John Leventhal is brilliant. I first heard his playing on Shawn Colvin's " A Few Small Repairs" and have been haunted by him ever since. Excellent show Zac!
I will never forget the first time I saw or heard of John Leventhal....it was the early 90's, I was probably 12 or 13 and we lived out in the country, we didn't have cable TV, so I used to get Country Music Magazine VHS tapes at Walmart to scratch my musical itch. There was a segment on Jim Lauderdale making a record with John Leventhal and Rodney Crowell producing. Jim Lauderdale started singing 'The King of broken hearts'...John and Rodney were sitting behind Jim and Rodney was holding a J200, he tried to hand it to John so he could play along, but John just reached over and started strumming and Rodney was fretting the chords....they backed him up the whole song and never missed a beat. It was great!!! 👍
Love John's humility. I can tell he's a contemplater and I can so relate to that. Being able to push past that internal critic into fruitfulness as a musician is a great thing. So excited to check out the record!
Aw dude!! Our GUY! I just saw this and won’t be able to watch till this evening! (I hope you got some “Planet of Love” questions tossed in there!) As Flounder spake: “This is gonna be GREAT!!!”
Super video Zac! Ultimate less is more, serve the song player! I've learned so much from you John. Thank you! Now I know why Colvin-Cash-Cohn-Bell- Jarosz songs sound sooo good = JOHN LEVENTHAL.
What I've always admired about John's playing is what a great accompanist he is. He always seems to play the right notes or phrases in just the right places. He never gets in the way or draws attention to himself. Quite conversely, his playing always supports and lifts the main artist.
Great interview as always. John has always been a monster player. I was lucky to be one of the guitarists on Bleeker Street backing up singer songwriters, along with John, Drew Zingg, Marc Shulman, and the late great Jeff Golub. John and Drew showed up with mini-Humbucker -equipped Teles around the same time and I soon followed suit. (I have since gone back to a Tele PU in the neck). Another great producer/player, Daniel Lanois has been doing the acoustic with a magnetic pickup through an amp and effects for a long time to great result.
