Royer Labs

SONNY LANDRETH

In 2005, master slide guitarist Sonny Landreth (www.sonnylandreth.com) performed live at Lafayette Louisiana's Grant Street Dancehall. Sonny's long time recording engineer, Grammy winning Tony Daigle, recorded the shows and the recordings were released as a live CD named Grant Street. Our friend David Klausner, who provided a pair of R-121's for Sonny's guitar cabinets, sent us a copy of the CD and it blew us away - Sonny's guitar tone is unbelievable. Don't miss the three audio samples included here - play them through your monitors or a great set of headphones and listen to the complexity of Sonny's guitar sound. Tone like this would be impossible to capture without the magic of ribbons on guitar cabs!

Recording Sonny Landreth’s live record, Grant Street
By David Klausner

Eric Clapton has called Sonny Landreth the most underestimated musician on the planet, and also probably one of the most advanced. The Louisiana-based slide guitar player has invented and mastered an astounding set of techniques that includes fretting notes behind the slide and using every part of his right hand to coax the unique and expressive sounds he gets from the guitar. Tone has always been a hallmark of Sonny's, and Guitar Player Magazine recently included him on their list of the 50 greatest guitar tones of all time. Sonny's new live record, Grant Street, featuring his trio with Dave Ranson on bass and Kenneth Blevins on drums, was recorded in the spring of 2005 at Lafayette Louisiana's Grant Street Dancehall. A beautiful, cavernous old brick and cypress honky tonk built originally as a fruit warehouse. Sonny and long term cohorts multiple Grammy winning engineer Tony Daigle, and Nashville co-producer R.S. Field, wanted a true document of a live show. The result is a no holds barred set, released with no studio overdubs, showcasing a seasoned live band that kicks more butt than a cross-eyed Rockette.

Regarding the tone on the recording, Guitar Player's Jude Gold said, "on all of the tracks, it seems like a glorious, all-engulfing white light pours divinely from Landreth’s amps...listening to Landreth's full-spectrum tones, it's almost as if the Louisiana slide superhero has somehow stolen a slice of a star and has brought it on stage with him. It's like his Stratocaster is plugged into the sun."

Sonny uses a variety of different tunings, and expert guitar tech Jason Soileau was kept busy at the gigs, handing Sonny a number of guitars including several of his "road" Strats, a vintage '68 Strat, and a '60 Les Paul, which were plugged into a dual amplifier setup consisting of a Matchless DC30 and Dumble Overdrive Special, each powering a road worn Fender 2x12 cabinet. To capture the tone, the Matchless cab was close miked with a Royer R121 and a Sennheiser MD421. The Dumble cab, which was housed backstage in an old walk in freezer to keep the stage volume reasonable, was close miked with a Royer R121 and also had a Neumann KM185 at a distance of about 3 feet. For the makeshift mobile control room, we assembled a small mountain of choice outboard gear, from vintage Neve, UREI and API, to modern Manley, Amek and PreSonus (including the prototype of their new ADL600 mic pre), and the recording was done to an Otari RADAR system with Nyquist converters.
The resulting sound, capturing the full depth of Sonny's live tone, from rich, full bass to sparkling harmonics, speaks for itself.

MP3 Samples

Wind In Denver - Grant Street

Pedal to Metal - Grant Street

Congo Square - Grant Street

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		Sonny Landreth on stage at Grant Street Dancehall.


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		Sonny's rig; a Matchless DC-30 (miked with an R-121 and a Sennheiser 421) and a Dumble Overdrive Special (miked with a close-up R-121 and a Neumann KM185 at 3-feet). The Dumble's cabinet was placed backstage in an old walk in freezer to help control stage volume.


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		Dave Klausner backstage.


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	The live recording rig (see Dave's article above for recording information).


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	Producer R.S. Field, Sonny Landreth and Dave Klausner backstage.