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produced by steve b. & dave z.

romantics and mystics

click image to listen

Dark Night of the Soul Here By the Water Remember Me Alone Tonight Drumheller Circle All for a Loveless Night Moon Over Birkenau Lament for a Nation Keeping Vigil This is Love Can I Go With You Let’s Do it Again

I remember very little about making this album. Odd… it has some of  (I think) my best songs on it. I do remember bringing Johnny Rutledge up from Chicago to arrange and produce the vocals. That was amazing. I remember standing by Johnny in the studio as we were laying down some background vocals and thinking to myself, "oh… that’s what a singer is."

I met Johnny in a bar in Toronto several years earlier. I was awestruck to meet this legendary studio singer. I sheepishly told him I was a singer too and gave him a cassette of my album Deep Calls to Deep. Several years later, while recording Romantics, I decided to call him (now living in Chicago) to see if he would consider working on this album with me. It didn’t even occur to me he might remember who I was- but when I called him he exclaimed, "Steve Bell!! I’m listening to you right now!" and in the background Deep was playing on his stereo.

I think one of the better recordings of my carrer is the song Lament for a Nation on this CD. Johnny does all the back-ground vocals and his performance is brilliant.

I also remember flying all the way down to New Mexico for the photo shoot. My buddy Lou Bruno lives down there. Lou is a high-end designer/marketing type and offered to design the CD cover for me. We thought as the album was called Romantics and Mystics, we would get some great shot remenicent of Spain (much Spanish influence in the architecture down there).  In the first hour of the day of shooting, we blasted off a couple rolls of film in his office in Santa Fe before going out for the day - mostly to get used to the camera and get in the mood.  In the end we used the pictures from his office - could have been anywhere.  Lou had a Heart pounded out of metal hanging on his wall - at one point I grabbed it and held it in front of my face - and that shot made the back of the CD. When my young son Jesse saw the design his face screwed up and he said, Dad why are you holding up a bum?

When I look back on the material I had written and selected for the album, I remember that it was those days I thought a lot about the mystery of fidelity - that somehow in our culture we have lost the ability to  percieve the meaning of things like sexuality. And so adherance to seemingly random moral codes and acceptable behaviours end up being nothing but a test by a capricious, even cruel God. 

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produced by steve b. & dave z.

the feast of seasons

click image to listen

Ready My Heart May it be Done Magnificat The Angel Gabriel Come Thou Long Expected Jesus God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen/ Angels We Have Heard on High/Silent Night (instumental) The Coventry Carol O Holy Night I Heard the Bells Every Stone Shall Cry Old Sage The Coventry Carol (reprise)

Although this is considered a Steve Bell album, it should probably be a Steve Bell / Jamie Howison album. Jamie is a friend, mentor and also the priest at St. Benedict’s Table - the church Nanci and I worship at.

W hen Jamie heard I was recording a Christmas album he phone me up and begged, "please tell me you are writing something new!"

I wasn’t planning to. Writing Christmas songs is hard work. All the images and metaphors are so overworked that it’s hard to imagine a fresh newness being possible. But Jamie was convinced the story was yet to be exhausted and he and I together wrote May It Be Done, and Old Sage.

We also had long talks about the Christmas season - that it wasn’t actually one season, but a collection - or better yet, a feast of seasons ; advent, nativity, the slaughter of the innocents and epiphany. Jamie also pointed out that divorced from the rest of the Christian calendar, ie. Good Friday / Easter, Christmas easily
degenerates to sentimentality. So he suggested I include Richard Wilbur’s brilliant Every Stone Shall Cry which casts the Christ story cycically from birth, celebration, rejection, death and back to new life. Jamie also wisely suggested I arrange the songs liturgically to flow thematically through advent to epiphany.

In the end, the recording took on a depth that was not my doing. I have been blessed to have wonderful folks speak into my life, and in this instance, that blessing became a fish and loaves event.

 

 

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produced by steve b. and dave z.

burning ember

click image to listen

Dakota Hymn As Long as the Sun Psalm 40 Never Mind How Long House of Peace Song for the Life So Long She’s in Love With Me I Will Not Be Shaken Burning Ember Psalm 32 Even So, Lord Jesus Come

The Burning Ember project (1994)  marks the real beginning of Signpost Music. I registered the name back in 1989 and was hobbling along as best as I could but the business/ministry was not going to last very long  with me at the helm.

I still owed money from the Deep recording, and was barely making enough from concerts to support my family - but once again, I had a handful of songs that I felt deserved to be recorded.

Dave Zeglinski, of Mid-Ocean Recording Studios in Winnipeg, was an old friend who engineered my first two albums at his studio. I loved Dave’s unique ability to record acoustic instruments and admired his pioneering spirit as well. Late one night I was lamenting my poor business skills and what seemed like an insurmountable lack of funds for recording a new project. At that time in his life, Dave was weary of the commercial recording business and suggested that he could finance the recording and we could be partners in the project. I jumped at the offer and we recorded Burning Ember.

Shortly after Burning Ember came out, Dave started showing up to concerts to do sound, manage the sales and all the other details I never seemed to get around to. His attention to detail immediately proved to increase revenues until he finally suggested to me that we go in together on the whole business of my music. He would bring his resources to the table and I mine. It took me a little while to get used to the idea of loosening my grip on my music, but it was clearly a gift of God that someone of his calibre and unique set of skills would be passionate about my music enough to risk his own carreer. We soon became business partners in Signpost Music and the rest is history.

A note about the title track and cover design: Burning Ember is a song that talks about how two things can interpenetrate one another without loss of distinction - as when an iron penetrates a fire, the energies of the fire (heat, light) penetrate the iron. The formal word for this kind of relationship is perechorisis and is used to describe the relationship between Jesus and God the Father. Jesus himself said that he was in the Father and the Father was in him. It is also the word that describes our relationship with Christ; mutual indwelling.

When Rob Peters was designing the cover of Burning Ember, he picked up on this theme with a dyptic showing a hot dessert in a cool blue colour, and a cool body of water with a hot red colour. The title, and my name form a Cross which penetrates both, and with a reversal of colours again, depicts the mutual indwelling.

Aside: mixing the song Never Mind (on Burning Ember) is still my favorite studio memory. It was the first time I really felt we had done something great.

-sb

 

Reviewed by Mike Rimmer / Cross Rythms Magazine UK / April 1, 1998

Steve’s third album "Burning Ember", released in 1994. contains within it the huge turntable hit for UCB Europe - his version of "Psalm 40" which is a magnificent song of worship. More accomplished and better produced than its predecessor reviewed here.

Steve’s singing and songwriting demonstrated that he’s rooted in the ’70s tradition of singer/songwriters like Billy Joel and Elton John but with a Canadian twist in the arrangements and a touch of jazz. Consequently a brilliant song like "Never Mind" with its pipe banging rhythm is augmented by some tasteful accordion. Overall it’s his tasty guitar playing that underpins much of what is happening here, no more so than on "House Of Peace" which has gentle worship and some understated cello. The whimsical instrumental "She’s In Love With Me" is again focussed on Steve’s guitar, this time generating a dream-like quality. "I Will Not Be Shaken" is a shuffle and for the first time I start thinking of Paul Simon when I hear Steve sing.

The title song is magnificent taking the common metaphor of the love of God burning inside us but somehow transcending the commonplace image and creating a stunning song.

Steve has the ability to melt together melodies of beauty with lyrics of power that touch you deep inside which goes some way to explain why when working as an independent artist he has managed to sell over 70.000 copies of his albums. No mean feat! Listen for yourself "and discover how!

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produced by paul o’neil

deep calls to deep

	Wings of an Eagle Why Do We Hunger for Beauty Hear Our Prayer Faith’s Song Cashe Island Fashion For Me Deep Calls to Deep What a Longing Marie Blessed Are the Poor The Wellspring Holy Lord
click image to listen

A couple years after Comfort my People was released I received a letter from a Gordon Matties. Gordon taught a course on the Old Testament that I audited a few years prior. But at this time he was writing me from Israel where he was taking a study sabbatical.

Gordon’s letter explained that he had been listening to my first album frequently while in Israel and felt it was important that I record a second one. He and his wife Lori had just received a bit of an inheritance and wanted to lend it to me in order to get the project going. Gordon also suggested that when he got home he could help me raise what-ever funds that I might need over and above what they had.

Needless to say, I was stunned. I had/have enormous respect for Gordon, and this practical vote of confidence was both humbling and encouraging. I had just returned  from India where I experienced severe poverty for the first time. Emotions were pretty raw, but I had several songs burning a hole in my pocket and wanted to get them on tape - the support was welcomed.

Soon into the project it became evident I didn’t have a whole lot of creative energy to work with - the India trip had really taken a knock out of me. So I hired Paul O’Neil to produce Deep Calls To Deep, and it remains to this day, the only album of mine that I didn’t have a major role in the production. You’ll notice it has a decidedly different sound than my other projects.

When Deep first came out, the response was very negative. It sounded so different from Comfort My People and folks had (and shared) very strong reactions. Several stores refused to carry it - one, in particular, called me up and insisted I come and take them away from the store because it wasn’t “anointed.” I was devastated. I felt I had wasted good people’s money and trust. I spent several sleepless months worrying about how I would ever pay back my debts on a recording no-one liked.

One particularly restless night, Nanci rolled over in bed and chewed me out for worrying so much. She was convinced (more than I) that I was doing what I was supposed to be doing, and thought it rather sinful that I was stressing.

It was what I needed to hear and something in my soul quieted. Nanci has been an amazing and intuitive support that way. A few months later people started warming to the album and it has since become one of my better selling recordings.

Go figure.

-Steve B.

 

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produced by Steve Bell

comfort my people

	Psalm 90 Comfort My People Amen, Listen To Our Prayer Jenny You Are To Be Holy Ride On, King Jesus Shepherd of Life The Lord Has Done Great Things You Are Near The Lord’s Prayer
Click on image to listen.

Early in 1998, after spending about ten years playing in various bands in the nightclub scene in Winnipeg, I had what I can only call an experience of the presence of God. These things are hard to describe - it was just a presence. And in the presence was a voice that said: this time of your life is over, there is something else for you to do. Shortly after, an old family friend and mentor, Fr. Bob MacDougal (100 Huntley St.) called me up and suggested I do a "gospel" album. I had neither the money or the songs for an album but Fr. Bob encouraged me to find the music and committed to fund the project.

Within a very short time, songs started pouring out of me. Myself and two friends, Larry Campbell and Byron O’Donnell rented a small apartment, christened it "The Hit Pit" and started meeting there regularly to write songs. Within a few months I wrote most of the music for my first four albums. I recorded Comfort My People over the winter and debuted it at Winnipeg’s first Habitat for Humanity work camp in July 89.

Initially I made 300 cassettes (pre-CD) and gave 100 to Fr. MacDougall and hoped to eventually sell the rest. At the time it had not yet occurred to me that this was what I would be doing with my life.

-Steve B.

 

Reviewed by Mike Rimmer / Cross Rhythms Magazine UK / April 1 1998

If you read the last issue of Cross Rhythms then you’ll know all about Canadian singer/songwriter Steve Bell. A great writer and quite a guitarist, his debut album "Comfort My People’ was released back in 1989 and adopts a folksy rootsy sound with Steve playing the lion’s share of the instruments.

Simply recorded and showing off his clear voice, the album shows a man just setting off on his recording career but already capable of producing music that sends shivers down the back! The album is mainly of a worshipful nature with songs designed to minister to the listener.  And they do! Gentle in spirit and in musical arrangement, there is plenty of breathing space for the songs’ lyrics to pull through and
stir you.

"Ride On King Jesus" is an acapella number delivered in pure West Coast vocal harmony style. "Psalm 90", "Comfort My People" and the acoustic blues of ‘"Shepherd Of Life" are all firmly based on famous passages of scripture given musical life by Steve’s skill. A version of the Lord’s Prayer written by his mother Marie gently brings the album to a suitably worshipful close.

Overall some great moments, but with the space to look back and reflect, a solid start to Steve’s musical journey rather than a creative peak.

 

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Comfort My People / 1989

• Psalm 90
• Comfort My People
• Amen, Listen To Our Prayer
• Jenny
• You Are To Be Holy
• Ride On, King Jesus
• Shepherd of Life
• The Lord Has Done Great Things
• You Are Near
• The Lord’s Prayer

Early in 1998, after spending about ten years playing in various bands in the nightclub scene in Winnipeg, I had an experience of the presence of God. These things are hard to describe - it was just a presence. And in the presence was a voice that said: this time of your life is over. There is something else for you to do. Shortly after, an old family friend and mentor, Fr. Bob MacDougal (100 Huntley St.) called me up and suggested I do a “Gospel” album. I had neither the money or the songs for an album. But Fr. Bob encouraged me to find the music and committed to fund the project.

Within a very short time, songs started pouring out of me. Myself and two friends, Larry Campell and Byron O’Donnell rented a small appartment, christined it “The Hit Pit” and started meeting there regularily to write songs. Within a few months I wrote most of the music for the next several albums. I recorded Comfort My People over the winter and debuted it at Winnipeg’s first Habitat for Humanity work camp in July 89.

Initially I made 300 cassettes (pre-CD) and gave 100 to Fr. MacDougal and hoped to eventually sell the rest. At the time it had not yet occurred to me that this was what I would be doing with my life.

Deep Calls to Deep /1992

• Wings of an Eagle
• Why Do We HWhunger For Beauty
• Hear our Prayer
• Faith’s Song
• Cashe Island
• Fashion for Me
• Deep Calls to Deep
• What a Longing
• Marie
• Blessed are the Poor
• The Wellspring
• Holy Lord

A couple years after Comfort my People was released I recieved a letter from a Gordon Matties. Gordon had taught a course on the Old Testament that I audited a few years prior. But at this time he was writting me from Israel where he was taking a study sabbatical.

Gordon’s letter explained that he had been listening to my first album quite a bit while in Isreal and he felt it was important that I did a second one. He and his wife Lori had just recieved a significant inheritance and wanted to lend it to me intrest free in order to record. Gordon also suggested that when he got home he could help me raise what-ever funds that I might need over and above what they had.

Needless to say, I was stunned. I had enormous respect for Gordon and his practical vote of confidence was huge for me. I had just returned myself from India where I had experienced severe poverty for the first time and I was still pretty raw from the experience, but I had several songs burning a hole in my pocket and wanted to get them on tape so I welcomed the support.

I started the process of recording but quickly realized I didn’t have a whole lot of creative energy to produce with - the India trip had really taken a knock out of me. So I hired Paul O’Neil to produce Deep Calls To Deep, and it remains to this day, the only album of mine that I didn’t have a major role in the production. You’ll notice it has a significantly different sound than my other projects.

When Deep first came out, the response was very negative. It sounded so different than Comfort My People and folks had (and shared) very strong reactions. Several stores refused to carry it - one, in particular, called me up and insisted I come and take them away from the store because it wasn’t “anointed.” I was devestated. I felt I had failed, and wasted good people’s money and trust. For several months I couldn’t sleep. How would I ever pay back a debt on an album that everyone hated?

One particular restless night Nanci rolled over in bed and chewed me out for worrying so much. She was more convinced than I that I was doing what I was supposed to be doing, and thought it rather sinful that I was stressing.

It was what I needed. Nanci has been such an amazing support. A few months later people started warming to the album and it has since become one of my better selling recordings.

Go figure.

Burning Ember / 1994

• Dakota Hymn
• As Long as the Sun
• Psalm 40
• Never Mind
• How Long
• House of Peace
• Song for the Life
• So Long
• She’s in Love With Me
• I Will Not Be Shaken
• Burning Ember
• Psalm 32
• Even So Lord Jesus Come

The Burning Ember project really marks the beginning of Signpost Music. I had registered the name and was hobbling along as a small business/ministry but the whole thing was not going to last with me at the helm.

I still owed money from Deep recording, and was barely making enough from concerts to support my family, but once again, I had a handful of songs that I felt deserved to be recorded.

Dave Zeglinski, of Mid-Ocean Recording Studios in Winnipeg, was an old friend of mine and had engineered my first two albums at his studio. I loved his unique ability to record acoustic instruments and I admired his pioneering spirit. Late one night I was lamenting my poor business skills and what seemed like an insurmountable lack of funds for recording a new project. At that time in his life, Dave was weary of the commercial recording business and suggested that he could finance the recording and we could be partners in the project. I jumped at the offer and we recorded Burning Ember.

Shortly after Burning Ember came out, Dave started showing up to concerts to do sound, manage the sales and all the other details I never seemed to get around to. His attention to detail immediately proved to increase revenues until he finnaly suggested to me that we go in together on the whole business of my music. He would bring his resources to the table and I mine. It took me a little while to get used to the idea of loosening my grip on my music, but it was clearly a gift of God that someone of his calibre and unique set of skills would be passionate about my music enough to risk his own carreer. We soon became business partners in Signpost Music and the rest is history.

Aside - mixing the song Never Mind (on Burning Ember) is still my favorite studio memory. It was the first time I really felt we had done something great.

The Feast / Christmas / 1995

• Ready My Heart
• May It Be Done
• Magnificat
• The Angel Gabriel
• Come Thou Long Expected Jesus
• Instrumental
  • God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen / Angels We Have Heard on High / Silent Night
• The Coventry Carol
• O Holy Night
• I Heard The Bells
• Every Stone Shall Cry
• Old Sage
• The Coventry Carol (reprise)

Although this is considered a Steve Bell album, it should probably be a Steve Bell / Jamie Howison album. Jamie is a friend, mentor and also the priest at St. Benedict’s Table - the church Nanci and I worship at.

W hen Jamie heard I was recording a Christmas album he phone me up and begged, “please tell me you are writing something new!”

I wasn’t planning to. Writing Christmas songs is hard work. All the images and metaphors are so overworked that it’s hard to imagine a fresh newness being possible. But Jamie was convinced the story was yet to be exhausted and he and I together wrote May It Be Done, and Old Sage.

We also had long talks about the Christmas season - that it wasn’t actually one season, but a collection - or better yet, a feast of seasons ; advent, nativity, the slaughter of the innocents and epiphany. Jamie also pointed out that divorced from the rest of the Christian calendar, ie. Good Friday / Easter, Christmas easily degenerates to sentimentality. So he suggested I include Richard Wilbur’s brilliant Every Stone Shall Cry which casts the Christ story cycically from birth, celebration, rejection, death and back to new life. Jamie also wisely suggested I arrange the songs liturgically to flow thematically through advent to epiphany.

In the end, the recording took on a depth that was not my doing. I have been blessed to have wonderful folks speak into my life, and in this instance, that blessing became a fish and loaves event.

 

 

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The Lemon Tree an Arab, a Jew and the Heart of the Middle East

Sandy Tolan

2006 Bloomsbury Publishing

I travelled to Israel/Palestine in the fall of 2004. Most of my time was spent in the West Bank where I experienced the brutalization of the Palestinian people by the Israeli Defense Forces. Since then I have been almost obsessed with trying to understand what I witnessed, and this book is perhaps the best single volume I’ve read that attempts to grasp the complex tragedy at the epicenter of east/west conflict.

The title of this moving book refers to a tree in the backyard of a home in Ramla, Israel. The home is currently owned by Dalia, a Jewish woman whose family of Holocaust survivors emigrated from Bulgaria. But before Israel gained its independence in 1948, the house was owned by the Palestinian family of Bashir, who meets Dalia when he returns to see his family home after the Six-Day War of 1967. Journalist Tolan (Me & Hank) traces the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through the parallel personal histories of Dalia and Bashir and their families—all refugees seeking a home.

The story is compelling enough on its own, but Tolan interjects history throughout that I found illuminating and helpful. It helped me understand better the perspective and anxiety of individual Israelis but in the end, I don’t think there can ever be a resolution until Israel as a nation comes to value Palestinian rights and aspirations as equal to their own - as a matter of policy.

 

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I have finally written a new song!

The last song I wrote was Everything’s Lies - almost exactly four years ago after having wasted a night watching late-night TV. After a couple hours of infomercials, sensationalist newscasts (America was marching to Iraq) and Evangelists Gone Wild I lost the ability to distinguish between the different shows and now recall the evening as a haze- drenched, postmodern collage of shameless hucksters just tryin’ to make a dishonest livin’.

So I wrote: Everything’s lies / isn’t it swell / sex in a silver cup / serve it up with the televangel / no worries here/ trust the t.v. / there’s nothing of consequence / with God on a leash.

Shortly after that night I found myself in Palestine/Israel visiting several Palestinian Christian communities and organizations in the West Bank. There I witnessed first hand the malevolent raw power of a military occupation designed to slowly squeeze the life out of an entire people. The trauma of what I witnessed, along with the shame of belonging to a people group who have largely supported this brutality, shut me down. I really haven’t known what to say since. I’ve spent countless hours reading about the Middle-East; politics and history. I’ve read tons on Islam. Specifically I have read many accounts of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and recently took a course on the same topic.

But I can’t fix it. And so one grieves. One grieves one’s own limitations. One grieves the incomprehensability of God. One grieves the particular moms and dads and children in other lands whose lives are ruptured by violence.

Last week I was reading the latest GEEZ magazine. Under the heading, The Luxury of Hope, editor Will Braun asks if our religion and spirituality are deep enough to "contemplate catastrophe." It reminded me of when my daughter was six or seven years old. One night she couldn’t sleep because she was afraid a "bad man" might break in and hurt her. I reassured her that Jesus loved and her wouldn’t let anything bad happen. As she began to dry her tears she looked up at me and asked if, then, Jesus doesn’t love the children who do get hurt.

Shame on me.

Later (in the same, aforementioned GEEZ magazine) in a beautifully written piece called The Washing, Jessie Van Eerden recalls being interrupted while doing laundry, which she eloquently understands as redemptive work. A phone call from her father informs her that her cousin Billy has committed suicide:

It shakes me to the core, Billy’s quiet death.
There is good work to do.
There is good work to do.

Indeed.

In Billy’s Wake lyric by Steve Bell and Jessie Van Eerden

We’re not alone
laundry awash in the mid-morning sun
you can see angels dance as they try blouses on
there is good work to do

We’re not alone
casting long shadows as the day wears on
Billy had troubles, now Billy is gone
there is good work to do

kissing eyelids closed like caskets
breaking bread and filling baskets
pressing dress and swabbing soiled floors

fast remains of feast and fanion
evidence of ghost companions
greeting some and showing some the door

we’re not alone
wordlessly stung by a sliver blue moon
closed casket wake in a cold living room
there is good work to do

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L R Baggs Dual Source Pick-ups.

Pick-ups are a necessary evil. I don’t like the sound of any of them really - there’s a certain mid-range quack that I just hate hearing, and they all have it to some degree. However, to my ears, the LR Baggs Dual Source Pick-up (~ $250 + installation) is the best, most natural pick-up system on the market. The system itself comes with a ribbon transducer (under saddle) pick-up and a mini - microphone (mounted inside the guitar) blended through an onboard pre-amp which allows you to select a mono or stereo output, high or low gain, phase and,most importantly, a bass roll-off pot. I run my system in mono, high gain, with the bass rolled off quite drastically (about 8 o’clock on the dial). The bass roll-off reduces monitor feedback - but the sound is still plenty warm. There is a controller mounted on the sound hole with two mini-volume rollers to control the volume of the transducer and mic separately. I run both at full volume.

LR Baggs tries to sell an expensive integrated active direct box to go with the pick-up. It’s fairly sophisticated with sophisticated eqs and what-not. I bought it and don’t use it - too many variables. I find that a cheap, passive, booger-head direct box works best.

I have a second pick-up installed in my Ryan Guitar as well. On the recommendation of several folks, I put in the Baggs I-Beam system. Basically, it cost me a pile of money and I never use it. It comes with a lot of hype but it sounds quite average to my ears and again, the mid-range quack is perhaps not as bad as some, but still quite noticeable.

 

 

 

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D’Addario Guitar Strings

It’s funny how often I get asked what kind of strings I use. I think people think there is some magic in the strings that make a guitar. Although there are some perceptible differences between some brands, it is my understanding that there are only a few string manufacturers in the world and everybody buys from the same places and puts their own stamp on them.

So I’m not as loyal to one brand as I am to the particular alloy of Phosphor/Bronze. Straight bronze strings are too bright for my liking. Phosphor/Bronze seem to be a bit warmer and spicier (if that means anything to anyone.)

For years now I’ve been using D’Addario/ Phosphor Bronze light gauge strings (EJ16) - not because done extensive research, I just like them. And considering how often I change strings they are a reasonable price. I use to play medium gauge but after suffering some soft tissue stress in my arms, I was advised to lower the action on my guitar and switch to light gauge.

Recently however, I’ve switched to EXP coated Phosphor/Bronze strings. I have no idea what EXP means but the strings are a bit warmer yet, and they last significantly longer (which helps compensate for the higher price). I change strings before every concert and twice a concert if there happens to be an intermission.

For some reason, chemical make-up perhaps, I kill strings very fast. Often I’m already quite frustrated with them by the middle of a concert. The EXPs last the evening for me and that’s worth the extra expense.

 

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Calton Cases I‘ve had this case for about 8 years now and it’s literally been on hundreds of flights. They’re kind of pricey (~$700) but if you do any traveling at all, especially flying, you know how beaten-up a case can get. I used to replace my travel cases every year or two but the integrity of my Calton case is the same as the first day I bought it. The years have taken their toll though. Last fall I took the case back to the factory for a retrofit (replace hinges, bumpers, handle, clasps and stripping) and it is now ready for another decade of abuse. My case is a one-of-a-kind. Kevin Ryan had the case made in this particular teal colour as a prototype unique for Ryan Guitars, but when he actually saw the case in teal he wisely decided he hated the colour - so he gave it to me. I’m not proud!

 

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Kyser Capo

You can get this capo at any music store. There are all kinds of capos out there but this is the easiest and fastest to place on the neck - only one hand in needed. When not in use, I just leave it on the headstock of the guitar. That way, I’m not always fishing in my pocket for it during performances. It doesn’t bend the strings at all, so the integrity of the tuning remains intact.

 

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Intelitouch Tuner

The Intellitouch PT-1 is a well-conceived tuner that uses vibration to help you tune your instrument. The tuner simply clamps to the headstock of your guitar, and swivels easily out of the way when not in use. Tuning in a loud environment proved easy with the PT-1 - since it doesn’t rely on pitch to tune your instrument, the PT-1 wasn’t confused by background noise. This makes it a terrific tuner for guitarists who have to tune on stage, or in an environment in which other instruments are playing.

The fact that you never have to plug it in means it just stays with your guitar at all times. In the middle of a set you don’t have to look down on the ground to tune your guitar - it’s right there. For a tuner it is a bit expensive (~ $70.) but it is the handiest and practical new gadget I’ve come across in awhile.

 

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Fingerstyle Guitar Magazine

I think this is the best resource out there for fingerstyle guitarists. Each issue comes with a CD of ten or so tracks of some of the best fingerstyle playing out there - artists both well known and obscure. The magazine itself has great articles introducing artists and artisans of the fingerstyle world as well as tablature for the songs on the accompanying CD.

Most of the songs on the CD are fairly advanced artistry - but it’s very inspiring to hear the virtuosity that is out there, and there is usually one or two things I can pick up to add to my tool bag. Plus it’s just good listening.

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Johnson Resonator   I picked up this instrument a couple of years ago here in Winnipeg. Modeled after the original, pre-World War II guitars, these resonators are probably the foremost affordable, decent, metal body guitars on the market.

For me this is a novelty instrument. I don’t play it much but when in the studio, the haunting, hollow, metallic sound is sometimes useful. My instrument is pretty good for the price range but there are certainly better. The sloppy, hollowness of the sound is a bit out of control on mine but I just can’t justify the expense of a really good one when I’d use it so little.

Resonater guitars are used a lot in traditional blues and blues-folk. I used this instrument on the intro section of Lord of the Starfields / My Dinner with Bruce. Bruce Cockburn himself uses a resonator guitar quite a bit. You can hear it spread about on albums since "Nothing but a Burning Light" but a good particular example would be "The Soul of a Man" off the same album.

-Steve B.

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