https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/09/05/danny-gatton-tribute/washington post logo – Zen Peacemakers

Musicians take the stage Saturday to celebrate guitar great Gatton

Danny Gatton, third from left, rests on an amplifier as David Chappell plays guitar at Jefferson Patterson Park in Calvert County, Md., in 1988. Also onstage, from left: Dave Elliott, Billy Windsor and Bill Kirchen, far right. (Deb Elliott)

 

A lot of people consider Danny Gatton the greatest guitar player to ever come from Washington and one of the best to come from anywhere. I asked David Chappell, a pretty good guitarist in his own right, how he would describe Gatton to someone who’d never heard of him.

 

“That’s a good question,” Chappell said. “I would say there’s horses and then there’s a unicorn.”

Gatton was that unicorn.

“To me, one of the fascinating things about Danny — besides being a great guy and open and giving — was just the fact that he could do so many things so well,” Chappell said. “It would be like an ace pitcher that’s also an ace batter and an ace catcher and an ace in the outfield.

 

“Stylistically, most people have one bag they’re really good at — and it takes a lifetime to be a great finger-style player, or to play country or blues — but Danny did all of that stuff in a sort of superhuman way.”

Gatton took his own life in 1994. Had Gatton lived, he would have turned 78 on Sept. 4. The musicians of Washington won’t soon forget him. His birthday is the inspiration for a Gatton-inspired show on Saturday at the Birchmere.

Chappell organizes the annual tribute, which this year will include guitarists Anthony Pirog, Rick Whitehead, Steven Windsor and Redd Volkaert, along with rhythm sections that played with Gatton, including drummers Dave Elliott, Pete Ragusa and Big Joe Maher, and bassist John Previti.

 

Gatton grew up in Anacostia and was one of a group of homegrown guitar players celebrated for their skill: Roy Buchanan, Link Wray, Roy Clark, Chick Hall Sr. and his son, Chick Hall Jr. The title of a 1978 album exemplified Gatton’s breadth: “Redneck Jazz.”

The first time Chappell saw Gatton play was in 1977 at a club in Waldorf called the Mouse Trap.

“A friend of mine had told me about him,” said Chappell, who became a regular in the audience. “I just started showing up there and watching him. He was nice enough to say, ‘I keep seeing you in here. What are you doing? You must be a guitar player.’”

 

Chappell gulped and said, “Yeah, but I don’t play like you.”

Guitarists Redd Volkaert, left, and David Chappell trade licks at the 2022 Danny Gatton Birthday Celebration at the Birchmere in Alexandria. A concert in memory of the esteemed local guitarist is held annually. (Robert Howe)

Gatton eventually invited Chappell over for what Chappell thought would be a 45-minute lesson. It turned into a four-hour session, trading licks and shooting the breeze.

 

Over time, Chappell got to play alongside Gatton, first at Baltimore’s 8x10 club.

“He was just nice enough to guide you along, say, ‘Do this; don’t do that,’” Chappell said. “One magic day he said, ‘You played some good stuff tonight. I think you stole it from me, but it sounded good.’”

Gatton released multiple albums, including on Elektra Records, performed with various combos and appeared on “Austin City Limits.” And though he never had the widespread fame some wished for him, he didn’t seem bothered by that.

“Danny, he made his mark,” said Chappell. “I think Danny was brilliant. Brilliance like that — that broad-based — is hard to package.”

Few people can play guitar like Danny Gatton.

 

“He was like a father figure to a lot of us,” Chappell said. “He’d slap you around when you did something wrong and pat you on the back when you did something right. He gave us himself and his take on music and just kind of broadened everybody’s horizons.”

If there was one message in Gatton’s music, said Chappell, it was this: Don’t get stuck in one bag.

Who wants to be a one-trick pony?

 
Thank you to All About Jazz for the honor of being included in this lineup of 'Your Favorite Living Jazz Guitarists'!
 
Member votes were tabulated and this list represents our favorite living jazz guitarists. Fully transparent and easily verifiable, All About Jazz's living guitarists poll was conducted during the 2022 calendar year running from May 3rd to November 30th. We would like to thank every member who participated in creating this impressive list (200 total!) for the next generation of jazz enthusiasts.

Note: This list represents the top vote-getters. Hundreds of guitarists received votes, but we decided to limit the results to the top 200.
 
THE SPELLCASTERS  

It all started at the legendary Northern Virginia roadhouse JV's. D.C. born guitarists Anthony Pirog and Joel Harrison, musical soul mates, and now doing their first gig together, tore into a set of jazz-amped honkytonk songs before a stunned crowd. But two Telecasters wasn't enough. The bassist for the show, John Previti, who backed up guitar legend Danny Gatton for twenty years, had invited acclaimed local guitar slinger, Dave Chappell, to sit in. Soon three Telecasters were blazing away, exploring shared history and new frontiers. The Spellcasters were born.

 

 


MUSIC FROM THE ANACOSTIA DELTA



RUNE 445

It all started at the legendary Northern Virginia roadhouse JV's. D.C. born guitarists Anthony Pirog and Joel Harrison, musical soul mates, and now doing their first gig together, tore into a set of jazz-amped honkytonk songs before a stunned crowd. But two Telecasters wasn't enough. The bassist for the show, John Previti, who backed up guitar legend Danny Gatton for twenty years, had invited acclaimed local guitar slinger, Dave Chappell, to sit in. Soon three Telecasters were blazing away, exploring shared history and new frontiers. The Spellcasters were born.

The Spellcasters specialize in music made by and for that unique and marvelous American invention, the Fender Telecaster. Two "Telly" masters who have particularly inspired the band are D.C. legends Danny Gatton and Roy Buchanan. The repertoire includes Harrison's transcriptions of two of Danny's lesser known compositions, as well as covers from Danny's repertoire, “Harlem Nocturne” and “Rock Candy.” The band also does "Sweet Dreams," a song that Roy Buchanan often played. As much as they celebrate these mentors, though, The Spellcasters have sought their own identity, which is a crossroads of styles that straddles the Mason-Dixon Line, where jazz, rockabilly, R&B, country, and rock ’n’ roll are one. This is not so much a band of soloists as it is a guitar orchestra. It could be argued that The Anacostia Delta, comprising D.C., Southern Maryland, and Northern Virginia, has its own regional sound. If so, this group is devoted to exploring every corner.

There are tunes where each guitarist speaks his piece, and those where there is no soloing at all; rather, a contrapuntal weave where a listener might not know where one axe stops and the other begins. Anthony Pirog is the youngest member of the tribe, an avowed experimentalist, and yet an old soul with deep knowledge of tradition. He's part of the renowned duo Janel and Anthony as well as The Messthetics, which he co-leads with members of the punk group Fugazi. Anthony has a solo release, Palo Colorado Dream, on the Cuneiform label and he is a participant on the album Five Times Surprise, released by Cuneiform on the same day as The Spellcasters debut. Dave Chappell has played with countless D.C. musicians, and leads his own "take-no-prisoners" group that rocks, wails, and twangs all over town. He took lessons with Gatton in the early 80's and performed some with him. Joel Harrison is a fearless adventurer based in Brooklyn, NY with 20 albums of original music and genre-bashing covers under his name (including two previous releases on Cuneiform, Holy Abyss and Mother Stump). For him the Spellcasters is a road back to his roots. Harrison grew up in D.C. following Gatton around like a stray dog.

Anchoring all this is a rhythm section that defines an era. Bassist John Previti and drummer Barry Hart have intersected with a broad swath of D.C's finest since the 1970's. They've backed up Gatton, Evan JohnsRick Whitehead, and members of The Nighthawks, toured together in Danny's group Fun House in the late 1980's. Their chops have been honed by thousands of gigs from the White House to The Crab Shack, from the Birchmere and Blues Alley to Bertha's Mussels.

The Spellcasters is very much a live band, and they built their chemistry over two years of gigs in the D.C. area. In that spirit six out of the eleven songs on the album were recorded in concert in Takoma, D.C.. at Rhizome. It's got a fun, loose vibe, but is also full of well-considered arrangements such as Harrison's close-voiced slant on Monk's Bright Mississippi, the lovely give and take on Bill Frisell's That Was Then, or the swinging chimes of Chappell's Jax Boogie. A 12 bar blues might fly off into the wild. Each guitarist contributes original compositions that are remarkably different, yet connected to the whole.

The Spellcasters' Music from the Anacostia Delta is a love letter to The Telecaster, and its greatest exponents, legacies Jimmy Bryant, Roy Nichols,  Jerry Donahue, Buchanan and Gatton, Jeff Beck, Frisell, and beyond.  The Spellcasters make those slabs of maple bark, burn, laugh and cry.

Music from the Anacostia Delta press release

 

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Music from the Anacostia Delta
    

PRESS RELEASES
Music from the Anacostia Delta press release

 



Thanks to Vintage Guitar Magazine for this article in the March 2020 issue!

 
 
 
Thanks to the folks at Vintage Guitar magazine for the very nice review of my playing on the Arty Hill CD,  "Back on the Rail," published in the September '09 issue.    Here it is. . .

 
 
 
And from Country Standard Time News Magazine June 2009 issue:


www.countrystandardtime.com/d/cdreview.asp


"Elvis Through the Eyes and Ears of Dave Chappell" The Old Town Crier February 2011:
www.oldtowncrier.com/gigs-and-digs