Mike Overly's 12 Tone Music News

The Latest Guitar and Bass News from around the World Wide Web . . .
February 7, 2019
In This Issue


So much of what enters the popular lexicon depends upon small happy accidents: chance encounters, misreadings, gaffes, extemporaneous bursts of inspiration. Artists attuned to the strange in the mundane pick up on odd moments of beauty and weirdness and redeploy them in new works. And in the dawn of the digital age, that redeployment accelerates to such a degree that one such moment can spawn whole movements in months.

This is sort of what happened with the so-called "Amen Break," perhaps the most sampled six seconds of music in digital history. The Amen break has been used as the rhythmic backdrop in everything from late 80s gangster rap to corporate America's recycling hip-hop forms to sell things like Jeeps and blue jeans to suburban America.

The Amen Break originated in humble circumstances, as the drum break on a B-side recording from DC-based soul group the Winstons. Having run out of material, the Winstons decided to record an instrumental of gospel standard "Amen, Brother" on the obverse of their now-mostly-forgotten, but once Grammy-winning 1969 R&B hit "Color Him Father." It's possible you'll recognize the tune of "Amen, Brother", but I guarantee you'll know the "Amen Break", performed by Winstons' drummer G.C. Coleman. It's everywhere!
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Who owns the first Fender Stratocaster ever made? If you said David Gilmour, you're wrong. Although Gilmour's Strat bears the serial number 0001, it's not the first. The "first" Stratocaster actually bears the serial number 0100. The guitar was made in April 1954, about a year before Gilmour's, making it the first known Stratocaster to bear a serial number.   
IN THE BASSMENT

This bass is designed around a body core of spruce that is paired with a hardwood top and back. Spruce is one of the most musically resonant woods on the planet and is the number-one tonewood across the acoustic instrument spectrum. The Spruce Core is 90 percent spruce that's also chambered. It also features bolt-on neck with 24 frets, Sadowsky Soapbar pickups, and their mid-boost preamp.
PRODUCT SPOTLIGHT

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Dramatically improve your playing by easily learning all the chords, scales, arpeggios and modes necessary to improvise something uniquely different every time with every song. With over 323 pages, Guitar EncycloMedia and Bass EncycloMedia offer total fretboard knowledge in one book. They are as essential as your instrument!   
 

Order Guitar EncycloMedia or Bass EncycloMedia now through February 14, 2019 to receive FREE SHIPPING. Only available from the 12 Tone Music store. No coupon code needed. Domestic orders only.

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www.guitartruth.com and www.basstruth.com are subsidiaries of 12 Tone Music Publishing, LLC.
WATCH THIS
 
Check out the making of Jimmy Page's Custom Shop Mirrored and Dragon Telecaster Models - a historic, hands-on collaboration between Master Builder Paul Waller and Page himself. This limited edition set is modeled after Page's beloved 1959 Fender Telecaster. At each stage in its evolution, this legendary guitar produced some of the most iconic riffs of the 20th Century. 
LEARN HERE 
Tonewood Intelligence

The tonewoods used in the creation of an acoustic guitar are critical to how it sounds, as the instrument's top, back and sides have the greatest overall effect on tone. The top is the soundboard that pumps air into a resonance chamber formed by the back and sides. With tops, density and weight are particularly significant, while the weight-to-strength ratio, as well as the shape, are important regarding the reflective back and sides.
GREAT GEAR

Designed to be mounted on a pedalboard, the Relay G10S offers up to 130' of line-of-site range and delivers clear, 24-bit lossless digital sound quality. The system can be integrated into a guitar or bass effects pedalboard, but also works as a standalone unit. It comes encased in rugged metal housing. The unit's setup features allow it to immediately locate and lock onto the strongest available wireless frequency as soon as the transmitter is docked in the receiver.
ARTIST AWARENESS
 
Oscar Moore was born in Austin, Texas on Christmas Day 1915, but grew up in Los Angeles. Beginning in 1937, he spent ten years with Nat King Cole in the guitar-bass-piano trio format. After he left Cole, he joined his brother in Johnny Moore's Three Blazers through the 1950s. He recorded two solo albums in 1954, then left the field of music. During the last decades of his life, he laid bricks and ran a gas station. He died in Las Vegas, Nevada, in 1981. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbFEI5Hs1yU 

Order Guitar EncycloMedia or Bass EncycloMedia 
through February 14, 2019  to receive FREE SHIPPING!
Available only from the 12tonemusic.com online store.
No coupon code needed. Domestic orders only. 
12 Tone Music Publishing, LLC * P. O. Box 20564 * Dayton, Ohio 45420  
www.12tonemusic.com * frets@12tonemusic.com * 1-937-256-9344  
  www.guitartruth.com and www.basstruth.com are subsidiaries of   
12 Tone Music Publishing, LLC.