By George Bond
If you asked most US music fans across all genres to name their “most beloved” artists, there is no doubt that Al Yankovic would come at the top of that list. Backing Weird Al for the entirety of his career is guitarist Jim “Kimo” West.
What many Weird Al fans might not know is that West is an award winning producer and artist in his own right, taking the “Best New Age” album category at the 2020 Grammy Awards. West is back with a new Hawaiian slack-key album, entitled “Of Wood and Spirit,” and it shimmers clean and clear as the Hawaiian falls of his home in Maui.
In this extended interview wih Buddy Magazine, West talks about the new album, guitar gear, tunings, and all things guitar.
Jim West, Grammy award-winning mainstay of contemporary acoustic guitar in the United States, long time musician for the king of music parody Al Yankovic, composer, producer. It’s an honor to speak with you for the 50th anniversary of Buddy Magazine. How’s life these days? What is currently going on?
Well, let’s see-it’s Grammy season so I have a new project that I’ve entered into the Grammys, so we’re starting to kind of do all that Grammy stuff which is sort of a little bit of self-promotion and going to a lot of parties and things like that (laughs). I think voting starts in the Fall but the new project is called Of Wood and Spirit. I released it in July and it’s a sort of an interesting dreamy Americana type record, really. It’s a little out of the box for what I normally do but it’s all instrumental and it’s a different kind of project that I’m used to doing, but it’s I’m getting a lot of really great feedback from it so I’m promoting that and working on a few other projects. I do have a few little few shows as well here in Southern California. Staying busy, and then I’ll be going to Europe starting the first of October for the International Guitar Night tour-it’s going to be super fun.
What made you want to play guitar and what were your experiences with keyboards and other instruments as well?
Well my older brother played a little guitar kind of like folk music. He’s about ten years older than me and I remember him playing just folk songs and this and that, and I think around the time I was twelve I just got interested in guitar, so he let me use his guitar and he got some new strings and he got a chord book and a capo and and I tell you, once I had that, I never looked back! I mean I’d come home from school and the first thing I would do is just try and learn songs, and and this was before YouTube so it was a little harder. You have to learn by ear and and every so often I’d see somebody on TV like Glenn Campbell or something and try and see what they’re doing, but that’s kind of how I started, and I think by the time I was sixteen I was already playing electric guitar. I think I played my first first professional show when I was sixteen.
So I got into playing Rock and Roll, of course but I always played acoustic as well, so I never kind of gave up one for the other. I’ve always played acoustic, and I think the finger picking that I learned came to serve me well in my Hawaiian slack key career, because I’ve got about a dozen albums and a lot of them are in this sort of kind of a contemporary Hawaiian slack key, which is all finger style guitar.
Who are your main influences back then or now?
Well, I think some of the first records I heard were some of my brother’s folk music records, of course, and that’s when I first started playing. There were players like Bob Dylan and Gordon Lightfoot and when I started getting into music, I started getting into all kinds of stuff, but I remember I used to always like Paul Simon’s playing.
He was a master songwriter but he was also a pretty good guitar player, too. I just always like to listen to those kinds of kinds of fingerpicking, and then of course once I got an electric guitar I started listening to everything-a lot of British stuff from the day, old Fleetwood Mac and Cream, early Led Zeppelin and of course Jimi Hendrix, but I just kind of soaked it all up, you know (Laughs).
Did you study music formally in any capacity?
No. You know it’s funny, I always like to say I have a perfect record-I have no classes or no lessons! (Laughs). When I was in college I was a visual arts major but all the guys I played with were all in the music department so I spent a lot of time in the music department and just playing with people who were formally studying music. I think a lot rubs off, and you learn a lot just from who you’re playing with and I also really like to devour music books. I’m self-taught but I did teach myself to read when I was young. I got a job teaching guitar when I was about twenty years old and I taught myself to read.
I studied orchestration books and Jazz. Basically just learning from books and from playing with other people, so I’m completely self-taught, but I do have a real extensive musical knowledge, and I’ve worked as a composer for many years; not so much lately, but I’ve worked for as a composer for a long time. I did things that were a lot of orchestral music as wel,l but I am totally self-taught.
So did you study anything like Renaissance or Classical or Baroque?
Not really. I mean what I did was when I first decided I wanted to learn to read I did get a book of Bach for guitar and I thought this would be good to learn because rhythmically it’s not too challenging-it has a lot of regular rhythmic structure. It’s not too crazy rhythmically so I thought, well, that’ll be a good way to start and so I started off with some simple Bach, but I you know I never really studied classical. I mean I love classical guitar, it’s just a whole world unto itself and I think to excel at that you’ve kind of pretty much do nothing but that (Laughs). I wanted to play Rock and Roll but I did want to learn some basics and learn how to read, so I did learn some Bach guitar when I was very young just to kind of teach myself to read.
So checking out the album: I’ve checked out pretty much all the videos on your YouTube channel going back all these years.
Oh, wow! (laughs)
I don’t know if the term Hawaiian Bluegrass is a term or not, maybe I came up with the term “Blue Ocean Grass” or “Slow Blue Grass”. What would you call your style eactly?
Well, yeah, I used to call it Contemporary Slack Key because I went to Hawaii first in the mid-80s, and I went to a little town called Hana Maui which is one of the most Hawaiian places in Hawaii and that’s where I first heard records of slack key guitar like Gabby Pahanui and Sunny Chillingworth and Ray Connie.
I had played in open tunings before so I understood the technical concept but I really fell in love with the the sound of slack key-to me, it sounded just like the place. Hawaiian music sounds like the place, and over the years I never really said, oh I’m going to sit down and learn the style-it just kind of crept in over the years and I started writing my own slack key tunes, so I have a lot of other musical influences like we all do. So when I started writing these slack key tunes of course they had some other other influences-some of them were more traditional than others but a lot of my stuff is more of a contemporary slack key but I like the idea of “Ocean Grass”-that’s kind of interesting.(laughs)
Songwriting techniques: Do you put lay down chords first or and put the melody to it or you lay down melodies first and let the that dictate where the chords go?
Well, a lot of my stuff is basically chords and melody all at the same time because I’m playing the thing where you’ve got the bass going and the chords. My typical songwriting just comes from playing and improvising, and often times a lot of my inspiration comes from trying different tunings. I probably used a couple dozen different guitar tunings over the years and sometimes when I’m working with a new tuning I find it very inspiring so as I’m playing with a new tuning, things start happening creatively and I’ll come up with ideas, and sometimes I’ll just come up with something on the spot and flush it out and and record it just on my phone or whatever. Other times it’ll might just be a little snippet, so I’ll record a 15 second thing as an idea. So what I do is I save all those ideas and then I put them on my laptop and I categorize them.
I say, well, this kind of thing and this goes in this kind of category and when I’m working on records, oftentimes usually the bulk of an album will be new compositions that I’ve written and then sometimes if I need a few more songs I’ll go back to my catalog of ideas and I’ll find things that will fit in that particular album and then I’ll come back and develop them, so it works a lot of different ways, but sometimes if I’m working on a piece that’s going to be a little more orchestrated or are going to have more elements in it as I’m playing or developing melodies, I will as I’m playing sing melodies and I’ll come up with melodies and then I’ll record that so I have the basic idea of the melodies, and then once I get ready to record, I start layering things and deciding what instrument the melody will be, whether it’s a violin or cello or whatever, but it’s like I say, a lot of my inspiration comes from all these open tunings, and some of the sort of magical resonance of these tunings is every tuning sounds different.
Every tuning, of course is different. All the chords are different for every tuning. It’s like it’s like another language and they all have their own kind of way of resonating and to me. I find that really inspiring.
The album “Of Wood and Spirit”. Where where was it recorded?
I record everything in my own studio which is where I’m sitting right now. I record it and mix everything myself and I have for all of my albums since my first album and I think my first album came out in 1999. I record everything here and I do have other musicians come over and play on it. It started a lot during Covid. Other players will sometimes record their parts at their place and send them over you. We’re doing a lot of that these days, so on this record there were tracks that were recorded in other places and sent over and then some stuff was recorded here. That’s the great thing about doing it remotely.
On my previous record, “Guitar Stories”, the one that won the Grammy, I had people like my friend Jake Erdogan in Istanbul record a part and send it over from Turkey.
How long would it take you to knock out the mix and mastering and all that?
Well, mixing doesn’t take too long. This record though, I really started it about three years ago and I had the concept for it. I had this sort of sound in my head, this kind of spacey, dreamy americana-ish type of record and I had this the sound in my head and I had some things started but then last year I was on a tour with Weird Al that was six months long and I had also had done two months on the International Guitar Night tour in the winter, and then this year I was on tour for another couple of months, so all that touring kind of put a dent in my in my record production schedule, because I wanted to finish the record, but after the tour this spring it was like okay, I’ve got some time, I need to get this thing finished.
So I recorded a few more songs and as I said about mixing everything, oftentimes as I’m working on a track I’m adding stuff. I’m kind of mixing it as I’m going along, too
I might have somebody send over a violin part and I’ll do some tweak on it and get the EQ right and find the right kind of Reverb. As I’m layering things, I’m sort of mixing at the same time.
What are your main guitars that you were using?
Well, for a lot of my acoustic records I’ve been using some Taylor Guitars for quite a long time. The one I’m using now is a 514CE. It’s a mahogany and cedar top mahogany guitar. They’re very nice and warm sounding and easy to play. They are this kind of production model guitar, but I have them kind of tweaked out a bit. My main Taylor guitar has the factory pickup. I always use microphones when I’m recording-I rarely ever use the pickup, but for live, of course, you know you have to use the pickup, so I have a the factory pickup that’s in there and then I also have a sound hole pickup so I run two pickups on it. I’ve also got a couple of Keith tuners, those banjo tuners on a couple of keys that allow you to lock two pitches and go between two pitches on the string, and you can also use it almost like a pedal steel effect. So they’re kind of production guitars, and the one good thing about it is if something happened when I was touring I could get another one it would be pretty close to the same thing (Laughs).
I guess the names that jumped out at me as soon as I saw who played on the record: The great bassist Michael Manring and violinist Charlie Bisherat. Maybe you would agree that Michael kind of picked up as the king of the fretless bass after Jaco.
Yeah, Michael’s an amazing guy and he’s the only bass player I’ve ever seen that could do an entire instrumental concert with just bass. He’ll blow you away. He will do a whole show on just bass, and he great control of effects and he’s got all these pitch levers on his bass. He’s just an amazing musician. We had done a show together a number of years ago and I thought, oh I’ve got a got to get him on a record.
Yeah I guess I remember him with Pat Metheny back in the day, and also Charlie Bisharat. Maybe he picked up where Jean-Luc Ponty left off.
Yeah, Charlie’s amazing. My record that won the Grammy called “More Guitar Stories”-that record has the opening song called “Windward”, and it has a great solo by Charlie, and on that one Jimmy Johnson is playing an amazing fretless solo. So there’s some great playing on that track.
I know Jimmy Johnson has been a staple of the LA music scene since the eighties.
Yeah, he played with Allan Holdsworth for a long time and James Taylor of course is regular gig, but he’s a sweet guy and he’s such a great player and so between him and Michael; Manring also played with Michael Hedges. So I would really like to work more with Michael. Jimmy has been on a number of my records and he’s amazing. I think I also had some upright bass on this record and that was a guy by the name of Dan Lutz who lives here in LA. He’s a great all-around upright and electric bass player. Great reader, too, if you have anything written. When I’m having people over to play, it could be a cello part, and the entire thing is I write the whole thing out because it’s a melody and I know what I want and then sometimes it’s a combination of written out parts and then section four is just improv and I just let people go and do what they want to do.
I was going down the song list here, Were there any standard tunings used?
No, there were no standard tunings (laughs).
Now, were there any minor drop tunings because I was thinking the song “Griot in Memphis”. Was that in G Minor?
Yeah, “Griot in Memphis” was played on a banjo and it’s a six string banjo, a Deering six string banjo and I had it tuned to a G minor. A very common tuning in Hawaiian slack key is is what they call Tarot patch, which is just a regular G major tuning, the standard one that even Keith Richards uses, but this was just the same except dropping the major third to a minor third and that’s definitely a minor tuning for sure.
There’s another song here called “A Circle of friends” using a C major tuning. Was there a D minor tuning for the song “Wind in the Canyon”?
Wind in the Canyon was like a D minor seven tuning.
I had not heard of these!
I think it was like D A E F C-I think it had a C in there. It was basically a D Minor seventh type of tuning and I really like that tuning a lot, it’s really interesting.
I just had to just listen to these and just do my best guess.
Yeah, what I do is on the CD is I actually show all the tunings. I list them (shows inside CD jacket of all tunings used) and I list what the main tunings were for that song.
The last song, “The Love That Forgives”. That song kind of hit me like the chord progression had some some sort of of a finality to it. It was very direct-almost like it was a hymn or something. It conveyed to me that this is the last song and gave me a sense of finality about the album.
Yeah, well, it is like a hymn and it was the only song where I played an electric for the main part that’s played on an electric. It’s a Fender Squier Baritone with P90 pickups. It’s a fantastic sounding guitar, and not expensive at all-probably three or four hundred dollars or something. I just played it through a old Fender 59 Deluxe.
So the song has a very hymn-like sound, as you said. I was reading this book “Songs of America” by John Meacham and it speaks basically a history of music in America of songs, all from the beginning, and there was a story that really touched me. It was about Alabama when the KKK bombed a school and some kids were killed. It was a great big civil rights moment, and afterwards there was a Sunday School sermon. The leader of the sermon called the sermon “The Love That Forgives”, and it was basically about forgiveness in the wake of this horrible tragedy and it really touched me. It was just such a beautiful thing and that’s why I ended up naming the song as it is.
Wonderful. Where do you think you’ll be going artistically? This CD is incredible. I love listening to it. Where do you go artistically after this?
Well, Right now I’m working on my second record with my friend Joss Jaffe. He’s a multi-instrumentalist who did a record-it wasn’t put out on CD but it was called “Alm Akua” and it’s kind of a new agey, world music record. He plays tablas. He’s a trained tabla player he also plays an african ngoni which is like a cora. It’s like a harp you play with two hands. He also plays flute and all kinds of percussion. We did a record a couple years ago and it did really well in streaming and on Sirius XM and it’s real chilled out record. Sometimes some of it is based on improvisation where we just lay down these grooves and I’ll play some kind of African style guitar and he’ll play some Cora and we have some drums going.
The record was pretty successful overall and we decided we need to do another one, so we’ve got about eight or nine tracks started, and he’ll be coming down next week and we’ll do some more recording, so I’m doing that and then I’ve got some other projects. I’d like to do a kind of a West African record. I’ve toyed around on some of my Guitar Stories records with this sort of West African-style guitar-we’re sort of imitating a cora, so there’s a lot of harp-like arpeggios and that kind of stuff. On my first Guitar Stories record there’s a song called “Morning Music” and then on More Guitars Stories there’s another song that is African sounding and I’ve always wanted to just do a whole record of that kind of music. That’s another project I want to do before too long (laughs).
Are you playing out much these days in Hawaii or LA with anyone whom you are associated?
Yeah, I was in Hawaii just recently. I’ve been to Hawaii four times this year. I was over at the Slack Key Show in Napili, which is in West Maui. It’s shut down now because of the tragedy, but its an ongoing series hosted by George Kahumoku, who’s a very legendary Grammy winner and musician in Hawaii. Every week they feature a different slack key artist and I’ve played that for about 10 years, so I was there playing in January and then in June I was there for the annual Workshop, so I was teaching slack key for a week; and of course lots of playing, and then I was back over in Hawaii a couple of times playing shows with my friend Leo Connie, who is a falsetto singer with a beautiful sounding falsetto style that he does, and I’m doing some gigs coming up this Labor Day weekend. We’ll have a show tomorrow and Monday with him and then Wednesday in Santa Barbara, and then I have my own show on September 17th in Ojai California, but all gigs out here on the West Coast, and then that’s pretty much it until I go to Europe for the International Guitar Night tour.
Moving on to working with Al Yankovic. Did you understand early on about what Al wanted to do? I mean, did he make that clear or was that part of the growth process?
Well, when I first met Al, I really didn’t know who he was, but he was looking for a guitarist and I auditioned for him and I had to learn some of his tunes. Digging into these tunes, I was really impressed with how well-crafted they were. His lyrics are very well created he doesn’t just let anything go. He really works on it and I was impressed from the beginning. I understood what it was all about, but as you know, over the years he’s thrown a lot of surprises out there and done things I’d never expect and of course, he just came out with a movie called “Weird”, which is a fantastic movie. It’s just a biopic but nothing is true (Laughs). There’s even an actor named Jack Lancaster playing me in the movie if you can believe that. That’s kind of a interesting accomplishment to have: Somebody play you in a movie (Laughs).
I guess we are all of the understanding that you can do a parody song as long as it’s an obviously a parody song. In all of the years that you recorded with Al did you ever have to alter any guitar parts for copyright reasons?
No. Al always gets permission even though he technically doesn’t have to get permission. He will only do a parody if the artist and the writer agree to do it, because he doesn’t want to create any problems. I mean if he does a parody we are basically trying to fake people out so they think it’s the original recording and sometimes, on some of these tracks, maybe not so much these days but sometimes there would be like six guitar parts and it’s like, “Hey wait a minute-the bass player only has to do one part and I have to do six!” It’s kind of like being a sonic detective. You sometimes have to play with the pan and the EQ and try and get parts to pop out, but I’ve never had to actually change anything because you know he really does get permission up front and basically just do it just like the record if we can.
Okay! So you played on the “Ebay” recording then right?
Oh yeah.
I mean I’ve done that one in clubs and that’s exactly like the record! And “Party in the CIA”? I’ve played that riff too. It’s amazing that you never really had to change anything.
Over the last seven or eight years I’ve done a lot of keyboard parts, too, because I work as a composer here. I have a lot sounds and I have that ability, so on a lot of tracks it’s me doing a lot of the keyboard parts as well.
I know his fans are hardcore! what’s the craziest thing you’ve ever seen at an Al concert?
Oh man! Fortunately Al’s fans are pretty well behaved! I mean, one of the weirdest things though is to look out there and maybe see like five or six people dressed just like him with a wig and the whole look, and it’s just like you’re looking out at a whole crowd of Als (laughs).
How many dates are you doing with Al these days?
Well, it depends. Last year we did 140 shows, if you can believe it. And in the winter before that tour I did 40 shows on the International Guitar Night, so I did 180 shows last year. Probably more because I do some other ones on my own, so probably more like 200 shows last year (laughs).
Do you keep in touch with Toronto these days?
Well, I was born there. As a kid I don’t remember much because my family moved to Ottawa when I was about two or something, so I do remember Ottawa but my whole family moved to Florida when I was about nine years old, so I kind of grew up in Florida. That’s where I first started playing guitar and playing rock and roll, and in the early in the 80s I came out to LA because you had to either go to LA or New York and I said, well LA is warmer, I think I’ll come to L.A.(laughs) It was a good move but yeah, I’m in Toronto fairly often because touring with Al, we always play Toronto, so I’ve been there many times over the years and I was actually at the airport just a few weeks ago.
With the Grammys I’ve often understood that if you win a Grammy you can celebrate for a day or so but then after that you got to get back to work right?
Well, yeah. I have won one Grammy but I did get two nominations. I did win once but of course you know it’s not like a Grammy will just all of a sudden set you free and you know there’s no money that comes with a Grammy. You know, I’m kind of a do-it-yourself guy so I kind of do a lot of things myself. I have a graphics person who does my graphics and I do hire out some publicity. The awards are nice and it does open doors. I mean if you’re trying to book a certain venue, you’ll have a much better chance of getting in the door or if you’re trying to reach out to another musician to collaborate with, that really helps as well. So the the awards really do open doors but you know financially it’s not it’s not like you can just sit back and coast-you have to keep doing what you’re doing for sure.
About the nails on your right hand: Are they acrylic or have your nails always been natural?
No, these are these are acrylics. I’ve been using them for about 15 years. I just go to the nail salon and I usually try and keep them a certain length and then I try and file them down with some real fine grade stuff to where they almost work like glass, because if they’re not smooth then you’ll get a scratchy sound, and sometimes I hear recordings like “Oh man I should have filed my nails a little more, I guess it’s a little too scratchy”. If you break a nail you can play but every string you hit with that finger is going to sound different than the others.
What endorsements are you currently running these days?
I have had an endorsement with Taylor guitars for many, many years, as well as Elixir strings. I use Elixirs and a few other companies. Some software companies, and then for electric stuff I use Tom Anderson custom electrics. I’ve got three of his guitars, and for the Weird Al show all I use is all digital, so I have a relationship with the Fractal Audio Fractal Axe Effects. I use all their gear on the Weird Al shows and have for about six or seven years. It’s made everything so easy because I have one small rack with two Axe Effects units because on tour you always have to have two of everything, right? You can’t have the show go down if your rig breaks, so I have a couple of Axe FX IIIs and people go, “You know you can get some amazing tones but you have to spend the time with it and tweak it. The sounds right out of the box are going to be hit or miss but you really need do to spend time and tweak it the way the way you want it. People ask, “What’s your signal chain?” I say my signal chain is I plug into the Axe Effects and then it goes directly out to the PA. Yeah there’s no signal chain. I’ve been in endorsements and things of that nature and now I think I’ve got everything.
I was trying to think of when I last played in Dallas-it was back in like 2017 at Poor David’s Pub.
That’s a fun room and where you played is not the original room, either-it was a shack back in the 80s, but yeah I have played at Poor David’s-it’s a fun place.
That’s what I remember. I’ve played with Weird Al many times in in Dallas at various places, but the last tour we did last year was just sort of the stripped down show so we don’t have all the big video and everything and we’re playing all his deep cuts you as opposed to all the famous stuff he’s famous for playing, all the non-famous stuff which his fans love. I can’t remember where we played but we were playing a lot of kind of concert halls, like symphony concert halls. We played Carnegie Hall in New York, Lincoln Center and all kinds of iconic places but the stripped down show is more like two to three thousand seat places, and then the big tour was 2019, and it was places like Red Rocks and other big venues. We had a full orchestra every night.
I caught the video I on your website with (Vietnamese classical guitar artist) Thu Le. I was familiar with Liona Boyd while I was studying classical guitar. She’s Canadian if I understand. I would say Thu Le is the face of female classical guitar players these days.
She is amazing, yeah! I worked with her last year on the International Guitar Night tour and we had a great time. For our duet we did her arrangement of a Vietnamese folk song. We did a little recording of it and I added some Hawaiian slack key and I’m really looking forward to playing with her again. What’s amazing about Thu Le is that she’s not only just an incredibly studied and competent classical player, but she’s got a great ear. She can sit down and just pick out a Metallica tune and just all of a sudden start playing it. She can kind of play anything whereas there are quite a lot of classical musicians who are pretty much just like “I gotta have the paper in front of me” (Laughs). She can just roll with it, She’s really good.
You can pick up the album “Of Wood and Spirit” on all the streaming platforms, correct?
Yes, and my website Jimkimowest.com.
