Sadie Dupuis of Speedy Ortiz and sad13.
These devices made of magnets, wire coils, and bobbins have their own distinct magic, and choosing the right pickup to create your sound is a big deal to almost every guitarist, but especially to higher-profile working players who need to dependably recreate their ideal tone every night, for the simple reason that it’s the aural representation of their musical soul.
So, we asked five 6-string heavyweights about their favorite pickups. Some talked about their signature models—cultivated to their tastes—and others about classics and their modern variations. We also dipped into acoustic-guitar amplification with a rising star of instrumental folk music. But let’s start with one of the world’s most prominent guitar collectors, who is also the reigning king of blues rock.
Joe Bonamassa
Joe plays his astonishingly clean 1950 Broadcaster.
Joe Bonamassa 1950 Broadcaster Set ($310 street)
Think of legend-in-the-making Joe Bonamassa as a pickup archaeologist. The vintage gear hound is always sifting through the sands of guitar acquisition, looking for good bones. And while nearly every part of a 6-string has an impact on overall sound, think of the pickups as the femur—the main support of great tone.
Like an archaeologist, Bonamassa often makes his finds available to the public, as evidenced by the many classic instruments that have been reproduced as his signature models, and by those sonic femurs—the sets of pickups—that bear his name. His line of Seymour Duncan sets include the Bludgeon ’51 Nocaster, the Blonde Dot 1960 ES-335 humbucker, the Cradle Rock ’63 Strat, the Bonnie 1955 hardtail Strat, and the Amos Flying V humbuckers—all bearing the appellatives he’s given to the special instruments that they hail from—plus a signature pair based on the hummers in one of his 1959 sunburst Les Pauls.
“Some people have signature pickups where they want a certain winding that they want to go into a signature guitar, or some other design they spec out,” Bonamassa says. “I’m not that original. I have a big guitar collection, and each guitar is a little bit different. And it’s like, ‘Why do I play the Nocaster or why do I think the Broadcaster is exceptional?’ It’s because of what’s in it: Not all flat poles and humbucking pickups are created equal.”
It’s natural that the pickup set currently at the front of Bonamassa’s mind is his latest Duncan recreation: his 1950 Broadcaster set from … yeah … his killer 1950 Broadcaster. They have alnico 2 (neck) and alnico 4 magnets, 6.27k resistance at the neck and 8.96k at the bridge, and cloth pushback cable. And while they were resurrected by Bonamassa and Duncan, they were most certainly designed by Leo Fender.
Bonamassa shares his perspective on the pickup development process. “I’m not swapping pickups in my original Broadcaster that’s worth almost a quarter-million dollars, so I always have a ‘donor’ guitar,” he begins. “I have a generic Custom Shop Strat for the Stratocaster stuff, and I’ve got a template Les Paul. In the case of the Broadcaster, Seymour Duncan actually bought a Squier as the test guitar—and that’s the true test. If your Squier sounds as good as that Broadcaster, then we’ve
done our job.”
What does Bonamassa look for in a pickup? “I’m especially interested in the treble side. For humbuckers, I like a higher winding, so it’s a little darker and it barks. Same thing with a flat pole. My favorite flat pole is the one that’s in my Nocaster. It reads at like 9k Leo. And I’m like, wow! It’s just how it was wound in 1951. But overall, if you’re going to really look at pickups, you’ve got to know what they do and don’t do. If you’re talking about a P-90, what P-90 are you talking about? Something that would go into a Les Paul Standard, a Junior? It could sound different in any context. If I need a Junior, I want it all-mahogany and a P-90, right? There’s no putting a set of pickups in a guitar and thinking, ‘Oh, the guitar now sounds magical.’ They have a symbiotic relationship with the wood and with the strings. The great guitars are the ones where you have all the combinations going at once.”
So, what’s the archaeologist’s next “dig?” “I have a Telecaster from ’52 that has an original Paul Bigsby pickup that is pretty exceptional. I really want to see what that’s about.”—Ted Drozdowski
Joe Bonamassa’s signature 1950 Broadcaster pickup set from Seymour Duncan.
Sadie Dupuis - Speedy Ortiz, sad13
Sadie Dupuis plays her Joe Parker Spectre, outfitted with Lollar Mini-Humbuckers.
Lollar Mini-Humbuckers ($190 street)
Sadie Dupuis’ guitar work probably lives in the realm of alternative rock, but her interpretation and distortion of that genre’s sounds makes her playing an absolute thrill. Speedy Ortiz’s latest record, 2023’s Rabbit Rabbit, is a delightful, freakish outgrowth of bubblegum pop-rock and punkish, arty indie rock; the back-to-back punches of “You S02” and “Scabs” capture not only the band’s wonky, razor-sharp arrangement instincts, but Dupuis’ bonkers breadth of tones, most of which sear and needle through the full-band chaos.
To cover this range of needs and maintain articulation, Dupuis relies on the Lollar Mini-Humbuckers loaded into her Joe Parker Spectre. Lollar’s minis are like a smaller PAF, with one bar magnet positioned under each coil with adjustable pole pieces made out of a ferrous alloy and the second coil containing a ferrous metal bar that is not adjustable—for more bass and more output than an alnico core. Typically their DC resistance at the neck is 6.6k and 7.2k at the bridge. They come with seven different cover options, and there’s a pre-wired kit especially for Les Pauls.
“Since I’m playing leads most of the set, and since I play fingerstyle, I need clear output and sustain that will cut well through the rest of the stage levels and not lose presence,” says Dupuis. “But I also play with noisy pedals, and find the mini humbuckers give a good balance of volume, clarity, and character, without the buzzy chaos of some popular alternatives.” P-90s, for example, don’t get along with her board, but Lollar Imperials, which Dupuis has loaded into her Moniker Anastasia, are another option that deliver the precision she needs.
Dupuis grew up playing Strats, which tuned her ear for a personal guitar EQ that skews brighter, so she appreciates a “somewhat darker-leaning pickup to add body and depth to what could otherwise be a treble overload. A lot of what I’m seeking in a recording environment is a novel sound for that specific moment in that specific track, meaning I’ll pick up guitars I wouldn’t or couldn’t bother with onstage,” adds Dupuis. “Onstage, I just want pickups that can communicate the melodies clearly, reflect my effects transparently, and help the guitar hold its own in tandem with my very loud bandmates!”—Luke Ottenhof
Lollar Mini-Humbuckers
James Hetfield - Metallica
James Hetfield snarls for the camera while extracting huge tone from his EMG Het set.
EMG JH Het Set Active Humbuckers ($269 street)
“Pickups are one of the things that helps an artist make a vision come true,” says James Hetfield, the frontman of heavyweight champions Metallica. “Besides all the crunch and the super-heavy stuff, the clean sound is super important to me … developing a clean pickup that has dynamics. I love the passive pickup, but I love the power of the active pickup, and combining those two things.”
So, over a two-year period, starting in early 2009, Hetfield worked with EMG founder Rob Turner to develop his favorite tone kickers, the Het pickup set. “Rob is the mastermind behind EMG pickups. He’s been working directly with us for all these years. We tried many, many things. He’s the kind of guy that will show up at HQ, listen to what you got, what you want to try—and he put together exactly what I was after. I wanted to have something a little more responsive and lively,” compared to traditional passive humbuckers.
The resulting active Het humbuckers have individual ceramic pole pieces with an alnico bar magnet (which is different from EMG’s famed 81s), the customary ground and hot wiring plus a 9V battery, and employ EMG’s solderless connectivity system. And they come in six cover-color options: brushed black chrome, black chrome, gold, chrome, brushed gold, and brushed chrome. The “Het Set” includes a JH-N for the neck that boasts ceramic poles and bobbins with a larger core, and are taller than EMG’s all-around, multi-style pickup, the 60 model, to produce more attack, higher output, and a richer low end. The JH-B has the same core, but with steel pole pieces. This creates a tight attack with less inductance for a cleaner low end. “This has the old-school look of the old [passive] pickups, and the new EMG heaviness sound,” Hetfield adds.—Ted Drozdowski
A black chrome set of Hetfield’s EMG signatures.
Yasmin Williams
Multi-faceted guitarist Yasmin Williams, pictured with her Skyrocket Grand Concert.
Photo by Ebru Yidiz
Acoustic: James May Engineering the Ultra Tonic V3 ($249 street)
Electric: Diliberto Pickups Custom SuperClean YW
Yasmin Williams, known for her distinctively buoyant, hopeful, sparkling, instrumental acoustic guitar compositions, has pickups in both her main acoustic and electric guitars that are as uniquely customized to her playing as her approach to her own songwriting.
Williams’ main acoustic is a Skyrocket Grand Concert. It’s equipped with the Ultra Tonic V3 Pickup by James May Engineering. “I think they just sound the best, period,” she effuses, quick to praise the work of the boutique builder. “They have the highest fidelity as far as any pickups I’ve played with on acoustic. They’re crystal clear.”
The Ultra Tonic V3’s setup is a bit involved. It comes with separate sensors to be glued to the underside of the bridge plate under the saddle, and to the far bass corner of the underside of the bridge plate. A circuit board attached to the inner end of the pickup’s jack comes with a 12-position balance control switch, which “enunciates different frequencies of your guitar.” During the setup, the guitarist selects the switch position they like best.
Williams’ main electric, an Epiphone ES-339 in Pelham blue, has pickups that were handmade and gifted to her by Hernán do Brito, a luthier for the Buenos Aires, Argentina-based company Diliberto Pickups, after the two released a song together (do Brito performs under the moniker “Dobrotto”). The SuperClean YW pickups set are made with alnico 5 magnets, with 7.9k resistance in the bridge and 6.8k in the neck. Do Brito also hand-painted them to match the pattern on a West African-themed shirt of Williams’.
“They’re pickups designed for a very clean tone, since I do a lot of tapping,” Williams explains. “There’s no muddiness; the tone is really bright—kind of high-end, but not screechy. They’re really good for math-rock type things, and they also play really well with pedals. They sound great with reverb; they sound great dirty, especially if you have a good overdrive. It sounds really good with Plumes, for example, by EarthQuaker Devices. I’ve never had pickups that sound as clear as these do. No noise, no nothing.”
—Kate Koenig
There is only one SuperClean YW pickups set, seen here in Williams’ Epiphone ES-339, made by luthier Hernán do Brito specifically for her.
Nels Cline - Wilco, solo, etc.
Few artists straddle the worlds of rock and experimentalism as well as Cline, and his tone is always killer.
Vintage Jazzmaster Single-Coils/Seymour Duncan Antiquity Jazzmasters ($238 street)
Throughout his work with Wilco and his far-reaching solo projects and collaborations, guitarist Nels Cline is often called upon for anything from warm jazz to overdriven rock to twang to explosive noise. And though he can be seen with quite a collection of instruments in his hands, ultimately, he says, the Jazzmaster “is my favorite guitar.”
“The way the Jazzmaster is designed is perfect for me,” he explains. That fondness extends to their pickups: “There’s the tonal variation of the two pickups with the rhythm switch that nobody but me seems to use, which is my instant jazz tone. Then, there’s the pickup-selector toggle-switch tones, and those are excellent.”
Cline most notably calls upon a pair of vintage models: his early 1960 Watt Jazzmaster, which he keeps in Chicago—so named because he purchased it from bassist Mike Watt—and his New York Jazzmaster. “I believe it’s an early ’59,” he says. Both maintain their original pickups. But the guitarist owns other Jazzmasters and some “fake ones,” and he points out: “If I have to put different pickups in one of my Jazzmasters, I put Duncan Antiquity pickups in them because Seymour Duncan understands what Jazzmasters are supposed to sound like, at least to my ear.”
You may already know this, but Jazzmaster pickups are unique among single-coils. They resemble P-90 soapbars, but unlike the P-90, which has magnets under its coils, the pole pieces in Jazzmaster pickups are, themselves, magnets. They also have flat, wide coils—so-called “pancake windings”—that yield a warmer, fatter tone. And they are reverse-wound, so the middle position yields hum-canceling. Duncan’s Jazzmaster pickups use alnico 2 magnets. They have a hearty 8.2k DC resistance in the neck and bridge.
“I wouldn’t put anything different in a Jazzmaster unless I had to mitigate 60-cycle hum,” he adds. And there are a host of options today, ready to tackle the job, that fit Jazzmasters and maintain the look while secretly containing alternative pickups under their covers. “I’ve done that with Duncan PAFs that look like Jazzmaster pickups,” says Cline. If he has a more specific request, Cline calls Bob Palmieri of Chicago’s Duneland Labs for a custom set. Cline says, “He’s a total genius.”
—Nick Millevoi
Up close and personal: a look at the pickups in one of Cline’s prized vintage Fender Jazzmasters.
In their corner, from left to right: Wilco’s Pat Sansone (guitars, keys, and more), drummer Glenn Kotche, Jeff Tweedy, bassist John Stirratt, guitarist Nels Cline, and keyboardist Mikael Jorgensen.
“It’s definitely weird having people know you that you don’t know,” he replied. “There’s a level of intimacy that some people feel they’ve had with you because you’ve reached them in intimate moments—your voice has, at least.” But rather than off-putting, he sees beauty in it: “I try to be really respectful of that, ’cause it’s ultimately really sweet. It’s flattering to be a companion to somebody that you don’t know. It’s one of the more beautiful things about doing what I do, in that it has the potential to be difference-making for somebody in a dark moment.”
With the release of Wilco’s 12th studio album, Cruel Country, Tweedy and the band are offering 21 new songs to connect with. And as its title suggests, Wilco sinks into a country vibe more than ever before. Tweedy speculates that fans have always assumed that Wilco is in some way a country band, and although he’s not sure he agrees, he decided to lean into that on Cruel Country.
I Am My Mother
Cruel Country has a concept behind it but isn’t necessarily a concept recording. Tweedy sees it as an “American music album about America.” The songwriter says he’s struggled with what American identity means for decades. “Going back as far as Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, that’s sort of a running theme through a lot of things I’ve written. I would call it an affection or a connection where I can’t really choose. Just like the soft spot you have for your family or the people that you wish knew better but just can’t help themselves, that you have been shown kindness from in other ways. I think that you can be critical of something, believe that its flaws are intolerable, and actually have love for the same person or the same thing. In this case, your country.” Of course, with its twangy riffs, bent-note solos, and other classic sonic signatures, the album can easily be heard as a loving homage to country music. Regardless, this new entry in Wilco’s catalog seems the next right step in the band’s career.
“It all becomes a part of the thing that you can’t fake—ensemble-based playing.”—Jeff Tweedy
The album blends Wilco’s classic sound with that twang and small doses of unconventional arrangements. It refamiliarizes us with Tweedy’s unassuming, mutedly sad, and at times droll lyrics. “Once, just by chance / I made a friend in an ambulance / I was half man, half broken glass,” he sings on “Ambulance.” In the single “Falling Apart (Right Now),” he reflects on the pervasive stress of modern life with the couplet, “Now don’t you lose your mind / While I’m looking for mine.” And in keeping with Wilco’s wilder moments, the band explores abstract effects on the nearly eight-minute “Many Worlds” and ventures into an extended jam for the second half of “Bird Without a Tail/ Base of My Skull.”
Cruel Country started back in 2020, when, after having to cancel a tour with Sleater-Kinney, Tweedy started sending the band songs to work on remotely. They got back on the road in 2021, and during those two years, Tweedy met occasionally with individual members at their Chicago recording and practice space, the Loft, to hash out material. But it wasn’t until January 2022 that all the members were able to meet at the space for the first time since before the pandemic.
Jeff Tweedy’s Gear
Jeff Tweedy used three acoustic guitars on Wilco’s latest, including his faithful Martin D-28. He praises Bob Dylan and Buck Owens as models for his own country-flavored acoustic rhythm playing.
Photo by Jordi Vidal
Guitars
- 1944 Martin D-28 named “Hank”
- 1933 Martin OM-18
- 1931 Martin OM-28
Strings & Picks
- D’Addario Phosphor Bronze EJ16 (.012–.053)
- D’Addario Phosphor Bronze EJ17 (.013–.056)
- Herco Flex 50
- Herco Flex 75
- Snarling Dogs Brain Picks, green, .53 mm
In the days leading up to that, Tweedy was writing more prolifically and continued to forward his rough demos to his bandmates. “The songs started coming very easily and felt very urgent, and it felt good to have a new song to sing each day,” he says.
Guitarist Nels Cline, Wilco’s sonic not-so-secret weapon, notes, “At one point last year, Jeff decided he wanted to send us a song a day that he would record on his smartphone, playing guitar and singing. As I recall, he wrote 51 songs in 52 days. And unlike a lot of his songwriting that we’ve experienced, a lot of these songs had finished lyrics and choruses and everything. Some were so absolutely classic in the style that I would loosely call country songs or folk songs that I didn’t know that they were Wilco songs.”
Multi-instrumentalist Pat Sansone adds, “But when we looked at the material that we had in the works, we saw that we had a lot that was in this style, and decided, ‘Why don’t we lean into these songs to make a body of work?’ I think it’s natural for us to do something like this. It’s always been a part of our vocabulary.”
“I’ve always loved that [B-Bender] sound and I certainly admire the great players. Clarence White was a genius and one of my favorite guitarists. And I’m a big fan of Marty Stuart’s guitar playing.”—Pat Sansone
When Wilco was able to meet, putting together the arrangements for Tweedy’s already fleshed-out ideas came easily. “We actually made the first disc of this record in January in two weeks,” Tweedy says. “And then we got together for two weeks in February and thought initially that we’d just be seeing if we could make anything that would beat the things that are on the first record. We ended up starting to feel like, well, this is kind of making itself a double record. The songs kind of inform each other.” Except for a few overdubs, the album was recorded live—just the six members playing in the studio together. Essentially, the two discs were recorded and released in five months.
When asked what they might have learned about themselves or the band in the making of Cruel Country, all three guitarists say—in some variation—that they discovered Sansone’s skills on the B-Bender Telecaster. “I’ve never seen that before [from him]; it was pretty mind-blowing,” Tweedy laughs.
Cline continues, “A lot of the really twangy, cool-sounding country-style guitar that you hear on this record is Pat. I don’t think he even deigned to add the B-Bender to the record until Jeff asked him at one point, ‘Do you have a B-Bender Telecaster?’ And it was so successful. He’s such a natural at it that Jeff asked him for it again and again on song after song.”
Nels Cline’s Gear
Nels Cline wiggles the vibrato arm on his main guitar, a 1960 Fender Jazzmaster that he’s dubbed “the Watt.”
Photo by Jim Bennett
Guitars
1930s National square-neck resonator
Duesenberg lap steel (with B- and G-Bender levers)
1940s National resonator with Bakelite neck
Early ’50s Epiphone Electar
Mule Resonators “The Mavis” electric resonator
1960 Jazzmaster aka “The Watt”
Neptune 12-string
Fano SP6 by Dennis Fano, with custom-designed Duneland Labs hum-canceling pickups
Amp
- Milkman Creamer with 50W Jupiter 12" speaker
Effects
- Moyo Volume pedal
- Boss CS-3 Compression Sustainer
- Walrus Audio Voyager overdrive
- Vintage MXR Phase 45
- EarthQuaker Devices Disaster Transport delay
- EarthQuaker Devices Aqueduct vibrato
- Big Foot FX Magnavibe
Strings, Picks & Cables
- GHS Boomers (.012 sets; “The Mavis” has flatwounds)
- Dunlop Ultex 1.14 mm
- Bluebird picks borrowed from Pat
- Divine Noise cables
“I’ve always loved that sound,” says Sansone, “and I certainly admire the great players. Clarence White was a genius and one of my favorite guitarists. And I’m a big fan of Marty Stuart’s guitar playing. It’s something that I learned that I really like to play, and it’s something that I definitely want to get better at.”
Of all the songs on the record, Sansone names “Mystery Binds,” a dreamy folk-rock ballad with plenty of texture, as one of his favorites. “That’s the song that Jeff had sent to us in the dark days of the pandemic when we were still working remotely. I immediately took to that song. I thought it had a really unique and beautiful mood and was something a bit different than anything I’d heard Jeff send us. ‘Many Worlds’ is another favorite. That was Nels and I playing together and kind of playing off each other, and that’s always a thrill—to be able to do that with him.”
Cline and Sansone say that “Many Worlds,” despite how kaleidoscopic its sonic architecture might seem given the abundance of effects and instrumentation, was recorded live like the rest of the album. Sansone actually got up in the middle of the song to switch from piano to guitar. “[We wanted to] see if we could play it live,” Tweedy shares. “We tried it, and you can hear us moving around on the track. But it all becomes a part of the thing that you can’t fake—ensemble-based playing.”
“One friend of my wife’s and mine who’s French once compared my lead guitar playing to the voice of Edith Piaf.”—Nels Cline
The three guitarists in the band have found their own ways to complement each other. Cline is often thought of as the lead guitarist, with Sansone typically alternating between back-up guitar and keys. Tweedy sets the tone at the front, either with rhythm strumming or fingerpicking. On Cruel Country, however, Cline comments that Sansone took the role of lead guitar on many songs with his B-Bender, and Tweedy says that his primary goal was to be a solid country strummer.
“One person I think is really good at that, oddly enough, is Bob Dylan. I like the drive that he has on his records when he’s playing acoustic guitar,” Tweedy opines. “I like Buck Owens and country recordings where it’s not even a specific player—it’s just a style of playing where the guitar becomes part of the rhythm section, almost like a tambourine or something.” The guitars Tweedy used on the album were all Martins, including his 1944 D-28, 1933 OM-18, and 1931 OM-28.
The axes Cline played on the album include a 1930s National square-neck resonator, a Duesenberg lap steel, a Neptune electric 12-string, and his main guitar, the 1960 Jazzmaster known as “the Watt.” Cline, whose background includes experimental and avant-garde jazz, names Electric Ladyland by the Jimi Hendrix Experience, Meditations by John Coltrane, and Solstice by Ralph Towner as three of his top albums. He also mentions that since age 10 he’s been fascinated and inspired by Indian classical music, and that among his many, many influences on the guitar is Peter Frampton—one he says journalists tend to leave out.
Pat Sansone’s Gear
Pat Sansone’s B-Bender-equipped Telecaster became an essential part of the new Wilco record, helping to put the steel-guitar sound of country into the new Cruel Country.
Photo by Jordi Vidal
Guitars
Tokai Telecaster with B-Bender
1963 Epiphone Casino
1988 Rickenbacker Roger McGuinn 370/12 12-string
Amp
- Vintage Fender Deluxe
Effects
- ’70s Ibanez Phase Tone II
Strings, Picks & Cables
- Assorted D’Addario sets
- Bluebird picks (made from 1930s Argentinian poker chips by Pat’s brother-in-law)
- Divine Noise cables
Cline describes himself as versatile and isn’t sure his jazz roots influence what he records with Wilco. “I try to change what I play based on what I think the song is asking for, or quite often what Jeff specifically asked for. I don’t know that I have any voice that I could zero in on. I’m many voices.One friend of my wife’s and mine who’s French once compared my lead guitar playing to the voice of Edith Piaf. I think it’s because of what I call the wiggle—my fast vibrato which is inspired by John Cipollina from Quicksilver Messenger Service and Tom Verlaine from Television.”
Sansone—whose favorite albums include Revolver, Odessey and Oracleby the Zombies, and Third/Sister Lovers by Big Star—describes his approach: “I have a tendency to go toward melodic figures, finding places where counter-melodies can support the arrangement, or melodic bits on the guitar that help connect different parts of the song. That’s probably where my style and my sensibilities are maybe most unique in the group.” The B-Bender-equipped instrument he used on the album was a Tokai Telecaster. He also played a 1963 Epiphone Casino and a 1988 reissue Roger McGuinn 12-string Rickenbacker. In the studio, he prefers using a Swart Atomic Space Tone amp. “It’s just a small amp, low voltage, one 10" speaker, but it has a beautiful tone. It takes pedals very well, so it’s easy to get a range of tones at low volume.”
Wilco’s songs have always begun with Tweedy. He has some methods of writing that help him along the path of fine-tuning his work, including sharing his ideas with the band. “When I play my songs for the rest of the band, I start to hear them with other people’s ears. It kind of provides at least a little moment of objectivity, ’cause I can hear ’em and forget that I made them up,” he shares. His songwriting is defined by the simple notion that he can’t not be himself while composing. “And at some point, you try to be yourself on purpose,” he elaborates. “I can’t really extract myself from it anymore. It’s just a thing that I do, and it results in a thing that has some ‘me-ness’ to it. Like some ‘Jeff-ness.’
“When I play my songs for the rest of the band, I start to hear them with other people’s ears.”—Jeff Tweedy
“I like reading a lot, I like listening to records, and I generally do both until I can’t take it anymore and I feel like I need to do something of my own,” he continues. “I need to answer that call to add my own voice to the [mix]. It’s just inspiring when you spend time with other people’s consciousnesses.”
In the nearly 40 years he’s been performing as a professional recording artist, Tweedy’s ambitions haven’t really changed. “All the decisions I feel have been mostly centered around, ‘What path do we take that will allow us to do this tomorrow?’ I mean, first, if you can’t picture it, it can’t happen. Even ‘I want to be a songwriter,’ to me, is a little bit more intangible than ‘I want to write a song.’ That’s a manageable goal, and all your big dreams are built on those manageable goals. Because if you don’t do those, other things don’t happen.”
YouTube It
Pat Sansone lays down some heavy twang with his Fender Telecaster in this three-guitar-frontline performance of “Falling Apart (Right Now),” from Wilco’s new Cruel Country, at the band’s Solid Sound festival 2022 in North Adams, Massachusetts.