Chords for Danny Kirwan - History of his Guitar, Amps and Effects

_ _ [D] _ _ [E] _ _ _
[Abm] Hi guys, this is Ramon [G] from The Guitar Show.
We're going to be talking about [A] Danny Kerman today.
I'm just going to go through [Ab] here a bit about his history, his [G] playing style and [Ab] the guitars,
amps and effects that he used or didn't use.
Okay, so Danny Kerman was born in Brixton, South London.
Basically his early influences were the French Gypsy [Gb] Jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt, [Ab] Eric
Clapton who was playing with the Blues Breakers around that time that [A] Danny Kerman picked
up the guitar.
He was also influenced like a lot of other British guitar players by [Gb] Hank Marvin.
He was playing in a band called [Ab] The Boiler House and they were rehearsing in a South
London basement boiler room where they got their name from.
Mike Vernon who was Flute With Mac's [Gb] manager and producer discovered him there.
Actually Peter Green was thinking about managing the boiler room [N] band which Danny Kerman was
in but they lost their rhythm section and in the end Peter Green invited Danny Kerman
to join Flute With Mac.
Danny Kerman played his first gig with Flute With Mac on 14th August 1968 at the Nags Head
in Battersea, London.
Danny Kerman's first recordings with Flute With Mac were on Albatross, Peter Green's song.
It actually got to the top of the UK charts in December 1968.
In early 1969 whilst they were on tour in USA Flute With Mac actually went to Chess
Recording Studios in Chicago and they recorded a really cool album called Flute With Mac
in Chicago which you should definitely check out.
In the middle of 1969 [Ab] the band officially released Them Play On which was really the
only official album that Danny Kerman played [G] with Peter Green on.
[Bb] After Peter Green left Danny went on to record two more albums [Gb] with Flute With Mac, Kiln
House in 1970 and Bear Trees in 1972.
Whilst actually on their USA tour of Bear Trees in 1972 he had an argument [Ab] with Welch
over some tuning issues [C] and basically a few incidents happened and he walked out never
to return again.
So that was [G] the last time he ever played with Flute With Mac.
Ok so let's talk about some of Danny's guitars.
One of his first guitars that he ever owned was actually Watkins _ [F] Rapier 33 which was a
1960s [Ab] British made Fender Stratocaster style guitar.
It actually had a chambered body and it was a red guitar.
He actually started using it in the boiler house and then carried it on to Flute With
Mac when he joined in 1968.
When Flute With Mac released Albatross which was the first _ recording that Danny Kerman
played on the flip side, the B side was a really cool tune which you want to check out
called Jigsaw Puzzle Blues.
And that's kind of testament to Danny's sort of influence from Eddie Lang, Django
Reinhardt and that sort of early jazz guitar.
It's really really cool playing and that [Ab] was supposedly done on this Watkins Rapier guitar.
So it could be that he actually used that on Albatross because Flute With Mac actually
had a Stratocaster in their armory but it's said that Peter Green actually used the Strat on it.
So who knows whether Danny Kerman [G] used a Les Paul for that track or a Watkins [Dbm] guitar.
The actual guitar that Danny's [C] most known for is a 1956 [Ab] Gibson Les Paul standard cold top.
Actually a P90s.
Basically this guitar, a lot of people think [A] it's a 1968 model but there's a few [Bb] photos,
I'm going to try and put one up [Ab] now, where you can see clearly that it doesn't have the
crown emblem on the headstock, it just has the normal Gibson Les Paul [G] decals on there.
[Gb] It had a really really cool tone and it really worked well with Danny's sort of really tough
vibrato that he got.
It really did sort of, it was a great combination with Peter Green's burst and his humbuckers.
Also Kerwin actually used a [G] 1959 Les Paul standard.
You can see that actually on the video when they're playing Albatross together.
[F] So they were both playing [G] Les Paul standards, both 1959 Les Pauls and no one really knows
what happened to that guitar.
Some say that it was sold to another guitar player in England but no one's really sure about it.
After then he went on to [Ab] play a Gibson Les Paul custom which was a 1957 or a 58.
Again not sure but if you want to leave a comment tell me if it was 57 or 58 that would be cool.
This was actually the guitar that Danny used right up until he left in 1972 and apparently
he smashed it in a bit of a temper actually on his last gig with Flute With Mac.
So I'm not sure if it was actually broken completely [Bb] beyond repair because [A] there's a
few people say that it's actually, wasn't actually damaged that much.
[Ab] So again leave some comments if you know better than me.
It's actually interesting in the Station Man video that Danny Kerwin is playing a Jeremy
Spence's Red Flying V guitar.
So they used to sort of swap guitars around quite a lot in Flute With Mac.
Often they also had a Fender Telecaster which they'd both play and also there was a Fender
Stratocaster with a maple neck.
Now Danny actually had when he left Flute With Mac and onwards after then he had a 50s
maple neck Stratocaster and he actually, there's apparently a story where he sold it to some
shop in England and some [Db] of the family members managed to buy it back.
So whether or not that was the actual Stratocaster that was used on Albatross we don't know but
that's an interesting fact for you all.
Let's talk about amplifiers.
Basically Flute With Mac had a deal, an endorsement deal with Orange Amplifiers so they got free
amps from Orange.
They were 100 watt amps with 4x12 cabinets.
So in 1968 when Danny Kerwin joined that's what he was using.
Those early [Ab] recordings for example Albatross were done on Orange amplifiers. _
Later Orange decided to ask Flute With Mac to pay for the amplifiers and they wouldn't
give him any more free ones.
So with that in mind Danny went out and bought a Fender Twin Reverb [G] and then Peter Green
followed Danny and also bought a Fender Twin Reverb.
So basically after that they tended to use Fender amps.
A lot of the times they'd hire in gear so they'd be using Dual Showmans [Abm] and especially
in America [Ab] using quite powerful amps.
I think in the Boston Tea Party there were Dual Showman amps with maybe even 2x12 15
inch JBL speakers.
So quite powerful.
Basically there were no effects apart from reverb.
They would just plug in straight into the amp with a Les Paul and that would give them the sound.
If they wanted to get distortion they just opened up the volume on the guitar full.
If they wanted to get a clean sound they just backed off the volume.
That's basically how they did it.
Actually if you listen to the Boston Tea Party live recording you can hear Peter Green actually
switch on the reverb.
So he obviously had a reverb on the on and off pedal from the [Bb] Fender amp.
So Danny wasn't really known for using guitar effects.
His effects was more his vibrato and the overdrive.
Driving the amp hard.
And that's really how he got his sound.
Thanks for checking out this video.
Actually please guys if you want to leave some messages and tell me if you know anything
else about Danny Kirwan and wanted to add to the information I've given you here that
would be really really great.
Don't forget to subscribe because we're going to be doing a few more videos, a few more different artists.
So we're going to be doing one on Peter Green next so check that one out.
Okay take care guys.
See you soon.
_ _ _ [N] _ _ _