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The world lost one of its most innovative and defining guitar voices on December 25, 2020. Bluegrass maestro Tony Rice – singer, composer, supremely accomplished sideman, solo artist, and flatpicking virtuoso – personified the evolution of an American folk form and its cross-pollination with jazz, classical, and pop tangents. With Rice’s imaginative vision and prodigious technique, bluegrass became “newgrass” – an art form. He was the avatar of a new generation of guitar players and caused a paradigm shift in the music tantamount to Wes Montgomery’s efforts in jazz and Jimi Hendrix’s expansion of the rock world.

Bluegrass epitomized American roots music of the 1930s and ’40s. Spawned in Appalachia, it’s an acoustic medium with distinctive three/four-part vocal harmony that boasted performers like Earl Scruggs, Lester Flatt, the Stanley Brothers, and progenitor Bill Monroe. Monroe called it “old time mountain hillbilly music,” yet his Blue Grass Boys provided the emblematic name for the genre. The characteristic ensemble was a string band – violin, banjo, mandolin, upright bass, and rhythm guitar, sometimes augmented with resonator guitar, harmonica, or Jew’s harp. Their idiomatic repertoire consisted of Anglo-American jigs, ballads, and reels informed by blues, folk and ragtime jazz, often carried by a fiddle lead instrument – a mix which grew and flourished in regional rural dances. Bluegrass became a marketing term and widened listeners’ experience with advances in audio recording and was bolstered by the post-war country-and-Western boom; 1948 marked the beginning of its golden age with songs from Monroe and the Stanley Brothers making a national impact on radio. However, bluegrass largely attracted a niche audience until the folk wave of the early ’60s brought it to a burgeoning youth market. It was in that milieu that Tony Rice came of age and planted the roots of his style.

“Mule Skinner Blues” boasts one of the greatest guitar breaks in bluegrass. This driving, flat-picked flight corroborates that opinion. The trademark rhythmic intensity and powerful execution are apparent from the first phrase, as are other telling aspects of Rice’s style in microcosm, such as skillful transitions from open strings to fretted notes. His emblematic use of approach tones, here notably the A#-B in measures 3-5 and 11-12 over G and the D#-E over C in 8-9, is ubiquitous in his repertoire. Similar purposeful decorations, often embellished with similar slides along with pull-offs and hammer-ons, are found in countless Rice solos and fills played over a G shape, whether capoed or in nut position, as in this example. Also noteworthy are his blue notes; the minor-seventh tone imparting a dominant-seventh color to G and C chords, flatted fifth; Db in 3-4, and the minor third in 4 over G and in 10 over C. The minor-ninth leap in 10 (C-Db) employs a borrowed blue note to produce an attractive tension over C (C7b9), alluding to TR’s jazz inclinations.

David Anthony Rice was born in Danville, Virginia, on June 8, 1951. He was raised in Los Angeles and exposed to bluegrass music at an early age through his father, Herb, an amateur guitarist/mandolinist. The sounds of Monroe, Flatt & Scruggs, Louvin Brothers, and Reno & Smiley filled his ears, and by age four he was teaching himself the requisite guitar chords and runs of the style, albeit with some “wrong fingerings,” many of which he continued to use throughout his lifetime. He was almost 10 when he formed his first band, a bluegrass quartet with his brother and neighbors. Though his focus put him at odds with schoolmates obsessed with rock and the British Invasion, it aligned him with future bluegrass innovator Clarence White, seven years his senior. The two had become friends in ’59 and shared common interests. White’s group, the Country Boys (later the Kentucky Colonels), were, by TR’s reckoning, the first bluegrass band in Southern California, and appeared weekly on Herb Rice’s local radio show. White presaged an expansion of the bluegrass genre and is widely acknowledged as the first picker to make the acoustic guitar a lead instrument in bluegrass, forging the progression from traditional to modern bluegrass.

In the mid ’60s, White’s versatility led him to become a sought-after L.A. studio player on electric and acoustic guitar, and by ’68 he was a full-time member of the Byrds in their country-rock period, showcased by Dr. Byrds & Mr. Hyde. With Gene Parsons, he was also co-inventor of the famed B-bender installed subsequently on enumerable Telecasters. White was the primary role model and mentor to Rice, who succinctly put it, “When I heard Clarence I knew that was what I wanted to learn.” Taking a cue from White, in the late ’60s he pursued an inclusive approach that blended traditional bluegrass with jazz influences via Dave Brubeck, John Coltrane, Django Reinhardt, Wes Montgomery, and George Benson as well as rock inspiration from Hendrix.

This phrase from “Wildwood Flower” conveys the chordal side of Rice’s playing. Capoed at the 4th position, it finds him working out of the C shape to render the piece in E. A very traditional flatpicked bluegrass approach is employed throughout in arpeggiating and attacking chord partials, and the chords are sustained to maximum duration to produce a flowing legato impression depictive of its Appalachian ancestry. Rice uses a full-fingered C/G form for E/B in measures 5 and 15 to strengthen this effect and typically employs his thumb to fret the low A in 9. Note the myriad hammer-on and pull-off ornaments in the phrase. His patented cross picking (two down strokes and one up stroke) is heard in 7-8 to achieve banjo-roll figurations through the E-G7-C#m chord changes.

In 1970, Rice moved to Louisville, Kentucky, to join the Bluegrass Alliance. However, the narrow circumscribed format of traditional bluegrass wouldn’t confine an artist of his range. With his great facility and imagination, the teenager soon found himself in one of the first progressive bluegrass groups, J.D. Crowe’s New South. This iconoclastic unit added drums and amplification to the acoustic string-band format, and featured like-minded “newgrass” exponents like Jerry Douglas (resonator guitar) and Ricky Skaggs (fiddle/mandolin). During this period, Rice met another kindred spirit in mandolinist David Grisman, and in ’75 made a quantum leap into the future when he joined the David Grisman Quintet. Their uncommon hybrid sound blended bluegrass, Gypsy jazz, classical, Old World Mediterranean string-band and fusion. Their repertoire was documented on The David Grisman Quintet (’77) debut and Hot Dawg (’78), with Grisman and Rice compositions as well as a reinterpretation of Django’s “Minor Swing.” Concurrently, Rice began to study theory, read chord charts, and learn jazz improvisation with John Carlini in order to up his already formidable game.

In ’78, Rice left Grisman’s band to pursue a solo career. The labels “new acoustic music” and “newgrass” were attached to him in an attempt to categorize the diverse post-modern nature of his output in the Tony Rice Unit, eponymous albums, and the Bluegrass Album Band; Acoustics purveyed a bluegrass-jazz-folk amalgam, exemplified by Rice originals and Wes Montgomery’s “Four on Six,” while the breakthrough recording Manzanita emphasized bluegrass and folk pieces, and Mar West contained Miles Davis’ “Nardis.” These set the tone for future multifaceted TR Unit albums, enlivened by the participation of Grisman, Douglas, Skaggs, Sam Bush, Richard Greene, and Mike Marshall. In the ’80s and ’90s, Rice released solo albums distinguished by outings like Tony Rice, Church Street Blues, Cold on the Shoulder, Me & My Guitar, and Crossings, and programmatic records such as Sings and Plays Bluegrass and Sings Gordon Lightfoot. By contrast, Rice’s supergroup Bluegrass Album Band, founded in ’81 with Crowe, expounded on traditional and modern bluegrass tenets developed in New South and released six volumes of standards from ’81 to ’96. The aggregation revisited the music’s core repertoire established by Monroe, Stanley, Flatt & Scruggs, Doyle Lawson, and Reno & Smiley, and sprinkled in suitable pieces from Chris Hillman, Gram Parsons, and Jim Croce. Rice also stayed active in stellar collaborations with Skaggs, Grisman, Jerry Garcia, Norman Blake, Béla Fleck, Mark Johnson, Peter Rowan, Vassar Clements, and John Carlini. He assembled an “anti-supergroup” with brother Larry, Hillman, and banjoist Herb Pedersen, which recorded three albums between ’97 and ’01. As a session player, Rice performed on recordings from Emmylou Harris, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Bill Keith, Jon Sholle, Eric Thompson, Darol Auger, Alison Brown, Bryan Sutton, and many others.

When asked what he practiced to maintain his skills, Rice replied with a reference to the challenging final phrase in “Opus 57” (David Grisman Quartet), adding it is “one of the hardest licks I know.” Indeed, even a cursory glance reveals it has technical commonalities with the neoclassical shred of Malmsteen, et al. Note the atypical minor modality of the melody as well as its sequential patterns reminiscent of classical music and references to diminished chords. He capos at the fifth position to play the passage in a D minor shape transposed to G minor, which is the only obvious connection with bluegrass. The descending syncopated chromatic line in 8-9 suggests an altered D7 chord and is characteristic of both TR in his jazz pursuits and the post-modern “Dawg music” sounds cultivated by Grisman.

STYLE
Rice is a master of traditional, modern, and post-modern bluegrass. A propulsive rhythm guitarist, he provided the fundamental “boom-chick” broken-chord backing patterns and connective bass runs of the style, but is best known for his virtuosic flatpicked lead lines. Traditionally, bluegrass guitar was a rhythm instrument assigned with few exceptions to an accompanying role. Rice changed that perception while seeing a course for post-modern expressions. A descendant of the Doc Watson/Norman Blake/Clarence White lineage, he flaunted a diverse lead style made bolder with rapid and articulate single-note licks, runs, and riffs. His priorities were “tone, timing and articulation,” evident in technical phrases delivered at any tempo, giving rise to progressiveness displayed by Bryan Sutton. In the strict bluegrass, setting Rice frequently operated in the customary open G-major shape and used a capo to change keys. Telling examples include “Red Haired Boy” (A, capo at second fret) and “Your Love is Like a Flower” and “Old Train” (Bb, capo 3rd). On other occasions he preferred capoing an open C-major shape, as in “Home From the Forest” and “Wildwood Flower” (E, capo 4th). In “Little Sadie” he capoed at the second fret to perform Dm chords and lines in E minor. By contrast, he preferred the standard position for “Wild Horse” and “Jerusalem Ridge.” With Grisman’s post-modern group, he deliberately played in various keys without a capo. TR occasionally used Dropped D tuning and hybrid picking to play ballads like “Shenandoah.”

True to the bluegrass form, TR favored chord-based diatonic runs and melodies suggesting a fiddle-tune quality in their rhythms, contours and content. In improvisations he often added color tones to his melodies, such as chromatic passing tones, blue notes like the flatted third, fifth and seventh, and neighbor notes as decorations, particularly to approach the major third of a tonic chord from a half step below (A# to B over a G major chord). These were subjected to greater jazz inflections and more-sophisticated harmonic allusions in the intro of “Shenandoah” and pieces like “Devlin” and “Nardis,” which found him employing modal and extended melodies, atypical pentatonic licks, evocative half-step string bends and quick scalar sequences. Rice generally employed alternate picking for single-note melodies, though he deviated for certain musical effects. Case in point is his specific pattern of two downstrokes and one upstroke across three high strings for what he called “cross-picked banjo-style rolls,” heard in the arpeggiations and voice-leading of chords in “Wildwood Flower.”

ESSENTIAL LISTENING
Acoustics, Manzanita, Cold on the Shoulder, and Acoustic Allstars Live ’88 are prime examples of Rice’s magic in the studio and onstage. His playing in David Grisman’s quintet, Tony Rice Unit and the Bluegrass Album Band are also highly recommended.

ESSENTIAL VIEWING
There is a wealth of Rice performances online. Among must-see moments are “Church Street Blues,” “Nine Pound Hammer” (New South, ’75), “Bluegrass Breakdown,” “Shenandoah” (from the 2000 Grey Fox Festival with closeups of his flat/hybrid picking technique), “Blue Railroad Train” with the TR Unit, “Limehouse Blues” with Chet Atkins, Mark O’Connor, Grisman, Douglas, and Fleck, and several illuminating clips from his instructional videos.

SOUND
Rice was a committed acoustic guitarist and never owned an electric guitar. He was accorded the family Martin D-18 when he was eight years old and was satisfied with it until he heard the D-28 played by Clarence White; Rice purchased the guitar after White’s untimely death in ’73, paying $600, and it became his mainstay for five decades. One of only 11 made in 1934, the first year of 14-fret D-28s, it bears Martin’s distinctive white herringbone binding, and was modified (before White’s ownership) with a 21-fret fretboard and enlarged soundhole. Rice had the neck re-set, fretboard bound, and re-fret by Randy Wood. He also learned the original owner was Paul Westmoreland, who wrote the bluegrass/country classic “Detour.” In Crowe’s New South, Rice amplified the Martin with a Barcus-Berry pickup. He also played Ovation guitars in the ’70s, heard prominently on Manzanita. Santa Cruz has marketed a Tony Rice signature model since the ’80s. It uses aged Sitka spruce and Indian rosewood. Not a copy of his D-28, it was designed in collaboration to reflect his desire for a dreadnought with more-defined low end but the requisite boom for rhythm work, and a more-articulate and balanced mid-treble range for solo lines. Dana Bourgeois created a tribute model in 2014, with enlarged soundhole and deliberate sonic details. It was intended to be auctioned for the ailing Rice, who was unable to perform live.

Rice preferred Thomas Vinci brass-wound medium-gauge strings and fashioned his own flat picks from three-sided tortoiseshell pieces by filing them to shape and size. He felt tortoiseshell provided the best density in relation to thinness for his attack and comfort, as conventional plastic types would have to be 1/4″ thick or greater to produce a comparable sound.

This article originally appeared in VG’s June 2021 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.

Rock fans recall the New York quartet Vanilla Fudge for its dramatic reworkings of pop hits; the band melded classical influences with solid musicianship in the first steps toward the offshoot now known as “progressive rock.”

The original Fudge lineup of Mark Stein (organ), Vince Martell (guitar), Tim Bogert (bass), and Carmine Appice (drums) recorded five albums in the latter ’60s, each of which influenced Deep Purple, Yes, Uriah Heep, and other acts.

“We were pioneers navigating uncharted waters,” Martell recently told Vintage Guitar. “Bombastic drums locked with a solid bass that ventured onto jazz-like tangents created a solid foundation for the guitar to layer trippy, melodic riffs and phrases to complement the Hammond chords and lines.”

Early in their career, the band was helped in the studio by renowned producer Shadow Morton.

“The first three albums were basically our arrangements, which Shadow refined with us,” said Martell. “He was the visionary who tamed our wilder tendencies and channeled them into a powerful, united musical body.”

Each Fudge album had a degree of cohesiveness; the 1967 debut was entirely covers, including a version of the Supremes’ “You Keep Me Hangin’ On” that peaked at #6 on Billboard. The Beat Goes On was a concept album about world history and included an ambitious medley of Beethoven’s “Für Elise” and “Moonlight Sonata.” Renaissance concentrated on original material, and Near The Beginning had two covers, one original, and a side-long tune on which every member was given a solo. The latter was self-produced.

“It’s fair to say Near The Beginning is a microcosm of the Vanilla Fudge,” Martell said. “We were evolving as people and musicians. We were more experienced in studio production and performing live. We knew what we wanted the project to be.

“LSD and hash also played a role in how we played, thought, and wrote,” he added. “We would deconstruct tunes like ‘Some Velvet Morning’ and ‘Shotgun,’ piece them back together, and bring the monsters to life.”

The opener, a raucous cover of Junior Walker and the All-Stars’ “Shotgun,” is a one-chord stomp that demonstrated the Fudge could rock without artsy embellishment, and offers a definitive example of the band’s choir-like vocal harmonies. It also showcased Martell’s wah.

“‘Shotgun’ was a wahfest – and wah first – for me on a record,” the guitarist recounted. “I’d used wah live several times. After touring with Hendrix and listening to his wah, I thought it would sound cool on the Junior Walker cover.”

On the other hand, “Some Velvet Morning” epitomized the Fudge approach. A hit for Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazlewood, it was re-tooled with a mysterious intro that explodes into roaring power chords. Lurching to an abrupt stop, the mood then shifts dramatically to ethereal vocals (including harmonies once again), though the power chords return between verses.

The lone original, “Where Is Happiness,” earns the “psychedelic” tag thanks in part to reverb-drenched single-note bends from Martell.

“The eerie intro is like walking through a haunted house; you don’t know what lurks at every turn,” he said. “We wanted it to take unexpected directions like the frenzied pace into my trippy solo with dreamy, exotic, East Indian psychedelic sounds.”

The side-long “Break Song” was recorded live in late ’68, at the Shrine Auditorium, in Los Angeles. It, too, emphasized the band’s hard-rock capabilities.

Though Martell favored Gibson ES-335s at the time, he used a sunburst L-5CES on the live track, and described controlling feedback from a hollowbody as “…all part of the fun.”

His solo on “Break Song” is anchored by a blues riff, and Stein dabbles in the same genre, while Appice’s drum solo is relentless. Bogert’s bass solo stands as one for the ages with string bends and muted jazz picking on his Fender Precision with a Telecaster Bass neck. When his Mosrite fuzzbox kicks in, the turn becomes a firestorm of distortion.

“Tim’s fuzz was groundbreaking for bassists,” Martell averred. “It was a guitar gizmo, and to hear a bass dressed in distortion was innovative and cool.”

On February 2, 1969, Vanilla Fudge performed “Shotgun” on “The Ed Sullivan Show” as a preview to Near The Beginning, which was released later that month. Martell played a sunburst 335.

“That was the guitar on which I felt most comfortable,” he said. “It brought a rich, fat tone and coloration to the music. The semi-hollow design, coupled with a loud amp, was capable of producing unpredictable sustain.”

Vanilla Fudge recorded one more album after Near The Beginning before disbanding. Many cite the band’s first album as its most-vital work due to its genre-busting style, but Near The Beginning stands an unintentional anthology of late-’60s musical innovation.

This article originally appeared in VG’s June 2021 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.

If you want to see a hard-working guitar ace, look no further than Roine Stolt, who has been going non-stop for more than 25 years. The Swedish axeman is currently busy with two major prog bands, both of which have released albums in 2021; the Flower Kings launched Islands while Transatlantic offered The Absolute Universe in two versions. Does Stolt ever sleep?

You’ve been working ceaselessly. Describe a typical day for you.
Once I get the breakfast things out of the way, I go to work tracking guitar, mixing, or writing new material. I’m lucky to have my studio in the same building as my house, so I try to blend music with a normal family life.

I love my job, and I take nothing for granted. Over the last 25 years, I’ve been part of almost 100 releases with the Flower Kings, Transatlantic, the Sea Within, Kaipa, the Tangent, and Agents Of Mercy, plus my work with Jon Anderson and Steve Hackett.

The Flower Kings is your creative baby, but Transatlantic has three songwriters in three countries. How do you collaborate when writing long-distance?
This time, I probably put in the most work making demos, so I went into rehearsals with almost an hour and a half of music. Some of it landed on the new record, and whatever didn’t, I presented to the Flower Kings for Islands. The material was pretty much standard; we’d pick bits and pieces, and built them up from there. Besides that, we were recording in a top-of-the-line studio, Fenix Studios, in Sweden, with a big SSL desk and the finest converters available. There, we could play together to find an organic feel and get the tempos right. It always comes together in the end – but in all honesty, it’s sometimes a bit of chaos and battle of egos (laughs).

How do the Flower Kings’ Jonas Reingold and Transatlantic’s Pete Trewavas differ as bassists?
I’d say Pete has a more melodic sensibility than Jonas and plays more notes. Jonas, meanwhile, does a fair bit of fretless and has a jazzier style, which he does really well. Both have a very strong sense of rhythm and are among the very best players in prog today – definitely on par with greats like Chris Squire and Mike Rutherford in their prime.

“Take Now My Soul” has a fusiony solo that speaks to Allan Holdsworth – not your usual bluesy style.
Thanks. I don’t plan anything; all of my guitar leads on The Absolute Universe were 100 percent spontaneous. I just play whatever feels right. That one might have been a nod to Allan, who I first saw live in 1973 with the band Tempest. It was almost edited out, but Mike [Portnoy, drummer] and Pete said it had to stay in there – I’m glad they insisted. It’s my personal favorite solo on the Transatlantic album. I ran through it three times and then got lucky – the tones were just singing. The choice of notes of phrase were mine, with a touch of Swedish folk, far different from any modern shred scales or metal licks. I probably borrowed them from 1800s Swedish folk music for violin.

“The Darkness in the Light” has a particularly sweet tones. Which amp or overdrive pedal did you use for the solo?
That was a Mesa Transatlantic set in the Vox position, with a Keeley Aria overdrive pedal. The Orange 2×12 cab was miked with a Neumann TLM 103 through a Millennia HV-3D preamp, and it went straight into the DAW.

Why do you play a mid-priced Telecaster Thinline when you could have a Custom Shop model?
I could have a Custom Shop, but reality is when I bought the Mexi Tele almost 20 years ago, it was just so good. It had a stunning resonance – perfect pieces of tonewood – so I didn’t care where it was made. It was just the guitar. Now it has a new True Temperament fretboard, acoustic pickup, and locking tuners that make it my weapon of choice for live and studio work. Of course, I still have my ’53 Les Paul, an ES-175, a Custom Shop Stratocaster, a Parker, and Jet custom.

Is there anything specific about your playing that is innately Swedish?
That is not for me to say, but I guess there might be some elements of Swedish folk music creepin’ in. The rest is most likely just down to our regular European heritage. We live in Sweden, digesting this country and its cultural expressions – its mood, its colors. These days, I may not feel exclusively Swedish anymore because I collaborate mostly with musicians from other countries, but in the end, my history is here. My musical roots come from Swedish folklore.

This article originally appeared in VG’s June 2021 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.

If you’ve been starving for good old-fashioned hard rock, the Treatment has your number. The British band has been building its reputation for more than a decade, delivering in-yer-face guitar riffs and solos that echo Def Leppard and AC/DC. Their latest, Waiting for Good Luck, features guitarists Tagore Grey and his brother, Tao.

We asked Tagore to break down the Treatment’s relentless riffage.

You’ve come up with a million great riffs. What’s your secret?
The most important thing for a great riff is that it hits hard and is something the listener can easily remember. Some of rock’s greatest riffs are the simplest – the Stones, AC/DC, and Deep Purple are good examples – but writing something simple is harder than you think!

One key aspect is you don’t overplay.
Leaving space for the chords to ring is very important to us. Some bands like to use a lot of chords and breakdowns in their songs, but we prefer a simpler approach. We’re not fast, technical players; we are a band that likes to groove. Nothing sounds better than big chords ringing out at high volume on a big stage.

What, do you think, makes a great solo?
I have always preferred guitar solos with melody – something you can easily hum or whistle. Brian May is an expert at this. Songs like “Killer Queen” or “Bohemian Rhapsody” have such catchy melodies that they’re almost a vocal part. I’m not a big fan of the shredders; I’m far more rooted in the Angus Young and Paul Kossoff school of guitar playing.

Who are your main influences?
Angus is the reason I picked up the guitar, and has been a massive influence on me; I also like Billy Gibbons and Billy Duffy of the Cult. They all have really great feel, but in all honestly, my style comes from my manager, Laurie Mansworth, who played in two cult British bands – More and Airrace. We’ve been playing guitar together since I joined the Treatment at 15. Laurie is a very experienced guitar player and has toured with AC/DC, Queen, and Foreigner. He has spent a lot of time jamming with me over the years and helped me develop.

How do you divide up guitar parts with your brother?
It varies from song to song; I’m older, so he gets the parts I don’t want to play (laughs). Usually, we play different variations of the same chords, but sometimes playing unison parts sounds just as good. Regarding solos, I do the majority, but Tao is fast on my heels at the moment. I could be overthrown (laughs)!

Which guitars, amps, and pedals did you use in the studio?
I’m a big fan of early-’70s Master Volume Marshalls and JTM 45s. There’s something about a Marshall you just can’t beat; they’ve got a rawness and tone that cuts through everything. I use four 4×12 cabs with a mix of Celestion Greenback and Vintage 30 speakers. I use a Blue Note boost pedal for solos, and that’s about it.

My favorite guitar at the moment is my three-pickup black Les Paul Custom. I also have an R8 I really love, but next on my list is a Gretsch Brian Setzer.

Do you use the same rig in concert?
I use the exact same rig onstage. There’s no real trick to our sound – massive guitars live, and there’s nothing like a Marshall through a big PA.

What does Kevin Shirley, who has worked with Black Crowes, Rush, Aerosmith, and Iron Maiden, do to a mix that brings that patented hard-rock sound?
Kevin knew exactly how to mix our music. Laurie our manager, who produces the band, also worked us mercilessly in pre-production for four months. He gets credit for the fact we were well-rehearsed and the songs sounded great before they left the studio. Kevin gave it the final polish and put the cherry on the cake! It was a great team effort.

The Treatment has opened for Kiss, Thin Lizzy, and Mötley Crüe. How do you win an audience in a brief amount of time?
We’re well-rehearsed and work on the song order until we feel the set is running right. Getting the pace of the set is really important because you don’t want any dull spots. Once we’re rehearsed, we go out and try our best to deliver a high-energy show. It’s really important to connect with the audience from the very first note. We also try to meet as many people as possible after the show – that’s always a great bonding process.

This article originally appeared in VG’s June 2021 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.

On Orianthi’s latest album, O, the fierce guitar slinger injects mass quantities of blues-rock fury into a contemporary pop-music setting. While this may seem like textbook marketing to enter the mainstream, in reality it’s one of the pitfalls of being a music lover and an eclectic.

Orianthi is a Santana disciple who has worked with diverse artists like Alice Cooper and Michael Jackson. For her, music is not about labels.

Your guitar sits in a variety of contexts. Are you searching for your lane?
I’m inspired by different genres of music. I grew up listening to a lot of blues albums and a lot of country music. My mother loved pop. I loved Jimi Hendrix, and she was into Tom Jones, Michael Bolton, and Motown. Growing up, it wasn’t about, “What’s a good genre?” It was, “What’s a good song?” What makes you feel something? When I make a record, I’m going with a feeling. It doesn’t matter if it’s prog, rock, or blues. My mind is open, my heart is open, and I’ve always been that way. I’m a huge fan of music. I’ve worked with Alice Cooper, Steve Vai, Dave Stewart, Carrie Underwood, and Michael Jackson. They’re all different. Every record I make is like a painting. They’re all going to be different, and I want them to be different.

There were some negative comments regarding your new Gibson signature SJ-200. How did that affect you?
Some people get weird. I’m just trying to bring people together. That’s the magic of music. It had just come out and people on social media were arguing about my guitar playing. “She’s not a good guitarist!” “She’s not a blues player!” “She’s not a rock player!” I got all kinds of insults, hate messages, and all this weird s**t.

I’ve experienced weird comments before. You expect that as an artist because you’re putting yourself out there, but this was beyond. The journey is not easy for any artist. I’m just doing my best. You don’t have to like what I do, but it threw me a bit. As artists, we’re all pretty sensitive people. I tried to shut it out, but I have to tell you, it was a most bizarre situation.

I’ve received a lot of love, too. I want to inspire more kids to play the guitar and help create instruments that people don’t want to put down. Working with Gibson and PRS is a real honor, and I’m very lucky. I’ll also be working with Orange amps. I don’t take any of it for granted. I feel very blessed, but it’s a strange world we live in (laughs).

What’s different about your signature SJ-200?
The people at Gibson created something really special. It’s like having my favorite electric-guitar neck on an acoustic body. The way the pickups are balanced, and the overall sound allows me to play fast. It’s a comfortable and cool-looking guitar. The pickups have a little more midrange, so it’s great for solos and has a full-bodied sound. A lot of acoustics can sound thin when you crank them up, but this one has a real rounded sound and definitely cuts through. With the LR Baggs pickups, you can really experiment. The whole guitar is well-balanced, but very different from your normal J-200.

It looks huge on you.
I played one at the studio in Montana. Someone said, “Isn’t that a little big?” And I was like, “Yeah, but Elvis played one (laughs)!

Anything new with you and PRS?
We’re packaging some black Custom 24s with lessons. I’ve been told I’m a terrible teacher (laughs); I just want to interact with people and have fun. When I first picked up the guitar when I was six years old, it brought me such joy. It wasn’t easy when I was young, and I got picked on a lot. I had to block it out and continue on.

It made you want to do good things.
I want to encourage people to pick up the guitar and write songs, even if it’s just a hobby. I don’t understand the whole negative thing because I’ve never been that way. We all have s**t we have to deal with for whatever path we choose in life. I want to promote peace and unity and coming together; that’s what my job is as an artist. Whatever you put out in the universe comes right back at you. We’re all going through a tough time, and it’s putting everyone in a tough position. Taking care of each other and promoting positivity is the thing that will help humanity.

This article originally appeared in VG’s June 2021 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.

Like many musicians, guitarist Les Sabler’s life has been turned topsy-turvy by the worldwide pandemic.

Originally from Montreal, Sabler now resides in Nashville, but work on his newest album, a smooth-jazz effort called Tranquility, began in February of 2020 at producer Paul Brown’s studio in Los Angeles. The project ultimately became remote, but not before Sabler became inspired by Brown’s Gibson Johnny Smith archtop.

“My primary guitar for decades has been my ’68 ES-335, and I brought a custom-built dual-humbucker guitar made by Charles Whitfill,” the guitarist said. “But when we first sat in the studio, Paul handed me his beautiful ’63 Johnny Smith, which felt very comfortable and had a distinctive sound that was a good fit for ‘Keep Pushin.’

“When I returned to Nashville, I started looking around to purchase one and was very fortunate to obtain the ’67 I’m now thrilled to own. It has the same headstock as a Super 400, but a 17″ body like an L-5, with notable differences like the cross bracing, a floating mini-humbucker, and a slightly shallower body based on Smith’s ’55 D’Angelico.”

Sabler wrote or co-wrote all the tunes on Tranquility except for a cover of George Benson’s “Sunrise,” and collaborated with New Orleans guitarist Shane Theriot (VG, August ’15) on half of the album.

“Paul sent a couple of Shane’s demos to me, and I really connected with them, which led to Shane co-writing and playing on five songs,” Sabler recalled. “He’s an excellent player and composer, and this was the first time we worked together. Shane, Paul, and myself really worked well together, and Shane’s melodic and harmonic concepts really resonated with me. Shane used a variety of instruments, including a ’59 ES-330, a ’52 Martin 00-17, a ’52 J-45, a Supro lap steel, and several others.”

Guitarist Jeff Carruthers co-wrote and played on “Easy Moves.”

“Jeff used a sweet-sounding ’63 Strat on the funky rhythm groove, with wah,” said Sabler.

Horns were arranged by Lee Thornburg and Tim Akers; “Three Dee” involved note-for-note riffing by Sabler and saxophonist Greg Vail, and is all the more impressive since they weren’t in a room together.

“Greg has an incredible ear and he learned, played along with, and complemented my phrasing on the song with precision and style, without having a chart. It’s so important to maintain a sense of band unity in the song when remote recording is necessary!”

Sabler’s smooth octave licks didn’t involve any electronic devices.

“Certainly, there is a significant influence from Wes Montgomery and George Benson,” he detailed. “But I try to present my own personality in the performance. It’s all thumb and fingers, and no effects were used to create the octaves; in fact, the majority of my playing on the Johnny Smith was without a pick. I did use a V-Pick on the nylon-string guitars.”

He used a José Ramirez guitar for “Esselle’s Dance” and an Alvarez on “Where Has She Gone”; Sabler’s affection for nylon-string acoustics carries over from his tribute album to Brazilian guitarist Antonio Carlos Jobim.

“The Ramirez has a cutaway and pickup that I don’t use, and sounds very smooth when mic’ed in the studio,” he said. “I recorded ‘Where Has She Gone’ at Paul’s, on his Alvarez that Marc Antoine and Peter White have recorded with, and it sounds great!”

Some might wonder about Benson’s “Sunrise,” an implicitly-introductory title, being the final track.

“To me, the ending has an aura of drifting away, perhaps into a virtual sunset as the album closes. That’s a tribute to George and Chet Atkins, and it’s nice to have that Nashville connection in the mix.”

Sabler is working with Brown on his next album and looks forward to once again presenting his music in live performance.

This article originally appeared in VG’s June 2021 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.