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root salad
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Steve Dawson
Canadian guitarist Steve Dawson has been up to his
necks in projects. Tony Montague pays a visit.
S
een from the outside, the place
dubbed ‘The Henhouse’ by Steve
Dawson looks like any other
backyard garage in East Vancouver,
but step inside and you enter a veritable
Ali Baba’s cave for musos.
The space is crammed with the equip-
ment for a small recording studio, well a
drum kit, a range of keyboards, and an
arsenal of stringed instruments hanging
on the walls . Most prominent are Daw-
son’s lap steel models, which include a
couple of hollow-necked Weissenborns
and three dobros. However, the multi-
instrumentalist’s favourite toy of late sits
on the floor – a 10-stringed pedal steel
guitar, laid horizontally across its metal
stand and connected to three foot-pedals
and five knee-levers.
“I’ve always loved the sound of the
pedal steel, and messed around with it in
studios,” says the genial Dawson, “but I
found its complexity intimidating. I
realised the only way to master the instru-
ment would be to take time off from tour-
ing to work on it at home – and get help
from one of the top players. So over a two-
year period I went to LA a number of times
to take lessons with Greg Leisz, who’s
worked closely with people like Dave Alvin
and Bill Frisell. I recorded everything, and
got around 35 hours of really good materi-
al that I later figured out a way to notate.”
Dawson demonstrates how the guitar
“It would have been much easier to
is played. With the ‘steel’ held in his left
say to everyone ‘Do a track and send it in’,
hand he lightly touches or slides along the
as most tribute records do. I wanted a
strings, deftly picking notes with his right
“I
’m involved in about two-thirds
of the records. People have
come to associate us with high-
quality work, so we don’t have a record with a sound. I think there are six
hand. At the same time he uses the pedals huge roster or back catalogue. I think
tracks made outside that scenario, with Bill
and levers to alter the pitch of certain we’ve got 36 records since starting out in
Frisell, John Hammond, Geoff Muldaur,
strings. He also operates a separate vol- 1996. Of late that’s meant about four
Bob Brozman, the North Mississippi All-
ume pedal to produce the instrument’s albums per year, about right for our size.”
Stars, and the Carolina Chocolate Drops.
hallmark swelling, swooning sound. “You
The Black Hen may be about to lay a
The Drops are probably the closest thing
could play an entire song without moving
golden egg. For several years Dawson had
today to what the Sheiks were doing, and
your left hand – just by manipulating the
been playing songs by the long-gone Mis-
while I wasn’t interested in recreating
strings with your feet!”
sissippi Sheiks, the blues-based band huge-
their sound or music, I did want a few
The pedal steel has become stereo- ly popular in the ‘30s. Last winter he came
tracks with a traditional take on it.”
typed and fenced in by its close association up with the idea of putting together a
The sessions with the house band for
with country music. But on his first record- tribute album to them. “There weren’t
Things ‘Bout Comin’ My Way, due for
ing with it, Dawson sets the sleek beast many groups back then, it was mainly solo
release this autumn, took place in Seattle
free to graze in the richer pastures of orig- artists, especially in blues and country. I
last November. The quartet recorded nine
inal compositions, coloured by jazz, folk, thought it would be a noble cause as not
tracks, with singer/ songwriter Oh Susannah
and rock influences. many people really know about them. The
and Van Dyke Parks, Madeleine Peyroux,
Telescope never slackens its imagina-
Sheiks had a fiddle which was a country
Bruce Cockburn, Ndidi Onukwulu, Robin
tive grip – from the opening tremolo-
instrument, so people thought they were
Holcomb, Del Ray, and three artists from the
heavy notes of the soundscape Caballero’s
white and they were able to cross over.”
Black Hen stable – Kelly Joe Phelps, Jim
Dream to the rambunctious Speaker Dam- Dawson hand-picked the artists he
Byrnes, and the Sojourners.
age. The sound is quintessentially West wanted and their response was over-
“It was an intense, really focused time,
Coast – rootsy, expansive, eclectic in inspi- whelmingly positive. His plan was to use a
and things moved very fast,” Dawson
ration. It’s Dawson’s fourth solo album on Black Hen ‘house band’ – himself, and
recalls. “To some extent the band knew in
his label Black Hen Music. He’s also made Seattle luminaries Keith Lowe on bass,
advance what to do, though this kind of
three with former roots music partner Wayne Horvitz on keyboards, and Matt
music is not hyper-arranged. There’s got to
Jesse Zubot, as Zubot and Dawson, and a Chamberlain on drums – to back the musi-
be a good element of the unknown.”
couple as a member of the jazzier Great cians on most of the recordings, giving the
www.stevedawson.ca, www.blackhen-
Uncles Of The Revolution. album greater coherence.
music.com, via Proper in the UK. F
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