Here’s a thought experiment. Picture the scene: Eric Clapton calls, he needs you as his sideman, which electric guitars from your collection do you take? For context, this is the early ‘90s. We’re in Clapton’s Fender Stratocaster era.
Well, the legendary Andy Fairweather Low got that call for real, and he took a guitar straight out of left-field, a Teisco Spectrum V – a full-stereo oddball electric with “bits of LEGO”. But in a recent interview for Guitarist magazine’s YouTube channel, Low admits that it didn’t go too well.
As it turns out, you need something with a little more gravitas when sharing the stage with Clapton.
“For a period with Eric, briefly, I used it on a couple of gigs, and then one night after the Albert Hall he said, ‘Put it away and get a proper guitar!’” recalls Low. “So it went by the wayside,”
Low’s affection for the Teisco Spectrum V remains undiminished. Little wonder. From the over-engineered tremolo system to its multi-coloured plastic switches, there’s nothing quite like it. It is a maverick’s guitar.
Eddie Van Halen was famously pictured with one on the cover of Guitar World, but it was Ry Cooder who was ultimately responsible for turning Low onto the brand. Cooder was playing one on TV and Low couldn’t take his eyes off it, and duly asked the legendary Who tech Alan Rogan to find him one when he was out in the US.
“He’s playing a Teisco Spectrum V, and I am drawn to it immediately,” says Low. “It’s got colours and knobs on and bits of LEGO. I am drawn to it.”
And he still is. It is the first guitar from Low’s collection that he shows Guitarist. You can tell the affection he has for it by the look on his face. Low says he has two of them, and he still plays it during his Christmas shows with Gary Brooker of Procul Harum.
Like most Spectrum V players, Low uses his in mono, but you do have the option of playing in stereo – the guitar is fitted with dual 1/4” output for sending to different guitar amplifiers, and two sets of three single-coil pickups.
“Teisco’s idea of stereo is that these three pickups go through one amp and these three go through another, and you’ve got a double lead that goes in there,” explains Low. “I never did that but I loved the look of it, and because I loved the look of it I loved playing it, too.”
Low is is one of the world’s great session players and sidemen. He has worked with the Who, Joe Satriani, Roger Waters, Bill Wyman’s Rhythm Kings and joined up with Clapton during the early ‘90s in time for Slowhand’s Unplugged acoustic guitar concert series.
You could call him a good luck charm. His appearance on Clapton’s 1994 tour de force of blues guitar covers, From The Cradle, helped secure the former Cream guitarist and Yardbird his first UK number one album. The luck worked both ways. Low says he could “get anything” from Gibson and Fender when he was playing with Clapton – “as soon as I left I could get bugger all!”
Teisco guitars notwithstanding, Low had the finesse required to play back-up. And as this Guitarist segment proves, he had the guitars, too, such as his Gibson Custom L-5. Even if the hollowbody jazz guitar is prone to feedback, it was Low’s dream instrument – and besides, he had a fix for the squealing.
“It’s filled up with foam,” says Low. “It would constantly feedback on an A. No matter what level you were.”
The level was crucial, he continues. Finding the Goldilocks volume, not too quiet, not too loud was the secret to his success when playing a supporting role onstage.
“Trying to find the right level as the second guitar player with Eric, you’ve got to be loud enough where the speakers are loading enough, but you can’t be too loud where he goes, ‘Can you turn down, Andy?’ Which [pauses] he didn’t do,” says Low. “But I was constantly working at being at the right level but that meant I never got the tone. I get the tone now because I am the only guitar player on the stage and I am as loud as I want to be.”
You can check out the full interview above and subscribe to the Guitarist YouTube channel here.
Andy Fairweather Low’s new solo album, The Invisible Bluesman, is available to pre-order and will be released on 7 February via The Last Music Company.
