks
D’Addario .010 sets, Fender medium picks
The Lee Boys don’t come from an academically jazz background per se, but they‘re always experimenting, taking lessons, and applying their knowledge of theory to different styles. “I have a lot of jazz influence because of these guys I’ve come across,” Collier says. “This scene outside of the church has been a big influence on me. I’ve learned a lot. With us intertwining that theory with our traditional sacred steel—plus all the different genres that we listen to—I think that formed the Lee Boys style.”
Because the band members were raised as multi-instrumentalists, they often switch instruments onstage, with Alvin switching to bass or pedal steel and Collier playing electric guitar or bass. For the most part though, Alvin is on guitar—the perfect foil for Collier’s overdriven steel explorations. “My main guitar is a Fender Strat with a Roland MIDI setup and a GR-33 guitar synth,” Alvin says. “I use a MIDI piano or organ sound to give it a full, gospel-spirit feel. More or less, Roosevelt is doing all the picking and I stay in the background and kind of form the body with chords. From my background as a bass player, I use medium picks because I like to hit the strings a little harder. I usually do licks with my rhythm patterns, so I need some resistance, but I don’t use heavy picks because I don’t solo that much.” While Lee and Collier are both proponents of the Boss GT-8 multi-effects unit, it’s a family feud when it comes to amps: Alvin favors a Fender Twin Reverb and Roland JC-120, while Collier vehemently disagrees. “No, no, no, no, dude. I don’t use Twin Reverbs—I can’t stand them,” he says. “Back at church, the only amp that we actually played out of was a Peavey Session 500, which is a solid-state amp. But I learned about amps, wattage, and tubes. Now, I really don’t like to use anything past a 50-watt amp, because I like to crank the bad boy up. Now I use a Fender Hot Rod Deluxe, because it has a smooth overdrive channel. But my first-choice amp is an Egnater Renegade 112—that amp smokes. But a lot of your tone is your personal touch.”
YouTube It
Watch below for a taste of the Lee Boys’ high-energy, sacred-steel-meets-jam-band live performances.
The Lee Boys build to an insane climax
on “Come on Help Me Lift Him
Up” at the 2008 Bonnaroo festival.
Joined onstage by Warren
Haynes at the Fillmore Silver
Spring in Maryland, the Lee Boys
perform a rip-roaring rendition of
Jimi Hendrix’s “Voodoo Chile.”
Bassist extraordinaire Victor Wooten
backs the Lees on this 2009
rendition of “Testify”—the title
track of their latest release—at the
House of Blues in New Orleans.