How I Got Bitten By the Blues Bug

I grew up in a musical family. Dad was a trumpet player (I eventually played Trumpet as well) and Mom played the Oboe and the piano.... My mother's uncles could play anything. Seriously, anything! I also spent most of my life in Memphis TN, the home of the blues.

On a trip to my grandmother's while still in gradeschool, my grandmother bought me a harmonica at the local drugstore. I honked and tooted along on that thing endlessly..... annoying anyone within earshot.

At 11, while on a vacation, we stopped in a little side of the highway Arkansas stripmall and in the stripmall was a music shop. The owner inside sold harmonicas and I bought one. He took the time to teach me blues harmonica bending to get proper blue notes, and while I was there, it really 'clicked' for me. Rapidly after that, I quickly got better playing blues harmonica - and as I learned I became a fan of the blues.

One blues man in particular caught my ear - Stevie Ray Vaughn. So with that, I had to get a guitar. Tragedy hit me however as I managed to cut off one of my fingers on my left hand. Not completely off, but I almost lost it. The doctor suggested learning guitar as a way to rebuild my hand and make it work again. So I bought a guitar.

Not long after, I was trying my hardest to sound like SRV and play the blues. I listened to WEVL blues shows in the morning and listened to every influence that guys like SRV, Kenny Wayne Sheppard and Eric Clapton listed in interviews with them in magazines. I was not as good a blues guitarist as I was a good blues harmonica player.

The final step for me came in college. I was lucky enough to meet a guy named Kent Dushane (sp?) He is a Dobro playing blues man who learned from the greats. His skill was wonderful, and from him, I managed to learn to play bottleneck/slide blues in open tunings on the guitar. Again, something I'm not great at, but can play a handful of tunes on....

So a year ago, I bought my first mandolin and very soon after had figured out the blues scales on the mandolin and began researching mandolin blues. That takes me to here....

Yank Rachell - one of the originals

Yank Rachell truly was one of the originals. He started on a bowlback and eventually moved on to a Harmony Batwing mandolin with a pickup. I think to many, Rachell's sound is what blues on a mandolin should sound like.

If you'd like to get something off of I-Tunes, then Yank Rachel - Blues Mandolin Man is one to get.

And a Youtube search will yield a lot of great clips. Below is one I like a lot from when Rachell was still younger and had a lot of energy.

Ry Cooder, Goin' to Brownsville

If you were like me, growing up in the home of the blues (Memphis and the delta) and loved Ralph Machio movies, then you probably loved Crossroads. Cheesy movie, but fun watching Machio go off against Steve Vai. And if you knew a little something back then, you knew it was actually blues virtuoso Ry Cooder playing the guitar against Vai. I say Cooder won  - and of course that was the plot of the movie.....

What I did not know is that Ry Cooder also played mandolin..... Hence Goin to Brownsville (which is not far from where I live now).

Texas Blues Shuffle from Rene

Here's a little blues lick from Rene. Texas Blues Shuffle. Sounds great on acoustic

12-bar Blues from Youtube.

Great vid. I had figured this progression out many months ago when I first started trying to play blues on the mandolin, but Billy does a great job explaining it and fleshing it out.

Disclaimer - this is Billy's work, I'm only re-sharing so its easier to find....

The Blues Bird - Blues Mandolin

So I looked at all the electric mandolins on the market. There are a ton out there, Mandobirds, Schwabs, Ryders etc. Unfortunately, they were all a little rich for my blood (except the Mandobird, which looked like it needed a new pickup to make it viable). If you want to see a bunch of great electric mandolins, then check out http://www.emando.com/

Then I found Moongazer Music. A great guy named Tom Morici runs it. He's a 40+ yr veteran of the lutherie business. He runs a website http://www.moongazermusic.com/ where he sells electric mandolin kits and their parts. His site is great. He allows you to buy individual tuning machines instead of sets. Bridges just for emando's and a great variety of emando pickups. Tom's kits are top notch and look really good.

I wanted a little more however and wanted to design my own. To that end, I designed the instrument in CAD.

I then contacted Tom and purchased wood blanks and all the parts needed to build the mandolin. He even provided a partially completed neck. Tom was also great in providing advice on the build.

I started building in the fall and ended up with a killer little instrument. It turned out beautifully, and the tone is exactly what I was hoping for. I was gunning for a little bit of Buddy Guy grit and that is what I got. I run the BluesBird through a Crate 2x10 amp and it sounds really good.

The BluesBird has construction just like a Fender Thin-Line Telecaster. She has an alder body capped with a fiddleback maple cap. The neck is maple with a rosewood fretboard and a Moongazer corian nut. The blank for the pickguard came from Japan and holds a Moongazer/Almuse MG4 pickup wired for coiltapping.

I love this little electric mandolin!!!!!

So what do I play....?

So what am I trying to learn mandolin blues on? I've got several instruments which I've been using for some time now and some new ones.....

I started playing guitar when I was in my mid-teens. I learned on this Epiphone Strat copy. Over time, I modified it to run some genuine PAF Gibson Humbuckers that were given to me by a fraternity brother in college. I've since updated the pickguard and wiring. I still play it a fair bit....

I also happen to play blues harmonica. Have since I was 12. I am not very technically proficient, but I can make it wail....



But this is a Mandolin Blues Blog... So what mandolins do I play?

My first was a Kay Model 68. Was pretty rough when I bought it, so I restored it fully. It turned out pretty nice and I enjoy the loud sound. Not a tone monster... just a volume monster....

Next up is my oval hole mandolin. I purchased a Michael Kelly Legacy Oval. Another instrument which needed a pretty good bit of work to be playable... Nut job, Saddle adjustment and fitting, truss rod adjustment and fret filing in a couple areas. But it is a very nice instrument now.

For traveling, I have a travel mandolin. Fits in my carry-on and is fun on trips. I've enjoyed it. I also upgraded the tuners on it to Grovers, as well as adding pau abalone dots.

Finally, this fall, I built my first electric mandolin. I built a 4 string I called the Blues Bird. This one gets its own post.....





First Post.....

So this is my first post in my Mandolin Blues Blog. I decided I wanted to put this up for a few reasons. First off, after playing guitar for 20 years, I'm now learning the mandolin. I've been playing for 1 year now and have decided to learn to play the blues on it. Second, there are a lot of good resources out there on the web to teach blues mandolin and I want to use this blog to capture some of them. Finally, I am hoping that blogging about what I'm doing will add an element of commitment to what I'm doing. I know myself well enough to know that when others are watching, I take things more seriously and commit to them more....