Chords for Jay Graydon interview Part 1 - History w/ Rivera Amplification

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_ [C] _ _ _ [N] _ Okay, so, the Paul Rivera story.
_ _ I'm probably the best guy to run this down because, well you'll see when I explain the
chain of events.
So I was on a Barry White session and there was always _ three, four or five guitar players
on the session.
Dean Parks happened to be one of the guitar players on the session that day.
And he told me, and whenever Dean talks I listen.
_ So Dean had mentioned, he says, there's a great amp tech that works at Red Rhodes Shop in Hollywood.
Red Rhodes was a steel guitar player and he had a, you know, I guess an amp repair shop
and guitars, I don't know, but for sure amp repair. _
So I said, great Dean, thanks for the info.
I took one of my Fender Deluxes down there and I said to Paul, I met Paul, that's who
Dean was talking about.
And I said, can you make my amp, when cranked on 10, can you make my amp sound _ like zzz
instead of kkkk zzzz.
And he says yes.
Now let me explain what the kkkk zzzz is.
The zzzz is how a distorted tone should sound in the best of all worlds.
Very smooth.
The kkkk zzzz is a garbage attack part on the front that's caused by a circuit that's
not designed to clip properly.
Without getting into technical details, Paul said he could do this.
So I left my Deluxe, I came back a couple days later whenever he said to pick it up.
I plugged into it and I said, this is fantastic.
So I called all my guitar player friends and I told them all about Paul.
_ _ Then that's stage one.
Then there is a guitarist who used to make amps by the name of Ron Benson.
He made jazz guitar amps.
Dean happened to be talking to him.
And what Dean and I were always interested in doing is to find amps that had a nice sweet
mid-range tone to them _ _ when playing with a rear pickup with a distortion sound or not
even a distortion sound.
Just have a nice thick mid-range tone instead of a bright thin tone. _ _
So the way to do this, Ron Benson, when Dean was talking, I have to explain this.
Dean was talking to Ron Benson about this and Ron Benson said there's a way to do that.
What you do is you change the capacitor in the tone circuit of the amplifier.
So Dean and I brought our, well, at least, you know, my B amp or C amp.
Dean brought one of his amps over as well.
Ron showed us where the capacitor needs is in the circuit, where it is to be changed.
And we tried some different values.
So I'm sitting there with a soldering iron, so is Dean, and we're trying different values.
We test it.
We try a different value.
I found a value I like.
Dean found a value he liked.
And I told Paul about this.
And Paul said, well, instead of having just one capacitor in there, _ so how about we put
a six position switch in with six capacitors so we can get a whole variation of tone from
the treble control?
We can get it bright, you know, for rhythm.
We can get it, you know, extremely bright, anywhere from extremely bright to extremely mid-rangey.
And that was an idea that Paul employed on my amp.
And I told everybody about it.
And everybody got that modification.
_ Then the next step that happened was I went in to see Paul one day. _
_ And he said, I'm having problems with red.
There's, I got to get out of here.
I can't work here anymore.
And I said, well, the place for you would be Valley Arts Guitar.
And I said, let me go down and talk to Mike and Al and see if this is possible.
So I walked in the store.
I went directly from Red Shop talking to Paul to Valley Arts.
I walked in.
I told them the story.
They already knew about Paul because everybody was talking about Paul, especially me.
So they said, yes, we've got room upstairs, no problem.
So I called Paul, put him in touch with Mike and Al.
He was moved in in the next week, I guess.
I can't remember.
And then from there, things really snowballed because now he's working in the guitar store.
All the guitar players are coming through.
I mean, all the studio guys already knew because I told them.
But it just snowballed.
And then he got busier and busier.
I don't know how he got to Yamaha.
I don't remember if I introduced him or if he got in from another path.
But then he made the relationship with Yamaha and then eventually Fender and all that. _
But that's my story.
You explained how you met Porter Ver Senior.
And he was the guy, would you say he was the guy, would you say that that particular amp
was on most of the recordings back then in the late 70s?
It was on everything.
_ I don't think I used another amp. _
_ I had three of them.
I remember being at Valley Arts one time and I was with your dad and Mike and Al.
And they had _ _ gotten 26 Deluxes in, brand new.
Right?
Oh, I also need, before I get into that story, I need to mention that your dad
also did the Blackface mod on all the Silverface amps. _ _
I mean, he did a lot more than I'm saying.
He tweaked them and just made them sound great.
There's a lot to it.
You know, Paul Senior would have to tell you the whole story to get exactly what he did.
And it's going to get very technical if he does.
Did you have any of the other modified products that my dad put out in the past?
Like the CE-1 Boss Chorus?
Did you use that?
Did you ever?
Your dad modified my Boss Chorus.
The Boss Chorus.
Was that used on a lot of recordings?
I'm sure it was.
I'm sure it was.
What era were these Rivera modified Fenders?
70s, 80s, 90s?
You know, I can't remember when I switched to another amp.
I had a Boogie, but I didn't use it much.
I didn't really like it that much.
I was using the Deluxe modified, you know, by your dad.
I was using those for quite some time.
You know?
On the Steely Dan Peg Solo? Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
All the studio work.
All the Steely Dan stuff?
Yeah, I mean, I did studio work in the 70s, okay?
Whenever I met your dad along the way, whatever year the first year was that I met your dad,
and he modified my amps, that remained through all that and beyond.
I think the next amp that I used after that was a modified Twin II.
I had a Boogie.
I mean, I have tons of amps.
But the next, I think the next amp I used was the Twin II, heavily modified by your dad
when he worked at Fender.
You know, and of course I had Marshalls and all that stuff.
I mean, tons of stuff.
And then I used that here and there.
I think I retired the [C#m] Deluxe of somewhere in the 80s.
[G]
Somewhere in the 80s, okay.
Somewhere in the 80s.
So that amp, maybe [C] Streisand, Bosch?
All that.
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