Chattanooga Times Free Press entertainment reporter Casey Phillips spoke with Cleveland, Tenn.-based fingerstyle guitar guru Doyle Dykes about his new book, his tendency to run afoul of the weather and how a sailor taught him to play guitar.
CP: Coming in to working on “The Lights of Marfa,” were you nervous about having to express yourself creatively in a written medium, as opposed to a musical one? What was the writing process like?
DD: Well, at first. It’s one of those things where you can either do it or you can’t. One thing that’s helped me is that I was approached few years ago to write for a magazine in the U.K., Acoustic Magazine, which I still do. That’s helped me. I also write for “Wood and Steel” for Taylor. They have a publication that goes out quarterly to a quarter million people. Also, on my website, I’ve written blogs on that. That helped me in the process, so I had a little more confidence than going in completely cold, but it was a little bit different to put it in the aspect of a book. (Laughs.)
CP: Those other projects were related to your music. Was it difficult to write about some things that are as personal as your relationship to God?
DD: No. In fact, people ask me all the time “How can you talk about God even in a secular setting like a theater or a festival? It must be hard.” I say, “It’s hard not to because that’s just a part of my life.” The more you read the book, the more you’ll see that that’s just the way it is, who I am. I can’t separate my music and my experience with the lord since I was a kid. It all tied in together at an early age.
CP: You said of “The Lights of Marfa” that you hope that “If people see that God is a God who loves us, then mission accomplished.” Has that message translated to readers?
DD: I think so. I think another thing even from the last question of if it’s easy to do, is that it’s a natural thing for me. If people can be encouraged to look for God in their everyday lives and know that his presence is there with us, I think that’s a good thing. Even the words of Jesus are that “I’ll never leave you or forsake you,” and I’ve always felt that. Even in different parts of the world, I’ve known that the lord was with me, in good situations and bad. (Laughs.)
CP: Based on the foreword from (Taylor Guitars co-founder) Bob Taylor and his stories of you and your mishaps with the weather, it sounds like somebody must has been watching out for you. I guess you felt his presence even during those storms?
DD: (Laughs.) Yeah, I’ve had a lot of experiences around the world. They’re not always just terrible, atrocious type things and dangerous, but they are unusual. Of course, you have the tornadic conditions and fires and sandstorms. I had a sandstorm follow me all over Asia. It was weird. It was just how I was booked – even down into Australia. They had to delay our flights, and we were up in the air and couldn’t even land at one point it was so bad. That was in Sydney, and there was one in Melbourne when I left. They said, “This is just unbelievable. This Doppler (Doyle) (nickname) must be true.” (Laughs.) I’ve gotten a lot of laughs off of it.
CP: Did those strange experiences prepare you, in any way, for witnessing the lights in Marfa, Texas?
DD: Yes. I don’t necessarily pray when I go buy a shirt that it’s God’s will, but I pray that god leads me and directs me in my everyday life. He’s the producer and director of my life, and He has a plan for me.
Sometimes, when things come my way, it’s good to know that we’re connected. It’s been so long since I’ve been a Christian – since I was a child – and that was a significant change in my life. That was when I raised my heads and said, “Lord, give me a job to do and I’ll always tell them about you.” I’ve always known he was there.
I’ve been in situations, disaster type things, and you don’t have time to take a crash course in prayer. You’re either connected or you’re not; you either know who you are, or you don’t. I’m just glad I always have, have had that confidence.
CP: Now that you’ve finished “The Lights of Marfa,” would you write another book?
DD: You know it’s funny you say that because from the point I started writing this book, I was either going to do one of two things. I was either going to record a Christmas record or write a book.
I had planned to go in the studio. When I was in Texas, I had a few days between dates, and I didn’t want to come home. Eric Johnson, a friend of mine and a Texas musician, had offered his studio to me, and when I mentioned, “Hey, could I come record there?” he said, “Well, I’m actually mixing my record, but you can have the whole month of March.” I said, “Well, I’m covered up. I can’t do that.” I went in a totally different direction. I went to the book.
Since all this has been done, I had an idea recently of writing a Christmas book. I’d gone back to my hometown long ago and gathered the pictures and things with my mother. I just got back from Jacksonville, Fla., my hometown, this morning. I go down there every chance I get, especially since dad is gone.
Every year, I put a blog on my website, and someone said, “Why don’t we do a Christmas book and an album around that and distribute it.” It seemed to be an epiphany because the music business right now is crazy. Unless you’re a mainstream artist, you don’t even have distribution. Here, we have the opportunity to get this in a lot more hands and share my ideas and stories of Christmas. That will probably be my next project.
CP: Tonight, you’ll be playing a prison prevention ministries show, which you have done several times in the last few years. How did you become involved in those shows?
DD: It was about five years go. I was working with a friend of mine, Mike Roberston, who used to work at L&M Music. He sold Taylor guitars, and they had me over there several times for shows. I got to know Mike really well.
He wanted to go in the ministry, so he got involved in prison prevention. They asked if I would do a program for them. I love Mike – he’s a great guy – and I believed in what he was doing. I did it, and it was successful, so they asked me to do it again. I said, “Sure.” This is the fourth or fifth time with a year or so in between.
In the meantime, I was looking for an agent and someone who could speak with the Taylor dealers. I was doing a lot of in-store shows for Taylor Guitars, but I still play at churches and festivals. I needed someone who would work with me who wasn’t necessarily an expert in that field but who could talk to people on both sides, could talk to a minister or a music store owner or the guy who runs a theater. Mike seemed to be that guy.
I thought about it for a year or two, and then, I asked him if he would start working with me part-time so he could still do his ministry. It sort of worked into that. He’s working with me as well as prison prevention. I love what he does, and I love that ministry. The folks over there are really great. I think they’ve been very effective in this area (Southeast Tennessee).
CP: You’ve been playing guitar now for 45 years, and when you started you saw it as a tool for communicating a spiritual message. How has your relationship to God and music changed in that time?
DD: I think my love for my roots – gospel music – is still there, absolutely. I love a lot of the old hymns. I’m old enough to where I love that, and yet, the musician part of me has kept me young enough to where I enjoy the contemporary stuff as well.
The lord has allowed me through the years to break into more secular music with the guitar and feel more freedom to do that than I used to. It was all a processes and the way I was directed and the doors God opened for me with Taylor guitars and the Grand Ole Opry and radio and television and different things I’ve done.
There’s a chapter in my book about my own personal British invasion in which they personally invaded me. In a lot of ways, the people there have been a real blessing to my life. I’ve played in the Cavern club over there and played on a Beatles compilation on BMG/RCA – that type of thing. There was a time growing up when I never would have thought I would do that. It wouldn’t have been in my thought process to go there.
Quite honestly, the book is the same way. I’ve had people ask, “Is this a dream come true?” and I say, “No, I never would have dreamed this.”
There’s a scripture for that, too: Ephesians 3:20 “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us.” The Amplified version, which I call The Guitar Player’s Bible, says, “He is able to go far above all that we dare ask or think, infinitely beyond our prayers, thoughts, hopes, desires or dreams.”
CP: How did your father’s death affect your relationship to music?
DD: I have my dad’s picture inside my guitar. I was on the Opry not too long ago, and one of Opry Stars, Jim Ed Brown, one of the guitar players, was standing there and said, “What is that inside your guitar?” and I said, “That’s a picture of my dad. He was a guitar player.” The Bible talks about a “great cloud of witnesses” that we are encompassed about, and I think my dad is part of that.
I didn’t used to understand people who said, “The people who have gone on before are looking over me.” I never really knew what to think because I’d never lost anybody that close. Now that has happened, I’ve been in shows before when I’ve looked down and said, “Dad, help me out a little bit.” Or I’ll look down and be playing “How Great Thou Art,” and I’ll look down and see my dad and say, “I’ll see you soon.”
Sometimes, I feel al little spark of extra confidence. I feel that a lot of times. It also makes me want to keep alive the things he loved and the things we enjoyed together, things like the music of Merle Travis and Chet Atkins and Les Paul. He turned me on to all that music, and of course, I got to play with all those guys, and I’m very thankful for that, but it was my dad who was my biggest role model.
CP: Him and Barry the Sailor, I suppose.
DD: Barry was the biggest, probably. You talk about a milestone; he was touchstone in my life because that one day in my life when I was just a kid, he came over and showed me a few things that changed my whole course of playing.
Even though I loved the music of Chet and Merle, I didn’t understand how to do it until I saw him. We didn’t have YouTube and videos back then. For the first time, I really got it.
He made the biggest impact on my learning of anyone I’ve ever met. Of course, I studied Chet – he was my mentor and all that – but I would never have been able to do that unless I met Barry. (Laughs.)
He was at my book release party at the Country Music Hall of Fame a couple weeks ago, and I got him up on stage to play an old Merle Travis song, “Farewell My Blue Bell.” It’s an old Civil War song. Merle used to play that, and Doc Watson plays it. A lot of people who are finger pickers love it.
CP: That must have been special.
DD: It was a lot of fun to play with him. It’s one of those songs you can twin on, and it went over. People really seemed to like it. The fact that it was Barry there with me was a lot of fun.
The night he came back in my life – and the story is in the book – I called my parents and said, “Dad, who was the man who was the biggest influence, probably bigger than Chet, in my learning how to finger pick?” and my mother said, “That sailor we had over at the house.” (Laughs.) It was funny because everybody knew it.
CP: Your son, Caleb, also plays guitar and joined you on your last album, “Bridging the Gap.” How does that feel, to see your gift being carried on to the next generation?
DD: (Laughs.) Well, he’s so good. Caleb has an ear – and I don’t mean to sound braggy – like I did. I could pick up things, and Caleb has that ability. I think you’re born with some of that because a lot of people can learn the logistics of playing and the mathematics of it, but the feel of it and knowing how to put things together is a gift. Caleb has that.
I remember one day saying to him one day that, “Caleb, I have this song I’d like you to record with me. I only have one part, but I want to know what you think” because his tastes in music are vast. He’s not necessarily just into finger style or flat picking, but he likes it enough to where he’ll do it with me, even though his music is more progressive than mine – jazz- and rock-oriented.
I wrote the song, and he said, “Dad, I like that,” and I said, “Well, I haven’t finished it yet, but when I finish it yet, let’s record it.” He said, “OK,” and we ran over it a few times. I was in California and we went over to Rivera Amplification, and they were doing a YouTube thing on me, and I said, “Do you want to hear this thing I’m working on that Caleb and I are going to record,” and they got a lot of hits on it.
To put Caleb in his first studio environment to record and have him there with one of the greatest producers in the world (Michael Lloyd) is something I’ll never forget. If no one ever gets anything out of that, I sure will, as a dad.
CP: Do you have any idea what you’ll be playing tonight? Do you make set lists?
DD: I always sort of know, but I never make a set list because I’ll inevitably have someone up and say, “Can you play ‘Twin Six Shooters’ or ‘Jazz in the Box?'” or something I haven’t played in a while. I always start off with a few staple things I do. I always do a patriotic medley to honor our troops and “Me and Jesus and the Old Guitar,” which is sort of a theme song, and then go from there.
It depends on if my daughter Haley is there. I’m hoping she’ll come down because she’s a great singer, and I love working with her, so I’ll put her in the show. If Caleb is there, I’ll put him on, too. It should be a lot of fun.
Speaking of theme song, that song “Me and Jesus …” and another one, “Country Fried Pickin’,” is going to be the theme song of a TV show I have coming out later this year on the RFD Network, which is the network that started playing “Crooke and Chase” and “Hee-Haw” and “Porter Wagoner.”
It will be a real guitar-oriented show. We’re still getting sponsors for this. We have Taylor Guitars behind it. We’ll have Ricky Skaggs and Steve Warner and Roy Clark and Eric Johnson – a lot of the guys, who are not necessarily country, but who have agreed to be on the show. It’s going to be a lot of fun.
Because of the book, we’ve pushed (the start date) back a little bit. We’re also getting more of a commitment from our sponsors than most people going in. We’re getting at least a two-year commitment. Hopefully, we’ll last and be something people will enjoy for years to come.
The people at RFD are really into music, and they are one of the few networks that are playing music shows – the others have gone to reality shows. There’s nothing wrong with that, but the pickers out there want something more musical than that.
CP: What will you call it? “The Doyle Dykes Show?”
DD: (Laughs.) Well, we want to be a little more creative than that. Given the nature of the network, we were going to go real country with it and call it something like, “Doyle Dyke’s DD Guitar Ranch” or something like that, but I don’t know that we’re going to do that. I think we’ll call it the same thing we called my latest DVD project, which is “Live Sessions.” That’ll be a little bit more middle-of-the-road for (jazz/fusion guitarist) Larry Carlton to come in instead of saying, “Hey, do you wanna be on the DD Guitar Show?” (Laughs.) We’ll probably keep it at that.