Bryant Trenier Guitars and Pasquale Grosso
I discovered Pasquale Grosso on youtube during the pandemic. I was instantly a fan. Pasquale takes what some of my favorite pickers, like Bill DeArango and Chuck Wayne, were doing in the mid 40’s to a whole new level. Needless to say I was thrilled to find out Pasquale was using one of my pickups on his latest Trenier archtop! You can check out more of Bryant’s beautiful work here.
You can catch Pasquale playing around NYC and Birdland is posting live clips on their youtube channel. Here’s one from last week of Pasquale playing Frank Vignola’s guitar night. The whole 1 1/2 hour show is incredible, but if you’re in a hurry check out Pasquale playing ‘I’ve Never Been in Love Before’ as a solo at the 57 minute mark.
1941 Gibson ES-300
This one is for a friend of mine. He got it without a pickup, pickguard and someone neatly plugged the holes for the pots. Guessing they wanted an acoustic and ditched the electronics.
For the pickup I went with 1/4″ slug magnets, the originals had adjustable pole pieces. I made the guard and pickup cover out of celluloid sheet. I’m really happy with how it turned out.
In the short clip it’s going through my BR-3. I have the tone on the guitar rolled way back and the treble up on the amp. The high end sounds very George Barnes-ish to me. If only I could play like him!
Swamp Ash Roadmaster
I’m wrapping up four solid bodies. Here’s the first, 7 lbs 5 oz, fat soft V maple neck, SV pickups with slug magnets for the neck and adjustable pole pieces at the bridge.
Simple Shuffle in G
Growing up in LA I was lucky to have access to a lot of great guitar teachers. But the best advise, and what I’ve used most over the years, came from a guitar playing mechanical engineer that worked with my father. He told me to 1) figure out and memorize solos that inspire you. 2) chop them up into 2 and 4 bar phrases. 3)visualize the cord that’s underneath the phrase, and 4) work the phrases into different parts of the progression.
For example. In this clip I play a 2 bar phrase I got from Jimmy Bryant (Jimmy plays it at the beginning of his solo in Pink Cadillac) I used it over the 5 chord in my first solo. Adds a little spice to a simple guitar boogie shuffle in G. Pick up the tab in my store here, thanks!
