Interview By James Jensen
Jorma Kaukonen is sitting on a couch in his room at the Hyatt on Sunset Boulevard, across the street from the oh so trendy House of Blues club where he will be performing in a couple of hours, when the subject of the technicality of his playing comes up. "If you are trying to play something of mine and it's really hard, you're probably playing it wrong" he quips, and reaches for a fresh pack of strings for his new Gibson "Nighthawk" guitar. A wisecrack to be sure, but there is a lot of truth in that statement as well. Kaukonen , who first became well known as the lead guitarist for Jefferson Airplane in the mid sixties , before branching off with his acoustic blues unit Hot Tuna , has always put his playing in the context of support of the songs and rarely flaunts his considerable chops for there own sake.
Kaukonen's contributions to the acoustic guitar scene have been substantial for many reasons. Not only was the first Hot Tuna album one of the primary influences on a whole generation of young acoustic fingerstyle guitarists , it also introduced a lot of us to great artists like the Reverend Gary Davis who'se playing had heavily affected Kaukonen's. Kaukonen continues to pass on some of the wealth of his experience and technique with several wonderful instructional videos available through Homespun tapes.
Although he has never had a "hit" as a solo artist or with his group Hot Tuna , Kaukonen has persevered through many trends in the music business and finds himself at the end of 1994 celebrating the twenty fifth year anniversary of Hot Tuna's first release (which is still in print) with a tour capped off by two sold out shows at the House of Blues. While relaxing before his show Kaukonen spoke with me about his beginnings in music , his influences, and experiences the last thirty years, as well as his future plans.
JJ: Was your first guitar an acoustic?
JK: I first started playing on a Gibson J-45 acoustic, and the first music I played was Old-timey, and Bluegrass.
JJ: You were a pick player?
JK: I was playing with a flat pick. My early influences were the Carter family, of course, as well as Flat and Scruggs, and those kind of players with an occasional Little Jimmy Dickens song thrown in.
JJ: What age were you when you started with the guitar, and did you take to it rather quickly?
JK: I was sixteen when I started and, I took to it quickly enough to know that it was the instrument I wanted to play but I didn't learn to fingerpick until about five years later. I didn't become a virtuoso or anything like that , I just loved playing and singing.
JJ: Did playing the guitar consume all of your free time?
JK: Absolutely, I spent all my time in the bathroom , playing and singing, because as we all know that's the place it sounds the best. When I was at Antioch College and I started to learn to fingerpick in 1959 I virtually quit going to class so I could play eight hours a day.
JJ: Who taught you to fingerpick?
JK: I had been thrashing around playing guitar and singing when I met this guy named Ian Buchannan who turned me on to the fingerpicking and The Rev. (Reverend Gary Davis). I had been listening to a lot of it but I just didn't know what the deal was. I used to get off on Merle Travis' cameo part in the movie "From Here To Eternity " and thought , "whoa! how does he do this stuff?", and I actually still know all the words to "Re-enlistment Blues". Developing the independent thumb and finger movement was unbelievably hard for me because it seemed so alien to me . I flip over what drummers do because they do that kind of thing with their whole body, but it just happened when I learned " Sally Where'd you Get Your Liquor From" literally one measure at a time and really thought out what I was doing and when I would get two or three measures together I would work on them until I could do them properly. I am not sure that 's the right way to learn , but it worked for me. It wasn't easy but one day it just was there , and I could do it.
JJ: Did you then search out some of the Country Blues players to listen to?
JK: Well, since I didn't even have a stereo at the time I spent a lot of time playing with people and, The Rev. lived in New York city at the time so I got to see his gigs at Folk City. Brother John Sellars used to run the Hoots at Folk City and I used to play there when people like John Lee Hooker, Brownie McGee and Sonny Terry were regulars so it wasn't a question of searching them out on records as much as searching out the ones live that were available , and fortunately for me one of the ones who was live and available was the Reverend Gary Davis.
JJ: Did you take lessons from him?
JK: Well, like I said earlier , it wasn't in my budget at the time so I got my lessons , as they were, from Ian and that's probably why I use three fingers instead of two for picking. I never actually took lessons from him but, I sure learned a lot of stuff from him , and I'm still learning stuff from him.
JJ: How did you get from that point to being in Jefferson Airplane clear across the country in San Francisco?
JK: I moved to the west coast to go to school in Santa Clara , in fact I actually graduated from the University there and the alumni association just found me too late for my thirtieth reunion, but maybe I'll catch the fortieth. I wasn't interested in Rock n Roll at the time , I tolerated the Rolling Stones, but I was interested in Ethnic music or American Traditional music mostly. Somehow I got sidetracked because Paul Kantor , who also had gone to Santa Clara, talked me into trying out for the Jefferson Airplane, and I had a really beautiful Gibson L-5 , that I have since traded away for nothing , and a beautiful pre-CBS vibrolux . Ken Kessey was there and he introduced me to tape delay which seduced me in how I could kind of play by myself. At the time I really didn't know how to play electric guitar because it really wasn't what I wanted to do , and I had all these politically incorrect type of reservations about it , but before long the band was becoming a success, and I learned how to play electric guitar.
JJ: You mentioned Merle Travis' cameo on the movie "From Here To Eternity" affecting you , well a lot of acoustic fingerstylists I know had the same reaction to your cameo , as it were, instrumental "Embryonic Journey" on the "Surrealistic Pillow " album. How did that come about?
JK: That was the first song I ever wrote, and it was written while I was giving a guitar workshop in Santa Clara in 1962. I was playing a twelve string and demonstrating finger rolls and it just evolved , and I was fortunate enough to have it on tape or I would have probably never remembered it. I played it in the studio while we were recording "Surrealistic Pillow" and the producer said "You have to put that on the album" and I thought he was crazy because it was a Rock n Roll album and our audience would hate it. He eventually talked me into doing it and , once again something I didn't want to do I did anyway, and it was a good thing I did!
JJ: Did you get a lot of grief or encouragement from that track at the time?
JK: At the time I still wasn't very confident as an electric player but I felt pretty good about my acoustic playing so when I got some recognition for it I was ecstatic.
JJ: How much longer was it before Hot Tuna started to evolve?
JK: The Hot Tuna thing started to evolve almost immediately because, in the dark ages of Rock n Roll touring we shared rooms a lot and not only wasn't there cable TV there wasn't TV period in a lot of the places we stayed. The Airplane shows weren't nearly as long as shows are today so Jack ( Bassist Jack Cassidy) and I would get back to the hotel unable to sleep and being able to find nothing else to do in these little towns so I began to teach , or show him the Folk-Blues things I had worked out. We built up a repertoire in a style which became the acoustic Hot Tuna. We started to do little inserts in the middle of Airplane sets and people really liked it so we gravitated into Hot Tuna.
JJ: I've heard several different stories about where the name came from can you set the record straight?
JK: People always ask me was the original name Hot Shit, it absolutely was not. The name came from a snappy comeback to the line from "Keep on Truckin" which goes like "What's that smell like fish , Oh baby" and somebody said , Hot Tuna. We had developed a pretty good repertoire and started to do some gigs so when RCA gave us an opportunity to record I jumped at it.
JJ: Could you have imagined that twenty five years later Hot Tuna would still be going strong?
JK: No not really, I think at that time it would have been hard to imagine that we would still be going that strong twenty five years later much less the band.
JJ: What have been the biggest changes in the music industry that you've seen during this period?
JK: Well, I'm not directly involved in the record industry anymore so one of the biggest changes is that I don't know what's going on with it. We did the Airplane reunion record and we did one record on the Epic label , but I am really operating more on the Cottage Industry level , as do a lot of acoustic players. I think that for me ,short of somebody saying "here's a bunch of money , make a record" , I really prefer doing it the way we are now. I guess that's the big change in that it's possible for somebody to do that, and survive , and make money, and to tour , and for people to know about them. There were no independents in those days , as we know them now , and now there are thousands of them, which I think is a good thing.
JJ: Do you feel that one of the biggest challenges a new/young artist facing in today's world is facing the business side of the music business?
JK: Probably, although a lot of them are more realistic about it than we were when we got involved Our whole success thing really came literally overnight and we were not prepared for it so we made all the classic mistakes that you read about, and probably created some new ones. I think that a lot of young people who get involved with the music business now are pretty much learning from the ground up. I certainly think it's easier for an artist to be in touch with the business now , and I think it's to their advantage to do so. These people who are sensitive artists who can't deal with the business end are going to find that it's a tough road to hoe out there.
JJ: When I interviewed Leo Kottke he told me that one of the secrets to his longevity as a relatively "hitless" artist was his years of constant touring and in fact he viewed himself as a performer first , and a recording artist well down the list , can you relate to that?
JK: Definitely, I think there is no question about it. Unfortunately , I think that there is really an "out of sight ,out of mind" kind of thing that happens with the public. There are a lot of really talented people in the music business , players and singers , who may have had some kind of success , and didn't like it, so they dropped out for a while only to find that it's really hard to come back. It is very hard to come back once you've dropped out because people forget. You really have to be there and stay in people's lives or somebody else does.
JJ: How has the Live scene changed for you?
JK: I think that recently the audiences are a lot more critical in a "Real Time " sort of way than they used to be, and I think there was a time in the seventies when you could almost do no wrong, but that was more of a hysteria or personality cult kind of thing. Some of the players out there , like the guys in the Grateful Dead , have a cult mystique that surrounds them and doesn't allow them to live a normal life. People seem to be interested in us for the music , and it is not just aging hippies trying to recapture some lost moment of spectacular energy, but we get people from all walks of life and ages at our shows . It has been that way for a while , but I think in the 90's our audience has been more heterogeneous than ever.
JJ: Is the "Live" end of things the most exciting part of the gig for you?
JK: Well, I think I view myself as a performer first and foremost, and I work a lot. I think I enjoy performing more when I'm not doing two hundred dates a year. It is nice to take a break because it creates a freshness when you get back to it. Regardless of how creative you think you are , when you are playing every night on a month long tour it is going to get repetitive after a while (laughing) because that's life. It is nice to have a grace period to sort of collect your thoughts and keep it green for yourself, but the performing is really the good deal, I enjoy recording , but I am basically a performer.
JJ: I have noticed that you tour as a solo, duo, group electric ,and acoustic , are all those incarnations of Hot Tuna ways to keep it fresh for you as well?
JK: Yes, but also , none of us are kids anymore so we all have kids and families and different reality pressures on us. Jack might not want to tour when I do so we can do other things and projects and not get on each others nerves.
JJ: When you recorded some Country Blues tunes on early Hot Tuna albums did you get any flack from traditionalists who argued with your interpretation or instrumentation?
JK: Sure, and as a matter of fact there is a credibility gap. When I try to work some festivals peoples reaction is "who is this guy, he does all that psychedelic shit" and I get that a lot , which is their problem not mine, unless of course I'm not working , then it becomes my problem (laughs). I am not a Blues interpreter , I just play what I play, and I have been very fortunate that I wasn't so Anal that I learned it exactly the way it was, not that there is anything wrong with that, but that's not what it is for me, I feel that we've expanded on it a little bit. For me that keeps the music livelier than if I was doing it exactly the way I learned it . My arrangements have changed considerably over the years, even on my own pieces! A funny thing happened recently while I was at the Columbus Airport. I'm listening to the Muzac and it sounds like "Water Song" (An early Hot Tuna acoustic instrumental in Open G tuning) but I'm thinking that they're really screwing it up and the guitar player has it all wrong before it dawns on me that not only is it "Water Song" but it is the original take from our "Burgers" album! I play it so differently now that I didn't recognize it was me playing.
JJ: The original Hot Tuna album was certainly a huge influence on my generation of acoustic fingerstyle players and served as an introduction for a lot of us to players like Rev. Gary Davis, was it ever your intention to be this link to the past?
JK: I think that I hoped that I was, and with the exception of the original compositions on that first Hot Tuna record every one of those songs were the first fingerpicking songs I learned from Ian. I realize now that I should have dedicated the album to him as well as the people who wrote the songs because it really was a tribute to the people I got it from.
JJ: A lot of people who liked what you were doing , then sought out the originals like Rev. Gary Davis. Did you feel like you were opening the door to these artists to people who might not otherwise have known about them?
JK: You bet, the answer is definitely yes, and that's one of the reasons I enjoy the teaching so much. It is nice to be able to pass things on , because then they take it and turn it into something else , and that is what it's all about, having the music being able to continue , and grow. I consider myself really fortunate to have lived in an era when I could actually see these people live, but the good news is that while in my early days you had to like to listen to really scratchy 78's and search out the music, the good news is that people like Rev. Gary Davis can be found now on remastered CD's, and it sounds great! Yhe music is what's important , not how hard it was for you to find the recording.
JJ: Your live repertoire still contains a significant amount of that first Hot Tuna record...
JK: You bet!
JJ: Do those songs just mean too much to you to pull from the set, or does your audience require them of you?
JK: I like to rotate songs so they stay fresh , but for me "Hesitation Blues" is a song that I've played for thirty five years, and it's still a great song. A good song is a good song and that's part of my musical existence, so fortunately I'm not a pop musician where I have to play "White Rabbit" for the rest of my life, someone else might play it if it's part of their existence , it's not part of mine, but "Hesitation Blues" is .
JJ: So you still enjoy the songs, and don't feel trapped in a repertoire?
JK: I know enough songs that I have the luxury of not playing songs that I don't enjoy playing. For me that song in particular is such a fun song to play that I'd be disappointed if I couldn't still play it. The guitar is such a great trip and a cool thing to have around, you can't have to many of these things in your life, and "Hesitation Blues" and the whole fingerstyle thing and the way that I did it is really fun , and it would be like losing a guitar if I couldn't play that song anymore, and there are other songs that are like that too!
JJ: Many young guitarists , myself included, spent a good deal of time with that first Hot Tuna album trying to learn to tunes , and now we have Video instruction.
JK: Thank God! There is some stuff I play that's very hard to do but, I have very moderate sized hands for a guitar player unlike a friend of mine named Steve Mann who is a great player whose hands are so huge that when he's playing "Wining Boy Blues" he's doing a descending run on the seventh and ninth fret while he's playing an ascending run on the sixth string with his thumb, well if your hand isn't a foot and a half long you don't even think about doing stuff like that.(laughing) The point I'm getting at is if it's really hard to play something of mine , your probably doing it wrong! I have a cousin of mine who figured out a way to do "Embryonic Journey" that was so complicated , but sounded exactly the same so it must have taken him years to figure it out cause it was so hard to play it that way. As with everything , it's easy when you know how.
JJ: Judging by the quality of your Homespun instructional videos, you either really enjoy teaching , and took to it quickly , or have a great deal of experience.
JK: Both, when I first came to California I supported myself more with teaching than playing , and I've always enjoyed it. I do has many workshops as possible , and God and red tape willing we are going to have a guitar school in Ohio one of these days. I really like teaching, it's nice to be able to plug it back in, and it certainly doesn't take away from my playing because you can stick six guitarists in a room and show them a piece and you will get six different versions of it.
JJ: You play with a thumbpick, and two fingerpicks?
JK: For two reasons: the guy I learned from, Ian, played with fingerpicks and the other reason was volume. This was long before "unplugged" and there was no plug, unless you were playing electric, so you had to be loud. One of the big moments in my young fingerpicking life was going to the N.Y.U. Folk festival , and having a banjo player criticize me for being too loud!
JJ: How do you brush or strum without losing them?
JK: Getting them (fingerpicks) caught in the strings is the worst nightmare , and it's happened to me plenty of times , but my strum is like a Carter Family scratch and it gives me another rhythm feeling. I had a brief spell with trying to learn banjo from the Pete Seeger book , so some of that technique is borrowed from that.
JJ: You tour so much that I'm interested in knowing when you're not on tour is the guitar something you need a break from ?
JK: No, there's always something, I like to screw around with instrumental things cause that's how I write songs, or different tunings. I might not pick up a guitar for a week when I go home from a tour but, the good news about that is when you get back it's fresh , the bad news is that your physical edge , and dexterity , and confidence, really goes quickly.
JJ: You seem like the kind of player who would really be inspired by a new instrument, is that so ?
JK: Absolutely! I recently got hooked up with the guys from Gibson in Montana cause I really love Gibson guitars, and they made me a J-35 with no electronics in it , with fan bracing instead of X bracing so it's light as a feather, and it really, really sounds good , and as it gets older it's going to sound even better. Just a G chord is something I can listen to on this guitar till it decays and enjoy it , so guitars really are a turn on. The Chet Atkins SST that I'm touring with has been a lot like that as well because I can set my volume , plug into the PA and then because it doesn't feed back I can control my dynamics like an acoustic by playing harder or softer. I don't like to have to rely on volume pedals and stuff unless I am playing steel guitar, and then it's part of the instrument, other than that I want to set the volume and let the music and my hands dictate the dynamics in the music.
JJ: That brings us back to the changes you've seen in the last twenty five years, and it would seem that getting a good live sound for acoustic guitar has really improved.
JK: Oh yeah! it's the greatest, and that's why I was so repulsed by the MTV Unplugged thing, even though it's been great for acoustic music, those of us that have been doing it for most of our lives say "Hey, what's the big deal!" , but it is a big deal in a way because technology has allowed acoustic players to be audible in a band situation and maybe with a noisy audience. If you are playing with a bass player and a drummer it helps if they are tuned in to what your doing so they don't step on your toes as well.
JJ: What advice do you have for aspiring pickers?
JK: Obviously the more they play the better they will get , but I really encourage interaction with other musicians. The more you play with other people the better your music will become. I notice a lot of guys spend time woodsheding by themselves and to me there's something missing there. I like to play solo but there is a real joy in playing with somebody else and letting the whole be greater than the sum of the parts. Jack and I have been playing together off and on since 1957 and we interact really well and sometimes it's a magic you don't get solo. Another piece of advice would be to vary the tempo , like the double time thing we do in "Hesitation Blues", this is easier to play with as a solo than in a band situation , as long as your piece still grooves there is nothing wrong with speeding up and slowing down.
JJ: You've dabbled with some open tunings over the years?
JK: I don't really use a lot of them , "Embryonic Journey" is in dropped D , "Water Song" is in Open G , "Police Dog Blues" and "Killing Time in Crystal City" are in Open E . I love the sound of them and they set you free as a solo player to find really neat things that are simple. "Water Song" is a really simple song that is mostly a right hand three finger roll , and with the tunings and a good sounding guitar it really sounds cool. I just started messing around with some again but they don't work out well in the band context because you can't hear the magical overtones , tunings are neat though , I like them.
JJ: You've been a professional musician for several decades, do you ever wonder what you would have done had it not been music?
JK: If it hadn't been music I probably would have done something really stupid like join the Army and go to Viet Nam. I have thought over the years that if the music hadn't happened for me I would have been seriously screwed.
JJ: It's been twenty five years for Hot Tuna , what's next?
JK: I hope to record as a band this year because I really like this group of guys, although I have also been working on some solo project ideas. I may also be taking part in the Guitar Summit tour later this year, and might make a short tour with Rory Block as well. I should also mention that we have a 200 acre farm in Ohio and I am working on having a Guitar Camp there for a month every summer.
GEAR BOX:
Jorma's current traveling kit consists of an electric Gibson "Nighthawk" of recent manufacture. It has two pickups and a five way switch which produces a lot of sounds that he tells me are all "usable". Jorma likes to string his electric and acoustic with "eleven or twelve's" (referring to the thickness of the high E string).
Jorma's current acoustic is the Gibson "Chet Atkins SST" which he plugs straight into the P.A. Jorma feels that "the real deal" is a really cool condenser mic on a good sounding acoustic, but the ease and predictability of his acoustic /electric make it more efficient for touring. Jorma loves his Korg electronic tuner, and his choice of strings for his acoustic is Martin Marquis lights, and GHS boomers for the electric. Jorma uses a thumbpick and metal finger picks when playing both acoustic , and electric.
Discography:
Hot Tuna:
Hot Tuna RCA 3864-2
Burgers RCA 2591-2
Splashdown Relix 2004
Americas Choice RCA 0820-2
Yellow Fever RCA 1238-2
Double Dose Edsel 397
Trimmed and Burning Edsel 396
Pair a Dice Found Epic 46831
Live at Sweetwater (1) Relix 2058
Live at Sweetwater (2) Relix 2062
Solo:
Quah Relix 2027
Magic Relix 2007
Too Hot to Handle Relix 2012