Arlen Roth is known as a professor of the instrument, with his Hot Licks instructional video series serving as the blueprint for guitar education in the days before Youtube. Ranked in VG’s “Top 100 Guitarists” list, his latest release, Playing Out the String, is a treasure trove of acoustic slide, featuring his virtuoso licks and his earthy vocals.
Was there a particular inspiration or concept behind Playing Out the String?
To a degree, a bit of depression played into this, as I was a little down about things during Covid, having trouble getting out and playing. I just love getting together a bunch of acoustics and going into the studio and letting the pieces fall where they may, and at the same time, conceptualizing and listening to music and thinking about songs I loved growing up. I wanted to mix old-timey stuff with contemporary, with the thread being me (laughs).
Despite having great instrumentals, you’re doing more singing this time around, and some of the songs you did as instrumentals originally had lyrics.
A lot of the tunes I sang here are old-timey country and blues tunes I really wanted to sing – stuff by Brownie McGhee and Norman Blake. I just love it. But when I did “Everybody’s Talkin’,” I wanted it to be more guitar-heavy, and I wasn’t going to sing it better than Harry Nilsson, who was just so fantastic. So I figured I’d do an instrumental version.
You did the same with “Blue Bayou,” which has some beautiful slide.
Of course, slide is a big thing for me, and I have a student named Charlie Frey, who was taking slide lessons. Charlie wanted me to teach him an arrangement of “Blue Bayou,” so I’m giving him credit for inspiring me to record it. I love that tune, and its melodies are perfect for slide, which I played on my ’30s National 14-fret.
“Gonna Move Across the River” has slide that sounds almost like a harmonica.
Good observation. That’s from Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, so my slide lines are probably reflecting what Sonny did on the harp. I love that song, especially how Brownie did it; it’s another example of a tune in the true-blues tradition that has evolved over the years with different verses depending on who’s singing it.
“Pancho and Lefty” has some really fast finger work and is really different from the original.
I was originally thinking of developing that more with some mandolin, but (producer) Alex Salzman said, “look man, this is beautiful as is. Just leave it like that.” It has such a strong melody, so I decided to leave it as a naked guitar song I played with the Santa Cruz OM-AR.
“Walk Right In” was a huge hit in the ’60s for The Rooftop Singers. What was the inspiration behind selecting it?
Gus Cannon wrote it nearly 100 years ago, but The Rooftop Singers had the definitive version with that famous 12-string riff. Every time I picked up an acoustic 12-string, I’d play it as a goof, because it’s so unmistakable. So I figured, “Why not give that a try?” It’s so powerful because it’s built on the sounds of two 12-strings. I love the sound of those big guitars, and I played a sunburst Stella 12-string that I picked up in the early ’80s in a New Jersey music store for 10 bucks. It was still in the box and had never been played and has such a funky sound.
Will you be touring behind the album?
I’m doing some local and regional solo shows.
For the better part of your career, you were everybody’s favorite teacher, creating instructional videos in the Hot Licks series. What are your thoughts on the state of guitar learning?
I like to think I had something to do with all this, as there’s such an enormous amount of it now. When I released Hot Licks, it was a novel idea – videos with famous musicians. Tools for learning these days are everywhere, and though some teaching today is a bit mechanized, I’m glad it’s still happening. In the end, it still makes people go back to what I did with Hot Licks. In fact, Hal Leonard is doing a good job bringing Hot Licks videos into the modern era. It’s all good, though, because you can’t get too much material when you really want to learn.
This article originally appeared in VG’s August 2024 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.
