Vince Gill - Telecaster Songbird - Ask Zac 65

well hello friends and welcome to
0:48
another Ask Zac today we're going to
0:50
talk about the high lonesome telecaster
0:52
sound
0:53
of Vince gill so or the songbird of the
0:56
telecaster
0:57
so certainly one of my favorites we're
0:59
going to talk a bit about his history as
1:02
a player
1:03
his gear we're going to do a little
1:04
lesson at the end kind of show some
1:06
Vince gill
1:07
isms and of course as always there's a
1:09
Vince gill
1:10
Spotify playlist with some of his best
1:13
you know solos and stuff through the
1:16
years
1:17
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1:20
enjoying the show and you haven't
1:21
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1:22
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1:24
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1:26
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1:29
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1:30
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1:32
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1:43
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1:46
alright back to the show so
1:51
i was first exposed to Vince on hee haw
1:54
many years ago it was in the 80s it was
1:57
when Vince was still on rca
1:59
he had not really had a hit at this
2:01
point and he was playing his 53
2:03
blonde telly and had a big sticker over
2:06
here
2:07
and uh it since of course it's long the
2:09
sticker's long gone but i don't know if
2:11
he was influenced by
2:12
Clarence white to put a sticker on his
2:13
telly or what
2:15
but he had two uh silver face you know
2:18
fender amps and
2:19
uh and he had that telly and he did
2:21
Oklahoma borderline
2:22
and i thought he was great and
2:26
then didn't hear anything from him for a
2:28
while
2:29
and then in 1989 he showed up again
2:34
but this time it was completely
2:36
different
2:37
you know there was a music video and he
2:39
was
2:40
standing in this house and singing this
2:43
uh
2:44
you know really beautiful you know
2:45
country ballad called when i call your
2:47
name
2:49
and i immediately went out and bought
2:51
the album
2:52
and uh you know i thought it was great
2:55
but it didn't have
2:57
a whole lot of guitar playing on it and
2:59
i was
3:00
a little disappointed in that it had
3:01
rita baloo which is an old guy Clark
3:03
tune that he had cut and never alone had
3:07
some cool kind of twin guitar stuff that
3:09
was of course
3:10
more in a kind of a Larry Carlton kind
3:12
of vein
3:13
but it wasn't until his next album came
3:16
out
3:17
called pocketful of gold that he really
3:20
caught my attention
3:22
and one of the tunes
3:25
liza jane was you know got a lot of
3:28
video play and a lot of airplay
3:30
you know and i just loved his playing on
3:34
that
3:35
the other tune on the album that really
3:36
floored me was the you know take your
3:38
memory with you which that's the solo i
3:40
opened
3:41
you know opened the show with and i love
3:44
that guitar solo and also i love that
3:46
tune because that's a tune i played a
3:47
lot
3:48
back in you know back in Texas in the in
3:51
the early 90s with uh
3:52
with my friends you know they're all a
3:54
bunch of you know this is playing like
3:56
dance halls and things like that back
3:58
you know
3:58
back when people danced and things and
4:02
and i always loved playing a Texas
4:04
shuffle and i loved playing take your
4:06
memory with you
4:07
and actually one until recently that
4:09
actually figured out the solo so i
4:10
always used to just kind of improvise my
4:12
own thing but playing that
4:14
you know learning that really made me
4:15
have even greater respect for
4:17
Vince's playing and another thing that
4:20
doing this episode really made me
4:21
realize how much Vince gill
4:23
has uh has influenced my playing and
4:25
just the way i
4:26
you know play and the way i look at the
4:29
telecaster and the tones that i like
4:31
and uh so yeah so this is this is fun
4:35
so yeah so i think the other thing that
4:38
really caught my attention
4:39
besides that when i the uh pocket full
4:42
of gold record
4:43
was there was a mark O'Connor album uh
4:46
called the new Nashville cats and they
4:48
did a a song called restless it was an
4:50
old carl Perkins tune
4:52
and on it you have of course mark
4:54
O'Connor but you also had Ricky Skaggs
4:56
Steve warner and Vince gill all singing
4:58
and playing together
5:00
and i have to admit as as much as i
5:01
loved uh you know
5:03
Ricky and and Steve's parts they it
5:06
sounded like they made them plug in
5:07
direct or something like that because
5:08
all of a sudden you'd hear Vince's
5:10
guitar and it it just had this kind of
5:13
wonderful rubbery twangy
5:16
sound that just uh you know floored me
5:19
funnily enough in the video he was
5:20
playing this strange
5:21
valley arts guitar so it was kind of
5:23
like a
5:24
it's kind of like a guitar that Larry
5:26
Carlton played like on the
5:28
on the cover of on solid ground it was
5:30
similar except it was actually full
5:32
scale instead of being Gibson scale and
5:34
had emg pickups it was dark
5:36
kind of brown mahogany looking thing
5:40
pardon me but uh anywho i think he was
5:43
actually using his 53 tele on the
5:45
recording
5:45
but uh yeah he really kind of got me
5:48
hook long and
5:49
hook line and sinker then you had his
5:53
appearances on the American music shop
5:55
and those took it even further because
5:58
then
5:58
on the American music shop he had well
6:01
Vince had albert lee with him
6:03
and them doing Eliza jane and swapping
6:06
solos back and forth
6:07
and albert was playing his old kabichi
6:10
telly with the with the
6:12
b bender on it and Vince was playing his
6:16
53 telly and yeah that was just that's a
6:19
great show
6:20
and you can find that you know it's it's
6:21
available online and you can really see
6:23
you know what Vince was playing through
6:25
he had you know like a silver face
6:27
twin reverb with jbl's and you can see
6:29
he's got his pedals on top of his amp
6:31
and everything we'll talk gear later but
6:34
yeah and then you know Vince just you
6:36
know really took off
6:37
uh he had a lot of uh you know a lot of
6:40
hits
6:41
you know and and he'll be the first to
6:42
say that you know it's his singing
6:44
that uh you know really brought him to
6:46
the table and of course his songwriting
6:49
and then but i think he's somewhat i
6:51
don't think he's underrated i think at
6:52
times he's a bit underappreciated as a
6:55
guitarist and just
6:56
how good of a player he is and
6:59
just how sweet his bins are and how
7:02
tasteful he is and how
7:04
he sings and then his guitar sings
7:08
and it doesn't matter if it's a chicken
7:09
picking kind of thing or
7:11
you know or a thing where he's playing
7:12
like Clapton or Knofler or Larry Carlton
7:15
some of his his heroes
7:16
uh you know he always kind of goes from
7:18
singing you know with his
7:20
voice and then singing with his guitar
7:22
so
7:24
i had the thrill of working with Vince a
7:26
couple of times
7:28
while you know of course working for
7:30
brad paisley uh i got to play on the
7:32
opry
7:33
and Vince came out and saying love's
7:36
going to live here
7:37
with uh with us and that was a lot of
7:39
fun to get to
7:41
play with Vince then uh
7:44
another one was we went into the studio
7:46
with albert lee
7:48
and it was Vince gill albert lee and
7:50
brad paisley
7:51
and i got to watch them you know sit in
7:53
a circle and play together
7:55
and that was a huge thrill and
7:58
i have to admit that Vince's playing was
8:00
really stellar
8:01
on there and uh without
8:05
making enemies or anything i have to say
8:07
that i think i enjoyed his
8:08
solos the best on there and his tone so
8:12
uh yeah so yeah let's talk
8:16
let's go ahead and talk about his his
8:17
gear though uh well
8:19
let's let's back up i think during
8:21
during that era of the early 2000s i
8:23
really liked what Vince was doing he had
8:25
an album called next big thing
8:28
and he was writing some with big al
8:30
Anderson from nrbq
8:31
and he had the song next big thing which
8:34
was really cool and it had a
8:35
big al playing rhythm on it it was just
8:38
it was killer
8:39
and uh you know working with brad we did
8:42
a couple award shows
8:44
where Vince was either hosting it or
8:45
part of it and a couple of those he had
8:48
big al
8:49
with the band and doing doing his thing
8:51
that was
8:52
that was a that was a thrill so both
8:54
seeing Vince and uh
8:56
and seeing big al so yeah let's talk
8:59
about his gear
9:01
uh you know early on you know of course
9:04
in the pure prairie league he played
9:06
he played his old black strat Simon has
9:08
read 335
9:09
and played some ovation acoustics and
9:12
stuff on stage and
9:13
where i really you know started to you
9:15
know of course
9:16
catch on to him was him playing like
9:18
with with Roseanne cash and Rodney Crowl
9:21
and by that point he was playing a telly
9:23
he had like a blonde one with a white
9:25
pickguard and uh
9:27
playing through a silver face you know
9:28
twin and
9:30
had some boss pedals on top looks like
9:32
he was already starting to use a boss
9:33
compressor back then
9:36
uh then you know by the time you know
9:38
seeing him on
9:39
hee haw and such yes you could see you
9:41
know amp with pedals on it
9:44
it's funny he didn't use a pedal board
9:45
for a long time and even
9:47
on those American music shop episodes
9:49
again you'd see the silver face twin
9:52
with jbl's in it and then on top you
9:56
could see his boss pedals he had a blue
9:58
boss compressor
9:59
and uh you know a white you know
10:01
probably a dd3 or dd2
10:03
you know delay and then he had the gray
10:05
reverb pedal because
10:07
evidently the reverb was out on his amp
10:09
and instead of fixing it he just got a
10:10
boss reverb pedal
10:12
so and you know sometimes you'd see a
10:14
tuner up there and that's kind of what
10:16
what he had and sometimes he'd use two
10:17
you know twin reverbs
10:19
and that 53 tele and I've gotten to you
10:22
know to check out the 53 tele a couple
10:23
times and it's
10:25
it's it's you know it's pretty pretty
10:27
light it's
10:28
uh you know it's got a really good
10:30
feeling neck that's
10:31
not not huge not nor is it skinny but
10:34
it's not one of those huge you know like
10:36
baseball bat
10:36
you know necks like uh you know some of
10:39
those guitars have
10:40
none of them had necks as big as some of
10:43
the ones that fender decided to put on
10:44
reissues
10:46
but uh yeah and then he he kind of moved
10:49
on to using
10:50
uh Rivera amps and he used 200 watt
10:54
Rivera amps with celestial speakers in
10:56
them for
10:57
quite a while through the 90s and even
10:59
when we we did a show with him
11:01
uh like it was the new york state fair
11:03
around 2003
11:04
2004 he was still using that rig but of
11:07
course he had
11:08
he had acquiesced to having a pedalboard
11:09
by that point
11:11
and uh by that point he had you know
11:13
like a zen drive and a sparkle drive and
11:15
a boss compressor and he had a
11:17
boss delay and uh you know a couple
11:20
other things i think yeah
11:21
interestingly enough he had a uh had an
11:23
ebs base chorus
11:25
that he was used that he seemed to leave
11:28
on all the time at a very low
11:30
setting and to split stereo and so that
11:32
way he just had this really
11:34
you know subtle chorus going on all the
11:36
time that you would never think always
11:37
got chorus on
11:39
but that was a you know interesting
11:41
little thing to uh
11:42
to see uh then after the
11:46
Rivera amps he used two blackface deluxe
11:49
reverbs for
11:50
uh a couple of years and then he started
11:53
using a little Walter amps and of course
11:55
you know little Walter uh you know Phil
11:57
Bradbury is a
11:59
great guy and uh had the pleasure of
12:02
getting to hang with him some he he
12:04
makes a great amp for
12:05
for Vince and uh and he uses the
12:09
the the little Walter amps whenever he
12:10
does big shows
12:12
and uh but he tends to like
12:15
if you would back when he was still
12:17
playing with the time jumpers you would
12:18
tend to see him use like a swart amp
12:21
plus uh blackface deluxe reverb or a
12:24
blackface deluxe reverb plus a
12:26
tweed deluxe or a brown deluxe he would
12:28
always bring two amps i guess one was a
12:30
backup
12:30
or maybe he was plugged into both of
12:32
them at the same time i never
12:34
you know went up and uh you know you
12:37
know put his
12:38
gear under the uh magnifying glass
12:41
but i think as far as his uh you know
12:43
teletone
12:45
one of the great uh tricks i learned
12:47
from him
12:48
was rolling the tone control down
12:52
on the bridge pickup so
12:55
you know today i'm using a boss
12:58
compressor i'm using an old cs3
13:00
from the 90s that i've had forever and
13:01
i'm using my boss dd2
13:04
and you know of course the deluxe reverb
13:06
with the vintage 30
13:07
bright cap has been clipped uh you know
13:10
57 esquire uh with the diaderio tins
13:14
and that's kind of what Vince you know
13:16
of course on his 53 has tended to use
13:18
diaderio tens though at times he's used
13:20
a little heavier strings and gone back
13:22
and forth
13:23
and a medium pick but uh
13:26
you know this is kind of my imitation of
13:29
his
13:30
bridge pickup tone so this is with the
13:32
tone control all the way up you
13:34
[Applause]
13:34
[Music]
13:37
and then if you just roll it back some
13:41
[Music]
13:43
and i don't know how well that
13:45
translates you know
13:46
on on YouTube but it's just taking off
13:49
enough
13:50
of that you know kind of real high high
13:53
end that's a little that's
13:54
slightly harsh and it just smooths it
13:56
out
13:57
and you know with that and the
13:59
compressor you kind of get in the in the
14:01
delay
14:02
going you get a little bit more into
14:03
that Vince gill kind of sound and then
14:05
if i were to kind of try to
14:06
play in his style or think about the
14:09
ways that he that he's influenced my
14:10
playing
14:11
i think about these kind of things you
14:14
though
14:16
[Music]
14:26
so uh yeah i realized that like
14:30
this kind of low string bend thing like
14:33
in
14:33
a uh i picked up from him
14:36
you know
14:44
also using you know kind of using open
14:46
strings
14:47
and uh you know like like taking uh the
14:50
d
14:50
string playing it open and then fretting
14:52
this one then
14:58
[Music]
15:00
some of that's albert lee but some of
15:01
that's you know Vince and his
15:03
interpretation of albert because uh
15:05
you know Vince had to play a lot of
15:07
albert's licks when he played with
15:09
Roseanne cash
15:10
and always felt like uh there was a lot
15:12
of that era of albert lee that
15:14
that rubbed off on Vince kind of like
15:16
that my baby thinks he's a train
15:19
i always felt like uh Vince kind of took
15:23
albert from that era and uh and kind of
15:26
you know and did his own thing with it
15:27
but there was a part of it where it was
15:29
like
15:29
Vince was almost a continuation of the
15:31
old albert lee telecaster sound
15:33
and and albert went on to playing music
15:36
mans and other stuff and so even like on
15:38
that American music shop show
15:39
it's kind of like okay well there's
15:41
Vince you know
15:42
who's taking kind of not stolen but he's
15:45
kind of taken some of
15:46
albert's you know sound and vibe and
15:48
albert's moved on to something else and
15:50
so
15:51
it was interesting oh let's see some
15:54
other
15:55
uh Vince gill isms
15:58
you know you have that uh like an
16:00
Oklahoma borderline
16:01
you have like that that almost sounds
16:03
like a beetle lick
16:12
or the
16:17
[Music]
16:20
uh you know this major third minor third
16:22
thing of course the song's in g
16:24
you know
16:25
[Music]
16:32
then the solo goes into c and you have
16:34
this
16:37
[Music]
16:40
and that kind of thing and then or this
16:43
[Music]
16:48
also these fun kind of open string
16:49
things that that he does
16:51
[Music]
16:57
you know which which kind of comes out
16:58
of this if you think in
17:00
in g you have this kind of uh Chet
17:03
Atkins kind of thing
17:06
[Music]
17:10
that's playing off of a g6
17:18
uh but he's just taking the top two
17:19
strings and he's you know
17:25
and he's you know doing these pull-offs
17:27
on the on the top two strings and so
17:29
again if you look up you know Oklahoma
17:31
borderline you can hear him
17:33
doing all these uh cool open string
17:35
things
17:36
another thing is his bending is just
17:39
impeccable
17:40
and uh when recording when i watched him
17:43
recording
17:44
with albert lee and brad Steve Fishel
17:48
was producing it and Steve was was
17:50
commenting
17:51
on uh on Vince playing like Clarence
17:53
white
17:54
and Clarence white was another you know
17:56
influence on Vince especially with his
17:58
string bending and so
18:00
he has these very exact bends that he
18:02
does
18:06
[Music]
18:07
you know where he you know really bends
18:10
exact
18:11
and uh you know and then to where
18:13
they're you know they're unisons
18:30
[Music]
18:35
yeah you have that kind of thing like an
18:36
Eliza jane um
18:38
you know solo yeah
18:41
so then going back to kind of what i
18:43
played at the beginning
18:45
which was the the take your memory with
18:47
you which is in the key of
18:48
e it's a really beautiful solo uh
18:51
and he's playing out of a couple
18:54
different you know
18:55
e you know inversions you know this
18:58
[Music]
19:00
and uh and yeah it's just in some really
19:04
nice chromaticism
19:05
which i think you know you know i guess
19:08
it comes from western swing but might
19:09
come from albert lee also
19:11
but you have
19:28
[Music]
19:36
this
19:40
of course it ends going into the v chord
19:42
into the b
19:43
really pretty pretty solo and i
19:46
i think his bending really
19:51
as with most players i mean you can
19:52
really tell who it is by the way they've
19:54
been and he has a really
19:56
sweet style of of bending strings and uh
19:58
you know just a great tone on the guitar
20:02
so there there you have my little uh
20:05
you know player spotlight of Vince gill
20:08
who is
20:09
just amazing you know artist uh and
20:12
player
20:12
you know it's really cool to see him out
20:14
you know with the with the eagles
20:16
and doing that thing but i have to admit
20:18
i i
20:19
always enjoy you know seeing him on his
20:21
on his own with his band and he's
20:23
always had stellar players uh back on
20:26
take your memory with you it's funny it
20:28
was hard for me to find clips of him
20:30
playing that solo because
20:32
so many times in more recent years he he
20:35
just lets Paul franklin
20:36
you know play the whole solo and uh i i
20:39
get it
20:39
Paul's you know of course an amazing
20:41
steel player and it's a it's a shuffle
20:43
but i uh i love that solo but
20:46
Vince has a has always had a stellar
20:48
band i mean
20:49
no matter what he's always you know he's
20:51
had Jed Hughes and tom buckevac
20:53
and tom britt and you know just
20:56
all sorts of guys playing in there so if
20:59
you ever you know
21:00
when when all this craziness is over uh
21:02
you know make sure and go see uh
21:04
Vince gill so all right guys well thank
21:07
you so much for watching
21:09
i hope you've enjoyed it I'll see you
21:11
next time bye