JOEL PATERSON: I’m Joel Paterson of the Joel Paterson Trio and Devil in a Woodpile. I also play with the honky tonk band The Western Elstons so I’m here to talk about pedal steel guitar, steel guitar, guitar, everything guitar.

I’d like to talk about the guitar I play with Devil in a Woodpile. It’s a local country, blues, and ragtime band on Bloodshot Records I play with, and we play every Tuesday at the Hideout. And...

[JOEL PATERSON PLAYING A NATIONAL DELPHI REISSUE RESONATOR GUITAR]

This is a new reissue National Delphi is the model. A lot of people think this is an old National steel guitar but because I’ve kind of beaten it up a lot, but it’s actually a reissue. It’s only about five years old, and it’s called a resonator guitar.

A lot of people ask me, “What is that? Is that a Dobro? Is that a resonator? Is that a steel guitar?” or what else, kind of all that stuff but it’s not a Dobro. A Dobro is another brand and Dobro is also a generic term for any bluegrass-style played on your lap on any kind of a wood-bodied Dobro-type guitar. This is a National resonator. This is a -- And it’s confusing because people call it steel guitar but technically this is a steel guitar, so I don't know.

It is steel.

[JOEL PATERSON KNOCKING ON THE TOP OF HIS NATIONAL DELPHI REISSUE RESONATOR GUITAR]

And it is nice because I can set drinks on this. I can do -- I can’t hurt this thing.

I have this very handy -- Sometimes I run into some problems at the Hideout so I -- It doesn’t work though. I don't know why.

So, this is just a -- You know, I have a Highlander pickup in here which is a, you know, for an acoustic amp or a PA situation, I plug right into the PA, kind of a direct sound I don’t like so much but it’s hard to find gigs these days where I can have a nice just a mic on it and have it sound good. It’s a Highlander. It’s the standard for resonator guitars. There’s a little cone in here in the biscuit that the pickup sits right on the biscuit.

So anyway, I play these with finger picks. I get about twice the volume with these. The guitar doesn’t sound very good without finger picks and I just use the same pretty much setup. I play...

[JOEL PATERSON PLAYING A NATIONAL DELPHI REISSUE RESONATOR GUITAR]

...steel guitar and...

[JOEL PATERSON PLAYING A NATIONAL DELPHI REISSUE RESONATOR GUITAR]

...a lot of [INDISCERNIBLE]

[JOEL PATERSON PLAYING A NATIONAL DELPHI REISSUE RESONATOR GUITAR]

This is called a Style “O”. This was a certain model that National made in the ‘30s, and the Style O was the one that had the Hawaiian scenes on it. Back when they made these in the ‘30s, late ‘20s and ‘30s, they were intended to be blues guitars like people use them now. They were meant to be loud guitars that you play in a Hawaiian orchestra or a jazz band.

They didn’t have much guitars back then, and the guitar is the quietest thing. If you put them in a, you know, little Dixieland band or something, you want it to have some volume. So, they invented this pretty ingenious way to make a guitar louder and it is louder but it does have a very characteristic sweet sound for Hawaiian music. And I think in the late ‘30s, when they started to become second hand, a lot of the blues guys started playing them because they were a great, you know, you just play them on the street, they’re loud and you can play slide on them.

[STRUMS A CHORD] But the Style O this has got the Hawaiian motif on it. I’ve got the -- It’s tricky to get these restored. They don’t have truss rods so the necks are always warped in these old ones. You have to do a lot of restoration to them to get them to play right. This one has actually had the fingerboard planed flat because it was so warped, repainted black, new frets on it, some other stuff I won’t go into, but it’s actually it’s got the original cone and it’s definitely got the original sound.

It’s a much more thinly constructed guitar. The metal has got a different tone. It’s definitely thinner and lighter weight. It sounds very sweet. The sounds in these are amazing, definitely quieter than the new guitars. The new guitars are better for me when I need to be loud and just have a guitar that plays in tune and performs and I can just beat the hell out of. But if I wanted to do something...

[JOEL PATERSON PLAYING A NATIONAL DELPHI REISSUE RESONATOR GUITAR]

...like a different tone....

[JOEL PATERSON PLAYING A NATIONAL DELPHI REISSUE RESONATOR GUITAR]

The flaw in here is that it sounds as loud but in a live situation that the other is --

PATRICK OGLE: The other one is louder.

JOEL PATERSON: Cuts through, yeah, and the -- But...

[JOEL PATERSON PLAYING A NATIONAL DELPHI REISSUE RESONATOR GUITAR]

...it sounds very sweet in the upper register.

[JOEL PATERSON PLAYING A NATIONAL DELPHI REISSUE RESONATOR GUITAR]

A lot more reverb going on.

[JOEL PATERSON PLAYING A NATIONAL DELPHI REISSUE RESONATOR GUITAR]

I’m in open G tuning right now. I do a lot of open G, open D.

[JOEL PATERSON PLAYING A NATIONAL DELPHI REISSUE RESONATOR GUITAR]

But there you go.