This is my effort at duplicating Mark Galloway’s amazing cover of this epic Allman Brothers classic.  Dedicated to Mark, and David Childers, who cheated death (again).

Not having anyone to jam with, I made what’s turning out to be the greatest investment in my guitar experience since the guitar and amp themselves — the Boss RC-20XL Loop Station Phrase Sampler, or Looper for short.  It plays back exactly what I want, when I want, without having to listen to it bitch about wanting to play something else, or faster, or slower, or it’s tired, or whatever.  Turns out, I am my own best jam partner.

I also spent some time today putting my recording gear back in order.   Previously, I had a fairly bulky and complex recording setup involving a dedicated laptop running Ubuntu Studio, which is wonderfuly robust and feature-packed, but required a separate laptop.  This morning, I set up the required packages on my daily-driver Kubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex laptop and got the Jack Audio Connection Kit working properly with my (Sean’s) Alesis Multimix 8, being fed by my (Sean’s) Schure SM57 mic, close-miced to my (my) Fender Hotrod Deluxe.  I’m getting lossless, high quality audio recording using Audacity, which I then align with the exported audio from the onboard mic on my mini-DV camcorder and then overdub the video with the now-synchronized audio for an HQ musical experience.  Now, if only I could play as precisely. 

One of these friends is a guy named Mark Galloway.  He’s a golf pro from Oklahoma, who also happens to be, as he puts it, a semi-retired professional guitarist.  He has a Youtube channel, much like I do. He shares his skills and his passion with anyone who happens to happen by, and gets out of it what he does, much like I do.

Recently, he posted a video of “In Memory of  Elizabeth Reed,” an epic Allman Brothers Band song, using his looper pedal.  I bought one last week, and spent a good deal of time today fiddling with this particular song, and though I think I’ve got it, for the most part, I’m still going to work on it a bit before recording and posting a video of my own effort at this awesome Dickey Betts tune.

This is a very, very short bit of Mark’s take on “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed.” Please see the full video to appreciate his skills.

Rig and settings:

60th Anniv American Fat Strat Deluxe
Fender Hotrod Deluxe – clean channel
Volume 2/12
Treble 9
Bass 5
Mid 8
Reverb 3
Presence 9
BBE Green Screamer
Boss DD6 echo

Truth be told, Junior was one my primary reasons for shelling out $185 (after fees and taxes) for a 3-day ticket to this thing. I mean, yes I was dying to see Ratdog and yes I was dying to see moe. play again, but since starting my own guitar journey, Junior was the can’t-miss.

Apparently this was also the case for the flock of bluesmen who met me at the Mushroom Stage at 12:15 in hopes that even though the Mule was running its second set late (all the acts were running behind), we’d get a chance to be in FRONT for the Junior Brown set. I was pleased and relieved to know that my decision making process to leave a Gov’t Mule set in exchange for Junior Brown was sound, judging from the caliber of guitarists standing around me.

One of them was Tony Tyler, who I mentioned in a previous post. A wild frock of curly blonde hair and a goatee frame, I noticed him first as he approached the stage area. With him were a handful of other guitarists whom I’d seen the previous evening at the campground jam. More on the campground jam in a later post. Gladly, they’d been also driven to Junior’s set.

I struck up conversation first with their drummer, a young blonde kid that looked just like Derek Trucks. He gets that a lot, he said. Then, an older fella wearing a ‘Got Duane’ t-shirt with a mustache, the one playing the flametop Les Paul the night before. I told him I had recently picked up the guitar, and how I wasn’t the same since. He was very friendly and engaging — smart guy, I could tell right away, wish I’d gotten his name — and he even gave me some advice, loosely paraphrased here:

The way I get my tone is to crank the mids up as high as they can go, and then start bumping up the trebs and the bass until you get it right. I prefer my [tube] overdrive to be just just close to the breakup point but not distorted.

Then, conversation struck up with a second of the dudes from the night before. He told me that “all of these guys, we’re truly close friends,” and that they were from a smaller town in Georgia, I forgot the name. He motioned to the mustache fella, the blonde kid (Tony), and to a bunch of other guys, who I ended up chatting brienfly with about music, guitars, and Junior Brown.

I was very glad to be talking to these guys. It was surreal, as the night before I was in total awe of their guitar chops at the campsite jam, and now, here I was, getting to talk to them and jaw around about gear and tone and the festival, influences…. shit, I was in newbie guitarist heaven. It probably showed.

Below is one of the two short videos I caught of Junior Brown and Warren Haynes jammin’, tradin’ licks and havin’ fun. I believe they played Dust My Broom, and I know they ended with Johnny B. Goode, at close to 3am.

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