Diary of a Player (14 page)

In terms of their guitar playing, as I said before, Steve comes from the Chet Atkins school. Steve was a bass player and bandleader for Chet for a little while and sort of got adopted by Chet. Vince was also close to Chet, so in a sense, these were the guys anointed to carry on a great tradition.

Both incorporate the finesse of the fingerpickers like Chet Atkins, add a little Les Paul–type jazz, and pepper it with hints of Albert Lee. The funny thing about a guy like Albert Lee is that he's this Brit who shows up with the coolest twangy chicken-pickin' technique anyone had ever seen.
Of all the places to breed a blistering country honky-tonk hillbilly picker, the UK ought to be way down the list. But he has a well-earned reputation as a true guitar player's guitar player. Albert is part of a great musical continuum: first, there was James Burton, Don Rich, and Roy Nichols; then in the seventies, along comes Albert Lee playing with a great artist like Emmylou Harris, and he's playing faster than you have ever heard anybody play at this point. Listen to a song like “Luxury Liner” or his version of “Country Boy,” as I have a million times, and you'll be in awe of Albert Lee just like I am. Another gem of a bloke, Albert is a great example of a humble virtuoso—a master—known for his finger precision and hybrid picking style. If there is a common thread running between all of these players that I am talking about, it's humility. Guitar players really are for the most part a classy, pleasant bunch. Guys like James Burton, Steve, Vince, and Albert all have one thing in common—they are badasses. And yet they are modest about their abilities.

I've attempted to praise Albert on many occasions, and he always deflects the compliment. I guess he really doesn't realize the impact he has on guys like me. But boy, he has left a mark. The way a machine gun would leave a mark. Without Albert Lee, a lot of us might have gone in different directions,
but he sent all us twangy country chicken-pickers down a way more interesting path. Albert is one of those building-block musicians who changed the way the instrument was played.

My friend Linda Zandstra knows Albert really well. I was playing the Christmas party for the Academy of Country Music in one of my early years, and she called and said, “You know, Albert Lee is in town, and he'd love to come out and sit in with you if you want.”

Before that sentence was even finished, I spit out, “Are you kidding? Of course!” And to my amazement, Albert did come sit in. I barely knew him. Keith Urban was brand-new, too, at the time, and he looked at me and said, “Are you kidding me? Albert Lee is sitting in with us?!” My biggest memory of the night was the two of us practicing guitar in the men's room because it was the only place quiet enough to work out arrangements. Or maybe it was because we were afraid we would actually piss our pants if we tried to play for that audience unprepared. Either way, we had to look like idiots to anyone who actually had to take a leak. That night Keith Urban and I both stood there and played one song after another with the great Albert Lee for the first time. There were some trippy moments in the beginning of this ride, that's for sure. Those early days in my career, when it felt like every note I played
would build my reputation as a player, were thrilling to say the least. Especially when I was standing next to my heroes.

I
also was heavily influenced by the guitar players in the bands. Guys like Greg Jennings of Restless Heart with his studio chops and his incredibly tasteful approach to pop-country guitar parts really got my attention. For a while I was covering multiple Restless Heart songs in my shows and learning every lick on every track of their records. It was music that kids in my school were hearing on crossover/pop stations. I could play it on my car stereo, and they actually already knew it. It was also so sophisticated sounding, so slick. I think it was around that time that I got really serious about learning to play in the studio. I wanted to be the kind of player that the Restless Heart guys seemed to be: studio cats.

Of course there were the guys in Alabama as well. Jeff Cook and Randy Owen really invented a sound. It's something that's hard to define in a book, but it was somewhere between Waylon Jennings and Lynyrd Skynyrd—all the while being based on country songs. In my days playing the gigs and clubs in the Ohio Valley, there was one surefire way to win a crowd
over: play 'em some old Alabama. One of the highlights of my recording career is capturing that magic on the song “Old Alabama.” When Randy brought out that old Music Man guitar, Jeff put his signature parts down, and Teddy Gentry added his stamp. I was shocked at the time machine we had created. Of all my successful singles, this would be just about the most satisfying. There is nothing I love more than creativity, collaboration, and the feeling of something unique. Combine that with nostalgia as well, and it's a once-in-a-lifetime musical moment. I really think we accomplished that together.

Other major influences would be the West Coast country styles of the Eagles and Clarence White. I have always felt like the music that best exemplified my style was California country, be it Bakersfield or otherwise. I guess I could have packed my bags and headed there. But it was a long drive. That steel-guitar-soaked B-Bender music painted a picture of a desert almost better than Bob Ross on PBS could have. Bernie Leadon, Clarence, Joe Walsh, Don Felder, these guys were all smoking the same stuff. And that's not just a metaphor.

The guitar music of the Beatles, with its heavy rockabilly influence, also spoke to me. It would later be mostly their inventiveness in the studio and their tones and sounds that got me hooked.

But if I had to pick just one player whose style hit me the hardest and shaped me the most, I'd say that it was John Jorgenson and his playing with the Desert Rose Band. (Speaking of California.) I mentioned this band earlier in the book, and I don't even know how to describe how John's guitar sound spoke to me. It was the eighties, and everyone was playing a whole refrigerator rack full of processed gear that sounded more like Toto than Roy Nichols. I love Toto, too, but back then in country everyone put delay and compression all over their guitar parts. It seemed to go against the simplicity and earthiness that country music was claiming to champion. People'd be singing about Kentucky, but it sounded like New York. And then along comes the Desert Rose Band out of California, and they're using heavy pedal steel and a bluegrass rhythm style with Herb Pedersen and the singing of Chris Hillman, who was a key member of the Byrds and the Flying Burrito Brothers. They had all the balls of those old Emmylou Harris records. Wait, what? Anyway . . .

To top it all off, on lead guitar there's John Jorgensen, and he's one of the most insanely talented guitar players we've ever had in country music.

When the Desert Rose Band came through the Wheeling Jamboree, they blew my mind, and in a way I'm still not over
it. I can remember watching John plug a Telecaster-style guitar right into a delay pedal and into an old Vox AC30, which had never previously been used in country music. That was the kind of amp used for Beatles records, Led Zeppelin, etc. So John Jorgenson took what Don Rich did and added this British Invasion thing and his own meaty, melodic, nimble style. Instantly, as if given a mission from God, I thought,
I'm getting one of those amps and I'm learning to play as close to this guy as I possibly, humanly can
. Because the way John plays is otherworldly good.

If I had to pick just one player whose style hit me the hardest and shaped me the most, I'd say that it was John Jorgenson and his playing with the Desert Rose Band.

This was one of those many moments when being a part of the Wheeling Jamboree became my fantasy camp. Not only do I see John Jorgenson play at a young age, I get to open for him, to meet him, and even to have a man-to-boy talk about amplifiers. That's the conversation that got me to make what was the biggest investment of my young life (which I wrote about earlier) and also learn about the premium cost of international phone calls.

After the Desert Rose Band, John went on to play with Elton John and to form an amazingly
brilliant group called the Hellecasters. When he left the Desert Rose Band, the guys got back together to play for Buck Owens's seventieth birthday party around the year 2000. John was not able to attend, so they were going to just do it without lead guitar until this new artist with a paisley Tele-caster walked up and said, “Hey, I know these songs. I'll play.” You should have seen Chris Hillman's face when the solo in “Hello Trouble” came around and I nailed it. He shot me a look that was both flattered by my devotion and sad for my obvious lack of social life during the eighties. Again recently, I lived out one of my dreams when I got to sit in with the Desert Rose Band for a reunion show they did in Nashville. I played on “Hello Trouble” again, but this time with John and I each trading solos and then doing harmony parts. And fantasy camp continues.

I actually got to play with Chris Hillman a few more times, one of them when we came together to honor Buck Owens. Shortly after Buck died in 2006, I was invited to participate in a tribute to Buck at the Academy of Country Music Awards in Las Vegas. The band for our tribute that night featured Dwight Yoakam, Billy Gibbons from ZZ Top, original Buckaroos steel guitarist Tom Brumley, Buck and Bonnie Owens's son Buddy Alan Owens, and Travis Barker of Blink-182 on drums.

I'll never forget that afterward, Chris Hillman took me aside and said, “I want to tell you something. When I was in your shoes, I was an asshole. Brad, I've been watching you closely these past few days, and I am happy to say, you are so far from an asshole. I am
so
proud of you. Keep your head on your shoulders, and don't mess it up.”

This was honestly one of the nicest things that anyone had ever said to me, especially while using the word “asshole.”