Remembering Reggie Young - ASK ZAC EP 2

1:04
hey guys welcome to another Ask Zack
1:07
episode I'm Zack childs so I had another
1:11
episode that was all queued up and ready
1:12
to go talking about a Dana caster guitar
1:16
of mine and then I realized that January
1:19
17th is the one-year anniversary of
1:21
Reggie Young's passing so Reggie was a
1:25
huge guitar hero of mine and to many
1:30
others and I found that out in the true
1:33
tone lounge and interviewing guys you'd
1:35
hear Brent Mason or Steve Warner or John
1:38
Leventhal all sorts of cats you know
1:42
talking about the importance of Reggie
1:43
young and his playing they just didn't
1:46
enjoyed his playing in it and was a huge
1:48
influence on them Reggie had such a
1:51
prolific career and you know a lot of
1:56
times you can wonder why and a lot of
1:59
times you can think well it was just cuz
2:00
he's a great guitar player well he was
2:02
he was a stellar guitar player but also
2:04
he was the kind of guy you wanted to
2:06
spend time with so if your goal is just
2:10
to hire a great guitar player there's a
2:12
lot of great guitar players especially
2:14
here in Nashville or LA in New York but
2:18
if you wanted a guy that was not only a
2:21
great guitar player who played great
2:23
parts but he was also very humble and
2:25
sweet and wonderful to be around
2:29
Reggie Young was at the you know pretty
2:31
much the top of the list
2:33
and he had such a vocabulary on the
2:36
guitar and you know he had this
2:39
background of playing you know R&B music
2:42
and playing country music and playing
2:45
pop music you think about a guy that
2:48
played you know when I was doing that
2:50
little intro piece you
2:52
you had son of a preacher man you had
2:55
Memphis soul stew you had suspicious
2:58
minds and then drift away which is kind
3:01
of if you had to pick one tune which
3:05
would be a miserable thing to do but if
3:07
you had to pick one tune with Reggie's
3:09
playing on it that would be the one to
3:11
pick so that's why we're doing this - to
3:16
celebrate Reggie and his great memory
3:19
and all the great things that he played
3:21
on yeah I think about you know the first
3:28
time I heard about about Reggie of
3:31
course I had heard his playing before
3:32
but I didn't know his name until there
3:35
was this country musicians book that
3:39
came out and so this was done by Guitar
3:43
Player magazine back in the 80s and this
3:46
of course seeing a pre-internet they
3:48
would recycle older content that was
3:52
important
3:53
in these books and so the guitar player
3:56
magazine would periodically do these
3:58
books and this was great it had a
4:00
segment on on Reggie I saw it and I saw
4:04
some of the people that he had played
4:06
with and I was I was impressed and then
4:08
I found some other you know articles the
4:12
the thing that really started to make me
4:14
even more interested was in this issue
4:17
of country guitar of course with a here
4:22
you have Travis Tritt with a beautiful
4:24
mullet that's that's beautiful hair any
4:28
woman would be happy to have that hair
4:29
sorry I'm given if Travis Tritt is
4:32
watching I apologize so but there was a
4:35
article on on Reggie and and the writer
4:42
of the article was John Jorgensen so
4:46
haters of the little little spread old
4:50
Reggie with his 69 Telecaster are kind
4:53
of lounging across one of his Road cases
4:58
and great great article by by John John
5:02
had a career doing interviews in Guitar
5:07
magazines in the kind of the late 80s
5:09
early 90s and he did course did great
5:11
work because he's such a phenomenal
5:12
player so in this I found out about of
5:16
course
5:16
Reggie playing on things like oh the
5:21
Merle Haggard stuff like think I'll just
5:22
stay here and drink and that's the way
5:24
love goes and I found out about about
5:27
him not using the point of the pic but
5:32
using kind of the the other end of the
5:34
rounded into the pic to play with and I
5:37
found out you know what does make a
5:39
difference it does give a smoother sound
5:42
and so I started doing that in the in
5:44
the early 90s from listening to him and
5:49
of course you hear things like Reggie's
5:53
volume pedal work which Reggie was using
5:56
a volume pedal back in the early 60s
5:58
which was way ahead of his time you know
6:01
hardly any guitar players especially
6:02
session guys they didn't use volume
6:04
pedals but his you know by the early 60s
6:07
he was using one and at the time he was
6:09
playing a gibson es-335 and he had
6:13
disconnected the varitone switch which
6:16
of course is that big honkin switch that
6:18
has all this circuitry to it to make the
6:20
guitar sound very different out of phase
6:23
and other sounds and he had had that
6:26
removed or at least decoupled
6:30
electronically and he used a volume
6:32
pedal in a stand l amplifier and that's
6:35
what he used when he was opening for the
6:38
Beatles with the bill black combo and
6:40
the Beatles saw him playing and they
6:44
loved his playing and you know George
6:47
Harrison was asking him about his sound
6:49
because he loved the sound of that stand
6:51
a lamp with a 15-inch you know JBL
6:53
speaker and he loved the string bending
6:56
and such and the volume swells and
6:58
things that Reggie was doing even back
6:59
in the early 60s and was using an
7:02
unwound third string which the Beatles
7:04
were not they were still using a wound
7:06
third string instead of a plain one
7:09
so yeah and I love you know he's his
7:13
volume pedal work in a very influential
7:15
you know just we do harmonics with of
7:30
course and that was something also that
7:31
Larry Carlton was doing out in LA but
7:35
Larry started using falling pedal after
7:37
well after Reggie was not saying one was
7:40
an influence on the other I think both
7:42
of them were influenced by steel players
7:44
I think Reggie was playing with a steel
7:47
player that used divine pedal and Larry
7:49
Carlton played a session with buddy
7:51
Emmons and started using a volume pedal
7:54
so you know Reggie always had a great
7:59
sound
8:00
he always you know he always fit in
8:04
always played great little parts you
8:10
know I've kind of replicated his sound
8:13
somewhat today as best as I as I can
8:16
with the gear that I have and so I have
8:19
I have a script logo MX our Dyna comp
8:23
from the 70s and I have a sparkle Drive
8:26
and I've also got a volume pedal I've
8:30
got a boss DD too and I have a TC
8:34
Electronics chorus pedal because you
8:37
know Reggie used the the TC chorus a lot
8:40
especially in the 80s when I was during
8:42
the era of chorus and yeah so now people
8:49
hired Reggie because he was a great guy
8:53
and he was a great guy to work with I
8:57
first contacted Reggie in the early 90s
9:00
I was a Belmont student and I had made a
9:04
demo of my playing on one of those short
9:07
cassettes that had just enough space on
9:09
each side for one song and on one side I
9:13
had up tempo in the other one I had a
9:15
ballad and I contacted Reggie and he
9:18
took my call and he told me I asked him
9:21
if I could send him a demo of
9:23
plying and he said absolutely and he
9:25
gave me his address and he said sent it
9:27
to me and then give me you know
9:30
about a week or two so I have enough
9:32
time to listen to it and then call back
9:34
and so that's what I did and he gave me
9:36
great feedback he was very honest I
9:38
asked him about how did you get how did
9:40
you get your start in the session career
9:42
and he said I don't know it just
9:45
happened and then I asked him what kind
9:47
of guitar and amp should I play and he
9:50
said we should play what you're
9:52
comfortable with such honest answers
9:56
never saying do what I did or play what
10:00
I played and yeah and and through the
10:04
years he helped me with some vintage
10:06
guitar ask Zach questions that were in
10:09
print where I was having trouble
10:11
identifying somebody from the Muscle
10:13
Shoals from a video and ended up being
10:16
at an early shot of Eddie Hinton and he
10:20
helped me with that and then I got to do
10:24
a feature on his Forever Young album for
10:29
vintage guitar magazine and then we did
10:32
the true tone lounge episode with him
10:34
that was three parts and I'm gonna be
10:38
real real honest here it was it was a
10:43
little bit of a struggle for me to to to
10:47
show my hero as an old man and he was he
10:52
was an old man and he was his health was
10:54
deteriorating and but I knew it was the
11:00
I knew we were supposed to do it but
11:02
it's still you know because he's you
11:04
know your guitar hero and you you know
11:07
you I wanted to see him like he was when
11:09
I met him you know in the nineties and
11:11
such but I was really glad we did it I
11:14
was and of course a lot of it or it had
11:17
everything to do with his wife Jenny who
11:20
who made it happen
11:21
and who was very kind and yeah
11:26
so I wanted to take you know just a look
11:31
at it at like drift away and and talk
11:35
about
11:36
like the the different things that he
11:38
did on that song well first off I asked
11:42
him I said Reggie you know was that
11:44
something that you came up with right on
11:46
the spot and he said no he said the
11:49
intro to drift away was something that
11:52
he had been working on as a as an
11:55
instrumental and so it was only on the
11:57
session you know in Nashville in the
11:59
early 70s that he realized that that
12:03
what he had made up for his own song
12:06
would work as the intro for the tune by
12:10
mentor Williams and yeah and it worked
12:15
but then everything else was you know
12:17
was ad-libbed
12:18
so so you have the first part of the
12:22
song which was played on the Les Paul
12:23
deluxe which had many humbucking pickups
12:26
which of course I'm playing a Telecaster
12:27
today and he doubled it and it made it
12:31
sound like chorus because there were no
12:33
chorus pedals per se at this point so
12:35
I'm using the TC electronic chorus pedal
12:37
to kind of play the play the intro so
12:40
you get them so you have that kind of
12:50
thing then you have you know the the
12:53
fills that he plays on the on the verse
12:56
[Music]
13:00
which are all kind of classic R&B you
13:04
know fills I mean it's a textbook on you
13:07
know great R&B guitar playing and then
13:11
you have what he plays in the chorus
13:14
which was not done on the Les Paul
13:15
deluxe it was done with his 69 black
13:18
Telecaster black Tilly custom with the
13:20
binding and that's where you get the
13:22
great things like that
13:24
[Music]
13:29
[Music]
13:31
great part and then you have the the
13:36
ending which I'm not sure if that was
13:38
the Les Paul of the tele but it was
13:40
through a garnet Herzog and because I
13:43
was asking him when we were looking at
13:45
the garnet which was this tube preamp
13:48
thing that was to to create overdrive
13:51
and it was developed for Randy Bachman
13:55
because he was trying to replicate the
13:57
sound he got at the at the beginning of
13:59
the guess who's American woman so he had
14:02
had this garnet create this herzog
14:06
device and Reggie got one and he started
14:09
using one by the late 60s and he was he
14:13
was definitely using it on the the
14:15
tail-end a drift away so all the stuff
14:17
during you know in the the final chorus
14:21
and the outro of the tune is the the
14:24
herzog so another interesting thing
14:28
about Reggie was Reggie was a bit of a
14:31
minimalist and this will make fans of
14:33
Keith Williams five-watt world happy he
14:37
basically played two guitars from for a
14:39
lot of his career now early on he played
14:42
a 345 and then he started playing a
14:44
Telecaster about 1966 he had a maple cap
14:47
tele kind of like this guitar this is a
14:49
67 his was a 66 so it would be similar
14:53
finish obviously maple cap Nick but his
14:57
head the transition gold logo not this
15:01
black CBS logo and what had clusen
15:03
machine head's but otherwise it would be
15:06
basically the same as this 1967 tele of
15:08
mine so he also had some some of chips
15:12
chips Moman had a couple guitars that he
15:15
used and of course he was famous for
15:17
using the Scottie more Super 400 on the
15:21
Elvis stuff that was cut in 69 like
15:23
suspicious minds and in the ghetto and
15:25
and and that stuff and then he traded in
15:30
his 66 Telecaster like this for that 69
15:34
tele that he played from then until his
15:37
passing
15:39
after his period of time in in Memphis
15:45
and then a very short period of time in
15:47
Atlanta he moved to Nashville and soon
15:51
after moving to Nashville he got a
15:52
fifty-seven strap so and those were kind
15:56
of his main tools from then on I mean he
15:58
used some other guitars over once in a
16:00
while but that 1957 Stratocaster and
16:03
that 1969 tele those were his main
16:06
guitars and he also he was a huge fan of
16:09
the deluxe reverb and so today I've got
16:12
one and and he used Celestion vintage
16:15
30s which I liked because of JD Syme oh
16:20
and so then of course it was a boon you
16:22
know to find out that Reggie liked him
16:24
too so yeah so he was a bit of a
16:28
minimalist of course during the 80s he
16:30
had to use more rack stuff and things
16:32
like that but he was basically a strat a
16:34
Tele a deluxe reverb in a couple of stop
16:37
boxes that was his sound and what a
16:41
great player what a great guy his
16:45
funeral was really interesting
16:47
of course not many funerals do you have
16:50
BJ Thomas and Steve Warner and Jessi
16:53
Colter you know singing at them and
16:56
we'll McFarland and of course the
16:59
congregation was full of a who's who of
17:02
the the great guitar players in
17:03
Nashville and Muscle Shoals
17:05
and it was interesting to hear the
17:09
people talk about him it was very
17:13
interesting to hear his family talk
17:14
about him and his family talk about how
17:17
they wanted to preserve Reggie the man
17:20
because they were proud of Reggie the
17:22
musician but they they really wanted
17:25
people to know what a great guy he was
17:27
and those that knew him know that he was
17:29
a great guy so there it is
17:34
thank you for watching I've created a
17:39
Spotify playlist on you know what I
17:42
think are Reggie's you know best tunes
17:45
it's a little bit heavy on Merle Haggard
17:48
stuff because I just really like that
17:50
and a lot of the Merle Haggard stuff is
17:52
that
17:52
Leigha strat and not a tele you have you
17:56
listen to it with an open ear you can
17:58
hear things like Leonard and other songs
18:01
and you can tell it's a it's that
18:03
Stratocaster sometimes it's the out of
18:05
phase thing and sometimes it's the
18:07
middle pickup or neck pickup you know
18:09
through a Dinah comp and into a Fender
18:11
amp with the volume pedal so take a
18:17
gander please subscribe
18:19
we're gonna start taking questions so we
18:23
can really make it asked Zach so my
18:26
email address we're gonna put up on the
18:28
screen at the tail-end and so please
18:31
start sending me in questions that we
18:33
can answer on the future episodes please
18:37
subscribe please hit the bell please
18:39
comment below please share it with
18:41
others and I just want to thank you so
18:43
much and I hope you have a great week
18:46
god bless you