POST # 197 Leo Fender on the Precision Bass

"In the 40s and 50s, it was common for guitar players in groups to double on bass. My concept of an electric bass arose in response to some important needs. First, it was impossible to get a Dog House' bass around. Second, the bass player had to sing, and it was hell to try and get the bass up to center stage to the microphone. There was a screaming need for a portable bass that could be amplified and with frets so that the guitarist wouldn't have to struggle to stay in tune."

"The only bass strings we could make were made of gut, and they wouldn't work on an electric. To get workable strings, we had to wrap iron wire around the gut strings, which was a miserable job." - Leo Fender

( Once sales of P-Bass took off, V.C Squier made electric bass strings for Fender. Donald Duck Dunn giving the P-Bass a workout. - Ed )

POST # 196 Kirk Hammett on Master of Puppets

“I really felt that Master of Puppets was the album that defined that lineup—James, Lars, Cliff and I. We had gotten to know each other’s musical capabilities and temperaments over the three-year period we’d been together, and every song we came up with was another great conception.” - Kirk Hammett

( Vintage Metallica live. - Ed )

POST # 195 Jonny Greenwood on Radiohead Sound

Our ears get bored very quickly. Sometimes a guitar plugged into an amplifier isn’t really enough. So you hear sounds in your head, or on a record, and you say, ‘I want it to sound like this.’ And sometimes it won’t—I can’t play the trumpet, so it’s not going to sound like Miles Davis. But we aim for these things and end up with our own garbled version. - Jonny Grenwood

( Radiohead doing Paranoid Android - Ed )

POST # 194 Bix Beiderbecke on Jazz

One of the things I like about jazz, kid, is I don't know what's going to happen next. Do you? - Bix Beiderbecke

( Doco on Jazz - Ed)

POST # 193 Pablo Picasso on Originality

Disciples be damned. It's not interesting. It's only the masters that matter. Those who create. - Pablo Picasso


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POST # 192 Kenny Burrell on Exercises and Practices.

If we overload ourselves with exercises, our playing will sound like that, I don’t
want to practice things to have little bits and pieces to call on. I’ve studied theory and composition, so I’m aware of all the scales from India, Asia, Europe, Greece—whatever—but I’m not going to put these in my music just because they’re different. Rather than consciously impose scales on a progression, I just try to add something musical—a few notes, some nice sounds. It’s a combination of emotion and intellect, but emotion is the essence. If you don’t have that, you don’t have anything. The most important thing is to express your feeling—not what someone else is feeling. I try to be as free as possible and just let something happen. It will—if you let yourself relax. - Kenny Burrell

(Wonderful jam here contrast Banrey's bebop lines with Grant Green's hardbop soulful approach and Burrell's tasty bluesy sensibility. Really dig Grant Green's comping behind Kessel as well and Burrell's hip outside lines when they were trading 4 in the end. - Ed)

POST # 191 Stevie Ray Vaughan on the Blues

If people tell me they don’t want to hear a blues band because it brings them down, they’re not paying attention at all. I like a lot of different kinds of music, but if it doesn’t have any soul I can’t relate to it. - Stevie Ray Vaughan

(RIP Steive Ray Vaughan, guitar slinger extraodinarie par excellence. - Ed )

POST # 190 Angus Young on Malcolm Young's Gretsch Firebird

...it’s the way he plays rhythm – it’s got that distinct sound, especially with that Gretsch [Firebird]. I’ve tried to emulate his rhythm style myself, at home, with one of his guitars, and it’s no easy task. He’s got those big thick strings on it, like tram tracks, you know? It’s all in his little wrist…….he’s at the point where they’re not making that gauge any more, since the youth want them lighter and lighter. These days, you see, they all want to run from one end of the fretboard to the other. They want to practice scales. I mean, that’s all very good, so long as they do it at home. - Angus Young

(Malcolm getting some glorious sounds from his firebird in TNT. - Ed)

POST # 189 Leo Fender on his upstart guitar factory

We were putting an acetate finish on the guitars at the time, and to keep the acetate warm, we kept it near an open gas flame. If anything ever happened we would have blown that building to the moon. Actually, , it was so bad that when the fire inspector came by, he just looked in the door and ran to the nearest pay phone to call us about being in violation of code. - Leo Fender

( Clip of the Fender factory today. - Ed )

POST # 188 Wes Montgomery on Guitarists

Some things you have to leave for somebody else. Of all the good guitarists I've heard, they're either in one thing or another. But then I can imagine how some of the public feel. They say, well, OK, I can hear how you're doing what you're doing - solid, but for some ungodly reason they'd like to see how you'd do something else. And they don't realise what's involved for you to get into another thing. I keep trying to explain 'like, I'm up tight now! - Wes Montgomery

( Benson and Ritenour pays tribute to the master of jazz guitar. - Ed )