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Weapon of Choice #2 - Sandy Wright // J45
Following on from Roy Rieck's opening guest column as part of our Weapon of Choice series, where he spoke of his affection for one of the most-treasured members of the reed family, the harmonica, Navigator Records' Sandy Wright steps forward to talk about his relationship with his Gibson J45 guitar...
"I have a few guitars now, maybe about 10, an electric bass, and a dobro. I have a piano and harmonicas too. I'm going to get an accordion soon. So I play a few different things.
If you play the fiddle it doesn't really matter what genre of music you play, the fiddle more or less has the same sound, there will be a few exceptions. This does not apply to the guitar, a classical guitar in a metal band wouldn't really be on the money, although I'm sure it will have been done.
Charlie Bird used a classical guitar for the jazz that he played and there are probably other mutant crossovers that exist, which I totally approve of. Some might think that a Les Paul has a certain sound, which it undoubtedly has, yet Slash has dozens of them and some of them look identical, so the above 'theory' is open to ridicule.
The point of the foregoing banter is only to illustrate that I have ten guitars or so because each one of them has a sound particularly suited to the type of music it was designed to play, and I have played a few styles. I'm not much of a trainspotter when it comes to guitars and know very little about the stats.
I have a few acoustics, a few electro acoustics, A classical, a Strat', a Taylor Baby, A Freshman, an Aria archtop, an Epiphone 335, a Gitane Manouche guitar (for Djangos music), and just recently, a guitar I've wanted for a lot of years, a Gibson J45 Custom. I have a Takemine (electro acoustic) that I like, for ceilidh band accompaniment. I also have an Ibanez 175 that has a fairly good sound for the odd bit of jazz I play.
For years I never really took time to 'hear' the sound of a guitar that I was going to buy. Half an our in the music shop is never long enough, although I do believe in love at first sight, or love at first sound I had to educate myself a bit on that one. There's no substitute for taking your time to play and listen to a guitar before you acquire it.
It used to be that you could 'trade up' guitars, your old one for a new one, but eBay's more or less done away with that, and music shops will rarely do it, so I have some guitars that I don't really need but couldn't get rid off without trying eBay, and I can't be arsed. If I had kept all the guitars I've bought I'd need a bigger house to live in.
I just recorded with the J45 yesterday, and the engineer said it was beautifully clear to record, and 'even' all over. It's an easy guitar to play, and I think probably at it's best being a guitar to sing with, a great rhythm guitar. That's the reason I have it anyway. Kris Drever had a belt on it a couple of weeks ago and he pointed out that it would suit flat-picking also.
I think the J45 looks great. I like simple looking guitars, flashy guitars don't do that much for me. Sometimes ugly guitars make a fantastic noise in certain hands, and the opposite is true, so the player makes all the difference."
Sandy Wright releases his new double album 'The Songs of Sandy Wright' this week through Navigator Records.
Official site: www.navigatorrecords.co.uk
"I have a few guitars now, maybe about 10, an electric bass, and a dobro. I have a piano and harmonicas too. I'm going to get an accordion soon. So I play a few different things.
If you play the fiddle it doesn't really matter what genre of music you play, the fiddle more or less has the same sound, there will be a few exceptions. This does not apply to the guitar, a classical guitar in a metal band wouldn't really be on the money, although I'm sure it will have been done.
Charlie Bird used a classical guitar for the jazz that he played and there are probably other mutant crossovers that exist, which I totally approve of. Some might think that a Les Paul has a certain sound, which it undoubtedly has, yet Slash has dozens of them and some of them look identical, so the above 'theory' is open to ridicule.
The point of the foregoing banter is only to illustrate that I have ten guitars or so because each one of them has a sound particularly suited to the type of music it was designed to play, and I have played a few styles. I'm not much of a trainspotter when it comes to guitars and know very little about the stats.
I have a few acoustics, a few electro acoustics, A classical, a Strat', a Taylor Baby, A Freshman, an Aria archtop, an Epiphone 335, a Gitane Manouche guitar (for Djangos music), and just recently, a guitar I've wanted for a lot of years, a Gibson J45 Custom. I have a Takemine (electro acoustic) that I like, for ceilidh band accompaniment. I also have an Ibanez 175 that has a fairly good sound for the odd bit of jazz I play.
For years I never really took time to 'hear' the sound of a guitar that I was going to buy. Half an our in the music shop is never long enough, although I do believe in love at first sight, or love at first sound I had to educate myself a bit on that one. There's no substitute for taking your time to play and listen to a guitar before you acquire it.
It used to be that you could 'trade up' guitars, your old one for a new one, but eBay's more or less done away with that, and music shops will rarely do it, so I have some guitars that I don't really need but couldn't get rid off without trying eBay, and I can't be arsed. If I had kept all the guitars I've bought I'd need a bigger house to live in.
I just recorded with the J45 yesterday, and the engineer said it was beautifully clear to record, and 'even' all over. It's an easy guitar to play, and I think probably at it's best being a guitar to sing with, a great rhythm guitar. That's the reason I have it anyway. Kris Drever had a belt on it a couple of weeks ago and he pointed out that it would suit flat-picking also.
I think the J45 looks great. I like simple looking guitars, flashy guitars don't do that much for me. Sometimes ugly guitars make a fantastic noise in certain hands, and the opposite is true, so the player makes all the difference."
Sandy Wright releases his new double album 'The Songs of Sandy Wright' this week through Navigator Records.
Official site: www.navigatorrecords.co.uk
Following on from Roy Rieck's opening guest column as part of our Weapon...
