EQUIPMENT PICKS FROM JOHN SCOFIELD, PATTY GRIFFIN, AND ED GERHARD.
recorded his latest album, Quiet, with a Montalvo nylon-string concert flamenco guitar made by the K & S Guitar Company (2923 Adeline St., Berkeley, CA 94703-2502; [510] 843-2883). He also has a small-body 1941 Martin purchased from Matt Umanov on Bleecker Street in New York City, which he used on his Groove Elation album and on I Can See Your House from Here with Pat Metheny. For live acoustic performances, he plays a Guild jumbo flattop. Scofield endorses Ibanez electric guitars and plays an AS-200.
Scofield uses only D'Addario strings on his guitars. He strings his Ibanez AS-200 with a custom set, with gauges .013, .016, .022, .032, .042, and .052. He prefers stock heavy-gauge strings for his flamenco guitar and mediums for his flattops.
The quintessential Scofield electric sound comes from two old Sundown amplifiers with a 12-inch speaker enclosed in each unit. Reminiscent of Mesa Boogie amps, the Sundowns were made by a New Jersey manufacturer that is no longer in business. Scofield's basic effects are two chorus pedals: a Boss CE-3 and "the old, purple Ibanez unit," which he leaves on full throttle to create that Leslie effect.
--Charles H. Chapman
recorded the older tracks on Living with Ghosts on a cutaway Takamine. For the rest, she played a 1965 Gibson J-50 that she bought at Gruhn Guitars in Nashville. Worried about the J-50's fragility, she later picked up a 1993 J-200 Jr.--a scaled-down version of the classic Gibson that was a better fit for her small frame--for use on the road. She plays the J-200 in performance but says, "I'm a big string breaker, so I back it up with a Taylor 712." Both the Gibson and the Taylor have Fishman pickups. She strikes her D'Addario strings with a flatpick and often uses a Shubb capo.
--Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers
has an impressive and varied lineup of instruments. He still plays the Martin D-18 he got back in 1970--his first "good guitar." His main instrument for years has been a Somogyi dreadnought with Brazilian rosewood back and sides and European spruce top, which he describes as a "very clear, rich sounding guitar that holds up very well with the slide" (Ervin Somogyi, 1340A Peralta Ave., Berkeley, CA 94702). Lately he has added a cutaway, concert-sized mahogany/Sitka spruce Breedlove C2, which he also loves for playing slide (Breedlove Guitar Co., 19885 8th St., Bend, OR 97701-9042). He also has an Oahu lap-steel and a 1982 Mossman Winterwheat dreadnought set up as a high-strung guitar (Mossman Guitars, 1813 Main St., Sulphur Springs, TX 75482-3610). "It's really loud and clear," he says. Gerhard had a steel-bodied Dobro, but it was stolen last year while he was touring. He is currently working with Breedlove on a new model--possibly a signature model. "I'm really flattered by that," he says. "They like what I do and I really love what they do, so we're working together on something a little different."
--Dale Miller
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