Country/Blues on 335 & Tele?

Adam Levy with Norah Jones.

Great 335 and Tele player.

Very tastee freeze.

 

good luck finding someone playing country on a telecaster!

j/k

here is one of my favorite tele clips

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68GEHs0Aoi0 (marc ford ) kinda a country-ish song

 

Toy Caldwell played a 335 for a bit, no?

 

Yeah, a guy I worked with a few years ago had a 335 that once belonged to Toy.


Oh yeah, good luck trying to find someone playing blues on a 335!

 

Yeah, well there are plenty of older musicians using a 335 (or 345, 355) for blues, and guys using Teles for blues and country.

Personally I use a Heritage 535 for blues, and use a homemade blackguard Tele for country, and they both sound incredible. The problem you will find is the "compromise" you have to make for your tone. Amps that do real deal blues, don't always excel at country. For instance, for classic blues tones, that's generally a tweed amp, and usually its got some "grit" to the sound. For classic country tones, many times they used BF Twin Reverbs and Super Reverbs. A happy medium can sometimes be found with a BF Super Reverb or a larger tweed amp with a reverb tank or good analog delay.

I use a combination of two Victorias depending on the size of the room, and volume constraints. I use a Double Deluxe as my main club amp and then a Bandmaster for larger places. The Double Deluxe has a little too much "hair" for classic country, but it comes pretty close. The Bandmaster is much closer to authentic country tones. Remember Buck and Don used a Tweed Bassman for some of their early stuff, as did Luther Perkins, and I'll bet that Gene Moles probably did too.

However if you're looking to play blues rock and modern country, well then get a Les Paul and a Marshall, and you can play both.

 

Didn't Roy Clark play country on a 335? I know a lot of guys have been playing Les Pauls lately.

 

There are a million Blues players on 335's, and another billion country players on teles.

Country on 335:

Roy Clark
Roy Benson (not currently, but he played a 335 for years)


Blues on Tele:

Mark May
Tab Benoit
Albert Collins
Steve Cropper
Arlen Roth
Jimmy Page
Muddy Waters
Kenny Neal
Roy Buchanan


Hope that helps!

Kane

 

Current Nashville is all about the AC-30, isn't it?

I think David Grissom used a 335 on a lot of the later Storyville stuff, and he also used an Esquire quite a bit in the Ely/Mcurtry days. Some great tones/licks there, for sure.

 

Some else may know more specifically, but Rich Brotherton of Robert Earl Keen's band plays a 335 style guitar live (along with a PRS and I think I've seen a tele up there before too). We saw Robert Earl in Athens a couple of weeks ago and Rich was playing the PRS and a 335 style guitar through a divided by 13 amp. Great tones. Maybe someone else can verify if Rich's guitar is actually a 335.

 

Clint Strong played very tasty on a LP in Merle's band.

 

Dave Edmunds got pretty countryish on the 335, at least in the pre- "closer to the flame" days.

 

I know the OP said current players, but I have to mention Leon Rhodes with Ernest Tubb. For Ernest's tunes he'd do the Billy Byrd trip on the bridge pickup of his Epiphone, and then when Ernest would step down and let the band play some on their own Leon would put on the neck pickup and swing his balls off.

Here's an example of backing Ernest:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dh6Te4RW4A4&feature=related



And here's an example of him swinging sans Ernest...:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pP9mDEri85o

...and another:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZyM85ltQ1I&feature=related


I think there's a great lesson for the rest of us in playing what's called for at times, but then letting it loose when that's called for as well.