TIMELESS RECORDING SOCIETY'S MEMORIBILIA ARCHIVE
Interview from September 1976 issue of Guitar Player
SANDY BULL = WHERE EAST MEETS WEST
By Richard Albero and Fred Styles

Back in the early sixties, when The Beatles were turning out ditties like "My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean" and "Twist and Shout," East Indian music was as removed musically from the American pop charts as it was geographically. But in the small Greenwich Village coffee houses, East was meeting West in the person of a young multi-instrumentalist named Sandy Bull.

A musician of many influences, Bull began interchanging and sometimes combining his folk guitar and banjo styles with rock, blues, Indian, and country music, becoming skillful on such instruments as oud, electric bass, and pedal steel. His four Vanguard albums recorded during this time show that Sandy was also a pioneer in the area of overdubbing.

After earning a loyal following during the early to late-sixties, Sandy Bull slipped out of circulation because of a drug problem which he eventually licked. He is now enjoying a comeback, performing as a "multiple-soloist" with the aid of a tape recorder and Rhythm Ace.(An early drum-machine-Ed.)      

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 Do you remember your first guitar?
 Yes; an arch-top, I think it was a Harmony or Gibson. I was about eight years old and living in Delray, Florida, roughly between Miami and Palm Beach. My mother was a musician--she gave me a guitar for Christmas...I learned the chords to "I Ride An Old Paint," "Home on the Range," and "Red River Valley." Then I kind of lost track of the guitar for a while; I just didn't keep up with it, because my father didn't like music that much and I was living with him at the time.
 What instrument does your mother play?
 She plays a harp. She used to be billed as "From Bach to Boogie Woogie" back in the Fourties and Fifties. She played a lot of the "supper clubs." I used to go on the the road with her, driving through the South; stop at all these schools and colleges and ladies clubs. One time she called me out on stage to play banjo for a whole bunch of boys at a reform-school she was playing at, near Baton Rouge. That was a a great experiance; I was about sixteen. They went crazy in that place over blues chords and riffs on the banjo; started stomping and whistling.
 Did you ever take lessons from anyone?
 At first I just stuck with the chords that I learned for "Red River Valley" and "Home on the Range." When I was about thirteen or fourteen, people started to sing more folk and country music, so I started to get into that. I'd been listening to The Weavers, Pete Seeger...so I got the Pete Seeger Guitar Instruction Record, started playing the banjo and got heavily into folk music. 
 Did any particular artists have a tremendous influence on you?
 Well, back then it was Pete Seeger, Leadbelly, and Woody Guthrie. I used to listen to Woody Guthrie records when I was about seven or eight, and a lot of Leadbelly, too.
 What type of banjo were you playing then?
 It was a Vega with a custom neck that Erik Darling made at a furniture builder's shop. Oh, yeah--I took banjo lessons from Erik around 1954 or 1955.
 Were you developing a style then?
 No, I was strictly imitative in those days. You always start like you're trying to imitate, and then go on to other things and your own stuff. I was interested in a lot of different kinds of music; I saw King Solomon's Mines when I was about nine years old, and the African drumming and music in that really sparked a big interest in me. I like doing most every kind of music. Like, in Florida we used to listen to a lot of country music, and that influenced me also.
 What country artists do you remember hearing?
 Mostly Jimmie Rodgers, Hank Williams and Hank Snow. I remember one tune I used to hear on the radio called "I Still Write Her Name In The Sand." I can't remember who did it, but I always loved that title.
 Did you use any set pattern for practicing?
 Well, for years when I first started playing the banjo I practiced a lot, but as time went by I sort of slacked off. I guess I always practiced in bursts. I never practiced in a regimented style; I never ran scales. There are very few things that I learned note for note. There was one tune by Bach that I picked up and had to read music for. I'm a very slow reader, you know, so I labored it out. I think I just wanted to prove to myself that I could play one classical piece on the guitar. I was always an ear musician. I went to music school for a year and a half in college. I got something out of counterpoint and harmony, which were important courses fof me, but I more or less steered away from the academic side of music.
 You didn't find any help in the theory part of the courses?
 Well, yes, but it wasn't really a direct help, you know. They just kind of threw it in, just the concept of counterpoint. Bach was my favorite classical musician, and counterpoint just seemed to be a mathematical formula for getting the sounds that he got. He was a master of counterpoint and it applies to any kind of music; it doesn't have to be classical. It's just a natural law of, I guess, yin and yang you could call it. That did me some good, but I never used it as far as "writing." I think in playing, it clarified some things I knew instinctively.
 Music was strictly feeling? 
 Yes, to me it is. That's why music like Hamza El Din's can affect me so much. Any music, Puerto Rican music, it doesn't matter what kind it is; just certain artists have a kind of, you know, feel.
 How did you develop such a strong sense of timing?
 It comes naturally. (Laughs) No, it took a long time. I was never much of a technician as far as playing a lot of notes per second, but I think what I do well is knowwhere  to put the notes in what I do play.
 Your music was sort of the "in thing" to listen to in the mid-Sixties, but you were out of the scene fora time. What happened?
 Well, like a lot of other people, I got into drugs then. But they stopped working for me, as drugs tend to do, so after some hard work, I stopped--and now I'm playing again.
 When did you get into East Indian music?
 Well, in the early Sixties I was listening to Ravi Shankar and Ali Akbar Khan. I got an Ali Akbar Khan record, and tuned my guitar to fit in with the sarod he was playing, and started playing along with the record.
 What is a sarod?
 It's an instrument that's got a skin head, a teak body and a wide stainless steel finger-board with no frets; four playing strings, a dozen sympathetic strings, four drone strings tuned to the main notes of the scale you happen to be playing in, and a high double string tuned like the 5th string on a five-string banjo. It's kind of like an oud in concept; you're playing without frets with a coconut-shell flat-pick, like in the same position you'd play oud.The sitar uses a two-way wire finger-pick on the index finger only--it has hoop-frets that you pull the playing string across, more similar to a blues-guitar style. Anyway, I played guitar along with Ali Akbar Khan records at first. I was playing at the Gaslight on McDougal Street in about 1961, and part of my act was when I would tune my guitar in a drone tuning. I'd throw in all kinds of licks from mountain music, you know, improvised modal stuff, some Arabic tunes, "Wabash Cannonball," Indian devotional songs, everything I knew that fit the modal sound. I attatched a tamborine to my foot with a coat-hanger and played the back-beat with it. That was hard, because it always came out a little delayed, so I eventually switched to foot-cymbal..kind of like Jesse Fuller--you know--that great blues-man who made a bass out of piano strings tuned across this wooden-sounding board, with six pedals--kind of like a bass drum. Each pedal would have a different note, so you'd have bass going with one foot, a foot cymbal with the other foot, and he played 12-string guitar. He had quite a sound when he was going.
 How did you get into Arabic music?
 A friend of mine, an Israeli silver-smith, had a shop on McDougal street, where he sold bracelets, rings and other stuff he made.I used to stop in between sets and hang out with him. He played me a whole bunch of Lebaneese records, with artists like Wadi al-Safi, Nur al-Houda and Fairuz. That influenced me a lot; I used to draw some bits of melody from that.
 Is that how you eventually arrived at "Blend" [a twenty-minute instrumental on Fantasias for Guitar and Banjo-1963]?
 That's the way it was exactly. I recorded "Blend" about a year after the Gaslight period. Before the Gaslight, I had played at Folk City [in New York City] a couple of times, and the head of Vanguard saw me and offered me a record-deal. At the time I didn't feel ready, but after I worked out the "Blend" piece, I knew I was into something exciting, so in 1962 I went by Vanguard with a tape of it, and Maynard [Solomon] signed me up. At that same time I was listening to [alto saxophonist] Ornette Coleman at the Five Spot. His drummer, Billy Higgins, impressed me a lot, so he played on the album with me. Coleman and his band [Don Cherry on trumpet, Charlie Haden on bass and Higgins on drums] started a whole style of free jazz--very unique, with swinging, shifting rhythms; I can't really describe it.
 How long did it take before you felt you were finally getting proficient on the oud?
  It took me up to about a year ago. I played an oud on my second LP [Inventions-1965], a year after I first picked one up, but I'm just getting to the point where I can play on the same bill with my idol Hamza El Din and not feel too bad about it. I play oud on Chip Taylor's new album [This Side of the Big River, Warner Brothers, B-2882]. On "Big River," an old Johnny Cash tune, I played the oud through a phaser. It has quite an interesting sound. I fits in with the country sound; I'd love to play on some disco with the oud and I've always wanted to play it in a latin group.
 Do you use any special tunings on the oud?
 Standard tuning, but a couple of notes lower than standard. I tune A on the high string, E the next string down, then B, F#, E an octave below the first, and a B on the sixth string--with double sets tuned in unison, eleven or twelve in all--depending on a single or double sixth string.
 How do you find playing without frets?
 With the oud, you stay in a very small area on the neck. You don't usually play up too high, because the strings are pretty loosely tuned, and when you get high up the neck, they start playing independently of each other and intonation becomes a problem. So I stay down on the neck and keep my work within one or two positions--not too hard; I played upright bass for a while in music school.
 I read somewhere that you got into flat-picking as a result of working with the oud.
 Yes, but originally from working on "Blend." I knew John Herald back in those days, and I always wanted his flat-picking style--Ramblin' Jack Elliott, too. I could never flatpick country music on guitar the way they did. Then, when I started getting into Eastern music, I evolved my own style from listening to Ali Akbar Khan, because he is a hell of a flat-picker. It took something I was really devoted to get me to play with a flatpick.
 What kind of picks do you use?
 I use Terminal Music, or Manny's, heavys--the equilateral, trianglular-style with slightly convex sides.
 Is that a 6-string bass that you play?
 Right. I play a Fender VI 6-string bass with regular guitar strings. What happened was that I was kind of getting off the deep end in San Francisco, in 1968 or 9, and stopped at this hotel in the Fillmore district to take care of some business, and my panel-van got ripped-off while I was upstairs. I'd had a Telecaster at that time, and I was trying to figure out what kind of guitar to get with the insurance money. I kept looking at all these guitars, and I couldn't find one I really liked; I wanted to get something new. I realized I had this 6-string bass lying around that was useless as a bass. I think I got it originally because I wanted to duplicate the sound of that solo on the George Jones song "The Race Is On." Remember that electric guitar solo on it? I wanted to get that sound. I've been trying for ten years to get that sound, and I still don't know how they did it; I'm going to find out one day. So I took this 6-string bass and put regular guitar strings on it, and it turned out to be just the sound I wanted. Because of the long string lengths, I tuned it down a whole step, and you could do a lot of bending with it's wide neck. It plays in tune, and you've got three pick-ups that are separately controlled, so you get a lot of funk out of it. There's a bass setting that really kicks in the bottom--it's a great axe.
 What kind of amp do you usually play it through?
 Right now, I'm using a small Yamaha solid-state and a Fender Twin Reverb. I used to use some really big amps. I played it through an Acoustic head for a number of years in the late Sixties and early Seventies. First I used a Fender Showman, then I went to Acoustic with a very elaborate setup.I like to play the Fender 6 with a lot of vibrato and reverb. I'd run it into a junction box that boosted the bass and treble into two discrete signals. The bass signal went into a B-15 Ampeg bass amp, and the treble signal went into a separate Fender spring reverb and then into the first of two vibrato inputs on the Acoustic. The line-out from the back of the Ampeg went to the second vibrato hole of the Acoustic. Then there was a Landers cabinet with two rear-mounted JBL 15s and a high-frequency horn as well. So I got a good heavy vibrato which was half reverb and half dry from the Landers and horn; the Ampeg was clear bass with no reverb or vibrato, and the sound, from three sources, was pretty impressive but such a hassle to carry all that stuff around. Maybe I'll get back into that set-up one day but it used to be very noisy. Once I was playing it was all right, but if I left the thing alone, the vibrato, along with the treble-boost and the reverb hum took on a life of it's own--especially through the high-frequency driver. But the actual sound of the guitar came through very plunky, very twangy-- a lot of metallic string and fret sound. It was a combination of natural and electric guitar sound.
 What other guitars do you have?
 I have an Ovation that I use to play a Bach tune on and also a version of Elton John's "Love Song." It's a good plug-in acoustic sound. I also have a Gibson J-50 that I got in Nashville in 1972. The first good guitar I ever had--which inspired "Blend" and a lot of my playing in those days--was a Martin 00-21. I got it at the Folklore Center on McDougal Street in New York City for $120.00. It was beautiful, old, all beat up and had such an amazing sound--but gradually it changed. First, a guitar repair guy told me he should re-finish the spot on the face where the last owner had wore a bare patch with his thumb pick--that killed some sound.One time I got completely wired on uppers and put quarter-tone frets on it. It took me three months to get to where I could play it again--I had to be that much more careful where I put my fingers, and the quarter-tone frets didn't do anything for the music. You know, you don't hit a quartertone out of the blue, but I hadn't thought of that. Then, after pulling the quarter-tone frets off and filling the cuts, I let a friend talk me into having the whole finger-board replaced by a noted Flamenco guitar builder when I was in Mexico City. I get the guitar back and the scale is wrong so it won't play in tune--when I finally got it back again with the right fret scale, the finger-board was thicker than the original, so a taller bridge had to be put on--by the time that poor guitar was stolen from that van, it had lost that great sound. If I find a good-sounding instrument now, I leave it alone.
 What kind of strings do you use?
 On the electric guitar I use Gibson 340-Ls or Vinci-Quarius. On acoustic, I use Darco New York light guage bronze, and on oud I use a combination of E.&O.Mari "La Bella" oud strings for the first and third, Saverez extra-high tension for the second, and a high-quality classical guitar string for the rest. Strings are in a constant state of flux--a good string brand one year can be not so good the next--I'm always looking for better-sounding strings.
 You also play pedal steel. How did you get into that?
 I remember the sound of the steel from my days in Florida, hearing those tunes on the radio. When I started really listening to Nashville music around '63 or '64, like "Together Again" by Buck Owens; the steel player [Tom Brumley] on that really made a big impression on me. I used to love the guy [Buddy Emmons] who played with Ray Price on a lot of his cuts. Of course, I used to love Pete Drake. I had a record of Drake's that I used to listen to and cry, an instrumental called "Kentucky Waltz." My tune "Steel Tears" was sparked by that. I had a real funky Gibson steel, about 1964. The thing was so messed up that when you pressed the pedals to raise two notes, the others would all go down a little.It wasn't built very well. Then I tried playing a Fender pedal steel that I bought from someone in Sunnyvale, California out of the classifieds. I had it for about a month; it had motorcycle brake-cables that ran from the bell-crank to the changer--very inaccurate--I sold it because I couldn't get the sound I wanted. Sho-Bud makes a good steel, and I hear MSA makes a great one.
 What kind of pedal steel do you have now?
 I have a Sho-Bud Pro-I with a single neck. I had an older Sho-Bud before this one, but it wouldn't play in tune. Since the new model came out, they've changed the tuning rods. They used to be all metal, but now they have a nylon tip, or hex, which makes the tuning much more precise.
 Do you still play banjo?
 No, I havn't played the banjo in a good long time. My second record [Inventions] was the last time I played banjo; I played a 14th Century tune in three parts--one part was on oud, one on banjo and one guitar. Improvising on banjo is tough, because you're always playing so fast because the notes die out so soon--not much sustain.
 How did your unique interpretation of Chuck Berry's "Memphis"[Inventions & Re-inventions-Vanguard]come about?
 In about '63 or '64 I was coming back from Austin, Texas with a friend, Bobby Neuwirth. We were on our way to New York, and the plane stopped in Nashville, and it was a beautiful, misty spring morning--it was about six o'clock and the sun was just coming up. Texas had been really dry and hot, kind of barren, and stepping out into this morning in Nashville, Tennessee with the mist and the really green trees kind of made an impression on me. I heard "Memphis" by Chuck Berry--and Lonnie Mack's version--shortly after that, and I wanted my version to have that "misty" quality--though I hadn't been to Memphis yet, I figured it had to have the same "misty" mornings. I was just getting into doing my own double-tracking in those days. Vanguard used a little on my first record ["Non Nobis Domine" Fantasias-1963], with some banjo stuff with overdubbed guitar. On the second record, which I did at home, Vanguard lent me some recording equipment. I had also started to play electric bass a lot, and I'd just gotten a Fender Stratocaster because of Roebuck Staples--I had been listening to the gospel records of the Staple Singers on VeeJay, and he had influenced me a whole lot. So I played the rhythm chords with Billy Higgins playing drums; then I double-tracked the bass part, and then the lead.
 What impressed you most about Roebuck Staples' guitar style?
 His fingerpicking and the fact that he played with vibrato. Like, he used to play in rhythm with the vibrato, and I've heard some country players do that too--just playing a single-string line, like a second melody line behind the song. I time my vibrato a little different than Staples. He used to time his in threes and I do mine in twos.
 The thing that's probably most impressive about your music is that it covers such a wide range ofstyles.
 I know; it's just that quality that you go after in any kind of music. No matter what style you hear, it has a certain thing to it; a thread that runs through every kind of good music, and I try to draw on those sources, because I like anything good. I like a lot of the disco these days.
 Do you have any set goals for yourself musically?
 Just to be playing all the time. I've been out of that drug program for a couple of years now, and I have a lot of catching up to do, a lot of woodshedding. I'd like to play with a group, but that's going to take a while to find the right people. Finding a group is probably the hardest thing in the world to do--at least for me--to find people you can get along with, who aren't competing with you. You have to have a good head to be able to take what they have to offer and use it also.
 What kind of backup group would you want?
 Oh, probably a guitar player that doubles on keyboards who can play country, Latin and Middle Eastern, a good bass player--usually a bass player that can play Latin can play anything, which is true for the drummer too. I'd like to find people that like all kinds of music, like myself.

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