![Tyler Childers & the Food Stamps Rig Rundown [2024]](https://www.premierguitar.com/media-library/rig-rundown-tyler-childers-the-food-stamps-cj-cain-jesse-wells-james-barker-craig-burletic.jpg?id=52418575&width=1245&height=700&quality=85&coordinates=0%2C0%2C0%2C0)
These barnstorming bandmates are multi-instrumentalists who parade out a music store's worth of gear that provides all the twangin’, cryin’, moanin’, howlin’, and note-bendin’ that’ll get you two-steppin’ or dropping a tear in your beer.
The Food Stamps have been cooking onstage behind the redheaded songwriter pretty much since he left Appalachia and began touring as a full unit. These loyal road dogs have worn the rubber off the tires touring with Mr. Childers. First, they were strictly a live band enlisted to recreate and recharge the material from his first three studio albums Bottles and Bibles (2011), Purgatory (2017), and Country Squire (2019). But with the last two studio records—the triple-album, gospel-country opus Can I Take My Hounds to Heaven? and last year’s classic-meets-contemporary Rustin' in the Rain—the Food Stamps went from being his road-warrior comrades to eating big time alongside their leader onstage and in the studio.
During Childers’ headlining arena run and before his second sold-out night at the Bridgestone Arena in downtown Nashville, the Food Stamps’ CJ Cain (acoustic/electric guitar/mandolin), Jesse Wells (electric guitar/mandola/banjo/baritone/fiddle), James Barker (guitar/pedal-steel), and Craig Burletic (electric bass/double bass) invited PG’s Perry Bean inside their “living room” stage set. When we last chatted with them in 2019, the boys were burning through the small-club circuit with many of the same tone tools still in their rig today, but as venues grow and tours extend, gear needs change and the arsenal capacity increases. In this hour-long Rundown, we cover all their fresh friends, old standbys, and everything else these four buckaroos require to make music that matters.
Brought to you by:
D’Addario Strings: https://ddar.io/wykyk-rr and https://ddar.io/tuttle-rr
Like New
While CJ Cain is the newest member in the Food Stamps, he’s had a long history hanging out and making music with his bandmates in other outfits for years. His addition to the band was a smooth transition and he handles acoustic guitar, electric guitar, and mandolin on a nightly basis. In this Rundown, CJ mentions he’s most comfortable on a dreadnought, but is finding his footing with electric guitar and the accompanying gear.
These old beauts are a pair of vintage Harmony instruments. The electric on the left is a 1960 Stratotone that’s been overhauled with stainless-steel frets, Waverly tuners, and a proper setup. The big boomer on the right is a 1960s H1266 Sovereign Deluxe that also has been upgraded with stainless-steel frets and plays like a dream. The H1266 has a midrange like a Mack truck and sat in the mix really well for the Rustin’ in the Rain sessions. All of his acoustics take D’Addario XTAPB1356 XT Phosphor Bronze strings and his Stratotone uses D’Addario NYXL1149 Nickel Wound strings.
A Class
Cain’s friend Will Parsons has been hand-carving mandolins in Elizabethton, TN, since he was 14 years old. This A-style mando is barky and choppy, qualities that let it gnash through their full-band spread.
The 14-fret dreadnought on the right is a Collings D1A that has a Sitka spruce top, Honduran mahogany back, sides, and neck (modified V profile), an ebony fretboard, bone nut and saddle, nickel Waverly tuners, and pre-war scalloped X-brace pattern (with Sitka spruce).
Lucky Loaner
Here’s a 1966 Stratocaster that Cain was able to bring on the road from an encouraging friend. He notes that it’s a “magical guitar.” The owner let Cain play it as a teenager and recently let him dust it off for this year’s Mule Pull tour with Tyler Childers. This one rocks D’Addario NYXL09544 Nickel Wound strings.
CJ Cain’s (Electric) Pedalboard
His “trial-by-fire” christening into electric guitar has sparked the need for some pedals and his current stable includes a Dunlop EP103 Echoplex delay, a Keeley Mini Katana Clean Boost, a Kingsley Page Tube Boost, a Greer Lightspeed, a JHS Pulp ’N’ Peel V4 compressor, and a Peterson StroboStomp HD.
One Nation, Under Tone
The Harmony and Strat run through CJ’s electric board and then hit his Amplified Nation Overdrive Reverb that plugs into a 1x12 extension cab, which runs a JBL D120F speaker taken out of a 1970 Fender Twin Reverb.
CJ Cain’s (Acoustic) Pedalboard
CJ Cain’s (Acoustic) Pedalboard
Covering his coloring, switching, and tuning needs for flattops and mandolin are a Strymon Flint, another JHS Pulp ’N’ Peel, a Grace Design ALiX preamp, a Keeley Mini Katana, a L.R. Baggs Venue DI, a Morley ABC Pro Switcher/Combiner Pedal, and a pair of Peterson StroboStomps.
Sturdy Steeds
“This is the heartbeat of my rig,” contends Jesse Wells. The kickstart to his rig’s heart is a 1968 Fender Telecaster (top left) that once upon a time had a Bigsby vibrato on it. He bought it off Food Stamps’ tech Patrick Boyle, who still gets to see his old friend every night. The ES-style guitar is a Collings I-35 (top right) has been upgraded with ThroBak PAF humbuckers. RS Guitarworks (lower left) created this Slab Series mashup that blends a T-style with an LP Junior. The pickups are a set of growly Fralin Soapbar P90s. One of the Bluegrass State brothers built him this relic’d partscaster that has a set of Ron Ellis 64S single-coils. And on the far right is a Gretsch G6128T-GH George Harrison Signature Duo Jet that Wells wanted for mellower vibes, and into which he dropped a set of Ron Ellis Ellisonic JLs codesigned by the masterful Julian Lage.
The Oddities
As the man in the band that wears the most hats, Jesse Wells carries a lot of auxiliary instruments. Starting with the Eastwood MRG Tenor (top left), a fancy little unit with mini humbuckers. Next is the Collings 360 Baritone that has a 27.5" scale length and custom Lollar Alnico Pole P90s. Then he has the Gibson RB-250 5-string banjo and a violin handmade by Jonathan Cooper out of Portland, Maine. On the far right is Wells’ Danelectro 59X12 12-string.
Mighty Mites
Letting FOH and PA do a lot of the work, Jesse utilizes a pair of puny punchers—a Muleskinner Tweed based on the 5E3 circuit with a couple 6V6s, and a 1974 Fender Princeton Reverb.
Jesse Wells’ Pedalboards
Up top is the board for Jesse’s fiddles and banjo, which both go to a Grace Design FELiX2 preamp, a duet of L.R. Baggs pedals—an Align Reverb and Para DI Acoustic Guitar Preamp—a Universal Audio Golden Reverberator, and two tuners (TC Electronic PolyTune3 and Peterson StroboStomp HD). A Strymon Zuma powers everything.
The electric board that handles everything else includes a Strymon Flint, MXR Phase 90 (script logo), Origin Effects SlideRIG Compact Deluxe, FX Engineering RAF Mirage Compressor, Wampler Germanium Tumnus, Nocturne Brain Mystery Brain BS-301 tape echo, and Chase Bliss Automatone Preamp. Utility boxes include a Peterson StroboStomp HD tuner, a Radial Headlight Amp Selector, and Truetone 1 SPOT PRO CS12 power supply.
James’ Barkers
For this arena run, James Barker took out a handful of electrics. The candy-apple red Fender Eric Johnson Strat is the lone instrument that he had during the last Rundown. Barker mentions, “It’s all stock. I’ve never done anything to it, and it’s one of my favorite guitars in existence.” Next is a USA-made Epiphone Casino that has a laminated maple-poplar-maple body, a rounded-C mahogany neck, bound rosewood fretboard, and a pair of gnarly Gibson dogear P90s. Then we have a glowing Rickenbacker 1993Plus 12-string that gets busted out for “Universal Sound.” A Gretsch G6122T-62GE Vintage Select Country Gentleman hollowbody gives Barker some traditional country-western twang. And finally on the right side we have a CME Exclusive Gibson Les Paul Standard ’50s that boasts a dazzling “Dirty Lemon Burst” finish that was inspired by the organically fading cherry bursts from the holy-grail period.
Lonesome Whippoorwill
Our 2018 tour visit with the Food Stamps saw Barker using a Sho-Bud pedal-steel guitar. All of his repairs on that 10-string beast were done by Nashville luthier Jeff Surratt who owns and operates Show Pro Steel Guitars. Just before COVID shut down tours, Barker received his custom 10-string Show Pro model seen above, and has been enjoying bending notes and sliding all over it ever since.
Get Amped!
James plays through a pair of amps all night. The pedal-steel Show Pro hits an old Fender Bassman that powers a CavAmp passive rotary speaker cabinet. For the steel’s main tone, Barker relies on a Fender Tone Master Twin Reverb. When he’s playing electric guitar, he drives with the custom-voiced Hall combo (seen in the last Rundown) and a 1970s Fender Super Reverb that’s been modded by removing the first channel’s tone stack (when he hits the bright switch), giving the amp a lot of volume and gain. The Hall is a two-channel design with the right channel (his prime choice) modeled after a Trainwreck Rocket, while the left channel is similar to a Gibson GA-40. The Super Reverb is used for clean parts, and the Hall is for rockin’.
James Barker’s Pedalboards
To accommodate his dual duties, he’s got a pair of pedalboards. Up top is his steel board that uses a Keeley Omni Reverb, Keeley D&M Drive/Boost, Strymon Mobius, and Strymon TimeLine. A Fulltone True-Path ABY Soft Touch switcher controls the amps, while a CavAmp box handles the rotary speaker speeds and stops. His steel is kept in check with a Peterson StroboStomp HD tuner.
Down below is his electric-guitar stomp station that has some duplicates from the steel board (Strymon TimeLine & Mobius, Fulltone True-Path ABY Soft Touch switcher, and Peterson StroboStomp). The fresh faces include a Universal Audio Golden Reverberator, an Analog Man Bi-CompROSSor, a JHS Double Barrel, a JHS AT Drive V2, a Kogoy Musical Devices Rainbowsound, an Analog Man King of Tone, and a Dunlop 535Q Cry Baby.
All About That Bass
Bassist Craig Burletic hasn’t met a 4-string he couldn’t thump. Back in 2018 he was boogying down on a sunburst 2011 Fender P, but he’s since acquired a similar-looking P from 1965 that actually is decked out in pre-CBS specs. He purchased this special instrument off fellow bassist J.T. Cure, who’s in Chris Stapleton’s band. Burletic was floored with the vintage Precision and pinches himself each night because as he puts it, “I didn’t know basses could sound so good.” If you look closely at the D string off the bridge, you’ll notice a bulky burl hanging near the saddle. It’s actually the end of a double-bass string that he slapped on when his standard electric-bass string snapped during a “middle-aged” jam out. He didn’t have any extra electric-bass strings so he put on the double-bass D gut string and hasn’t looked back.
While studying at Marshall University, Burletic fell in love with a 1974 fretless Fender P bass. He learned how to play upright bass on that instrument and wanted to buy it from Marshall, but found the bureaucratic hoops a bit much. However, a few years later he found this fretless 1972 P with a rare maple neck and fingerboard. His double bass is an old American Standard that he scooped off Facebook Marketplace.
10 Outta 10!
Burletic brings the low-end rumble with a pair of thunder buddies—an Orange AD200B MK3 200-watt bass head and an old Fender Bassman. The Orange goes into a Ampeg Heritage SVT 610AV cabinet while the Fender runs through an Aguilar DB 410 cab. And you gotta love the looks of his full setup glowing under the EBT (Eatin’ Big Time) logo.
Craig Burletic’s Pedalboard
No pedals were on the floor for Burletic last time, but he’s since fleeced out a proper pedalboard for the arena tour (even if most of the boxes are utilitarian units). The actual tone twisters are a Boss OC-2 Octaver and an Origin Effects Cali76 Compact Bass Compressor. An A Designs REDDI DI box helps give FOH a crystal bass signal, while the Radial BigShot ABY wrangles the amps. Then he has a pair of Boss TU-3 Chromatic Tuners and double Strymon Ojai power supplies.
Childers’ Children
Tyler Childers has long been loyal to Collings. He used them exclusively during our last Rig Rundown, and he’s still plucking those Collings like they owe him money. For a while, his No. 1 was the DS1A (right), but just a few days before we interviewed the gang, the Collings OM1 Julian Lage showed up and since then it’s been used 99 percent of the time. It has many traditional orchestra-model specs (Sitka spruce top, Honduran mahogany back, sides and neck, medium nickel frets, and bone nut and saddle), but what makes this small-bodied acoustic special are the intricate requests from Lage, like recreating the neck profile of his 1939 Martin 000-18 and using a custom satin lacquer that makes the new guitar feel and sound old. FOH has noted that the smaller acoustic with less bass sits much better in the full-band mix. Both acoustics take D’Addario Medium Phosphor Bronze strings (.013–.056).
Tyler Childers’ Pedalboard
For a picker that mainly plays acoustics, his board is expectedly tame with a pair of Grace Design ALiX preamps (one for the Collings and another for fiddle) and a Boss TU-3w Waza Craft Tuner.
TV Time!
When Childers does grab an electric and throw down (usually during instrumental “Two Coats” from Can I Take My Hounds to Heaven?), he’ll get loud with this old TV that was actually his grandfather’s RCA set. On the backside rests a custom Square Amps head that Matt Richards built upon Tyler’s request. (Head here to read its quick backstory.) It has a single 12" Weber Vintage Series Ferromax speaker.
Shop the Food Stamps' Rig
Fender Stories Collection Eric Johnson 1954 "Virginia" Stratocaster
Fender Vintera II '60s Stratocaster
Amplified Nation Overdrive Reverb 50-watt Tube Head
Dunlop EP103 Echoplex Delay Pedal
Keeley Katana Mini Clean Boost Pedal
JHS Pulp 'N' Peel V4 Compressor Pedal
Peterson Strobostomp
Strymon El Capistan
LR Baggs Venue DI
Grace Design ALiX Acoustic Instrument Preamp / EQ / DI / Boost Pedal
Morley ABC Pro 3-button Switcher/Combiner Pedal
Fender Custom Shop Time Machine '68 Thinline Telecaster Journeyman Relic
Gretsch G6128T-GH George Harrison Duo Jet
Danelectro 59X12 12-string Electric Guitar
Fender '64 Princeton Reverb 1x10"
Grace Designs Felix Preamp
LR Baggs Acoustic Series Reverb
LR Baggs Para Acoustic DI
Universal Audio UAFX Golden Reverberator Pedal
TC Electronic PolyTune
MXR Phase 90 Script
Strymon Flint
Wampler Tumnus
Radial Engineering Headlight
Gibson Custom 1959 Les Paul Standard Reissue Electric Guitar - Murphy Lab Light Aged Dirty Lemon
Epiphone USA Casino Hollowbody Electric Guitar
Rickenbacker 360/12C63 12-String Electric Semi-Hollow
Gretsch G6122T-62GE Vintage Select Country Gentleman
Fender Tone Master Twin
Fender Super Reverb
JHS Double Barrel V4
JHS AT (Andy Timmons) Drive V2 Pedal
Dunlop CBM95 Cry Baby Mini Wah Pedal
Strymon Mobius
Strymon Timeline
Keeley Omni Reverb
Keeley D&M Drive
Fender Tony Franklin Fretless Precision Bass
Orange AD200B MK 3 200-watt Bass Head - Black
Ampeg Heritage SVT-810AV 8x10"
Aguilar DB 410
Origin Effects Cali76
Boss OC-2 Octaver
Boss TU-3 Tuner
Radial Bigshot ABY
A Designs Reddi Tube Direct Box
Boss Waza Craft Tuner TU-3w
Dunlop 511P100 Primetone Standard Smooth Guitar Picks 1.0mm 3-pack
D’Addario XTAPB1356 XT Phosphor Bronze Strings
D'Addario NYXL1149 NYXL Nickel Wound Strings
D’Addario NYXL09544 NYXL Nickel Wound Strings
The Spirit Fall trio: drummer Brian Blade (right) and saxophonist Chris Potter (center) joined Patitucci (left) for a single day at The Bunker. “Those guys are scary. It almost puts pressure on me, how good they are, because they get it really fast,” says Patitucci.
What distinguishes Patitucci is that he is one of the few jazz musicians who simultaneously enjoys a vibrant career as a classical bassist and first-call session bassist. His résumé—which includes recordings with pop icons like Sting and Bon Jovi, and hundreds of film dates—is virtually unparalleled. Patitucci also composes classical music and is frequently commissioned to write music for string quartets and other chamber ensembles. Among his numerous compositions are a piece for 6-string electric bass and string orchestra that was performed with Suono e Oltre, a chamber orchestra in Italy. In short, Patitucci is the very rare jack of all trades who is also exceptional at all.
Freedom without Chords
Patitucci’s latest release, Spirit Fall, is a trio album featuring Patitucci, drummer Brian Blade, and saxophonist Chris Potter. This instrumentation leaves out a traditional chordal instrument, and can be tricky to make sound full, as there is a large harmonic hole in the sonic space. But in the hands of master musicians, this setting offers more room for harmonic exploration and conversational interplay amongst the band members. Patitucci has been exploring this chord-less format since 2009’s Remembrance featuring Blade on drums and Joe Lovano on saxophone.Throughout Spirit Fall the trio employs a variety of textures and colors to make for an engaging listen. “Pole Star” has an open feel with the counterpoint between acoustic bass and sax discreetly implying the underlying progression. “Lipim,” which means hope in Cameroonian, has a lively afrobeat groove and a ridiculous sax solo by Chris Potter. Like many of his solos on Spirt Fall, Potter’s solo on “Lipim” veers through several harmonic detours that would have likely been hampered if a chordal instrument were imposing the harmony. “Spirit Fall” and “Thoughts and Dreams” sees Patitucci using his 6-string electric to explore gorgeously haunting figures. The bass solo on “Spirit Fall” sees Patitucci almost accompanying himself as he alternates between low notes and chords against blistering single-note lines.
Even though Patitucci had the luxury of studio time, Spirit Fall was recorded quickly, with mostly first or second takes, and the occasional third take. The trio was able to record a powerful musical statement in such a short time because they are a working band as opposed to hired guns that might possibly play together for the first time at the session.
John Patitucci's Gear
“I’m just a kid from Brooklyn,” says Patitucci. It was his formative years spent with his older brother (who played guitar) that led him to the bass.
Photo by Dave Stapleton
Guitars
- Yamaha TRBJP2 Signature Model 6-String
- Yamaha Custom Semi-Hollow 6-String
- 1965 Fender P Bass (Used on “Lipim”)
- Gagliano Double Bass
Amps
- Aguilar DB 751 for acoustic bass
- Aguilar Tone Hammer for electric bass
- Aguilar 4x10 cabinet
- Aguilar 1x12 cabinet
- Grace Design FELiX Version 2
- Grace Design m303 DI
Effects
- Line 6 HX Stomp
- Line 6 DL4
Strings and Accessories
- D’Addario Nickel Round Strings (.032-.045-.065-.085-.105-.130)
- Gruvgear Signature Straps
- Pirastro Evah Pirazzi Weich gauge
- Pirastro Perpetual
Prior to the recording, Patitucci sent demos out, and by the time they got to the studio they were ready to commit to tape. They finished the whole record in just one day without any rehearsals. “Not with those guys,” says Patitucci. “Those guys are scary. It almost puts pressure on me, how good they are, because they get it really fast [laughs]. I was hoping that my good takes were theirs too.”
Interestingly enough, while iconic chord-less trio albums by saxophonists like Sonny Rollins, John Coltrane, and Joe Henderson played a big role in Patitucci’s musical upbringing, he came to record with that instrumentation almost by accident. “We were going to rehearse for that record [Remembrance], and [pianist] Brad Mehldau, who played on some tracks, couldn’t make the rehearsal,” recalls Patitucci. “So we rehearsed at Lovano’s house and it sounded so good I was almost like, ‘Wow, maybe we should do the record as a trio.’ But I had all this music written that really was for the piano. So I said, ‘Well, maybe someday.’ And then finally we got around to it.”
Spirit Fall was tailored to the sensibilities of Blade and Potter, both of whom Patitucci has played with a lot over the years. “We have a relationship and we have a sound together already because of the way they play. Brian’s sense of dynamics has made it easier for me to get the kind of acoustic bass sound live that I've always wanted to get. It’s not easy to do that if the drummer can’t play those wide dynamics like Brian can,” explains Patitucci. “And Chris has been playing my music for years. He’s just an incredible interpreter of my music, and I love that. I remember using him in the early ’90s. Interestingly enough, around the time I did Imprint, I was using him and I was also using Mark Turner. And it’s funny. I started teaching college [Patitucci was Professor of Jazz Studies at City College of New York and is currently teaching at Berklee College of Music] a lot in 2000, and all my students were trying to sound like those guys.”“As a composer, I wanted to have a chance to have major control over the sound and how we did things, as opposed to a live record.”
As a precursor to Spirit Fall, in 2022 Patitucci had recorded Live in Italy with the same lineup of Blade and Potter. He could have easily just done Spirit Falllive againwith the trio but this time he specifically chose to bring them into the studio. “As a composer, I wanted to have a chance to have major control over the sound and how we did things, as opposed to a live record,” explains Patitucci. “Live records are great, but I wanted to record in the studio with that band so we can get into some new compositions I was writing, and some through-composed things with the 6-string, as well as the acoustic.”
How Chick Helped Turn Four into Six
Patitucci isn’t fond only of the traditional trio sans chordal instrument format. In fact, he’s recorded in just about every context you can imagine. From completely solo bass on Soul of the Bass, to his Electric Guitar Quartet with two guitarists—Adam Rogers and Steve Cardenas on Brooklyn, to guitar trio plus string quartet plus Chris Potter on Line by Line. Patitucci uses each situation as a way to grow musically.When Patitucci first started playing with Corea it was in the trio format, along with drummer Dave Weckl. Corea was a keyboardist who covered a huge sonic range and Patitucci saw this as an opportunity to push the creative envelope. “Chick and I became very close. I had enormous respect and love for him and he taught me a lot. That’s how I really discovered the 6-string, because I felt like I needed it orchestrationally to play in that band,” says Patitucci. “I started playing with Chick and at first I played my 4-string, and it’s a trio, but I have to blow on every song. And he’s got all these synths, and I’m thinking, ‘Man, I need a low string, because he’s playing all these low notes. I want to play the low notes.’ [laughs] I need a 5-string at least. Then I heard Anthony Jackson play the six. He was the pioneer who invented it.”
Spirit Fall is the documentation of a working band exploring new music in the studio. It features all new compositions and an inventive take on “House of Jade,” written by Patitucci’s longtime mentor, Wayne Shorter.
Corea fronted the money for Patitucci’s first 6-string—a Ken Smith—and took some money out of his check every week to pay it off. The transition to the 6-string wasn’t immediate for Patitucci, however. There was actually a big learning curve to the new instrument. To make matters even more daunting, the first big tour was to begin two weeks after Patitucci received the new instrument. Despite all the potential risks, Corea was very encouraging. “Chick was really patient. It was ridiculous. It was so hard. I was just a glutton for punishment,” admits Patitucci. “I just wanted the sound, and I was so naive about what it would be like. When I got the 6-string, it was a couple of weeks before we started going out on major tours and I was clamming. Like I would go down to what I thought was the E string but was now the B string.”
Once he got a handle on it, the 6-string allowed Patitucci to finally maximize the potential of his fluid soloing style. “I wanted to play the 6-string because when the blowing comes around, the C string helps me get over the top as a band,” says Patitucci. “Chick dug the fact that when I was blowing I wanted to sound more like a tenor player.”
“Wayne [Shorter] made me have the courage to play very little and hang a note up in the air.”
Shortly after Patitucci joined his band, Corea convinced GRP Records to sign Patitucci, whose 1987 eponymous first solo album reached number 1 on the Billboard Top Jazz Albums chart. Patitucci reflects, “The two biggest long term influences in terms of mentoring and what they did for my career would have been Chick Corea and then Wayne Shorter.”
The Spirit of Shorter
Patitucci first met Shorter in 1986, during the Chick, Wayne, and Al (Di Meola) tour. A year later Shorter asked Patitucci to record several tracks on his album, Phantom Navigator. This began his association with Shorter and led to Patitucci ultimately joining Shorter’s quartet in 2000.
It’s fitting that the only non-original tune on Spirit Fall is a Shorter tune, “House of Jade.” Shorter’s highly individual approach—particularly the electric stuff he was doing from the Atlantisperiod—shaped a lot of Patitucci’s conception of music. “I was playing electric bass and all the tunes were through-composed, except the blowing was like on one chord. And, you know, that’s challenging, actually,” reveals Patitucci. “And he was creating these incredible things, and he could do it with density or almost nothing, almost like one note. His lyricism and melodicism is so powerful that it really changed me. I was like, ‘Wow, I want to play like that. I want to be able to have a sound that I can be confident enough about to leave a ton of space and be able to just let space happen.’ Like, he got that from Miles.”
Moving to a 6-string bass wasn’t as natural for Patitucci as you might think. “When I got the 6-string, it was a couple of weeks before we started going out on major tours [with Chick Corea] and I was clamming.”
The minimalist approach that Shorter used at times was a stark contrast to some of the over-the-top pyrotechnics Corea’s Elektric Band was known for. “I was always into melodies too, but yes, in Chick’s band there were a lot of changes to play over, and sometimes a lot of fast tempos,” says Patitucci. “It wasn’t only chops, there were a lot of melodies and we played ballads too. I mean, I wanted to do that, but I didn’t have the courage to. Wayne made me have the courage to play very little and hang a note up in the air. With the 6-string, you can really do that. I started to realize that I was really interested in moving people in that way too.”
The Journey of the Kid from Brooklyn
Subliminally, the transition from 4- to 6-string bass might harken back to Patitucci’s childhood in East Flatbush, Brooklyn. He originally picked up the guitar, influenced by his brother Tom who had already been playing. Tom tried to teach him but ultimately the guitar just didn’t connect, and Tom sensed it. “He just said, ‘Why don’t you try the bass?’” recalls Patitucci. “Because we can play together then.” And that’s where it all began.
At 10, Patitucci got his first bass, a short-scale Sears Telstar bass that was hanging on a wall like a decoration down the street at somebody’s house on East 39th Street. “We bought it for 10 bucks and I thought it was great,” reflects Patitucci, who enjoyed rock ’n’ roll and James Jamerson’s playing on Motown Records in his formative years.
When he was 13, Patitucci’s family moved out to the West Coast. Soon after the move, Patitucci started learning the acoustic bass, and by the early ’80s, Patitucci’s career started taking off. In 1996 he moved back to New York, where he continues to break new musical ground.
With a career spanning over four decades and still going strong, Patitucci has achieved the dream that many aspiring musicians long for. What is the secret to his success? “Nobody knows the secret and anybody who tells you they know that is lying,” says Patitucci. “I don't even deserve it. I think that God was really good to me and blessed me. He somehow allowed me to have my dream come true. I look at it now as a 65-year old guy and go, ‘Wow, that was really a long shot.’ [laughs] It’s kind of unbelievable. You know what, I mean? I’m just this kid from Brooklyn, you know?”YouTube It
This trio rendition of the Beatles’ “And I Love Her” showcases John Patitucci’s ability to add chordal textures on his 6-string bass to create a full sound, even without a conventional chordal instrument like guitar or piano.
The National New Yorker lived at the forefront of the emerging electric guitar industry, and in Memphis Minnie’s hands, it came alive.
(Are you not totally intrigued by the story of this incredible woman? Why did she run away from home? Why did she fall in love with the guitar? We haven’t even touched on how remarkable her songwriting is. This is a singular pioneer of guitar history, and we beseech you to read Woman with Guitar: Memphis Minnie’s Blues by Beth and Paul Garon.)
Following the end of World War I, Hawaiian music enjoyed a rapid rise in popularity. On their travels around the U.S., musicians like Sol Ho’opi’i became fans of Louis Armstrong and the New Orleans Rhythm Kings, leading to a great cross-pollination of Hawaiian music with jazz and blues. This potent combination proved popular and drew ever-larger audiences, which created a significant problem: How on earth would an audience of thousands hear the sound from a wimpy little acoustic guitar?
This art deco pickguard offers just a bit of pizzazz to an otherwise demure instrument.
In the late 1920s, George Beauchamp, John and Rudy Dopyera, Adolph Rickenbacker, and John Dopyera’s nephew Paul Barth endeavored to answer that question with a mechanically amplified guitar. Working together under Beauchamp and John Dopyera’s National String Instrument Corporation, they designed the first resonator guitar, which, like a Victrola, used a cone-shaped resonator built into the guitar to amplify the sound. It was definitely louder, but not quite loud enough—especially for the Hawaiian slide musicians. With the guitars laid on their laps, much of the sound projected straight up at the ceiling instead of toward the audience.
Barth and Beauchamp tackled this problem in the 1930s by designing a magnetic pickup, and Rickenbacker installed it in the first commercially successful electric instrument: a lap-steel guitar known affectionately as the “Frying Pan” due to its distinctive shape. Suddenly, any stringed instrument could be as loud as your amplifier allowed, setting off a flurry of innovation. Electric guitars were born!
“At the time it was positively futuristic, with its lack of f-holes and way-cool art deco design on the pickup.”
By this time, Memphis Minnie was a bona fide star. She recorded for Columbia, Vocalion, and Decca Records. Her song “Bumble Bee,” featuring her driving guitar technique, became hugely popular and earned her a new nickname: the Queen of Country Blues. She was officially royalty, and her subjects needed to hear her game-changing playing. This is where she crossed paths with our old pals over at National.
National and other companies began adding pickups to so-called Spanish guitars, which they naturally called “Electric Spanish.” (This term was famously abbreviated ES by the Gibson Guitar Corporation and used as a prefix on a wide variety of models.) In 1935, National made its first Electric Spanish guitar, renamed the New Yorker three years later. By today’s standards, it’s modestly appointed. At the time it was positively futuristic, with its lack of f-holes and way-cool art deco design on the pickup.
There’s buckle rash and the finish on the back of the neck is rubbed clean off in spots, but that just goes to show how well-loved this guitar has been.
Memphis Minnie had finally found an axe fit for a Queen. She was among the first blues guitarists to go electric, and the New Yorker fueled her already-upward trajectory. She recorded over 200 songs in her 25-year career, cementing her and the National New Yorker’s place in musical history.
Our National New Yorker was made in 1939 and shows perfect play wear as far as we’re concerned. Sure, there’s buckle rash and the finish on the back of the neck is rubbed clean off in spots, but structurally, this guitar is in great shape. It’s easy to imagine this guitar was lovingly wiped down each time it was put back in the case.
There’s magic in this guitar, y’all. Every time we pick it up, we can feel Memphis Minnie’s spirit enter the room. This guitar sounds fearless. It’s a survivor. This is a guitar that could inspire you to run away and join the circus, transcend genre and gender, and leave your own mark on music history. As a guitar store, watching guitars pass from musician to musician gives us a beautiful physical reminder of how history moves through generations. We can’t wait to see who joins this guitar’s remarkable legacy.
SOURCES: blackpast.org, nps.gov, worldmusic.net, historylink.org, Memphis Music Hall of Fame, “Memphis Minnie’s ‘Scientific Sound’: Afro-Sonic Modernity and the Jukebox Era of the Blues” from American Quarterly, “The History of the Development of Electric Stringed Musical Instruments” by Stephen Errede, Department of Physics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, IL.
We know Horsegirl as a band of musicians, but their friendships will always come before the music. From left to right: Nora Cheng, drummer Gigi Reece, and Penelope Lowenstein.
“It was kind of life-changing, honestly. It changed how I thought about womanhood,” Lowenstein says over the call, laughing a bit at the gravitas of the statement.
But the moment of levity illuminates the fact that big things are happening in their lives. When they released their debut album, 2022’s Versions of Modern Performance, the three members of Horsegirl were still teenagers in high school. Their new, sophomore record, Phonetics On and On, arrives right in the middle of numerous first experiences—their first time living away from home, first loves, first years of their 20s, in university. Horsegirl is going through changes. Lowenstein notes how, through moving to a new city, their friendship has grown, too, into something more familial. They rely on each other more.
“If the friendship was ever taking a toll because of the band, the friendship would come before the band, without any doubt.”–Penelope Lowenstein
“Everyone's cooking together, you take each other to the doctor,” Lowenstein says. “You rely on each other for weird things. I think transitioning from being teenage friends to suddenly working together, touring together, writing together in this really intimate creative relationship, going through sort of an unusual experience together at a young age, and then also starting school together—I just feel like it brings this insane intimacy that we work really hard to maintain. And if the friendship was ever taking a toll because of the band, the friendship would come before the band without any doubt.”
Horsegirl recorded their sophomore LP, Phonetics On and On, at Wilco’s The Loft studio in their hometown, Chicago.
These changes also include subtle and not-so-subtle shifts in their sophisticated and artful guitar-pop. Versions of Modern Performance created a notion of the band as ’90s college-rock torchbearers, with reverb-and-distortion-drenched numbers that recalled Yo La Tengo and the Breeders. Phonetics On and On doesn’t extinguish the flame, but it’s markedly more contemporary, sacrificing none of the catchiness but opting for more space, hypnotic guitar lines, and meditative, repeated phrases. Cheng and Lowenstein credit Welsh art-pop wiz Cate Le Bon’s presence as producer in the studio as essential to the sonic direction.
“On the record, I think we were really interested in Young Marble Giants—super minimal, the percussiveness of the guitar, and how you can do so much with so little.”–Nora Cheng
“We had never really let a fourth person into our writing process,” Cheng says. “I feel like Cate really changed the way we think about how you can compose a song, and built off ideas we were already thinking about, and just created this very comfortable space for experimentation and pushed us. There are so many weird instruments and things that aren't even instruments at [Wilco’s Chicago studio] The Loft. I feel like, definitely on our first record, we were super hesitant to go into territory that wasn't just distorted guitar, bass, and drums.”
Nora Cheng's Gear
Nora Cheng says that letting a fourth person—Welsh artist Cate Le Bon—into the trio’s songwriting changed how they thought about composition.
Photo by Braden Long
Effects
- EarthQuaker Devices Plumes
- Ibanez Tube Screamer
- TC Electronic Polytune
Picks
- Dunlop Tortex .73 mm
Phonetics On and On introduces warm synths (“Julie”), raw-sounding violin (“In Twos”), and gamelan tiles—common in traditional Indonesian music—to Horsegirl’s repertoire, and expands on their already deep quiver of guitar sounds as Cheng and Lowenstein branch into frenetic squonks, warped jangles, and jagged, bare-bones riffs. The result is a collection of songs simultaneously densely textured and spacious.
“I listen to these songs and I feel like it captures the raw, creative energy of being in the studio and being like, ‘Fuck! We just exploded the song. What is about to happen?’” Lowenstein says. “That feeling is something we didn’t have on the first record because we knew exactly what we wanted to capture and it was the songs we had written in my parents’ basement.”
Cheng was first introduced to classical guitar as a kid by her dad, who tried to teach her, and then she was subsequently drawn back to rock by bands like Cage The Elephant and Arcade Fire. Lowenstein started playing at age 6, which covers most of her life memories and comprises a large part of her identity. “It made me feel really powerful as a young girl to know that I was a very proficient guitarist,” she says. The shreddy playing of Television, Pink Floyd’s spacey guitar solos, and Yo La Tengo’s Ira Kaplan were all integral to her as Horsegirl began.
Penelope Lowenstein's Gear
Penelope Lowenstein likes looking back at the versions of herself that made older records.
Photo by Braden Long
Effects
- EarthQuaker Westwood
- EarthQuaker Bellows
- TC Electronic PolyTune
Picks
- Dunlop Tortex 1.0 mm
Recently, the two of them have found themselves influenced by guitarists both related and unrelated to the type of tunes they’re trading in on their new album. Lowenstein got into Brazilian guitar during the pandemic and has recently been “in a Jim O’Rourke, John Fahey zone.”
“There’s something about listening to that music where you realize, about the guitar, that you can just compose an entire orchestra on one instrument,” Lowenstein says. “And hearing what the bass in those guitar parts is doing—as in, the E string—is kind of mind blowing.”
“On the record, I think we were really interested in Young Marble Giants—super minimal, the percussiveness of the guitar, and how you can do so much with so little,” Cheng adds. “And also Lizzy Mercier [Descloux], mostly on the Rosa Yemen records. That guitar playing I feel was very inspiring for the anti-solo,[a technique] which appears on [Phonetics On and On].”This flurry of focused discovery gives the impression that Cheng and Lowenstein’s sensibilities are shifting day-to-day, buoyed by the incredible expansion of creative possibilities that setting one’s life to revolve around music can afford. And, of course, the energy and exponential growth of youth. Horsegirl has already clocked major stylistic shifts in their brief lifespan, and it’s exciting to have such a clear glimpse of evolution in artists who are, likely and hopefully, just beginning a long journey together.
“There’s something about listening to that music where you realize, about the guitar, that you can just compose an entire orchestra on one instrument.”–Penelope Lowenstein
“In your 20s, life moves so fast,” Lowenstein says. “So much changes from the time of recording something to releasing something that even that process is so strange. You recognize yourself, and you also kind of sympathize with yourself. It's a really rewarding way of life, I think, for musicians, and it's cool that we have our teenage years captured like that, too—on and on until we're old women.”
YouTube It
Last summer, Horsegirl gathered at a Chicago studio space to record a sun-soaked set of new and old tunes.
