For his first solo album in nearly a decade, Via Zammata’, the bona fide guitar geek looks to his ancestors—and his father, Frank—for inspiration and creates a wild mix of genres that’s uniquely Zappa.
“I’m not even sure what a ‘Dweezil Zappa’ album would sound like at this point.”
It was December 2012 and Dweezil was excitedly flipping through patches on his Fractal Axe-Fx and describing how he reverse-engineered his way through the tones of his father, Frank Zappa. At the time, Dweezil was neck-deep in Zappa Plays Zappa, a virtousic outfit he put together in 2006 to spread the Gospel of Zappa.
At some point since then, Dweezil figured out what a solo album should sound like—and the result is Via Zammata’. “I didn’t have time to write all-new material, so I dug through what I had to see what could tell the story,” he explains. Part of that story includes “Dragon Master,” the only tune he cowrote with his father, in the late ’80s. From the Arabic melody in the main riff to the decidedly Dio-style vocals and ridiculous lyrics, the song effectively combines the quirkiness of the Zappa universe with the imagery and attitude of classic Iron Maiden.
The new album’s title came from a trip that Dweezil took to Sicily. He was there to learn more about his father’s family, and discovered the street his ancestors lived on. “The name of the street was Via Zammata. The building [they lived in] was just tiny,” says Dweezil. According to what he learned from the locals, the word “zammata” has a rather complicated meaning. “We don’t really have a word like it in English, but it’s used to describe the sound of children’s footsteps playing in a rain puddle.”
Expanding the orchestration of rock music is a thread that weaves in and out of the Zappa cannon. With this latest album, Dweezil decided to put the songs and arrangements up front rather than creating a wall-to-wall shred fest. “I wanted to get to the simplest version of each song,” he relates. “Even saying that it’s simplistic—that’s not really the case for every song, because there’s something a little twisted in all of these.”
Those twisted ideas might be demonstrated best in “Malkovich,” a dark and spacey jam centered on a spoken word performance by John Malkovich, the actor. The fuzzy riff and Devo-like chorus came together rather quickly, as the band wrote, recorded, and mixed the whole song in a single day. “It’s funny. When I go back and try to learn the main riff, it’s hard to hear the ‘B’ part of the riff because of the mix. I have to strip stuff away so I can actually hear what I played,” Dweezil says, laughing.
Considering the ever-changing landscape of the music business, Dweezil took a more inclusive approach to recording and releasing this album and used PledgeMusic, a crowdfunding website, to bring fans into its creation. It was not the action of a desperate artist, but, rather, a way to give them a peek behind the curtain. “It was about telling people I’m making a record and asking them if they want to be involved from the ground up,” says Dweezil.
The excitement in Dweezil’s voice is palpable. On his latest tour with Zappa Plays Zappa, the band joyfully tackled his father’s One Size Fits All album in its entirety to celebrate the 40th anniversary of its release. PG caught up with Dweezil between his daily master class and soundcheck to talk about the Beach Boys, improvisation, and a quasi-secret all-star guitar project that has been decades in the making.
You hold master classes before each show on tour. Did the desire to do these come from a formative experience you had in your youth?
I know how important it was for me seeing Eddie Van Halen, my dad, or Steve Vai up close. I know what the value of that is in terms of how it can completely change your playing overnight. When people started asking me about how to play stuff, we started the Dweezilla Music Boot Camp. But then I got too busy to keep doing the camp—but I do want to bring that back—so I started doing 90-minute master classes on the road.
What do you get out of doing these classes?
I don’t have a lot of time on the road to practice, so when I’m trying to explain something it further engrains the concept for me. My approach is to take something that you already know and expand your vocabulary by creating a strategy to look at it three or four different ways. I try to make it feel like it’s not this daunting thing that you have to memorize. I explain some pretty complex subjects, but I try to make them as simple as possible.
Was there a particular “light bulb” moment that changed how you view improvising?
When I was about 12 I discovered how to organize the fretboard into three sets of two strings and that they were mirror images in all these patterns. Then, I wasn’t thinking about playing in these vertical boxes. It just helped to connect ideas. I still take lessons with people that do stuff that I don’t know about.
How has your view of improvisation evolved while playing your dad’s music?
When I started working on my dad’s stuff I had to really think about true improvisation and not relying on a bunch of standardized, pre-composed licks. I grew up in an era when guitar solos were composed. Eddie Van Halen composed solos. Randy Rhoads composed solos. You found the perfect solo for the song and there was something cool about that. My dad didn’t do that at all. He wanted to be right in the moment and react to what was happening. You have to have an entirely different vocabulary. I had to make the mental change as well as the physical, technical changes. I’ve been doing Zappa Plays Zappa for 10 years and I’m just now getting to the point where I feel like I’ve developed enough vocabulary to really go off script. Every time I play “Inca Roads,” I try to play an entirely different solo, with stuff I haven’t done before.
How do you balance familiar elements of a solo with newly improvised passages?
What I try to do in Zappa Plays Zappa is play in context to the music. I want to play in a way that Frank might have played, use some of the phrases he actually played, but add my own ideas as the line to get there. And if you have a sound that’s evocative of the era or a specific thing from the record, that’s helpful too. I don’t like to hear people play Frank’s music and go off in a direction that sounds nothing like what Frank would have done on a solo. Some people think that’s what your supposed to do. For me, even if I learn a Van Halen or Jimi Hendrix song, I want to learn how to play the exact notes that they played and the same phrasing, because to me that’s playing the song.
You mentioned that some of the tunes on Via Zammata’ came from older demos.
I took some songs and rearranged things. Then I ended up writing a couple of things. “Funky 15” was written for this album. “Truth” was originally going to have lyrics, but I ended up going more towards a Jeff Beck-style instrumental. Then there was “Dragon Master”—I tried to add some of my interest in Arabic music into that song. All the things I did with textures and stuff was a result of my experience in playing with Zappa Plays Zappa. The songs came out different because of the experience of breaking down arrangements in Frank’s songs. The songwriting is different because, for lack of a better description, it’s more like a pop singer-songwriter record than a big guitar album. To a large degree, most of the material on here is less complex than anything from my previous records.
“Dragon Master” on Via Zammata’ is a full-on Maiden-meets-Sabbath metal song that Dweezil cowrote with his father, Frank. Photo courtesy of Dweezil Zappa
There are some highly pop-influenced vocal harmonies on the album. Did that influence come from pop music you heard when you were growing up?
The only music I heard growing up was my dad’s. I started listening to the radio when I was about 12. Then, I started hearing The Beatles and other things. I only ever heard what Frank was working on at home, or if he was listening to someone else’s record. But over the years I developed an interest in certain things, like The Beatles. I was never a big Beach Boys fan, but I liked the harmonies. As I got older I could appreciate that even more. I was driving home and heard “I Get Around” on the radio and I was like, “You know what? That’s a fucking badass song.” Nobody writes songs that are like that in the sense where it’s all about the vocal arrangement driving the whole chord progression. When a song like “I Get Around” came out there was nothing that sounded like that. And there still really isn’t, to a large degree. There’s some type of Baroque element to some of the Beach Boy harmonies. There’s classical counterpoint-type stuff, even though it’s crafted into a surf-y pop song. “Rat Race” [on Via Zammata’] sounds a little like The Beach Boys meet the Bulgarian Women’s Choir.
How did you craft those harmonies?
They were written on guitar. [The session vocalists] would have the lyrics and hear the melody of what the harmony is supposed to be; they could sing along to the guitar line until they got it in their heads. It was way easier to do that.
Did you take the same approach with the string arrangements on “Truth?”
I wrote the parts and then Kurt Morgan, the bass player, went into Finale and further orchestrated it enough to be able to give it to real people to play. I played all the parts on guitar first. I don’t read music; I just write it and record it. If I need to show it to someone I have to record something and say, “Here’s how it goes.” Then they have to transcribe it.
Dweezil Zappa's Gear
Guitars
Gibson Frank Zappa “Roxy” SG with Sustainiac and piezo pickups
Gibson fretless SG
Gibson ES-336
Fender Hendrix/Zappa Strat
Fender Eric Johnson Stratocaster
Fender Johnny Marr Jaguar
’60s Fender Telecaster
Godin MultiOud
Godin Glissentar
Coral Electric Sitar
Amps
Fractal Axe-Fx II
1966 “Black Flag” Marshall JTM50
Fender Super Reverb
Port City Pearl
Effects
JHS Pollinator
JHS SuperBolt
JHS Twin Twelve
Strymon TimeLine
Strymon BigSky
Strymon Mobius
Greer Lightspeed
Greer TarPit Fuzz
Maxon Fuzz Elements Air
Maxon Fuzz Elements Water
Source Audio Soundblox 2 Orbital Modulator
TC Electronic Vortex Flanger
TC Electronic Shaker Vibrato
Little Labs PCP Instrument Distro Rev. 3.1 signal splitter
Strings and Picks
Ernie Ball (.009-.048)
Red Bear Trading Company custom picks
How did you organize the music from the older demos to present them to the band?
Since some of the songs already had a demo, the band could hear how I did it 20 years ago, and then I’d show them how I’d do it today. It was pretty simple. We actually recorded all the basic tracks in about six days. It took a long time to decide how to add all the overdubs. Part of what I wanted to do was—as far as guitars went—take a back seat, to a degree. This is my first record that has full instrumentation, like keyboards and other things. So I wanted to make sure the vocals were a key part and the bass lines were really featured.
The vocals and bass lines were your guideposts when arranging and writing the tunes?
In terms of what should be able to drive the song forward, the guitar was more texture on top. The foundation was really the bass line and the vocals for most of the songs. As far as the guitar sounds went, I wanted things to be mono and really specific in the stereo field. A lot of the songs might have little counterpoint parts. There’s always something fixed in just the left speaker. It might have a little answer on the right side. I wanted to simplify my approach in a lot of ways. That’s how it started and then some of the songs got complicated over time.
What songs took the biggest leap from demo to album?
Some of the demos had more on them than the finished versions on the record, so it was really about stripping away stuff. The song “Nothing,” for example, has one rhythm guitar part through the whole thing with a couple little lead lines and a solo at the end. There’s one clean rhythm part that sits on the left side and then you have ambience on the right side that gives it some spatial representation. I wanted it to sound like you were making an old analog record and you had to really not use up too many tracks and be very specific with your ideas. But then some of the songs had lots of tracks. “Hummin’” has a lot of different textures. “What If” has a fair amount of overdubs. “Dragon Master” has two mono rhythm guitars. In the chorus there’s a third guitar that comes in. “Rat Race” has one guitar. “On Fire” has a lot of textures, but it mainly has a pretty clean guitar and a slightly distorted guitar to give it an edge. “Jaws of Life” has one electric rhythm, some acoustics, and a fuzz guitar that comes in.
“Malkovich” is an incredibly interesting song, with the spoken word performance. Where did that come from?
I love his movies. He’s a great actor. He did this cool photo exhibit and he wanted to have a music element to it. The idea that he and his cohorts came up with was that he would do a spoken word performance and then give it to 12 or 13 people and say, “Here, do what you want.” Ric Ocasek did a tune, Yoko Ono, Andy Summers, and some others. [The results are on Malkovich’s album, Like a Puppet Show.-Ed] I haven’t heard anybody else’s tracks, but the thing that’s funny is that we all had the same [vocal performance] to work from. The other weird thing, which is very John Malkovich, is that all of the songs have to have the word “cryo” or “genia,” or have an X or Y in the title. My song—it’s coming on my record and his at the same time—is called “CryoZolon X.”
We have to talk about “Dragon Master.” You mentioned it was the only song you wrote with your dad.
He gave me the lyrics in 1988. Over the years, different versions of the song came together but we never released them.
Did he get a chance to hear a version of it?
Yeah, he heard a version of it back when the whole thing was more of a joke. For example, his lyrics are clearly a joke, so the early version made fun of metal and had some speed metal things in it and was heavier. On this record I wanted to actually play the idea more seriously and make it a full-on traditional metal song. Like Iron Maiden meets Black Sabbath, but for real! Anyone who’s a metal fan can hear the lyrics and clearly know that they are preposterous and a joke. But people that are into metal, the imagery that is created by the lyrics—it’s not a joke to them. They are like, “This is fucking dead serious. It’s time for business.” One of the fun things about doing the vocals is that the guy who sings it, Shawn Albro, is actually a cousin of Ronnie James Dio. So we [asked him] to put some Dio-isms in it, and Shawn was like, “What do you mean?” You know how Ronnie sometimes adds an extra syllable to a word that doesn’t need it? There’s a line that says, “Hate the day. Hate the light.” So I had him add an extra syllable to “light-a.” I did my best Dio impression and he was like, “Oh, okay. So make it cool?” That’s what I love about that song, because it stands on its own. If this were 1982 this would be the biggest fucking metal song in the world.
For the last decade, Dweezil has fronted Zappa Plays Zappa, an incredibly virtuosic group that pays tribute to his father’s immense catalog of music. Photo by Ken Settle
Your live rig is really based around combing the digital and analog worlds. How did you balance that in the studio?
I hadn’t been playing through amps in about six years. I wanted to go back to an old-school approach and see if I’d been missing anything by using the Axe-Fx. I didn’t really use it at all on the record except for “Malkovich.” That rhythm track was played through a preset. Everything else was mostly a “Black Flag” Marshall—the Angus-style one. Then there was also this Port City Pearl. I liked all the sounds I got on the record, but I could make all the sounds with the Fractal without any problem.
Amp modeling has come such a long way. At this point, what do you feel are the differences?
It used to come down to the feel. If you did a blind test and the feel and response changed, you could tell. But now that’s right on the money. As far as audio goes, it’s all right there. I prefer the Fractals for what I have to do in Zappa Plays Zappa, because I have to refer to 30 years of recording technology in order to come up with different sounds. Sometimes my dad would split a signal four different ways with a clean direct sound mixed in with three different amps and other effects. I had a big analog rig for the first two years, but it just started to break down, it was really expensive to take everywhere, and it was loud onstage. Everything improved when I started using the Fractals live. Now you can get a real stereo spread in the PA and you can actually be in the PA.
You got such a wicked fuzz tone on the solo to “Truth.” What did you use for that?
That was the Marshall and, if I’m not mistaken, the Port City amp with a JHS Pollinator and a JHS SuperBolt. The Pollinator has a great front end. I also used it on the solo to “Jaws of Life.” It makes this broken, under-biased sound. Neither pedal had a very high-gain sound, but the fretless guitar has the Sustainiac, so it allowed me to keep those notes going. It was really about getting the texture of the attack of the front edge of the pick.
How did you first approach the fretless guitar?
It was definitely weird. Gibson made me a fretless SG, but it has a Sustainiac pickup and piezo in the bridge along with Antares Auto-Tune, which gives you a lot of different tunings. You can still play all the fretless gliss stuff without it sounding chromatic, and it will actually let you play chords in tune. The guitar is very complicated to make. But I plan to use it more for other things. I need to spend more time with it because I got it just in time to do a couple overdubs on the record.
You’ve been working on this somewhat secret all-star guitar project for decades. Has there been any progress on that?
It started on analog tape as something that was just going to have a few guests on it—maybe only 10 or 12 minutes long. Then it kept growing into a 75-minute piece of music and now there are over 40 people on it and there’s still more people to put on it. I got busy with a lot of other stuff and didn’t work on the project for a while. The last time I worked on it was about a year ago. I took all of the stuff that was on tape and put it on the computer. Over time I had been putting in pieces of my dad’s music. This was way before I was doing Zappa Plays Zappa. It [started] more than 20 years ago. I have new spaces to write new stuff. I think I’m going to turn it into a surround-sound mix. It’s basically an audio movie. The music—the audio soundscape—changes moment by moment.
A film score without the film?
Yeah. It’s like if you were to see a movie that had a bunch of extras in the background, but they were all famous actors. Somebody would come into focus here or there. That’s what happens. Like, “Oh, that’s Yngwie Malmsteen. That’s Angus Young, or Eric Johnson, or Eddie Van Halen, or Brian May.” The music changes every time somebody new steps forward. I haven’t recorded anybody in the last decade, but I do want to get more of the classics on there, like Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page—it would be good to get Clapton. Of the newer players, I’d like to get Tim Miller. He’s one of my favorites. Richard Hallebeek—he’s really good. Guthrie Govan would be great. There was a section that Frank was supposed to play on, but he got too ill so I played on it. I remember I took all the strings off the guitar and just left the D string. I purposely played an entire solo on just one string.
What I have to do is block out some time to finish. But it might take more than three months. It’s a pretty crazy project. It would be a good Pledge campaign. I have another idea for it, but I think it’s better if I keep it to myself right now.
YouTube It
During the fall 2015 tour, Zappa Plays Zappa performed Frank Zappa’s One Size Fits All in its entirety. Each night the show opened with the band playing the theme to Star Wars before heading into the album’s well-known first track, “Inca Roads.” Dweezil begins the song’s signature guitar solo odyssey—a longtime highlight of his father’s concerts—at 4:36.
Guest picker Mei Semones joins reader Jin J X and PGstaff in delving into the backgrounds behind their picking styles.
Question: What picking style have you devoted yourself to the most, and why does it work for you?
Guest Picker - Mei Semones
Mei’s latest album, Kabutomushi.
A: The picking style I’ve practiced the most is alternate picking, but the picking style I usually end up using is economy picking. Alternate feels like a dependable way to achieve evenness when practicing scales and arpeggios, but when really playing, it doesn’t make sense to articulate every note in that way, and obviously it’s not always the fastest.
Obsession: My current music-related obsession is my guitar, my PRS McCarty 594 Hollowbody II. I think it will always be an obsession for me. It’s so comfortable and light, has a lovely, warm, dynamic tone, and helps me play faster and cleaner. This guitar feels like my best friend and soulmate.
Reader of the Month - Jin J X
Photo by Ryan Fannin
A: For decades, the Eric Johnson-style “hybrid picking” with a Jazz III for “pianistic” voicings. Great for electric, though not so much acoustic. I’ve been recently learning to use a flatpick, à la Brian Sutton, by driving the pick “into” the string at an angle—which makes me think of Pat Metheny and George Benson, without irony.
Obsession: I’m still focused on understanding the concepts of jazz, neo-classical, and beyond, though I’m also becoming obsessed with George Van Eps’ 7-string playing, flatpicking, hip-hop beats, the Hybrid Guitars Universal 6 guitar, and the secret life of the banjo.
Editorial Director - Ted Drozdowski
A: Decades ago, under the sway of Mississippi blues artists R.L. Burnside, Junior Kimbrough, and Jessie Mae Hemphill, I switched from plectrum to fingerstyle, developing my own non-traditional approach. It’s technically wrong, but watching R.L., in particular, freestyle, I learned there is no such thing as wrong if it works.
Obsession: Busting out of my songwriting patterns. With my band Coyote Motel, and earlier groups, I’ve always encouraged my talented bandmates to play what they want in context, but brought in complete, mapped-out songs. Now, I’m bringing in sketches and we’re jamming and hammering out the arrangements and melodies together. It takes more time, but feels rewarding and fun, and is opening new territory for me.
Managing Editor - Kate Koenig
A: I have always been drawn to fingerpicking on acoustic guitar, starting with classical music and prog-rock pieces (“Mood for a Day” by Steve Howe), and moving on to ’70s baroque-folk styles, basic Travis picking, and songs like “Back to the Old House” by the Smiths. I love the intricacy of those styles, and the challenge of learning to play different rhythms across different fingers at the same time. This is definitely influenced by my classical training on piano, which came before guitar.
Obsession: Writing and producing my fifth and sixth albums. My fifth album, Creature Comforts, was recorded over the past couple months, and features a bunch of songs I wrote in 2022 that I had previously sworn to never record or release. Turns out, upon revisiting, they’re not half bad! While that one’s being wrapped, I’m trying to get music written for my sixth, for which I already have four songs done. And yes, this is a flex. 💪😎
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.
Johnny Cash on the front porch of the Cash Cabin in Hendersonville, Tennessee.
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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