John Hammond Cover
Story - Acoustic Guitar Magazine, January 2006
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By Julia Crowe
Blues guitarist JOHN HAMMOND keeps his music fresh by writing songs and covering contemporary songwriters like Tom Waits and Bob Dylan. But he still finds inspiration in the music he learned from blues legends like Blind Willie McTell and Son House. In this exclusive lesson, he illustrates some of his favorite slide licks, many of which were inspired by blues greats like Robert Johnson, Blind Willie Johnson and Lightnin' Hopkins.
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John Hammond has been playing the blues for more than 40 years. In that time, he has become a virtual blues-guitar encyclopedia, collecting volumes of fascinating history and the stylistic variation that contribute to its worn-shoe-leather-and-broken-heartstrings sound. After taking up the guitar at age 16 in 1958, Hammond taught himself to play by ear from watching and listening to the old blues players brought to light in the early-60s blues and folk revival, including such legendary artists as Mississippi John Hurt, Son House, Skip James, Sonny Terry, Brownie McGhee, Big Boy Crudup, Furry Lewis, Sam Chapman, Honeyboy Edwards, Lightnin' Hopkins and Babe Stovall.
Hammond's ability to resurrect nearly forgotten songs and add his own dash of fingerstyle expertise is evidenced in the abundance of his recordings: he has put out an album nearly ever year since 1962 and recorded with such peers like Duane Allman, Dr. John, Robbie Robertson, Michael Bloomfield, Levon Helm. In the last few years, Hammond has been stretching out, putting his stamp on songs written by contemporary songwriters. He recorded an entire album of Tom Waits material with 2001's Wicked Grin (Virgin), and Ready for Love (2003, Back Porch) includes songs by David Hidalgo ("No Chance" and "I Brought the Rain"), Mick Jagger and Keith Richards ("Spider and the Fly"), George Jones ("Just One More" and "Color of the Blues"), as well as Hammond"s first original ("Slick Crown Vic").
For his most recent CD, In Your Arms Again (Backporch), Hammond picked up his pen again, writing the title song of In Your Arms Again and the harmonica-sweetened lament, "Come to Find Out". The album features the joyously elastic wail of Hammond"s ragged train-wheels-against-steel slide guitar swinging to his foot-stomping rhythm and his weathered, soulful voice on two Ray Charles' classics ("I Got a Woman" and "Fool for You"), Bob Dylan"s, "I'll Be Your Baby Tonight," and Hammond's mainstay: classic songs made famous by blues icons, in this case Howlin' Wolf Percy Mayfield, John Lee Hooker, Jimmy Reed.
On a dog day of summer that would have any parched throat singing the blues, Hammond hauled his Stubbs guitar and National Duolian into a rehearsal studio located in the neighborhood where he grew up--New York City's West Village--to show me some of his favorite slide licks and talk about the blues greats he's been inspired by.
You've written a couple of great new blues songs for this album. What inspired "In Your Arms Again"?
HAMMOND: One of my passions from way back was Blind Willie Johnson. He was one of the first real slide masters, a street singer played a steel guitar. He got a sound that was just unbelievable. I was recording with the Blind Boys of Alabama and they were doing an old gospel tune. They asked me to play guitar with them in an old style, and one of the songs we did was Blind Willie Johnson's tunes, "God Don't Ever Change." That's where I got the idea for the song "In Your Arms Again."
What's the first thing a beginning slide player should think about?
HAMMOND: First you have to get a tuning that you like. I use an E-tuning (EBEG#BE) and an A-tuning (EAEAC#E), which is similar to D-tuning (DADF#AD) and G-tuning (DGDGBD). Most people tune their guitars down but I tune mine up because it goes with my voice better. I like the tension and the high whine as opposed to the lower, deep whine that you get with D-tuning.
A lot of Robert Johnson's tunes were in E. I think he had his guitar tuned to D with a capo at the second or third fret--I don't know exactly; I wasn't there. Robert Johnson also used the A tuning or the G tuning, which is also called Spanish tuning.
How do you approach playing fills between vocal lines?
HAMMOND: Because I am a singer, I learn songs before I play the guitar. This is a very good thing for a singer. A lot of guys learn to play the guitar first and then they have to learn to sing over what they've learned on the guitar, which is backwards. If you already know the song, then you can play just enough to compliment what you're singing. And then as you get better with the guitar, then you can add fills and runs. It comes naturally with the territory.
Blues is a simple musical form but within that simplicity lies infinity of things you can do. Everybody who plays the blues develops their own style and techniques and ways of embellishing with their singing. The first three chords I learned were E, A and B7, and within that, there are a lot of songs. It is what you do with those three chords that make it work.
Which guitarists influenced you the most as you were learning to play?
HAMMOND: Of all the players I admire--Blind Boy Fuller, Blind Willie McTell, Lightening Hopkins, Furry Lewis, all these guys who recorded back in the '30s--Robert Johnson stands head and shoulders above, for me, in terms of guitar playing and in terms of intensity. He just had it. I was determined to learn some songs of his in straight guitar tuning, the key of A.
What do you think is the best approach to learning to play the blues? Did you have a teacher?
HAMMOND: I got into playing entirely by ear. I never really learned the notes. I knew my E, A and B7 chords in the first position and some little fills with the E chord, like Lightnin' Hopkin's signature riff. All these things I worked out from hearing it on the record and hearing them inside my head. Then I tried to work them in with the way I sing. Eventually I learned where the other positions of E chords are along the fretboard, just figuring how to get variations of the chord I am playing.
I watched a lot of great players when I began playing. This was back when Mississippi John Hurt and many other guys from the '20s and '30s were being rediscovered. There I was, 19 years old, and they said, "Here, let's put this young white boy on the show." All these guys were really supportive. They couldn't believe there were folks interested in the way they played, in the old style. But soon there were a lot of young people playing who wanted to take up that tradition.
In the early '60s, Taj Mahal, who was Henry Fredericks back then, used to come hear me play at the Club 47 in Boston, where he went to college. We're the same age and I got to knew Taj real well and Taj got right on into the gigs with the old guys, too. He was phenomenal.
In the '60s, I was really inspired by hearing the blues. You could hear R&B, Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf if you had the right radio but mostly, it was hearing the reissued records from the 20s and 30s. That's when these artists at their prime--young, magical and maniacal--just like we were. Hearing that was inspirational because there were so many styles and techniques. Artists like Blind Boy Fuller played syncopated piedmont style. Then there was John Lee Hooker, who is uncategorizeable.
How has this music changed in the hands of new players over the years?
HAMMOND: I don't think the blues has changed too much--every player his or her own style. Even if you play it note for note, it is still going to sound like you. There have been a lot of stylists who have come along over the years who have made inroads. They may be playing the old style but you can tell it is their own style of playing. Like Alvin Youngblood Hart. He plays a lot of Charlie Patton songs and it just really rings true. Even if he isn't playing the exact notes, he brings those songs to life--they're just real. Corey Harris, Steve James, Paul Jeremiah are just a few I can name as really phenomenal players out there.
How do you approach playing other people's songs?
HAMMOND: When you do any song, it comes out your way, no matter what. I find the idea of 'covering' a song, to be a form of put-down, as in "Aw, he's just a cover artist." Well, Frank Sinatra never wrote a song--was he considered a cover artist? Elvis Presley never wrote a song. Was he considered a cover artist? I don't think so. If you can do a song your way and make it live, that is all that counts.
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WHAT HE PLAYS
Acoustic Guitars: 1935
National Duolian with a 14-fret neck. "Many of these guitars were made
only 12-frets to the body," Hammond says. The Duolian has a maple neck
with a Martin replacement fingerboard on it made of ebony wood with plastic
binding on the sides. The cone has been replaced seven times. Hammond also
plays a 000-sized steel-string guitar made by David Stubbs and Vinnie Smith
of Kendal,
Strings: 80/20 bronze D'Addario, mostly medium gauge, but with a .014 E string (instead of an .013), a .036 D string (instead of .035) and an unwound .026 G string. "The unwound third string is essential to me because I can bend it more easily on the lower frets compared with other strings," Hammond says. "I buy strings by the gauge as opposed to the set."
Amplification: Shure SM57 microphone. "I don't plug into anything," says Hammond. "I play purely acoustic. When MTV had its Unplugged series, I'd thought, 'Maybe they'll hire me because I don't play plugged in.' So they got all these people, including Eric Clapton, with the wire coming out the back end of their acoustic guitar. When you plug in, it changes everything. I use the fingerpicks for volume, more than anything."
Fingerpicks: Medium thumbpick and steel fingerpick on his index finger.
Slide: Sears Craftsman 11/16-inch deep-well socket. "When I got to LA to start my career--and I had this all planned out--I got a job at a gas station with my friend Russell Avery," Hammond says. "He was a mechanic and was going on a run to Sears to buy some tools. I was hanging out with him in the tool department looking at these tools, when I said, "Whoa!" The light bulb went on over my head. I've had this one forever."
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Common Slide Guitar/Blues Tunings
E tuning: (EBEG#BE) known as 'Vestapol tuning.'
A tuning: (EAEAC#E) This tuning is creates higher tension on the strings.
D tuning: (DADF#AD), also known as 'Vestapol tuning.'
G tuning: (DGDGBD) also known as 'Spanish tuning.'
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John Hammond's Recommended Essential Listening:
Robert Johnson, The Complete Recordings, Columbia Legacy 46222, Legacy Recordings
Blind Lemon Jefferson, The Best of Blind Lemon Jefferson, Yazoo 2057, Yazoo Records
Blind Willie Johnson, The Complete Blind Willie Johnson, Columbia Legacy 52835.
Blind Willie McTell, The Best of Blind Willie McTell, Yazoo 2071.
Blind Boy Fuller, Truckin' My Blues Away, Yazoo 1060.
Lonnie Johnson, Steppin' on the Blues, Columbia Legacy 46221.
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