Zack Wiesinger

The commenter “riffraf vash? yes” asked me a question that inspired this post. “Where do you think your music’s audible roots come from?” I replied that it would take a little more explaining than just a simple comment back. So, here’s a roughly estimated timeline of my musical influences.

The beginnings of my influences began before I even picked up a guitar. My dad, Bootleg Kenny, would play vinyl records around the house and mix-tape cassettes in the car all the time as I grew up. Hearing nothing but LPs of artists like Frank Zappa, Stevie Wonder, The Beatles, and mix-tapes of The Dr. Demento Show, music was constantly flowing through the air and seeping its way into my subconscious at an early age.

When I began taking guitar lessons around age ten or so, my teacher, ‘Smokin’ Joe’ Rossi suggested I learn the Blues “because it’s the root of Rock and everything else.” He taught me the Blues progression, scale, and various riffs and licks. This is when I began actually studying music. I first got into Stevie Ray Vaughan and Jimi Hendrix like any other young guitar player should. Soon after, I was learning about the older legends from which these legends learned including B.B.King, Albert Collins, Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Albert King, Freddie King,

and many more. The more I learned, the more I could do live. This was freeing, but when a tune with a different chord progression showed up, I would struggle. So, I had to study beyond Blues a bit.

As I continued finding out about more and more guitar players of the past, a fellow guitarist gave me a mix-CD of mostly early instrumental Country and early Jazz guitar players. The ones that stuck out most at the time for me were Country-Jazz duo Jimmy Bryant (electric guitar) and Speedy West (pedal steel guitar), Django Reinhardt, and Wes Montgomery with Jimmy Smith on the Organ. Some tracks were a little too difficult for me to pick up by ear at the time, but this was a pivotal mix-CD for me. So, I began hunting down recordings by these guys mostly to enjoy and listen, but I also studied and learned a few riffs and tunes from these masters. As I saw how my Blues knowledge related to what they did, I had a slightly better understanding of music and improvising with different chord changes. Up until this point I would use a pick most of the time, but sometimes I found myself slipping in a few other available fingers to pluck. Another great guitar teacher of mine, Jimmy Relja, suggested I learn finger picking style. He briefly trained me in the classical style on a nylon string acoustic guitar. Then we moved on to more of the vintage chickin’ pickin’ style. Jimmy was the guy who really reminded me about Chet Atkins. (Chet was on the mix-CD as well, I just was more drawn to the aforementioned players at the time). I ended up taking the technical skills from the brief classical lessons and appling it to the Chet Atkins finger picking style of guitar where you hear the bass line and melody simultaneously.

Somewhere in between my recorded music discoveries, my sister took me to see what she described as the next guitar legend, John Scofield live at The Byham Theater in Pittsburgh, PA. Scofield’s show was amazing to me. Blues-based riffs that go out a touch into jazz with almost hip-hop/rap grooves and interesting melodies over colorful chord changes all amounted to a new perspective on soloing and improving and embellishing a melody. Upon researching Scofield, I discovered that he too started out more bluesy then spanned over to a fresh style of funky hip jazz.

That just about covers the “guitar side” of my influences from the 1940’s on up to the 2000’s. But for the all-encompassing “music side” of influences which affect the other instruments I play, song writing, and arranging, it mostly stems from 12 inch vinyl records.

Bootleg Kenny’s rich LP collection definitely inspired me to begin my own. As I began avidly collecting vinyl records (I had records since a youth- just in the past few years have I really been cultivating a serious collection), I learned about many other artists and styles of music. Going to record stores, flea markets, house sales, thrift shops, etc., I flip through shelves and crates of albums to find must-have classics, suggested bands or players that people hep me to, or anything that looks interesting based off the artwork and title alone.

Via many means of discovery, the most influential LPs in the “music side” of things are the works of Raymond Scott (1930’s cartoon music), John Barry (James Bond soundtracks), Herb Albert (and the Tiajuana Brass), Les Baxter (late 1950’s exotic lounge), Roy Smeck (‘wizard of the strings’ guitar, lap steel, ukulele, and banjo), Billy Mure (guitar player, but great arranger, too), Henry Mancini (Pink Panther, Peter Gunn), Old Hawaiian Steel Guitar music, most 1960’s Psychedelic, and the list can go for awhile, but if these were the first to pop in my head, then they must be more influential than ones I would have to think harder about.

So, having dabbled with all the guitarists and random vintage records for years and years, my style of soloing over Blues and different chord changes has morphed into the finger picking cluster f@%k that it is today.

That’s an overall view of the most influential “audible roots.” You can sign up for Last.FM  to see what I have been listening lately. It’s a web site that tracks what you listen to in iTunes and other media players. I’m still new to Last.FM, and since I have mostly LPs of my favorite new artists and bands, I’ll just list them in this post as well, because it may take awhile for me to play them in my iTunes (because the record player is a higher priority medium of which I enjoy music playback)…Some newer, more modern artists and bands that aren’t necessarily my “roots,” but have some influence or if I’m just a mere fan include Beck, The Raconteurs, Primus, Cake, The White Stripes, Mr. Bungle, Queens of The Stone Age, Muse, Gnarls Barkley, and that’s about it for new groups. 

Questions… Comments… Players, Bands, or Artists you think I should check out?

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