GEAR 23_COVER - JHS

REFLECTIONS
REFLECTIONS
When Kent-based musician, Mick Morris put together
a self-produced album last year, he realised it was a
personal musical summary of going from ‘new boy’
to ‘veteran’ in only 40 years! Here’s how his Encore
guitar helped...
M
ick Morris’ love affair with the
guitar began a long time ago and,
fortunately, still shows no signs of
tailing off. After a couple of false starts on
violin and piano from the age of seven, he
discovered the merits of playing guitar right
about the time of the late 50’s skiffle boom.
In the ensuing years, Mick has worked as
an accompanist to numerous stage and
television artists and, as a member of
various bands over the years, has
frequently opened for, and played
alongside, some of the biggest
names in the business. Mick is
also a proficient player of several
other instruments including
banjo, mandolin, bouzouki,
ukulele, keyboards and drums -
and he sings a bit!
Although claiming to have
‘slowed down a bit’, he is still
involved in teaching guitar and
music theory and helps run a
guitar club in his home town of
Dover, Kent, where he also plays
regularly with various jazz
outfits. He is currently writing a
book about life as a semi-pro
musician called ‘Don’t Give Up The
Day Job’, and is also completing
recording an album of jazz standards.
Here, Mick takes up the story of his album...
The incredible ‘value for money’
FACTOR OF modern budget instruments
‘I wonder if young players today know just
how lucky they are to have really good quality
guitars available at such low prices - and I
do mean incredibly low - I'm talking about
perhaps 1/20th of the price that they once
were. I know it makes me sound like
Methuselah, but when I was 17, a Fender®
Stratocaster® cost the equivalent of about
£6,000+ today and none of us could afford
one. A young Eric Clapton was playing a
Kaye, Jimmy Page and George Harrison had
Hofner Futuramas and Jimi Hendrix played a
dreadful old Supro. In the UK at the start of
the 60’s, only Hank Marvin was able to ditch
his first instrument (an Antoria that wouldn't
stay in tune) for a real Strat®, Cliff Richard
having made enough money by then to buy
him one! As for
me,I bought
one of Jim
Burns' early
creations,
a
Burns
Sonic, for
a barelyaffordable
50
guineas (still
nearly
£2,000 in
today's
money).
It wasn't
a bad
instrument, in fact it
was good by the standards
of that time, but neither it nor
any of the others would come
even close to the quality of a £100
instrument today.
So there's absolutely no excuse for not
sounding good these days!’
Encore to the rescue!
‘Several of the tracks on my album
‘Reflections’ are effectively 'homages', new
tunes but intended to reflect the sound or
style of one or other of my favourite or most
influential players. As such, I didn't think
the album would be complete without a
reference to Hank Marvin who, with The
Shadows,, were without doubt one of the
most important and successful guitar groups
of all time. Hank's playing directly influenced
almost all British guitarists of a certain age,
including most of those mentioned earlier
(and also Jeff Beck, and later Brian May and
Mark Knopfler) and hence
indirectly influenced
everyone else.
When it came to
recording
the track
in question
(Ranchero) the first
demos were disappointing,
several musician friends
pointing out that whilst the tune
itself sounded pretty authentic, the
tone on the guitar lacked the characteristic
Marvin twang and edginess.
“You should have used the bridge pick-up
like Hank always does”, said one. I didn't
tell him, but the trouble was, I had - but I'd
changed the original Fender® bridge pickup
some years ago for a humbucker and whilst
with the treble backed off a bit, I could now
produce a passable imitation of Jeff Beck
(on a bad day), it no longer had the cutting
edge needed to do a ‘Hank’. I was offered the
use of a spare Strat® that was laying around
in the studio, but it still didn't have the
early 60's tone I was looking for. Then I
remembered my old Encore. The next day
when I went back to the studio I took it
with me and that was it - problem solved!’
ENCORE AND THE REFLECTIONS ALBUM
‘It was important to me to get just the right
sounds for my album. That in turn obviously
meant using a lot of instruments, including
all the ‘usual suspects’. A crazy situation -
there I was in the studio surrounded by ‘big
name’ instruments often costing ten times
more than my old Encore and yet, more than
once, the humble Encore was the only one to
give me the exact tone I was looking for,
and I ended up using it on several tracks.
I’ve had my Encore quite a long time but
hadn’t used it for a while, so I’d forgotten
how good it sounded. All it needed was a
fresh set set of strings (Dunlop 10’s) and
it was ready to go. Maybe I shouldn’t have
been so surprised though, as I’m also very
impressed with much of the instrumentation
that’s coming out of the JHS stable recently
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