In the late 60s, Graeme became a fan of the Johnny Cash Show, inspiring him to try and write lyrics about subjects he knew nothing about. At eleven years old, he saw Johnny Cash live. That one gig changed the course of his life forever. In his line-up was Carl Perkins, Bob Wooton, The Carter Family, Statler Bros, and others. From that moment, he knew he’d always have a guitar in his life.
As Graeme got older, he discovered Blues and harder rock and saw a young ACDC! He was in a band called Short circuit, borrowing an amp and electric guitar to replace his cheap Tempo acoustic.
He played constantly in bands throughout his teens through thirties, playing the occasional support to some big name acts in Australia. He played in some hard working bands over the years, such as After FX, The Code, Rough Diamond, and several others. Graeme was never happy playing lots of covers though, preferring original material. But he used to be lucky enough to be hired occasionally for recording sessions for local independent artists. In the last couple of years, he’s been getting back into more session work for other people.
Graeme finds that one of the best things about playing for so long is that he’s seen almost every guitar “hero” he ever had. He met Stevie Ray Vaughan, a highlight for him, back in ’84. And occasionally, he has the opportunity to actually play with Musos, real heroes of his back in his youth. Recently he played on the same CD as Kevin Borich, who was a huge influence on his playing when he was in his teens and early twenties.
Graeme has varied musical tastes, but he’s in his comfort zone playing mostly blues/rock. He’s used many different strings over his early years, Ernie Ball, Gibson, Fender, D’addario, DRs, etc, yet he always came back to Dean Markley’s, which he’s used since the late 1970s! When the new Beta strings became available to him, he now feels he’ll never use another string again.
Most recently Graeme has been favoring Dean Markley’s NickelSteel Electric MEDs and Blue Steel Acoustic LTs. “That is, until I got the new beta strings for which I’ve been singing their praises to every guitar player I know!”
Graeme says of Dean Markley’s upcoming string:
The beta strings on my electric… I just LOVE them! My initial observation was that they sustain well without too much tremolo or vibrato. The tone?… Magic! It remained consistent regardless of where on the neck I was playing. I played a few different styles with them from RnB thru Blues, rock, and country, and I gave them a real work out on some lead stuff, trying to bend them out of tune, but they remained pretty consistent.
My two main points at this stage I guess are nice feel and excellent, consistent tone. I’m at the end of the second week and the new strings are traveling well. Can’t believe how well they bend even though they’re 11-52s.
…OK, now I’ve had the first set of Beta strings on for a month and am going to put the second set on this weekend—I think. Having said that, I’d quite happily play a gig or do a session tomorrow with this first set, and that’s after about seven hours of playing per week for the last four or five weeks. Can’t believe the longevity. FANTASTIC!!!! That goes for both electric and acoustic.
Was going to change these strings for a session tomorrow, but then thought… Why? and Will these strings never die?? You should call these strings Immortals, given that they seem to last forever!
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