Kirk does a podcast for the “No Guitar is Safe” with Jude Gold
Wielding his Fender Stratocaster, Kirk stops by No Guitar Is Safe headquarters and jams with host Jude Gold from GUITAR PLAYER Magazin. Kirk shares nine or ten of his favorite blues shuffle approaches, and demonstrates some of the wonderful gospel licks he learned as a youth playing in the Compton church built by his father, pastor Walter Fletcher, Sr.
BONUS: Kirk previews tracks from his forthcoming self-titled album!
MORE >>Kirk goes to Bristol to record his new Album
Joined by Jonny Henderson and Matt Brown he has recorded his new album. While touring in the UK last September Kirk had the idea to make a record with the great organ player Jonny Henderson.
Kirk first met Jonny through his good friend Matt Scofield with who Jonny has toured extensively with for over 20 years.
Jonny and the dummer Matt Brown have played together for years. Kirk played with this duo a year or two ago at the Bristol Jazz Festival. Kirk said for him it was magic from the first note.
“Jonny is one of the best musicians I have played with and I absolutely feel the same about Matt.”, Kirk explains.
The simplicity of a trio is what makes it so special for Kirk. And that is the reason he chose to do his new record that way. The group mixes some of his many different sides. Kirk’s very traditional Blues background mixed with his new love of songwriting and his improvisation side all come together.
He promises the album will rock too. The album is set for a spring release.
MORE >>Kirk is a TC Electronic Blues Master
TC Electronic released the “Blues Masters TonePrint”. Kirk Fletcher, Johnny A, Josh Smith and Charlie Sexton were the brains behind this superb TonePrint package featuring compression, delay, reverb and vibe tones perfect for the blues riffing. Read more
Kirk is very proud to be part of this campaign. Check his other TonePrints he could work on with TC Electronic here.
MORE >>Eminence Speaker welcomes Kirk Fletcher
The Blues Magazine: Straight Outta Compton
Not many people would choose to move to Compton, the notorious south LA neighbourhood immortalised by NWA. But that’s just what guitarist Kirk Fletcher’s parents did when he was a child. “All of my family is from Pine Bluff, Arkansas, but I grew up in southern California, a little suburb of LA called Lakewood,” says Fletcher. “Then I moved to Compton with my family to start building a new church because my dad’s a pastor. That’s where I got started playing guitar. “My dad sold the house in Lakewood and we moved to another house in Compton and he used that money to help build the church there. We already had a small church but he wanted to build a bigger church because he felt at that time we’re living in a bigger house and the Lord’s house is suffering in this small place. So he was really doing it for the right reasons.” …
…“I’m a late singer. [Producer] Mike Landau and a couple of my friends who helped me record that record were like: ‘Kirk, you’ve got to do it. You’ve got to try.’ They pushed me and pushed me and I finally said, ‘Okay, I’m going to try.’ It took me a year after that record to even do it consistently live because I was nervous and it felt strange.” Apart from the pressure, there’s the often painful process of getting used to hearing your own voice played back to you. “Oh God, it’s the worst! If you can get past that then I think you’ll be okay,” says Fletcher, who has simultaneously been figuring out what exactly it is he wants to sing about. “That’s the other thing that’s evolving as we speak actually. I basically started singing songs that I do now in my live gigs that somebody else sang on my records. It’s weird. Now I want to try to figure out what I want to sing, what I want to write and what I want to say, which is very scary, but at the same time it’s very fun and a new chapter.”
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