| Author |
Topic: Seated three feet from Jerry Douglas .... |
Andy Volk
From:
Boston, MA
|
Posted 10 Dec 2009 3:19 am |
|
... last night at the Music Emporium in Lexington, MA. Jerry played a bunch of tunes and talked about and demonstrated the new Aura pedal. Here are a few observations ...
The man is preternaturally talented (but we all knew that already) and one of the nicest, most down-to-earth musicians I've met. This is almost universally true of Dobro and steel players I've found but not necessarily true of guitar players.
A lot of Jerry's style is based on rolls played with incredible precision and consistency and very canny use of open strings. Those famous hammer/pull flurries were there in abundance and amazing to see and hear up close. I noticed that there was incredible economy of movement in his left hand for those. The bar barely lifted above the strings, just enough to clear the strings but not more. His right hand attack was very strong with the heel of his hand constantly down on the bass strings. The flurries were a little faster and more accurate when his right hand was braced through the strap. When he played the shop's guitar sans strap, they were a little less controlled.
Jerry played Vince Guaraldi's "Christmas Time is Here" almost solely in single notes. It was an object lesson in tone production, not rushing a melody and in many extremely subtle bar inflections and in moving in and out of vibrato to express feeling in single-note playing. He uses rip strokes with great power to inflect a line and his overall control of dynamics to express feeling was very cool.
A lot of JDs playing is built around set arrangements of his original tunes rather than wild improvisation but he performs them slightly differently each time adding improvisational elements along the way. He said that "If you can't play the melody well you can't improvise around it."
I asked if he picked or palm block. He said he did both but never realized it until it was pointed out to him in teaching situations at workshops.
JD is human! He flubbed a few times but powered through. Once he acknowledged it verbally, once he smiled to himself and once few people caught it but the clam was there and a sly indication caught JD's face for a fleeting moment.
When he gets in a rut he likes to go on vacation and NOT take the Dobro and everything's fresher two week's later. Also, when the ideas aren't flowing, he goes back to playing as simply as possible even doing things like going back to his roots trying to play a Josh Graves note-for-note to sound exactly like Josh.
Jerry said people have no idea how hard he practiced to acquire the skills he has.
The Aura sounded great and colored the sound in beautiful ways but interestingly, when Jerry played his Beard a bit before he was plugged in, my impression was that even in his hands, the instrument sounded about as good as my Benoit and any number of high-end Dobros I've heard - definitely not life-changingly better. So as Jerry Byrd once said, "If you can play, it doesn't matter what guitar you've got. If you can't play, it doesn't matter what guitar you've got." I had the same impression seated three feat away from Bernie Greenhouse (one of the world's great cello players) playing Bach on his Strad. We get so caught up in chasing instruments but ultimately it's the musician we want to hear and who really makes this inanimate object sing.
I showed him my Tribo-Tone bullet bar and jerry held it and regarded it as if it were some strange object from another planet. Guess he was and always will be a rail bar man.
He talked about how hard the road is and how it really destroys some people as does the grueling session work he used to do but he retains an obvious joy in making music and playing and talking about the Dobro. It was an incredible privilege to see and hear him play so beautifully and expressively. It was an inspiring evening all around. They even pulled my name out of the hat for the his show with the band tonight in Foxboro but I can't go. Dang! |
|
|
 |
Tom Pettingill
From:
California, USA (deceased)
|
|
|
|
Brad Bechtel
From:
San Francisco, CA
|
Posted 10 Dec 2009 8:46 am
|
|
Thanks for sharing that, Andy. What a great experience. I wish I could have gone in your place. 
_________________
Brad’s Page of Steel
A web site devoted to acoustic & electric lap steel guitars |
|
|
|
Mark van Allen
From:
Watkinsville, Ga. USA
|
Posted 10 Dec 2009 9:15 am
|
|
Sitting literally at the feet of a master can be a life-changing experience.
I had been playing pedal steel a fairly short time when I caught one of Buddy Emmons' concerts at a small venue in '77. We got there latish and the only seats were a table directly at Buddy's feet, I guess because people were afraid of burning too close to the sun or something...
Not only did we get into some nice banter and jokes, but I was treated to up-close observation of subtleties of pick attack, blocking, harmonics, foot and volume pedal useage that did more for my own playing than any number of licks, which were of course also in abundance.
Just the nuances of his vibrato alone were truly illuminating and inspiring.
I've since had similar experiences with many players- getting right up close is a transcendant thing.
Thanks for the description and the memory jolt! |
|
|
|
Mark Roeder
From:
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA
|
|
|
|
Guy Cundell
From:
More idle ramblings from South Australia
|
Posted 11 Dec 2009 1:34 pm
|
|
Thanks for this post, Andy. Very informative.
When I was starting resonator I had a look at the JD instructional video. He places rolls in prominent position and gives a few examples. As a beginner I worked through them. "This finger goes here. That finger goes there. Wow, that's tricky, slowly at first... faster... faster.. there we go. Well,near enough. OK, i can do rolls.... Now... What next, Jerry? Where is the real magic?" I just didn't get it.
It is difficult to appreciate how much work is required. |
|
|
|
Joel Bloom
|
Posted 11 Dec 2009 11:12 pm
|
|
| That was great, thanks! You could put him in your next book! |
|
|
|
Mark Dershaw
From:
Arizona and Ohio
|
Posted 13 Dec 2009 7:17 am
|
|
| I live just a few miles from where JD grew up. Years ago, the band I was in, played at Jerry's brothers wedding. We were all very anxious about whether Jerry would show and if we would get to meet him. Well of course he showed up, but better yet he sat in with our band. The band I was in was pretty tight and we had worked in an ending off of one of Ricky Scaggs' songs. When we hit that ending he threw back his head and laughed. Later he told us lots of stories about the road. He was interested in learning pedal steel at the time and he had a lot of questions for me. I felt very much out of place giving Jerry Douglas pointers!! He and his family are absolutely salt of the earth |
|
|
|
