{"id":145419,"date":"2024-08-07T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-08-07T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/?p=145419"},"modified":"2024-08-06T16:37:38","modified_gmt":"2024-08-06T23:37:38","slug":"james-elkington-and-nathan-salsburg-blend-seamlessly-on-all-gist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/james-elkington-and-nathan-salsburg-blend-seamlessly-on-all-gist\/","title":{"rendered":"Eclectic Fingerstylists James Elkington and Nathan Salsburg Blend Seamlessly on \u2018All Gist\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

What originally brought James Elkington and Nathan Salsburg together was the fact that Elkington\u2019s wife has been one of Salsburg\u2019s best friends for decades. But once the two guitarists met, in the mid-2000s, they soon realized that what they had in common went beyond that interpersonal connection, particularly when it came to music. They bonded over their shared love of indie rock, minimalist composers, American folk, and, perhaps most significantly, the British fingerstyle tradition<\/a> embodied by players like Davey Graham, Bert Jansch, Martin Carthy, and John Renbourn.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

About three years into their friendship, Elkington and Salsburg started discussing the possibility of playing together as an acoustic duo. This was easier to envision than to achieve, however, as Salsburg\u2019s family is in Louisville, Kentucky, and Elkington\u2019s is in Chicago (though he was born and raised in England). Also, they have busy careers of their own. Salsburg is a prolific solo artist\u2014he\u2019s collaborated with Joan Shelley (now his wife) and Will Oldham, among many others\u2014and for nearly 25 years he\u2019s been the curator of legendary folklorist\/song collector\/
producer Alan Lomax\u2019s archive. Elkington has worked with Jeff Tweedy, Richard Thompson, and Steve Gunn, in addition to putting out three albums under his own name. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Hear Elkington and Salsburg on The Acoustic Guitar Podcast Here.<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Still, where there\u2019s a will, there\u2019s a way, and Elkington and Salsburg did eventually come together to make their ear-grabbing first disc as a twosome, Avos<\/em>, in 2011. It was followed four years later by the even more impressive Ambsace<\/a><\/em>. Now, nearly a decade on, they\u2019ve returned to duty with their finest work yet, All Gist<\/a><\/em> (Paradise of Bachelors). Like its predecessors, it showcases the guitarists\u2019 beautifully simpatico interplay and sophisticated compositional styles, as well as their eclectic tastes. The album closes with a drastic rearrangement of Neneh Cherry\u2019s 1988 dance-club classic \u201cBuffalo Stance,\u201d which takes its place in the Elkington\/Salsburg catalog alongside previous\u2014and similarly creative\u2014interpretations of Duke Ellington and the Smiths. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On a long, jovial Zoom call, Elkington and Salsburg spoke to Acoustic Guitar<\/em> from their respective homes about the nuts and bolts of their work as a duo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

You started off as friends. What tipped the balance to turn you into musical collaborators as well?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

James Elkington: <\/strong>We had like three years of sitting in pubs talking about doing it before we did it. Motivation has been sorely lacking in this organization from the get-go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nathan Salsburg:<\/strong> [Laughs<\/em>] The original motivation for making that first record is totally obscure to me beyond the most general sense of \u201cOh, it\u2019d be fun to play together.\u201d I know that there were steps taken. I had to come to Chicago. I had to learn pieces and work out parts. But it\u2019s all lost in the mists of time at this point. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, it must have been a pleasant enough experience the first time, since you chose to do it again.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Salsburg: <\/strong>Yes. You know, you hear about people who absolutely loathe each other but still play music together, and they\u2019re obviously biting their tongues and trying to hold it together to make money. It\u2019s all due to Mammon\u2019s influence. But Jim and I play music primarily because we just like being around each other. So the records have been good excuses for us to spend time together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then why did nine years pass between Ambsace<\/em> and All Gist<\/em>? I\u2019m guessing the pandemic had something to do with it.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Elkington: <\/strong>We have excellent excuses for not making more music. The pandemic was a good one, but I wouldn\u2019t even put it near the top of the list. We\u2019ve both been really productive since the last record, just not in the direction of the duo. And this has been noted by our wives, who kept suggesting that we get back together. The thing is, now that we have kids and less time to see each other, we have a choice to make: whether to try and make some music or just enjoy each other\u2019s company and take our kids to the park\u2014and [the latter] was winning out for the longest time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But what was encouraging was that when we did<\/em> start playing again, the way that we work immediately came back. I didn\u2019t know that we\u2019d established such a quick, reciprocal way of working: an \u201cOh, if you\u2019re gonna do this, then I\u2019m gonna do this<\/em>\u201d kind of thing. Some people don\u2019t like being in those patterns, and it can make a lot of bands stale. But we do it so rarely that it was inspiring. Things moved fast. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do you work on arrangements together or separately?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Salsburg: <\/strong>What\u2019s always been a crucial element is the initial individual solo processing that happens before we get together. Because I live in Louisville and he\u2019s in Chicago, he would send me demos and I would send him demos, and we would try to at least figure out capo positions and, in my case, what tuning to use. As I\u2019ve gotten older and wiser, three records in, I\u2019ve learned to not diversify the tunings as much as I might be inclined to. Keep it super simple, so if we play these songs live, it\u2019s not like, \u201cHold on, gotta tune again\u201d after every song. Double dropped D and DADEAD are the only two tunings I used on this record.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Elkington<\/strong>: <\/strong>I\u2019ve done some writing in DADGAD, but I can barely get my head around standard tuning [laughs<\/em>]. Because we record here in my attic, there\u2019s a time issue, so we tend to [separately] get in the ballpark [with parts for new compositions]. That way, when we get together, we can just start playing. Then we start picking it apart and saying what we like and don\u2019t like. And, \u201cOh, I didn\u2019t realize you were doing that.\u201d That\u2019s a big one: \u201cHow long have you been playing it like that<\/em>?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then, almost the second that we have an arrangement we can live with, we start trying to record it. And the second we have a take that doesn\u2019t have any massively glaring errors in it, it\u2019s done. For the first time, we\u2019re in a position to sit back and listen to it objectively\u2014or somewhat objectively\u2014without having to be playing it at the same time. That\u2019s when things become more apparent and we\u2019re like, \u201cOh, we should have done this differently.\u201d Then we\u2019ll either rerecord it or edit it into the shape that now presents itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Inevitably with us, because we\u2019re both into repetitive drone-y music, there will be a point in some of the songs where we\u2019re just like, \u201cI could listen to this all day. I wouldn\u2019t mind if this was the whole album, just these four chords.\u201d And then, because we know how much of that we can put up with, we try to scale it back for regular listeners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Salsburg: <\/strong>Jim is exactly right. I\u2019ve always liked minimal music, drone music, repetitive music. I didn\u2019t always feel comfortable playing or composing it. I was and I remain not excited by what is called American primitive guitar, even though we get lumped in with that. I really don\u2019t like the use of a solo six-string guitar as a drone instrument per se. And I know that \u201cdrone\u201d isn\u2019t necessarily the most apt descriptor for American primitive, but the endlessly alternating thumb thing just makes me want to tear my hair out, and I don\u2019t think it works. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So I tried to position myself compositionally somewhere outside that world when I first started releasing music. But over the years, I\u2019ve found myself being more inclined toward it, and I felt more comfortable bringing that sort of repetitive guitar playing to the duo work. I love what Jim does on my repetitive parts, because he starts with a harmony, and it tends to elaborate as it goes on over the course of a minute. The parts change. Sometimes the tempo changes. The accents change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Elkington: <\/strong>When we started out [as a duo], I was very nervous about it. It seemed like a very exposed way of working, and I was pushing Nathan to make the songs shorter and have more changes and get out as quick as possible. He\u2019d be like, \u201cI think we can hang out in this zone for a while,\u201d and I\u2019d be like, \u201cNo, we can\u2019t.\u201d [Laughs<\/em>]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The potential for embarrassment was too great.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Elkington: <\/strong>Yeah, exactly. I wanted to be in and out in two minutes. But now we\u2019ve gotten to a point where we can just trust the process and not worry about it. We do have the luxury of time, and we don\u2019t have to put out anything we don\u2019t like. We can sit and think about it for a while.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n