EQUIPMENT PICKS FROM TOWNES VAN ZANDT, ELIOT FISK, STEVE GOODMAN, AND TIM SPARKS
played a blond Gibson J-200 for the last five or six years of his life. He got the guitar through a Gibson endorsement. According to Chip Phillips, a luthier in the Gibson custom shop in Nashville and a friend of Van Zandt's, the instrument has a spruce top, maple back and sides, a maple neck, a rosewood mustache bridge, and factory-installed SORS (Symbiotic-Oriented Receptor System) electronics with a piezo-type saddle pickup and built-in preamp.
"Townes really loved that guitar," Phillips says. "Every time I saw him since he got that guitar, he was very appreciative. Townes wasn't a materialistic person, but you'd have had a hard time prying that guitar away from him. It was his pride and joy."
Phillips also recalls Van Zandt playing a Gibson Hummingbird, a Gibson J-45 sunburst, and an Epiphone EJ-200 at different times in his career.
Harold Eggers, Van Zandt's longtime manager and executive producer, remembers a Takamine Van Zandt played during the '80s that he called the Tin Man, because it sounded so trebly. "It had more high end than anything," Eggers says. "He loved that guitar, but if the treble was turned up too high you could really hear it ring."
--John Herndon
performs mostly on his 1988 Thomas Humphrey Millennium guitar. "It's a very good touring instrument," he says. "It's strong and versatile." At home, he's more likely to play his 1986 Fleta, which he values, as he says, for its "great beauty, depth, and sweetness. It's more sensitive than the Humphrey, more apt to change, and not quite as fast. I recorded most of the Segovia album on it." Fisk always strings up with Augustine Blues.
Fisk will use amplification when necessary, but he's not enthusiastic about it. "I'm still looking for something decent," he comments.
Although Fisk prefers a traditional footstool for concert work, he likes to practice with the Efel Guitar Support (distributed in the U.S. by GHS). In his words, "It's great. It keeps your spine straight."
For the inevitable fingernail repair, Fisk uses silk wrap and a brand-X plastic resin that he stocks up on at a Korean store somewhere in Manhattan's 30s. "Crazy glue's no good," he says. "This stuff is less damaging, and it's easier to work with."
--John Lehmann-Haupt
began playing guitar on a nylon-string Harmony, graduating next to a Harmony Sovereign and then to a maple Gibson Hummingbird. During his performing career, he favored medium- and small-body acoustics. Although he played dreadnoughts early on, including a Martin D-28, he came to favor concert- and grand concert&endash;sized instruments like '50s and '60s Gibsons, including an LG-1, an LG-3, and a CF-100E (concert-sized, with a sharp cutaway and a factory pickup). He also owned a Martin 000 that now belongs to John Prine, a 1950 Martin 5-18 given to him by Jerry Jeff Walker, and a Martin M-38 he played in the late '70s and '80s, which his then-cohort Maple Byrne describes as "a workhorse instrument."
In Goodman's last two or three years of performing, the M-38 was seen less frequently in favor of a Maccaferri-style cutaway acoustic, imported from Japan by Saga. In conjunction with a Sony ECM-50 lavalier mic mounted internally, he used a Sunrise pickup in the Saga (although other soundhole pickups are visible in various photos). He also had an early tube direct box by Jim Demeter, the forerunner to the unit Sunrise now sells in conjunction with its pickups.
Goodman's penchant for breaking strings is all the more remarkable given his preference for mediums. He assaulted the strings with green Jim Dunlop Tortex .73-millimeter or Fender medium-heavy flatpicks.
On the rare occasions when he toured with a band, Goodman might be seen with a cherished '60s Fender Telecaster "with action high enough to walk under," according to Byrne. Various photos show Goodman playing an interesting array of other instruments, including a blond D'Angelico archtop and a semi-hollow electric Gibson
ES-355.
Late in his career (and long after teaming up with mandolin master Jethro Burns), Goodman added mandolin-family instruments to his repertoire, especially a Flatiron mandola and octave mandolin (whose lower two courses are tuned in octaves rather than in unison).
--Ben Elder
plays a variety of music, which means he requires a variety of instruments. On Guitar Bazaar and in concert he plays the Taylor 812C that he won at Winfield's National Fingerpicking Guitar competition in 1994. On the Nutcracker Suite CD, you can hear his José Enriques requinto. With Middle Eastern ethnic bands, he plays a Turkish-built oud, and he keeps a 1947 Epiphone Zephyr Regent with a Les Paul pickup for jazz gigs.
Sparks tunes his Taylor down a full step and capos at the second fret. "It gives me 12 frets," he explains, "and with the cutaway it works well. I use light-gauge strings, which lowers the tension and makes them feel supple." He started using this setup after an attack of tendinitis. Capoing up changed his arm position enough to allow him to play, and, he says, "I really like the way it cuts through and has this beautiful, bright, high sound." He uses and endorses De Salvo Music strings.
The Taylor's Fishman saddle pickup and internal mic have been supplemented by a Sunrise magnetic soundhole pickup. "I've done some gigs," Sparks says, "where you've got five minutes to grab a sound. I never want to be in that position again. The Fishman sounds good if you've got time to EQ it, unbelievably good, but the Sunrise gets the job done fast. You plug it in, and it's there. You can work with it."
Sparks' Mexican-built requinto is a three-quarter&endash;size instrument that he tunes up to G or G#. "Requintos are neat because you can play in first-position voicings, and voices that normally would be too dark come alive. There are lots of nice possibilities for playing fingerstyle. Jeff Linsky has done a record of arrangements of standards on requinto [Solo, GSP], and he gets new takes on the material because he's playing in first position."
--Russell Letson
|
|
|
|
|
|