TALES FROM NERDVILLE by Joe Bonamassa
TOOLS OF THE TRADE, PART 2
TOOLS OF THE TRADE, PART 2
Category
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MusicTranscript
00:00 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:01 I'm still winging it hard as, smiling at the pouring rain.
00:06 Hey, everybody.
00:10 Joe Bonamassa here in the apartment,
00:13 disturbing the neighbors once again,
00:16 healing up from a little bit of neck surgery.
00:18 So if my face looks a little out of proportion,
00:20 that'll clear up in a couple of weeks.
00:23 Today, I want to talk about the 335.
00:25 This happens to be a 1961 dot neck 335.
00:30 Why do they call it a dot neck?
00:31 It's because it's got dots indicating the frets,
00:35 12th fret, you know, whatever.
00:37 And after about '61, '62, mid '62,
00:43 they went to block markers and cherry red,
00:45 and that's what is mostly associated with air clapped
00:48 and then cream, and then the cherry red with the block
00:51 markers.
00:51 But these are cool.
00:52 BB King played one, you know?
00:53 Good enough for BB, good enough for me.
00:55 So today, I'm going to go through a little bit of what
00:57 makes a 335 different from, let's say,
01:01 a Les Paul or a Firebird or any of the other great Gibson
01:06 guitars.
01:06 So check it out.
01:08 So here we go, the 1961 ES-335.
01:12 You can really hear the acoustic quality
01:14 of the instrument coming through, even when plugged in.
01:16 So check this out.
01:17 [GUITAR PLAYING]
01:21 [PLAYING GUITAR]
01:24 Here's the front pickup.
01:44 [PLAYING GUITAR]
01:47 [PLAYING GUITAR]
01:50 Here are both pickups combined.
02:02 [PLAYING GUITAR]
02:06 [PLAYING GUITAR]
02:09 One for BB.
02:30 So whenever I'm choosing an instrument for a song,
02:33 every time we revisit our blues catalog, which
02:37 is pretty vast at this point-- we've
02:38 done a bunch of tribute shows and played a lot of trad
02:41 blues over the years--
02:43 every time I want to figure out what's
02:47 the best guitar for a trad blues song, 99% of the times,
02:52 I'm grabbing the ES-335.
02:54 It just works.
02:55 It fits in the track if you're in the studio.
02:58 And live, it just bellows and really creates that vibe
03:02 and takes you there, both as a player and sonically.
03:05 You know what I mean?
03:06 Sometimes you look down, and you're like,
03:07 this is where I want to be playing.
03:09 And you're hearing it, and sound makes you play.
03:12 So the 335, any year-- again, it doesn't
03:15 have to be a vintage one--
03:17 is a great asset and a great tool
03:19 to anybody who has a very vast variety of music and styles
03:25 that they have to pull off on any given Sunday.
03:30 [MUSIC PLAYING]
03:33 (upbeat music)
03:36 you