Joel Paterson knows the guitar. He relates to its history, believes in its progression of instrumental prowess, its evolution of sonics over the course of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, and he creates his own version to introduce a new modern guitar dialogue for other players to commune with and respond to. Studying the antics and musical choices of guitarists from long ago and recent pasts, players ranging from Blues pioneer Robert Johnson to The Clash’s Mick Jones, Paterson maintains an intimate relationship with the instrument—which can only result in topnotch musical output.
His influences are more complex than old blues and punk. The Chicago-based Paterson primarily favors a carefully curated group of mid-century guitar players who pursued excellence in instrumental acumen above all else. Danish player Jorgen Ingman and the legendary Les Paul serve as inspirations.
Occasionally confined by the present-day limitations of non-commercial music among record companies and managers, Paterson tries to keep his sunny side up. Though he is a regularly booked musical act in the clubs and venues of Chicago, with a long-standing residency at the well-renowned Green Mill Cocktail Lounge, Paterson is always generating other projects too. Which occasionally leads him to collaborate on or produce the pop-rock works of other musicians like Annie Dolan, with their recent release Attaboy Girl (2024).
He is a studio wizard, adept at the classic rock era’s overdub process that creates a unique, painstakingly layered full guitar sound on records. But it is Paterson’s instrumental studio album releases from the last ten years, like the fascinating Beatles cover album Let it Be Guitar! (2019) and his underground hit Christmas record Hi-Fi Christmas Guitar (2017), with follow-up The More the Merrier (2023), that truly demonstrate his immenseness as a player, and showcase the unique irreplaceable value of his ardent history-forward musical quest in the 21st century.
In conversation with Paterson, we learn more about his musical motivations, how he precisely sculpts a complicated setlist, and why the guitar is still the most fascinating musical instrument around.
A lot of what your music is to me is informed by different decades in twentieth-century music history. It’s difficult to determine with any degree of certainty the precise era from which you came out of.
I remember the ’70s, vividly remember the ’80s. The internet makes everything available, it is a big melting pot of eras and styles. In my day people were like “I’m into this era, this style” as a statement. I’m not like that. Though I’m glad my plan of mystery worked.
What first drew you to the guitar, why this instrument in particular?
I always had this fascination with the instrument, because I’d discovered my mom’s record collection. She had all of The Beatles’ records and Jimi Hendrix’s records. I was obsessed with The Beatles before I knew anything about music. I used to dance around pretending I was Jimi Hendrix, years before I even knew how to get a guitar or what it was. By the time I finally borrowed a guitar from a friend of my mom’s, I felt like I knew what I had to do—I just needed to learn it. This was back in the ’80s. There was probably instructional stuff, but I didn’t know about it. Everything you learned was kind of a mystery, and everyone was kind of protective about teaching anything. Kind of an old-school thing. So I just learned from records and cassettes.
Instantly when I was a teenager I had to learn the blues—that grabbed me. It was this mysterious thing. At the time there really wasn’t any blues revival to speak of. Until Stevie Ray Vaughan started his. I just became obsessed with how weird the 1920s and ’30s blues scene was, and I bought some records at this little record store called B Side, which I think is still in Madison on State Street—I can’t believe it’s still there. They had cool artwork, and Yazoo sessions.
I gravitated toward the artwork. I wanted to be an artist before I was a musician. They had some Robert Crumb record covers. So I just bought anything on that label and tried to figure out what the guitar stuff was. There’s always this big hunt to find these guitar licks and Blind Blake was one of my first. I’m glad I started with him, because I learned how to thumb-pick pretty early on, which came in handy later when I wanted to learn Chet Atkins and Scotty Moore.
I borrowed a guitar for a while. The first stuff I learned was basic Lightnin’ Hopkins Blues stuff. There were some street musicians in Madison, this guy named Catfish (Stephenson). He played on the street, and I would watch him play and learn some basics. That was like my first gig, playing Muddy Waters licks on State Street in Madison.
How do you decide which songs to record, which project to embark upon?
I usually start with a concept, like “I’m going to do a Christmas record.” And then think about what songs I want to do. I listen to all the old versions I like, and make my own versions. Then it gets complicated. With a budget now, you have to think how much is it going to cost to mix these tracks and everything. It’s been 20 or 30 years of me, getting obsessed with one idea, and thinking this would be good. If I don’t get obsessed with it I kind of stop.
Any project I’ve ever done, for the last 20–30 years, it’s been me feeling, “Oh I’m into this right now, I’ll do this.” Unfortunately I’ve been terrible with just going in and recording what I do live. You can’t always reproduce it. So I’ll just sit at home and overdub all the guitars myself. My answer is very random because that’s how my recording career has been.
Do you do your own arranging of your guitar parts?
Yeah, I get into that. I don’t really read music, barely at all. I learned to play by ear. So a complicated overdub record, multi-track record Les Paul style—he kind of invented that Les Paul orchestra sound, my way of arranging—since I can’t sit down and write out 50 guitar lines/parts, I just record it. Luckily we don’t have to record on tape anymore. Back in the day, Les Paul, Buddy Merrill, Jorgen Ingmann, even back then they took stuff home and recorded it themselves because studio time has always been expensive, so the band would make a backing track, and they (guitarist) would go home with it and obsess with it.
That’s kind of the tradition I wanted to learn. Those are my heroes for that style. Not a fun style to do—it takes forever, and you go down a lot of dead ends. I try to do my own and not copy Les Paul, because it would take a year to transcribe all his four-part harmonies, so I just make my own. I reference Les Paul because most people recognize him, but there were other players too, some of which took the style in different directions.
My favorite all time is Jorgen Ingmann. He was a Danish player, from the ’50s and ’60s. His work influenced my Christmas records the most. And there was another guitar player Buddy Merrill, who played guitar for the Lawrence Welk orchestra, and he made the most insane guitar overdub records, in terms of layering. The physics of music are so wild. It’s very mystic, and almost religious to me. This weird magic, kind of amazing. On The Beatles record I dabbled in some of that but tried not to go overboard. The version of “Honey Pie” is kind of a nod to Jorgen Ingmann and Les Paul with the crazy layering.
Your Beatles record is an immense joy to listen to, particularly “This Boy.”
That track—it was kind of like The Beatles themselves did, with learning the three-part harmony they sang, on one pedal steel. It’s totally a studio thing, so I’ve never played it live. I couldn’t tell you how I did it, and I think that actually happened with The Beatles too. That’s one of the reasons they stopped playing live, their stuff had too many overdubs. Aside from the screaming fans.
After the Christmas record, I wanted to make a sequel so I thought I’d do a Beatles project. The players I work with were unavailable at the time so, left to my own devices, I started overdubbing everything at home. In the early days of the pandemic, when everyone thought it might only last two or so weeks being home, I wondered what to do. My first lockdown project was recording that, The Beatles material on acoustic. It’s all live, one track with no overdubs.
How do you go about choosing your setlist for each night of your live shows?
The setlist at the Green Mill is always torture, though I’ve kind of brought it upon myself. I have different players every week and always want to showcase really great jazz musicians in Chicago. They push me. And I always want to learn more standards I’m guilty that I don’t know. The potential setlist comes from a list of hundreds of songs. I always bring this list with me that’s like ridiculous. I can never make a setlist in order because the vibe always changes, and you never know what’s going to move you. So it’s a little chaotic, but that’s just the way I am.
It changes every week. We’re doing lots of jazz and Hawaiian steel guitar, organ trio jazz, blues, the style is all over the place. I try to have a plan. The Green Mill is the best. My favorite sound. I just like old places. They’re broken in and sound good , as they don’t have a lot new harsh architecture. All the old clubs I play at—the Hideout, Simon’s Tavern, Fitzgerald’s, the Hungry Brain, they’re all old joints, broken in. That’s the kind of sound I like. At the Green Mill we don’t have to mic anything; that’s kind of my choice, to not mic, I just want it to sound like a band would have sounded back in the ’50s. The only mic is the one I have to babble to the audience.
You also play some lap steel music occasionally.
It’s called a console steel because it’s on a little table, a double neck, but there’re no pedals. Pedal steel was invented in the mid ’50s and developed, kind of got more complicated in the ’60s, and it’s on all that Nashville/country stuff you hear from the ’60s, and you know the sound.
The kind I’m playing on the lap is a little earlier, a little more pre-pedal steel. I play pedal steel too but don’t really bring it out live anymore, it’s very complicated with the gear and all. I love the sound of the old lap steel like Jerry Bird. So I’m just trying to do that with a jazz band, an organ band which is very unique. I try to fit in my little steel licks with these heavy hitter jazz musicians. But the audience usually likes it, it’s different.
You perform exotica material sometimes too, like “Pagan Love Song.” The catalogues of exotica legends like Les Baxter and Martin Denny.
“Exotica” is really just a cool way of saying “easy listening.” They use a steel as a little novel effect, and to evoke the kind of tiki flair of the Pacific. I wonder when they coined the term “exotica.” Now it’s just a hip term for anything that has that vibe. I just call it steel guitar music. I’d love to make a steel guitar record.
How did you get the opportunities to establish the regular residencies you have at your spots in Chicago, like the Green Mill and others?
The Green Mill I have a history with. I moved here in ’98. Jimmy Sutton talked me into moving to Chicago to start a band. He was well known here, and he got us a gig here at the Green Mill every week. It’s the best place to play and I was kind of lucky. Over the years because lineups change and bands change, I’ve moved around to different nights. I’ve been in with the Green Mill—kept me in the fold which I really appreciate.
How do you feel you fit in with the musical history of Chicago? Obviously you identify with the blues history.
I have been here a long time now, and I was so involved with my own bands, I didn’t really go out seeking Chicago music history that was still there. Now you look back and think, there were a lot of little blues clubs that were still around that I wish I would’ve gotten involved in. It’s hard to be a tourist in your own town. But I did see a lot of great jazz musicians play the Green Mill.
Probably the most historic thing I ever did was back up David Honeyboy Edwards on a lot of shows with this band Devil in a Woodpile. Rick Sherry was friends with him and set that up. So we would back up Honeyboy Edwards. He was in his 80s (or 90s) when we hooked up, and he knew everybody. He’d been in Chicago since the ’50s and knew all these guys. He knew Robert Johnson and is a direct link to all the country blues and was the nicest guy ever, very sweet, and would just talk about whatever you asked him.
He blew me away—said he saw Charley Patton play live, and I was trying to do the math. To me Patton is such mythology, hard to connect him with being a real person. Honeyboy was an adventure to back up, because he had his own time signatures going on, never played a twelve bar blues. Constantly trying to tune his guitar in a middle of a song and kept going sharper and sharper. I’d try to grab his guitar after every song and tune it back down, the biggest adventure ever. I’d just stare at him and try to follow his own chord changes, and he’d always say “boy, you’re on me like an old bloodhound.”
Do you ever use a unique atypical guitar tuning on purpose?
On guitar I do different tunings, when sometimes I use an open D or G, and a few Beatles songs I do in dropped D. Pretty conventional alternate tunings. But the steel guitar world presents endless tunings. Several steel guitar tunings and four or five lap steel tunings. I like changing strings, that’s how I meditate, I think. I get annoyed at the modern world for conspiring against me to distract me from those things that get me into the right mind frame. The modern world drives me crazy.
Were you into the 1980s rockabilly revival, for example the work of the Stray Cats? That band and the work of Brian Setzer very much celebrates the prowess and tradition of the guitar.
I remember watching SNL in the ’80s, which was how you so often saw new music then. You didn’t know about anything until it was on then. “What the hell is this? It came from Mars,” it was so exciting. Where I lived there was no scene, it didn’t turn in to any kind of rockabilly scene. I was in my own world where I just liked this old Blues stuff. The Chicago scene Jimmy Sutton introduced me to, my guitar and musical style was suited for. In the late ’90s everyone thought, “Oh you’re a great rockabilly guitar player.” I was really just playing country blues which sounded like rockabilly. I guess that’s what Scotty Moore was doing too.
And James Burton was also great.
I think he was Ricky Nelson’s guitar player too, and did some very early country rockabilly guitar solos that were really hot, innovative. I think Elvis was looking for a live guy and knew about him, and James Burton made a lot of sense. He could do all the styles—country guy suited for the ’70s style Elvis. I met James Burton at a rockabilly festival, and he talked my ear off.
Your holiday album Hi-Fi Christmas Guitar, is one of the best holiday records of the 21st century so far. How did that project come to be?
It started because a couple of Christmases I just stayed home alone, and recorded a Christmas song, a video, in my room and threw it online. And I’d get a lot of views. So it kind of hit me, “Oh, I should make a Christmas record.” I had no big plan, but I wanted to record at home to do all of the guitar parts myself. I had no idea what it was going to really be. It immediately struck a chord with people. Luckily Bloodshot Records was still around before they sold, and they were helpful for me to get it out in the world, and they actually fulfilled mail orders. Next year they pressed vinyl and got it in people’s hands. Amazing, just complete word of mouth.
I was just locked in my room for a few months working on Christmas music, and my neighbors thought I was crazy playing Christmas songs in July. I didn’t know what it would turn into. I think that’s what people like about it, it was just completely about the music. It’s got a real Christmas vibe to it. Pretty pure, straight-up. I listened to a lot of Bing Crosby to learn them all. If you want the correct Christmas melodies—listen to Bing.