J.J. Cale is the last person you’d expect to get the up close and personal “Behind The Music” treatment. Interviews with him are rare, and for years most of his fans only had a vague idea what he looked like, since he toured sporadically and was seldom pictured on albums. Of his 1971 debut, Naturally, he laughs, “Ironically, we were selling records with no interviews, no photographs, no publicity. But that was another time.”

In 2004, he released his first studio album in eight years, To Tulsa And Back. “The reason I did the tour was because Eric Clapton asked me to do the Crossroads Festival,” he explains. “If I got to saddle up and get a band, might as well play some other gigs. Ended up being seven weeks.”

When he granted German filmmaker Jorg Bundschuh permission to film some dates, he says, “I thought it was just going to be a promo thing, like 10 minutes long. I didn’t know we were doing a ‘This Is Your Life’ kind of thing.”
The resultant video, To Tulsa And Back: On Tour With J.J. Cale (Time-Life), is a rare treat, with concert footage (including his first show in his hometown of Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 25 years); informal acoustic performances; family album pictures spanning his lifetime; and interviews with bandmates (some of whom first played with him nearly 50 years ago), his biggest supporter (and beneficiary), Eric Clapton, and – best of all – Cale himself.

In one segment, drummer Jimmy Karstein refers to Cale as “the most unaffected person ever in the music business,” as anyone who knows him can attest. Talking about himself is not Cale’s favorite thing to do. “It was a real surprise to me,” he admits. “That’s really not my kind of thing. Then they wanted me to promote it – like, ‘Will you go to a record store in L.A. and do like a book signing?’ I said, ‘Of course not.’ So they said, ‘Will you sign some sleeves if we send them to you?’ ‘Yeah, I’ll do that.’ ‘And will you do some interviews?’ I said, ‘I’ll do two.’ So you’re one of them.”

At the time the tour was filmed, John Cale was 65 years old. He explains how, after he moved to Los Angeles, the owner of the Whiskey A Go Go renamed him J.J. Cale, because there was another John Cale, in the Velvet Underground. “I said, ‘If you give me a job, you can call me anything you want.’”

After years of working as both guitarist and recording engineer, Cale was broke as the ’60s drew to a close, and sold his Les Paul for a ticket home. Then Clapton cut J.J.’s “After Midnight.” His whole world changed, although by all accounts Cale stayed the same. When his first album yielded the hit “Crazy Mama,” he was offered an appearance on “American Bandstand” – sure to help the single climb the charts. When he found out he’d have to lipsynch, he passed – and the record dropped down several notches.

Pianist Rocky Frisco, who formed a Tulsa band with Cale in 1957, pinpoints one of Cale’s unique qualities. “He’s got a fairly simple musical style, compared to a lot of great musicians. But when his style impinges on the styles of great musicians, great musicians start to play like John Cale, rather than the other way around.”

Clapton, who calls Cale “an incredible inspiration,” credits him with making “some of the most significant American music.” The guitar hero seems in awe of Cale’s minimalist style, marveling, “It’s all about finesse.”

Cale, who refers to himself as “semi-retired,” says, “I was always afraid I’d be old and poor. Seems like I have more work now than I used to have, and I turn down more than I take. There’s so much business connected with work now. It ain’t just me playing my guitar and singing my songs and, ‘Hi folks, how are ya?’ In the old days, the record company had the advertising and promotion department. You didn’t do all that; they did. Nowadays, the companies don’t do any promotion; they put it out so you can go promote it. That’s probably the most drastic change in the record business. In the daytime I’m doing interviews or promoting the record on the radio; by the time I get to the club, I’ve done so much talking, the gig is almost secondary.

“But that’s the problem,” he smiles. “I love to do it.”

Bleeps, squawks, and other sounds emanate from the guitars of Adrian Belew, who has gigged with the likes of Frank Zappa and Talking Heads, not to mention his quarter-century association with King Crimson. Belew also has an offshoot band known as the Bears, and is constantly working on solo material. His most recent solo effort, Side One (Sanctuary), was released in late January, and participants included bassist Les Claypool and Tool drummer Danny Carey.

Belew was born in Covington, Kentucky, just across the river from Cincinnati. He resides in the Nashville area, and recently spoke with VG about his past and present efforts.

Vintage Guitar: Did your unique guitar style evolve from playing a particular instrument and/or specific influences?
Adrian Belew: Well, early on I studied everything I liked – everything from Les Paul to Chet Atkins to Segovia to current heroes at the time; people like Jimi Hendrix, Jeff Beck, George Harrison. I just learned anything I could from anybody’s records. I suppose that after years of doing that, and playing in a variety of bands, I realized that I could sound like a lot of other players, so I decided to sort of stop whenever I caught myself playing someone else’s standard lick, and I’d try to replace it with something of my own invention. And I realized that I loved making “sounds” with the guitar.

One time, I saw a comedian named Morey Amsterdam play a cello – I think it was on the Johnny Carson show – and he made the cello sound like seagulls and other things. He was just kind of goofing around, but I took it seriously and said, “I bet I could do things like that with a guitar.” So I started trying to imitate things – car horns, animal sounds – then I found ways to put that into my playing, which led to a niche I could work in.

Was there any particular brand or model of guitar that helped you get such sounds?
Mostly, that comes with hand techniques or effect boxes more than any particular guitar, although early on I realized I favored the layout, balance, and feel of a Stratocaster. When I started out, I bought a Gibson Firebird, which was an interesting, modernistic instrument, but my friend, Seymour Duncan, kept doing things to it for me. We eventually realized that what I was trying to do was make it into a Stratocaster! (laughs)

I sold the Firebird when the disco era was in full swing to buy a set of Ludwig drums, and I got a job in a (lounge) band. I couldn’t stand the music we were playing. When I went back to playing guitar professionally two and a half years later, I bought a Stratocaster.

You also have things like a highly modified Fender Mustang with multicolored pickup covers.
These days, my guitars are usually modified to different specs that I like, and I’m using a set of three Custom Shop guitars Fender built for me, and what’s usually custom about them is the synthesizer, the Roland GK-2A pickup and its controls, which are under the pickguard. They have Kahler tremolos, which I’ve always favored – I’ve developed so many hand techniques with the Kahler, I don’t know how I’d do them if I ever had to use another tremolo! The company hasn’t fared well, but I think their products are excellent. I started using Sperzel tuners a long time ago, so my guitars stay in tune quite well without a locking nut.

The guitars also have Lace Sensor pickups; I like the sound of single-coils but like something to be as quiet as possible. The bass pickup has a Sustainiac. I do have a vintage Strat, which has my favorite neck, and they replicated that for these Custom Shop guitars.

Talk about your experience with Frank Zappa.
I played with Frank from ’77 to ’78. The main record we made was Sheik Yerbouti, which was the all-time best-selling Zappa record, and we made a film called Baby Snakes, which also turned into a record called Baby Snakes, and there are some live recordings. I’m on two volumes of You Can’t Do That On Stage Anymore.

What about your association with Talking Heads?
The first thing I did with them was Remain In Light, which was in 1980 – an excellent record. I played on tour with them for a year, and also played on all of their solo records. The big record of that period was Tom Tom Club, which was drummer Chris Frantz and bassist Tina Weymouth from Talking Heads. They had a huge hit called “Genius of Love.” I also did Jerry Harrison’s solo records, David Byrne’s The Catherine Wheel, and a live double set from the band, so quite a lot of material came out of that period.

That has to be you on the intro to the live album’s version of “House in Motion;” there’s a noticeable vibrato squawk.
Well, when they put me in the band, they didn’t have someone who could solo, and they didn’t have someone who could color the songs with all the effects they had done in the studio, when they’d brought in Brian Eno, me, and other players. So when I came into the band, those were my responsibilities. A fun job! (chuckles)

Considering the phases King Crimson has been through, is it fair to say that the incarnation that debuted with Discipline in 1981 introduced the third phase?
Yeah, that’s the third real lineup of the band. I’ve been in the last four.

Reportedly, the third incarnation was slated to be called Discipline instead of King Crimson.
When we first got together, there was no real talk of a name, and eventually Robert (Fripp) said he liked the name Discipline. We kind of chewed on that for a while; I don’t think Tony (Levin) and I really liked it – it sounded too unfriendly. Robert finally said, “Whatever we call this band, in spirit, it is still King Crimson.” Then Tony and I said, “Then let’s call it King Crimson.” I grew up with King Crimson being one of my favorite bands, and that name carried a sort of respectability and history that I was proud to be a part of.

And there was a mixed reaction among the older (King Crimson) fans, because they tend to want you to stay right where you are. They liked the 1969 version or the ’72 version. It’s kind of like buying a new car and wishing it still looked like an old one! (chuckles) Mostly, though, there was a lot of enthusiasm for the new ground the band was tackling. There were now two Americans with two English players, and more importantly, we had a whole new box of tools to work with. Bill Bruford was on the cutting edge of electronic drumming, Tony was playing a Chapman Stick, and Robert and I had guitar synthesizers. Naturally, we created a different style and sound, but that’s what King Crimson has always been about anyway. I think there was also something to be said for an American singer doing American-style vocals. Now people look back on Discipline as being a very important King Crimson record.

How would you describe the differences between King Crimson and your offshoot band, the Bears?
I would say the Bears are about edgy pop songwriting, in particular. The Bears have four songwriters, so you get four styles. But everything we feed into the grinder comes out sounding like us. It’s a band that has a long history among old friends, so there’s a certain chemistry.

Robert and I have an even longer history with King Crimson, and while we’re the two main songwriters, King Crimson is more about experimentation, and the music is pretty complex. It usually has very little to do with pop music. We’re more inclined to play in odd time signatures, to do a lot polyrhythmic things… a more intense musical experience.

Side One features Les Claypool and Danny Carey on the first three tracks. As with some of your guitar playing, listener’s may ask of Claypool’s bass playing, “How did he do that?”
There are three records, Side One, Side Two, and Side Three that were done over the last four years, whenever I could find spare time in the studio. In making those recordings, I realized the material was separating itself into categories. The first record would be power trio-type material, but the second one doesn’t sound anything like the first. (The second) has more drum loops, long-evolving synthesizer, more of a deejay style of music.

I always play everything on my records, if I can, or I at least make a demo of what I want to do. Making a demo of those first three songs, I realized I wasn’t the right player. I really needed an adept, more powerful drummer, and a unique bass player. When you have a trio, you have to have people who are charged up and almost overplaying. I immediately thought of Les, because he’s one of the most unique character players. He has taken bass playing into other realms, and is very inventive; sometimes he’s slapping, sometimes he’s playing with his thumb.

Les and I discussed who the drummer should be, and Danny was the obvious choice. I went to San Francisco, to Les’ studio. I took my guitar and vocals tracks to them, and we learned the songs. But when it came time to record, we just recorded their tracks; I didn’t re-record my parts. That made it a little simpler, but it was also a bit of a challenge. We also had a lot of fun jamming and doing a lot of other things. They’re also going to be on two of the tracks on Side Three, and I think in the future we’d like to do a separate project, when all of us have time.

What instruments did you use?
Mostly, I used my custom Strats or my Parker Fly. Those are the two guitars I really felt most comfortable with, and I still do. It hasn’t been announced yet, but I’m working on a Parker Fly Adrian Belew signature model. We were hoping it would be ready to announce at the (January ’05) NAMM show, but the guy who was putting it together had a car accident. He’s okay, but it’s been delayed a bit. It’s going to be an unbelievably cool guitar… but there aren’t any vintage Parkers yet! (laughs)

Speaking of vintage, one would probably have expected you to run through effects and into the board instead of through old tweed Fender amplifiers.
In the last few years, I’ve come to rely on a pair of Johnson Millennium Mark 50 amps because they have a lot of interesting effects built into them, and they sound somewhere in the area of a Matchless with Celestions. And I have a Matchless, so I can compare them. Recently, I’ve been turned on to the Line 6 Vetta II.

What I’m doing is pretty interesting, and still confusing, at times. (chuckles) I’m trying to use two different sets of stereo amplifiers, two pedalboards, two different sounds coming out. The combinations I’m learning are mind-boggling, even for me! Just about every time I sit down to play guitar, I’ll find something new. It’s a designed idea, and I’m trying to sound a little like Robert and I do, when we play our interlocking guitar lines.

As applied to the power trio idea, I would loop a guitar, then play through my own loops, which meant I could kind of be my own rhythm guitar player. For example, “Ampersand,” the very first song, is looped. All the guitar stuff in there was done at one time, with one guitar. That’s also true for “Walk Around the World” and “Matchless Man.”

You played bass and drums on “Madness” and “Walk Around the World”?
Right; “Madness” is a different kind of trio. The bass player’s goin’ kinda crazy, but I felt like the drummer should put a nice, swing groove in there, and I could do that; I liked what I already had and there was no need to get somebody else to play anything differently. I have a Fender Jazz Bass, and I think on “Madness” I used it through a Comp-Tortion – a combination compressor and fuzz box. If you bleed just a little of it in, it really compresses the bass, causing it to breathe kind of heavy.

It’s also the just-me trio on “Walk Around the World,” but that’s a very difficult track to play. I used a Fernandes fretless bass on it. There are other places on the records where I used a Zeta upright electric bass, and I really loved playing that, because it has a beautiful low-end sound. It’s a real challenge, but I’ve actually gotten my chops and intonation together pretty well. I played a bit of keyboard bass on the records at times, but most of it is going to be those three basses.

What’s the crackling sound on “Beat Box Guitar”?
That’s an old vinyl record we sampled. We liked that texture; we actually sampled about eight minutes of crackle from different records. My engineer, Ken Latchney, is really amazing with all of these different techniques, ‘coz I’m always throwing things at him! (laughs) It can be pretty fun around here, because we’re always trying to come up with new things.

Was the initial low-end riff on “Elephants” inspired by “Baby Elephant Walk”?
No, but I do know that song; I think they used to play it on a game show. Elephants and rhinos are kind of a motif throughout my work – a recurring theme – something I picked up from Frank. With him, it was dwarves and pumpkins; with me, it’s animals. Usually, they’re metaphorical for some sort of human condition. Once again, the riff you alluded to is a loop, and I just started playing guitar over it, and I felt like the guitar things had an “elephant attitude” – they were low, big, rumbling, and brazen. Then we sprinkled in some jungle sound effects.

You even did the cover artwork for Side One.
I started painting about a year and a half ago. I always told myself I’d take up painting when I got to be an old man, but decided to start a little early. Like my guitar playing, I’ve invented everything with my painting on my own, with no knowledge of how to do it correctly; I just picked up some brushes and a couple of canvases. It’s turned into an explosion of ideas for me, just like music has. Every time I sit down to paint, something totally different comes out. Each of the records will feature four, five, six paintings. I designed all three of the covers at once, not so they would seem similar, but so it would seem like they belong together. We’re looking at June for Side Two, and next January for Side Three.

What do you see in the future for King Crimson, the Bears, and your solo projects?
I see all of them as ongoing because in my life, there’s never been one thing that’s been satisfying enough. So, having two great bands and a solo career might seem like too much, but it balances out really well for me. I’m pretty good at focusing on something that needs to be done.

But I lead a pretty normal life; I get up at 6 a.m. to see my girls off to school, and get my thoughts in gear before Ken arrives at 11. We generally go to about 5 or 6 (p.m.), and it’s my dream come true to have my own studio where I can make my own music, and to be in the company of King Crimson, the Bears, and all of the other people I work with.

And after all these decades, do you think you’re still learning?
All the time! Although there’s too much technology to choose from, and it’s probably humanly impossible to keep up with it these days, technology still drives my imagination and my writing process.

This article originally appeared in VG‘s June ’05 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.

C.C. Adcock hunches over his Telecaster like a tiger ready to pounce. He stands on one foot, the other leg twisting like an unmanned fire hose – one leg wrapping and unwrapping around the other uncontrollably, while he precariously keeps his balance. He stands on tiptoes and backpedals as if it will help him reach a bend on his B string. He runs forward a few steps, thinks better of it, stops, and jumps straight into the air like a scared cat – his guitar squalling and shrieking accordingly.

And this is in the recording studio. Doing an overdub. On somebody else’s album.

Louisiana’s Charles “C.C.” Adcock is the musical/cultural equivalent of blackened redfish: a well-to-do white boy rolled in spices, dipped in grease, then fried. His it-ain’t-the-heat-it’s-the-humidity “swamp rock” occupies the space where R.L. Burnside and Doug Kershaw meet at the crossroads and sell their collective soul to Keith Richards.

Ten years ago, the singer/guitarist/songwriter released a self-titled debut on Island Records that charted the past, present, and future of Louisiana music. Already a veteran sideman to Buckwheat Zydeco and Bo Diddley, Adcock revealed a style that was authentic and imaginative, and seemed remarkably formed for someone in his mid 20s.

After producing two CDs by Cajun accordion master Steve Riley and one by the swamp pop super group Li’l Band Of Gold (which includes Adcock, Riley, and singer/drummer Warren Storm), Adcock recently released his solo followup, Lafayette Marquis on Yep Roc. Alongside collaborations with Mike Napolitano, Doyle Bramhall II, Mike Elizondo, and Tarka Cordell, who produced C.C.’s first effort, the envelope-pushing set includes one track produced by the late Jack Nitzsche, from what turned out to be the Oscar-winning producer’s last project. On that cut, “Stealin’ All Day,” Nitzsche, Phil Spector’s former arranger and right-hand man, turns the trio of Adcock, bassist Jason Burns, and drummer Chris Hunter into a bigger wall of sound than Spector could ever dream of.

Why the 10-year gap between CDs?

“Have you heard what’s been going on in the past 10 years?” the guitarist asks. “It wasn’t exactly a party I wanted to go to. When I heard Nirvana, I thought, ‘It’s not my thing, but it’s cool; everything’s getting ready to open up wide.’ A couple of months later, I heard Pearl Jam, and I pretty much knew we were going to be in for at least 10 years of locust plague – getting really bad. Not only did I not care to have any of those flavors in me, even a lot of the roots cats that we dig got so mediocre and forgettable. It got to the point where I couldn’t even listen to my favorite blues records, because they reminded me of somebody I’d seen recently just dumbing it down. But I was making music the whole time, working with different people and learning a lot, especially from Jack Nitzsche, and this record is an amalgamation of all that.”

Nitzsche was the second legendary producer Adcock had an association with, the first being the late Denny Cordell, whose credits include Joe Cocker, Moody Blues, and Leon Russell. “Denny gave me my first big break, vis-à-vis his son, Tarka. Thanks to his dad, Tarka had grown up with all these great rock and roll and blues records, and he had a real good understanding of American music – especially the Southern variety, including my hometown. He looked me up when he was in New Orleans, and I showed him some stuff I’d been working on, and he took it back to show his dad – who turned out to be Denny Cordell. Denny was actually one of the last of that old school, before A&R guys were just over-promoted Tower Records executives.

“I actually feel kind of slighted when I don’t have that sort of guidance around me – mentors of that stature. And that also comes from growing up in Lafayette, on a musical level – being around people like Li’l Buck [guitarist Paul Sinegal] and players of that ilk and generation. I also met Doyle Bramhall (Sr.) at an early age, and he’s always been a guiding hand – both in music and in being a human being. He and Denny and Jack all instilled what it was to be a musician and have a heart – what making music and making art is about.”

Prior to working with Adcock, Jack Nitzsche’s most recent rock album was Graham Parker’s Squeezing Out Sparks, in 1979.

“I knew Jack’s name from the Stones and Phil Spector stuff,” Adcock admits. “But I had no idea how heavy this cat was and how deep it was going to get – that there were people on this planet who took rock and roll to that level. It was good to see that first-hand – that rock and roll is a cool art form and not just greasy kid’s stuff. Jack’s idea of producing certainly was not like it is today – like, ‘I’ve got some cool effects.’ His idea was, ‘Let me pump you up and play on all your strengths and help you recognize how to make greater your best assets.’ And then just knock you down to the most infantile, embryonic, heartless level, and build you back up again – and do that about 5,000 dozen times. Then you might be ready to sing a vocal. It was outrageous and grandiose – but that’s one the greatest qualities of my favorite rock and roll. He was one part Mozart and one part Fred Sanford.”

Being a product of both his time and geography, Adcock straddled commercial rock and regional traditions from his first band at age 12. “Zydeco and Cajun music and swamp pop were just always in the air. In Lafayette back then, you were into AC/DC, 13 years old, wearing the T-shirt at the mall – but ZZ Top sounded really good. And you could go to a festival and see Clifton Chenier, or go to Grant Street and hear the T-Birds. In Lafayette, you want to make people dance. We did Rolling Stones, along with hand-me-down blues records by Johnny Winter and Muddy Waters, and local Cajun and honky-tonk records. We were definitely into making music that made people dance, not music that made people sit around and think. So you’ve got to have a shuffle or a swing or a little zydeco rhythm. They’re not going to dance to ‘Back In Black’ or Rush. But some ’80s stuff was really about dancing, too. I mean, ‘Yall’d Think She’d Be Good 2 Me’ on the new CD – I’m sorry, that’s the Adam Ant, ‘Don’t drink, don’t smoke, what do you do?’ beat [“Goody Two Shoes”]. But it’s also a great parade beat that I heard in New Orleans when I was a kid. Same damn beat.”

“Swamp pop” is probably a more parochial style than even zydeco or Cajun, which have become universally popular over the past couple of decades.

“Warren Storm, who’s a founding member of that, will tell you that swamp pop is nothing but rhythm and blues,” Adcock points out. “I think it’s subconsciously more complex than that. It’s dance music, which it has in common with Cajun and zydeco, but it was the Cajun/Creole take on rock and roll and R&B. In the Deep South, things were a lot more integrated than even the history books understand. Blacks and whites lived amongst each other. No matter what the political situation was, there was a lot of interaction.

“So in that way, the food and the music, the culture, is borrowed back and forth and heavily influenced by one another. And I think it’s fair to say in that tradeoff, white people got a pretty good deal because black folks have great music and great food,” he laughs. “But after several generations of that tradeoff, it’s all one and the same. Swamp pop, like a lot of things down here, was a pretty color-blind trading of licks and styles. The rock and roll made down here is slightly more laid-back, and the singers are a lot more soulful. I’m not saying they don’t have good music and food in other places; it just don’t quite sound or taste the same. Swamp pop has more of a loping beat. A lot of people say it was based pretty strictly on Fats Domino, because he was, and still is, such an influential figure. His sound and style, and the whole essence of Fats, is about a good time. It’s a 6/8 triplet thing. But besides the rhythmic part, really sweet melodies are what swamp pop is all about, no matter how tough of a rock and roll song it is.”

Adcock’s debut CD included a stinging version of Bo Diddley’s “Bo’s Bounce” – or “Beaux’s Bounce,” as Adcock spells it. He reveals, “All that is is an Echoplex and a wooden Guyatone guitar that Bo gave me – then made me buy the case, for $75 – after he’d embarrassed me in front of a crowd of people because I’d been begging him to teach me what the trick was on ‘Bo’s Bounce.’ He tells me he doesn’t remember, then does it as the encore, with the drumstick trick [cranking the Echoplex and hitting the strings on the neck with a drumstick], and then hands me the stick. And I ain’t got no Echoplex. So I sit there and beat the **** out of a gorgeous Strat in the heat of the moment, trying to make it do what he just did, and having people chuckle and snicker. Then I hand it back to him and he does dibba-dibba-dibba-dibba with the stick, real fast, hands it back to me and I go whack-whack, doot-doot, swack-swack, really lame. Back and forth.

“Finally, I pulled something out – something that wasn’t ‘Bo’s Bounce’ – just to turn the audience my way eventually. It was like Bo Diddley had watched ‘Crossroads’ and wanted to mess my head up. But the joke was on him, because in those couple of minutes of me sweating it in front of a packed house, I got the gist of what he’d done. The next morning, by sun-up, I had it. And now I use it all the time; it’s such a great rhythmic thing to do. So thank you, Bo Diddley.”

Bo is just one of Adcock’s rootsy guitar influences.

“I start with the local guys, because I was able to see them at an early age,” he details. “There’s no way that listening to something on record comes close to being able to hear a record and then go see it, night after night. When you’re in those formative years, it leaves such a lasting impression on you. In that sense, I went to see Paul Sinegal, who played with Clifton and Rockin’ Dopsie. I saw him in clubs, at festivals, playing in the street at Mardi Gras, and we later had a band with him and me and Sonny Landreth, Cowboy Stew. Hearing Sonny early on – not so much trying to cop his style, because it was already ‘uncoppable,’ but the fact that he was playing something completely different made me think that was something to strive for. Then Gatemouth Brown, who played Grant Street it seemed every Saturday one summer when I was about 14. Seeing him play with his fingers, and the way he’d work a chromatic blues scale and make it so lyrical – I learned a lot about playing lead guitar by watching him.

“I got to see Earl King a lot, and I got the fact that he was a ‘bluesman’ but wasn’t playing blues; he was playing music – like Jimmy Reed. He was playing hits, not styles. And when he’d solo, he’d have that watery Strat sound, which always reminded me of New Orleans – that wet sound. He’d play solos by moving chords around, a half-step up or down; not lick-oriented things, but very musical. And getting to see Jimmie Vaughan with the Fabulous Thunderbirds – as a dance band. They didn’t have hits and weren’t on the radio, but they played Lafayette fairly often. Whereas Sonny was a Gibson guy at that time and had his Firebird – that warm, buttery sound – Jimmie was all about that big twang. I recognized that twang – that’s pretty much what an electric guitar was invented to do, unless you’re playing a supper club.”

Part and parcel of the big twang is Adcock’s penchant for tremolo and vibrato. “Sometimes I use a Magnatone M-15 with two 10s, and an M-13. When you get that Magnatone stereo vibrato going, that’s my favorite sound. I actually got the amp after I made the first record, so I could get the sound I got with an MXR phase-shifter and a blue Boss chorus. And any tremolo is good – whether it’s Ricky Martin or Britney Spears’ new record. When I put [masking] tape down on a mixing board, getting ready to track, around channel 21 or 22 I always put ‘trem.’ I know eventually there’ll be at least one tremolo pass. It just makes stuff sound better. It’s like the genesis of electric guitar effects. It never gets old; it’s always good. What sounds better than ‘Rumble’ by Link Wray or whoever was playing guitar on Isaac Hayes stuff like ‘Walk On By’? I actually like the tremolo that cuts off. I like front-porch tremolo, that’s got a nice peak and valley to it, but I also like to just get the old machine-gun tremolo going, too – where it actually stops, like a delay almost. Max intensity, but with no peak and valley – literally like a cut.”

But his technique probably accounts for his tone more than his choice of equipment. “There’s distortion always,” he begins, “just because it’s amplifiers turned up loud. Everything I own is sort of broken. I need at least two or three of everything just to equal one. So a lot of times, things will short out on a gig, and I’ll just bypass everything and go straight to the amp. A lot of it is the way you pick, using your fingers, playing back by the bridge, the attack. That’s something I picked up from the different guitar players I was listening to – how varied everyone’s approach was. I’d play Li’l Buck’s guitar, and he had, like, .008s on there – super light, but a huge sound. Then Sonny obviously running his hand up behind the slide; and Gatemouth playing with his finger, just finessing it; and Jimmie, who sounded like a wall-of-twang orchestra in, basically, a three-piece band. He was so deliberately playing simple. His left and right hands were very deliberate gestures. The way he’d play Jimmy Reed was like, ‘Check it out, dude; I’m playing Jimmy Reed.’ And doing nothing but Jimmy Reed – and listen how good it sounds. Subtlety, when you’ve got a pompadour, wearing flashy clothes.

“I was watching people evoke various tones out of instruments, no matter what the instrument or amp was. I use the tone knob on my guitar a lot. No matter what guitar I’m playing, I find you can really make them sound better usually by rolling the tone off a little bit, and then using the tone as a dynamic like you use a volume knob.

“The way Nitzsche would arrange was based on frequency as much as volume or thickness. He’d figure out a part not based on what notes needed to be there as much as what frequency of sound needed to be there. You can put an amazing amount of things in one place without it sounding cluttered or overdone, and still have it sound real simple, and really groove, as long as you don’t have a lot of overlapping frequencies. Even in a three-piece, if you’re playing rhythm and you’ve got your tone wide open, and you jump into a solo, you can still have a bunch of volume, but turn your tone all the way down and make a real muddy sound. Invite people to come into you and listen. Then later on in the solo, when you need to sting it, you can jack up that tone, and it sounds like you just brought it big-time. And it certainly helps with distortion.

“Even if you don’t have the right ****, no matter how rank the distortion is, if you turn the tone down to zero, it sort of sounds like Hendrix,” he adds, laughing.
In addition to Teles and his ’66 Strat, some of the guitars Adcock is most associated with are James Trussart’s metal-bodied electrics.

“James is making great guitars. It’s pretty hard to improve on what Fender and Gibson and Danelectro did along the way, but his guitars all have that great intersection of being completely stylish and cool and different, without compromising sound or the way they play. I love his guitars. I outfit them with different things, based on whether they’re hollowbodies or semi-hollow, or if I want them to sound more like Teles or Gibsons.”

On the other hand, Adcock says, “I personally like Mexican Fenders. It’s kind of like what CDs have done for reissues. They’re stamping out guitars now that play, look, sound, and are set up great, and they’re getting it right. The best new guitar I’ve played in a while was one of those Jimmie Vaughan Fender Strats.”

Adcock’s overriding philosophy and objective is something he learned from his guitar heroes, although he views it as something bigger than the instrument.

“I got to play with Hubert Sumlin several times, after years of listening to those records with Howlin’ Wolf,” he smiles. “And whether it’s Hubert or Bo or Sonny or Hendrix, it’s all about trying to use the guitar as an instrument of making music, not as playing guitar – approaching a solo as an outlet for emotion. How to get sounds out of the guitar, and whatever works for the song, not what licks can I play here. When I’m really playing good, and my mind is opened up and I’m having a great night, I feel like the whole guitar and the effects pedals and the volume and the sound and rhythm – it’s just like putty in your hand, and you can do whatever you want to with it. There’s zero rules – no matter how goofy you want to get. Just get some sound out of this box, right now, and make some people feel that that sound has something to do with your interpretation of the vibe you’re trying to get across.”

This article originally appeared in VG‘s Feb. ’05 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.