Guitar_Player__January_2018

FEATURES
Rod Morgenstein, bassist Andy West, violinist
Allen Sloan), along with keyboardist Steve
Davidowski (who played with the outfit from
1975-’77), announced they’re going to hit
the road again for a series of dates starting
in March 2018. For Morse, part of the challenge
of playing with his old cohorts will be
as much mental as it is physical.
“It’s kind of impossible to be the same
guy as I was back then,” he admits. “Although
certain things come back to you when you
play with the group of people you came up
with, so you do get into a familiar frame of
mind. All I can do is play the songs as well
as I can, and that means I have to practice
a whole lot.”
He already has a head start. The night
before our interview, Morse was giving his
fingers a workout on a nylon-string guitar
as he reacquainted himself with the classical-based
track “Go for Baroque” (from the
1981 Dregs album, Unsung Heroes).
“I’m isolating trouble spots that I need
The Dixie Dregs in 1979. From left: Allen Sloan, T Lavitz, Rod Morgenstein, Morse, and Andy
West.
to work on,” he says. “There’s a section in
the song where I’m playing diatonic tenths
in the first position. This can be extremely
hard to master, so I’m making up little exercises
to regain that ability. It’s like you have
to get your fingers thinking the old way,
so it’s a process.”
Take us back to the scene at University of
Miami, where the Dregs formed. What was
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