Loose Blues News
The appearance of harp-hero Kim Wilson at the Silver Dollar last month brought out a who's who of Toronto harp virtuosos, clockwise from front, David Rotundo (& the Blue Canadians), Lil' Bobby (and the Jumpstarts), Mark "Bird" Stafford, Kim, Dr. Nick (and the Rollercoasters) and "Wildman" Bob Adams (Mainline). Photo by Doug "The Flash" Willison
New Blues: Jerome Godboo is releasing a new blues CD , Live at Healey's with numerous Toronto blues luminaries including Michael Pickett, Jeff Healey, Dawn Tyler Watson, Chuck Jackson, Rod Phillips and even the youngest bluesman around, 12 year-old Jimmy Bowskill. The release will take place Thursday, May 29 at Healeys. Watch for a review in John's Blues Picks next month. On Saturday, May 10th, the Downchild Blues Band celebrates the American release of their latest CD, Body of Work - The Downchild Collection Vol. 2, at the Lafayette Tap Room in Buffalo.Hugh's Room News: Hugh's Room celebrated its 2nd anniversary in April. Of interest to blues-gospel fans is Ken Whiteley's Sunday Gospel Series, which commenced on March 30 with guests George Koller, Colin Linden, BC vocalist Melisa Devost, and Jackie , and continues on May 4 with Ken's guests West Virginia's Ginny Hawker, a hair curling Southern Mountain singer, Toronto's soulful sisters Amoy and Ciceal Levy and Ken's brother Chris Whiteley, who is a prolific songwriter and outstanding musician. Finally on May 25, Calvin Cooke and his Detroit Sacred Steel Ensemble featuring his wife Grace Cooke will rock the Hugh's Room stage. Joining them will be David Wall, one time singer with the Bourbon Tabernacle Choir and now with the Flying Bulgars, and Pat Patrick who is "one of Toronto's, and possibly the country's, deepest bass vocalists."
West End Blues Saturdays: At The Dior Lounge, 385 The West Mall (416-621-9010), a new Saturday matinee with feature the Johnny Max Band from 4 to 8 pm, with the Paul James Band on Saturday evenings. The May 11 matinee launch featured a 40th birthday celebration for Andrew Kempa of MusiCan/Juke Joint Records. On May 10, the Johnny Max Band, "led by vocalist Johnny Max with his high energy charismatic vocal stylings and humorous stage antics, with guitar virtuoso Kevin Higgins, Bill Keeley on bass and Bob Vespaziani on drums", will feature special guests John Mays and Al Lerman of Fathead, and this year's Juno Award winner Jack de Keyzer.
BLUZ.FM Live: After May 10, the Silver Dollar's Thursday Night "Future Blues" is history and they are launching a Saturday afternoon matinee, a long standing blues tradition in this town. And who better to take the helm than the irrepressible Danny Marks, host of JAZZ.FM's Saturday night blues marathon, BLUZ.FM. Danny's calling it BLUZ.FM LIVE and he and his trio will be there delivering lots of fun and music for a Saturday afternoon. The club will be opening at 1:00 pm and offering an all-day breakfast special
The Pappy Johns Band with Murray Porter (pictured at right) play
the Silver Dollar on Saturday, May 24. It's a bit of a send-off for the boys who
are "Goin to Chicago" to play the Chicago Blues Festival.
Little Jimmy Bowskill: The 12 year-old blues guitarist and vocalist made his national television debut on Open Mike with Mike Bullard last month, performing with Jerome Godboo on harmonica and the house band. Jimmy is already booked at several major festivals this season, and has performed as a special guest with Jeff Healey at Healey's, as well as in the TBS Guitar Workshop. www.jimmybowskill.com.
Aboriginal Voices Radio: AVR is now sending their signal on 106.5 FM in downtown Toronto, and presented the first of a Showcase Series last month at Healey's, with two acoustic duos, Raven Polson with Shoshona Kish and Jani Lauzon with Arthur Renwick, as well as rockers Lucie Idlout & Band, and 2003 JUNO winner Derek Miller. Within the next year, the Aboriginal Voices Radio Network will launch repeater stations in Ottawa, Calgary and Vancouver. For more information: Elaine Bomberry, AVR 416.703.1287, ext.235, elaine.bomberry@aboriginalradio.com.
Last month: Big Daddy G guitarist/leader Dave Glover plus co-leader/harmonica player Tortoise Blue appeared at a special Benefit Concert for the Head Injury Association Of Durham Region. Held at the Wing Shack in Whitby, Ontario, the night also featured Howard Ross, Grant Lyle, Blue Moose, Barney Adams, Marty & The Mojos, Mike Tabaras, Mike Hall, Jack de Keyzer and many more local musicians.
Next month: Dave Glover is launching a series called House of Wild Blues Guitar, commencing on Saturday, May 31st at Chicago's (335 Queen St West). Special guest guitarists include Toronto veteran Neil Chapman and Oakville's Mike Branton, backed by Ted Peacock (drums), Harpo Peterson (bass), and Lance Anderson (piano). This is anticipated to be a semi-annual event.
The busy life of Julian Fauth: Up & coming painist, guitarist and vocalist Julian Fauth is young enough to manage the following schedule of Toronto gigs: Every Thursday, Friday, and Saturday at 10 pm at Easy & The 5th, Green Room, 225 Richmond St. West, every Sunday at 2 pm, Tuesday at 8:30 pm (with David Rotundo), and Wednesday at 8pm at Kiwi Kick West, 1986 Bloor St. West, and every Monday at 9:30 pm at Kensington Terrace, Kensington Avenue.
CFBU 103.7 FM: From Brock University in St. Catharines, Deborah Cartmer advises that, in April, "after 10 gruelling months", the radio station resumed broadcasting. Check out her show, Eclectic Blues.
Cambridge blues: Every Sunday afternoon, 4 to 8pm, Mo' Kauffey brings his "Folk-n-Blues" to Cafe Calisa, 960 King St. East, Cambridge, Ontario.
Blues and Boogie-man Alan Gerber in Concert: "Seeing Alan Gerber perform live is a joyous experience. You can tell he loves to be in front of an audience and truly whips them into a frenzy. He's amazing!" Holger Peterson, CBC Saturday Night Blues. We're advised that "Alan Gerber (www.alangerber.org) is a performer and songwriter with longtime loyal fans across Europe, Australia and Japan, as well as back home. He began and is best known as the front man for 70's supergroup Rhinoceros. His musical resume reads like a who's who of the rock, folk and blues world. He has toured with BB King, John Lee Hooker, Janis Joplin, Jefferson Airplane, Traffic, Jimi Hendrix, Steppenwolf, Procol Harum, Moody Blues, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Canned Heat and Jeff Beck. His songwriting has been sought after by the best of the craft, including Bob Dylan for his film Renaldo and Clara. But affiliations aside, after three decades of performing, Alan Gerber is still knocking the socks off audiences wherever he plays. He coaxes a danceable blend of boogie, blues and folk-rock from every instrument that he so adeptly plays - guitar, piano, fiddle or his own voice. Over the past couple of years, he has left Canadian concert-goers begging for more, from the Montreal Jazz Festival to Blues Skies Festival. Gerber's current efforts include the recording of several solo albums, Chicken Walk, Fools That Try, and Alan Gerber Live For A Limited Time Only. These albums have received rave reviews, and the "Top Pick" seat in Hour Magazine, with heavy airplay on radio worldwide." He'll be in concert on May 1 as part of the Fiddles & Frets concert series at Bellefair United Church, 2 Bellefair Ave in Toronto and on Sunday May 4, 2pm, following Sunday Brunch at the Baba Ganoush Restaurant, 232 Broadway, in Downtown Orangeville. Tickets are $10 by reservation only, at 519-940-8291.
New Blues Society. Sunday, May 25, 2003 is the official launch of the Grand River Blues Society. The event will take place at the Cambridge Centre for the Arts, 45 Thorne St . The doors will open at 2PM and it will be over by 5PM. It's free and all interested parties are welcome. Music will be provided by Daddy Long Legs and the bar will be open. The Grand River Blues Society is being formed to bring the Blues community together and promote blues in the area. To reach the Grand River Blues Society, email grandriverblues@mail.com.
Festivals already? The eighth annual Orillia Spring Blues Festival kicked off the festival season with the Downchild Blues Band, JUNO award winner Jack de Keyzer, Michael Pickett, Barney Adams, Fathead, Tony Springer, The Ronnie Douglas Blues Band, Jake Thomas & the Fundamentals, Little Jimmy Bowskill, The Sensations, Lance Anderson, The Mike Roberts Band, Blue Willow, Wayne Buttery & the Groove Quartet, Jumpin' Dunkin' & the Sugar Daddy's, Burgundy Rose, Shelaugh Hart, Peter Wainwright, Gentlemens Lunch, and The Dusty Blues Band. Festival season has already started in Quebec, with last month's Festival Jazz & Blues Héritage De Chicoutimi which featured Bryan Lee, Jack de Keyzer, Rob Lutes with Rob Mac Donald, Stephen Barry and Sara Latendresse.
Much more to Come: Bill King advises that The Beaches International Jazz Festival will have "an outstanding line-up once again, featuring some of the best blues bands around Toronto. Look for Downchild, Rita Chiarelli, Fathead, Jack de Keyzer, Dave Rotundo, Big Daddy G, Mark Stafford, The Rockit 88 Band/Saturday Nite Fish Fry, Rob Piazza and others. The First Annual Orangeville Blues & Jazz Festival will take place June 5 to 8, 2003. One of the many highlights of this event will be a free concert in Alexandra Park, behind the town hall, on Saturday June 7, featuring an all-Canadian line-up of award-winning musical talent, headlined by 2003 Juno Award winner Jack De Keyzer. Seven different acts will play on two stages from 2 to 8 pm. Second Street will be closed to traffic from Broadway to First Avenue for the day. The Orangeville farmers market will open early in the morning on Saturday and will have extended hours for the festival. Another highlight of the day will be the "Tastes of Orangeville" Local restaurants are being invited to set up tents at the festival to sell and serve samples of their tasty fare for the day. There will also be a beer garden set up with a good view of both stages. Several restaurants and bars will feature live jazz and blues acts performing over the course of the weekend. For more information contact Larry Kurtz, Festival Director, Phone 519-941-7875, Fax 519-941-3734, larryk@look.ca. And a new music festival will debut in July 2004, to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Peterborough Lift Lock, as well as to celebrate and profile Peterborough musicians. The Lift Lock City Music Festival have an official kick-off at the Showplace Performance Centre on Sunday May 18, 2003, at 7:30pm, with an evening of music showcasing over a half-dozen local musical acts, and with the simultaneous launch of the Lift Lock City Music compilation CD, which features songs from such Peterborough-based artists as Full Metal Booty, Beau Dixon, Natalie Hughes, Ronnie Hawkins, The Weber Brothers, The Diplomats, James McKenty, The Silver Hearts, Jude Waldman, Kim Doolittle, The Conestokers, Uncle Jim, Joe Hall, Washboard Hank, Pat Temple, Otonabee Groove, Dub Trinity and Number One World. Tickets are $15 each, with the proceeds going toward the staging of the inaugural Lift Lock City Music Festival in July 2004. The Lift Lock City Music compilation CDs are also $15 each. As an early bird special, a ticket to the Showplace Musical Extravaganza and/or the compilation CD are$10.00 each before May 11th, 2003. VIP Tickets are available for $25 each which includes a seat in the first five rows, reception with hors d'oeuvres from 6:30-7:30 and a copy of the CD. Ninety-nine years ago, Peterborough, Ontario witnessed the completion of its Hydraulic Lift Lock, the first historic mechanical engineering landmark in Canada, and the highest of its kind in the world, rising up sixty-five feet (19.8m). Peterborough, Ontario has come to be known as the Lift Lock City since this landmark was built in the community. Today, Peterborough also enjoys a great reputation as a fertile creative ground where many artists live and the fine arts thrive. For further information, please contact Paul Northcott, Executive Director, info@liftlockcitymusic.com (705-768-0607). www.liftlockcitymusic.com.
Harvest 2003 will be presenting like Hot Toddy, Glamour Puss, Theresa Malenfant, AJ and the Red Hots, and many more. This year's Harvest Jazz & Blues Festival will feature Colin James, David Wilcox, Jane Bunnett & the Spirits of Havana, Deborah Coleman, Lil Ed & the Blues Imperials, Carol Welsman, Corey Harris, Henry Butler, Anthony Gomes, Roddie Romero & the Hub City All-Stars, The Reggae Cowboys, David Rotundo & the Blue Canadians, Little Bobby and the Jump Starts, Great Uncles of the Revolution, and the The Fair-Galloway Quintet.
Atlantic Scene: Many of the best Atlantic blues talents were in Ottawa last month, performing at the Atlantic Scene Festival at the National Arts Centre, including Hot Toddy, Glamour Puss, John Campbelljohn, Matt Minglewood, Isaac & Blewett, Theresa Malenfant, Charlie A'Court, JP Le Blanc, Darrell Cooper & The Strong Persuaders, Scott Parsons, Peter Narvaez, and Goudie Bishop Parker.
Montreal's 17th Harmonica Festival: Took place last month with host Carl Tremblay at Café Campus, with guests Guy Bélanger, Louis-Philippe Bélanger, Billy Craig, Chris Cool, Junior, Lise Hanick, Suzanne-Marie Landry, Roby Paquin, Raymond Paré, Per, Harmonica Zeke, Jim Zeller and others.
More Bus Trips: This one's to the Montreal Jazz Fest on Canada Day weekend, departing from the Hamilton area very early Saturday June 28, with a pick-up at Yorkdale Station/Mall in Toronto, and possibly also in Oshawa/Pickering and Belleville/Kingston, returning late afternoon/early evening on Tuesday July 2. The trip includes 3 nights accommodation at one of the small European style hotels only minutes away from Old Montreal & the jazz festival site. Cost is $249 per person (based on double occupancy), or $139 for the bus only. Email mudcatblues@hotmail.com.
East Coast Blues website: The East Coast Blues Society proudly announces the launching of its website (although there is much still "under construction"): www.eastcoastblues.ca.
Mojo Mama: Tracy K received a most favourable review on her US festival debut at the Women's Blues Festival last month at Famous Dave's in Minneapolis, Minnesota, which also featured Doña Oxford, Nellie "Tiger" Travis, and E.C. Scott.
Otha Turner 1907 to 2003: (www.birdmanrecords.com/othaframe) Otha Turner, master of the homemade fife and king of the barbecued goat and music picnic, died early April in Gravel Springs, Mississippi. Most agree he was 94. He had been hospitalized in recent weeks for pneumonia. Turner, who played a bamboo cane fife, or wooden flute, was a living link to rural blues and a 19th Century fife-and-drum tradition that predated the blues. His music was recently featured in Martin Scorsese's Academy Award-nominated film Gangs of New York. Born in Rankin County, Mississippi, Turner (whose first name is also often listed as Othar) grew up in the North Mississippi hill country of Tate and Panola counties, where he spent much of his life as a sharecropper and subsistence farmer. Turner first heard the fife as a teenager in the 1920s. "We was in Panola picking cotton when it come up a foggy rain," he told The Commercial Appeal in 2000. "We grabbed our cotton sacks and headed for the house. Mr. R. E. Williams, a tall, brown-skinned man, was playing music on a piece of fishing pole cane. " `What's that you blowin'?' I said. `It's a fife.' I thought a fife was a dog, but I asked him would he make me one and he said he would if I minded my mama." Turner's music, which he often played with his Rising Star Fife & Drum Band, was an important bridge to a past shared by late fife players Sid Hemphill and Napoleon Strickland, with whom Turner also played in the Como Drum Band. The style usually pairs a fife against two bass drums and a snare. It was a sound that grew out of a 19th Century military tradition but one that brought African and African-American elements to it such as blues notes and syncopation, says Grammy-winning scholar, producer and musician David Evans, who recorded Turner, notably for the Library of Congress in 1969. A W. C. Handy Blues Awards nominee this year for best instrumentalist, Turner played such regional festivals as the Beale Street Music Festival and King Biscuit Blues Festival in Helena, Arkansas. He took his processional-appropriate music elsewhere and performed as opening act for the Chicago Blues Festival and the 2001 grand reopening of Nashville's Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, where Turner's group led a limo cavalcade that drove George Jones, Eddy Arnold and other country music legends to the front of the hall's new downtown address. Turner was also a frequent guest at the Center for Southern Folklore's Memphis Music & Heritage Festival. "He was one of the first people that I realized the poetry of his voice," says folklore center executive director Judy Peiser, who also worked on making the documentary Gravel Springs Fife and Drum, a film from the early 1970s that featured Turner. His reputation grew through his annual Labor Day picnic at his home in Gravel Springs, which drew people from all over the world.
R&B legend Earl King dead at 69: (The Associated Press) Earl King, the prolific songwriter and guitarist responsible for some of the most enduring and idiosyncratic compositions in the history of rhythm & blues, died in April from diabetes-related complications. He was 69. Over his epic 50-year career, King wrote and recorded hundreds of songs. His best-known compositions include the Mardi Gras standards "Big Chief" and "Street Parade"; the rollicking "Come On (Let the Good Times Roll)," which both Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughan recorded; and "Trick Bag," the quintessential New Orleans R&B story-song. "`Come On (Let the Good Times Roll)' might be the one that people know, but I wish the world would hear more of his songs," said Mac "Dr. John" Rebennack, a longtime friend, fan and collaborator of King. "He approached songs from different angles, from different places in life. "There isn't one word to sum up the Earl King way of writing a song and approaching music." In his prime, he was an explosive performer, tearing sinewy solos from his Stratocaster guitar and wearing his hair in an elaborate, upraised coif. King's songwriting was informed by syncopated New Orleans beats and his interest in a broad range of subjects, from medieval history to the vagaries of the human heart and his own so-called "love syndromes."
Nina Simone dies in France: (Reuters) "Jazz and soul diva Nina Simone, whose smoky voice soared in civil rights songs and interpretations of gospel, ballads and George Gershwin, died on Monday at her home in the south of France, her manager said. She was 70 years old. Simone, a North Carolina native who spent most of her last decade in France, had been ill for some time, Clifton Henderson told Reuters when reached by telephone in France. Among her biggest hits were "My Baby Just Cares For Me," which endeared her to a new generation of fans three decades afer its first release, and an emotional 1959 recording of Gershwin's "I Loves You Porgy." A child prodigy raised in a family of eight children, she studied piano at New York's prestigious Juilliard School of Music, a rare opportunity for a black woman in the 1950s. Simone's musical range was enormous and she kept up with the musical times without ever losing her own distinctive voice and classically inspired piano style. Enigmatic and eccentric, she was equally at home playing the Newport Jazz Festival or Carnegie Hall, and by the mid-60s, she was playing to diverse audiences, ranging from college students to older jazz connoisseurs, while her music cut across racial lines. But she also had a reputation for being temperamental and would often miss concerts or fight with audiences. Yet she was consistently revered and imitated by other singers. In the mid-70s, Simone became a nomad, going into self-imposed exile reportedly tired of politics in the United States, where she felt less appreciated than by her fans in Europe and elsewhere. She lived variously in Barbados, Switzerland, France, Liberia, Trinidad and Britain, before moving to the south of France in 1993.
- Julie Hill
Blues
on the WWW
"Because we all need to feel the Blues" is a slogan that's become quite familiar to the online blues community in Canada over the last year since Andie Maranda and Baron Bedesky launched the canadianblues.ca website and listserve by the same name. These two young blues enthusiasts from St. Catharines, Ontario have built a very ambitious website, launched an active blues internet discussion group and have now just opened an online store specializing in Canadian blues recordings.
This site is full of information regarding the Canadian blues scene, including clubs and bars, festival listings, blues radio listings, artist profiles and blues news
The online store, which formally opened for business on March 8, is devoted solely to Canadian musicians and bands, and exclusively to those who focus on the blues. The intent is to provide a single outlet where fans have a wide variety of blues CDs by Canadian blues artists to pick and choose from before ordering online through a secure server. "Fans in Ontario may not know about all the great blues artists out west or in the Maritimes or even in Quebec. People in Newfoundland aren't aware of what's happening in BC, and vice-versa. Yet, we are all Canadians and I feel everyone should take pride in the talent in this country. That's what the web site and the store is all about. It's bringing the music to the people.' explains Andie Maranda, co-founder and designer of Canadianblues.ca.
The selection to choose from is extraordinary! Visitors to the site will find the titles arranged in alphabetical order by artist, cover art and two audio samples and a review. This proves to be helpful to buyers who may not be familiar with the artists' work. A good number of the CDs for sale are by independent blues artists who only get the chance to sell their CDs through their own web sites or at live shows.
"Blues fans tend to be very passionate about their music and will support it unfailingly when given the opportunity." said Baron, "This store provides that opportunity. Otherwise, tracking down all this great music can be challenging
In addition to CDs, the store also offers a variety of media-storage units, items that every music collector finds essential to organize their music. A variety of music-related products will be added in the future.
This is definitely the place to go to find Canadian Blues information. Thanks to the dedication of Andie and Baron, the doors of opportunity have opened tremendously for Blues musicians from coast to coast.
- Sarah French
You can visit their site at www.canadianblues.ca and join the canadianblues listserve by sending an email to canadianblues-L-subscribe@yahoogroups.com. To join the MapleBlue listserve, send an email to mapleblue-L-subscribe@yahoogroups.com. And if you're not on the internet yet, we hope you get out to the blues clubs in your area, because despite all this virtual community-building, there is *still* no substitute for live music.
TECHTIPS
by Norm Robinson
I'm going to call this article "Tone Tricks For The Electric Guitarist". In the quest for developing a guitar style, and my guitar tone, I've come across some interesting tone tricks that have come in handy for dealing with problems on the gig, or for adding spice to my sound. Not all of these are technical/electronic in nature, some in fact are quite simple and basic. Don't underestimate any of these, because under the right circumstances and with the right approach, they all have the potential to be useful. In no particular order here they are:
1) If you use a classic style Fender amplifier of the "Blackface" or "Silverface" variety, with a normal and a bright channel, here's a simple mod. Most people prefer the bright channel because it has more gain, as well as reverb and tremelo. Usually the bright channel is way too bright when the volume is low, and just about right when it's near full volume. There is no switch to disable the brightness so what do you do? The bright channel has a capacitor across the wiper and hot side of the volume pot. This capacitor has increasingly less effect as the volume is turned up and no effect when the volume is full up. Unsoldering one side of the capacitor and lifting it off the pot, will solve the problem of this channel being too bright. How do you do this? You bring it to a qualified technician. Tube amplifiers have lethal voltages stored in the power supply capacitors, that can shock you with hundreds of volts even if the amplifier is unplugged. So do not attempt amplifier mods yourself, unless you know what you are doing. Needless to say, verify first that the bright channel is indeed bright, (that some one else hasn't done this mod) by comparing channels.
2) Heres a tip for Fender tweed bassman owners. Take a short guitar cable and plug it into the normal channel/second input and plug the other end into the bright channel/first input. Plug your guitar into the Normal channel/first input. You've just bridged the inputs, and both channels are now active. Balance the volume of the bright and normal channels any way you want to suit your sound. You'll have more tonal control, as well as be able to drive the amp a little harder. This will also work other two channel fender tweed amps, vintage style Marshalls, Hiwatts, and just about any other two-channel amp without reverb. This will not work properly with the "blackface" or "silverface" fenders mentioned in tip #1 because the two channels are out of phase.
3) You arrive at the gig, and the stage/club is small. Your amp is too powerful for the room. How do you get your sound, if you can't turn your amp up? If you turn your amp around so the speaker is facing a wall, this stops the extreme highs that beam straight from the center of your speaker. The front row of the audience, and your band mates will thank you. You won't get that "icepick" sound. The sound is dissipated around the stage. Lots of pros do this. Roy Buchanan was known to do this so he could control his sound better.
4) A variation on the previous tip was used by Stevie Ray Vaughan. A little gaffer tape about 3" or 4" in diameter on the grill cloth, right in front of the speaker cone helps accomplish a similar result. You'll get more mids and more highs this way than the previous tip. But you'll still get rid of most of the dreaded "icepick through your skull" sound.
5) On the subject of SRV, I'm amazed at how many people who try to get a similar sound, don't consider all the equipment in the equation. Sure big strings will definitely give you more tone, a distortion pedal dialed up for a bit of distortion helps, but add in the 15" speakers, like he used in his Vibroverbs, and the shrillness of the transistor distortion disappears, and the low strings become thunderous. Oh, and don't forget to use the rounded end of a stiff pick instead of the pointed end. Any combination of these approaches will possibly be what you're looking for.
6) Most players who use guitars with humbucking pickups, find that when they turn down the volume control on their guitar, the sound becomes too muddy to be useful. This next tip is simple and safe to try. The volume pot in your guitar has one side going to ground, and one side being the hot or pickup side. The wiper is what you adjust when you turn the volume up or down. If you solder a 1 or 2 nanofarad (.001 or .002 microfarad) capacitor between the wiper and the hot side of your volume pot, you'll have more highs when you turn down the volume. You can experiment by using alligator clips to test different capacitors to find the value you like. This is totally safe, and you can't destroy anything. This is what the capacitor in tip #1 is doing. It routes the high frequencies around the volume pot. This tip will also work with single coil pickups as well. Experiment with capacitor values, the voltage rating is not critical at all. Purchasing 5 or 6 different values of capacitors, won't cost more than $3 or $4. If you can't do this mod yourself, enlist the help of a friend who has an elementary understanding of electronics, and likes to fool around with their guitars.
I've received comments and suggestions from some readers, and they are all greatly appreciated. If you have suggestions or questions you can e-mail me at Nsteelslider@aol.com . Let me know what's of interest for future columns. I can't guarantee a personal reply to all e-mails, but maybe simple questions could be addressed within the format of this column.
Norman Robinson works as a Technical Engineer at Manta Digital Sound & Picture, as well he is the band leader and guitarist for The VooDoo Kings, and Howlin' Mercy.
Time to start recording that Demo!
Deadline for submissions:
5pm Friday, May 9th
Of concern to the online blues community:
The TBS has recently sent out two email broadcasts to members announcing special events. If you are a TBS member and you have not received any email correspondence from the office, please send an email to info@torontobluessociety.com so that we can update our records.
Mapleblue-l, the email list that the TBS launched a few years back is returning to its original role as a medium for distributing blues news and announcements. Moderator Ian Angus reports, "Because there are now other lists that encourage freewheeling discussion, Mapleblue-L can refocus on its original objective of distributing blues news and announcements of interest to the Canadian blues community." Subscribers to MapleBlue-L have received the new List Description and explanation of the changes. Click here for the full description.
Toronto Blues Society Copyright _ 2003