DAVID HAMBURGER - When I want to
sound like I come from a musical background, I tell people that my grandfather
was born in Harlem and learned to play stride piano by ear in the Roaring
Twenties, all of which is true, if slightly misleading (Harlem used to be a
Jewish neighborhood, my grandfather ran an ad agency, not a speakeasy, and he
picked up his "popular piano" chops as a freshman in college). My father played
piano as well, mostly Tin Pan Alley tunes, Mozart and Chopin, although one of my
earliest musical memories is of running around in circles while he played “Malaguena,”
until I threw up. (The other is of watching monster muppets on Sesame Street
sing “Lulu’s Back in Town.”) I started on the violin in the fourth grade,
discovered clawhammer banjo at a groovy New Hampshire summer camp at age 12, and
was subtley re-directed towards the guitar by my mom, who thought I’d stand a
better chance at parties that way. My first guitar teacher was Lucille
Magliozzi, a bluegrass freak and brother to the Car Talk guys, so while my
friends were decoding Van Halen’s “Eruption” I was learning fingerpicking and
fiddle tunes, rendering the whole guitar/party thing a bit of a wash.
At Wesleyan University I fell in with a bad lot and, to quote Dave Van Ronk, “I
wanted to play jazz in the worst way – and I succeeded.” I did, however, also
have my first noteworthy gig, backing up Allen Ginsburg at a packed poetry
reading my senior year. He was only going to sing a handful of tunes, but when I
asked if I should leave the stage in between, he told me, “no, just stay up here
and…meditate.” So I did. He was Ginsburg, after all, and gave me a big smooch on
the cheek afterwards (very furry, as you might expect).
On to New York City, where I spent the first couple of years gigging with Freedy
Johnston and playing on his first record, The Trouble Tree, before embarking on
a decade of playing guitar, pedal steel and dobro in the city’s 1990s alt.
country scene and serving as de facto house session musician for a couple of
indie folk/singer-songwriter labels. Around the same time I wrote an
instructional book, Beginning Blues Guitar, which led to me writing for Guitar
Player, cranking out a handful more books, becoming a contributing editor to
Acoustic Guitar and interviewing people like John Leventhal, Jerry Douglas and
Keb' Mo'.
After a brief stint as a Broadway pit musician and a season playing on the Food
Network's Emeril Live, I headed for Austin, Texas in 2000, where I helped start
a hardcore bluegrass band, the Grassy Knoll Boys, and went on tour playing
guitar for Joan Baez. In 2004 I did my first jingle for Tequila Mockingbird, a
Krispy Kreme radio spot. Since then I’ve done more spots for Tequila and worked
for Juniper Music and the Listening Chair in Dallas and Duotone Audio Group in
New York, writing music for Wendy’s, Comcast, Comerica Bank and Autozone,
scoring corporate videos for Frost Bank and Sweet Leaf Tea, playing on spots for
BMW, Shiner Beer, Scotts and Ponderosa, and writing several volumes of library
music for Firstcom.
I also played on a Springsteen remake of “The Ghost of Tom Joad” last year. Now
me and the Boss are like this, despite the fact that, through the magic of the
studio, we’ve never actually met.
Muriel Anderson's All Star Guitar Night benefits the
Music For Life Alliance
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