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<<FWIW, I jammed with Nokie Edwards this past weekend at Louiefest in
Tacoma, Washington, and we used his Hitchhiker guitars (He brought two
of them so I "borrowed" one of them). Now, I was quite surprised to
see
that he had 009-046 on there which felt quite comfortable. So Noke
evidently, doesn't think that light strings are inhibiting for
himself.
HOWEVER, I did notice that his model guitar had a pretty thick and
dark
tone which may be his way of compensating for lighter strings. He
likes
a mellow sound which suits his "easy-listening" music. When we jammed
on tyhe old Ventures stuff, I noticed that he could still get the old
Mosrite tone out of his axe with these strings. Even on my rhythm
parts, I got the old Ventures sound out of that guitar. And INokie
mentioned that the Ventures used to use much heavier strings. So it
must be the player, not the gear.>>
I think the Ventures or at least Nokie got into lighter strings
pretty early on. When you listen to them in Japan in '65 its obvious
they are using roundwound strings and Nokie certainly has a steel G.
I've often compared Nokie's sound around that time to James Burton's,
who was using banjo strings at the time. I wasn't alive back then
but I do know guys used to swap "b" strings for "g" strings. Both
Nokie and James had a pretty shrill sound.
I used to play a Telecaster with 9s on it because James Burton was
the reason I started playing, and now I use a Jag and Jazzmaster
strung with 13s and 12s. Having big hands I don't think I'll get
tendonitis. But I do notice when I dig out the Tele or play a Strat
in a guitar store it is almost impossible to double pick on those
strings as well as I can on the heavier ones.
