Q I'm wondering if you know anything about an English guitar player by the name of Nic Jones. He was involved in a bad auto accident some years back, and I heard he was trying to relearn guitar.
Mike Seil
Manassas, Virginia
A After being in the band the Halliard, Nic Jones became a well-known solo performer on the British folk music circuit by the late 1970s. He was an extremely gifted guitarist who played in various tunings, major, minor, and modal, on his Fylde Oberon acoustic guitar. He also played violin.
In 1982 he was driving home from a gig, tired. On a bend in the road his car ran into a fully loaded truck pulling out of a brickworks at Wittlesea, near Peterborough in the east of England. In the resulting crash, Jones broke both legs, both arms, and his jaw, and he suffered severe brain damage resulting in the loss of coordination in the right side of his body. He was in the hospital for eight months.
Since then he has been looked after by his wife Julia, and the couple now lives in a suburb of York near the university. Jones is not bitter about the crash. "If I hadn't hit that lorry, I might have gone a mile down the road and had an even worse accident-I could have been killed," he says. But he does regret not being able to play his guitar (it survived the crash) as well as he used to. He gets a great deal of pleasure out of playing at home, but it's doubtful he will ever play publicly again.
The Jones tradition is, however, being carried on by Nic's son Joe, who lives in Newcastle. Joe plays the guitar, sings, and writes songs.
--Chris Mosey
Q Any words of advice about the best way to amplify a resonator guitar for live performance in clubs and coffeehouses?
Shaun Dean
Yellowknife, Canada
A In a live situation, a single directional microphone placed fairly close to the treble side of the cover plate should do the trick. The workingman's rig is a Shure SM-57. If you want to get fancy, try using something like an AKG 414 or a Neumann U64. These are expensive and fragile, and I consider them more appropriate for a studio than a club date.
My own road guitar is presently a 1936 National Trojan fitted with a Highlander IP-1X pickup. I find that using the direct signal from the Highlander in combination with a microphone gives me a realistic resonator sound with plenty of volume and high end in situations like large rooms and festival stages where sound-check time is limited and feedback can be a problem. (I've gotten a lot of positive comments on the Highlander from audience members and sound techs alike.)
You don't specify what type of resonator system your guitar has-single cone, tricone, or spider-but bear in mind that all resophonic guitars were designed to be microphone-friendly. For a lesson on working with a resonator guitar and a mic, I recommend seeing performances by Bob Brozman and John Hammond, both of whom (metaphorically speaking) have it wired.
--Steve James
Q Where can I find tablature for Bob Dylan's "Don't Think Twice, It's Alright"?
Ron Paul
Phoenix, Arizona
A"Don't Think Twice" is available in tab in the following books: Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits (Music Sales AM87466) and Fingerpicking Dylan (Music Sales AM79740). Any music store that carries sheet music should be able to order these for you.
--Teja Gerken
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