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Dave Mason sound


m chops

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One of the songs indelibly burned into my mind is Dave Mason's Look at You Look at Me.

Ignoring the glory of the dual keyboard B3 and piano sounds, can any of you suggest what his rig might have been?  Yes, I know that tone comes from the fingers, not the gear but . . . 

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Hey Ben, I love this album too.  I have an early pressing that I call the "barf" record.  The vinyl looks like somebody hurled on your turntable then switched to 78 RPM.

Anyway... I saw Dave at about the time the record came out.  He spent most of the evening on a single P-90 Epiphone Coronet (think SG Junior). There were a couple of times that a Firebird popped into his hands, but most of the evening was the Epi.  Amp was a Marshall half-stack of some sort, set mostly clean.  It was a terrific show, the whole band was spot on, acoustics were excellent, etc.

Many moons later I made the acquaintance of Richard "Doc" Jaeger, the drummer from that band (I worked for his father briefly).  He confirmed my memory of the show and mentioned that Dave liked the flashy stuff just for showmanship but would use whatever it took when there was real work to be done, including such lowly stuff as Juniors, etc.  There was other stuff too, but that's what I recall that was pertinent.

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Great song, and album for sure.   

Tom Terrific actually saw him, and I can't say anything to contradict that, but...

A buddy (who knows his stuff) interviewed Mason at about the same time this album came out and told me Mason told him it was recored with a Strat and a Cerwin Vega amp.  I'll double check, but that's what I recall.  

 

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I love that album. not a bad song on it. yeah, you play it now and it sounds a bit dated but dayum... that was my favorite in about  what, '70-71?  I still play Only You Know and I Know, especially  if I can get others to chime in. I always liked "Shouldn't Have Took More Than You Gave" too but never learned it. like I said... not a bad song on that one

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Checked with my buddy, who was a  DJ in the early 70s.  Here's what he said:  

Mason had a fair number of guitars.  I recall him telling me that a Strat was heavily featured on Alone Together, but I don't remember discussing which guitars were on which tracks.  If I remember correctly, he did like the red Strat though. (I was trying to keep the guitar geek discussion to a minimum though, so those parts of the conversation were short and restricted to off-the-air commercial breaks.)  Also, at the time I interviewed him (74 or 75) he'd recently switched from his red Strat to a Firebird as his main guitar for live work.  He said he was looking for something that had a little more oomph (my word, not his) for the stage, but still had that Fender cut.  For the show I saw he used a red Firebird (could have been a III or VII, but I recall a V) exclusively.  

 

For amps, I remember him saying he was playing Cerwin Vega stuff live at the time.  I'm pretty sure that's what I saw in his stage rig as well.   He said he preferred the clarity and power they had as opposed to something like a Marshall.  (I have a memory of him making a face and saying he didn't care for the Marshall sound when I asked him about his amps.)  However, I can't say for sure what's on the record.  There could easily be more than one amp being used.  "Look at You Look at Me" sounds like a Strat through a black faced Fender.  Maybe a Deluxe or a Princeton.   Wish I could pin it down more definitively, but it was a long to time ago and I'm less sure of my memory every day.

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