12 October 2 - 15, 2010 Musician from Page 1
France to perform their brand of Americana music at clubs and a festival. From there, Eldred will travel to London to attend a dealer event as part of his job as Custom Shop director for the Scottsdale-based Fender Music.
“The Fender Custom Shop is the pinnacle of the Fender company,” he explains. “We make all the guitars for the rock stars. Sometimes I work with the artist, sometimes I work with manufacturing, and sometimes I work with dealers.
“It’s an international thing,” he adds. “Sometimes I’m in Japan, sometimes I’m in Europe.” It was the Beatles who fi rst set the ball rolling on Eldred’s unique musical career. He saw the Fab Four perform on television as a child and admits it wasn’t the catchy tunes that captured his imagination, but the screaming girls.
“I thought, wow, that’s cool,” he says with a chuckle, explaining that the next artist to inspire him was Elvis Presley – or rather, the King’s guitar player, Scotty Moore.
At 14, Eldred began playing the guitar, and by his late teens he was performing with rock bands and building his own instruments. In his 20s, he was already “leading dual lives,” working for the Japanese guitar company, Yamaha, and performing rhythm and blues in clubs with a friend. The duo eventually recorded a cassette, which Eldred passed around to musicians he’d met
through work.
“One of the guys I gave it to knew Brian Setzer,” he recalls. “He was with the Stray Cats, and they were getting ready to break up. Lee Rocker, the bass guitarist, wanted to do a blues thing, so the buddy of mine said, ‘You should hear this guitar player. He’s really good.’”
Rocker was so impressed with Eldred’s playing that he asked him to join his new band, and the group soon received a record deal from Black Top Records. “We did two records with them and toured all over,” says Eldred. “Then I was laid off at Yamaha, and I thought, well, I’ll just do the band full-time.”
Balancing career, family
NEW CD: Chandler’s Mike Eldred, far left, with Mike Eldred Trio bandmates John Bazz and Jerry Angel on their new cd “61 and 49.”
“I did that for a year,” he adds. “It was tough because I was always traveling and we weren’t making a whole lot of money. I’d just had my fi rst daughter, and I said, ‘You know what, I’m not going to do this.’” Eldred dropped out of the band and began working for Fender, where he’s remained for 14 years. Although he tries to limit his current band’s performances to weekends and vacations, he credits Fender for generously accommodating both his musical pursuits and the needs of his family, which includes his wife, Karin; their 15-year-old daughter, Lindy; 12-year-old daughter, Maclyn; and 10-year-old son, Tucker. His family understands when his job
Submitted photo takes him far from home.
“I’m gone a lot,” he admits. “My wife is amazing.” The Mike Eldred Trio recently released its second rock, roots and blues CD, entitled “61 and 49,” which Eldred describes as “just American music.” The album features guest performances from a few of the countless musicians Eldred met during his career, including Ike Turner, Cesar Rosas of Los Lobos and Kid Ramos. The album also includes a guest musician Eldred didn’t meet through his job: his childhood idol, Scotty Moore.
“I stalked him,” Eldred admits with a laugh. “I always wanted to meet him, so I just sort of tracked him down. He’s become a really great friend of mine.” The Mike Eldred Trio performs Oct. 16 in the Tucson Club Crawl. To learn more about the band’s upcoming performances or listen to selections from their CD, visit
www.mikeeldredtrio.com.
Kelli Lang is a writer living in Sun Groves. To contact her, email
KMLang@SanTanSun.com.
To learn how music helps children improve academically, turn to the SanTan Family Fun, the center spread pull-out section of the SanTan Sun News.
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