Interview with Charles Wheal - Part 1

We are incredibly fortunate here at Virtualwoodshed.com because one of our favorite blues guitarists happens to be one of our instructors. Charles Wheal is a remarkably authentic blues player who currently lives and gigs in the San Francisco Bay area. Charles has gigged and/or sat in with virtually every significant blues player you can name. You can read more about Charles in his bio here and you can check out some of his instructional videos here. We caught up with Charles by phone from his Northern California home recently for a freewheeling conversation about the blues, guitar tone, influential albums and the state of the blues in America today. In this amazing interview, he reveals secrets of his trade that many bluesmen simply won’t divulge. Charles has a genuine love for the blues and he’s eager to share his vast knowledge with the next generation of players.

VirtualWoodshed: What were your earliest musical influences? How did you arrive at the guitar?

Charles Wheal: My father is a good musician, and I grew up listening to him play. He plays piano, and when he plays, he plays classical , blues, boogie woogie, and ragtime. And he plays the guitar. When he plays the guitar he plays bluegrass, and classical. And he plays banjo as well. And so, the stuff that affected me the most and always got me excited was when my dad would sit down and play piano. He had three books. One with Meade Lux Lewis, one with Pete Johnson and one with Albert Ammons. So, although he wasn’t a great piano player, he could certainly play well enough to the point where he could get across the groove. And that’s why, when I went to Virginia Tech, and I think it was the beginning of my second year, it was such an eye opener for me to see Bob Margolin that first time at Maxwell’s.

VW: Is that right?!

CW: Yeah.

VW: I know Maxwells!

CW: At Maxwell’s yeah.

VW: I saw a lot of great jazz there in the mid 90’s.

CW: Yeah, just by the old Food Lion. Bob was you know, he was playing these… well since he was playing solo he had to do a lot of rhythm, and there was a lot of da, da-da, da-da, da-da, da-da, da-da, da-da [sings a boogie woogie guitar riff]. I made the connection, ‘oh wow!, he’s playing on the guitar what my Dad was playing on the piano.

CW: And that started getting me thinking about ‘this is cool.’

VW: So that was really your first exposure to the blues, you know, the real stuff?

CW: Well, my dad was my first exposure, but then seeing Bob playing guitar was what really got me thinking, ‘I want to learn how to do this on the guitar.’

VW: So what year was that?

CW: That would have been ‘84, September, October-ish, something like that.

VW: So you didn’t play the guitar at all prior to that?

CW: You know I could play [laughs] a song that Paul McCartney had a hit [in the UK] with. A song called Mull of Kintyre, and I could play that because my mother liked it, and it was three chords! E, A and B7 [laughs]. But I didn’t pick up the guitar seriously until seeing Bob Margolin inBlacksburg [VA], and then fortunately for me, one of my roommates had a Yamaha acoustic, and he wasn’t playing it much. And that became my practice guitar and I would practice probably 4 or 5 hours a day.

Charles playing his vintage Gibson ES-330.

VW: What kind of stuff were you practicing at that point?

CW: You know it’s funny, I got a book, “Arlen Roth - How to Play Blues Guitar”. After seeing Margolin play I went to the local music store and that was the book I got. And it was good, you know, it showed you pentatonic scales, it showed you chords, it gave you in tablature, it gave you some basic stuff, like some rhythms with a few fills and stuff. And once I probably got 3/4 of the way through the book, an album that we had in our apartment was “Muddy Mississippi Waters Live”, you know the live one with Johnny Winter?

VW: Absolutely!

CW: And I was sort of noodling around with the guitar while that was on and I realized that, ‘wow! if I’m playing some of these scales in the right key, some of what I’m doing sounds as if it kind of fits over what the band is playing. When I started realizing that is when I stopped trying to learn tablature. I started realizing, ‘hey, I can learn stuff off records.’

VW: So you were still playing strictly the acoustic at that point?

CW: Yeah, I didn’t even own an electric at that point.

VW: Well, I guess that kind of dovetails nicely into my next question, which is, other than that Muddy Waters album you were talking about, what were some other albums that you were listening to at the time that were heavily influential on your early development?

CW: Sure. Well, the roommate who was letting me use his Yamaha acoustic had another friend that he went to High School with called John. And John was an interesting guy and still is actually. And his way of buying records was he went through the Rolling Stone record guide and bought every record with a five star rating, no matter what style of music. He figured if Rolling Stone gives it a five star rating, it must be a great record in whatever genre it is, and I will listen to it because it’s a great example of that particular genre of music. So, he had some amazing records.

VW: Probably not a bad way to buy records…

CW: You know, if you’re going to do it, there are worse ways to go! So I remember I was over at his apartment once and I was looking through his albums and I said, ‘Wow man, that’s some cool stuff you’ve got’ and he said, ‘I tell you what, you can borrow a few albums if you want, you know, since you’re getting into the blues stuff.’ So I borrowed, it was a double album by T-Bone Walker, I think it was the Imperial stuff, and Robert Johnson’s “King of the Delta Blues Singers”, and Freddie King “Hideaway”, the one with the instrumentals, and I borrowed “Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs.” And the Layla album, the songs that really grabbed me there were the “Have You Ever Loved a Woman” which is a Freddie King tune, “Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out” which is a Louis Jordan tune and…

VW: Key to the Highway!

CW: And, yeah, “Key to the Highway” which is a Big Bill Broonzy number. So, yeah, those were the first three albums, and oh, there was a fourth one… Eric Clapton - “Bluesbreakers” with Mayall. [ed note: this album is actually a John Mayall album featuring a very young Eric Clapton] And the cool thing about Clapton, is that he is always very generous in giving credit where credit is due.

VW: Yeah…

CW: And so yes, I was going through a massive Clapton phase certainly and you know, tried to learn as many Clapton solos off that Bluesbreakers album as I could.

VW: There are worse phases you could go through.

CW: [Laughs], Well, yeah! I know! And I was reading a lot of interviews and he was always talking about Freddie King, Albert King, BB King and all those guys. So I got BB King, “Live at the Regal”, I got Albert King “I’ll Play the Blues For You” , there was a Son Seals album “Live and Burning” which I thought was pretty cool.

VW: Yeah, I had that album.

CW: Yeah! That one has “Hot Sauce” on it.

VW: So, if you had to narrow it down to, say, five critical albums that a budding young guitarist should run out and purchase tomorrow, I know that’s putting you on the spot, but what do you think they should be?

CW: “Live at the Regal” BB King, I would say you’d have to have some T-Bone in there. I would actually get something like “The Black and White Recordings”. Muddy Waters… You couldn’t go too far wrong with any of those Chess ones really, “The Best of Muddy Waters” is a great album,“Muddy Waters - Real Folk Blues”, “More Real Folk Blues”, that’s great stuff. “Muddy Waters Rare and Unissued” is great. Chess has done a nice job on that. So, I’d say you’d have to have some of that. I’d say you’d have to have… probably some Sonny Boy Williamson, maybe something like, I mean you do could a lot worse than “Folk Blues” and “More Real Folk Blues”. “Bummer Road” is a great album by Sonny Boy. Let me see, so you’ve got the more jazzy end with T-Bone, you’ve got BB, I mean, wow, five albums is tough. There’s a lot to squeeze into five albums and you’re missing out on so much. Obviously Robert Johnson, I mean that’s some killer stuff. Albert King, I mean, the Atlantic “King of the Blues Guitar” is just an amazing album.

VW: Live Wire Blues Power

CW: Yeah! [laughs], “Live Wire Blues Power”! Wednesday and Thursday, that’s some sick stuff!

Charles is also known to play Les Pauls from time to time.

VW: Yeah, yeah…

CW: But then, you know you’ve got Magic Sam! I mean can you honestly leave Magic Sam out?! or Guitar Slim? Any of those guys? Howlin’ Wolf? I mean we haven’t even mentioned Howlin’ Wolf.

VW: Right, right…

CW: I don’t know. I tell you what, you pick five albums of those I just said and put down whatever you think.

VW: Well, there’s gonna be a lot of people reading this who may be reading some of these titles for the first time.

CW: Sure

VW: These may be people whose extent of exposure to the blues may be Eric Clapton or Stevie Ray Vaughan, and they’re dying to get deeper but they don’t know where to go, so I think you’ve given ‘em a lot to work with.

CW: Well, it may only be 7 or 8 albums, but I tell you what man, if you get to the point where you can play every riff off each of those albums properly, then, that’s all you’ll need.

VW: Absolutely. I used to tell my students if all you ever listened to was “Live at the Regal” and you learned every lick on the record and you learned it right…

CW: [laughs] And that’s the key right there! Because early on when I was trying to learn BB’s solos off that, it’s one thing to figure out what notes he’s playing and it’s another thing to get the sound that he’s getting and to make the notes sound the way he makes them sound.

VW: And that’s the perfect dovetail into my next question which is, well I guess I’ll tell you a brief story first and then I’ll ask you how you quantify that. When you and I shot some lessons a few months back, you played my rig which was a Les Paul Standard through an early Fender Tweed Deluxe. When I play that rig, it sounds entirely different, and when you played it you were a ble to coax Robert Lockwood tones out of it, and early BB tones and T-Bone tones that were just dead on the money. And it was a revelation to me to hear those tones coming out of my equipment and it just kind of confirmed something that I have always believed, and that’s the notion that tone is 95% fingers and maybe 5% gear. Guitar makers probably don’t want you to know that! But I guess I’d like to hear your thoughts on that philosophy and how you define good tone and how you go about achieving it.

CW: OK. Well, while I agree with you that it… well, I would have to say it’s actually a component of three things. And the third thing is often overlooked and it’s this: Yes, it’s how you play, much, much more than the equipment. But it’s also knowing how to set that equipment. And basically that’s something I learned when I was doing gigs with Kim Wilson [ed note: Charles backed up Kim on some of Mark Hummel's harmonica blowouts]. Seeing him work an amplifier is very instructional, because of all the harmonica players out there… and another harmonica player friend of mine who’s known Kim for a while and is good friends with Junior Watson, said something to me one day and it made a lot of sense. He said, ‘yeah, you know, whenever other harmonica players sit in on Kim’s rig, they always sound better than they do on their own rig.’ And basically he came to understand that it was because Kim sets amplifiers better than anyone else. He understands tone better than anyone else. And the interesting thing there was I’ve heard him do the same thing while doing a vocal check at a gig. He can tell the soundman exactly what he needs. Where to EQ it, what to take out or what to put in, and all of a sudden it’s sounding good! And you can hear the difference!

VW: Wow!

CW: So, yes, I agree it’s probably 90% fingers and how you play, 5% equipment, but 5% knowing how to set that equipment. And you were talking about how I was getting different tones out of your rig , and I was mainly doing it by changing settings on the guitar. I had the amp set up the way I usually set a tweed Deluxe and pretty much left the amp where it was. But it’s knowing what combination of settings is going to get you a different tone. And a big revelation for me was playing with Junior Watson and getting hip to using the tone control on the treble pickup. You know for me, anytime I used the treble pickup on a guitar it was pretty much wide open. I’d use it when I wanted screaming lead tone. And on a stock strat, that’s your only option. But by wiring the treble pickup on a strat to the middle tone control, you get a whole lot more options. And something that Junior completely opened my eyes to was using the treble pickup and rolling the tone way off. And Craig [Counts, influential Virginia based guitarist] at a gig we did over Christmas at Blue Five [ed note: in Roanoke, VA] came up to me and talked about that a little bit. He said “yeah man, I noticed you were on the treble pickup a lot” but it was a way, way different tone than he was used to hearing from the treble pickup. And you can get completely unusual, way lesser used tones out of the treble pickup, just by rolling that tone off.

VW: Completely off?

CW: Yeah. I mean, certainly completely off gets a way different tone than normal. You know, and it’s a spectrum from 1 to 10. And from 0 to 2 or whatever, you’re going to get a bunch of tones that you just haven’t got before because you never really messed around with it. I think so much tone is just a Catch-22 situation. It’s like, if you’re not aware of tone, then it’s going to be very difficult for you to get good tone. Tone is something that you have to be aware of and have to think conciously about before you can start honing it and really going for the Holy Grail. I mean, I look back on articles I’ve read and that I didn’t fully understand at the time. There was an interview with Jimmy Vaughan in Guitar Player. And he was giving some great insight into tone and how rooms affect it and how the same rig can sound completely different in a different room even though you’re using the same settings. Players like him, and Jr Watson, and Rick Holmstrom….these guys spend a lot of time thinking about their tone, and how they want to achieve it.

VW: Yeah

CW: They’re thinking about it all the time! And I think, once you start thinking about tone in those terms, and what it is that affects the tone that you’re getting (I mean there are so many different variables… it’s not something you can get to the bottom of in five minutes and go “oh yeah…”), then that’s when you start being able to shape your tone the way that the masters have done and getting closer to their sound.

VW: One thing I notice watching you play, especially when trying to cop something like say, BB or Albert, both of whom have super distinctive left hand vibrato, and unique in their own right… But one thing that I overlooked I think was the importance of the right hand attack.

CW: Yes.

VW: And I noticed you really have a unique sense of touch with your right hand, that I certainly don’t have. How did you develop that? And before you answer that, after watching you, I think too much attention has been given over the years to the fretting hand. For instance I used to think it was about an 80/20 split, as far as left hand to right hand importance. But now I’m thinking, gosh, maybe it’s closer to 50/50 as far as the two hands working together to really develop…

CW: Well, I think you just said it right there. It really is the two hands working together, and if you think about it, each hand is extremely important in how they work together. In my video, the one I did on tone, I was talking about trying to hold the pick at an angle that gets the most pick on the string. Because that way you’re going to end up with the fattest, meatiest tone. A friend of mine out here (he gave me some pointers and helped me in more intangible ways, rather than just sitting down and showing me riffs) played in a pretty unique way. When he played, he didn’t use a pick. He used his fingers, but he used them in such a way that he could still execute fast single note runs and all that kind of stuff. It wasn’t so much finger picking. It’s kind of holding his forefinger and thumb together and on the upstrokes he’s essentially doing it with his index finger and on the downstroke, he’s basically doing a downstroke with his thumb. But by holding them together it kind of works like a pick. So the cool thing about it is, by using your fingers, and you can defnitely tell this with Albert King, you’re getting much more surface on the string, which leads to a bigger sound. And, I mean, Albert Collins, Gatemouth Brown, Guitar Slim, Johnny Guitar Watson, all those guys, play with their fingers, and you’re going to get a much fatter tone. You just do. So, I didn’t necessarily want to do that. Although I did mess around with it for a while, I could never really quite get it to work right. Instead I thought, ‘OK, I’m going to use a pick, but what I’m going to do is pay a lot of attention to getting as much of that on the string as possible.’ Cause that’s kind of a way to approximate what’s going on with the flesh when you play with your fingers.

Part 2 of this interview coming soon!

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