Fretboard Journal



Today’s podcast episode is with Liam Kazar, a Chicago-born singer-songwriter and guitarist currently touring in Jeff Tweedy’s band.

Liam just put out a new record, Pilot Light, which he made at Flying Cloud Studios in upstate New York. Check it out and catch him on the road.

https://www.instagram.com/liamkazar

https://liamkazar.com

Our 57th issue of the Fretboard Journal is now mailing. Subscribe here to get it. It also makes for a great gift.

Our next Fretboard Summit takes place August 20-22, 2026, at the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago. https://fretboardsummit.org

We are brought to you by Peghead Nation: https://www.pegheadnation.com (Get your first month free or $20 off any annual subscription with the promo code FRETBOARD at checkout).

Stringjoy Strings: https://stringjoy.com

We are also brought to you by Seattle’s own Mike & Mike’s Guitar Bar. https://mmguitarbar.com

The post Podcast 527: Liam Kazar first appeared on Fretboard Journal.

A short excerpt from our interview with Andy Shauf in the Fretboard Journal 57. 

I first came into contact with Andy Shauf’s music by comparison. In high school, after a gig, someone asked me if he was one of my main inspirations, and I embarrassingly admitted not knowing him. Getting compared to someone I’d never heard before gave me this strange sense of kinship, like I was about to encounter an artist who would change my life. The Party had just come out; a sprawling narrative following a group of characters that weave in and out of songs, and a template he would go on to use for albums like Neon Skyline and Norm. Unsurprisingly, I became an instant fan. I’ve always been interested in both song and fiction, which Shauf seamlessly blends in an observant, cinematic and writerly way. His albums are their own kind of novels.

When Shauf is not releasing music under his own name, he is a member of the band Foxwarren, who have just released their highly anticipated second album entitled 2. The album’s distinct sound was born out of Shauf’s love for a specific piece of gear: the sampler, which he used to cut up and remix sound bites and recordings contributed by his bandmembers. Resultingly, 2 has this uncanny feel — real instruments rendered and synthesized through technology in a way that feels both incredibly Shauf-ian and distinct from any of his prior records.

What was originally supposed to be a conversation about a specific piece of gear inevitably turned into a discussion of writing and recording processes, a love of literary structures, a lost disco record, and, as promised, a six-stringed family heirloom.

Photograph by Angela Lewis. 

Sofia Wolfson: I would love to first hear about the out-of-the-ordinary process of making of this record.

Andy Shauf: We started out with the idea that we wanted to make a live, off-the-floor record, which is maybe the dream of all indie musicians, to have that kind of old-school experience. But it wasn’t going very well. But then we tried to figure out how we would be able to collaborate from a distance. It coincided with my buying a certain piece of gear, which was a sampler. It was a Maschine MK3, which is not what I use now, but the standalone version wasn’t available yet. I was trying to think of ways to change up my process where you sit at the guitar, you sit at the piano, and you end up reaching for the same notes all the time. Your hand is used to certain chords. I thought the sampler would be a good way to shake it up. My idea was: I’ll record a voice memo of myself playing an instrument, I’ll plug it into the sampler and chop it up, and then I can blindly find things just with my ear.

I was messing around with that idea around the same time that we started meeting for Foxwarren. We made this shared folder to upload song ideas to. I uploaded a song called “Dance” that was written on a chopped-up piano, and the guys really liked it. So I said, Okay, if you guys want this song, then we have to go in this direction of continuing to use the sampler and seeing how we can keep exploring this. At the time, I wanted to make two records. I wanted to make a synth record and a sampler record. Foxwarren called the sampler record. The synth record is actually my record Norm, which maybe isn’t the first thing you’d think of.

SW: So you were playing the sampler like it was its own instrument?

AS: Yeah, essentially. It’s like a middleman. I’ll just sit down at an instrument and noodle for a minute, and then I’ll put it into the sampler. There will be some good ideas in there sometimes, but my big problem is my short-term memory.

SW: What do you mean?

AS: Well, when I’m playing, I’m not thinking in theory. I think in hand shapes, like Phoebe from Friends. I forget what I’ve played. If something I play really strikes my ear and I want to revisit it, I will have forgotten it already. But when I’m using the sampler this way, I can do whatever I want, I can move my hands however far away from each other, and then I can find it again. It’s unlocked a lot of unique things that I would have never been able to find, or would have never been able to re-find in just letting my hands wander the keys.

SW: How did the contributions from the other members of Foxwarren start to factor in? Did you find that it was a similar process, or did the process develop and change because now you weren’t the only source material of the sound?

AS: The hardest thing for me is that I don’t have much of a singing range. My voice is limited in these ways that are hard to explain. When I find a melody, I know that I can sing it. When someone else writes a melody, I know that it’s going to be a struggle for me to sing it. It’s going to be too low or it’s going to reach too high. I don’t have enough of a range for what people think singers’ ranges should be. That was kind of a limitation that we were running into early where the guys would send in a song idea and the vocal melody would be something that I couldn’t do. So, having the sampler to reorganize their thoughts, if I couldn’t find anything directly from it, was really useful. It felt like a way that we could actually collaborate on ideas from a distance.

It’s kind of the same thing when you’re in the room collaborating on writing. A person’s idea is going to push you to expand on your own, and then they’ll expand on it, and so on. This felt like the distant equivalent of that.

There was also the limitation of us all having different degrees of home studio. Avery [Kissick] would send in a drum take and it sounds like he’s just playing drums in a basement, because he is. For a full take of that, there’s a certain dimension that you’re stuck with. But what we found is: That sound isn’t bad. It’s unique and it sticks out. If you use it more like a collage with looping and accentuating certain quirks in the sound, then it takes on a whole new life. It’s not as flat anymore, even though you’re totally flattening it. The repetition of it brings a vibe to it that isn’t just “basement.” It’s more interesting than that.

To read the rest of the interview, order the issue or subscribe. 

The post Excerpt: Andy Shauf in the Fretboard Journal 57 first appeared on Fretboard Journal.

On today’s episode of the podcast, Sofia Wolfson talks to TJ Hiemel, owner of Troy, New York’s Love of Fuzz store.

TJ shares with us some of his favorite gear that has come through the shop, his role in the upstate music community, the magic behind his ever-evolving inventory, and much more. Be sure to follow the shop’s Instagram to stay up to date with their inventory.

https://www.instagram.com/love_of_fuzz/

https://www.loveoffuzz.com/

Our new, 57th issue of the Fretboard Journal is now mailing. Subscribe here to get it.

Our next Fretboard Summit takes place August 20-22, 2026, at the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago. https://fretboardsummit.org

We are brought to you by Peghead Nation: https://www.pegheadnation.com (Get your first month free or $20 off any annual subscription with the promo code FRETBOARD at checkout).

Stringjoy Strings: https://stringjoy.com

We are also brought to you by Seattle’s own Mike & Mike’s Guitar Bar. https://mmguitarbar.com

The post Podcast 526: Love of Fuzz’s TJ Hiemel first appeared on Fretboard Journal.

Hayden Pedigo performs “Long Pond Lily” from his 2025 album, I’ll Be Waving as You Drive Away at the Fretboard Journal.

https://www.instagram.com/amarillohighway/?hl=en

https://linktr.ee/haydenpedigo

The post Hayden Pedigo – “Long Pond Lily” first appeared on Fretboard Journal.



Vermont-based guitar hero Paul Asbell joins us this week to talk about his new book, ‘Stages: Ruminations, Rants, and Reminiscences on a Life in Music.’

In ‘Stages,’ Paul recounts stories from early in his career when he worked as a sideman for legendary blues artists on the South Side of Chicago. We also hear about Paul’s unique upbringing, his love for luthier-made instruments, why he left Chicago for Vermont, and so much more.

Order ‘Stages’ here: https://paulasbell.com/product/stages-ruminations-rants-and-reminiscences-on-a-life-in-music-book/

Our new, 57th issue of the Fretboard Journal is now mailing. Subscribe here to get it.

Our next Fretboard Summit takes place August 20-22, 2026, at the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago. https://fretboardsummit.org

We are brought to you by Peghead Nation: https://www.pegheadnation.com (Get your first month free or $20 off any annual subscription with the promo code FRETBOARD at checkout).

The post Podcast 525: Paul Asbell first appeared on Fretboard Journal.

Photo by Steven Perlin

Today, contributor and FJ56 subject Cameron Knowler has released a covers EP, East of the Gilas (Lagniappe Session). In honor of his new EP, we are giving online readers an exclusive look into the pages of our print magazine by publishing Philippe Custeau’s profile of Knowler from our 56th issue. We also recently put out a live video of Cameron performing “Sunflower River Blues” on our YouTube. 

Yuma-born, Nashville-based Guitarist Cameron Knowler

By Philippe Custeau

“Who is your favorite guitar player?” Cameron Knowler asked.  It was a blustery January morning in 2022, and we were meeting for the first time.  My interest had been piqued by “Guitars Have Feelings Too,” a book he’d recently released, part instructional manual and part flatpicking manifesto. I had sent him a message to inquire about his teaching schedule, and he’d promptly suggested we convene on a video conference to see if we could be a good fit.

I was initially taken aback when he appeared on screen. He looked to be in his early 20s, and so, by all measures, I’d already been playing guitar for longer than he had been aware of their existence Knowler sat upright, almost stiffly, his long thin hair battling some imperceptible wind.  He came off as so unassuming and soft-spoken that the bluntness of his query also caught me off guard, and I wondered if we would be able to find any common ground there.  I considered this for a moment. “Probably Robert Bowlin,” I replied, “and John Fahey.”  Knowler’s eyes widened. “Robert Bowlin?” he repeated, visibly surprised. “I wasn’t expecting that.” He then added, “Never heard him and Fahey brought up together.” I told him I thought that, oddly, there were elements connecting the two. He nodded in approval. “I couldn’t agree more. I think we will be just fine.”

Photo by Micah Matthewson

Knowler laughs when I bring this up as we sit down again two years later, this time to discuss CRK, his latest collection of tunes. “That’s right!” he says, lifting a finger and flashing one of his characteristic Native turquoise rings. His large denim shirt is draped loosely over his shoulders, framing a squash blossom pendant necklace. It would have been impossible for either of us to divine the sequence of events that occurred in the intervening time, and which resulted in the aforementioned Bowlin playing piano and guitar on a few tracks of the record. And yet, this also seems to be a recurring motif in his story.

Knowler was born in Yuma, Arizona, a small town on the Colorado River just a few miles from the California and Mexico borders. “The sunniest place on earth,” he adds, though, I quickly find out, the narrative of his formative years there is anything but that.

His mother, a young woman looking for an escape from Manhattan, settled in the desert outpost hoping to carve out a pastoral life framed by a set of fringe ideologies — most notably a systematic distrust of the formal educational and medical systems. She met Knowler’s father at a counseling session soon after her move, and even a few years and two kids later, her resolve wouldn’t soften.  So, Knowler explains, neither he nor his older brother attended school.  “Not home-schooled,” he quickly adds, “but un-schooled.” When I press the matter further, trying to get a sense of what that means, he shrugs as if to indicate there wasn’t a very rigorous philosophy informing any of those decisions. “We basically spent our days riding dirt bikes and digging holes in the backyard.”

If Knowler’s candor weren’t so immediately palpable, one could suspect him of having a flair for drama, or of gleaning bits and pieces from Western novels and maybe even a Coen brothers’ movie or two — his parents gifted him a gun at age 10 — when he paints a portrait of his childhood. “So from zero to 11, basically I’d never seen anyone my own age because I was living in a retirement community. The foothills area of Yuma is where the snowbirds go — retirees that have a house in Idaho, it gets really cold there in the winter, and they go to Yuma and then they get their dental work and their cigarettes.”

The family traveled very little, and the aridity of their surroundings was mirrored in their social life. Knowler’s recollection of that period is a kaleidoscopic series of images centered around the desert, isolation, but also the quality of the light in Arizona, and the colors of the Navajo and Zuni art being sold in the market.

Unexplainedly, he attended middle school for a single year at 11 and thrived academically, rising to the top of the class against all expectations. On the last day before summer vacation, his mother met him at the bus stop, and announced that they would be moving to Texas without her husband. That night Knowler witnessed his father being carted away by the authorities, and that was the last he would see of him and of Yuma for the decade and a half that followed. Instead, his first years in a Houston suburb were again spent in aimless wandering through the city on his skateboard, smoking cigarettes with his brother while his mother’s health began steadily declining.

Knowler is a gifted storyteller, and he paints a vivid portrait of the first half of his life with the studied detachment of someone who’s spent years trying to assemble it into a coherent narrative.  I have to remind myself to steer the conversation back to guitar.

When asked if he has any musical memories of that period, he takes a cinematic pause to reflect, as if to indicate that we have now entered consequential territory. He began by learning drums, then moved on to electric guitar, and quickly realized dexterity and technique came easily to him. He would play Guns N’ Roses and study the prototypical metal riffs without any real sense of direction initially. That is, until he took an organized group bus trip with his grandparents at 14.

On an overnight stop in Cody, Wyoming the travelers were given a choice between attending a rodeo or a bluegrass concert. The majority chose the obvious, but Knowler, on a whim, insisted on seeing the concert.  There he witnessed a family band playing some fiddle tunes, and one of the titles, “Whiskey Before Breakfast,” stuck with him.

Knowler is not predisposed to hyperbole, and yet he makes it plain that this experience would change the course of his life. Having returned home from the trip, he looked up the aforementioned number online and the first video that came up was an excerpt of Norman Blake’s first Homespun tape.  “I saw his right hand and told myself: I want to do that,” he says pointedly, “the looseness, the studiedness.” He would subsequently sell his Les Paul copy, his Parker Nite Fly and a few Ibanez guitars and buy a Japanese D-28 copy, and eventually cobble together the money for a new, 2012 D-18. He began studying Norman Blake’s music, videos — and hands — obsessively.

Knowler laughs when I inquire whether he had an inkling that this would turn into a career. “It was a total hobby, and I started making YouTube videos, like I had anything to say. Like a year into seriously playing flatpick guitar, I made tutorial videos where I didn’t know anything.  And I would teach the wrong chord progression, but I loved teaching.  It was basically a visual journal. I have journal books filled with like, ‘What is a triad? What is a major six?’ asking myself these very fundamental questions.”

If this doesn’t make it plain that Knowler was a preternaturally precocious teenager, the fact that he then enrolled in a community college at 16 to study music appreciation — without having gone to high school — should. “It was a battle,” he says. “Every single day it was a battle. I had to come up with fake paperwork for a homeschooling group and pretend like it had collapsed and they no longer had copies of my academic records. And then doing these entry exams and acing the writing portion and the critical thinking stuff, but my math was multiple years behind, so I had to do accelerated courses and got up to speed in about three to six months.”  He would eventually move on to the jazz studies program at the University of Houston, where, incredibly, he started writing a book which he intended as a “method for rural guitarists” — a 230-page instructional manual, treatise on and analysis of the backup guitar stylings of players such as Jim Baxter, Norman Blake, Maybelle Carter and Riley Puckett.

Despite his steadfast dedication to the craft, Knowler still had planned to follow in the footsteps of some of his relatives, and enrolled in law school after having completed his jazz degree. He went so far as to take the LSAT, get accepted, and move near the campus. But before the start of the semester, after a long boozy evening spent playing tunes with a friend, he finally admitted to himself that his heart wasn’t actually in it. He was drawn to the challenge of higher education more than to an actual career in law. “I realized that, to me, the best thing about being a lawyer was just being able to say you’re a lawyer,” he quips. His friend mentioned his graduate work in archives. “And at that moment,” Knowler recounts, “I was like, I’m going to do that. That’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to do a Master’s in archives. I love archives.”

He spent a lot of time alone in that small apartment next to the law faculty building at the start of the pandemic. “I started having these vivid hallucinations of moving to Los Angeles,” he recalls. “Many came true when I finally did.” Some of them consisted in meeting a few of his musical heroes, Norman Blake included, having his favorite guitar players join him on CRK, and eventually moving to Nashville, where he currently resides.

Photo by Annabella Boatwright

Knowler’s guitar playing itself is certainly worthy of its own dissection, and it highlights the sentiment brought forth by the title of his instructional manual. While unquestionably dexterous, he doesn’t rely on speed or volume to convey virtuosity. Knowler has a sophisticated, delicate touch on the instrument and balances melody and rhythmic movement with a poise that belies, or at least transcends his youth. He is a distinctly nuanced player, but also surprisingly restrained.  When I ask how he conceives of his own style, he replies modestly, “I think of it as modern, from unlikely, very disparate sources. Basically it’s a collage of American music and it’s modern.”  He ponders this for a second. “I think it’s traditional to modernists and modern to traditionalists.”

When he speaks of archival work, Knowler describes the process as a reorganizing of the past in new ways, and it’s easy to see how it dovetails with his playing. On this new record, he surveys the vernacular of traditional dance music from the South, and while one can glean some of Knowler’s source influences, he manages to always sound distinctly like himself. When I mention it to him, he thanks me bashfully and explains that he re-recorded the album four or five times while moving between cities.

I ask him whether he had set out to write a collection of tunes that were either sonically or thematically connected, and Knowler nods before explaining that CRK is a portrait of his life the past few years. Harrison Whitford and Dylan Day, two of Knowler’s favorite guitarists whom he met serendipitously in Los Angeles contribute parts on the album. The same goes for drummer Jay Bellerose. The actor Jack Kilmer, who also grew up in the Southwest, narrates a poem written by Knowler. And Robert Bowlin even makes an appearance on piano and guitar on a few tracks.

I push the question of a unifying theme further, and Knowler confesses the album was a way for him to process his past experiences with hindsight, to be both the anthropologist and archivist of his own life and filter them through a brighter lens. He even went back to Yuma and experienced it with a newfound sensibility. He mentions Proust, and distance having afforded him the possibility of romanticizing his past, or at least that town.

The importance of his own experience as source material was brought to light in a convincing way when Knowler reached out to the famously private Norman Blake after having mailed him a copy of “Guitars Have Feelings Too,” and subsequently received an invitation to visit his hero at home in Georgia. “I go to Rising Fawn where Norman has been writing about Sulphur Springs (…) and going to the cemetery and seeing the last names of the people he writes about.  And then his next-door neighbor is Castleberry. And having learned “Castleberry’s Hornpipe,” I realized he’s a 100-plus-year-old figure who lives right next door to Norman. I got slapped in the face almost as if I were visiting John Steinbeck, and I had seen the grocery store he went to or something like that. It’s like, ‘This is really serious. This is really the life that he leads.’ And it just changed everything on a fundamental level. I have this impulse to be the art, but I didn’t have the courage to do so because I never had someone so creatively stable in my life. But then meeting him, I just opened up the doors and I said to myself, ‘I’m just going to do this, and this is what I need to do right now’.” Knowler told Blake that his music had saved his life by giving him direction. He left that encounter with his now most-cherished instrument, the 1933 Gibson L-Century of Progress that appears on the cover of Blake’s “Be Ready Boys: Appalachia to Abilene” album. The L-Century can be heard on “Christmas in Yuma,” CRK’s first track, played by Dylan Day.

Knowler resolved that everything he would write for the rest of his life would be about, or inspired by the 100 or so mile stretch of land between Gila Bend and Yuma; a map that will unfold with each subsequent record.

“It’s like building a ship in a bottle,” he reflects, before bringing up another one of his incredible chance meetings in David Rawlings, whose approach to his own music Knowler feels a profound kinship for. He too is an apt “reorganizer” of archival material. The two met in East Nashville at a house party. Knowler picked up a guitar, played a few notes and Rawlings immediately said: “Norman.”  That was all they needed to hit it off.  “Dave has a good quote,” Knowler continues, “that ‘the smallest things make the biggest difference.’ (…) It’s about innovating within an existing framework.”  He also means this literally in how small or unusual guitars can sound the biggest in front of a microphone. Case in point: Knowler plays a 1935 Epiphone Olympic that he acquired through Rawlings on “Mohave Runs the Colorado.” “I’m interested in the anthropology of an instrument,” he adds.

More recently, Knowler acquired a Mario Martello classical that used to be one of Bola Sete’s main recording guitars.  I am curious to find out whether instruments themselves have an influence on his writing.  “The beautiful thing about guitar is that it supports so many viewpoints,” Knowler answers.  Referring back to the Rawlings quote, he explains that with solo guitar, you are really working in miniature, while much has been made about “sounding big” in the guitar world. He brings up the Dreadnought, which was named after a war vessel, and the Mastertone banjo as examples. “I don’t need a guitar that’s loud,” he reflects, “I need a guitar that’s introspective.” Knowler even likes what he calls uniquely unbalanced instruments that may have unusual ringing overtones, such as the 1936 Martin 00-28 he borrowed from Chris Eldridge for the track “Yuma Ferry.”  “Some guitars are like a skatepark. You have to pick your tricks,” he adds, chuckling. And those proclivities even extend to recordings themselves. “In a way, I like bad-sounding records. For this medium specifically I like early Fahey records. I like what a cassette recorder does. I like what a field recorder does to the compression of a guitar.”  In this as in other things, what Knowler is seeking is authenticity.  In his words, he aims to cultivate depth. “Instrumental music allows you to posture yourself between photography and poetry,” he adds. It is a through line to feelings.  Like photographs, they are both immediate.  But words can fortify their meaning, which is why titles are so important to him.

It is certainly no coincidence that the musicians he cites as being the most influential on his playing are also unique voices whose lineage nonetheless come through in their sound.  Knowler’s eyes brighten when he talks about this. “In Fahey you hear Elizabeth Cotten, and you hear Debussy. In David, to me, you hear Neil Young, and you hear Norman.  And in Norman you hear Mother Maybelle Carter, and you hear Grandpa Jones, and you hear Riley Puckett.” All those people, all of us, really, are filters through which the past gets shuffled and reinterpreted.  Then archived. “There is bravery in self-expression,” he concludes, “regardless of talent.”

It is getting on in the evening, but before we end our conversation I tell Knowler how impressed I am with everything he’s managed to accomplish in such a short amount of time and with very little guidance from the outside. He often refers to his stumbling upon Norman Blake’s music as a turning point in his life, but I tell him that it certainly takes a rare individual to set that kind of standard for himself as a beginner. Like a kid with a vague interest in science who would resolve to model himself after Richard Feynman without truly grasping how impossibly high he would be aiming, but also being buoyed by that naïveté instead of weighed down by expectations. And in trying to convey this, I stumble and fall short of what I intend to express. I’m still hung up on the simple fact that he managed to get into college with a year or two of schooling, never mind the rest of what he’s succeeded in doing so far — and he is still years away from turning 30.  I tell him I really like the record and admire his playing.  “Aw, thanks man,” he demures. “I would just like this to serve as a thank you card to Norman.”  I nod and tell him I hope it reaches Blake and does that for him.

We leave on that note, and I immediately think that, more so than a card for anyone, Knowler’s story should be subsumed in his own archives as a testament to the transformative power of resilience, dedication and the story we all tell ourselves about ourselves. That there is so much more there than perhaps even he himself realizes.

But, I can already hear him say, brushing a strand of hair from his face, “Nah, that’d be like trying to take the whole ship out of the bottle.”

The post Cameron Knowler Releases New EP East of the Gilas (Lagniappe Session) first appeared on Fretboard Journal.



Musician and Fretboard Journal contributor Paul Burch joins us this week to talk about his just-published debut novel, Meridian Rising. The book, an imagined memoir by Jimmie Rodgers, is filled with insights on the Father of Country Music and some of the unbelievable collaborators he worked with.

We talk about the making of the book, why Rodgers is so fascinating to Paul, Paul’s new album (Cry Love), and so much more.

https://paulburch.com/

Our new, 57th issue of the Fretboard Journal is now mailing. Subscribe here to get it.

Our next Fretboard Summit takes place August 20-22, 2026, at the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago. https://fretboardsummit.org

We are brought to you by Peghead Nation: https://www.pegheadnation.com (Get your first month free or $20 off any annual subscription with the promo code FRETBOARD at checkout).

Above photo: Jim Herrington

The post Podcast 524: Paul Burch first appeared on Fretboard Journal.

A short excerpt from Clay Frohman’s cover story on Joni Mitchell’s Greenpeace guitar in our 57th issue. 

On a bright sticky Saturday in early May 1995, I was sitting with friends near the front of the main performance stage at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. We were waiting for Joni Mitchell to come on. She was headlining the closing weekend, a coveted slot, but freighted with even more anticipation than usual because (a) Joni hadn’t toured since 1983, more than a decade ago, due in part to the impracticality of adjusting her many tunings between songs or carrying enough guitars and techs to handle it all, and (b) word had circulated that today’s show might be her swan song, a final public performance before she called it quits on the “star making machinery” of the music business, toward which she had for years harbored a simmering antipathy.

Thousands of music fans and Joni fanatics filled the sprawling lawn behind me. Joni’s career spanned many eras, genres and styles and they were all reflected in the mix of folkies from the “Circle Game” and “Both Sides Now” early years, reverent intimates from the probing confessional “Blue” and “For the Roses” period, pop fans from Joni’s commercial breakthrough “Court and Spark” and beyond.  As her thirst for new sounds evolved from the solo folk guitar and dulcimer of “Song to a Seagull” and “Clouds” into more complex and rhythmic band arrangements, Joni sought out schooled jazz musicians like Jaco Pastorius, Wayne Shorter and Tom Scott who could work through her unorthodox chord voicings and add their own swing and sass to the challenging music heard on “Hissing of Summer Lawns,” and “Hejira.” As an artist, Joni had always thrived on risk and experimentation, and always pushed forward with a stubborn velocity, sometimes to the detriment of record sales and industry backlash, as evidenced in her collaboration with dying jazz eminence Charles Mingus on Mingus. To the critics and company suits and even her own management team it just wasn’t a “Joni record,” but no matter; Joni did it for herself, and for Charlie.

Not all of Joni’s fans kept up with her jazzier enthusiasms, but I did. Having come of age as a rock guitarist mainlining Beatles, Motown and my hometown Chicago blues, I was introduced in elementary school to Miles, Bill Evans, and Herbie Hancock’s “Maiden Voyage” by my best friend, a budding clarinet prodigy who dove deep into jazz and brought me along. I walked around the schoolyard humming the bass line to “Bitches Brew” and feeling like a Major Dude. When I moved to Los Angeles after college one of my first gigs was writing liner notes for Blue Note, the premier jazz label in town. I worked for the label on album projects with Chick Corea, Ronnie Laws and, yes, Wayne Shorter. So, Joni’s jazz direction suited me. She was playing with half of Weather Report! How cool was that for the Woman of Heart and Mind?

As I was relating some of this personal history to my friends on the Jazz Fest lawn, Joni stepped on stage with her luminous smile, wearing a broad brimmed straw hat, cradling a curious green Strat-shaped electric guitar that appeared to have no pickups or volume controls save for a block of black plastic near the bridge. The crowd greeted her with cheers and applause. Joni announced, “I’m going to try something new today.”

Photograph by Eleanor Jane

She launched into “Sex Kills” from her album Turbulent Indigo. But something was off. The sounds coming from the green guitar were drenched in delay and reverb, distorted and unintelligible. There was a palpable uncertainty in the crowd. This didn’t sound like the music they expected, like nothing they recognized. And what was this strange green guitar under her fingers? It barely sounded like a guitar at all. More like a rude synth.

Joni pushed on, into “Moon at the Window” from Wild Things Run Fast. The guitar sound still wobbled wildly out of control. From where I sat the crowd energy had turned against whatever new thing Joni was trying to do. A couple behind me collected their lawn chairs and left.

I looked on in dismay. I knew the backstory of Greenpeace.

There is a series of photographs of a young Joni, David Crosby and Eric Clapton taken in the backyard of Mama Cass Elliot’s Laurel Canyon home back in the late ’60s. Joni is new to the scene, having been brought to Los Angeles by ex-Byrd Crosby after he was entranced by a set she played in a Florida folk club. She sits cross-legged on the lawn playing her D-28, and the dour Clapton is focused hard at her, trying to decipher how these incredible songs and sounds are coming from this stunning blonde Canadian with a Martin guitar. He’s watching her hands for familiar chord shapes, but there are none.

Photograph by Eleanor Jane

Clapton was stumped because Joni Mitchell was no ordinary guitar player. Her approach to the instrument was entirely of her own design. After picking up her first chords, as many did, with Pete Seeger’s How to Play Folk Style Guitar, Joni found Elizabeth Cotten’s fingerpicking style, then migrated to blues tunings and the more traditional open tunings, then began to invent tunings and voicings based on what sounded interesting to her ear in the moment. She would tune to numbers in a date, to a piece of music on the radio, to the environment she found herself in, to birdsong. Her process was one of invention, discovery, a breezy disregard for traditional forms. With her longtime guitar tech and archivist Joel Bernstein she created a numerical notation system to keep track of her tunings and which song they were assigned to.

To read the rest of the article, order the issue or subscribe now. 

The post Excerpt: Joni Mitchell’s Greenpeace in the Fretboard Journal 57 first appeared on Fretboard Journal.



Grateful Shred co-founder Dan Horne joins us for a chat about the making of the band, his love for the Dead (of course), and the tribute group’s 2025 album, Might As Well. We also talk about growing up in the Bay Area, Alembics and other gear, and so much more.

Check out Grateful Shred on tour and see what all the fuss is about: https://www.gratefulshredmusic.com/

Our new, 57th issue of the Fretboard Journal is now mailing. Subscribe here to get it.

Our next Fretboard Summit takes place August 20-22, 2026, at the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago. https://fretboardsummit.org

We are brought to you by Peghead Nation: https://www.pegheadnation.com (Get your first month free or $20 off any annual subscription with the promo code FRETBOARD at checkout).

Above photo: Matthew Reamer

The post Podcast 523: Grateful Shred’s Dan Horne first appeared on Fretboard Journal.



It’s the 155th episode of the Truth About Vintage Amps, the call-in show where amp tech Skip Simmons fields your questions on all things tube amps. This week: Barn finds, lost dogs, an extra-grounded Jason (amp pun intended), and more!

Some of the topics discussed this week: 

1:05 Skip gets the new Fretboard Journal (link); do banjos belong in the Fretboard Journal?

5:16 Recommended music: Ned Boynton’s ‘The North Beach Sound;’ The No-Mads (nomadsband.com)

7:54 Our sponsors: Grez Guitars; Emerald City Guitars and Amplified Parts (and Mr. Microphone)

18:12 What’s on Skip’s bench: A Bogen GA-5; a Realistic Carnival; Masco C-6; 6AQ5 tubes

22:53 A listener baffler, answered (speaker re-coning); Vintage 47 amps (link)

26:18 Skip’s ep. 154 baffler, answered: What does Skip do when he’s modding the second input of a Fender Champ? Supro Spectators

32:51 New Accutronics reverb tanks by Revisit (link)

34:52 What’s the low input doing in a Marshall JCM800; green chile on everything

39:20 Lowering the B+ on a 1971 Fender Bassman 10 project; ultralinear transformers; cactus salad

48:43 The long-awaited dog story

51:35 Colin Hay’s “Overkill” with Choir! Choir! Choir! (YouTube link); Traynor amps

54:52 Should I treat the pitting on a Soundmaster 600 PA?

1:00:17 Lab Series amps

1:03:39 Smoke-damaged MusicMan HD-130

1:09:20 The dangers of old tractors (and drawbridges)

1:15:34 Modifying the power section of a Twin Reverb for lower volume playing; fixing a Filmosound 385 with hum; guitarist Evan Crafts (Instagram)

1:21:26 TAVA listener spotlight: Children’s book author Matt James! (Order his new book, The One About the Blackbird (Amazon link)

1:23:56 How to raise kids and run a small business; Mae Ploy curry paste 

1:31:16 Barn finds: Spring-loaded input jacks; a 1947 Fender Princeton amp and matching lap steel

Want amp tech Skip Simmons’ advice on your DIY guitar amp projects? Want to share your top secret family recipe? Need relationship advice? Join us by sending your voice memo or written questions to podcast@fretboardjournal.com! Include a photo, too.

Hosted by amp tech Skip Simmons and co-hosted/produced by Jason Verlinde of the Fretboard Journal.

Don’t forget, we have a Patreon page. Support the show, get behind-the-scenes updates and get to the front of the line with your questions.

Above: Listener Dayn’s Soundmaster PA amp, which he may or may not clean up. Below: The dangers of old tractors, courtesy of Wick Street Guitars.

The post The Truth About Vintage Amps, Ep. 155 first appeared on Fretboard Journal.



For Episode 107 of the Luthier on Luthier podcast, I’m joined by Rory Dowling, the owner and builder behind the beautifully crafted Taran Guitars.

https://www.taranguitars.co.uk

Rory talks about his team-based approach to building and his journey from furniture design to guitar making. We also take a deep dive into his unique methods for back bracing and voicing…and much more.

Luthier on Luthier is hosted by Michael Bashkin of Bashkin Guitars and brought to you by the Fretboard Journal. This episode is sponsored by Dream Guitars and StewMac.

Want to support Luthier on Luthier? Join our Patreon to get access to exclusive photos and content from Michael and his builds.

Taran Guitars: Zachie Morris, Caelin Harrington, Rory Dowling, and Gemma Dowling

The post Luthier on Luthier: Rory Dowling (Taran Guitars) first appeared on Fretboard Journal.



Raymond Morin of Pittsburgh’s Acoustic Music Works joins us this week for an insightful chat about running a guitar store, music and so much more.

At a time when things seem pretty bleak for mom & pop guitar stores, Pittsburgh’s Acoustic Music Works is a true success story. They just moved to a new, larger location with a focus on a handful of higher-end brands and the occasional in-house concert.

https://acousticmusicworks.com

We talk about Raymond pivoting career-wise into the world of guitars; the guitar-building class he took before he became a salesperson; Collings and some of the other brands Acoustic Music Works carries; and Raymond’s own Pleinview line of instruments.

Our new, 57th issue of the Fretboard Journal is now mailing. Subscribe here to get it.

Our next Fretboard Summit takes place August 20-22, 2026, at the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago. https://fretboardsummit.org

We are brought to you by Peghead Nation: https://www.pegheadnation.com (Get your first month free or $20 off any annual subscription with the promo code FRETBOARD at checkout).

The post Podcast 522: Raymond Morin of Acoustic Music Works first appeared on Fretboard Journal.



It’s the 154th episode of the Truth About Vintage Amps, the call-in show where amp tech Skip Simmons fields your questions on all things tube amps.

Some of the topics discussed this week: 

:42 Skip is back on the Ferguson TO-35 tractor; Roy Clark & Joe Pass

7:04 What’s on Skip’s bench: A Marshall Plexi Super Bass, Marshall bright caps, the Pet Shop Boys

11:43 Our sponsors Grez Guitars; Emerald City Guitars and Amplified Parts; more Fender Champ mods; a Champ gain input baffler; Soursound transformers

23:51 200 more power cords; IEC hijinks; Steve Soest

28:13 A 1954 Fender Tweed Twins and the low-powered versus high-powered Twins; Tweed Pros; Fender Champion 600 amps

31:49 A Lafayette PA with ECL82 tubes (watch on Instagram)

33:45 A 1960s Airline 62-9021A amp; how to tell a Supro/Valco from a Danelctro amp

37:33 Skip’s advice for a future repair business; liability insurance; the Boilermaker; the amp that couldn’t be fixed

49:06 A listener-submitted baffler: A Supro that needed a speaker recone?

52:29 What should I do with my new Knight 93350 PA head?

58:03 Should I build a 6G4 or a 6G4A in this Northern Electric PA-20 with six pre-amp sockets?

1:04:28 Wiring a Danelectro DS-100 speaker output for use with other cabs

1:11:10 Recommended media: The Birth of Loud; The Sweeney; Taggart

1:12:52 Burning up chokes in a Princeton Reverb

1:14:13 Listers on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zl-wAqplQAo

1:15:18 ESR meters and ceviche

Need amp tech Skip Simmons’ advice on your DIY guitar amp projects? Want to share your top secret family recipe? Need relationship advice? Join us by sending your voice memo or written questions to podcast@fretboardjournal.com! Include a photo, too.

Hosted by amp tech Skip Simmons and co-hosted/produced by Jason Verlinde of the Fretboard Journal.

Don’t forget, we have a Patreon page. Support the show, get behind-the-scenes updates and get to the front of the line with your questions.

Above: Listener Marcus’ Northern Electric amp, which he may turn into a Fender Super.  

The post The Truth About Vintage Amps, Ep. 154 first appeared on Fretboard Journal.



Guitarist Paul Rigby joins us this week to talk about his 15-plus-year collaboration with Neko Case and so much more.

We hear about growing up in Calgary (and why it’s an oddly great town for guitarists); meeting Neko; writing for Broadway; songwriting help from the Black Stallion; and why his favorite electric guitar is a $123 partscaster.

https://www.instagram.com/paul.rigby003/

Neko Case’s new album, ‘Neon Grey Midnight Green, is out now. https://nekocase.com

Our new, 57th issue of the Fretboard Journal is now mailing. Subscribe here to get it.

Our next Fretboard Summit takes place August 20-22, 2026, at the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago. https://fretboardsummit.org

We are brought to you by Peghead Nation: https://www.pegheadnation.com (Get your first month free or $20 off any annual subscription with the promo code FRETBOARD at checkout).

The post Podcast 521: Paul Rigby first appeared on Fretboard Journal.