PRS Derek Trucks fans?

RevBillyG said:
Surely you're out there. How do you approach covering his style?
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You start when you're 9. By the time you are an adult there is no covering your style. Not even poorly. All one can do is admire.
 
He tunes to open E, always, but plays equally as well in every key. Coricidan bottle for slide, usually an old Super Reverb has been his amp, and he only plays on the neck pickup of his SG. No effects. He also is a great player without the slide. Never uses a pick.

His sense of pitch is amazing, that is why his lines are so vocal sounding. He gets all the stuff between the notes just right.

He is incredibly talented, has worked very hard at his craft. I don't think you can cop it. You can be inspired by it and find your own voice with the slide.
 
Among living slide players, I rank Derek Trucks right up there with Ry Cooder and Sonny Landreth. His feel is amazing, and his wrist must be made of rubber to move like that.

There are a lot of ways to skin the slide guitar cat, and who's to say one is better than another? When Warren Haynes first joined ABB in the 1990s and was playing the Duane parts opposite Dickey Betts, he used a short open ended metal slide in standard tuning (he's since changed to a Coricidin-style bottle, stuffed with a cotton ball to keep his callouse dry). Jeff Beck and George Harrison use standard tuning, too. Ry Cooder, Billy Gibbons, and Sonny Landreth prefer open G "Spanish" tuning. Skydog, Trucks, and Joe Walsh prefer open E. Different players prefer different fingers, too. Derek and Warren use the ring finger, Ry Cooder and Johnny Winter use the pinky, Billy Gibbons and Joe Walsh use the middle finger. I bet you could find someone using the index finger, too. Slide material is also a grab bag. Medicine bottles, wine bottle necks, ceramic thimbles, brass pipe, wide steel or silver rings, you name it, anything that fits over a finger has probably been used to play slide guitar.

I think the best thing to do is try out some different slides, go with what you find comfortable and pleasing to your ear, on whatever finger works for you, in whatever tuning you find easiest to get around in.
 
RevBillyG said:
Any of you guys primarily play SGs before your Enlightenment?
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Nah, Strat cat all the way here. I've always liked how SGs sound and that fast neck, but the way the neck dives always scared me off from buying one. I just saw a mid-1960s video of Sister Rosetta Tharpe a couple weeks back, though, and she had it figured out. She played her SG with an acoustic strap. But now that I've been enlightened, I'll probably end up scratching that itch with a Mira or a Standard 22.
 
My favorite guitar for slide is my SE Soapy 2, set up for slide. P90's and slide are the right recipe!
 
I wouldn't exactly call myself enlightened. I still rock the SG. And the Strats and Teles. Sometimes I like a little fight when I play. The right tool for the job. Look at Joe Walsh. Playing a Schecter.
 
I met him about 13 years ago and asked who he was(same with John Mayer). I still have the unwrapped CD sitting in the garage.
 
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