IT TURNS OUT THIS GOLDEN-THROATED NASHVILLE-VIACALIFORNIA SINGER-SONGWRITER PLAYS A MEAN B-BENDER
By Jim Beaugez
NEWS + NOTES
THE NASHVILLE SINGER-songwriter scene is as crowded as ever, but Bay Area transplant Logan Ledger has a few more licks up his sleeve than the typical cowboy-chord strummer. And on Golden State, his second and latest album, Ledger lets his love for bluegrass and country virtuosos Tony White, Norman Blake and Clarence White shine.
“I always loved Clarence White’s flat-picking, but I got super fascinated by the B-bender in my early twenties,” he says, referring to the Telecaster mod that Gene Parsons created for White circa 1968 that allows players to raise the pitch of the B string by tugging at the neck. “[In] the little footage of Clarence that exists, he’s always so relaxed with it; he’s not jerking it around. He’s almost swaying with it.”
Ledger’s own B-bender playing on “All the Wine in California,” a Golden State standout, is fluid and unhurried, a gentle undulation of the notes instead of a dramatic pull. But just as strong are the acoustic guitar techniques he uses throughout the album, switching from straight strumming to a hybrid picking technique he developed in part by watching Merle Haggard.
“Merle played leads with the pick, but when he was singing he would tuck it in between his fingers and use his thumb to play rhythm, which is a great way of not having to work the tone and
