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Interview: Hot Club of Cowtown's Whit Smith
Guitar virtuoso provides an insight into the world of Western swing
Mick Taylor (Guitarist), Thu 21 Apr 2011, 5:08 pm BST
You won't believe Whit Smith's guitar playing until you witness it in person. A pre-1950s-inspired mix of Western swing, jazz and Hot Club styles, there's never an inversion too far, a pattern too tricky nor a harmony unexplored as he takes your every expectation and surpasses it.
Alongside Elana James and Jake Erwin, the noise they make in Hot Club Of Cowtown is as seemingly incongruous in 2011 as it is engaging. "It's all live y'know, no overdubs," replies the genial guitarist as we ask about the band's latest release, What Makes Bob Holler, a tribute to Western swing's celebrated pioneer.
"They're all Bob Wills songs on the new record," confirms Whit, "and because it's all been done live and it's just the three of us in a room with minimum separation, we're all playing more or less at full tilt. We're throwing in everything that we've got. It's raw, we use all of our chops - we're playing Western swing!"
The trio format - particularly with no drummer - must leave you a lot of space as a guitarist, so what approaches do you use?
"Well Eldon Shamblin, the guitar player in Bob Wills' band, is famous for moving the chords around. A lot of swing guitar players in the '20s and '30s would be up and down the neck; it was a two-chord song, but they're playing dozens of chords, so that's prevalent.
"When I'm playing rhythm, say you have a G with the third in the bass, then I got a D7 with the seventh in the bass, then a diminished... a G with a fifth in the bass for example. You can hear that there and that's a Western swing characteristic.
"But I'm pretty traditional. It's a little bold to say I'm trying to be a contemporary of my influences, but what I'm saying is that I never add an obvious rock or folk thing. It's a pre-'50s idea - there's only a hundred billion ideas that came before that time anyway [laughs], so there's plenty to do!"
You comp rhythm one second, play melodies the next, and then play solos. How do you deal with that without a channel switch or pedal to vary volume?
"If you work at it, it starts to come together. Like drummers who sing – it's one of those things that comes when you work at it!
"Over the last year I've been stepping on a pedal for solos when I play live, but for the first 10 years I didn't. I was trying so hard to overcome what most people figure out pretty quickly - use a pedal! I'd like to stop using it, but it'd mean my amp being a little louder.
"As it is, the amp is wide open, so I strum lightly when I play chords and hit harder when I play solos. Also I use bronze strings, which don't have the same signal as nickel.
"I think it helps because when you're strumming bronze strings it's not as loud as nickel or flatwounds. But then you switch to the unwound strings and punch 'em hard. And I use 0.012s or 0.013s, remember.
"It's hard for me to step on a pedal though. Even my wife teases me - she used to like how I'd walk up to the mic stand without stepping on something. I'm trying to be slick now and just sneak it in."
