EVAN JOHNS, "MADHOUSE"

This vintage clip of Evan provided "another piece of the puzzle" for me, to use Jim Stephanson's phrase. Years ago, around the time of this video, I used to go watch Evan play. An Evan show at the old 9:30 club in D.C. was a real experience-- dark atmosphere, plus a whole lot of trash and twang for a couple hours.

Evan used to do a lot of this kind of playing, especially in the key of E, where he'd get a raunchy howling effect by holding notes. At the time, I had no idea how he did this-- but it crawled into my DNA somehow. Now I can see that he focuses this kind of solo around certain bends that can give you an intensity in your playing. I believe this is what Robbie Robertson referred to as "that stinger thing" he got from Roy Buchanan. (Whether Evan was influenced by Roy, I don't know for sure, but it certainly seems likely. These three players, Evan, Roy, and Robbie, are all related to my ear because they rely more on intensity of expression than flash.) Sometimes Evan attacks a note with an extreme right-hand pick-dragging technique-- this technique enables him to get a similar "stinger" effect without bending.

It's hard to see a lot of either hand in this clip, unfortunately, but look for Evan
using positions where he can bend 4 to 5, and b7 to tonic. The G string gets a lot of bending, and E positions both low and high are used. This jumping between low E open position and the high one 12 frets up is a crude but effective gimmick. Easy to do, it perfectly illustrates the different emotional and coloristic effects of the two registers. Low, you can get snarling and guttural-- up high it's more of a screaming effect. When Evan uses the pick-drag technique without bending, it's often the b7 or b3 blue note, with a little vibrato.