Yee-ha, y'all. Yes, this month we're going down Nashville way... and full disclosure here, I have a HUGE soft spot for the type of “hot country” playing exemplified by Nashville virtuosos like Brad Paisley, Albert Lee (incongruously enough a Brit) and the subject of this month's post, Brent Mason. There's something about the twang of a Telecaster through a Fender Twin, double stop bends, chicken-pickin' and sixths that just makes me grin like a lunatic.. so I'd been looking forward to this one.
First a little on the man himself. Born July 13, 1959 in Van Wert, Ohio, Brent taught himself to ply at a very young age - various sources state five, although in interviews Brent says seven or eight, but he began entirely by ear. In an interview for Premier Guitar from 2007 he states that he used a table knife on an old nylon-string guitar, playing slide and picking out melodies and licks by ear. In the same interview he lists Chet Atkins and Merle Travis as early interviews, as well as a Jerry Reed album called “Nashville Underground” which he cites as a real eye-opener.. so yeah, expect that to crop up in next year's blog at some point. Remember, if you want to get inside the style of a player you admire, go check out who influenced them.
In fact....
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLiVNfZmNYxSMxV_DIhGlSTbLQgayhVRhK
You're
welcome.
In his mid-to late teenage years (there
seems to be some confusion about exactly when), Mason moved to the
electric guitar – in a 2020 interview with Guitar Player magazine
he cites his first electric guitar as a Hagstrom Swede, bought for
him by his dad aged
fifteen.
Interestingly, if correct, this is an archtop jazz guitar, about as far removed from the Tele twang as if he'd been given a Charvel...
Changing from nylon to electric broadened Brent's horizons to include jazz and rock players like Pat Martino, George Benson and Jeff Beck - (who would have been releasing Blow By Blow at around about that point) – and you can here that influence on the beautiful track “Cayman Moon” which a lot of this months' examples are taken from.
After graduating from high school,
Mason moved to Nashville to pursue a career in country music, and his
first break came with the Don Kelley Band, a working Nashville cover
outfit. It was with this band that he would make the jump to the
Telecaster, acquiring a secondhand one covered with grey car primer..
this guitar would form the basis for his Fender signature model many
years later, which you can pick up for (brace yourself) £8,500..
A
stiff drink, and now back to the story.
The big break came when the legendary Chet Atkins was recording his “Stay Tuned” album which would include guest spots by Larry Carlton, Steve Lukather, Mark Knopfler, George Benson and more. This album came out in 1985, so this would put Mason at around 25. This put him on the fast track to a wildly successful session career, playing on well over a thousand records by a huge range of artists and making him (along with Larry Carlton) one of the most widely recorded and heard guitarists in history. In 1997 he signed to Mercury records and recorded his album Hot Wired, and the title track being specified by the Registry of Guitar Tutors as one of their tracks for the the FLCM performance diploma.. which is where I came in!
So we'll leave the history lesson there and start looking at some of the licks.
I've taken this first pair of examples from the ferocious chicken-pickin' tour de force that is the title track, “Hot Wired” and can broadly be regarded as being in A Mixolydian (R 2 3 4 5 6 b7 – A B C# D E F# G). We kick off with the classic country technique of major sixth intervals moving down the scale, and I would recommend hybrid picking these with the pick playing the G string note and the middle finger pulls the high E. The second part of the run moves down the B and G strings from F# to A, alternating a conventionally fretted note with a muted one. This is the classic “chicken-pickin” technique which can be performed by picking the string as normal and alternating it with a note picked with the middle finger on the pick hand curled round to mute it. This gives a clucking sound similar to (guess what) a chicken, and is a hallmark of hot country players like Mason.
The second example
follows straight on and illustrates a bluegrass – inspired
chromatic lick in open position. You can see the five note pattern
that starts off the line before it mutates into a blur of
chromaticism before resolving to the root note A.
The second two examples are from “Cayman Moon” in Eb and illustrate the jazzier side of Mason's playing. This phrase is based largely around an Ab arpeggio (the IV chord of the key), and decorated with chromatic passing notes before resolving down a second inversion Eb triad to end up on the G (the 3rd). Note the use of hammer-ons, pull-offs and slides to smooth the line out.
This final example follows the same idea, being based seemingly on the Bb blues scale but leans heavily on non-diatonic notes being emphasised and given vibrato – the Gb, the A, the B – before once again resolving it's way down the same second inversion Eb arpeggio.
As always, we've barely scratched the surface of the incredible playing of this month's subject, but I do urge you to dive in and give him a listen – and if you're unfamiliar with the dizzying breakneck speed licks of the hot country genre, get listening! It's hugely entertaining from a listening and playing point of view nd will only help your development.
Next month – Shred legend Paul Gilbert, so make sure you're warmed up!
