Jerry McPherson - The Flood, The Rig, and Sandra Bullock's Lesson

The view from our driveway

It's been awhile since my last blog. Good reason for it though. A lot has happened in Nashville, most notably the great flood of 2010. The flood pushed pause on most of life for at least a month. It inserted craziness, pain, uncertainty, and a whole lot of change. The flood has even affected the way we record now and the instruments we use.

Record producers rely on session musicians to be highly skilled, imaginative, good-natured, and well-equipped gear-wise with the best of what is old and new. For a guitarist, this means guitars, pedals and rackmount devices, amplifiers, speaker cabs, switchers, and even a laptop. It takes years and a bank-load of cash to collect and refine your various live and studio rigs. Imagine losing it all in a flood. That's exactly what happened to many of Nashville's elite session players when the rehearsal hall/cartage facility Soundcheck flooded. One who nearly lost it all is my friend, and guitarist of choice for twenty years, Jerry McPherson.

Jerry kindly agreed to take a trip down memory lane with me and revisit some of the gear we've used together over the years. Our joint discography begins with my own Secret of Time, and includes everything from Amy Grant twenty years ago to The Civil Wars today. We've done hundreds of recordings together and I've yet to stump him. When we started out recording together it was the end of the 1980s. The shiny strat sound dominated the 80s and it hung around like a stray cat for the first part of the 90s. I asked Jerry what recordings drove the trend, and how one goes about getting that shiny, happy 80s guitar sound.

JERRY MCPHERSON: I remember Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean" having a real impact on guitar tone. The signal chain was typically a strat with active EMG pickups, loads of compression and chorusing (usually the Tri-Stereo Chorus rack unit) and some eq to scoop 1k-2k, then run that all direct into the console. I had a rig where I could send a DI (direct injection) out of my rack, even if I was running through an amp head. You can simulate it now using a clean amp modeling plugin and bypass the speaker emulator. What's funny is that in the early years of Motown, guitarists plugged their guitars straight into the console, and those sounds still hold up today. What we did, however, has not stood the test of time.

CP: I agree, but then again I keep hearing 80s references in a lot of new music from artists in their twenties. You may be dialing up this sound again next week. So was any of your rack gear lost in the flood?

JERRY MCPHERSON: Here's a pic of my politically incorrect rig before the flood. There's another smaller pic showing how high the water got up on the pedal/device rack. Completely unusable now. The white tape was the waterline.

CP: Ouch. So that's why you had the new pedal board at The Civil Wars session the other day. I think I asked you to bring the big rig because we were going to be doing mostly ambient stuff. You said no, not going to happen. Honestly I didn't miss it. You did great with a handful of pedals and a Les Paul. It is kind of weird though not having the Bradshaw switching system as command central for the hundreds of creative choices you have intersecting throughout your rig. First give me the history of the Bradshaw rig and then please tell me it survived.

JERRY MCPHERSON: I had been touring with Amy Grant for about five years when I got to be a part of the "Lead Me On" album. I had three song co-writes on it and got to play on the tracking dates which lasted two weeks. I decided that in order to get the sounds right for the "Lead Me On" tour, I'd need to get a rig together that used all the amps and fx that had gone into making the record. I had been in contact with Bob Bradshaw about putting together a system for me and met with him when Toto came to Houston to do a show. Bob was teching for Steve Lukather and I was living in Texas with no one around that could do what Bradshaw could do. I sent my gear out to him in Hollywood and after a lot of time and money, Bob air freighted back this monstrous, but beautiful system using all my favorite amps and fx in one cohesive setup. It had an amazing sound! It was fast to get around on and quick to set up. I love Pro Tools and plugins, but there is something to be said for dedicated hardware! I had the rig rebuilt years ago. The fx rack did not survive the flood. I had 17 guitars underwater along with several amps, cases, and effects.

CP: Oh please tell me the peace guitar wasn't one of them. I love that guitar! I remember us using it quite a bit. It is one of those off-brand guitars that's actually a really, really good guitar.

JERRY MCPHERSON: The peace guitar was a seventies Electra Tree of Life electric. I found it on consignment at a little mom and pop music store. The seller was Jim Weatherly who wrote the Gladys Knight and the Pips hit, "Midnight Train To Georgia." I owned it for about 10 years and then sacrificed it to the Cumberland River.

The Electra

Another notable guitar that was ruined in the flood was my "John Kerry" Gibson 335. The Gibson Custom Shop built it for congressman John Kerry when he was running for president. Gibson thought he would win and they'd present it to him in the Oval Office. He even played it at a fundraiser on the campaign trail. Well, he lost so the guitar sat in the Custom Shop office. I was (and still am) playing with Faith Hill and was living in Mexico at the time so when I told some guys at Gibson I was flying into the country to do an awards show with Faith they offered to have a guitar there for me. I got to the hall and there was this killer 335. I played the show and told them, "Great! If you need it back it will be in Mexico! Come and get it!" Had that guitar for about five years until the Cumberland paid a visit.

The John Kerry 335 (parts removed to avoid cracking).

CP: You have a really good attitude for a guy that has lost some amazing gear. I think everyone has tried to keep things in perspective. Not only can most gear be replaced, there's something right about limiting your options too. So break it down for us. With only a few choices for amps I suspect you might choose a Matchless HC30 or a Fender Bassman. What about one Swiss-Army knife guitar? And give me three "can't do without" pedals too.

JERRY MCPHERSON: Well, I've always been a major fan of the Les Paul. Makes a man sound like a man! As far as stomp boxes, for me it's the Nobles ODR-1 (original, no longer made), a volume pedal, and a good delay pedal like the Electro Harmonix Memory Man.

CP: I was hoping you'd say Memory Man. I think that's my all-time fave. Perhaps it's also the stomp-box that you and I have put on more records than any other! We've had some extraordinary, imaginative sessions, some good ones, and some that were just okay. As I wound down my tenure with major labels a few years back I was glad to regain the freedom that indie projects afforded me. From the musician's standpoint, what happened? What went wrong with the music business? What's wrong with it today?

JERRY MCPHERSON: As far as where the music industry is going right now? Used to, we were asked to create. Now we're asked to regurgitate. And who wants to pay for vomit? But, in the category of "I didn't see this one coming" -- I did a benefit with Faith Hill and she asked me to teach "Smoke On The Water" to Sandra Bullock, who made a guest appearance at the show. Sandra thought it would be funny to come out and play "Smoke On The Water" to musically give back to the Nashville community. I got to hang awhile with her. She's beautiful, funny, incredibly intelligent -- everything you could hope for in a student! (BTW, she's my only guitar student!). Just a lovely person.

You know some days it doesn't pay to get out of bed, and other days it's so good you wished you had gotten up sooner!

Jerry and prized student, Sandra Bullock (with Jim Morrison looking on, of course).

Watch for Jerry on tour with Faith Hill. For sessions, call the AFM 257 Office at 615-244-9514 and they'll kindly give you his number.

Comments

You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.

The Memory Man is like a warm blanket on a rainy fall day. I can't leave home without it. Mr. McPherson's rig is a beautiful thing to behold. It kind of makes my head hurt to think about. Oi.

Posted by: Andrew Camp | 06/24/2010 at 09:42 AM

Charlie, Darrell Smith here. I grew up listening to you and Jerry work your magic on tons of records. I've been inspired by the writing, the musicality and the production aesthetics of the projects you've curated and produced over the years.

While I've known Jerry for something like 15 years now, I've just come back from spending the weekend with him at Summer NAMM with Line 6. He truly is a work of art.

I affirm that Jerry is both a phenomenal player, and a tone aficionado. Jerry is also a delightful person to be around, and has a unique "social grease" gifting that can make any situation workable. Even when faced with the loss of such an amazing array of covetable gear.

As as session guy, you've got to have your chops together, your tones together and be a great hang. That's Jerry Mac to a T.

Here's to many more years of great music from the two of you!

Cheers,
D

Posted by: Stage2c | 06/24/2010 at 11:15 AM

So sad to hear about Jerry's equipment.

Squint has been one of my favorites for years. I love the guitars on that album!

Well, the evolution and maturation of a musician's sound is a natural progression. I suppose a natural flood is one way to force it. Not wished for, but it'll be interesting to hear what changes.

Posted by: Jeffrey Holton | 06/24/2010 at 04:10 PM

Charlie, thanks for the interview with Jerry (can't believe that pic of the water in front of the Art House - wow).

Hey, I'm wondering if you know of a keyboard player in need of some new gear? Just this week I decided to sell my own MIDI rig from back in the day, and reading your blog here made me wonder if there might be a connection to be made. The prices are pretty reasonable, I think, but I'd be glad to try to help folks out if they thought they could use the gear.

Here's a link to my blog with gear details: http://dunhams.typepad.com/seconddrafts/2010/06/for-sale-old-school-but-good-as-new-midi-rig.html

Maybe it will help. Would love to do something from here if I can.

Best to you and Andi,

Craig

Posted by: Craig | 06/28/2010 at 06:56 PM