BLUEPRINT
When Ida Mae guitarist Chris Turpin found his traditional 12-string resonator was getting too cumbersome to tour with, Matt Eich of Michigan’s Mule Resophonic Guitars came up with an innovative yet charismatically retro alternative
Resonator guitars occupy an unusual place in guitar mythology. Nearly all players find them attractive as iconic designs –and it’s hardly a surprise as they not only conjure up the world of pre-war Delta Blues but also troubadours of the rock era such as Rory Gallagher. Despite this allure, however, they are often pigeonholed as niche instruments that are only good for playing slide on. Thus, though they occupy a hallowed place in our imaginations, they’re much less often found in the average player’s guitar collection than flat-top acoustics.
This is rather ashame as agood resonator can work so well for fingerpicking –as in Mark Knopfler’s intro to the Dire Straits track Romeo And Juliet. And that’s something not lost on a newer, post-White Stripes generation of guitarists who have drawn on the folk, blues and roots music of America to carve out a latter-day take on the gutsy, emotive blues recordings of the 30s. For such players, a resonator is not a quaint antique but a powerfully expressive instrument with a punch, resonance and percussiveness that commands attention.
One such artist is Chris Turpin of the band Ida Mae. Drawing upon deep musical roots in blues, folk and country, the band’s new album, Thunder Above You, is somehow powerfully contemporary yet as authentic and soulful as any Memphis-waxed 45. And a key component of that sound is Chris’s use of resonator guitars, brought up to date by the progressive design and hand-crafted features of his Mule Resophonic Guitars ‘Mavis’ model thinline resonators in both six- and, more recently, a 12-string version. Chris joins us to explain why he feels that, with shrewd design updates, resonators deserve a renaissance and that Mule guitars lead the way in offering modern players vibey old sounds in a guitar built for the modern stage.
“I’ve had a love affair with resonators since forever,” Chris explains. “It started through [listening to] the folkies and going to Norwich Arts Centre and watching people like Bert Jansch and Martin Simpson play slide, and when there were a couple of bluesers that would come through and they would play resonators, Iwas just like ‘Ah, what is that?’ Then, of course, I eventually stumbled upon Rory Gallagher playing Pistol Slapper Blues and I kind of fell into the blues and folk through Zeppelin and The White Stripes and all of that when Iwas about 14 or 15.
