{"id":139375,"date":"2023-07-07T08:45:00","date_gmt":"2023-07-07T15:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/?p=139375"},"modified":"2023-07-07T08:45:36","modified_gmt":"2023-07-07T15:45:36","slug":"john-oates-explores-the-music-of-mississippi-john-hurt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/john-oates-explores-the-music-of-mississippi-john-hurt\/","title":{"rendered":"Singer-Songwriter John Oates Explores the Music of Mississippi John Hurt"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>John Oates will forever be best known as half of Hall &amp; Oates, the top-selling musical duo of all time, who\u2019ve been in the Songwriters Hall of Fame for 20 years and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for nearly a decade. Since 2002, however, the Philadelphia-area native has carved a distinct identity as a proponent of classic Americana. His most recent releases\u20142011\u2019s <em><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3IRQb3v\" target=\"_blank\">Mississippi Mile<\/a><\/em>, 2014\u2019s <em><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3ITJkGW\" target=\"_blank\">Good Road to Follow<\/a><\/em>, 2018\u2019s <em><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/43iwJFh\" target=\"_blank\">Arkansas<\/a><\/em>, and five live albums\u2014feature his voice and acoustic guitar playing right up front, and his 2022 duo tour with guitar great Guthrie Trapp made it clear that moving to Nashville had only strengthened Oates\u2019 relationship to acoustic and classic songwriting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Anyone surprised at Oates\u2019 turn from pop to Americana had perhaps missed the fact that before he had absorbed the R&amp;B and soul that set the stage for Hall &amp; Oates (as well as his recent soulful singles like \u201cPushin\u2019 a Rock\u201d and a cover of Timmy Thomas\u2019 \u201cWhy Can\u2019t We Live Together\u201d), Oates had paid close attention to his parents\u2019 big band and swing records, fell hard for doo-wop and early rock, and fully immersed himself in the \u201960s folk revival, which included being mentored by Philadelphia blues icon Jerry Ricks and learning \u201cright from the source\u201d by watching Mississippi John Hurt and Son House up close.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m a better acoustic player than I am on electric,\u201d says the 75-year-old Oates. \u201cMy style is Chuck Berry meets Curtis Mayfield meets Doc Watson meets Mississippi John Hurt. I don\u2019t separate [blues, country, rock, and R&amp;B] into genres\u2014I call it all American roots music, because that\u2019s what it is. I see it all as a continuum.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"1290\" height=\"726\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/SEBlBrMkA3w?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-US&#038;autohide=2&#038;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>What was the inspiration behind <em>Arkansas<\/em>?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I had originally planned to do a Mississippi John Hurt tribute record, because I know so many of his songs, in a very authentic way. I cut a couple of versions, just me and a guitar, but I had to ask myself, \u201cWhy am I doing this? It\u2019s never going to be as good as John Hurt.\u201d Then I realized that I\u2019d never heard these songs performed with a band. So, I put together a band. I didn\u2019t want it to be a rock band, though.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Who\u2019d you get?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Nathaniel Smith on cello, Sam Bush on mandolin, Russ Pahl on pedal steel, Guthrie Trapp on electric guitar, Steve Mackey on bass, and Josh Day on cajon and shaker. I played things exactly as John Hurt would have done, but when these musicians played around it, it turned into this magical thing. It sounded so good that I decided it would be a shame to just do Mississippi John Hurt songs.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>How\u2019d you decide the rest of the set list?&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I began researching what he might have been listening to back in 1929 and 1930, when he was on OKeh Records. I got jukebox lists from all over the Deep South, and I was shocked at the music that was being played on jukeboxes. There was cowboy music, ragtime, swing, some gutbucket local stuff\u2014a real hodgepodge that I never expected. I found out that Mississippi John Hurt was a huge fan of Jimmie Rodgers, so I decided to do a Jimmie Rodgers song, too. The album became a snapshot of American popular music of the late \u201920s and \u201930s.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>How did <em>Arkansas<\/em> change how you thought about American music?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I realized that the birth of American popular music coincides with the invention of the record player and radio. There was music in America before that, obviously, but the fastest way for it to spread was through radio and records. Although I made my reputation making pop music with Daryl Hall, I had no idea where it came from. That was a revelation to me. That\u2019s what <em>Arkansas<\/em> is about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>What attracted you to Hurt?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What appealed to me, which I didn\u2019t understand at the time, was that he didn\u2019t sound like a <a href=\"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/7-essential-books-for-fans-of-delta-blues\/\">Delta blues<\/a> player. He got his style from ragtime stride piano players, and once I understood that, I did a deep dive into ragtime and how he integrated that style into his playing, which helped me understand his music on a deeper level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>I know you own one of his guitars, and I\u2019ve seen lists of your collection online. You also have a 1947 Gibson J-50 and a 1949 Martin 5-18, right?&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Yes. The J-50 has the big baseball neck and it\u2019s not that comfortable in my hands, but it has a big sound. The 5-18 slot-head weighs nothing.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Do you still have your other Martins, like the 1983 D-28, the 00-15M, and the 00-28 custom?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Yep! I bought the D-28 for $150 backstage in the \u201980s. It was a 150th anniversary model, signed by C.F. Martin [both III and IV]. I\u2019ve used it on a lot of things over the years. The 00-15M is mahogany, with a small body. And the 00-28 was the first guitar that I had made at the Martin Custom Shop. The body is also a half-inch thicker than a normal 00-28, so it\u2019s got more bottom end. It\u2019s a small-body guitar with a deep tone, and it has my <em>Good Road to Follow<\/em> logo. They\u2019re all great guitars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>How about the \u201967 Guild F-20?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That\u2019s the guitar I played on <em>Mississippi Mile<\/em>. It always sounded good and it had a character, so I ended up playing it on every track.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>What a great collection. What other guitars stand out to you?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I have an L-00 made at the Gibson Custom Shop in Bozeman, Montana, by Ren Ferguson, who was their master luthier at the time. It\u2019s one of the last Gibsons he built, and it\u2019s a traditional Gibson-style sunburst, like the ones made in the early 1930s.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>What gets the most playing time?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>My Taylor GT guitars [conceived] by Andy Powers. I saw all these guys on YouTube raving about the GT, and I was like, \u201cWhat\u2019s the big deal?\u201d I went down to a guitar shop, picked one up, started playing it, and now I\u2019ve got three of them\u2014one in Europe, one in Colorado, and one here in Nashville. It\u2019s a small-bodied guitar with unique bracing, and it\u2019s short-scale, which suits my hands. I don\u2019t take my vintage instruments out on the road anymore, but if something happened to my Taylor, God forbid, I can get another one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>What makes you want to hold on to an instrument?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If I don\u2019t play it, I probably don\u2019t keep it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>How do you amplify a guitar\u2019s natural tone when you\u2019re on tour?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I started out using super high-quality microphones by Ear Trumpet Labs, which a lot of bluegrass players use. They\u2019re great, but it takes a good PA system and a good soundperson to get it right. To make things easier, I went back to plugging in with the Fishman Loudbox Artist series, which I love. I use those amps like monitors; I have one next to me and one behind me. Taylor has their own proprietary pickups, the Expression System [2], which works well with the Loudbox amps. It\u2019s a great combination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Are you using any effects?&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I use the TC Electronic Infinite Loop for sustain. I can play a chord, sustain it, and then play over it. When I\u2019m playing by myself, it gives me a spatial kind of sustain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Do you use picks?&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I\u2019m either playing fingerstyle, with two fingers and a thumb, or with a Fred Kelly Bumblebee, which is a unique thumbpick. You can change the angle of the pick to your hand, and you can use it as a flatpick.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>When you sit down to practice or warm up, what kind of stuff do you reach for?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The first thing I do is stretch my fingers because as I\u2019ve gotten older, they\u2019re getting stiffer. I\u2019ll play bossa nova or some complicated chords that get my fingers moving in unusual ways. If I can\u2019t play some [Ant\u00f4nio Carlos] Jobim right away, I know I need to practice. If I play bossa nova and it\u2019s fluid, then everything else is easy.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\">\n<p>I\u2019m learning to enjoy an elegant simplicity that transcends fads and styles.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>What topics did you cover in your new instructional videos for Truefire?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I just finished them\u2014they\u2019re being edited right now. I did three episodes: one on the history of American popular music, one on collaboration, and one about accompaniment, which I think is an untapped subject.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>What about accompaniment fascinates you?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So many great guitar players know how to be accompanists, but a lot of guitar players just want to be able to riff, shred, and solo. There\u2019s a real discipline to being an accompanist. It\u2019s not easy to learn or be good at.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>I\u2019ve read that hearing great players in Nashville inspired you to practice harder. Did you feel like something in your songwriting needed to evolve, or was it on a purely technical level?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Well, country music is all about telling a concise story that\u2019s appealing but actually saying something. The lyricists I worked with in Nashville made me take a hard look at my lyrics, and my writing has improved because of that. Musically, I was a little too complicated, and it didn\u2019t serve the songs in any way. I\u2019m learning to enjoy an elegant simplicity that transcends fads and styles.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>What are your thoughts on the current state of pop songwriting?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Harmony has taken a back seat to groove and digital production, and artificial intelligence is just going to keep getting better. I\u2019m not going to be around to see how it\u2019s all going to turn out, but while I\u2019m still here, I\u2019m waving the flag for organic, authentic songwriting and performing that uses harmony and chords. I\u2019m an old-school musician, and I\u2019m proud of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/store.acousticguitar.com\/products\/no-341-july-august-2023\" name=\"magazine link\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"width: 150px; height: 198px; margin: 0px 20px 10px 0px;\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/001_341_Cover-150px.jpg?w=1290&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"Acoustic Guitar magazine cover for issue 341\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\"><\/a>\n<p style=\"font-family: sans-serif; margin: 0px 0px 15px 0px;\">This article originally appeared in the <a href=\"https:\/\/store.acousticguitar.com\/products\/no-341-july-august-2023\">July\/August 2023<\/a> issue of <em>Acoustic Guitar<\/em> magazine.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>He will forever be best known as half of Hall &#038; Oates, but John Oates has carved a distinct identity as a proponent of classic Americana<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":139377,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"He will forever be best known as half of Hall & Oates, but John Oates has carved a distinct identity as a proponent of classic Americana.","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1693],"tags":[1846],"ppma_author":[1561],"blocksy_meta":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/John-Oates-photo-Jeff-Fasano.jpg?fit=750%2C500&ssl=1","authors":[{"term_id":1561,"user_id":0,"is_guest":1,"slug":"e-e-bradman","display_name":"E.E. Bradman","avatar_url":{"url":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/E.E.-Bradman-2020-scaled.jpeg","url2x":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/E.E.-Bradman-2020-scaled.jpeg"},"user_url":"https:\/\/eltonsounds.com\/bass\/","last_name":"","first_name":"","description":"E.E. Bradman is a word nerd and music journalist, a Grammy-nominated bassist, a musical midwife for childbirth and the dying, and an award-winning sound designer\/composer."}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139375"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=139375"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139375\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":141203,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139375\/revisions\/141203"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/139377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=139375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=139375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=139375"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=139375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}