A lot of people might think you’re using a B-Bender in your cover of “Unchained Melody” on this record because of all the pedal-steel effects.
Everybody always thought that about me but you’ve got to realize that back in 1967, when I started listening to Clarence White and the Byrds, I didn’t realize that he was using a B-Bender. So I just started doing it with my fingers and sort of invented that style. I added bends to full chords, where I pull strings with my index finger, as well as the typical bends using my second and third fingers.

You really lay back in the pocket on the bridge section of that song. How did you arrive at that feel?
I think everyone who played on this album is tired of music that’s auto-tuned and click-tracked to death. We just wanted to get in there and play music like we always did. Levon made a concerted effort to pull back in the bridge. It made it almost like a light shuffle and I went with that feel, which is more like the original Bobby Hatfield version. I also cut my solo live for this song to keep that feeling.

This record has a ton of your trademark volume swells and tone knob manipulations. What do you need to pull those off?
I need to have my guitars fitted with a very fast volume knob, and one with a very aggressive knurl. That’s something Danny Gatton taught me—when you grab it, the knob should practically be cutting into your finger because it has so much grip to it. I do a lot of staccato volume swells—short and quick—and for those I’m basically working the volume control between zero and two. Everybody thinks you always go from zero to ten but it can be anywhere along there. You’re playing the dynamics like a violinist does with a bow. I also use Joe Barden pickups and the good thing about those is that they have the same fidelity whether you’re on ten or three. For tone controls, I always make sure I have a very crisp tone control that gives me that wah-wah sound. My new Arlen Roth model Warren guitar has all those specs.

What other mods do you do to your guitars?
My Warren has what I call a built-in overdrive, where you pull up on one of the knobs and it puts two pickups in series for a really beefy sound. It jumps up to be this monstrous Les Paul-style tone by taking two pickups and making them like one big humbucker. I can bring just that guitar on a session and really cover a lot of ground.

What amps did you use on this album? 
I was switching between four or so amps. I have my good old ’65 Deluxe Reverb. I was also using a Sears Silvertone piggyback that was at Levon’s studio. I went with that a lot of times because the engineers were so good at getting a tone out of it. I also used a brown Fender Vibroverb, and a blackface Vibrolux. The tone on “Unchained Melody” was a combination of one of the Fenders and the Silvertone. I have a stock Fender Tremolux from 1958 that’s totally mint and I used that for the chunkier, throatier tone you hear on “Sweet Little Sixteen.” 

How did you get the great acoustic and resonator tones on “Burned Child?”
I play my favorite acoustic on that song. It’s a Santa Cruz OM Pre-War. I tuned it down to D because I wanted that loose, slinky blues tone. I’m a big, big fan of Santa Cruz guitars. I think Richard Hoover does amazing work. I just can’t get over those guitars—they’re masterpieces. It’s like you’re playing a guitar from the ’30s. They’re making me two signature models: One will be like a 000 size and the other will be bigger, like a Gibson J-185.

For the slide parts I’m playing a brass-bodied resonator guitar called the Terraplane that I designed with Mark Simon. You can see it when I’m jamming with Sonny Landreth in the DVD that comes with the CD. That guitar has many incredible innovations. It’s got two wonderful Lollar pickups and I can’t say enough about what he does. Lollar is a real artist.

What was your approach for the cleaner tones on “Nightlife”?
That was the Vibroverb, which was on about four and the same Warrren Tele on the neck pickup. When I play on the neck pickup, I usually turn up the treble on the amp and I don’t really switch between the bridge and neck pickup. If I play on the treble pickup, I usually boost the bass and I don’t like to use the mids. If an amp has a midrange control I normally roll that off totally. I get enough natural midrange from the guitar and I like having that airy quality between the bass and treble. I don’t want something dictating the midrange to me. That’s why even though I own amps like a Vox AC30, you’re not going to see me playing through them too much because I don’t want that midrange honk.

You play guitar and lap-steel on “Sleepwalk.” How does your slide playing differ when you play lap as opposed to playing slide on a Tele?
Lap is a much more accurate way of playing slide because you’re right on top of it, and you don’t have to worry about fret noise. When I’m playing slide on a lap-steel it’s a much purer sound and I can do more slide tilting to get different voicings. I also do a trick when I play lap where I bend strings behind the slide to get a pedal-steel effect. I think I do that on “Sleepwalk.” I’ll bend the B or high-E string, usually a half-step or a whole-step. You have to pull the string up and toward the slide—so the slide stays in contact with the string—and you have to press down a little harder with slide. I learned it out of necessity, because I’m always looking for ways to bend strings, whether it’s behind the nut or behind the slide.

Thanks to your GP column and your Hot Licks series, you’re one of the most famous teachers of all time. What was it like being Paul Simon’s guitar teacher?
They were fascinating lessons. Obviously it didn’t take me to make him a great guitar player. He was already a wonderful acoustic guitarist. He would respond to my teaching more as a songwriter than a player. They wouldn’t just be hour-long lessons—they would sometimes turn into a two- or three-hour songwriting marathon. He would say over the phone something really bland like “I want to learn some Chuck Berry licks.” But that would turn out to not be the case at all. He would take what I would show him and then all of a sudden next week there it was in a song. He used to ask me to push him in some direction, and I’d come up with bridges or new parts and help him come up with ideas. He would actually critique some of my songs, too.

What parts did you play when you went on the road with Simon & Garfunkel?
I had already played with Garfunkel in 1978, playing Paul Simon’s parts. With Simon & Garfunkel, I played all the lead guitar. On “Scarborough Fair,” I would double Simon’s acoustic and emulate the harpsichord lines with hammer-ons. I played mandolin on “El Condor Pasa,” I played 12-string on “For Emily Wherever I May Find Her.” For “Cecilia” I rigged up a guitar with picks that were held in the strings with Scotch tape to get a kind of kalimba or steel-drum tone. I have a new acoustic album coming out that’s all Simon & Garfunkel tunes.

What are your recollections of your time as a Guitar Player columnist?
The columns were great for my career. I never stop hearing from people about the effect that those lessons had on them, and how they saved every one. It was a great time, and I’m very proud that there’s a book called Hot Guitar that contains all those lessons. My ten years writing for Guitar Player exposed me to more people than anything I’ve ever done.