Jimmy Herring Discussion

[gillvanderlip]

saw the band last night in savannah and these guys are bringing it. its total jazz rock and just in your face improving. jimmy really sounded amazing maybe the best tone ive ever heard. his chops were outstanding, very fluid and even was using the whammy bar a bit.
everybody else also played their asses off as well. they did covers ,zappa, mahavisnu orch. and a couple tunes i didn't know. any body know the set list. played some tunes from the cd and finished with scapegoat blues. brought the house down on that one.... this is a show worth seeing if your into seventies fusion style of music. it was great fun and jimmy was smiling all the way. this is his music, this is the stuff he grew up on. i feel i got to see the real jimmy herring this time around. not a jam band player, but as an artist stretching out and really expressing himself..

[smv929]

Thanks for the review. Can you describe his rig please? After listening to the first show, I'm curious the guitar and rig he is using. As you mentioned, he has a tremelo now. He sometimes gets tone just like Allan Holdsworth, and of course, he's doing some silimar lines with the legato thing like Holdsworth as well. So I suspect he may have a different drive pedal or amp or guitar or all of the above. Thanks!

[Ethereal Cereal]

I spent some time with Jimmy and Rush Anderson when Jimmy was getting his rig together for this tour. We spent about 6 hours at a local rehearsal studio trying different combinations. Jimmy is using a mid 60s Super Reverb brain which has been removed from the original cabinet and placed in a "head" enclosure. Jimmy did this because he couldn't get the Tone Tubby speakers he likes to fit into the orginal Fender combo unit. The magnets were too big. He had a custom cabinet built which looks like an old Fender unit which houses 4 10 inch Tone Tubby speakers. This unit is run completely dry. Jimmy takes a line out from the "head" and goes into an Ernie Ball volume pedal, then into a new Fuchs reverb pedal. The volume pedal allows him to control the reverb level which goes into the "wet" rig. This rig is a new Fuchs Clean Machine head which powers a 4x12 Tone Tubby cabinet. Using the volume pedal he can bring in as much wet tone as he feels is needed (more for clean shimmery chords and less for overdriven lead sounds). Going into the front of the Super is another EB volume pedal and a Hughes and Kettner tube overdrive unit. That's it. It is amazing the amount of tones he can coax from this pretty basic rig.
I was very surprised to see Jimmy using a tremolo bar. He has really taken to it well and produced some great Jeff Beck style flutters and Holdsworth type legato swoops into notes. He is playing mostly his trusty custom shop Strat with the 2 Seymour Duncan 59 pick ups but also received a new custom shop strat built to his spec with the Fender noiseless pick ups, roller nut and of course the Dunlop 6000 ultra jumbo frets.

[smv929]

thanks for the descriptive post. Very interesting.

[Ethereal Cereal]

Sure, no problem. Saw this tour on opening night in Greenville, SC then the next night in Athens, GA. I'll be at the Atlanta show tomoprrow night. Tours with this magnitude of players are rare these days and I want to see as much of it as I can. If at all possible don't miss this one!

[smv929]

It certainly is rare for such an all-star lineup. This band is likely to be one that be talked about for some time.

[Ethereal Cereal]

Last night's show at the Variety Playhouse in Atlanta was amazing! In addition to material from Lifeboat, the set included Zappa's Zoot Allures, Beck's 'Cause We've Ended as Lovers and Sophie and Zeppelin's No Quarter. The band was astounding and Jimmy's tone was simply beautiful.
I'll say it again, DON'T MISS THIS SHOW!!!!

[triadboy]

Jimmy told me he LOVES the Hughes and Kettner Overdrive. I may have to get one.