CRUISIN' WITH ARLEN ROTH . . .

Channel surfing on a Saturday afternoon a few weeks ago, I just happened to pause on the local cable station NESN (New England Sports Network). Specifically, I happened to pause on an episode of a series called “Cruisin’ New England,” which according to the NESN website “showcases premiere antiques, street rods, muscle cars and special interest vehicles from all over the Northeast.” I’m not a “car guy” by any stretch . . . but something about that episode caught my eye. Well, actually it caught my ear first: a familiar voice that I yet could not quite place. When I paid closer attention, I realized the speaker’s face was also familiar—but there was no way I could have placed him in the context of vintage and classic automobiles and related memorabilia.

But as soon as Paul Mennett, the show’s host, spoke his guest’s name, it all came back to me: that familiar voice and that familiar face belonged to guitarist extraordinaire Arlen Roth, whom I have gotten to know over the past year or so by checking out his free lessons on the Gibson.com website. Not only a brilliant guitarist but also a brilliant teacher, Roth—still known in the music world as “The Master of the Telecaster”—obviously has switched guitar brands from Fender to Gibson . . . at least for the terrific series of short and to-the-point instructional videos posted on the guitar-maker's website. Roth also has an interesting blog that he maintains on the Gibson website: filled with anecdotes, advice and musical wisdom, it’s both engaging and informative.

Perhaps I should have known about—or remembered—Arlen Roth’s obsession with cars: now that I think about that dimension of his life, I realize that sometime in the past year I read an article on him in Martha’s Vineyard Magazine that focused as much on his cars as on his guitars. (Roth lives in Aquinnah on the Vineyard.) One way or the other, my serendipitous happening upon him on “Cruisin’ New England” prompted me to look beyond those free guitar lessons, and I have so far managed to track down three of his well-worth-tracking-down CDs.

The first one I found was Toolin’ Around Woodstock, a collaboration with Levon Helm, legendary drummer with The Band. Released in February of 2008, it has an unapologetic “retro” emphasis as the tunes include Chuck Berry’s “Sweet Little Sixteen,” Joe South’s 1960s folk-ish anthem “The Games People Play,” and the Buck Owens classic “Cryin’ Time.” It also has nice vocals chipped in by Roth’s daughter Lexie on Willie Nelson’s “Night Life,” and she is joined by Helm’s daughter Amy for some fine harmonizing on “Just One Look.” But the common denominator among all the tunes is Roth’s guitar work: whether straight-ahead blues, slithering slide, or jazz-inflected country, it is always just scintillating. Clearly he practices what he preaches—or applies what he teaches . . .

I have to admit, though, that I was briefly confused when I discovered that Roth has another, earlier CD with a very similar title—simply Toolin’ Around. First released in 1993 on the Blue Plate label, it was re-released in 2005 on Roth’s own Aquinnah label (apparently with an accompanying DVD documenting the making of the album). It’s hard to track down and expensive when you find it, but I managed to get my hands on a copy of the original Blue Plate release—and it’s just great. Mostly instrumentals, many of the tunes are also duets—or duels!—with other guitarists: “Tequila” with another “Master of the Telecaster,” the late Danny Gatton; “Let It Slide” with Jerry Douglas and Sam Bush; “Rollin’ Home” with first-call Nashville session man Albert Lee; “Black Water” with Duane Eddy, whose “twangy” guitar sound helped to define early rock ’n’ roll; the aptly titled “Housafire” with blues maestro Duke Robillard; and a surprisingly subdued “Six Days on the Road” with latter-day rockabilly star Brian Setzer. But the tunes I keep returning to are the staggeringly beautiful instrumental versions, featuring just Roth, of “A Whiter Shade of Pale,” “I Can’t Stop Loving You,” and “When a Man Loves a Woman.” I think that Roth himself would be quick to admit that his treatment of these three tunes owes a debt of influence—or at least of confluence—to yet another “Master of the Telecaster,” the late Roy Buchanan (one of my boyhood heroes), whose handling of the Patsy Cline hit “Sweet Dreams” on his first album set the high bar for the sort of double- and triple-stopped melodic arrangements and sinuously-phrased improvising that Roth lays down here. Toolin’ Around is just filled with highlights: it’s a pity that this CD is not more widely available . . .

(Incidentally, Roth and Gatton performed “Tequila” on the Conan O’Brien Show back in 1994: it’s well worth checking out on YouTube.)

I guess that in moving forward with adding Arlen Roth to my iPod, I moved backward in time. The third of his CDs that I picked up is titled simply Arlen Roth; released by Rounder Records in 1987, it’s apparently a selection of tunes from two earlier albums recorded in the late ’70s. While it has its moments (mostly instrumental), I have to say more accurately that it is “of its moment”: the music is very laid back soft rock-ish, reminiscent to my ears of “Peaceful Easy Feeling” by The Eagles, pre-Joe Walsh. ’Nuff sed? If not, then perhaps the CD cover photo speaks volumes about much of the content! Still, Roth is a guitar force to be reckoned with, and the earlier of his Toolin’ Around CDs might rightly be considered a six-string classic.