Jorma Kaukonen Interview

by Rick Landers.

When we saw that famed guitarist Jorma Kaukonen and bassist Jack Casady of Hot Tuna were headed to the Birchmere, Alexandria, Virginia, we knew it wasn't an opportunity to miss. Rarely does Modern Guitars get a chance to catch up with musicians who have performed together and stoked a full steam of friendship for 50 years.

Since the early ‘60s, Jorma and Jack have shared their love of music and experienced the spirited upheaval of rock stardom as members of Jefferson Airplane, the group that featured vocalist Grace Slick who belted out the rock classic, “Somebody to Love,” and melodically droned the phantasmagorical reverence of “White Rabbit.” It was the age of psychedelia and as much as drugs pierced the veil of the status quo, the music itself was mind altering with Jefferson Airplane searing hot in the klieg lights of the moment.

While still with Jefferson Airplane, Jorma and Jack formed Hot Tuna, reportedly in order to play well beyond the usual set list and into the night. But, one wonders, “Why the name Hot Tuna?” Maybe they’d heard the ‘70s quip, “How come you can tune a piano, but you can’t tune a fish?” giving them the idea for the group’s name.

At the outset Hot Tuna included Jefferson Airplane vocalist Marty Balin and drummer, Joey Covington. Over the years, Hot Tuna has formed, scattered and reformed with various players, while Jorma would run solo or work with other groups, until the ‘80s when he and Jack would recommit to Tuna. Throughout that time, Jorma would roll out a series of 14 solo albums including, Quah (1974), Jorma (1979), The Barbecue Project (1980) and Grammy nominated Blue Country Heart (2002). With Hot Tuna he would record another group of projects including: Classic Hot Tuna Acoustic, Classic Hot Tuna Electric, Live at Sweetwater, and Live at Sweetwater Two. More recently, Kaukonen released his latest solo projects, Stars in My Crown (2007) and River of Time (2009).

Listen to samples from a variety of Jorma Kaukonen albums:

In 1989, Jorma and his wife, Vanessa, would embark on what turned out to be a major project, the 119 acre Fur Peach Ranch, in Southeast Ohio. Their plan was to offer a place for guitarists to improve by studying and learning from professionals, all in a low key, homespun environment. Over the past twenty years, the place would grow to include an assortment of cabins for visitors, a library, a dining hall, a workshop space, a store, a 32-track recording studio and a theater where both students and music veterans perform. Some of the musicians who have taught seminars at the Ranch include: Rory Block; Cindy Cashdollar; Tommy Emmanuel; Pete Huttlinger; Ed Gerhard; John Cephas; David Bromberg; Bill Kirchen; Happy Traum; Chris Smither; Jack Casady; Anne McCue; and many more.

During the same year he was inducted into the Rock “n” Roll Hall of Fame (2005), Kaukonen would also lend his talents to the album, Too Many Years, in support of Clear Path International’s efforts to help landmine survivors.

Modern Guitars met Jorma during sound check at The Birchmere where he and Jack, along with virtuoso mandolin player, Barry Mitterhoff, and percussionist, Erik Diaz, set the dials and warmed up before the front doors swung open. Jorma talked about his early days as a folkie, Jefferson Airplane, his friendship with Jack, Hot Tuna, the Fur Peace Ranch, and his love of guitars, motorcycles and Vanessa.

Rick Landers: Many of our readers may not realize that you and Jack formed Hot Tuna while still with the Jefferson Airplane. And on this tour, I've heard that you're celebrating your 50th anniversary.

Jorma Kaukonen: Well, actually Hot Tuna is not 50. Jack and I have played together for 50 years.

Rick: Okay, because Hot Tuna stopped for a while, right?

Jorma: Yeah, Hot Tuna is coming up on 40 years. Next year [2009] it’s gonna be 40 years. For our fiftieth thing we’ve been working on, of course, it probably won't come out 'til our 51st year - I think we're gonna strike a medal. And I think, I forget what the Latin is. I think it's gonna be "Blessed is the man who listens with his ears. " Or something like that. I don’t know. But, other than that, we'll just still be playing together.

Rick: Yeah. Fifty years…so you started in the '50s.

Jorma: We started playing in '58 together.

Rick: When did you meet?

Jorma: We met in '56.

Rick: You knew him a couple years. Were you learning guitar when you were…?

Jorma: Actually, yeah. I think I just started learning guitar around then. I was 15 or 16 when I started learning guitars. It was just starting to happen. Jack was playing. He was a guitar player. He's played a little longer than me.

Rick: What were you listening to back then?

Jorma: Just rock and roll.

Rick: Neil Sedaka and...

Jorma: No, no, no, the guitar stuff. I mean in those days there weren't subcategories like rockabilly and this and that. Growing up in D.C. we had a lot of it. So, oh you know Gene Vincent, of course, Little Richard, Elvis. I mean Neil Sedaka, that was bubblegum music.

Rick: Yeah, Philadelphia...

Jorma: Yeah. I mean, you went to a party, you can dance to it.But, you wouldn’t like, listen to it.

Rick: [Laughs] Not like "Jailhouse Rock" or Carl Perkins.

Jorma: No and no disrespect meant for Neil. God bless him.

Rick: Your native to this area's Piedmont style of music, blues music. So, I understand that you play that finger picking style.

Jorma: Yeah, it is. Strangely, if I didn’t learn it here, I learned it in Ohio. But, yeah it’s the Tidewater Piedmont area.

Rick: So, you’ve heard of John Cephas and Phil Wiggins?

Jorma: I do.

Rick: Tommy Emanuel…

Jorma: Yeah, both have been to the Fur Peace Ranch a number of times.

Rick: Who’s gonna be there this year?

Jorma: Oh gosh, I'd have to go online and look at it for you.

Rick: I think Tommy is gonna be there.

Jorma: Tommy is definitely there, yeah. John's had some health issues and he's not traveling right now which is unfortunate. He was coming to do a show with us, he canceled the show and I'm sorry to hear that. But, he's such a writer. He's just such a great guy.

[Ed: Piedmont guitarist, John Cephas passed away after this interview in 2009]

Rick: Yeah, great guitar player. We met him last year at the National Folk Festival in Richmond, Virginia.

Jorma: Yeah, he's the best and he's such a great human being. But, he's just such a scholar and such a great player and all that stuff. He's the real deal.

Rick: Yeah, he is. You're traditional art.

Jorma: Yeah, John Hartford, right before he passed away was doing a show at the ranch and we were talking about this. I knew him casually. We recorded "Gentle On My Mind" while working with RCA, during the early Airplane stuff. And I just told him how I admired his commitment to traditional music when he could have been a hotshot songwriter. He could have been a big dog in that world. And he just went, "You want me to sing you guys from the old-timey music?" You're right.

Rick: Are you using more traditional style of Piedmont or do you merge that with more country?

Jorma: I think I almost developed my own style as a result of my inability to learn things correctly and I think it stood me in good stead over the years. I know a lot of guys who can really do that stuff the way the masters did, in addition to having your own style, but I was just so excited to get out to the hootenanny and play. I just couldn’t take the time to learn how to do it right.

But, I think that what happened was that the Reverend Gary Davis was certainly very influential in an odd kind of way, because he's a two-finger picker and I'm a three-finger picker. I don’t do any of the stuff the way he did it. But, his music really influenced me profoundly.

Rick: Do you have any good "Rev" stories you could tell?

Jorma: I don’t because I didn’t have the three of five or whatever was bucks an hour he was charging back then. So, I never took lessons from him. I started to study Ian Buchanan who was a friend of the Rev's. I guess one of the things about the Reverend is when I moved to California, because Ian knew him and we started hanging out a little bit, every time he came to California I'd go to see him and he always seemed to remember me. And I was talking to Ernie Hawkins, who's a guy from Philadelphia who knew the Rev well, really great player. And I was telling him, “The Reverend, he's probably just being polite,” and he said, “No. He remembered you.” He remembered everyone. So, that was cool.

Rick: Ever worked with Doc Watson?

Jorma: I've met Doc. I have a good Doc Watson story. The first year I was at Merle Fest I met Doc and the guys and John [Cowan] was playing bass in that little pickup band they had that year. He asked me if I'd sit in. "Of course. Play with you guys? Are you kidding?" So, I said, "Look, you know I'm a simple guy. Keep it easy.” He says, “How about a shuffle in E?” “I'm there." Count me in, you know? So we played the song and it comes to a break and he goes, "Take it Jorma." So I did. "Hmm…play another one." Big moment.

Rick: Yeah, that’s great. Watson is just wonderful. What about Chet Atkins?

Jorma: I met Chet Atkins once in '95. I was working at a studio at 16th Avenue [Nashville, TN]. It’s the old RCA thing; a building there that Chet owned. And of course, I never really learned much of Chet's stuff. But, but I always loved his music, you know, sort of meet the man. Once again I was just real excited. I guess he had a collection of Model A Fords and that’s all he wanted to talk about was the cars, which was cool too. I like cars.

Rick: What was the rock scene like back in D.C. when you were first starting out?

Jorma: It was…I was about to say it’s nothing like it is now, but I don’t really know what it is like now so I guess I can't say that. The rock scene in D.C., the way it was were club gigs and cover bands. We did Bo Diddley. I mean these songs were playable for us. We would play bars in the southeast. You talk to Jack, Jack will remember. He's got a mind for this. He'll tell you all these seedy little bars, the Dixie Pig...

Rick: Oh yeah, yeah. Back in the '60s.

Jorma: We played the Dixie Pig. [Both laughing] But, anyway, that was the stage, just playing bars.

Rick: You ever played with Danny Gatton? He was pretty young back then...

Jorma: I met with Danny. Jack knew Danny well, because they played together. I left. I met Danny later on a couple years before he passed away. When he became Danny Gatton, I became aware of him. He was such a cool cat. But, I didn’t meet him back then.

Rick: Yeah. He's the Telemaster.

Jorma: Yeah, he is absolutely.

Rick: It’s been written that you joined Jefferson Airplane because you were sucked in by technology.

Jorma: Right.

Rick: I would think back then you'd almost have to be a recluse not to have been around rock music. I think that there must have been something more to it than that one. What really happened? I know you were in sort of the folk scene, right?

Jorma: Yeah, I was definitely a 'folkie'. It’s funny when you look at that quote today. When you think about the technology we have today, where there was more technology in that cell phone than there was in the moon rocket. What happened was when I went to it, I really wasn’t that interested in joining the band. I went to the audition and Ken Kesey was there. He had an EchoPlex. So, I was going, 'Well, this is fun.' Because before that an electric guitar to me was just an amplified guitar. Of course, we didn't get much into electric guitar tricks. Later on Mike Bloomfield showed me a lot of that stuff. For the first year with the Airplane it was just an amplified guitar. But, of course you know electric music is seductive.

Rick: Once you got on stage and…

Jorma: All that stuff, yeah.

Rick: What was that like for you? You moved from pretty much not being known and then Jefferson Airplane was like a cult overnight.

Jorma: Overnight, yes. Words don’t adequately describe it. I mean I was somebody in the local folk scene. There were a lot of 'somebodies' back then. But, when the Airplane started to happen it was like… you know it’s funny we didn’t know any different because you know people who work in the music business for years who get nowhere, then they get somewhere or maybe not. But, it just happened to us and we kinda took it for granted. Yeah, you know, get in the business, become a star.

Rick: Jefferson Airplane had some monster hits and obviously had a major shift as far as performances, venues, even audiences I would think would be different. I mean from a hootenanny type of scene it was pretty tame, wasn't it, as compared to what you shifted into?

Jorma: Oh, absolutely. If you think about the San Francisco rock scene at the time, it was organized around dancing. And you couldn’t just dance anywhere. You needed special licenses back then. Bars just couldn’t hire a band without having a dance license. I don't remember all the ins and outs and stuff. But, basically that was it. That’s why a lot of the early dances like the Longshoreman's and the Fillmore, they had one going, these were all dance halls. And in the beginning people did dance a lot. Later on they decided to sit down. So the music was really geared towards audience participation. Of course, you wanted people to shut up and listen.

Rick: Ever played in the old Grande Ballroom in Detroit?

Jorma: Of course!

Rick: Yeah? I'm from Detroit.

Jorma: I have played the old Grande Ballroom. Yeah, I haven't thought about that place in a long time.

Rick: Do you remember who you played with or...?

Jorma: I couldn’t tell you. We did play with King Crimson. I think it might have been the Avalon. It could be have been the Grande. Hard to say. Long time ago.

Rick: Yeah, it was fun back then. I saw Cream back there and Vanilla Fudge, I think, was their warm up group. So did your circle of friends change from folkies like Tim Buckley to...

Jorma: You know, I never met Tim. One of the things that I think I was sort of aware of it in a sub rosa sort of way back then. But, I've become really aware of it now. Everybody that came from other parts of the country to San Francisco to play were much more professional than we were. A lot of us, not all, but a lot of us were really just folkies. None of us read, most of us didn’t read and stuff like that. And so a lot of the other people that came, you know Tim wasn’t a guitar player, so I probably wouldn’t have been interested in him because of that; my loss obviously.

When the Brit guys came over they were just appalled by our lack of professionalism. The same with the New York and the L.A. guys. People talk about the rivalry. I look at it now, I'm sure there is always rivalry because the music business and all that ego. But, a lot of it had to do with the fact that people in the other part of the country had done it in studios. They knew how to record. They had agents, all this kind of stuff. They’d already been there. For us it was all new and so it’s amazing we got anything done, really.

Rick: You're also a different era with different influences.

Jorma: Yeah it was. But, you know it was a very social sort of a scene. I remember Paul McCartney came to visit. They brought him over to this apartment of Marty [Balin] and Jack [Casady]. We jammed. We sat around and played some guitar together. I thought, "Wow! He's a Beatle!" But, I mean he's just a guy. He wanted to meet us, came over and brought a guitar.

Rick: What about Bill Graham? He was a major promoter back then.

Jorma: Bill, he was sort of a force of nature. Jack and I were just talking to Michael Jaworek [Manager, The Birchmere] about this. Bill, he was certainly an irascible Type A personality.

Rick: He'd almost have to be…

Jorma: And he was a lot different from the other guys. People were always comparing him and Chet Helms, which is probably why he was so successful. Because he just really took no prisoners. He was our manager for two years. We were just talking about how really unpleasant the band meetings were. But, Bill certainly got things done. And I don’t think the scene would have developed in that way. Well, you never know. The scene wouldn’t have developed, I don’t think, in the same way it did without him because he just really made things happen.

Rick: Did you work at all with Big Brother and Janis Joplin?

Jorma: Oh yeah. Janis, all the San Francisco bands, we all knew each other from the folk years. So it was just like your buddies.

Rick: Have you kept in touch with Grace Slick?

Jorma: I do, actually. Grace is painting; she doesn’t do music anymore. We were playing down in Columbia, South Carolina, two years ago. She had a showing down there. Actually I just read this thing in the paper. She was talking, they had an interview with her about the showing and she said, "My agent called me the other day and said we need more rabbits!" Because she paints white rabbits.

Rick: That makes sense.

Jorma: She goes, "You want rabbits. I got rabbits." Well anyway, so we go to the gate and there she is. Wow. And she came and sat through two sets and so it was really nice. We talk occasionally. But, I hadn’t actually seen her for a while. It was nice.

Rick: Over the years you collaborated with a number of people.But, the two that kinda intrigued me were David Crosby and Warren Zevon.

Jorma: Warren hired Jack and me. Jack has more details because he and Warren were buddies. He hired us to play on a couple songs. We did this one thing called "Gridlock." The reason I remember this is because of the rhythm tracking. Warren played it on an acoustic 12-string. It was so compressed. I mean it was like, "Wow, what a weird sound that is!' I don’t know why I remember that kinda stuff. But, anyway, we played on two songs. I don’t remember the other one.

David was recording If Only I Can Remember My Name album. He hired us at the same time we were doing Volunteers., So once again there is this cast of characters in this building. And anytime somebody wanted somebody to come and play there they were. David would say “Come on and play.” They smoked a bunch of pot, sat down, and started playing, you know?

Rick: Yeah, I know. [Both laughing]

Rick: You guys played at DAR Constitution Hall in D.C. back in 1971 or '72.

Jorma: Right. With Anderson…

Rick: And The Post wrote a review of that, and this one little phrase stuck with me all these years, that said something like "You and Jack, no matter what your other contributions were, were bar none the best combination guitar and bass interplay of any other group they had ever seen." I think that probably still holds very true today.

Jorma: Well ,that certainly is flattering. Jack and I, like I said, we've been friends for a really long time. When you talk to him you'll see we're both really different kinds of guys, but we've always respected each other. We play well, we listen to each other and stuff.

Back then the Airplane rehearsed so relentlessly and we played so much that we just really played together a lot and really sort of got into each others' heads. Of course, we couldn't really play that good when we were high, so that doesn’t really count. But, we sort of got into each other's heads.

At the time we did the first Hot Tuna record, the record was something of an anomaly. People do that all the time now. You know, amplify their acoustic guitars with bass and stuff. But, at the time it was kind of a first thing. I just listened to a record today and I think it really stood the test of time well because we really, really play well together. I guess we're just lucky we found each other because, who knows? It might not have happened.

And once again, I was just playing the guitar that I knew how to play. But, Jack is a real thinker. He does architect a lot of the stuff he does and he may actually say, "Well, I thought I could do this in order to make it work." I don’t know. But, he certainly listened and did his thing without killing mine.

Rick: Over the years onstage you’ve been seen with a lot of different guitars. Do you have any particular favorites for the studio, on the road, or just favorites that you enjoy playing? What do you look for?

Jorma: Well, because I've been around for so long I'm one of these guys that go, “If I only had that '57 Les Paul custom, 3 pickup, black, so I could sell it today.”

You know, I've owned a lot of stuff because I've been around for a long time. But, I've never loved electric guitars the way I loved acoustic guitars.They've disappeared, they’ve been stolen, I've bought them, I've sold them, this and that. The electric guitars I'm playing here tonight with Hot Tuna, I'm playing this Chet Atkins guitar that Gibson makes which works with the finger-picking stuff with the bands. They amplify well. And I'm using a 335 style Epiphone. It’s a discontinued Jorma model. And I love those. I've been playing that guitar for 10 years now and will for as long as they hold together, because they don’t make that model anymore. That’s fine. But, acoustic guitar is another story. I still have my '59 Gibson J-50 that I paid $100 for new at Pop's Music Store in Dayton, Ohio in '59.

Listen to samples from a variety of Hot Tuna albums:

Rick: Nice guitar.

Jorma: I just recorded a new project for Red House at Levon Helm's studio and I used that guitar and had a David Bromberg Martin M-42. It’s a rosewood guitar which I'm playing. Martin is working on a signature Jorma guitar for me right now.

Rick: You working with Dick Boak on that?

Jorma: Of course! Who else? He's the greatest. Martin is so lucky to have a guy like that. I mean the Martin company, they're really solid in what they do. Their tradition is unbroken unlike Gibson. But, I still love Gibson guitars. I have a J-35 I play and a number of other ones. But, I like the David [Bromberg] guitar so much I bought it. Normally I just get free stuff, but I actually bought that guitar. I just really love it.

But Martin, with a guy like Dick that plays well, is so tuned in to all the stuff, I mean he talks to wacky artists like me, because I'm not a guitar designer, you know. I like David's guitars so much, I go, "I want one just like this." And there it is. We talked about it being a triple-0 herringbone style guitar. Some abalones will suffer for the making of that guitar.

Anyway, with the acoustic guitars what I did on the last album I used the old J-50, I used the M-42, and I've got a couple of other ones. I have a 1939 Gibson L-00 I like a lot. But, the last album I did I used my Gibson J-35 and a reissued Advanced Jumbo.

I like them all. I love acoustic guitars. I like electric guitars, but I couldn’t tell you, “Oh, that’s not original. That pole or the pickup or something. There are some people who know that kind of stuff. When we were kids, if you couldn't afford a Gibson or Martin you got a Harmony Sovereign.

Rick: Or a Silvertone or…

Jorma: Yeah, or a Silvertone. My first electric amp was a Silvertone. But, now there are great builders. I think Martin is doing great stuff, but they're not the only one. There are a lot of great guitars out there.

Rick: Yeah. I've seen a lot of people onstage using Takamines. These are people who've got Martins back home and on the road they take the Takamines.

Jorma: Yeah, I understand the electronics work well on them. I'm not sure I could bring myself to do that. Although I have to say, you know who Tim Stafford is? He's a guitar player with Blue Highway, a bluegrass guitar player. He has a 1937 Martin D-18 which is a very valuable and a great sounding guitar, but the guitar he takes on the road is a CA [Composites Acoustic], it's a carbon acoustic with a Fishman built in on-board.

And I got to say, as offensive as the guitar is aesthetically, really, it actually sounds good when it's plugged in. And you know, most of us would rather see a child locked in the car on a hot day than a guitar. Tim goes with his, “I throw it in the trunk. The hotter it gets the better it sounds.” [Rick laughing] So, if I have to go to Uzbekistan for a tour or something, I'd probably take a carbon acoustic.

Rick: You'd be smart logistically to do that. Now, since we're talking a bit about bluegrass, will you tell us about your Nashville work?

Jorma: Well, what a dandy world that is. You know, the really super news for me is, because I'm not a bluegrass guitar player, I don’t get held to the rigid standard that all these guys need to be able to do. I don’t do that. But, I get to play them all. Over the last eight years I've had a chance to play with just killer guys, you know. It’s just so much fun.

Rick: You play with some of the older guys like Scotty Moore still? I know he's not playing anymore, but he was a few years back, from Elvis's band?

Jorma: Yeah. I don’t know if he's still playing anymore. I sure do like that Birdland guitar he was playing. There's an electric guitar I sure could get to love.

Rick: Is your new CD more in line with your early playing?

Jorma: Yeah, it's a little more of a country CD. It’s called River of Time. Larry Campbell produced it for me, which you guys know Larry. Larry of course played on it, his wife sang some harmony for me, bass player is a jazz cat, played some upright bass. It’s all acoustic. Levon Helm played drums on three of the cuts. It’s all acoustic. And some of the songs we did, we do a bluegrass song, a Delmore Brothers song called "Nashville Blues".

But, thanks to Teresa Williams being from West Tennessee singing harmony really sounds like, I don't sound like that, I hate to use the word roots because it gets used so much, but that’s the only thing I can think of because I'm not a country guy. I'm not a bluegrass guy. But, I really love that music. Once again, it sort of comes out in my own way. But, I do get to play with a lot of the cats.

Rick: What kind of instruments did you play on it? Banjo, mandolin and…?

Jorma: Well, yeah. Actually, Barry Mitterhoff plays a tenor banjo. There's no 5-string on it. He plays tenor banjo, octave mandolin, mandolin, a beautiful Gibson tenor guitar. Larry [Campbell] plays steel guitar, dobro, cittern, acoustic guitar, baritone guitar and some kind of resonator guitar. Lincoln [Schleifer] plays upright bass. My guitar tech plays upright bass on one of the songs.

Rick: You ever do any slide these days?

Jorma: I don’t. I used to do it before I did that Blue Country Heart, hanging out with guys like Cindy [Cashdollar] and Jerry [Douglas]. You know I do collect those things. I have a bunch of them. But, I don't play in public anymore. [Laughing]

Rick: Now you’ve got the Fur Peace Ranch. How did that start? You bought the acreage and…

Jorma: Yeah I bought the acreage in '89 or '90. I've taught off and on most of my guitar playing life. We just kind of joked about all four of my friends, "Wow that’s a fur piece from anywhere. Well, we'll call it the Fur Peace Ranch?” So, you guys understand that sometimes you go to New York, a fer piece?" " What are you talking about?" I said, "It's a southern colloquial." Anyhow, so my wife had a real life before we got married. She was a civil engineer so we talked about it and said, “Well, we can make this happen.” She designed it.

Rick: Oh really?

Jorma: She knows this stuff, talked to the bank…

Rick: She's a civil engineer?

Jorma: She was and I guess she still is. It's just not what she does now. She manages us and runs the ranch. And so we built this thing and you guys oughta come down there some time.

Rick: Yeah, that'd be fun.

Jorma: We have a killer chef. We have a little restaurant, a 200-seat theater, we have a local NPR radio show. [WOUB channel 91.3]

Rick: I read about that.

Jorma: And Tommy Emmanuel plays in my backyard.

Rick: Does he really?

Jorma: Well, we've had him. He teaches and does shows there.

Rick: He's amazing.

Jorma: Yes, he is.

Rick: He's got a new DVD out. Have you seen that?

Jorma: I haven’t.You know Tommy, he's just so exciting, to see him live. I'll need to get it because I try to explain this to people, they go, “ I got his CD, I really couldn't get into it.” I said you've gotta see him live. I think he's arguably, if not the, one of the greatest living guitar players. He's the shit. And he also plays a electric guitar, drums, bass and all those things.

Rick: At the Fur Peace Ranch when people… I guess people can come in if they're newcomers to guitar and work through advanced. What do you expect of them?

Jorma: Well, the way we organize things we have different levels for different people. So, we have something for everybody. I don’t do rank beginners, because I take too much for granted. My son wanted to take guitar lessons and I was trying to show him some stuff and I realized that I presumed that he knew how to tune a guitar.

If you don’t know how to tune, you don’t know how to tune. He could do it with the tuner, but he couldn’t do the harmonics and stuff. I just take too much for granted. But, I did like do beginning finger style classes. I'm good at that because in the years we've been open I've actually learned how to explain what I do.

Rick: What about lessons learned over the course of the 20 years or so? Have you found that you may have made some, maybe some business mistakes or teaching mistakes and you’ve learned? Or you’ve learn different ways to do it or there have been some epiphanies where you went, 'Oh, maybe I should do this." Then you moved into some other type of direction.

Jorma: I'm not sure. Epiphany would sort of presuppose a rational sort of intellect. But, I think I do things better. I think thanks to teaching I've play better than I did before it.

Rick: Because of teaching?

Jorma: Yeah, because of teaching. I've certainly learned a lot about teaching in the last 11 years. I think I've definitely gotten better. This gal that I met playing at the ranch is one of the Deans of Biophysical Medicine, something like that at Brown University. And she reads and writes. And so when I do Beginner and Level 2 classes, she comes in and she works as a teaching assistant. She writes down everything that we're doing. And she's a great teacher and I've really learned a lot about teaching. I always go to her for some suggestions, because she's a teacher. And a lot of those methods, not all, but a lot of those work really well for drawing people out when you're teaching guitar.

Rick: You do a lot of repetition then and you go back and you summarize and…

Jorma: Yeah. Oh, absolutely. We break things down. It depends on how, sometimes when you're playing with the guys that play better like Level 3. Level 4, of course, you don’t need to do that because they're ear training is a little bit better. But, one of the things I really try to stress as we're breaking things down laboriously note by note is to get the ear training. But, this is how you do it. Don’t forget how it sounds.

Rick: Do you find that a lot of the older guys are better ear trained than the younger?

Jorma: Yes, absolutely.

Rick: Because we all learned by picking up the stylus on the record player.

Jorma: Absolutely. And a lot of guys, I'm sure you’ve heard this, you know, "Oh the kids today…" There's this thing you can get for $50 online called the Amazing Slowdowner. You can cut and paste things out of your iTunes and slow things down without changing the notes. “Oh that's cheating!” It's not cheating. We did it by moving needles on the records.

Rick: Back and forth...

Jorma: But, I think whatever helps you learn I think is a good thing. Reading tab is a laborious process. It’s almost easier to read music. And I find that for me it doesn’t really give you feeling. If you can really read music there are ways to manifest timing correctly, which I don’t think you can do on tab. But, listen, a lot of guys learn that way and if it works for them that's great. Guys like us, we listen to it.

Rick: Yeah.

Jorma: Ian, the guy that taught me to play, you know, he never even told me the names of chords. He said, "Here's how it goes." Then he showed me a couple of bars. "Go back to your room and practice." We lived in a house together in Antioch. I come back. "How's this?" "That sucks. You're not getting it. No, it goes like this!" That was the way he did it. We're a little more proactive, we don't say "that sucks!"

Rick: Could you rundown some of the instructors you’ve had at the Ranch?

Jorma: Oh gosh. Well, we've had Tommy Emmanuel, Pete Huttlinger, he's one of the great guitar players.

Rick: Rory Block I think…

Jorma: Rory Block many times. God bless her. John Cephas when he was still touring. We just had Darrell Scott, great songwriter, great guitar player. Verlon Thompson, Guy Clark's guitar player, great songwriter, great guitar player. Oh gosh…

Rick: You mentioned Cindy Cashdollar earlier.

Jorma: Oh Cindy, we've had Cindy a bunch of times. The world of the steel guitar is an odd little corner of the universe. It’s hard to get a bunch of them together. But, Cindy is a great teacher and, of course, a brilliant, brilliant player.

Rick: Yes. She's a sweetheart.

Jorma: She is the best. She's the best.

Rick: When you're at the ranch and you had some newer guitar players coming in, do you ever tell them what to look for as far as buying a guitar? Because a lot of people are just going on eBay and they buy it and it's junk or...

Jorma: Well, one thing I've learned is to keep my mouth shut if I see a guitar I don't like. [Laughs]

Rick: Because they're so proud.

Jorma: I know. I learned it the hard way, too. But, the good news is really, like I said, I mean it really is a renaissance for acoustic guitars. I mean, I'm sort of an old fuddy duddy, so I look for Martins and Gibsons, because that’s what I like. But, I have a Mossman, which is a guitar...

Rick: Oh, great guitar! Older one?

Jorma: It’s an '86 Texas Sesquicentennial model. And I love that guitar. It’s not one I play a lot because it really is a flat-picking guitar. But, I take it out and I play my Carter Family stuff on it. So, I guess the most important thing about buying guitars is finding a good one, because an expensive guitar doesn’t necessarily mean a great guitar either. I've heard or seen guys that come in, they’ll have a Takamine that sounds and plays great or an old Yamaha that he paid like $75 for.

Rick: Yeah, laminated top.

Jorma: Yeah, it happens to be a great guitar.

Rick: Yeah. It’s the tone. I've got an old hand built guitar built in the '30s. It’s like an old Gibson Nick Lucas type guitar and I paid $300 for it. It’s got the best tone.

Jorma: Hey, you never know. I realize I bought my J-50 a really long time ago, but I paid $100 for that guitar.

Rick: Okay, what about motorcycles? I understand you ride motorcycles.

Jorma: I've been riding motorcycles for a really long time. In one of our weekends at the ranch picking party weekend where guys ride in and I put together rides, because the house has some beautiful, beautiful roads where we do a bunch of rides. I've owned a lot of motorcycles over the years. I sold my last Triumph about 10 years ago. I admire vintage stuff, but having owned them, vintage when they weren’t vintage, I never knew. I just liked to get on and ride.

I have a 2008 Harley Fat Bob. It's fuel-injected. It's electronic. My friends that have older bikes make fun of it and I go, "Every time I turn the key, it starts and it doesn’t leak oil." [Laughs] But, I love them all. just don’t have the time to tinker with things anymore.

One of the guys I ride with has a '67 Triumph 650 and I have to say, because I had one, I had a '54 back in that era, they were just so sexy. The way that rolled lip fender hugs that front wheel and all that stuff. That’s just really cool.

Rick: A friend of mine named Bill Woodard went to the Fur Peace Ranch a couple of years ago. I expect he probably took his old '64 D-28 that was used in the Hank Williams story. Did you see that guitar? Do you remember that?

Jorma: That sounds vaguely familiar.

Rick: During the time you've had the ranch, do people bring in guitars where you said, "Wow, what's that?"

Jorma: Yeah. There's a guy that had a OO-42 Martin. I forgot what year it was from, the '30s or…

Rick: Pre-war yeah…

Jorma: Then I recently saw...and we don't mean pre-Vietnam war either. [Laughs] Recently a guy had a…what was that? Oh, he had a '36 J-35. Yeah, I see some guys, I'm going, "You travel with that thing?"

Rick: It was a his dad's guitar or whatever.

Jorma: Yeah. Right, exactly. We see some great stuff. I have a guy in my class who had a '36 or '37 L-OO that absolutely looked new. I've got one. Mine is in great shape, but it doesn’t look new. This one absolutely looked new.

Rick: Yeah, just incredible. It looks like you've got a heavy tour schedule. You're on the road almost everyday. How do you manage to do that? That’s a lot of stamina.

Jorma: I take more naps than I used to. [Both Laughing] Traveling isn't much fun as it used to be. That drive to Chicago, we were in a bus. We're still in a bus. Listen, I'm not complaining because we used to drive stuff like that ourselves and I don’t do that anymore.

I did a little tour of the northeast and I did drive myself. I was telling Jack, "You know it wasn’t bad,” because I just bought myself a new 4-door Jeep. I really like it. It's a great vehicle. And I said, “Can't we drive ourselves?” I had a new car and was having a good time. But, I'm never gonna complain about the satellite TV going out again, you know. I mean, that's what we do. Now the Robben Ford gig; that's gonna be a lot of fun because I'm gonna take my electric rig with me. I'm sure I'm gonna learn a lot of stuff from him since he's a great player. And I have no responsibilities on that tour except to show up and play.

Rick: Oh, that’s great.

Jorma: Yeah, it’s not my tour. I'm just a member of the band. I did one, the gal that's doing this tour, I did one of her things in '95 with Kenny Burrell and Steve Morse and a bunch of guys. It’s a great gig. We just go and plug in.

Rick: You had a Guitar Summit steel strings tour 15 or more years ago.

Jorma: I was the folkie on that tour. And I remember being really intimidated by a lot of the guys. And Kenny [Burrell] I think who was such a regal gentleman felt my pain and said, "I can't do the stuff that you do. This is just our vocabulary. This is what we're doing." He gave me some insights into it.

Rick: Let's finish up with "Somebody to Love". Your wife, Vanessa, she's a musician/civil engineer. What part does she play in the scheme of all this stuff that you're working on? All things Jorma…

Jorma: Well, as Jack and I were just saying, "I'm lucky I found a woman who's willing to marry below her station."

Rick: [Laughing] I think all women do that, don’t they?

Jorma: They might…they might. Yeah, I definitely married above my pay grade. She's just a great lady you know. I mean, she's tolerated a lot of nonsense from me over the years. It's our 20th anniversary, as a matter of fact.

Rick: Congratulations.

Jorma: She's just a great gal you know. It’s funny, because when we started working together, you're still getting a lot of stuff about the Yoko Ono business. But you know, in the country world, families always work together. It just makes sense. You have to have someone who can do the job. She can do the job. I wouldn’t have the Fur Peace. I wouldn’t have any of this stuff without her. I'm not just BS-ing. It's really true. Her organizational capacities from buildings to seeing what needs to be done and to allow me basically to just…

Rick: Do your thing…

Jorma: Play the guitar.

Rick: Does she play any instruments?

Jorma: Her dad was a country singer and she sings beautifully. One of these days maybe we'll do something together.

Rick: Oh that would be nice. Does she sing?

Jorma: She sings, yeah. We just haven’t…could happen.

Rick: All in good time.

Jorma: Yeah.

Rick: You've got an Epiphone you endorse, right?

Jorma: The one I'm playing right now is the Jorma guitar discontinued. Mine are collectible; very, very minor league. Nice guitar!

Rick: It's a Riviera right?

Jorma: Yeah, it’s a Riviera. It’s a great guitar for everybody. And they didn’t tell me they were gonna discontinue it. If I had known they were gonna do that I would have bought 20 of them because we sold them at the ranch all the time. The ones that were made in China, everything including the electronics were top flight. The ones made in Korea, the woodwork was great but I put Gibson pickups in mine. But those from China, with the dark, burgundy colors, I was like, “Man, how can they afford to sell these things?”

Rick: Yeah. I've had a Sheraton made in Korea and the pickups were just too weak.

Jorma: Yeah. If you're playing high volume the pickups were. I put the '57 vintage Gibson pickups in it.

Rick: But, the craftsmanship of the guitar is great.

Jorma: Oh, it’s fantastic. The woodwork, all that stuff, and the Epiphone proprietary Bigsby tailpiece I love. Does the Bigsby throw your guitar out of tune? Of course, it throws your guitar out of tune! It’s part of the sound.

Related Links
Jorma Kaukonen
Hot Tuna
Fur Peace Ranch
Jack Casady
Jefferson Airplane
Remembering Ian Buchanan
Michael G. Stewart - Imaging Solutions

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