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Taylor John
Cephus Signature Model.
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Check out these equipment picks from artists featured in the March 2001 No. 99 issue of Acoustic Guitar magazine.
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John Cephas plays and endorses Taylor guitars. Last year, the company honored him with a special John Cephas Signature Model (JCSM) grand auditorium guitar. It has an Engelmann spruce top and East Indian rosewood back and sides and is amplified with a Fishman system that includes an Onboard Blender. The fretboard near the neck-to-body joint is beautifully inlaid with a silhouetted bluesman carrying his guitar down the railroad tracks. Cephas uses Elixir strings on all his guitars and carries a Trace Elliot acoustic amp with him on the road for use as an on-stage monitor. He says that over the years he has played just about every brand of guitar, but he has come to use Taylors exclusively. He still has a good-sized collection of guitars at home, including a Wayne Henderson acoustic, a 1942 Martin 00-18, several Nationals, and a Ron Phillips metal guitar (MetalGitar@aol.com), as well as a mandolin and a pedal steel guitar he likes to "fool around with" from time to time. He uses Dunlop or National fingerpicks and will occasionally apply violin rosin to his thumb to keep the thumbpick from sliding. ––Orville Johnson On Barenaked Ladies’ Maroon tour, racks of guitars flank both sides of the stage. On Steven Page’s side are a row of Guilds: two D-55s, a JF-55-12 12-string (used only for infrequent performances of the song "Helicopters"), and two Bluesbird electrics, one of which is outfitted with a Bigsby bar. A Telecaster rounds out the collection. The acoustics are amplified with Fishman Matrix Natural pickups run through a Nady wireless system and a Countryman DI—and no other effects. "The more no-frills, the better," posits Page; his and Robertson’s guitar techs agree emphatically that on-board controls and such only increase the odds of gear "voodoo," and sonic nuances can be handled elsewhere when you travel with a $90,000 monitor console. At home, Page has an array of other guitars, including Guild Starfire hollow-body electrics, a ’70s Gibson Les Paul, and a small-body, all-mahogany Martin from 1930. "I love it," he says of the vintage Martin. "I got it six years ago, and I have never changed the strings. I don’t want to jinx it now. It doesn’t tune great, but it sounds really cool. I’ve also got a small Taylor that I use as a high-string guitar. I just got a National steel, and I am going to use that for home recordings and such." Page uses a Dunlop clamp-type capo and Dean Markley strings: on the acoustics, a medium-light set (.012 to .054), and on the electrics, a custom set of .011, 014, plain .020, .030, .038, and .050. "I used to play a wound .020, but essentially because I wasn’t a very good guitar player, I would end up bending the G string every time. I was trying to find something that was heavier in the B and G area." Ed Robertson’s stage acoustics are two recent Larrivée L-09’s, which replaced the treasured 1976 Larrivée L-09 he retired from the road and now uses only in the studio. His acoustics are amplified similarly to Page’s, with a Fishman Matrix Natural pickup running through a Shure wireless system and a Demeter tube direct box. Both guitarists use feedback-busting soundhole covers, which they remove when they do their frequent "busking sets" at radio stations, stores, and other makeshift settings. For these appearances, Robertson sometimes brings a small DI board with a line selector and tuner. Robertson’s expanding collection of electric guitars includes several instruments by Dennis Fano (the particular model is pictured at www.fanoguitars.com), who also builds guitars for XTC and other rockers. Filling out the rack are solid- and hollow-bodies by Paul Reed Smith, Fender, and Gibson. Robertson uses Shubb capos and, like Page, Dean Markley strings: medium-lights on the acoustics and a heavy bottom/light top set on the electrics (.010 to .052). —Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers On Public Domain, Dave Alvin plays a 1954 Martin D-18, which he swears has improved his playing 100 percent since the moment he found it two years ago. "It was like walking into a smoky bar and seeing the woman you’re going to spend the rest of your life with just sitting there waiting for you," he says. "The first time I touched it, I knew this was my guitar." He also still plays the 1957 Martin 00-18 that was his primary guitar on Blackjack David and King of California and a 1932 National Triolian that he borrowed from Greg Leisz. In the past he used D’Addario light-gauge strings, but he’s started experimenting with Elixir strings. On his picking hand, he uses a Golden Gate thumbpick and an acrylic-reinforced nail on his index finger. He uses NewSkin on his fretting fingers to keep his calluses from cracking. ––Kenny Berkowitz For the last 20 years, Gabriela has played a nylon-string guitar built by Argentine luthier Yacopi. "It’s a really warm and big-sounding instrument," she says. She amplifies it on stage with an L.R. Baggs under-saddle pickup and Para Acoustic D.I. Recently, however, she’s become enamoured of a new instrument. "I felt that my chord vocabulary had improved quite a bit and I had gotten to the point where I was struggling with the Yacopi’s fat neck and high action," she says. "So, last year I found this electric nylon-string Fender Telecaster with a very thin air chamber and an f-hole. It’s an incredible instrument! It is very easy to play, it stays in tune really well, and it is simple for performing live. I run it through a simple ART tube preamp and add a dash of reverb." She also uses a Guild F-50 as a writing and recording tool, often in tunings like C G C F C D ("Imagenes del Amazonas" from Viento Rojo), G A C D E G ("Viento Rojo"), or Nashville tuning ("Luz del Mundo" from Detrás del Sol). But, she says, "I hardly ever play solo gigs, so I don’t play guitar on those because of all the switching and retuning on stage." ––Scott Nygaard
Excerpted from Acoustic Guitar magazine, March 2001, No. 99. |
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