Interviews
Frank Vignola
Getting to talk with a musician whose work you totally
admire can be a tricky business. What if they are nothing like as
appealing in person as they are on record?
With Frank Vignola, it’s never going to be a problem.
Chatting in his home in upstate New York, Frank is every bit as warm and
welcoming as his stunning guitar work onstage and on record. He gives
expansive answers delivered with a sense of humour and style, and is
always keen to ensure that those around him get some of the credit for
his success – including Ryan Thorell, who built the main guitar in
Frank’s collection.
Frank believes that Ryan is a future master luthier and explains how he came to enjoy his current guitar of choice. ‘I’ve known Ryan Thorell for along
time, and he sent me a guitar which he was working on. It has a carved
top and it’s like a hybrid between a Gypsy guitar and an archtop. It’s
all mahogany, apart from the top which is Adirondack spruce, which is
the spruce that the old Gibson guitars are made from, before they
switched to European spruces. It has a really warm sound, and I tried it
out and within two minutes I fell in love with it, and I told Ryan I
would be delighted to endorse this guitar. This guitar travels really
well, and I travel a lot, so when I take it out of its case, nothing is
too far out of tune. It’s a guitar that will stand up to the travelling I
do, and being played every day. Every guitar player should play every
day, even if it’s just strumming a few chords, or walking past the
guitar on its stand and just hitting the strings; you should play every
day.’
All master guitarists have a favourite guitar that
is their default choice, but they all have other instruments that
deserve regular attention, and Frank is no exception to that rule, as he
confirms. ‘I have three archtops. One is a
7-string which Bucky Pizzarelli gave to me; it’s the original one that
he started out on. I have a Benedetto signature model, and I have the
Thorell. I also have an old Martin Flat Top 00-17. That’s really nice,
and I have a classical guitar made by Gary Zimnicki from Michigan, and I
have a Bacon and Day tenor banjo which I love. I’ve had a lot of
guitars in my life, and in retrospect I wish I had held on to all of
them, but I do have what I need. Ryan is making me two new flat-tops;
one is going to be constructed entirely out of mahogany, like the old
Martin 00-17s, and he is making another one out of American Douglas fir,
which he says gives a wonderful warm sound. I love the flat-top sound
and I am looking forward to putting that sound into my shows.’
When advised that his technical style is
intimidatingly clever and complex, Frank laughs loudly with pleasure,
and has a comprehensive response to the question of whether he was born
with his outstanding talent or developed it over years of dedicated
practice and experience. ‘Both,’ he declares firmly. ‘When I was growing up, my dad played in a tenor banjo band, and he used to play loads of singalong songs, like “Four leaf Clover” and “Baby Face”,
hundreds of songs like that. So my dad bought me a guitar and taught me
a few chords. He bought me my first album, which was a Django Reinhardt
and Stéphane Grappelli album, one of their early recordings, and I
would play along with the records. By the time I was around 11, my ear
had developed and I was picking up songs from listening. So I went to
music school as part of my high-school education, and when I graduated
from high school I went on the road, got myself a little place over a
laundromat in Manhattan, and started knocking on doors asking for work. I
was lucky to be able to pick up eight or ten slots a week in Dixie jazz
bands because I could play rhythm guitar. So I have worked at my craft
as I have gone along. I have met and worked with a lot of guitar players
and taught a lot of guitar players, and what I have found out is that
the ones who do it for a living never thought twice about it, they just
went out and did it. The people who think about it and worry that it’s
not a secure job with a steady income are the ones who finish up playing
for a hobby, and there is nothing at all wrong with that because music
should be enjoyed by everyone, and playing an instrument at any level is
very good for you.
‘The hard work, as far as I am concerned, is actually
getting the gigs and keeping the gigs, and getting enough work to
support my family playing the music that I love. You have to get out
there and build your audience and your fan base, as I have started to do
in England. I came over with Tommy Emmanuel, and his agent liked what I
did and offered to book me a tour, and I played maybe 30 people one
night, 40 another; 60 was a good night. Then we came back last year and
the numbers were going up – 80, sometimes 100 – and that is how you
build up your audience in our line of the business. I remember Les Paul
telling me that when he had his first record out he drove all over the
country visiting every radio station he could find, and he introduced
himself and his music to people that way. It is the only way to be a
touring musician, unless you want to be a studio player, or a home
player for your own enjoyment. If you want to make it your profession
there are no short cuts; you get out there and play as often as you can
in as many places as you can.’
Because of the skill exhibited by Frank Vignola on
album and in concert, it’s easy to assume that he can turn his hand to
any style of playing, but it will be of comfort to all of us that not
all genres arrive by dropping in his lap like a birthday gift. ‘Playing bebop was quite confusing to me when I started to hear it and learn how to play it,’ Frank recalls.
‘Straightforward swing and jazz were fine because I grew up with those,
but bebop was something else. Then I came across a guitar player called
Gene Bertoncini, who is in his 70s now and is a real master of the
guitar. He gave a clinic at a school I was teaching at. Gene taught this
method of looking at the fingerboard horizontally, instead of
vertically as most guitarists do. When they start, they learn the six
positions for the scale and they think that’s it; meanwhile there are
over 200 positions for playing a C scale on the guitar. Gene’s whole
approach was about connecting your musical ear to your fingers. His
concept was making you able to play your scales up and down on one
string at a time, and I couldn’t do that, but after about a year, when I
had mastered that, I found I was able to play bebop, because I was able
to play what I could hear. With that extra fingerboard technique, I was
able to get a line on translating what my ears heard into what my hands
would play.’
During his career, Frank has played with many
famous names in the world of guitars, but few are more famous than the
late Les Paul. Frank enjoyed a professional relationship and personal
friendship with the master, including a stint in Les’s band at his
weekly residency at the Iridium in Manhattan. But typically, Frank’s
favourite Les Paul story concerns another founding father of the modern
guitar scene – Django Reinhardt. Frank elaborates: ‘Les
knew Django and knew how talented he was and how American audiences
would just adore him, so he intended to bring Django over to the States
to tour with himself and Mary Ford, and they were big stars, so this
would have been a huge break for Django. So Les came over to Europe to
meet with Django, and he got to the apartment where Django was living in
Paris, and it was up four flights of stairs, and there was nothing in
the room but a guitar – that was it. All Django asked Les for was a
record player, so Les went and bought him a record player. Les returned
to the States and Django passed away before he could come over and do
the tour. The Reinhardt family had no money, so Les contacted all the
publishers of Django’s music, and he collected over $50,000 in
royalties. Les paid for Django’s funeral and gave the rest of the money
to the family, and in return, Django’s wife gave Les the Selmer guitar
Django played, and I have played it myself, which was an awesome
experience.’
As well as being a name in recording, Frank has a
wealth of experience as a session musician, and he is more than happy to
pass on some useful advice to those who would like a career as a studio
player. ‘To be a session and studio musician, you must be
able to read music, that is absolutely essential. The difficulty is, the
guitar is the most difficult instrument to read for. There are six
different ways to play each note; it’s not like a trumpet or piano,
notes are set ready, so you have to be able to work through that. The
easiest way to do that is to get a new piece of music every day and
sight-read it. It doesn’t have to be a hard piece, it can be easy, but
you need to work on one new piece every single day. Do that every day
for a year and you will become an excellent sight-reader, which you need
to be to be able to get studio sessions. Because of the increased use
of programmes like Pro Tools, there are fewer good sight-readers out
there. Years ago, session guitar players could do four different
sessions a day, and they would read music off a score, not a tablature;
so again, that is a good skill to have. The other skill that’s essential
is a grasp of genres. The guys who play sessions these days can play
any style – jazz, funk, rock – anything they need to do, it’s there in
their toolbox. The final tip I would offer is: get the rhythm right
first. Before you play anything, work out the rhythm by tapping it out.
You can be so busy checking your fingering and so on that the rhythm of
the piece can get away from you. It’s OK to miss a note here or there,
but if you lose the rhythm, that’s it, game over.’
Frank has already been happy to confirm that his
ability is not simply absorbed like sunlight, it has taken years of
dedicated practice; and once again, he is happy to impart some wisdom. ‘When
I started to learn, I set up a practice routine that took me 45 minutes
a day, and I would work my way through that. It was the same time every
day. I would turn off the phone and open my notebook with that day’s
routine written out, and work through it, depending which aspect I was
looking at working on, and the next day it would be something else so I
didn’t get bored or frustrated with the same thing. The important aspect
is the consistency, every day at the same time, so it’s a good habit to
get into and you can feel the progress coming on as you go along.’
Does he look after his hands? ‘Funny
you should mention that. Just recently I have been thinking that I must
start to take better care of my hands than I have been. I have a big
yard at home and I like to chop up wood and prune the bushes, that kind
of thing; and after I do that kind of work my hands get stiff. I have
been taking advice from a nutritionist, who told me that if I drink
plenty of water and remain well hydrated I will never get arthritis. I
don’t know if that is true, but sounds like a good way to live! I have
thought about it more lately. I am 46 now and it’s time to notice and
look after my hands – as well as the rest of me! When I first moved into
my house I was banging in fence posts, and now and again I’d miss and
smash my fingers, and carry on, and now I look back and wonder what on
earth I was thinking!’
Interview by Andy Hughes
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