For The Record
Jamie Dickson sets to work on an album – a fingerstyle folk record – with help from some very experienced friends and characterful guitars
Over the past five years, I’ve begun playing more and more fingerstyle acoustic and, with no special goal in mind, I gradually built up a dozen finished pieces that I was pretty happy with. Eventually, I realised that I easily had enough for a long EP, maybe an album, but I wondered if anyone would really want to hear instrumental songs I’d written in our kitchen at home after the family had gone to bed. The thought merited a kind of mental Gallic shrug, but not much more.
But a watershed moment happened when I interviewed fingerstyle master Gordon Giltrap a few months back. Learning one of Gordon’s pieces note-for-note from tab in Guitarist in the 90s set me on the path to playing fingerstyle acoustic to begin with. Meeting him in person wasn’t a disappointment and, over the course of an afternoon of chatting, his encouraging advice and heartening faith that I could make an album out of what I was doing felt like a door being opened for me.
As it happens, while I was chatting to Gordon I had my then-main acoustic with me, a 1974 J-45, which he had a little go on. Hearing him play it expertly, working round its ‘quirks’, made me realise that although it had a lot of charm, fingerstyle acoustic places a lot of demands on a guitar.You need the notes to be even and perfectly intonated all the way up the neck. The J-45 was a great guitar in many ways and certainly characterful. But I realised that it didn’t have the stable, piano-like poise I wanted for recording fingerstyle guitar.
Committing to an idea has an almost magical power to it. No sooner had I decided I was going to do an album and that the J-45 wasn’t the guitar for it, I got it sold in just a few days for a good amount, then tracked down a Martin I’d seen advertised on Reverb in my area, a Custom Shop 000-14 that turned out to belong to a former session musician who’d been in the business since the 60s. I went round to try the mahogany-bodied guitar and everything slotted into place: the fretboard was nice and wide, it was perfectly played in, and the tone was resonant and rich. So the deal was done.
Afterwards Gordon, who had been characteristically polite about my J-45 when he’d tried it, got in touch and admitted that he’d thought “maybe it had lacked a little something” – and would I like to borrow his own Fylde signature model when I went into the studio? You won’t get an offer like that from your heroes too many times, so I told him I’d gladly take him up on it should the sessions coincide with his next visit down. That’s the stamp of one of Britain’s greatest acoustic players, generous not just with advice but even with his own personal instrument. You can’t ask for better encouragement than that.
Introducing A Producer
The last piece of the puzzle was put in place by my friend and Guitarist contributor Rod Brakes. I realised if I wanted to do this properly, I couldn’t just cobble something together on a laptop at home. I had a couple of good options for recording at local studios, but Rod stopped me and said that I shouldn’t do anything until I’d spoken to Chris Turpin of the superb roots-rock band Ida Mae, who had moved into the area recently. I knew Chris already from the times we’d interviewed him and Stephanie Jean of Ida Mae for Guitarist, but I hadn’t realised he was a big fan of English fingerstyle folk guitarists such as John Renbourn, a player whose work I’ve loved for decades. Rod explained that Chris had a very well-equipped studio – and might be up for producing me.
I got on the phone to Chris and talked it over and immediately felt we were completely on the same wavelength regarding what the album could be and what it could achieve. Then he surprised me by saying that he was happy to go ahead and produce me and that we should start with a pre-production meeting at his place, so I could perform the material in person for him and we could develop a plan for the recording. I realised then, as I had when talking with Gordon, that I was being invited by a highly skilled musician to take my own project seriously – to regard it not just as a chance to record some more-or
less competent playing for a lark, so to speak, but to make a proper record with a distinctive sound and style, and with genuine musical integrity and quality.
These exchanges led me to realise something. Modesty is a noble quality – and I genuinely believe all artists should exercise a bit of humility, if only to acknowledge the fact that inspiration, when it strikes, often seems to come from a larger place beyond our everyday selves. But to be an effective artist, you also have to pick up the gauntlet and dare to believe you can achieve something of genuine worth, even when you know your own talents aren’t as great as the masters that inspired you. That’s not arrogance or boastfulness; it’s just committing to the work. Both Gordon and Chris helped me see that, which is in turn the mark of serious artists who do this every day.
A few days later, I took my Martin round to see Chris at his home. Unsurprisingly for an artist who used to work in vintage guitar shops back in the day, he’s got some lovely instruments, from a custom redwood Fylde he’d recently had built for him by Roger Bucknall to a 1936 Gibson L-00. Before turning up, Chris had asked me to send over a playlist of acoustic recordings that sounded good to me. Accordingly, I sent him tracks from Pierre Bensusan’s 1975 album PrèsDeParis, especially the beautiful Dame Lombarde, and things like John Renbourn’s TheMoon ShinesBright and John Martyn’s SolidAir. Chris pointed out how different these tracks were to the glistering, widestereo sound that seems to be the standard for many fingerstyle recordings today. Instead of pin-sharp clarity, they had warmth and grain and an analogue directness that cut straight to the heart of things. Chris told me that he had some vintage mics and that he’d love to set up some recording rigs that really delved back into the methods of the 60s and 70s studios. This was just exactly what I wanted to hear – it felt like a key turning in a lock.
Next time round, if you’re interested, I’ll share a little of the recording techniques, mic setups, guitars and more that Chris and I used to start tracking the album. In the meantime, it’s back to the studio.
“You have to dare to believe you can achieve something of genuine worth… it’s not arrogance or boastfulness, just committing to the work”