seven guitar players on stage: is this a "country" thing?

[DrSax]

While flipping thru the boob tube lately I've come across live shows (I think Soundstage might have been one of the shows) and have been stunned by how many guitar players I've seen on stage. I can't remember the artist (a blonde chick, lol), but I think I counted 4 acoustic guitars, one guy on a strat, one guy on pedal steel, one guy on dobro, not to mention a fiddle player, bass player and two keyboard players. Holy crow! I mean, they sounded great and all. I'm just wondering what they heck they're all playing! It didn't sound like a concerto, just yer basic cowboy chord country. I have to believe they could have done fine with one acoustic and spread the rest of the money around.....

edit: I'm pretty sure this wasn't a "jam" situation, it appeared to be the singers band. I dunno though......

[amoodymule]

I seen the same kinda thang, Kenny Chesney? or someone like him, and I gotta believe it must be in a contract, if they get on National TV, the union musicians get to be onstage??? Most of the acoustic players are strumming the same chords from what I witnessed, no side noodling or anythang :dunno

Are they all buddies/freinds or what?
Maybe two bands there on the same day, so...let's all play together, this is a real good question, and maybe someone can clue us in?

[waxnsteel]

What do you expect them to do? Dance? It's all for show. They could have gotten away with the acoustic, pedal steel, and an electric, and you wouldn't miss the other players. I'd guess the buddy scenario. Or at least buddies of buddies or backer$.

[tweed135]

I can't tell you how many times I've seen that and wondered why they need 4 guitar players on stage.

I think its just a country thing.

[leonard d rock]

how about shania twain's band? there are two fulltime guitar players (one double on a double neck sg), a bass player, a steeler who also plays guitar, plus two or three violinists who double on acoustic guitars, 12 strings, nylon strings etc.... shania however is a sight to behold and her singing ain't bad either.

probabably a country thing. if it were a rock band three six stringers would be the max to apportion the lead space almost equally like iron maiden or skynyrd or the doobies

[daddyo]

I' m sure it's to replicate the sound of their studio albums. These artists don't want to pay extra musicians that they don't need.

[buddaman71]

how about shania twain's band? there are two fulltime guitar players (one double on a double neck sg), a bass player, a steeler who also plays guitar, plus two or three violinists who double on acoustic guitars, 12 strings, nylon strings etc.... shania however is a sight to behold and her singing ain't bad either.

probabably a country thing. if it were a rock band three six stringers would be the max to apportion the lead space almost equally like iron maiden or skynyrd or the doobies

correct.


This is not really unusual.

a. Many "country" musicians are multi-instrumentalists.
b. a very high percentage of them play guitar
c. On tunes that don't require steel/fiddle/mandolin they often default to guitar

Also, in the specific case of Kenny C, Dann Huff produces and plays most of the guitars on his records and he is a master of layered guitar textures. If a recorded tune has 4 tracks of acoustic and 4-6 tracks of electric, it's not crazy to have 2-3 players playing different inversions and voicings.

[JoeB63]

I seen the same kinda thang, Kenny Chesney? or someone like him, and I gotta believe it must be in a contract, if they get on National TV, the union musicians get to be onstage??? Most of the acoustic players are strumming the same chords from what I witnessed, no side noodling or anythang :dunno

Well, first you gotta realize that Kenny Chesney does not know how to play guitar at all -- he's faking it, so that's minus one.

But I am impressed that any band can make it work with more than 2 guitarists (which is sometimes one too many IMO). From what I can tell, from watching those bands on TV, it appears each of them is very, very low in the mix (other than for solos).

Springsteen sometimes has as many as 4 guitars going at once, as well as 2 KBs -- but I think his recent stuff and concerts sounds like overloaded sonic soup to me. I don't like it -- I would prefer if he would pare it down.

[stevel]

While flipping thru the boob tube lately I've come across live shows (I think Soundstage might have been one of the shows) and have been stunned by how many guitar players I've seen on stage. I can't remember the artist (a blonde chick, lol), but I think I counted 4 acoustic guitars, one guy on a strat, one guy on pedal steel, one guy on dobro, not to mention a fiddle player, bass player and two keyboard players. Holy crow! I mean, they sounded great and all. I'm just wondering what they heck they're all playing! It didn't sound like a concerto, just yer basic cowboy chord country. I have to believe they could have done fine with one acoustic and spread the rest of the money around.....

edit: I'm pretty sure this wasn't a "jam" situation, it appeared to be the singers band. I dunno though......

Yeah, but that's not really all "guitars" - slide and dobro aren't really "guitars" in that they don't play the same kind of parts. Bass is not either.

Typically, you need 2 guitars anyway - Rhythm and Lead. Often, there's an additional acoustic strumming. And bass.

Country bands are *required* to have slide and fiddle - because of the style of the music they play nowadays, that and the twang of the singer's voice is the only thing that keeps them from being pop!

I can't speak for all of these bands, but I bet the logic behind hiring all these "extra" players is to make it come off "exactly like the record", which is what audiences are expecting.

Later,
Steve

[buddaman71]

FWIW: I just played a very large festival (120,000 people over 4 days) with about 20 touring Top 40 Country and Red Dirt acts (Big and Rich, Montgomery Gentry, Jason Aldean {great show}, Randy Rogers, Cross Canadian Ragweed, etc.) and most had 2 guitarists (other than the singer maybe playing acoustic) only about 5-6 acts even had a fiddle player and only a couple had a steel player.

Most of the bands were 4-5 piece plus a singer.

[Polynitro]

IM not a fan of big bands...all one needs is 2 Teles, 1 pedal steel, 2 fiddles, 1 bass, and 1 acoustic...Damn thats 7 nevermind

[Jim85IROC]

It's all image. Most of them aren't even in the live mix. That said, I'd also like to see country singers put down their prop guitars, or at least strum in sync with the guy standing in the dark corner of the stage who is actually playing the chords that the singer wants us to think he/she is playing.

[cbguy]

they are each assigned one string to play

[Bryan T]

I've played in a group of 20 guitarists and I've seen a performance with 100 guitarists. Neither of these were country.

As a kid, I watched the Grand Ole Opry with my dad on TV. Lots of musicians on stage. I didn't really get the point of it then . . .

[Baxtercat]

Makes you marvel how Creedence did so well: bass, drums, a gtr. or two, and some singing.

[jay42]

Given a better budget, Mr. Fogerty has more guitarists now....

I think it's weird too. I understand if one of those dreadnaught toten' dudes is playing with all unwound strings...forget what that's called. Beyond that, more than two acoustic guitars is nuts. I consider this a garage band mentality. If you've ever played a single line instrument like the French Horn, for example, you know about rests. Sometimes a 24 bar rest.

[Terry Hayes]

[QUOTE=jay42;6575874]
I think it's weird too. I understand if one of those dreadnaught toten' dudes is playing with all unwound strings...forget what that's called. /QUOTE]

Are you thinking of "high-strung" guitar?

[RickNew]

Often the extra acoustic guitars are there mainly as harmony vocalists who add a little acoustic texture.

[guitbeef]

....the guy standing in the dark corner of the stage who is actually playing the chords that the singer wants us to think he/she is playing.

That's exactly what I usually do for a living- the "stunt double"!

Well, I'm here in Nashville and am lucky enough to make a living playing (don't mean that cocky, just hoping to give an "insider" perspective"), so here's my two cents, as I'm sometimes the last guy hired that thinks "you all already have it covered, why am I even here?".

Usually you can disregard the "artist guitar", but of course there are exceptions (Paisley, Steve Warner, Billy Dean, etc). So there's a lot of times one guy full-time on acoustic to cover that.

The fact is that the records in Nashville are almost always produced these days with two electrics in mind, so there's two more making three guitar players so far.

Steel guitar, lap steel, dobro and the like really don't serve the same fuction as acoustic and electric guitars around here, so I really don't count them as "guitar players", even though the instrument might have the word "guitar" in the title. I don't mean that as a slam at all, just stating that these other instruments are needed in a little different role. So back to our hypothetical 3-guitarists-so-far road band, there's usually a steel guitarist, and they almost always can play electric and/or acoustic guitar, so on tunes where steel isn't needed a lot of times they pick up a guitar of some sort. The only other option is walk off stage- and here's the rub, a lot of artists DO NOT want that. So if you choose to take the job as a sideman, you do what the boss wants. Also add fiddle and keyboardist to the list of "sometimes guitars depending on the song". Usually a lot of guys that play fiddle around here also play acoustic guitar, so in our hypothetical band (in which already contains 2 elecs and 1 full time acoustic, and the steel player is playing lap steel, making 5 guitars on stage counting the artist playing/holding a guitar), now they play a song which calls for no fiddle, so guess what- the fiddle player is playing an acoustic, making 6 guitars visible. Just kind of the way it goes around here.

Do they need all those players? No, but great players can make it work with careful listening and good arrangements. Are all those guitar players on stage aware of how it looks? Yes, but you gotta do what you gotta do. Plus, if you're seeing an artist on TV there's a good chance they did another song for the taping/broadcast that may have required the steel/ fiddle/ keyboards to play their main instruments, you just might not have seen it or it wasn't part of the recorded show.

But having said all that- there are some great, great road bands here that get it done with two electric players, with one sometimes switching to acoustic to cover the artist if there's some really important parts.

EDIT: RickNew beat me to a point I forgot to add- harmony vocals are DEFINITELY a factor in some of these cases.

[daddyo]

Given a better budget, Mr. Fogerty has more guitarists now....

I think it's weird too. I understand if one of those dreadnaught toten' dudes is playing with all unwound strings...forget what that's called. Beyond that, more than two acoustic guitars is nuts. I consider this a garage band mentality. If you've ever played a single line instrument like the French Horn, for example, you know about rests. Sometimes a 24 bar rest.
It's called Nashville strung. Basically replace the 4 low wound strings with light guage strings tuned an octave higher.

[lougio]

I saw on Palladia this Shooter Jennings. Never heard of him and hope I never hear him again. He must have had four or five of the dirtiest looking guitar players I've ever seen. One idiot was playing a tele upside down. It was pathetic all playing the same chords to some boring talentless music. I don't get it. I can see have a mandolin, pedal steel and an acoustic in addition to elecric guitars if they are playing different roles. But it is way over the top when nothing different is coming from it.

[buddaman71]

CounterPoint:

I played a gig with Shooter on the 4th of July. His new stuff if psychedelic stoner rock and not my fave, but his Put the O' Back in Country is a fantastic album.

It's a great mix up of honest Traditional Country and 70's jam rock. Hippies or not, Shooter and his band are very cool, fun-loving guys.

[fredgarvin]

Blue Oyster Cult used to put everyone out on a geetar. I thought it was cool.