“To me, the sound of the guitar should be just as expressive as the human voice,” Posen says. “The biggest part of my sound is just dynamics and getting in touch with the guitar. A lot of people max out the volume knobs on their guitars, but I’ve found that there’s so much tenderness and so many beautiful textures when you’re at 6 or 7. It’s more of a true sound. Whether I’m using a slide or not, I like to use an overdrive pedal into a clean amp. That way, it’s not a harsh overdriven sound; it’s clean but with headroom on the edge of breakup.” He pauses, then adds, “It’s very much like a Jeff Beck thing. There’s a poetry to it.”
Ariel Posen - Time Can Only Tell
Posen cites his early years of playing with trios in clubs as being crucial to his development. “I became something of a Swiss army knife and played as many different styles as possible—blues, jazz, folk, and bluegrass,” he says. “Before then, I tried to emulate my heroes—people like Doyle Bramhall II, Robben Ford, John Mayer, Jimmie Vaughan, and others. By gigging with trios, I realized that I needed to flesh out my own sound more. I didn’t have to play what other people expected. I could go for originality.”
“To me, the sound of the guitar should be just as expressive as the human voice.”
Later, while backing up other musicians before he turned solo, he was schooled in team-playing, and learned important aspects of dynamics. “Because I was surrounded by a lot of other players, I didn’t focus so much on the guitar,” he says. “I played with a lot of good drummers, and that taught me the importance of groove and having good timing, the kinds of things that make a song feel good and not just sound good. I feel like both experiences came together in what is now my own style and sound.”
That beautiful sonic expressionism is one of the hallmarks of Posen’s newest album, Reasons Why, a record that also demonstrates the guitarist’s remarkable growth as a singer and writer of deeply personal yet highly relatable songs. On the gorgeous, atmospheric single “Didn’t Say,” he examines how unspoken truths could have saved a doomed relationship. The easy funk groove of “I Wish We Never Met” is juxtaposed by the gnawing pain of missing a lover while on the road. Likewise, “Man You Raised” is a swaggering, butt-kicking rocker highlighted by two chest-beating solos, but the narrative element is tinged with wistfulness and regret.
A Leslie cabinet was among the old-school tools on Posen’s new album. And in the studio, Posen relied on just two amps: a Two-Rock Traditional Clean model, and a 3-watt Greer Amps Mini Chief.
“More and more, songwriting is like therapy for me,” Posen explains. “It’s an opportunity to share something very intimate but in a way I might not be able to do in real life. It’s like writing your feelings in a journal. Now, you probably would never share your journal entries with somebody else, but for some reason all those barriers go away with songs—at least for me they do. And it’s not even difficult. It’s just a way of speaking the truth. When I can get it right, I think other people can listen to one of my songs and say, ‘Hey, that sounds like my own experience. That resonates to me.’ That’s what I’m going for.”
Typically, Posen eschews writing while touring, so the extended Covid lockdown period between 2020 and into the early part of 2022 provided him with an unexpected opportunity to hunker down and work out some material. So that’s what he did—sometimes with songwriters Jason Nix and Jason Gantt (both of whom contributed to Headway), and other times with fast-rising Canadian singer-songwriter Leith Ross. He wrote “Man You Raised” with fellow guitar star Cory Wong. “Fortunately, a lot of the people I like to collaborate with were home, too, so it worked out,” Posen says. “It took a few months for me to get into the creative zone, but once I did, I hit it hard and worked at it every day, like I was going to the gym.”
Surprisingly, he employs the exact opposite approach when it comes to playing guitar at home. “When I’m on my own, I just play for the sheer enjoyment of it,” he says. “I’m kind of off the clock, without any kind of agenda. Whatever happens, happens.” Still, he notes that inspiration can strike at any time. “There will be ideas for songs that hit me when I’m messing around, but I don’t force them. I’ll just leave myself a voice memo. Even if I don’t listen back to it for a year, I know it’s there.”
Once Posen had amassed some 30 songs, he whittled them down to 10 cuts that ticked off all the boxes musically and lyrically. Working with his usual co-producer Murray Pulver, he made extensive demos of each number, playing guitars and bass, programming drums, and laying down scratch vocals. From there, he turned the material over to his band—bassist Julian Bradford and drummer JJ Johnson, along with percussionist Jon Smith and keyboardist Marc Arnould—and said, “Here’s how I hear it. Now, do it better. Do it right. And do it the way you’re feeling it.” At certain times, he offered strict guidelines—“Don’t play the crash cymbal here,” or “Simplify the backbeat”—but mostly his rule was, “Do your thing.”
“There will be ideas for songs that hit me when I’m messing around, but I don’t force them. I’ll just leave myself a voice memo. Even if I don’t listen back to it for a year, I know it’s there.”
Despite his reputation as a supreme tone king, Posen asserts that he isn’t married to a particular sound—nor even a certain guitar—during writing and demoing, preferring to respond to inspiration in the studio. “Whatever feels right when we’re cutting tracks is what I go with,” he says. As he did on Headway, he utilized a Fender Custom Shop Jazzmaster on a significant portion of Reasons Why, as well as some of his other go-to guitars, such as an Eric Johnson signature Stratocaster and his Mule Resophonic StratoMule, plus a Case Guitars J1 model outfitted with Ron Ellis P-90 pickups. “The J1 is a Les Paul-style guitar with a chambered body,” Posen says. “It delivers a very warm, thick sound that I love.”
Ariel Posen's Gear
To create the broad spectrum of sounds on his new LP Reasons Why, Posen turned to his favorite tools, like his Fender Jazzmaster, an Eric Johnson Strat, and a Mule resonator, but he also invited some new friends to the party: a Gretsch White Falcon, and a guitar from Irish builder Kithara.
Photo by Lynette Giesbrecht
Electric Guitars
- Mule Resophonic Stratomule
- Fender Stratocaster Eric Johnson Model
- Fender Custom Shop Jazzmaster
- Gretsch White Falcon
- Case Guitars J1
- Kithara Harland
- Josh Williams Mockingbird
Acoustic Guitars
- Collings D1AT
- ’60s Martin 000 (tracking down the model)
- ’60s Gibson Hummingbird
- ’50s Kay
- Morgan Concert Model with Sitka spruce top
- Yamaha Dreadnought in Nashville Tuning
- Modern Recording King Acoustic
- Mule Resophonic Mavis Baritone
Amps
- Two-Rock Traditional Clean
- Greer Amps Mini Chief
Effects
- Hudson Electronics Broadcast-AP
- Analog Man King of Tone
- Kingtone The Duellist
- Kingtone MiniFuzz
- Hologram Electronics Infinite Jets
- Hologram Electronics Microcosm
- Eventide H9 MaxMorningstar MC6
- Chase Bliss Audio Thermae
- Chase Bliss Audio Tonal Recall
- Chase Bliss Audio Habit
- Victoria Reverberato
- DanDrive Austin Blender
- Greer Amps Lightspeed
- R2R Electric Vintage Wah
- R2R Electric Two Knob Treble Booster
- Demedash T-120 Videotape Echo
- Mythos Pedals Argo
- Keeley Hydra
- Leslie cabinet
Strings, Slides, & Picks
- Stringjoy (.014–.062) for low tuning
- Ernie Ball (.011–.054) for standard tuning
- Dunlop Tortex 1.14 mm
- The Rock Slide Ariel Posen Signature Slide
In addition to experimenting with a Gretsch White Falcon (“Great for arpeggios and big, open chords”), he also tried out a custom-made Kithara Harland guitar that he designed with the company’s founder, Chris Moffitt. “I had this idea for a Strat-style guitar with a Tele bridge and a Bigsby,” Posen explains. “It’s set up really cool, and it worked out great for a couple solos and arpeggios.”
In the studio, Posen relied on just two amps: a Two-Rock Traditional Clean model, and a 3-watt Greer Amps Mini Chief. But in terms of effects, he went wild, calling on well over a dozen pedals and rack units to create absorbing textures and unconventional sounds. He lists the Chase Bliss Audio Thermae and the Hologram Electronics Infinite Jets as two MVP pedals, but he also sings the praises of the R2R Electric Vintage Wah unit. “It’s a single enclosure with a switch and a knob, and it gives you all the sweet options of a wah pedal,” he says. Posen made dramatic use of the pedal for the squawky rhythm tracks on the gritty rock ballad “So Easy,” as well as for the growling, throaty slide solo of the otherwise shimmering “Learning How to Say Goodbye.” “I was just looking for something different that didn’t sound like what everybody else does,” he says. “I was simply trying to innovate to a degree.”
Sometimes, he goes old school. On both “So Easy” and the chilling arpeggios in the majestically orchestrated “Didn’t Say,” he ran his guitar through a Leslie cabinet. “I’m pretty good at getting sounds from all the new pedals,” he says, “but sometimes there’s just no substitute for the real thing.”
Posen says songwriting for Reasons Why was like going to the gym: He had to work hard at it everyday to pull out the tracks that made the record.
Photo by Calli Cohen
Posen likes to use the word “authentic” when describing his goal for record-making, and on Reasons Why, each emotional high he achieves is earned and feels real, whether it’s on the haunting, hymn-like “Broken But Fine,” or in the way he blends introspection and vulnerability in the aching ballad “Choose.” As a lyricist, he gives you just enough to draw you in, but nothing is forced or feels burdened by unnecessary detail—which is great, since explaining emotions is so limiting.
Having first established himself as an in-demand guitar-for-hire with such disparate acts as the Bros. Landreth and Tom Jones, Posen is a true showman at heart, and he knows when to turn on theatricality. Each solo is replete with bravura—the resonant, pinched-harmonic lead in “Feels This Way Too” reaches to the heavens, and he concludes the graceful yet hypnotic album opener, “Time Can Only Tell,” with an unexpected, bellowing roar that mimics the human-voice-like quality of a saxophone. He never draws attention to technique, though. There’s a casual looseness to the solos; they’re not haphazard or sloppy, nor do they meander. They sound wonderfully alive, as if Posen is acting on instinct and losing himself in impulsive, even uncontrollable, bursts of spontaneous creativity.
“I’m pretty good at getting sounds from all the new pedals, but sometimes there’s just no substitute for the real thing.”
As it turns out, many of the solos were thoroughly premeditated and fully integrated into each track. “‘So Easy,’ ‘Learning How To Say Goodbye,’ ‘Didn't Say,’ and ‘Man You Raised’ were 70 percent the way I did them on the demo,” he reveals. “For me, it’s my first take of something where it feels very honest and exciting. After that, I’m just replicating it or trying to come up with something new that's not the original intent. For the solos that I was attached to, we did them a few times in the studio, but I rarely, if ever, veered from the demo. There were some screws that needed to be tightened, but that was about it. Some things were improvised, and usually those were first takes. It’s all about being in the moment.”
Stuck at home during the pandemic lockdowns, Posen tapped artists like Cory Wong and Canadian songwriter Leith Ross to help him from afar to bring his new record to life.
Photo by Lynette Giesbrecht
Despite the fireworks, the album has an uncluttered feel to it. Posen doesn’t weigh his songs down with superfluous guitar tracks, though that’s not to say that he isn’t big on experimentation. He points to “Didn’t Say” as an example of where he used a number of guitars—an electric with a rubber bridge that’s double-tracked, two Nashville-strung acoustics panned left and right, another electric on which he plays dyads, and an electric pedal steel for swells. “That one is extremely orchestrated, and there’s a lot going on,” he says, “but I tried to do it in a way that doesn’t take you out of the song.”
As for how Posen and his live band, including Bradford and Smith, will pull off all the material when they head out on tour, he’s currently working that out. “It’s always the same thing, where I go, ‘Okay, I’ve got these awesome tracks. Shit, how am I going to reproduce it on stage?’” he says with a laugh. “So I have to reduce everything to the core elements, where it’s just the parts I want to air guitar to. By design, we play live as a trio. I could add people to the band, but we have a really special thing as a trio. I love bands like the Police, Nirvana, and Green Day, and I could always appreciate what they did on record and what they did live. I want us to be the same way. I love the spaces in the music that comes from that approach. It’s raw and dangerous, and when you get it right, there’s nothing quite like it.”
Ariel Posen – “Man You Raised” TELEFUNKEN Live At Sweetwater Studios #gearfest2023
In this recent live studio performance, Posen nails two heat-seeking solos on his trusty “Mule,” while leading band members Julian Bradford and Jon Smith through a gutsy version of his new track “Man You Raised.”
Way back in 1965, Taj Mahal left his Massachusetts home and headed to California in search of a 17-year-old blues phenom named Ry Cooder. The rest, as Mahal puts it, is “our-story.”
The two legends sound less like they’re making a record in a studio and more like they’re hanging out and catching up over some music. Mahal describes this feel as “ragged, but right.” It’s the same kind of collective sound that historic blues duo Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee often possessed. But on Get on Board, it’s unique to these two old friends, who set out on their journeys long ago. “We’re bouncing off one another, we’re bouncing off the music, and we’re bouncing off the joy of being able to play this stuff, having the opportunity,” says Mahal.
Taj Mahal & Ry Cooder - The Making of 'GET ON BOARD'
That “ragged, but right” vibe pervades each track on Get on Board, from the opening thump of “My Baby Done Changed the Lock on the Door” to the springy call and response of “Drinkin’ Wine Spo-Dee-O-Dee” to the closing ritardando on “I Shall Not Be Moved.” And it’s why, as Mahal explains, Get on Board transcends its recorded form: “It’s the kind of thing, when you listen in on it if you have the record playing in the other room, you’re sure those guys are in the other room,” he says. “Even though you know they’re not there, you gotta go and look.”
There are plenty of blues and folk albums that celebrate the genre’s early heroes—tribute projects that offer a feel-good time for musicians and listeners alike. And Get on Board is a masterfully produced, creative take on fantastic old music. But it’s also a one-of-a-kind reunion of two musical polyglots who, it’s fair to say, have explored the depth of the blues, following it on separate paths to the ends of the Earth and delving into the music from every angle—maybe more than anyone else. Now, five decades after their initial career-starting collaboration in 1965, they’ve come back to their roots together.
The Early Days
The short-lived Rising Sons kickstarted the careers of both Mahal and Cooder. From left: Taj Mahal, Jesse Lee Kincaid, Gary Marker, Ry Cooder, and Kevin Kelley.
Photo from KRLA Beat
Each player’s early history is essential to their music as a duo. “Both of my parents were musical, and their culture was extremely musical and at a very high, sophisticated level,” Mahal explains. “We’re talking Ben Webster, Coleman Hawkins, Count Basie, Billy Eckstein, Billy Daniels, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald … this kind of music. But there was also swinging, dancing music that was happening. Jitterbugging, all kinds of different stuff.”
He began forming his own tastes in the nascent days of rock ’n’ roll, which Mahal says “was a step way down” from the music he was exploring—music by artists from the 1930s and ’40s, who, he points out, were still alive and recording. “I was getting their juice as it was coming through—not as an echo. By the time I came around to hear it, I kept thinking, there’s gotta be some older form of the music. And I would hear a little bit of it; my mother would sing some songs from South Carolina.” And thus began his lifelong search for deeper and deeper musical connections: “Once I found out that you could jump into that river, even into the ocean, and keep on finding it, it’s like fish in the sea. The more you find, the more there is—and you’ll never get to the end of it.”
“We’re bouncing off one another, we’re bouncing off the music, and we’re bouncing off the joy of being able to play this stuff, having the opportunity.” —Taj Mahal
A young Ry Cooder was simultaneously on his own version of this quest, digging deeper into the history of American music. At just 12 years old, Cooder found a record called Get on Board by the duo of Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, along with percussionist Coyal McMahan. It was just one point in a long line of musical discoveries that would inform his life and music. Cooder points out that Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee “must have been the most recorded blues act ever.” But his interest set him apart from his pre-teen peers in California, and he soon developed a reputation that reached Mahal—five years his senior—all the way in Massachusetts.
Mahal tells the story of hearing a guitarist perform one night early in his career and says, “It was obvious this guy was listening to something else and played the instrument in a different way.” They struck up a friendship, and Mahal learned that this guitarist had studied with a Californian named Ry Cooder. Upon learning Cooder was just 17 years old, “I blew my top!” he exclaims. Soon enough, he packed up, booked a few gigs across the country, and headed west to find the young guitarist and start a band.
TIDBIT: To capture the feel of a vintage Folkways-style album, Get on Board was recorded live in Joachim Cooder’s living room in just three days, with a fourth day for overdubs.
Despite their quick demise, Mahal looks back favorably on the Rising Sons: “Ry’s work on that album is still, to this day, stellar,” he says. “I could listen to it any time in any joint. Anything that he plays. There was never nothing that he ever played that I did not like. Nothing. He heard the music.” Mahal struck out on his own, with Cooder in the band for his 1968 self-titled debut. But they soon went their separate ways on long and fruitful careers.
Together, After a Lifetime of Achievement
It wasn’t until decades later, in 2014, when the Americana Music Association awarded Mahal a lifetime achievement award, that Mahal and Cooder would collaborate again. Backed by an all-star band at the AMA awards show at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium, the two former Rising Sons revisited “Statesboro Blues,” which they recorded almost a half-century prior. But this version sounds nothing like the quick, youthful version on the ’92 reissue. Instead, the mid-tempo groove—driven in part by Don Was’ bass and Joachim Cooder’s drums—is slower and deeper, Mahal’s voice lower and stronger, and his dry, percussive fingerpicking is complemented by Cooder’s dark, fuzzy slide work.
While this warm, rousing reunion lasted just under five minutes—and got a serious standing ovation—it reconnected Mahal and Cooder and planted a seed. Soon enough, Mahal says he “took three or four instruments and a suitcase and a handbag and got on a train and went down to L.A. We got together and did some playing.” Mahal pitched Cooder on the idea of doing a project together, trusting Cooder to come up with the concept. “He knows what he likes, and he knows what I like,” Mahal says. Encouraged by his son, Cooder formulated the Get on Board idea, and as Mahal explains, “Next thing you know, I’m on the train again back to L.A.”
Taj Mahal's Gear
Taj Mahal—seen here at Bonnaroo with a D’Angelico archtop—brought just one guitar to the Get on Board sessions. Taking the train to L.A. from his Northern California home, he opted for his Gibson Keb’ Mo’ Bluesmaster, because he loves that instrument and it is light to carry.
Photo by Douglas Mason
Guitars
- Gibson Keb’ Mo’ Bluesmaster
Strings
- D’Addario
Cooder built his concept not just around the duo, but included Joachim. “There’s Taj and me. There was Sonny and Brownie,” he explains. “Duet music, right? But the original Get on Board included the mysterious Coyle McMahan on bass vocals and maracas. I always thought the trio was more interesting. So, Joachim stepped into the McMahan chair, and that gave us a wider range.”
When considering songs, Cooder points out that Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee “had a huge repertoire for us to consider. You have to figure out what will work best, and a record can’t be all blues shuffles—for that kind of music you need Otis Spann or Memphis Slim, and a horn section, etcetera. So, we listened for songs more rural in feeling, like ‘Hooray Hooray,’ and ‘I Shall Not Be Moved.’ Folk-blues, as it used to be called.”
“A record can’t be all blues shuffles.” —Ry Cooder
“This music was making a fleeting disappearance from the inside of the music I was listening to,” says Mahal, adding that “something about the rural music was more connected with the African in it.” But he refutes the idea that their goal was to keep Sonny and Brownie’s music alive. Instead, he insists the music is already alive and he and Cooder are just helping it find new ears. “What you ain’t seen ain’t passed you yet,” he quips.
Cooder says they aimed to capture an “old-style” sound, “like a Folkways record,” the natural environment for these songs. To cultivate an authentically comfortable, low-key vibe, they set up in Joachim’s Altadena, Calfornia, living room for four days—three for live tracking and one for overdubs. And things proceeded simply, with “live singing—one take, maybe two at the most,” according to Cooder.
Ry Cooder’s Gear
Ry Cooder played a variety of instruments on Get on Board, including the Gibson F-4 mandolin that he used on Mahal’s debut album.
Photo by Abby Ross
- Adams Brothers acoustic (circa 1900)
- Fairbanks long-scale custom banjo (circa 1900)
- ’60s Fender “Coodercaster” modded with an early ’60s Teisco pickup (neck) and a Valco lap-steel pickup (bridge)
- 1919 Gibson F-4 mandolin
- 1946 Martin D-18
Amps
- White amplifier (made by Fender)
Effects
- Echoplex
Strings
- D’Addario
Get on Board isn’t a genre exercise, but it feels vintage, thanks in some part to the select gear they chose. Mahal switches instruments, playing a Steinway piano, harmonicas, and fingerpicking his Gibson Keb’ Mo’ Bluesmaster. Cooder brought along some vintage items. “I played a 1946 D-18, similar to Brownie’s—light and twangy,” he says. “Also, a peculiar Adams Brothers guitar, circa 1900. It’s rowboat size and super resonant. Check it on ‘Beautiful City.’ And my old Gibson F-4 mandolin on ‘Hooray Hooray.’ Taj commented that I had played the same instrument on his first solo record. The lead instrument on ‘Packing Up’ is a giant gut-string Fairbanks banjo, probably a custom order.”
Although most of the record is acoustic, the opening track features a driving electric slide part that bears Cooder’s unmistakable sonic thumbprint. “I overdubbed my usual bottleneck Stratocaster on ‘Changed the Lock,’” he explains. “That’s a White amp with a busted speaker, and a tape Echoplex which belonged to the great Leon Rhodes.” [Rhodes played guitar in Ernest Tubb’s Texas Troudabours.]
“What you ain’t seen ain’t passed you yet.” —Taj Mahal
Except for the tight, driving version of “Packing Up Getting Ready to Go,” there aren’t any particularly radical reinventions on Get on Board, so the biggest differences in Mahal and Cooder’s versions of Terry and McGhee’s songs are what the individuals bring to the music. As Mahal points out, Sonny and Brownie were the original purveyors, and he and Cooder are “a couple guys who have spent their lives bringing back these nuggets of great music for all to see and hear.”
But Mahal and Cooder both bring a warmth to the music, and it’s easy to think that stems from their mutual appreciation—a feeling that was missing from the original duo, who were famously at odds. In 1982, The New York Times wrote, “Mr. Terry, the harmonica player and singer, and Mr. McGhee, the guitarist and singer, are staunch individualists whose partnership has been marked by feuds, splits, and reunions.” Mahal and Cooder, as individual as they may be, are quite the opposite. It’s friendship that brought them back together after all these years, and helped fuel the creative energy on Get on Board, which Mahal says “felt exciting.”
And if that’s not enough, he adds: “I can’t think of anyone else I’d really wanna play this kind of music with.”
Taj Mahal Ry Cooder Statesboro Blues
When Taj Mahal received a lifetime achievement award from the Americana Music Association, he joined the award show’s house band, which featured Ry Cooder, onstage for this performance. Not only is the performance stellar, it also put the two back in touch and catalyzed the Get on Board project.
Rocco DeLuca says his favorite instrument is his baritone lap steel, but he frequently plays 12-string pedal steel as well. He says that, while it lacks the bottom end of the baritone, he can "achieve a lot of the same things, but it'll give me other colors or textures that I like and want to explore."
This serves as a good introduction to DeLuca's musical philosophy. Whether he's playing guitar, lap steel, or pedal steel, he gravitates toward what often seem like simple harmonic, melodic, and rhythmic choices. But if you listen attentively, his ideas carry considerable depth, as if there is a journey informing everything he plays.
Like any lifelong artist, DeLuca's path has been a winding one. His father was a guitarist who worked with Bo Diddley, and Rocco was drawn to pick up the guitar at a young age. Early in his career, he performed opening slots for masters such as Taj Mahal and John Lee Hooker. In the mid-2000s, he was working as a bluesy alt-rock singer/songwriter in the tradition of the late Jeff Buckley when Kiefer Sutherland signed DeLuca to his Ironworks label for his 2006 debut, I Trust You to Kill Me. Since then, he has handled quite a bit of soundtrack work for films and TV, and even made a guest appearance on Slash's 2010 solo debut.
We got into a thing and I thought, 'That's the sound I'm looking for right there. I want this all the time and I never want to hear anything but this.'" —Rocco DeLuca
DeLuca's discography tracks his progress into a nuanced singer-songwriter, culminating in his most recent solo album, the ruminative and atmospheric Live Off the Floor, from 2018. But his longtime collaboration with Daniel Lanois deserves special attention. The legendary producer/guitarist/songwriter is, like DeLuca, a bit of a seeker. He has a knack for uncovering musical truths, whether in the form of standout recordings by artists such as Bob Dylan, Emmylou Harris, Willie Nelson, and Neil Young, or albums under his own name. He must have heard something special the night he first heard DeLuca play.
"I had just come back from a four-year tour," DeLuca says. "On the day I arrived home, my friend over at [former L.A. club] Spaceland called me and said, 'A band just canceled, will you come play the set for me tonight?' I went down there and I was in good form, and Dan was right there in the front, singing harmony the whole time. Every song."
Soon, Lanois was handling production duties on DeLuca's 2009 album, Mercy, setting the stage for their long and fruitful creative partnership. In Lanois, DeLuca found someone who could push him and help him develop his sound; in DeLuca, Lanois found a simpatico musical foil who would help bring some of his own ambitious projects to life. "Rocco Deluca has the magic fingers, one of the best fingerpickers I've ever played with," Lanois says. "Rocco's dynamic range on the slide guitar can swing from delicate to dark metal. I love it!"
TIDBIT: When Rocco DeLuca, Daniel Lanois, and bassist Jim Wilson started working with Johnny Shepherd, they focused on singing four-part harmony around Shepherd's Hammond organ long before picking up their guitars.
And yet, DeLuca's musical personality is recognizable across his range of instruments, whether he's playing his 1976 Les Paul Custom, or his Sho-Bud or Franklin pedal steels, and whether he's amplifying his sound with his go-to 1948 Fender Pro or his Pignose. One instrument that sets him apart is his 8-string baritone lap steel, custom-made by California–based luthier Pavel Maslowiec. "He built me one of the most beautiful baritone steels I've ever heard in my life," DeLuca exclaims. "It's all out of mahogany and it's all business. A simple piece of wood. We went down to Santa Barbara and Seymour Duncan wrapped me a badass humbucker. It's the best tone I've ever heard of any kind, without a doubt."
It doesn't just sound great, it has a hidden superpower as well. DeLuca tells us that Maslowiec "put a magnet inside of there that I can kick in to hold one string like a theremin. So, if I'm playing and we're getting to that place and I don't want to get louder but I want to get more melodic and more defined, I kick this in and I can play these beautiful chords and it will hold my melody line through the whole thing. It's one of the coolest things."
DeLuca realized the power of this instrument when Lanois took him on a European tour where he performed a solo opening set on the baritone lap steel. "I was really excited to play that instrument by itself so it could be truly heard," he says. "We were going to Europe and playing these beautiful theaters, and I got the chance to really hear that thing sing. When I would play a theater, it was amazing how much sound and dynamic and dimension is in that instrument."
Rocco DeLuca's Gear
"The best tone I've ever heard," says DeLuca of his 8-string Pavel Maslowiec–built mahogany lap steel, which includes a handwound Seymour Duncan humbucker.
Photo by Simon Reed
Guitars
- 1976 Gibson Les Paul Custom
- Pavel Maslowiec Baritone Lap Steel
- 1970 Sho-Bud 12-String Pedal Steel
- 1980s Franklin 12-String Pedal Steel
Amps
- 1948 Fender Pro
- 1959 Fender Princeton
- Pignose
Effects
- Roland RE-201 Space Echo
Strings, Picks, and Slides
- Dunlop Herco Flex 52 Thumbpick
- Dunlop metal fingerpicks (for steel)
- Ernie Ball or SIT .11 sets with wound 3rd string
- SIT Buddy Emmons Signature Pedal Steel Strings (.012–.015–.011–.014–.018–.022–.026–.030–.034–.038–.042–.054)
- SIT Lap Steel (.015–.016–.017–.026–.038–.054–.060–.074)
- Dunlop Stainless Steel Tonebar (steel)
- Homemade cut wine bottle necks (guitar)
Lanois took notice, and on one fateful night jumped onstage to join DeLuca on pedal steel. The way DeLuca tells it, this was a transformative moment from which there was no return. "We got into a thing and I thought, 'That's the sound I'm looking for, right there. I want this all the time and I never want to hear anything but this.' I annoyed everybody in my life. They'd go, 'Aren't you going to sing? Aren't you going to write a song?' And I'd go, 'Do you hear this? This doesn't turn you on?'"
In 2016, the two released Goodbye to Language, a meditative album of two steel guitars following each other amidst a warm ambient sonic landscape that sounds both ethereal and completely organic. "My job was to support his movement. I thought it was beautiful to do that," he enthuses. "It was one of the best experiences of my life. Once we got our thing together, even moving to a chord, like an orchestra finding that moment, we would both be bending in different directions and land in the same spot. That's the genius, to me, of the album, because that's happening at all times. It's never not trying to find itself."
Daniel Lanois onstage with DeLuca in London, around the time they started performing as a duo. The would go on to release the ethereal Goodbye to Language in 2016.
Photo by Simon Reed
DeLuca and Lanois' most recent collaboration is Heavy Sun—released under Lanois' name—which is centered around organist and vocalist Johnny Shepherd, who was the house organist at the Zion Baptist Church in Shreveport, Louisiana. The two guitarists met Shepherd while working together on a modern gospel/Americana live project called The Hallelujah Train, which featured members of the church with a cast of all-star musicians.
"I got to sit next to Johnny [during The Hallelujah Train], and I just fell in love with him. I was hearing everything I love about music in one person, as far as his beautiful voicings, both with his voice and with his organ, and how quickly he can change sounds and colors," says DeLuca. After the project was finished, DeLuca invited Shepherd to Los Angeles and Lanois got involved. DeLuca continues, "I had just helped writing the Rockstar stuff with him [the soundtrack for the Red Dead Redemption II video game]—a song called 'That's the Way It Is,' and the chant for 'Unshaken,' which Dan and D'Angelo fleshed out to become the full version. We were riding high on that, and Dan was like, 'Let's do a record together,' so it got even bigger than what I thought we were going to do."
Shepherd moved to Los Angeles, where they kicked off several years of learning, writing, and recording together, along with bassist Jim Wilson. They focused on their voices as they collaborated to compose material that mixed Shepherd's background in the church with secular songwriting. "We began singing every day around the organ, around Johnny, and it became one of the most beautiful things I'd ever done," says DeLuca. "I had never been that dedicated to singing in four-part harmony every day for that long. After a while, it got very special and it helped me become a better guitar player. I felt like I was learning a lot of really valuable, ancient stuff."
Lap steel, standard round-neck guitar, pedal steel, and harmonica are all within DeLuca's grasp. His recent release, Live Off the Floor, shows what he can do alone with a stash of instruments.
Photo by Robbie Jeffers
After about two years of singing together around the organ, the rest of the band decided to join DeLuca at a residency he was performing at a Los Angeles club, Zebulon. Their guitars started to play a greater role as they brought the songs to a live audience, though they now approached their instruments—DeLuca and Lanois both on their Les Pauls—informed by their vocal practice. DeLuca says, "There was never a need in life to fish for any notes ever again, to try to invent something, because it's all in the voicings of the chord, everything we need. Everything I was looking for, at least. It's in the changes, and you pick the voice you want to use, or the many voices you want to use on a string instrument."
By the time Heavy Sun was complete, the musicians had spent around three years developing the material and bringing it to life. The result is a powerful and moving album that rewards careful listening. The songs feel timeless and the performances resonate amongst Lanois' dub-infused production. It's hard not to be inspired by Shepherd's singing and warm charisma as well as the focus and care taken by Lanois, DeLuca, and their collaborators—namely Wilson and engineer Wayne Lorenz—to nurture the creative process.
With Heavy Sun released, DeLuca joins Shepherd every week on his 12-string pedal steel at the New Revelation Baptist Church in Pasadena, California, where the organist leads services. They've released a single of the meditative, soulful ballad "Liberation," and are finishing up a new collaborative album called Mighty Glad. DeLuca says the process of working with Shepherd has helped him to better serve the music he plays. "Once you serve something, then you have a purpose or an intention, and it's not accidental playing. You can be spontaneous and creative, all those things, but you're not playing accidentally," he explains. "When a player plays like that, their whole thing changes—their dynamics change, pitch changes—and if you isolate them after they've served something and you've pulled out the ingredients, you'd have probably their best playing."
ZEBULON SESSIONS /// ROCCO DELUCA /// MAY 29 2020
Filmed live in Zebulon, the same L.A. club where the Heavy Sun group performed their residency, this video shows Rocco DeLuca delivering late-night desert vibes on his pedal steel, Les Paul Custom, and Pavel Maslowiec– built 8-string baritone lap steel.
