1. Where there any events, people or catalyst(s) that
were influential?

Well, I've always been a big fan of guitar music.
Ever since I saw Elvis on TV I wanted to play guitar
which is why this is a funny thing because Elvis just
basically played rhythm guitar but just the image of
him up there with the guitar excited me. Then I
started to get into the Beatles and the British rock
bands. Later, I discovered Hendrix and Cream and
started digging deeper and found that a lot of the
players people where talking about were players like
Howlin' Wolf and Muddy Waters. Albert Collins was one
of the most powerful guitar players that I ever saw
and met. I was also lucky enough to meet Stevie Ray
Vaughan when I was about fifteen. There is a picture
on my web site of me hanging out with him when I was
fifteen. I would see him about once a year anytime he
was up in Vancouver. Between Albert Collins and
Stevie Ray Vaughan, they are probably my biggest
influences in terms of players and people too.

2. What does your live set up consist of?

When I'm flying, sometimes I am at the mercy of what's
on the rider. Usually at home I have a reissue 100
watt Marshall Plexi head with a 4x12 cabinet. I have
two Ibanez tube screamer pedals, a vox wah wah, a Danelectro
Rocky Road its kinda like a fake Leslie. If
I can, I actually have a solid state Leslie with a pre
amp pedal that I use. Lately I've been using a
Marshall vibrato pedal because I love the fender
vibrato sound and I used that on my new CD. My main
guitar for damn near twenty years now, has been one of
the Japanese Squier Strats. The original one that has
the Fender spaghetti logo but has Squier up at the
top. I've got Evans pickup's and then I've got a
bizillion guitars. Usually, live I use a 72 Gibson SG
for slide that I've got set up in open D. I've got a
Samick Torino that I just love for more of my humbucker
sound. I've got this Indonesian Squier Tele that
I've got in the Keith Richard's open G tuning, the
five string tuning. Depending on if I'm home, I've
got my beautiful, coveted, Gretsch White Falcon that I
just bought last year and will use for local shows. I
recently acquired the Jeff Beck Stratocaster too which
is quite a nice instrument. As far as amps if I could
always have my reissue Plexi Marshall I'd use that I
don't like master volumes at all. I also always play
wireless which I really like. I use the wireless as
kind of like a pre amp really so when I'm using the
guitar as a single coil pick up I'll have it wide
open. When I use the humbuckers I probably have the
output at six. That gives me a steady level coming
out of my amp between humbuckers and single coils.
Usually the single coil is a lot weaker, so this way
I don't have to rely on the sound man running back &
forth and I get the same level out of the amp.

3. Among the many music awards you've received,
recently you won the Maple Blues Award for "Guitarist
of the Year", what was that like?

That was the second time out of three years, that I've
won it. I had never been nominated for any Maple
Blues Awards till three years ago. So I've got
guitarist two out of three years, which is a really
nice feeling. I've really worked hard in the last
three or four years to get back into playing Ontario
and Quebec. To be recognized by your peers like that
is a really special thing while the Blues Award and
the Blues Summit great events. Last year too I was
voted by listener's of CBC to receive the Great
Canadian Blues Award, which is a lifetime achievement
for contributing to blues in Canada. That was nice
too, a good accomplishment.

4. You were signed with EMI/Capitol Music. How did
that happen?

I never sent a demo or anything. Basically what
happened was that I had a band called the Persuaders
back in the late 80's early 90's and we just kept
playing. We started in Nanaimo and ended up going to
Victoria, Vancouver and eventually throughout the
prairies.
We started to build up a pretty good following and we
got a bit of a buzz. My dad ended up sending a tape
of mine to Allen Greg, when Allen and Jake had The Management Trust
and they were interested in representing me. They set
up a showcase gig for us and there was a whole bunch
of label's, a bit of a bidding war. We went with EMI
which seemed to be the way to go at the time. In
fact, they where still called Capitol records, the
same label the Beatles where on. Unfortunately,
between the management deal and my first record deal
there were a lot of mistakes made and we really didn't
see eye to eye at all. It seemed once the deal was
done from there on everything just went south.
There's different stories into what happened there,
personal tragedies and artistic mistakes made but
that's way behind me now.

5. Your new CD, "Vibe" is your 6th CD recorded with
Cordova Bay Records. How would you describe the
chemistry recording for Cordova?

I've produced or co-produced all these albums with my
engineer which is great because I have the freedom to
do what I want to do but I'm not unrealistic. I try
to make the records I want to make but keep in mind
I'm gonna get a couple of singles out there. The
first single from "Vibe" is a song called, " Love in
the City", which I co-wrote with Tom Wilson
(Blackie & The Rodeo Kings/Junkhouse). We
actually made it to number 34 in the rock radio charts
in Canada. For an indie artist, it's pretty darn good
especially for a blues artist. It's a small label but
between myself, the label and my manager its a real
hands on experience and there's not a whole lot of
middle men that I have to deal with. There's not a
lot of second guessing I mean they trust me, I trust
them and if we do have our little disagreements we get
on the phone and talk about it or in person to work it
out. Where as before, when I was with the major label
for one record it was ridiculous you know, you work
really hard to write songs and demos and send them.
Some of these people demand them at a certain time and
then you couldn't get your phone call returned for two
weeks to hear the response. So it was just
frustrating. Working with Cordova is a lot more
conducive to making good music.

6. What is the feel of "Vibe"?

Well the reason we called it "Vibe" was because we
went for a bunch of different vibes on the CD. The
first single is kind of like a Rolling Stones sound to
my ears that I got using the Tele with the Keith
Richard's tuning. When we went to record that we
listened to his albums like Exile on Main Street,
Sticky Fingers and listened to the guitar tones to try
and figure out what guitars and amps those guys were
probably using at the time. So I had a lot of fun and
now I have a lot of guitars. So its been interesting
using different combinations of guitars, amplifiers
and going for tones. On other songs it would be more
of a soul vibe. We started listening to stacks of old
records, Don Covay records and listening to some of
the great rhythm sounds and the use of vibrato like
Steve Cropper and others. It was nice and also the
first album I've ever made where all the songs are
original either written by me or co-written with other
people.

7. Has the Vibe European Tour been confirmed for
this summer?

We thought we were gonna go right away but we've been
getting so much interest here in Canada and the United
States that we're not sure, we might have to save
Europe for the fall. So there is that chance, you
never know. A few years ago I was heading over to
Europe quite a bit. In fact I had a band in Holland
that I'd use but I haven't been over in about three
years. There is so much interest here now that its
starting to fill up the calendar pretty quick. Its
nice getting the interest in America too, because
there's so many people there and so many places to
play.

See David Gogo this summer at the Ottawa Blues
Festival and check out his web site for info on where
else you can see this cool cat!

www.davidgogo.com

Contact Info:
Todd Littlefield
Diesel Management
todd@dieselentertainment.com

 

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