Danny Gatton Tribute - Ask Zac 56

well hello friends and welcome to
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another Ask Zac i hope you're doing
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well today
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today we're going to talk about Danny
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Gatton uh
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wow huge influence on me uh love is
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playing
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love what he brought to the guitar
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community
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the joy the freedom uh
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the fact that you could play just about
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anything on a telecaster you know i
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pushed that kind of thing which of
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course i love
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and yeah just love Danny Gatton's you
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know work
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so that's what we're going to talk about
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today uh
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all right so Danny Gatton i was first
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exposed to Danny
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through guitar magazines so he was on
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the cover of guitar player
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the famous you know kind of phantom of
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the opera mask thing was the world's
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greatest unknown guitar player
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he was also uh he had there was a big
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spread on him in guitar world magazine
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uh remember it was light blue with
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Robert cray on the cover
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and i remember you know reading that
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issue and reading about
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uh Danny and but i wasn't really able to
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hear him
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until uh you know 88 Elmira street came
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out
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and that was because his earlier albums
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were all on independent you know record
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labels and
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you couldn't find those you know albums
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at a regular you know record shop you
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know you i guess there were ads in which
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you could have you know sent in money
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but you couldn't just go to a record
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store and buy one of his albums until 88
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Elmira street came out because it was on
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Electra again this is all
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pre-internet and stuff like that it
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wasn't like you could just google
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Danny Gatton so uh yeah i remember
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going and buying the cassette of 88
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Elmira street
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and putting it in my my car i had a
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little Nissan 200
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sx that that
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was maroon and i remember putting it in
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the cassette deck
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and it stayed in there for weeks just
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listening to it over and over and just
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being so
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bold over by his playing you know both
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the over-the-top playing but also just
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his
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simple groove and his tone
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and i just thought this guy sounds
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amazing it was just
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as as earth-shattering as hearing you
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know Stevie ray Vaughn or
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Chet Atkins was like who is this guy
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and then he was on Austin city
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limits which of course i watched
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religiously you know being a Texan and
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also a music fan
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you know and he was on there and that
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way i really got to see him then
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there was the hot licks videos and the
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first one telemaster
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it's kind of it suffers from some
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production issues between the
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the mic volume and the amp volume and
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stuff like that
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there's uh one was called licks and
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tricks that of course i didn't have but
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of course you can find it now online
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that i
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highly recommend that you check out but
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the pure gold
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and the one that I'm telling everyone
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that doesn't have it they need to go out
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and get it
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is the Danny Gatton rhythm guitar video
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from hot licks
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and it is ridiculously good so the
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little thing i played at the beginning
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uh that was what he calls a two note
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wander of course i was adding a bass
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note to it but you have this kind of
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thing though
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yeah ridiculous just so
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so great and of course you can add a
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bass note to it like i was doing and
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like Danny
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does in the video i also had these
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things
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like this this
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[Music]
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or this kind of new Orleans piano kind
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of thing
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but that video is it's it's pure gold
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and uh
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if you want your guitar playing to get
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better uh if you if you haven't seen it
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already you need to you need to get that
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and you can get it on amazon
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i mean you could get the the hard dvd
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the hard copy dvd from Hal
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Leonard but uh amazon has it available
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for for streaming
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and you can buy it for 12 bucks or you
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can rent it for for less than that but
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you might as well buy it because you're
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going to watch it a bunch
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his tone and everything he passes on
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that are just ridiculously good
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and uh yeah and i think
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he really made it cool to play a
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telecaster and play pick and fingers on
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all sorts
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of styles of music you know he was using
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the tele for the rockabilly the jazz
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the you know the blues the country stuff
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and he and he was always using that
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hybrid
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you know technique and uh he just made
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it cool he made the telecaster cool to
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play
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for just about anything and uh
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yeah i love love him for that you know i
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heard
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you know it wasn't until later until
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after he passed away and i remember
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exactly where i was standing
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at Belmont university i remember when
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you know i was told that he had passed
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and the way he had passed and it made me
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very sad
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but uh you know i just
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you know I'm sorry for that but I'm so
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glad that we have
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you know the music that we have from
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Danny and
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you know later on i heard like the
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humbler album which is of course him
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live with Robert Gordon i bought that
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when i was in Paris
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and that's where i was able to find kind
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of a bootleg copy of that in the uh
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in the late 90s and that
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that threw me for a great curve because
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you know i loved
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you know everything he did on there but
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especially the the steel guitar things
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that he did on like their stands the
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glass it was just
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it was just fantastic and uh you know
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yeah so yeah he he continues to
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influence me and
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and and push me you know with just the
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joy
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and the freedom that he had with the
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guitar
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and uh you know i just always played a
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telly uh
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you know he had that 53 telly later on
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they made the signature model
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he put bigger frets in it and uh you
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know i guess he they
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used martin frets and i guess which
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would be a little bit taller a little
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wider
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than fender little fender frets and then
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you know of course he had the the Barden
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pickups
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which I've tried and they didn't really
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work for me but he
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made them sound amazing the humbler
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album is interesting because he was
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using the single bar
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Bardens before they were humbucking and
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they were kind of
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based more on a Charlie Christian pickup
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but smaller
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and that's a really cool tone his
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strings
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were 10 through 46 dynamaxx
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fender strings with a 15 g string which
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of course
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would make that nice and light and easy
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to bend on those steel guitar things
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i found out through some digging that
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dynamax was just fender's name
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for their nickel-plated steel string
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so on the wound strings because before
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then pretty much all their strings had
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either been flat wound or they had been
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pure nickel strings so the the wound
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strings
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had been pure nickel up until that point
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and so when they started doing nickel
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plated steel
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they came up with the name dynamax
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because of course nickel plated steel
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has more output and it's brighter
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than pure nickel strings so that's so
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basically Danny was using
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what we would call a regular 10 set you
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know
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modern set of strings but with a 15 for
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a g string
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and he used these little jazz you know
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fender jazz picks that were heavies that
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in white which they don't make anymore
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you can still get them like tortoise
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shell and such
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but uh yeah and he went through a phase
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of using that magic dingus that controls
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like a Leslie and
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echoplex and all sorts of things but
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uh my favorite you know tones that he
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got
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were you know you know usually you know
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using a
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a boss delay pedal or he had a chandler
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echo unit that was a rack mount unit
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that that he used like in the rhythm
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guitar video which is just a
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a basic you know delay unit and using
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using either one of those and then into
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a fender amp uh
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i mean he'd use everything from like a a
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tweed twin
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to a brown vibroverb to you know
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vibroluxes or all sorts of stuff but uh
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i still think my favorite stuff of him
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is is the
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the blackface vibrolux with uh you know
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one of the teles with joe Barton pickups
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and either the dd2
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embossed delay pedal or that uh
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chandler echo unit so uh
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yeah i think he really brought
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a wonderful thing to the guitar and uh
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you know his passing was just as
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significant as you know Stevie ray
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Vaughan and uh
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and even more sad to a degree but
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uh yeah Danny's such a great player i
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think back to 88 Elmira street
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and uh just the beauty of him playing
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the beach boys
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you know in my room or you know the
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the joy of you know 88 Elmira street you
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know the the 88 Elmira street boogie
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where he's playing that
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old Gibson es 350t you know and doing
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kind of the
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rockabilly stuff and funky mama and
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yeah just you know one of
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one of the greats so if you're not
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familiar with Danny i hope you'll listen
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to my
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Spotify playlist and go buy some of his
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albums i hope that
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everyone will go and get uh if you
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haven't seen it already we'll go check
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out the Danny Gatton you know rhythm
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guitar
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video from hot likes it's it's gold
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all right guys keep uh keep practicing
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and playing and I'll see you next time