Music by james madison thomas
This song was played on a Taylor 914, a top-of-the-line model from a top-of-the-line guitar builder. I got to own this beautiful instrument for several years. The tone was exquisite but I eventually had to sell it.
I was inspired by singer–songwriter David Wilcox, who has been doing this kind of thing with capos and alternate tunings for a long time and does it expertly. He is in goodcompany with James Taylor and Phil Keaggy in that he ownsan Olson guitar, but he travels with a Rainsong guitar, which is made of
carbon fiber. It sounds great too in a live setting. Interesting trivia fact, none
other than Phil Keaggy played bass on one of David's albums. David and
Pierce Pettis have written together.
I tuned the 6th string, E in standard tuning, down to a low B. Not many guitars would handle this. Then I tuned the other strings to open G and capoed up a Major 3rd. The capo was notched so that that 6th string stayed open and became the root of B Major, the adjusted key. You’ll note my playing on both sides of the capo on that open B string. I’m pretty proud of this song; it sounds very fluid in spite of the complexity.
At one point, there were some people hanging around outside in front of our mobile home, and you can see I was a little distracted for a moment. Really, the worst thing about this
video is the haircut.
Someone taped it when I did Waterwheel live at a coffeehouse at
the church (see Circumambulation from this same event). But this time
I experimented using my Taylor 614, as I no longer had the 914. I was
surprised the 614 would handle that low B on the last string. There is
quite a big difference in the jump from 614 to 914. But I was pleased
that I could use that alternate tuning and the notched capo on this guitar
too. Of course, it's so noisy, it's almost moot. I dressed up the ending a
little at the end, which I wish I'd done on the original recording.