Q: Is it true you have a cable jack instead of a belly button?
A: No. That’s just a rumor.
Q: So what are your first musical memories?
A: The Good Humor truck melody. Dave Brubeck on my dad’s stereo. The Exotic Sounds of Martin Denny -- I loved those tropical birds.
Q: Martin Denny is pretty wild. What else?
A: Wes Montgomery. What I heard on the radio. I really dug this tune called Valare, and Girl from Ipanema. Then in grade school, surf music was pretty much the thing. When the Beatles came along, radio became my guiding light. What I really loved was the garage bands -- the Seeds, the Music Machine, Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs.
Q: Is that when you started playing guitar?
A: No. I’d started playing alto sax when I was about 8 or 9, and was still at it. I remember my guitar-playing friends asking me if I could play chords on my sax, and not having a clue what they were talking about. Of course, now I realize they didn’t either.
Q: So when did you start playing guitar?
A: When I was 13. After about six months of working on my father’s theory that a banjo was a viable alternative to electric guitar. For Christmas that year, I finally got a red Harmony hollow body just like on the cover of the Mel Bay books.
Q: Did you take lessons or what?
A: Yeah, but the songs in the instruction books were lame, and anyway my playing sounded nothing like the records. Pretty discouraging. Then I discovered that slowing records down from 33 1/3 to 16 halved the speed and played at an octave below original, so I pretty much figured everything out on my own after that. Real slow. Then I found Mickey Baker’s Jazz Guitar book.
Q: A classic. Did you get through the whole thing?
A. No, just the first half. I was more into song structure and rhythm guitar playing than soloing. It helped me figure out stuff I liked by Paul Simon, James Taylor, Carol King. Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks. And with my own composing.
Q: Where you performing then? And when are we talking about, anyway?
A: Post-college dropout, early ‘70s. Only playing with friends, really, usual garage band stuff. Just before going back to college though, I had my first real gig, crooning soft-rock ballads at a booze and seafood joint in the local burbs. Where I learned I still had a lot to learn.
Q: So, when did the blues thing start happening?
A: After I got to Japan, and met Dave, early ‘80s. I didn’t have a clue about blues except what I’d learned from Mississippi John Hurt’s country blues and Reverend Gary Davis’ rags, and that wasn’t even blues really. Dave put me through the ringer, I mean, through an extensive course of blues education, and after about ten years I finally got it.
Q: Who were your big influences?
A: Muddy Waters and Mose Allison. The Hollywood Fats band -- huge influence there. Jimmy Rogers via Muddy.
Q: OK. Well, we’d really better wrap this up -- are there any musical high points or anything you’d like to mention?
A: Two moments of musical ecstasy: hearing Sing Sing Sing by Benny Goodman, and Rainy Day Dream Away by Hendrix. And, of course, every time I play with Dave.
> DWIGHT'S EQUIPMENT
> DAVE'S INTERVIEW
