Excerpt from Davey Johnstone
and John Jorgenson's
Unplugged & Unpredictable Interview
Interview by
Acoustic Music Resource
AMR Newsletter #2
Thursday December 17, 1998
"John Jorgenson and Davey Johnstone
of the Elton John Band
What do the guitarists in Elton Johns band do between gigs when they are traveling the world playing to sold out stadiums of screaming fans? In the case of longtime bandleader and sometimes songwriter (I Guess That’s Why They Call It The Blues)Davey Johnstone, and more recent additional axe master extraordinaire (three time winner of CMA’s guitarist of the year with The Desert Rose Band, and accolades too many to mention with The Hellecasters) John Jorgenson, you borrow a minidisc recorder from Sony Electronics and write and record an all acoustic instrumental guitar duo CD called "Groovemasters Vol. 2...Crop Circles".
Acoustic Music Resource: When did the session work evolve?
John Jorgenson: In 1985 I started the Desert Rose Band with Chris Hillman. My desire was
to combine all the elements of music which I had been working in from rock to
Rockabilly and harmonic pop into a country rock band kind of thing. I started
a band called the Cheatin Hearts which was very similar to The Desert Rose
Band except we had a girl singer. I met Chris Hillman at a NAMM show while I
was jamming with David Grisman, and we also worked together backing Dan
Fogelberg on his "High Country Snows" tour. I heard the songs Chris was
working on and really had the idea to combine the sound of Bluegrass with that
of The Pretenders, and nobody was really doing country-rock in the country
field at that time. You had things like the new traditionalists led by Ricky
Skaggs and Dwight Yoakum starting to happen then. I was using a lot of
vintage British equipment like Vox amps, Danelectro and Rickenbacker guitars
which were very unusual in country music and fresh and caught the ears of
producers like Paul Worthy and Ed Seay so I started being called to play on
other records. That was really how the session work started , and I played
some live things with Don Was so he ended up using me on Bonnie Raitt's "Nick
Of Time" album. For sessions I would usually be called to play electric and
sometimes mandolin.
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