Ray Flacke - Brit Telecaster Strangler - Ask Zac 62

well hello friends and welcome to
0:46
another Ask
0:47
Zac i hope you are doing well today
0:49
we're going to talk about
0:50
one of the terrors of the telecaster
0:54
ray flack uh i love Ray's
0:57
playing and i had the privilege of
1:00
taking a
1:00
guitar lesson with him in the early 90s
1:03
and getting to jam with him
1:05
once at uh at a guitar seminar
1:08
at Belmont university and boy was that
1:11
eye opening
1:11
so but today I'm going to talk about Ray
1:14
why you need to know about him
1:16
um how his hard rock
1:20
past kind of influenced his tele playing
1:23
and really made him unique and really
1:25
his
1:26
just this assertiveness to his sound and
1:28
his playing his attack
1:30
uh the really ear catching things that
1:33
he
1:34
he's he's played through the years uh
1:36
unique
1:37
you know kind of gear choices and string
1:39
gauges so yeah we're going to cover
1:41
history and gear
1:42
I'm going to do some licks the little
1:45
opening thing was a little bit of a
1:46
tribute to him
1:48
uh just kind of a uh you know British
1:51
isle
1:52
kind of open string low low thing and
1:55
then also
1:57
playing a little bit of a lick that he
1:58
played on an old starlix
2:00
video all right so uh here are the pause
2:04
for the cause
2:05
uh if you've been enjoying the show and
2:07
you haven't subscribed yet well please
2:09
go down in the corner and subscribe
2:11
and if you've already subscribed then i
2:13
ask that you go to ask
2:14
zach.com and you can pick up a handy
2:17
dandy
2:18
hat like this or a t-shirt or I've got
2:21
tip jar information uh you know down in
2:23
the description if you'd rather do it
2:25
that way
2:25
also i want to give a big thanks to Ron
2:28
Ellis who sent me this nice t-shirt he's
2:30
a good friend and of course he's helped
2:32
out
2:33
a lot uh through the years he did the uh
2:36
rewind
2:37
on this 57 esquire he rewinded this and
2:40
then this is one of his
2:42
Ron Ellis new tall pickup and i you know
2:44
love his stuff and thank you for the
2:46
t-shirt
2:47
and you know just like old bookie you
2:49
know i love
2:50
a good soft t-shirt uh those Gildan's are
2:53
just awful
2:54
so yes everyone in Nashville knows that
2:56
you know
2:57
get the good t-shirts so thank you Ron
3:00
all right ray flack flack was born
3:04
in 1948 in uh in
3:07
England in Bogner Regis or somewhere
3:09
near there which was kind of a resort
3:11
town
3:12
and you know like many he was influenced
3:15
by the British guitar band such as you
3:17
know you know hank Marvin in the shadows
3:19
and
3:20
people like that and then his playing
3:21
started taking a turn in the later 60s
3:24
under the influence of kind of some
3:26
early hard rock
3:28
and Richie Blackmore playing with deep
3:31
purple but specifically like the first
3:33
two records you know this is pre
3:35
smoke on the water when Richie was
3:37
playing
3:39
he was playing a 330 or a 335 into a Vox
3:42
ac30 different kind of playing than what
3:45
he
3:46
did later with the marshal major and
3:48
the strat
3:50
he also started to come under the
3:52
influence of uh country players
3:54
that he was hearing and started playing
3:56
in some
3:58
different kind of country influenced
4:00
bands
4:01
uh like meal ticket and tiger and tiger
4:04
had
4:04
big Jim Sullivan in it and big Jim
4:07
Sullivan was kind of like
4:09
for a lack of better words kind of like
4:10
the James burton in the uk who was a
4:13
session guy
4:14
and also he was seen on tom jones
4:17
television show and so he was a guitar
4:19
player kind of like James burton that
4:21
you
4:21
you know back in the day you would see
4:22
on a weekly basis um you know on
4:25
television
4:27
he played with them and uh became
4:30
more you know again kept getting you
4:32
know was hearing stuff like Reggie young
4:34
and Roy Nichols and all these different
4:35
things and more and more he's wanting to
4:37
move to Nashville
4:39
so in 1978 he did and
4:42
first of course he was trying to find a
4:44
place to stay
4:45
and uh doing any kind of playing that he
4:48
could playing for free on
4:50
demos or you know what what have you and
4:52
giving guitar lessons and one of his
4:54
students
4:55
was playing lead guitar for a assigned
4:58
artist named joe
4:59
sun well he's given the lead guitar
5:03
player
5:04
lessons and the lead guitar player quits
5:06
the band
5:07
and so teacher becomes uh the lead
5:10
player in joe sun's band of course
5:12
ray needed a gig so
5:15
uh then you know as always these
5:18
wonderful
5:19
you know happenstance you know kind of
5:20
happen
5:22
uh ray was playing with joe's son
5:25
on a a festival date in England and
5:28
another act on the bill was Emmylou
5:30
Harris and the hot band
5:32
and at that point Ricky Skaggs was
5:34
playing
5:35
in uh in Emmylou's band and was yet
5:39
you know kind of working on solo
5:41
material
5:42
and he sees uh ray flack playing with
5:46
joe sun
5:47
and ray thinks aha you know because
5:50
Ricky was you know wanting to you know
5:52
start his own band do his
5:54
own thing and he was basically going to
5:56
put together his own version of the hot
5:58
band
5:59
yet with a little bit more of a
6:00
bluegrass slant and so he needed his
6:02
albert lee James burton guy and ray was
6:06
the guy
6:06
and again at this time period there
6:09
weren't that many guys playing in that
6:11
style
6:12
and uh and and don't
6:16
think that I'm saying that ray plays
6:18
like albert lee and James burton
6:19
obviously you know albert was kind of a
6:22
contemporary of Ray
6:24
I'm sure that James burton you know
6:25
influenced ray flack but ray has very
6:28
much his own
6:29
style of playing as soon as you listen
6:31
to the Spotify playlist that you know
6:34
I'll have a link to and you hear him you
6:36
can hear that i mean he has
6:38
his own tone his own way of approaching
6:41
you know the guitar uh yeah and
6:44
a really aggressive attack that made him
6:46
unlike anyone else
6:48
in country music anyone else that's ever
6:50
really picked up a telecaster
6:53
so ray ends up playing with Ricky Skaggs
6:56
and that really really catapults you
6:59
know ray's
6:59
you know career forward because he's
7:01
heavily featured on Ricky's
7:03
you know albums you think of things like
7:06
heart broke
7:07
and and that's a perfect introduction to
7:10
kind of his
7:11
his style uh where he's doing these low
7:14
string bends and
7:16
and uh and just not
7:19
playing like albert lee or James burton
7:21
it's just his his own thing
7:23
and you have the solos like a low and
7:24
lonely and highway 40 blues
7:26
and uh you know don't get above your
7:29
raisin and
7:30
there's footage of Ray playing with uh
7:33
with Ricky Skaggs that you can find on
7:35
YouTube
7:36
and it's ridiculous um
7:39
ray you know brought this energy level
7:42
to that band
7:43
that was just amazing and uh
7:47
yeah i i want to talk yeah I've I've
7:49
seen ray play
7:50
many times and so I'll talk more about
7:52
that later so then
7:54
uh he and Ricky uh kind of parted ways
7:57
for
7:58
one reason or another and uh you know if
8:00
you kind of want to
8:01
hear more about that you can watch my
8:03
Ricky Skaggs telecaster video where i
8:05
kind of get more into that but anyway
8:06
they parted ways
8:08
and Ricky of course had to pick up the
8:10
telecaster and start playing it and ray
8:13
started playing on sessions and he
8:14
started playing with Kathy matte
8:16
and Gail Davies and you know a variety
8:18
of artists and
8:21
by the late 80s he started working
8:24
you know with Marty stewart and this was
8:27
another
8:28
really wonderful era of playing you know
8:31
because Marty's band consisted of
8:35
Marty of course playing guitar and
8:37
singing lead
8:38
bass drums and ray flack on electric
8:41
guitar and so
8:42
Ray had all this room to to solo
8:46
and do fills and play all sorts of great
8:48
parts
8:49
and there's also footage of that on on
8:51
YouTube of that era of Marty Stewart's
8:54
band then ray for a hot minute you know
8:57
played with terry Clark
8:58
uh and then he started playing with
9:01
Jamie Hartford
9:02
Jamie Hartford is the the son of
9:06
john Hartford who's of course known for
9:08
writing general on my mind and
9:10
being a great banjo player Jamie
9:12
Hartford a great
9:13
artist and guitarist and he put together
9:17
a band
9:18
and and they used to play downtown
9:21
Nashville
9:22
a lot place called wolfies and a couple
9:23
other places that aren't there anymore
9:26
and i would go down there and see ray
9:29
play
9:29
and the whole band was fantastic but yet
9:33
every time
9:34
ray flack would play a guitar solo it
9:36
was like somebody setting off
9:38
fireworks in a room it was just
9:40
ridiculous
9:42
uh every time you would think that Ray
9:44
was going to play himself into a corner
9:46
and he'd always come
9:47
out smelling like roses and he had such
9:50
an uh such an attack on the guitar and
9:53
such a presence
9:55
and i don't mean like jumping around and
9:57
gyrating or anything like that but just
9:59
his guitar his voice on the guitar just
10:03
very uh you know unmistakable
10:07
so after uh playing with Jamie
10:10
he uh he kind of you know went into
10:14
kind of some of a semi-retirement you
10:16
know phase that he's been in ever since
10:18
then of course now he's in his early 70s
10:21
and uh you know there hadn't been as
10:23
much you know heard from him every once
10:24
in a while he'll go to a guitar festival
10:26
or something like that and play
10:28
but uh anyway he left us a great legacy
10:32
of work
10:33
and influenced tons and tons of people
10:37
so let's talk about his playing and his
10:40
and his gear now so
10:44
when uh when ray you know
10:47
ray played a variety of guitars but he
10:48
you know he really got into telecasters
10:50
while he was still in
10:51
England but he was playing maple neck
10:53
teles
10:55
and we moved to the states he ended up
10:58
picking up
10:58
a 1968 telecaster with a rosewood board
11:03
and the finish had been removed from the
11:05
body
11:06
and from looking at it it looks like it
11:08
was a uh
11:09
it looks like it was alder because it
11:11
you know kind of has that kind of
11:12
cardboard appearance and very little
11:13
grain
11:15
uh and then he he modified the guitar
11:18
quite a bit and that this is the guitar
11:20
that he played
11:22
that he's most known for that in most
11:24
the clips you're going to see him
11:25
playing and
11:25
again it was kind of a natural finish
11:27
guitar that ended up with a black
11:29
pickguard
11:30
he changed out the tuning machines it
11:32
would have had the you know the f tuners
11:34
you know from the late 60s and he put
11:35
shaler you know machine heads
11:37
i think at some point ended up with a d
11:39
tuner you know one of those
11:41
hip shot d tuners uh he put a black
11:45
pickguard
11:45
single ply pick guard that was uh made
11:48
not
11:48
not made out of bake light or plastic it
11:50
had an interesting kind of matte
11:52
appearance
11:53
the pickups were rewound which is very
11:56
common for that era of guitar because
11:58
they were lacquer potted
12:00
instead of wax potted and so he had both
12:03
his bridge pickup and neck pickup were
12:04
rewound he removed the cover
12:06
from his neck pickup the bridge was also
12:10
replaced it was either a goto or
12:12
schecter six saddle you know heavy six
12:14
saddle bridge
12:15
you know kind of like the but you know
12:17
the heavily chromed you know kind of
12:19
American standard
12:20
type bridge uh and then i think he ended
12:24
up with a uh a sabine tuner that was
12:27
installed
12:27
inside the guitar and on this lip up
12:29
here he had the
12:31
the uh you know the little readout and
12:33
uh
12:34
and that was his guitar uh string wise
12:37
he used
12:38
a very interesting set that kind of went
12:40
along with just his
12:42
you know the way he played and how hard
12:44
he played in some ways
12:46
i would say i would say ray flack was
12:49
kind of like the country version of
12:50
Stevie ray Vaughan
12:52
and just because he played so hard and
12:55
had such an
12:56
attack on the instrument and so his
12:57
strings were really interesting
12:59
so I'm not using these strings but I'm
13:01
just kind of pointing at my strings
13:02
because
13:03
to you know kind of go along with uh
13:05
what string it was
13:06
so we'd start with 10 11
13:09
15. so that that's you know somewhat
13:12
standard or maybe a little bit light
13:14
but then it went 32-42-52
13:18
okay it was because he really hit
13:21
the the wound strings really hard and
13:24
even on the
13:25
on the higher strings he played him
13:26
really hard he really popped the strings
13:29
a very aggressive attack and so he had
13:32
somewhat you know had big strings and
13:35
also
13:36
medium to high action so when i took a
13:38
lesson from him
13:40
in the early 90s i had the chance to
13:41
play that guitar
13:43
and yes it was it was not uh i wouldn't
13:46
say it was hard to play
13:48
but i mean it did not have low action
13:50
and you could
13:51
and watching him play he just he really
13:54
gripped the neck hard and he would he
13:56
had this
13:58
or maybe still does has this habit of
14:00
using baby powder on the back of the
14:02
neck
14:03
and it would just you know for him it
14:05
kept you know things you know playing
14:07
smoother
14:08
pick-wise he used these little uh
14:11
teardrop picks and i think i have one at
14:14
least i thought i did uh
14:16
and first he used like fender medium but
14:18
the little teardrop you know like jazz
14:20
picks
14:20
and then later on he started using these
14:22
things called speed picks that dunlop
14:24
still makes and it was like medium gauge
14:26
has a little twist on the end and so
14:28
they were made by Steve Zuk and then
14:30
later on by dunlop and so he used that
14:31
was
14:32
so that was his guitar um that funnily
14:36
enough
14:36
that guitar was stolen at one point and
14:39
uh
14:39
he had another tele that he played for a
14:42
little while while the other guitar was
14:44
uh while it was stolen and then it was
14:47
retrieved and when it was retrieved he
14:49
actually uh he engraved his social
14:51
security number on the back of it that
14:54
68 tele
14:56
and then later on he ended up selling it
14:58
so he does not own the guitar
15:00
a gentleman in Texas now owns that 68
15:02
telly and I'm not going to say his name
15:04
or
15:04
anything because i think he would prefer
15:06
to not have that broadcast
15:09
so that's his guitar uh and picks and
15:13
strings amp-wise he uh
15:17
because of his playing style and because
15:20
of how hard he hit
15:21
he you couldn't just use any amplifier
15:25
uh you know in Nashville in the late 70s
15:28
you know the standards would have been a
15:29
silver face or black face fender
15:32
uh some type of transistorized pv amp or
15:34
a music man amp that's what you would
15:36
have seen
15:37
around because those were kind of the
15:38
popular amps of the day and
15:40
especially when you talk about cleaner
15:42
playing well he always had trouble with
15:45
the low end getting way too
15:46
wooly and and then the high end would
15:49
get too
15:50
too bright and so he started using a lab
15:53
series
15:53
l9 and those lab series amps are
15:56
really really cool and i owned two of
15:59
them at one point and
16:00
most time i'd only gig with one but i
16:02
did do a few outdoor shows where i
16:03
played through both of them at the same
16:05
time but
16:06
it's a transit transistorized amp that
16:08
was designed by some of the guys at moog
16:11
and uh a guy named pierce who later on
16:14
took out some of those ideas and started
16:16
pierce amplification in the 80s
16:19
but uh the transistorized amp had a
16:22
really cool
16:22
uh mid-range control it's called
16:24
multi-filter had a great compressor in
16:27
there
16:28
that just i mean one of the best setting
16:30
compressors
16:31
you know you've ever heard and it's in
16:32
the amp had good sounding reverb
16:35
the amp really sounded big and fat clean
16:38
and you could set it with some drive on
16:41
it
16:42
and it really sounded great it really
16:44
sounded natural it sounded very
16:46
you know tube-like and that's why you
16:49
know bb king of course used the l5 which
16:51
is the 212 version
16:52
same amp but with two 12s and he used
16:55
that
16:56
the l9 had a single 15-inch
16:59
electro-voice speaker it's an evm
17:00
15l and let me tell you it's the size of
17:03
a super reverb
17:05
and weighs a lot more and uh yeah i used
17:07
to carry
17:08
that all the time and uh with with i
17:11
used to put a deluxe memory man on top
17:12
of it because that was
17:14
kind of the the one effect that ray used
17:17
for a while he
17:18
used either an echoplex or a deluxe
17:19
memory man
17:22
i think he used a tc chorus for a little
17:23
bit in the 80s but
17:25
then he just got to where he stopped
17:26
using effects altogether but anyway
17:28
i used a deluxe memory man and i would
17:29
Velcro it to the top
17:31
and and that was my that was my rig i
17:33
would just walk up onto the stage with
17:35
my uh
17:36
l9 with the memory man on top of it have
17:38
my telecaster strapped on and just
17:40
plug in the ac cable and i was i was
17:42
ready to go
17:43
all right back to ray uh so those those
17:46
lab series amps are really
17:48
they're really great uh if you can find
17:50
one to play through it play through it
17:52
uh
17:54
you know they're they're a great staging
17:55
if they're not a great you know
17:57
home amp at all they they kind of need
17:59
to be opened up
18:00
but uh and also they weigh so much that
18:03
you
18:03
you kind of it's hard to pop buy one off
18:05
reverb you kind of have to find one
18:07
locally
18:07
but they're they're fun and they have a
18:10
great sound to them
18:12
later on so that's the amp that that ray
18:14
used with
18:15
Ricky Skaggs and on a lot of session
18:17
work but in the late 80s early 90s he
18:19
picked up
18:20
a 40s gibson br1 which this is
18:23
was kind of the mid to late 40s
18:27
top of the line gibson amp and it had a
18:30
12 inch field coil speaker
18:32
which of course has a transformer on it
18:35
and had six l sixes octal preamp tubes
18:38
and had three knobs on it
18:40
and i know that amp because i got to uh
18:43
play with him through it so we uh at
18:46
this
18:46
seminar Belmont when i was a student
18:49
there they had ray flack come and of
18:50
course
18:51
i was the guy you know that had to go up
18:54
and play with ray
18:55
and so you know we both plugged into his
18:57
amp and i didn't even have my own telly
18:59
i had
19:00
somebody tele custom that had much
19:02
heavier strings than i was using
19:04
and uh yes so you know here was this
19:06
little amp with
19:07
venting on the back and three gigantic
19:10
knobs it had you know two volume
19:11
controls and a tone control
19:14
anyway that was kind of his amp and so
19:15
most of the time when you would see ray
19:17
play at a club he would use that little
19:19
gibson br1
19:21
and it had like 20 or 30 watts of power
19:23
and so he would use that a lot and he
19:25
would crank it up
19:26
and uh and just get it where it was a
19:28
little dirty and it
19:29
really really sounded great uh
19:33
yeah and that was that was kind of you
19:35
know his rig you know that br1 but he
19:37
would still use a lab series amp when it
19:38
was like a big outdoor thing or
19:40
something like that
19:41
all right we've talked enough about
19:43
about his gear
19:44
um let's talk a little bit about his
19:46
playing style
19:47
so again he would do a lot of low string
19:52
things so if you think about
19:55
and if you haven't heard it you need to
19:57
check it out it's you know Ricky Skaggs
19:59
you know heart broke
20:00
so it's an old guy Clark tune that a lot
20:02
of people recorded
20:03
during that era because a lot of people
20:05
liked the song it was a great song
20:07
George strait recorded it Rodney Crowl
20:09
Ricky's but Ricky Skaggs kind of had the
20:11
biggest hit
20:12
on it and ray played a very identifiable
20:14
solo
20:15
and it's in it's in the key of d and it
20:18
has some interesting
20:19
you know not unusual what has some
20:20
interesting changes so here I'll
20:22
you know
20:29
so you have that kind of thing going on
20:31
and he played this on the low strings
20:34
and it was interesting because again
20:36
playing melodic bends on the low string
20:38
were not common
20:39
and here's what what he did
20:48
[Music]
20:56
you have that kind of thing going on so
20:58
i mean it was unusual that he started
21:00
the solo on the
21:01
on the low strings that he's doing kind
21:02
of melodic bends
21:04
then he's doing these interesting you
21:06
know kind of climb up
21:07
things and then you know there's the
21:20
you have these double stops and then
21:31
and then you end with him you know him
21:33
you know popping the
21:34
crap out of uh you know the the strings
21:37
so that that was kind of his
21:38
you know solo which again is just very
21:41
unusual didn't sound like
21:42
burton or albert lee or Reggie young or
21:45
anyone else just really
21:47
very much his own thing um
21:51
you know again melodic bins on so he
21:54
would be another thing there was a lick
21:55
that he played on a starlix video where
21:57
you get
21:58
[Music]
22:02
and there you know he's he's bending
22:04
this low e string he's playing an f
22:06
sharp and bending it up to g
22:08
and then hitting those open strings and
22:10
it sounds really cool
22:12
and then if you kind of you know then
22:13
you could do something like this
22:15
[Music]
22:20
you know you can do that kind of thing
22:21
uh
22:23
another thing would be his use of thirds
22:26
that climb up the neck
22:27
and he had kind of two different ways of
22:29
kind of doing this
22:31
so um one you have
22:34
uh so i'll go to the key i will stand g
22:37
uh so you have this kind of thing
22:49
okay and that's you're just going
22:56
but you're you're kind of hammering on
22:58
pulling off and hitting
22:59
an open g string so here i'm going to do
23:01
it real slowly
23:11
[Music]
23:24
okay so that's kind of the first variant
23:26
then the second variant is
23:27
is a little more difficult and uh it
23:30
sounds
23:30
even better um because it's it's it's
23:33
really doing this kind of climb up thing
23:35
and this is it
23:40
[Music]
23:45
and that's just
23:49
[Music]
23:56
i love that uh
24:00
yeah that's that's you know one of my
24:02
favorite kind of ray flack isms
24:04
and then you just have his uh you know
24:06
just the way he attacks
24:08
the strings the the the low end stuff
24:12
uh very exact uh
24:15
you know bends
24:18
[Music]
24:21
uh just you know spot on you know bends
24:25
uh low string licks like a one worry
24:28
one way rider
24:32
[Music]
24:36
that kind of thing
24:42
you know pull-offs all sorts of great
24:44
things so
24:46
yeah love love love ray flack uh
24:50
i was uh you know fortunate to have
24:54
this uh you know this you know a little
24:56
book
24:57
from uh has the same thing on the front
24:59
and back
25:00
uh ray flax solos this was an old thing
25:03
done by center stream and Hal Leonard
25:06
and it has some of his
25:07
solos that are transcribed this is way
25:09
out of print
25:10
and actually has ray playing a g l
25:13
broadcaster
25:14
and a friend of mine actually owns this
25:16
guitar that
25:17
ray's playing in that so gnl had given
25:20
him a broadcaster at one point
25:21
but this actually has an old guitar
25:23
player article that was very helpful
25:25
in getting some good bio information so
25:28
yeah as always there's a you know
25:31
spotify playlist for ray
25:32
and then also uh yeah if you want to
25:35
learn more about
25:36
rey's playing and learn more of his
25:38
stuff homespun did an amazing
25:41
telecaster video with uh with ray
25:44
teaching it in the in the mid 90s
25:46
and I'll put a link to that in the in
25:48
the description also there's the old
25:49
starlix
25:50
video that he did that's also good so
25:53
all right guys well i hope you've
25:55
enjoyed today's lesson hope you've
25:57
learned
25:57
uh some ray flack licks and uh
26:00
yeah have fun see you next time bye