By Mark Grove
Cadillac Zack has been burning the midnight oil with his band The Cadillac Zack Blues Band in California since the late 90’s. Zack has also been the resident sideman for the never aging bluesman—Elmore James Jr.
Zack and company have been playing mainly the LA area and doing a string of road gigs in Chicago, Canada and Europe. Zack very rarely if at all takes any days off, and in between shows is running his ever growing blues empire called American Blues Legends Management out of Los Angeles as well.
Zack emailed me basically answering a question I had as to where his style of guitar playing was pigeon-holed so to speak. I don’t often do that but, he said He was the “Frank Zappa” of blues. Meaning free form and free wheeling type of blues, jazz mixture that was innovative yet had an old blues feeling.
Zack currently has an indie release out with real blues singer Willie Pooch called
“The Blues Do Something to me”. Zack also acts as sideman and producer for
Elmore James Jr. on Elmo’s “Daddy Gave me the blues” on JSP Records.
http://www.myspace.com/cadillaczackbluesband
Where Zack really has honed his blues chops and acumen has been Chicago and California, watching and learning blues at the feet of the masters. From Blues men like John Primer, Phil Guy and another real blues vocalist Barkin Bill Smith who Zack met at B.L.U.E.S. in Chicago and started helping him out and slowly beginning his blues management career booking and promoting Barkin
Bill.
Zack ventured to California in 97’ and started working with the Southern California Blues Society, then forming his blues management company along with helping and promoting other California based blues artists.
CZ is also working on a top-top secret “thing” for blues artists and the blues community in California, and at this point probably going to be done internationally as well. I’ll inform you all later. It will be a good thing.
Zack developed his blues guitar playing chops by jamming with the best players in Chicgao, hint, hint. Then taking lessons from Billy Flynn who played with Piano man Pine Top Perkins. CZ got what he needed out of the Chicago Blues Scene and this young bluesman headed west to build his blues empire.
Playing with blues singers like Willie Pooch and real blues cats like Elmo Jr. have taken Zack’s guitar playing further, not just blues, but his adaption to various genres. Another thing I guess we should be talking about is what Zack has collected or developed along the way, and that’s an arsenal of gear even heavy metal guitarist’s would be envious of—and literally drool over.
I also asked Zack a number of questions on his gear of course and how he adapts it to his playing with mainly blues artists. For most Canadian Guitar Player readers, and that would be guitar players, you’ll love this interview with Cadillac Zack and how you can take your gear to the next level, or use it properly for different situations be it for gigs, session work or just jamming at the local Blues club in
Minnesota.
http://www.myspace.com/cadillaczackbluesband
Without further BS from me; Cadillac Zack’s gear.
MG: What kind of amp do you use?--The model--How many watts--and anything else you think is important.
CZ: I have four amps but the one I use most is a 35 watt 1968 Silverface Fender Super that someone messed with a little. I bought it right before I recorded the Elmore James Jr session. But someday I'll sell it and move on to a different amp. The only reason I use it on every gig is because I keep it in the trunk of my car, cuz I'm too lazy to bring it up the stairs.
If someone else put a Crate amp in my trunk, I'd use that instead. Brands actually mean nothing to me. I'd be just as happy with a Peavey amp and a Charvel guitar if it sounded good and unique. People have recently been saying they like my tone. But my goal is to have an odd tone that actually makes people want to start a bar fight.
MG: Do you use any effects--Stomp boxes--or distortion boxes?
CZ: On some things I use a Boss DD3 digital delay and a Boss Super Chorus, but I feel guilty when I do, because I see other guys using that junk. Mostly I just go straight in. Currently I'm playing a two-tone 2006 Jimmy Vaughan Strat from Mexico. It sounds good and is really light weight, which is all I really care about. My main goal in music is to not be crippled within five years.
MG: Do you use any other guitars or amps on stage or for studio sessions?
What kind of strings and the gauge?
CZ:I seem to use a different amp and guitar every time I "go in the studio." I own 13 different guitars, so which ever one is appropriate for the song I'm recording is what I use. Sometimes I deliberately use the most inappropriate guitar or amp just to make things different. I read years ago David Bowie said the best thing to do in the studio is to use the gear in a manner in which it was not intended, so what you come up with is unique.
I always remembered that and plan on employing such a method on most of my future recordings. As far as strings go, the lighter the better. I used to use 10s or 11s, but since I bend every single note, just like two of my heroes, Jimmy Johnson or Otis Rush, I have to use really light gauges or I'll be arthritic by the time I'm 40. If they made 7's that sounded good I'd use them. That is, until they came out with 6s! Right now I use 9's because that's the lowest gauge string you can use that still has enough tone where the band doesn't complain.
MG: Are there any quirky ways you've recorded tracks (Example:amp in another room with a mike just outside the room. You get what I'm saying.
CZ: Future recordings are going to see me doing things "all wrong", as mentioned above, in ways that only Bobo Jenkins would be proud. If you don't know Bobo Jenkins, you may want to do a Google search. I basically feel that my favorite real blues records were recorded two different ways; in a studio that was falling apart with an engineer who barely knew what he was doing. It is important to also let that engineer mix and master it all wrong too.
And the polar opposite; the way the Europeans recorded blues in the 60's through 80's - like it was Classical music they were merely documenting, recording everything with a really thin, unobtrusive sound. This way it makes the musicianship have to rise to the occasion. For examples of this listen to all the Black & Blue, Isabel and even the Samuel Charters recordings. They are just great lesser-known blues guys going into a studio and quickly recording with no frills. All the mistakes are left in there. The result is you feel like this is how the blues really sounds. Today's rock blues producers would hate me for saying that. I find most rock blues producers wind up with something that sounds like product, not music. Of course there are some incredible blues rock producers I think do it right and I love their philosophies too.
For more info on Cadillac Zack go to;
http://www.myspace.com/cadillaczackbluesband
• •
No comments:
Post a Comment