Over the past few months of 2014, I kept reading the name of Doug Wamble, in various context. And when I stumbled on Morgan James‘ cover of D’Angelo whole album “Black Messiah“, accompanied only by one guitar: I was sold! Who’s that guitarist who plays slide on a National type guitar to cover D’Angelo !!!!
His playing on this video is quite amazing: to reduce the whole production of D’Angelo’s album on one acoustic guitar is not a small task.
I then starting listening to his own music. Doug Wamble is a great guitarist, but also a singer / songwriter in his own right. Jazz, blues, gospel, folk, soul: he does it all !
Doug Wamble is an adept of unplugged archtop guitars, giving him a very ‘pre-war’ sound, that was use by both blues and jazz players of the time. He also uses steel body National guitars, but not just for slide and blues stuff where those guitars tend to be pigeon-holed. Very cool.
The first transcription I’m gonna share comes from an album by singer Alma Micis produced by Doug Wamble. They do a cool swing version of ‘Sweet Child Of Mine’ (yes this one). The chart is available here.
Next week I’m gonna show you a longer solo in two parts from Doug’s song “Sweet Magnolia Tree”.
Aliocha Thévenet 