ONE MAN'S TRASH IS ANOTHER MAN'S DEPRESSION-ERA RESONATOR GUITAR

COUNTRY BLUES MASTER PAUL RISHELL'S 'TALKING GUITAR' RELIES ON VINTAGE RESONATORS, ACOUSTICS

For his new country blues album 'Talking Guitar,' Paul Rishell relied on a 1928 National Triolian resonator, a 1931 National Style O resonator, a circa 1956 Martin 00018, as well as several newer acoustics and resonators. He first acquired the Style O in the mid-1970s.

Rishell recalls, "I had it when I started playing solo gigs in '75. The guy who sold it to me told me that he found it somewhere down South in a garbage can upside down. He said the neck had rotted away, and he had replaced it and refinished the body. The body is in almost perfect shape."

Rishell added a Piezo pickup to his 1928 National. "If you boost the bass, it sounds great going through my Trace Acoustic Amp. I just got an old Peavey Reno 400 and the National sounds really big through that."

Paul Rishell – the W.C. Handy Award-winning blues master singer and guitarist who played with and learned from Son House, Johnny Shines, Sonny Terry, Brownie McGhee, Howlin’ Wolf, John Lee Hooker, and Buddy Guy, and Junior Wells – has come full circle in creating his new album 'Talking Guitar' (May 8 / Mojo Rodeo Records) returning to the music which inspired him to play the blues in the first place when he began honing his craft over 45 years ago. It is his first solo album since 1993 and his first all-acoustic outing.

Rishell has reached what Boston Phoenix writer Ted Drozdowski called "a place deep as resonant as Robert Johnson’s crossroads, where authenticity, soul, and a sense of purpose and commitment ring out in every note he sings and plays." Billboard Magazine says, "Rishell is a master of country/blues styles, particularly slide played on a National steel guitar."