Hi everyone. I had previously posted my July 2002 in depth interview with Jorma Kaukonen discussing his acclaimed roots & bluegrass acoustic 2002 album "Blue Country Heart", featuring on the album Bela Fleck, Jerry Douglas, Sam Bush and Byron House, but a glitch on the forum deleted it. Here it is again. (The archive was republished 2011 in "Guitar International Magazine" which just went out of business so here's the text).

“Jorma Kaukonen. The Acoustic Blues Journeyman Returns Home”

By Arlene R. Weiss

 Copyright July 24, 2002, 2011, 2016 and in Perpetuity By Arlene R. Weiss-All Rights Reserved

In July 2002, I was honored to interview the legendary Jorma Kaukonen, discussing his critically acclaimed acoustic roots album, “Blue Country Heart”, which featured a glittering all star ensemble of bluegrass luminaries backing up Jorma, including Jerry Douglas on Dobro, Sam Bush on mandolin, Bela Fleck on banjo, and Byron House on upright bass. The album went on to be nominated for a Grammy Award® and showcased Jorma’s deep affection and reverence for, and origins in, Americana roots music stylings. Currently Jorma is touring with his first new studio album with Hot Tuna since 1990, “Steady As She Goes”, while still offering studies to acoustic roots guitar players in this authentic and treasured music art form at his Fur Peace Ranch Guitar Camp. Here’s a fond look back with Jorma, at the intricate crafting of “Blue Country Heart”, his many musical influences, and much more.

2002 Interview with Jorma Kaukonen

Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Inductee, guitarist Jorma Kaukonen is infamous as one of music’s icon pioneers who helped forge the 1960’s San Francisco Bay Area rock scene. As a founding member of The Jefferson Airplane, his electric, effect driven guitar riffs and spatial chords were a defining element of the psychedelic era.

But Kaukonen’s earliest musical influences which began in his youth, and which later resurfaced in his next band, the seminal Hot Tuna, were deeply steeped in the blues, and his playing approach and technique have been continuously influenced by the playing techniques of such blues luminaries as Big Bill Broonzy, and Kaukonen’s idol, the Reverend Gary Davis. (Even The Jefferson Airplane, named by Kaukonen, was a fond moniker and nod to bluesman Blind Lemon Jefferson, which Kaukonen revamped into a fictitious named bluesman, Blind Thomas Jefferson Airplane.)

In recent years, the prolific guitar patriarch has returned to his purist blues origins and has taken up the esteemed form of playing known as acoustic blues guitar or fingerpicking blues as it’s also known, as a personal cause and labor of love to be preserved and actively performed. In 1993, Kaukonen founded The Fur Peace Ranch guitar camp in Pomeroy, Ohio where acoustic blues players, professional and amateur alike, can spend time studying and picking away to their hearts content.

Then, January of this year, Kaukonen realized his dream come true with the recording and subsequent current release of his new studio, all acoustic album, “Blue Country Heart”. The record, recorded and mixed entirely in Nashville, with co-producers Roger Moutenot and Yves Beauvais manning the helm, is a celebration of friendship, of creative camaraderie, and of American roots music played to stellar heights in an all acoustic setting by a literal dream team all star cavalcade, of some of bluegrass’s most venerable artists (all longtime colleagues handpicked by Kaukonen).

With his Gibson 1936 Advanced Jumbo Acoustic Guitar in hand, Kaukonen enlisted Jerry Douglas on Dobro and Weissenborn, Sam Bush on mandolin and fiddle, Byron House on upright bass, and Bela Fleck on banjo to weave a dazzling multi-textured tapestry, interpreting classic rural country blues songs penned by esteemed tunesmiths of the early twentieth century.

From the band’s sublime, telling reworking of Jimmie Rodgers “You And My Old Guitar”, elevated by Kaukonen’s subtle chord structure and Douglas’s chime harmonics, to Jorma’s lightening fast rapid fire picking on Cliff Carlisle’s “Tomcat Blues”, to the band’s sharpshooter all out rag-jam take on the Shelton Brothers’ “Just Because”, Jorma and his compatriots dispel a spirited, authentic hodge podge of old time chickin’ pickin’ country blues comfortably fit for a sittin’ spell, relaxing and playing an old time jam on a back porch, while remaining oh so sterling true blue to Kaukonen’s self proclaimed, “Blue Country Heart”.

Arlene R. Weiss: You’ve said that for years, you have wanted to go to Nashville to record some of the classic, rural country blues songs with an elite ensemble of bluegrass musicians.

Jorma Kaukonen: It’s absolutely true and it was specifically, with the guys that I picked that are on the album. That’s because Sam and Byron and I have been friends for quite awhile. I’ve been a huge fan of Jerry Douglas’s and we’ve sort of known each other casually. We’ve been pals for awhile. I’ve done some stuff with them at Merlefest. I thought that it would be a really fun project to do. Yves Beauvais, who did both A&R and co-produced the record, approached me a couple years ago when I was doing a show at B.B. King’s in Manhattan, and said off the cuff, “If you could do a dream project, what would it be?” That’s what immediately popped out of my mouth. Yves called me about six months later and said, “Are you still interested in that project?” I went, “Yeah!”, so he said “Call the guys and see if they’re interested.” So I called them up and I told them what I was doing and they said, “If we can make time, we’d love to do it!” So it was specifically those guys, that project, and that place. They were able to make time and we cut the whole album in four days, live.

AW: What were some of the acoustic instruments that the different group members, besides yourself, brought into the studio?

JK: Jerry plays Dobro and Weissenborn. He had a bunch of great Weissenborns. I think he was playing a Tim Scheerhorn Dobro. Sam brought a Gibson 1937 F-5 Mandolin. I think Byron’s upright bass is from Germany and it’s well over a hundred years old.

AW: Explain why out of some two hundred traditional songs, that you chose the thirteen songs and the songwriters that wrote them, that finally made the cut on the record.

JK: It was tough because all the songs were great. When I started listening to them, I began paring them down saying, “I like this. I like that.” Because they were all great songs, about a month or so before we did the sessions, I still had some thirty songs. I realized that I’ve got to quit listening to the songs and enjoying them (fondly laughing), and to actually start learning some of them. My goal was to pick songs that I could make mine reasonably quickly without playing them on the road for two years.

AW: “Blue Country Heart” is the ultimate expression for you, as an acoustic guitar player, particularly, performing the unique style of acoustic blues guitar, also known as fingerpicking blues. Since your musical roots, your career, and your Fur Peace Ranch guitar camp have continuously championed this esteemed form of playing, can you detail your own unique approach, interpretation, and your technique of this style of playing and how you adapted it to the songs on the record?

JK: The thing that’s interesting is that this is not a bluegrass album because I’m not a bluegrass guitar player. It was actually quite easy. All I had to do was be me. In this case, my approach was a little different from the way that I approach a solo blues song, in that, when I work out a solo song, there are more things going on that I’m doing. It’s a bit more complex and when you’re playing in a band, that gets in the way. The only real change that I had to make, was to concentrate more on playing really solid rhythm with my thumb when I wasn’t soloing, singing, or when the other guys weren’t soloing. I’m still playing with my fingers, but it wasn’t as much of a piece as say, any Reverend Gary Davis piece where there’s all kinds of stuff going on with your fingers and your thumb all the time. I had to simplify it a little in order to make it work. When you listen to it back, that just works better. One of the things that we talk about at the ranch is, or with anybody if I’m talking about more than one fingerstyle guitar player getting together to perform is, you can no longer….even if you both know the song well….you have to reach some sort of an agreement in which one guy will play rhythm most of the time, and the other guy will do lead stuff. But you take turns dong things well. You do an arrangement together or it’s not going to sound good.

AW: Do you typically use picks on all five of your fingers, as is the method?

JK: No. I’m what they call a three finger picker. I use a thumbpick and metal picks for my first two fingers. Reverend Gary Davis only used a thumb and one finger. So there’s a lot of ways to do it. Most of the fingerpickers that I know tend to use three fingers. I know a couple guys who will use all five, but mostly classical players do that all the time. Most of the country blues players tend to use only three fingers and some only use two.

AW: You’re a passionate blues scholar who has studied the technique of your idol, the Reverend Gary Davis. Explain what you learned from his technique, how you formed your own technique and playing style as a result of his influence, and how that informed your playing.

JK: I never took lessons from the Reverend himself, because I didn’t have the outrageous three dollars an hour he was charging then. (laughing) But I did learn from Ian Buchanan who was one of my roommates when I went to Antioch College . Ian knew the Reverend very well, but Ian was a three finger picker. Also because the Reverend wasn’t sighted, he used a lot of very odd chord positions. The way he approached things was different from the way a sighted person who has seen other people play would tend to do things. So when I got into the Reverend’s stuff, from the beginning, as I learned things, I immediately began to form my own way of doing it. At the time I remember that I used to think, the way the Reverend does it is too complicated for me. In the light of the way things played out, it’s been a blessing for me because I did develop my own style. As I said, I use three fingers. And the Reverend only used one finger and a thumb, that sly old dog! I believe Merle Travis only used one finger and a thumb too. There’s just so many ways to do it and it’s always going to sound a little different. I’m not a Reverend Gary Davis scholar, but there’s something in the spirit of his music and in the feeling of his music that I still find incredibly attractive and seductive today. I believe he’s one of the great artists of the twentieth century and a terrific guy. I don’t do things the way he did them, but I’ve certainly been inspired by his music and it’s taken me to a lot of places.

AW: Describe how you achieve your quick trigger picking technique on three songs in particular on the album, “Tomcat Blues”, “Red River Blues”, and “Big River Blues”. They have a great, well, chickin’ pickin’ feel!

JK: Yeah! (laughing) There’s a one word answer to that that I’ll expound to….necessity! When you’re playing with these guys who are used to playing bluegrass, they’re so fast and perfect with the way they do things. It was a real challenge to me because I normally don’t play that fast. But you get into it, and technically, from a guitar player’s point of view, I tried to figure out, “How am I going to do this?” I’m not a flatpicker, so I’m not going to do it that way. I had to figure out what am I able to get away with to create the illusion that I can play this fast all the time. Basically, I just really went for it like a big dog. Now I like that chickin’ pickin’ thing and I do some of those little clucking sounds. I used my thumb and my first finger to get that sound. But basically, the boys pushed me and I was able to rise to the occasion.

AW: The Jimmie Rodgers paean to the six string, “You And My Old Guitar” features your very eloquent style of playing and use of chime harmonics. Can you explain your understated playing technique on the song and how you utilize it to create intricate, melodic chord structure and phrasing?

JK: With a song like that, it’s not about using all the tricks. Sometimes the song just has to come first. That’s pretty much how I approached that song. If you check out what I’m doing, and I’m going to use this as a metaphor, but in a way, the picking is like Peter, Paul & Mary’s “Puff The Magic Dragon”. It’s just real finger picking accompanying stuff, which is just a generation away from the way Elizabeth Cotton did things.

AW: How did you achieve the bell like tone harmonics on the song?

JK: I suspect that the harmonics that you’re hearing on that song are done by Jerry on Dobro, which is why they have such a bell like sound. The way we did this record….like I said we did it all live. It’s Direct Stream Digital so you can’t punch in and mess around with stuff. We all sat in a room with our instruments in a circle, facing each other. And because we play well together, it’s difficult to discern who’s doing what sometimes. I’d have to listen to it, but I don’t remember doing harmonics on that and when you use the term bell like, I’m sure it’s Jerry.

AW: What were your main studio guitars for the record?

JK: I just used one guitar for that session. It’s a Gibson 1936 Advanced Jumbo, but it wasn’t made in 1936. It’s not an original one. They reissued the one that I have, so now that’s a model number for that guitar. Mine is a 1997. It’s a really good guitar. No pickups. It’s just a real, no baloney acoustic guitar.

AW: Can you detail some of your studio amps, equipment, and how everything was set up in the studio?

JK: We didn’t use any amps at all. It’s all completely acoustic. We basically just sat in a circle. I didn’t even wear headphones on this record. I don’t like the feeling of wearing headphones. Sometimes you have to do it, but I really like the feeling of the way it sounds in the room. When we do shows live, if I can get away with it, I don’t like to have anything in the monitors. I like to do it just like we used to do in the folkdays, where you hear the sound coming back out of the audience.

AW: What acoustic guitars do you use when you’re performing live?

JK: I’m using a Gibson J-190 acoustic/electric fusion. I always tell people, when you take an acoustic guitar and you put any kind of a pick up in it, and plug it in, it’s not an acoustic guitar anymore. Now it’s a big body electric guitar. The goal is to make whatever instrument you’re playing sound good. And in the Gibson J-190, they have a transducer pickup under the bridge. But this one also has a single coil humbucker pickup at the end of the neck, and you can blend them together. The humbucker pickup is just like the ones they have in electric guitars so it’s a little warmer and fatter sounding than the transducer. So I use the bridge pickup which gives me the highs and the brightness that I like in acoustic guitar. I bring the humbucker up just underneath it to sort of fatten the sound out and make it less brittle.

AW: What guitars and rig are you currently using on the “Blue Country Heart” tour?

JK: That’s the guitar that I’m using, the Gibson J-190. I’m using an Aguilar tube direct box. I plug my guitar into that and that goes straight into the PA. Then there’s a little output from that that goes to a Crate CA-112 acoustic amp. That’s an odd thing to say, an acoustic amp! (laughing) That’s what they call it. I use that as a monitor for me on stage so I don’t have to have my guitar go through the monitors.

AW: How does your approach to playing in the studio differ from playing live?

JK: Actually, it doesn’t much. It’s the way I approach things. When we went into the studio to do this session, the producers didn’t want us to rehearse, so we never rehearsed together. We were all familiar with the material and the guys had played a lot of these songs in other bands that they’ve been in.

AW: That could actually be a good thing though, because it creates that warm, jam session spontaneity.

JK: Absolutely. So we worked out arrangements on the spot and went for it. That’s the way that I approach things live. I have a rotating cast of musicians on the “Blue Country Heart” tour. Sometimes I have Cindy Cashdollar playing steel guitar and Dobro and sometimes I have Sally Van Meter playing Dobro and Weissenborn because we got this tour together late. Some of the musicians had prior commitments. So we had to rotate the cast out and we didn’t have a chance to solidify anyone in the band. But that’s worked out in all of our best interests because we’re all good players. We all listen to each other. I approach what I do live with this project, the same way that I do in the studio, which is to listen to what the other guys and gals are playing and try to make the most of it.

AW: How did you mike your guitar and what microphones did you use in the studio?

JK: I don’t know the names of them. But the main producer, Roger Moutenot is a master at miking and he had all the mikes stacked this way and pointed that way. They were all cool mikes, but it’s beyond my realm of expertise. I will say that the miking techniques are so important in recording acoustic instruments so you need somebody who truly is an expert in how to do it.

AW: Did you do any overdubbing?

JK: No overdubbing. We did a number of takes to get THE take, we picked a take, and that was it.

AW: What strings and gauge did you use on the album?

JK: I’ve been using two kinds of strings, Gibson J-200 Strings and I’m also using Gibson Chet Atkins Strings. The gauge that I use, they call it a light gauge now. When I was a kid, it was a medium gauge, so the thought of a heavy gauge string is terrifying! The gauge that I use are 12 through 52.

AW: What chordal modes and tuning do you use in your acoustic playing, and on the record?

JK: On this album I only use straight tuning.

AW: The album was recorded using the new state of the art Direct Stream Digital Super Audio at Nashville’s world class Masterlink Studio. For you and the whole band, in combining your vintage instruments, gear, and equipment with such advanced technology, how were you able to obtain the authentic sound, tone, and feel of the original traditional musicians and their analog recordings, recorded with minimal miking, and equipment, often done in one take, in a small room?

JK: I believe that’s the goal with this Direct Stream Digital SACD process. Their goal is to make it sound like analog. I’m not an expert on this, but the way Jerry Douglas explained it to me, a normal CD recording has a sampling range of 44.1, which is the standard range. That’s still above what most people can hear. But there are frequencies that happen above that sampling range. I don’t remember what the sampling range is on Direct Stream Digital, but it’s much, much more than that. Above 44.1, there are things that you can feel, that you can’t hear. They say, and this is Jerry telling me, like you can feel the air move in a room, which is the kind of thing that makes the warmth on analog recordings. The goal is to make that happen on digital recordings and I think they made that happen with this record.

AW: What mixing process did you use?

JK: We mastered at a studio in Nashville called 17 Grand. I’m trying to think of the board they have.

AW: ProTools, Sonic Solutions?

JK: No we didn’t use any of that because it’s not compatible with this new Direct Stream Digital process. We used a Neve board and I believe a process called the Sonoma System. It has its own proprietary editing thing which is something like ProTools.

AW: You said it took four days to record the album. How long did it take to mix it?

JK: It took longer to mix it than it did to record it. It took a week to mix it. Only a week and a half to record and mix the record. Isn’t that unbelievable! The music speaks for itself. First of all, I’m playing with a great bunch of guys. And we were all pretty much in a solid comfort zone. When you’re recording a rock album or a modern country album, you’re brick laying. You’re doing things in layers and then you have to spend a lot of time to put those layers together to sound right, when you could get that sound much quicker, if you just did it live.

AW: Several of the album’s songs, particularly “Just Because” are stellar jam sessions, very reminiscent of the feel of the old time rags of the turn of the century. You and each member of the ensemble step in for a solo turn and then everyone joins in together for a jam. How did you arrange and construct the solo lines for yourself for acoustic guitar, and for each ensemble member on Dobro, mandolin, upright bass, fiddle, and banjo?

JK: I don’t work out solos in advance. You have a comfort zone that you operate in, but I pretty much try to go for whatever is happening at the moment, which makes some takes better than others. That’s why it’s a challenge to try to get a take where that’s happening for everybody. But with Bela, and Jerry and the guys…..The guys are so good, they get in that zone immediately. It’s mindboggling. These guys are terrific. The record was a joint arrangement. Since we didn’t rehearse, we’d sit down together and we’d figure, “How are we going to start this?” Sometimes I’d have an idea. Sometimes Sam would have one, and so it’s really a group arranged album.

AW: Who are some of your major acoustic blues influences and favorite players?

JK: Of course, the Reverend Gary Davis is a huge influence to me. I really like Big Bill Broonzy a lot. He’s terrific. There’s so many. Merle Travis was very instrumental to me as a young player. The early Brownie McGhee recordings. Thomas A. Dorsey, who’s a keyboard player who has done some great gospel and funny rags in that same style where Big Bill Broonzy played guitar. A lot of piano players have influenced me too.

AW: How have you seen the recognition and success of your projects including “Blue Country Heart” and your guitar camp, as well as your championing of traditional, acoustic playing and music, influence and educate other guitar players in their awareness, learning, and performing of this style of playing and music, to inspire new generations, keeping acoustic blues guitar vital and alive?

JK: We’ve been very fortunate. The album is being very well received. We’re actually getting a lot of airplay. It’s unbelievable. The other day, it was number three on the Americana chart. Our camp has only been open for five years and we’re almost sold out by February of each year. I think the music speaks for itself. We’ve been fortunate to get a little visability. People realize that there’s a lot of places you can go to learn guitar. I’m not the only one that does this. But I’m fortunate in that I do have a high profile so people find out about us. Sometimes, somebody will come to the camp that just found out about it online. They didn’t have a specific love of the music, but it looked like fun, so they come and then they get turned on to this and I say, “You’re in for a treat because even though you’re not starting this out as a kid, there’s such a wealth of great and wonderful music.” It’s also music you can play it by yourself, sitting on the back porch, without convening with four friends, one of whom runs a band. If you’re playing rock and roll, you need that. You can’t play it by yourself. You’ve got to get the band together. But with this kind of music, you can play it with other people, or you can just sit on your back porch and play it.

AW: Where and how do you see yourself stretching creatively in the future to further evolve as a musician, and in furthering the cause and evolution of acoustic blues?

JK: “Blue Country Heart” is a record that contains a bunch of diamonds from a very deep mine. I’m going to go back into that mine again. I think for my next project, I’d like to do more of the same. I know a lot about some of the black players, but I looked at a lot more of the white players on this album. There’s just a neat world out there that I’m constantly discovering too. So I’m going to stay in that mine for awhile. I’d like to do another project very similar to this one.
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Copyright July 24, 2002, 2011, 2016 and in Perpetuity By Arlene R. Weiss-All Rights Reserved

[Edited on 5/16/2016 by ArleneWeiss]