Over the course of all these Rig Rundowns, we see a lot of pedalboards! Here are 13 of our favorites from the past year, from Billy Strings, Nile Rodgers, Rodrigo y Gabriela, Sunn O))), and more.
Billy Strings
Billy Strings’ Pedalboard
Bluegrass’ biggest ambassador has continued expanding his sound with more pedals and more modeling. When Billy wants to turn his acoustic into space dust, he’s got a hearty squadron of willing vaporizers. This is where Strings tap dances each night—an incredible feat given how much he’s already doing with his hands. A RJM Mastermind GT MIDI switcher is the brains of the operation as it engages all his pedals and the Kemper’s SLO-100 profile. The Grace Design BiX gives FOH a clean, pure acoustic sound. A pair of Mission Engineering SP-1 expression pedals handle manipulating time-based and modulation effects. His two Ernie Ball 40th Anniversary Volume Pedals bring in Leslie effects and the Kemper. A TC Electronic Ditto Looper remains on the board since our last encounter. A Peterson StroboStomp HD covers any on-the-fly tuning needs during his sets. Nashville’s XAct Tone Solutions built out this tonal headquarters, which features several of their custom devices and routing boxes. A couple Strymon Zuma units power everything on the floor, while a duo of Radial boxes helps organize. (The SGI-44 talks to the rack-mounted JX44, and the JDI is a passive direct box designed to handle gobs of levels without any unwanted crunch.)
Here’s a peek behind the scenes, into the inside of Strings’ rack. Starting at the top left, he has a Voodoo Lab Sparkle Drive, Electro-Harmonix Micro POG, MXR Bass Envelope Filter, Source Audio EQ2, Boss DD-8 Digital Delay, Source Audio C4 Synth, and a Strymon Lex. A Strymon Ojai powers the pedals in this drawer. Moving to the right, he has a Jam Pedals Waterfall, Boss SY-1 Synthesizer, EHX Pitch Fork, Red Panda Raster, and an Eventide H9. All of these gizmos are powered by a Strymon Zuma. Going down to the bottom left, Strings assembles this drawer with a NativeAudio Pretty Bird Woman, a Chase Bliss Wombtone, Source Audio Nemesis, DigiTech Polara, Boss DC-2W Dimension C, and an EHX Freeze. Another Strymon Zuma powers all these creatures. The final drawer houses a Chase Bliss Audio Mood, EHX Intelligent Harmony Machine, and a Chase Bliss Automatone MKII Preamp. Everything comes to life with a final Strymon Zuma.
Blu DeTiger
Blu DeTiger’s Pedalboard
“I haven’t gone through that phase of using crazy pedals yet. Live, I just really love the sound of a clean bass tone,” admits bassist DeTiger. Whether slapping on TikTok, headlining solo tours, performing with Jack Antonoff and Olivia Rodrigo, or improvising over her DJ set, this board represents her go-to gear. Each piece in this cast of characters gets used for specific moments. She uses the octave up on the Electro-Harmonix Micro POG for “shredding” and the sub octave setting to “change the vibe for a second.” The Electro-Harmonix Bass Big Muff enhances some of the POG’s shadings with added stank. The EarthQuaker Devices Spatial Delivery is used for the funky intro to “enough 4 u,” her collaboration with Chromeo. She prefers the Spatial Delivery to the Mu-FX Micro-Tron III (which doesn’t get used at all now) and the MXR Analog Chorus is engaged for one instance. The Boss RE-2 Space Echo sees action with the Strat for “Sonic Youth freakouts” during “Kinda Miss You.” A Boss TU-3 Chromatic Tuner keeps all four strings in line and a Voodoo Lab Pedal Power 2 Plus provides the volts.
Christone “Kingfish” Ingram
Kingfish’s Pedalboard
Christone “Kingfish” Ingram is well on his way to becoming the blues’ newest 6-string ruler and he doesn’t use much gear to get the job done. Kingfish’s signal starts with a Shure BLX4 Wireless Receiver, which hits a Boss TU-3W Tuner. From there, the route is a Dunlop Cry Baby Mini Wah, a Marshall Shredmaster, and a Boss DD-3 Delay, all powered by Strymon. The pedals live on a Pedaltrain Nano board and were assembled by Barry O’Neal at XAct Tone Solutions.
Emily Wolfe
Emily Wolfe’s Pedalboard
“If I get a new piece of gear, I have to figure out every single part of it before I can really use it,” the shreddin’ Texan confessed to PG while talking about her 2021 album, Outlier. That sensible curiosity has led her to dialing in precise parameters on the pedals and creating colossal combos with singular gain staging. Her silver bullet is the EarthQuaker Devices Tentacle Analog Octave Up, running into a Fulltone OCD, and an MXR Six Band EQ. Wolfe claimed to PG, “That’s the sound that belongs to me.” The sequence creates a “crazy fuzztone” from the overdrive. Then she uses the EQ to reduce some of the lows and boost the mids for a sound she says will get her guitar to cut through any mix.
Other spices in the rack include an Analog Man King of Tone, an EarthQuaker Devices Dirt Transmitter fuzz, an Ibanez Analog Delay Mini, an Origin Effects Cali76 Compact Deluxe, a Walrus Audio Julia, and a Strymon Flint. The Empress Buffer puts the Delay Mini and Flint outside the RJM Mastermind PBC’s control.
Underneath the hood, Wolfe has tucked in a pair of MXR M109S Six Band EQ pedals (one hitting the King of Tone and the other hitting the OCD), an Electro-Harmonix Pitch Fork, the EarthQuaker Devices Tentacle, and a couple of Strymon power supplies (Ojai and Zuma).
Hermanos Gutiérrez
Estevan Gutiérrez’s Pedalboard
The Gutiérrez brothers pack light. You can see that Estevan Gutiérrez utilizes nearly every square inch of his pedalboard. Overlaps between the brothers’ boards include the MXR Dyna Comp Mini, the Strymon Flint, and the Strymon El Capistan. You might think their setup is basic now, but they used to play sans pedals. Eventually, Estevan discovered the Strymon El Capistan, and their sound was never the same. “I remember that day,” he recounted to PG about first playing the pedal. “I fell in love. I knew it was gonna change something in our sound.” As soon as he purchased the El Capistan, he called his brother and said, “You have to buy this. This is gonna be next level for us.”
The remaining effects for Estevan include a Malekko Omicron Vibrato, a Boss RC-500 Loop Station, and a Boss TU-3 Chromatic Tuner (off the board) keeps his Gretsch in check. Lastly, you’ll notice a G7th Performance 3 ART Capo on the pedalboard, too.
Alejandro Gutiérrez’s Pedalboard
Alejandro, who plays guitar and lap steel, relies on this compact board that holds a MXR Dyna Comp Mini, a Boss GE-7 Equalizer, a Strymon Flint, and the influential Strymon El Capistan. While Estevan discovered the El Cap and unlocked its magic for Hermanos Gutiérrez, Alejandro has molded it to his sound in different ways. “I use it as a layer,” he explains. “Really subtle. My brother uses it more as a delay. He has this horse sound, like this galloping sound he can create with his slapping, which only he can do.” A Boss TU-3 keeps his guitars in line.
Nile Rodgers
Nile Rodgers’ Pedalboard
The Hitmaker doesn’t drown in effects. Instead, Rodgers maintains a simple, sophisticated signal chain into his Fender Hot Rod Deville. Rodgers uses a Pedaltrain Classic 2, loaded up with an Eventide PowerMax Power Supply. The Eventide feeds a Korg Pitchblack Chromatic Tuner, a Boss DD-3 Digital Delay, an Ibanez CS9 Stereo Chorus, a Mad Professor Snow White AutoWah, an Ibanez TS808 40th Anniversary Tube Screamer, and a Jam Pedals Wahcko Wah Pedal. The stompboxes are all wired together with Reference Laboratory RIC-01 cabling.
Rodrigo y Gabriela
Rodrigo Sánchez’s Pedalboard
The eclectic, trailblazing guitar maestros blend acoustic and electric sounds in their respective rigs. The pickup return from Sánchez’s wireless rack goes to the volume pedal via a Lehle 3at1 switcher, then out to a Lehle P-Split signal splitter. The direct out from the P-Split goes to another Lehle splitter, while the ISO line out runs to the rest of the pedals before ending up at a Fractal. (The ISO out of the first splitter goes to the JHS Mini A/B pedal into the Boss OC-3, then to a separate channel on the desk.) His tone-shapers include an MXR Micro Amp, TWA WR-3 Wah Rocker, MXR Analog Chorus, and a Boss DD-3 Digital Delay. He stays in tune thanks to a Boss TU-3S Chromatic Tuner. It’s all powered by a pair of Truetone 1 Spot Pro CS7 power supplies.
Gabriela Quintero’s Pedalboard
It doesn’t get much simpler than this. Quintero’s pedalboard funnels the acoustic’s first two channels—the undersaddle and the body’s piezos—into a stereo volume pedal. From there, they run through a Dunlop Cry Baby and a Boss DD-3 Digital Delay. The signal is then split, with the first side going back to the DI, and the second running through a Dunlop volume pedal into a Boss OC-3 for an extra bottom octave.
Sunn O)))
Stephen O’Malley’s Pedalboard
Drone metal overlords Stephen O’Malley and Greg Anderson use volume as an aesthetic. “My concept in playing this music for tone involves many, many, many different gain stages that are all intonated differently depending on the pitch of the sound,” O’Malley told us last year. “There are slight shades of color saturation or grain as if it’s a paint—the shorter bandwidth color gradation or the density of the paint.” All these subtle sweeps of saturation, sustain, and feedback are enlivened and exaggerated with Stephen’s pedal palette. His current collection of slaughtering stomps includes the band’s most recent collaboration with EarthQuaker Devices (Life Pedal V3), an Ace Tone FM-3 Fuzz Master, a Pete Cornish G-2, and an EarthQuaker Devices Black Ash. For subtler shadings, he has a J. Rockett Audio Designs Archer.
The EQD Swiss Things creates effects loops to engage the FM-3, G-2, or the Black Ash. In addition, he runs a Roland RE-201 Space Echo through the Swiss Things. O’Malley uses the Aguilar Octamizer as a “fun punctuation that comes on once in a while” that “abstracts the guitar into minimalist electronics.” The custom Bright Onion Pedals switcher keeps the amps in sync with phase controls and ground lifts. A Peterson StroboStomp HD keeps his Travis Bean in check. Off to the side of the board is a Keeley-modded RAT that initiated the band’s core sound, plus a Lehle Mono Volume. This circuit includes the heralded LM308 chip and was the basis for their partnership with EQD and the Life Pedal series.Elevated off the stage floor and secured by a stand are O’Malley’s Roland RE-201 Space Echo and Oto Machines BAM Space Generator Reverb.
Greg Anderson’s Pedalboard
“To be honest with you, I try to keep it pretty simple now because I love pedals and have fallen down a lot of rabbit holes with them, but I found myself troubleshooting and having more issues than my sound warranted. When I started with this band, it was just a RAT and tuner pedal, so I try to just bring what I need,” says Anderson. He found a potent pairing with the EQD Life Pedal V2 acting as a boost and running into a vintage Electro-Harmonix Civil War Big Muff that creates a “powerful, chewy, ooze” tone. Like O’Malley, he also has a custom Bright Onion Pedals box and an Aguilar Octamizer set to unleash a “ridiculous, beating, fighting, chaotic, sub-bass sound.” An Ernie Ball VP JR handles dynamics, a Boss TU-2 Chromatic Tuner keeps his Les Paul in shape, and an MXR Mini Iso-Brick powers his pedals.
The Flaming Lips
Steven Drozd’s Pedalboard
Given the nature of the Flaming Lips’ expansive and deranged sounds, you wouldn’t be blamed if you thought Drozd would have a rack of pedals or three tethered boards. But you’d be wrong—as he’s currently touring with nine stomps and an Ernie Ball volume pedal. Doing a lot of the heavy lifting is the Boss GT-1000CORE. The other sonic scalpels and sizzlers are a Subdecay Liquid Sunshine, a duo of Universal Audio units—a Starlight Echo Station delay and Golden Reverberator—a TC Electronic Spark Booster, a ZVEX Fuzz Factory, a Source Audio Nemesis Delay, a Keeley Electronics 30ms Automatic Double Tracker, and a Boss EQ-200 Graphic Equalizer.
Unknown Mortal Orchestra
Ruban Nielson’s Pedalboard
The New Zealand guitarist is a tone tactician. He’s never been satisfied with stock sounds and a pedal’s inherent limitations. “If I find a pedal I like, I use it for a long time and then I try to build a clone to see if I can improve on it,” he explains. “I sit around in my basement tweaking it plugged in—on the breadboard—and changing out different components and adjusting the trim until I get everything just exactly how I want it.” So, looking down at his stomp selection you’ll notice a few nondescript devices on the beautiful Twin Peaks Woodworks pedalboard custom-built by both Nielson’s tech Ben Gram and Caspian guitarist Jonny Ashburn.
His signal hits an Effectrode PC-2A Tube Compressor (you’ll notice two on the board—one is a backup). He enjoys how the PC-2A up front fattens his entire sound, and how it smooths and shaves off the transient tinges. The Strymon Deco has a stereo out that hits a pair of JAM Pedals RetroVibes. Both are set to have slightly different speeds and depths so that they really take that stereo signal for a journey in real time, and they’re panned in the PA to amplify this effect.
One of Nielson’s creations shows up inside the gray box titled “Octave Magic,” which is based on the Foxx Tone Machine. The suede purple devil next to it is the JAM Fuzz Phrase LTD, about which Nielson says, “It’s the wooliest, most musical Fuzz Face I’ve ever played.” Sometimes the answer to Nielson’s problems is the Benson Germanium Boost. “If something’s wrong,” he explains, “I’ll kick on that pedal and it makes everything louder and resets the gain structure.” The Gamechanger Audio Plus pedal sees a lot of action throughout the set: It helps Nielson seam the tail end of a solo and discreetly rejoin the band in rhythm mode.
The remaining pedals include a Boss DD-3 Digital Delay (a gift from Mike Baranik), a Danelectro Back Talk reverse delay, an Electro-Harmonix Holy Grail reverb, and in the top-left corner, an unnamed pedal that Nielson built that is currently not in the signal. (He can’t remember if it’s a RAT or Tube Screamer clone.) Utility boxes include a Boss TU-3 Chromatic Tuner, an Electro-Harmonix Switchblade Plus channel selector, and a Lehle Little Dual II switcher.
The Man in Black returns with the unreleased Songwriter album. John Carter Cash tells us the story.
“The Man Comes Around” is a much-played song from the final album Johnny Cash recorded before his death in 2003, American IV: The Man Comes Around. Now, the Man in Black himself has come around again, as the voice and soul of an album he initially cut in 1993, titled Songwriter. It hits the street on June 28.
For fans who know Cash only through his much-loved American Recordings series, this is a very different artist—healthy, vital, his signature baritone booming, his acoustic playing lively, percussive, and focused. This is the muscular Johnny Cash heard on his career-defining recordings, from his early Sun Records sides like “Cry! Cry! Cry!” and “Folsom Prison Blues” to “Ring of Fire” and “Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down” to later, less familiar hits like “The Baron” and “That Old Wheel.” In short, classic Cash—the performer who became an international icon and remains one even 21 years after his death.
I recently visited the Cash Cabin recording studio—a log cabin on the Cash family property in Hendersonville, Tennessee, that was originally built as a sanctuary where Johnny wrote songs and poetry—with PG’s video team of Chris Kies and Perry Bean to talk about Songwriter with John Carter Cash, the son of Johnny and June Carter Cash.
In addition to getting the lowdown on Songwriter from John Carter Cash, he showed us some of the iconic guitars—including original Johnny Cash lead guitarist Luther Perkin’s 1953 Fender Esquire and a Martin that was favored by the Man himself—that dwell at the busy private studio. Check out this visit.
Guitarist, songwriter and bandleader Grace Bowers will independently release her highly anticipated debut album, Wine On Venus, August 9.
The new album adds to a breakout year for Bowers, who was recently selected as a U.S. Global Music Ambassador as part of the U.S Department of State and YouTube’s Global Music Diplomacy Initiative, is nominated for Instrumentalist of the Year at the 2024 Americana Music Association Honors & Awards and will make her debut performance on the legendary Grand Ole Opry on her eighteenth birthday, July 30, 2024. Other performances this year include shows supporting Slash, The Red Clay Strays and Brothers Osborne as well as stops at Levitate Music & Arts Festival, Floyd Fest, Bristol Rhythm & Roots Reunion, Bourbon & Beyond, XPoNential Music Festival and Pilgrimage Music & Cultural Festival. See below for complete tour itinerary.
Grace Bowers & The Hodge Podge - Tell Me Why U Do That (Official Video)
Produced by John Osborne (Brothers Osborne), Wine On Venus captures the electric energy of Bowers’ live performances with The Hodge Podge. The record consists of nine soul-infused tracks including a new version of Sly and the Family Stone’s “Dance to the Music” as well as previously release single, “Tell Me Why U Do That,” of which Forbes praises, “an infectious, joyous party and a worthy introduction to Bowers.” Additionally, The Bluegrass Situation declares, “an exceptional breakout talent who seems primed for a long career to come,” while RIFF Magazine calls her “The next generation’s star of American rock, blues and funk guitar.”
Of the record, Bowers shares, “I’m so excited to share my first album with the world in August! It’s been a long time coming, and I’m proud of what was created with the incredible Hodge Podge and John Osborne producing. We recorded everything live, as it should be, for this sonic journey. I hope you love it as much as I do.”
Additionally, of the title track, she reflects, “My nana was 100 years old when she passed away last year. She would always tell me that when she died, she would be drinking wine on Venus. She was a little eccentric but thought that was just something so cool. When she passed, I wrote a song about it.”
In addition to Bowers (guitar), the record features Joshua Blaylock (keys), Brandon Combs (drums), Eric Fortaleza (bass), Esther Okai-Tetteh (vocals) and Prince Parker (guitar) as well as songwriting collaborations with respected artists such as Ben Chapman, Meg McRee, Maggie Rose and Lucie Silvas.
Originally from the Bay Area and now calling Nashville home, Bowers began garnering attention after sharing videos of herself playing guitar on social media during the pandemic. In the years since, she’s been featured on “CBS Mornings” in a piece focused on a new wave of young female guitarists, performed alongside Dolly Parton as part of her Pet Gala special on CBS, joined Lainey Wilson as part of CBS’ New Year’s Eve Live celebration, performed as part of the “Men’s Final Four Tip-Off Tailgate Presented by Nissan” and been sought after by everyone from Devon Allman to Tyler Childers and Susan Tedeshi to Kingfish. Of her 2023 Newport Folk Festival debut, Rolling Stone declared, “Her 20-minute performance gave the distinct sense that everyone lucky enough to have attended was witnessing a star in the making,” while The Tennessean calls her “a 17 year old Blues guitar prodigy,” with a, “heart as big as her talent is vast.”
Most recently this summer, Bowers performed alongside Billy Idol at the Fired Up For Summer benefit concert and raised $30,000 for MusiCares and Voices for a Safer Tennesseewith her 2nd Annual “Grace Bowers & Friends: An Evening Supporting Love, Life & Music” benefit show. With the release of Wine On Venus (distributed by The Orchard), Bowers will further establish herself as one of music’s most intriguing new artists.
For more information, please visit gracebowers.com.
Cash initially shelved the album in 1993, but now his son, John Carter Cash, has spearheaded a project to revamp and release the recordings, with the help of Marty Stuart, Dan Auerbach, Vince Gill, and other notables. Read on to get the details and see a gallery of vintage instruments and other artifacts from the Cash Cabin studio.
“The Man Comes Around” is a much-played song from the final album Johnny Cash recorded before his death in 2003, American IV: The Man Comes Around. Now, the Man in Black himself has come around again, as the voice and soul of a just-released album he initially cut in 1993, titled Songwriter.
For fans who know Cash only through his much-loved American Recordings series, this is a very different artist—healthy, vital, his signature baritone booming, his acoustic playing lively, percussive, and focused. This is the muscular Johnny Cash heard on his career-defining recordings, from his early Sun Records sides like “Cry! Cry! Cry!” and “Folsom Prison Blues” to “Ring of Fire” and “Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down” to later, less familiar hits like “The Baron” and “That Old Wheel.” In short, classic Cash—the performer who became an international icon and remains one 21 years after his death.
In addition to theSongwriter album, it’s also worth noting that there is a new documentary, June, that puts June Carter Cash’s life and under-sung cultural legacy in perspective. Johnny wasn’t the only giant in this family. Just the biggest one.
“I think it’s important to support my father’s legacy in the world in which we live,” says John Carter Cash, who, in addition to his own work as an artist, is the primary caretaker of his family’s estimable body of work.
I recently visited the Cash Cabin—a log cabin recording studio on the Cash family property in Hendersonville, Tennessee, that was originally built as a sanctuary where Johnny wrote songs and poetry—with PG’s video team of Chris Kies and Perry Bean—to talk about Songwriter with John Carter Cash, the son of Johnny and June Carter Cash. [Go to premierguitar.com for the full video.] In this shrine of American music, Johnny Cash recorded most of the American Recordings series, and many others, from Loretta Lynn to Jamey Johnson, have tracked here. It’s also where John Carter Cash and co-producer David “Fergie” Ferguson took apart the original Songwriter sessions and put them back together, stronger, with musical contributions by Marty Stuart, Dan Auerbach, Vince Gill, a blue ribbon rhythm team of the late bassist Dave Roe and drummer Pete Abbott, backing vocalists Ana Christina Cash and Harry Stinson, percussionist Sam Bacco, guitarists Russ Pahl, Kerry Marx, and Wesley Orbison, keyboardist Mike Rojas, and John Carter himself. Johnny’s vocals and acoustic rhythm guitar, and guest vocals by Waylon Jennings on two songs, are all that was saved from the 1993 sessions, cut at LSI studios in Nashville.
In addition to getting the lowdown on Songwriter from John Carter Cash, he showed us some of the iconic guitars—including original Johnny Cash lead guitarist Luther Perkins’ 1953 Fender Esquire and a Martin that was favored by the Man himself—that dwell at the busy private studio. [Go to the video at premierguitar.com for an eyeful.]
Only 44 of these Rosanne Cash signature model OM-28s were made by Martin. John Carter Cash says it’s his favorite guitar to play, and he and house engineer Trey Call attest that it’s probably the most frequently chosen instrument by guests recording in the studio.
Photos by Perry Bean
Only Johnny Cash’s original vocal and guitar tracks, and Waylon Jennings’ performances, were kept from the 1993 sessions. Marty Stuart, Vince Gill, Dave Roe, Dan Auerbach, and others contributed new tracks.
Speaking about Songwriter, John explains, “In some ways, these recordings fell through the cracks. I was in some of the sessions and can hear my guitar on some of the original recordings.” Dave Roe was also on those initial sessions, but he’d just started to play upright bass and didn’t have the finesse he lends to the revamped album.
The idea with Songwriter, John Carter relates, wasn’t to do anything more with the music than make it stronger. His dad was initially unhappy with the overall playing on the LCI recordings. “We didn’t add elements to make it about the ‘now’ or more ‘Americana’ or whatever,” he says.
The amp room at the Cash Cabin studio has some small but potent combo treasures.
Photos by Perry Bean
Nonetheless, Songwriter does take the Cash legacy to some new places, including the realm of psychedelia. Although the song “Drive On,” about a trucker who survived the Vietnam war with internal and exterior scars, was written for the 1993 sessions, it debuted in 1994 as part of the American Recordings album. The Songwriter treatment is radically different, from the panned amp, beating with tremolo, that opens the song to the concluding lysergic odyssey of 6-string provided by John Carter and Roy Orbison’s son, Wesley. It might well appeal to Johnny, who was a musical maverick—insisting that then-controversial figures like Bob Dylan and Pete Seeger, as well as a just-emerging Joni Mitchell and Linda Ronstadt, appear on the ABC network’s The Johnny Cash Show, which aired from 1969 through 1971.
This is June Carter Cash’s piano—an antique Steinway upright that still earns its keep as one of the studio’s active instruments. Nothing in the Cabin is a museum piece.
Photos by Perry Bean
John Carter, who is a singer-songwriter and producer, and is currently at work on his own fourth solo album, notes that the sonically spacious Songwriter opener “Hello Out There” resonates with him most, emotionally, as its lyrics balance the possible end of humanity with a message of hope. But every song on the album brims with empathy and kindness in strong measure. “Like a Soldier,” which blends Johnny’s patented guitar thrum with an introspective story about his battles with addiction, and “She Sang Sweet Baby James,” about a struggling single mother singing the James Taylor song to comfort her infant, are two more examples. And the guitars are always prominent, whether they’re Russ Pahl’s steel providing ambient textures or Marty Stuart’s hard-charging country licks, which breathe fire into the album.
A stained-glass portrait of Mother Maybelle Carter with her autoharp. Mother Maybelle invented a style of guitar playing, where melody was executed on the bass strings and rhythm on the high strings, that influenced Chet Atkins, Merle Travis, and a host of other famed pickers.
Photos by Perry Bean
For Stuart, who toured with Johnny Cash for six years and played on many of the Man in Black’s recordings, the experience of working on the retooled Songwriter, as well as his time with the senior Cash, was “mystical—everything about him was mystical. Even after I left his band, anytime the chief called, I was available. To the day he passed away, he was the boss. So when John Carter called and said he needed guitar on some of his dad’s tracks, I went over there. It’s so natural to hear that voice in the headphones. What I always loved about playing against him is that his voice is like an oak tree. You can put anything you want next to it, and it still stands out.”
From father to son: On his 10th birthday, Johnny Cash drew John Carter Cash this chord diagram for “I Walk the Line.”
Photos by Perry Bean
The exterior of the Cash Cabin—one of the sacred places of American music and still a busy working studio.
Photos by Perry Bean
This 1953 Fender Esquire belonged to Luther Perkins, who was a member of Cash’s first recording bands and played on all of the Man in Black’s foundational recordings for Sun Records—likely with this guitar.
Photos by Perry Bean
Stuart’s instruments of choice for Songwriter were a ’50s Telecaster owned by Clarence White that bears the first B-bender, a 1939 Martin D-45 that Cash used on his ’60s/early ’70s TV show and gifted to Stuart, and a silver-panel Fender Deluxe, in addition to John Carter’s ’59 Les Paul, another of Johnny’s old Martins, and a baritone that resides at the Cabin. And Stuart’s focus was getting back to the template of Cash’s original Tennesse Two and Tennessee Three bands, and the guitar style created by Luther Perkins, Stuart’s first guitar hero. “They had their own language, and it’s a foundational sound inside of me,” he says. “With Johnny’s voice and the thumb of his right hand on the guitar as a guide, that architecture was all there. I heard the album the other day for the first time, and I thought, ‘Man, John Carter and David Ferguson worked their hearts out to honor the real sound.’”
John Carter Cash bought this 1959 Gibson Les Paul at Gruhn’s in Nashville. It has a neck that is atypically slim for its vintage and appears as part of the psychedelic guitar interplay on the Songwriter song “Drive On.”
Photos by Perry Bean
John Carter Cash remembers this Martin 40 H from his childhood as the guitar Johnny kept around the house to play on a whim or when he was chasing a song idea. The year is unknown, but as a guitar that Johnny Cash played, it is priceless.
Photos by Perry Bean
Here’s the headstock of the Stromberg that Mother Maybelle Carter used on the road while touring with Johnny Cash and her daughters. Her main guitar, dating back to the first recordings of country music, which she made as part of the Carter Family, was a Gibson L-5, but she judged this instrument hardier for travel.
Photos by Perry Bean
Fishing was a favorite pastime of the Cash family. This is June Carter Cash’s fishing reel and tackle box—one of the many personal and historic items in the cabin.
Photos by Perry Bean
When Johnny Cash completed his novel about the apostle Paul, titled Man in White, he commemorated the occasion by scratching his initials and the day into the arm of the studio’s rocking chair—his favorite place to sit.
“In so many ways,” John Carter allows, “my father is always with me. People everywhere still love my father’s music. For instance, a 15-year-old kid wrote saying that without the strength through hardship my father expressed in his songs, he would not be alive. So, I think it’s important to support my father’s legacy in the world in which we live.
“My father made a distinction between the business of Johnny Cash and himself,” John Carter notes. “It’s almost like I’ve studied Johnny Cash my whole life, and so I can tie the two together somehow and still go through the healing process of losing a father while embracing him and his work on a level that spreads his music’s joy and brilliance to the world. I believe that his goal for his music and his life was to share with other people out there who connect on a level of the heart.” And that echoes, boldly, throughoutSongwriter.The new destination on Reverb will feature an always-changing collection of new and like-new music gear from top brands for at least 20% off retail prices.
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