How do the pros get that primo Tone? Aside from 20 years or
so of practice and plenty of God-given talent, you’ll find out, as we leave nothing
to the imagination in our ToneMaster interview with Texas guitar slinger James Pennebaker,
who is preparing to begin another tour with a pretty fair player in his own right,
guitarist Lee Roy Parnell.
At the age of eight James Pennebaker began playing the fiddle, just like his daddy. But
soon the guitar beckoned, and Pennebaker started picking out Woody Guthrie and Peter,
Paul, and Mary tunes. "This would have been in the early 60s when the folk music boom
was big. my parents realized I had some natural ability, I suppose, and let me choose an
instrument to study."
In the early 1970s, Pennebaker began playing in local rock and progressive country
bands around Ft. Worth and Dallas, TX. He hit the road in 1976 and toured briefly, playing
fiddle with singer/harmonica player Delbert McClinton. From 1976 to 1979, he played in the
house band at Dewey Grooms Longhorn Ballroom, Dallas, TX, doubling on guitar and fiddle.
Returning to Delbert’s band as a blues guitar player, he performed on "Plain
From The Heart," which was released on Capitol in 1985
In 1990, Pennebaker performed on Jimmie Dale Gilmore’s landmark "After
Awhile" CD on Electra, and the following year performed at the Montreaux Jazz
festival with Joe Ely, Jim Lauderdale, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Butch Hancock, Kevin Welch,
and David Grissom. In 1993, he moved to Nashville and began working with Lee Roy Parnell,
an old friend from his formative years in Texas. "I’ve done the past four albums
with Lee Roy, as well as co-producing one album. We were nominated for a Grammy in
‘97 for our instrumental ‘Mama, Screw Your Wig On Tight.’" In 1998,
Pennebaker’s fluid guitar work was featured on T. Graham Brown’s "Wine Into
Water" CD, and he began work on new tracks for an upcoming Lee Roy Parnell
"Greatest Hits" CD. This year, he is splitting his schedule between tour dates
with T. Graham Brown and Lee Roy Parnel. Following the release of Lee Roy’s upcoming
CD, Pennebaker will once again be hitting the road full time as a member of Parnell’s
band.
TQR caught up with Pennebaker on the road with T. Graham Brown in Mississippi.
Tone Quest Report: James, what was your first instrument?
James Pennebaker: My first electric guitar was a "Woodward" and my first amp was
an "Alamo." After the Beatles came along, I took guitar lessons briefly from a
Ft. Worth musician and teacher named Dale Woodward who happened to be a neighbor of ours.
I would say I was 10 or so by this time. My folks bought a guitar for me through Mr.
Woodward’s studio. Looking back, the guitar was definitely of Japanese origin,
probably a Tiesco or something, as it had two pickups and a load of knobs and switches on
it and a metal pickguard. I don’t remember the model of the Alamo amp but I do
remember it was a small tube amp with probably an 8" speaker. I wish I still had that
one!
TQR: What’s your setup now?
JP: Well, it is constantly changing with different gigs. In regard to guitars, I will
usually reach for a Fender Telecaster first. I’m pretty much known as a Tele player,
but I do use lots of other guitars, too. I own an original ‘52 Tele, but in recent
years I have been playing a Custom Shop "relic" Tele. It’s a special
instrument and I love it so much that I have pretty much retired the old one. I have a
couple of old Fender Strats as well, one in particular that I use a lot. Lately I’ve
been getting away from solid body guitars more than before. I have a really nice Guild
X-170 archtop with a Bigsby that I got several years ago from the good folks at Fender. I
also use a beautiful archtop guitar built for me by Japanese luthier Eiichi Sumi. It has a
floating "Johnny Smith" style pickup at the end of the fingerboard. There’
a 70s Gretsch Country Gentleman that I’ll be using some on new material we have
recorded for Lee Roy Parnell’s upcoming CD. I also have a couple of the new re-issue
Danelectro guitars. I really like them and have been using them a bunch. I have regular
roundwound strings on one and flatwounds on the other. I tend to wind up using the one
with flatwounds more, as they really give it that old ‘60s "tic tac" sound.
TQR: Tell us about your string preferences
JP: I use GHS burnished nickle (BNR) sets 0.010-0.046 for most of my guitars. On the Guild
X-170 I use 0.011-0.048 as it is a shorter scale length. For acoustic strings, it’s
GHS phosphor bronze medium or light gauge, depending on the instrument and kind of sound I
need to get.
TQR: Are you using stock pickups?
JP: Most of my guitars have the stock pickups but I have several with Seymour
Duncan’s in them. I’ve got a set of Seymour’s "Antiquity’s"
in my relic Tele and have a set of his SSL Strat pickups in my favorite Strat. I also use
some of his "Classic Stack" pickups whenever I am in a situation where I’m
recording in a computer based studio with lots of "RF" and hum caused by the
computer’s TV monitor.
TQR: How about amps?
JP: I have many amps that I use in different situations. Kind of like a plumber or
carpenter with a lot of different tools. It depends on the situation and what the job
calls for. Currently, I’m using a re-issue Vox AC-30 a lot. Also, I discovered this
old Ampeg VT-40 amp from the early ‘70s. It has 4 x 10s in it and just screams.
I’ve been using it a lot. My favorite amp of all time, and my "old
standby," has got to be the black face Fender Super Reverb. The Super Reverb is my
favorite amp because it has, in my opinion, it’s own "voice." I think it is
the combination of the 4 X 10" speakers and the 2 Ohm output transformer, but no
other Fender amp sounds as good to me. At least not for what I do with them. For the last
several years on the Lee Roy gig, I have used a Fender "Custom" Vibrasonic amp.
It’s very loud and clean sounding with a 15" speaker.
All of my amps have their stock speakers in them with the exception of an old 4 x 10
Bassman. I recently retired the original speakers and put in some of the new Jensen P10Rs.
They’re incredible! The original speakers are safely boxed up and stored away.
TQR: What kind of tubes do you favor?
JP: I use the new Svetlana 6L6GC tubes in my amps that take 6L6’s. For new preamp
tubes I prefer the EI tubes out of Yugoslavia. I have a set of their EL-84s in my AC-30
right now and they have been fine so far. I have a set of Tesla (now J&J?) EL-84s I am
waiting to try. I use NOS 6V6 tubes in those amps that require them. Then there’s the
the Ampeg that uses the 7027A output tubes. I have NOS tubes in it and have just found a
spare matched set recently. Those are hard to find. Some of my amps take 12AY7 preamp
tubes and I have NOS tubes for those since I believe no one is making them currently.
TQR: How about acoustics?
JP: For acoustics, I have been using a Bourgeois OM-Custom for most of the past year.
It’s a beautiful guitar that plays and sounds wonderful and it’s a superb
recording instrument. Dana Bourgeois is making some of the greatest sounding guitars in
America today. I also have a wonderful old mid ‘50s Gibson J-45 which has been in my
family for a long, long time and a Guild D-55 that I use on the road. For acoustic
pickups, I use Fishman transducers and pre amp systems.
TQR: What effects do you use?
JP: Everything is a "stompbox" except for a Fender spring reverb unit. A
Fulltone Fulldrive II, a Danelectro Dan-Echo, a Nobels tremolo, a Boss chorus and Boss or
MXR compressor pedal. Pretty basic stuff.
TQR: Who are your favorite players and influences from early in your career to
the present?
JP: Oh, man! There are so many I can’t pick a favorite. I would have to say that
before I even knew it, guys like Scotty Moore, Chuck Berry and James Burton were
influences. Then the Beatles came along, so I have to mention both George Harrison and
John Lennon. Eric Clapton and Jimmy Hendrix come to mind next. Then there’s Reggie
Young and Steve Cropper, who I was hearing on all that great Memphis stuff on the radio
growing up.
Because I played the violin, or "fiddle," and came from Ft. Worth, TX, I was
greatly influenced by the music of Bob Wills, so I also have to list Eldon Shamblin and
Junior Barnard as major influences. For a time during high school, I really got heavy into
Leo Kottke, if you can believe that. I had a twelve string acoustic and everything. Roy
Buchanan was a huge influence and was the guy who made me want to get a Telecaster, which
I did! Then I got totally into the blues. My favorite of all is probably Albert Collins.
Freddy King was a major influence as I used to go see him play around Dallas and Ft. Worth
all the time during my late teen years right up until the time of his death in 1976. Of
course I have to mention B.B. and Albert King too. Then there are the Vaughan brothers,
Jimmie and Stevie. Because we were from the same area and playing the same
"circuit," they were huge influences and Jimmie still is today. I got to know
Stevie a little bit as we shared some gigs together during my years with Delbert. He was
the most intense and emotional player I have ever witnessed.
Those are the "famous" influences. Then there are local guys I grew up
around. These are people you probably never heard of, but are great players and were
really direct influences on me since I got to live and work with them and watch them play.
Guy’s like Junior Knight, Arvel Stricklin, Tommy Spurlock, Gary Nicholson, Bill Ham,
Stephen Bruton (you might have heard of him) and Tom Reynolds. These are guys who took
kindly to me when I was coming up, when I couldn’t play my way out of a paper bag.
They let me hang around if I wasn’t "gigging" with them and I just soaked
it all up. Or as much as I could. There are more of these guys, but I’ll stop with
those.
