Q & A with guitar legend Phil Keaggy

Phil Keaggy will perform at Asbury College Thursday night with Shake Anderson and the Ely Cartwright Band. He took a few minutes to talk to me today about his newest works and playing with Shake.

TY: How did you get hooked up with Shake?
PK: He had called my booking agent at Street Level Artists Agency, and they wanted me at the Ichthus Festival, where I had played before, and I’ve played Asbury College before. I said, “Well what do I do?” and they said,  “They just want you to sit in with the band,” so that’s what I did. They did their set, the Ascenxion Band. The first time I had played (in 2007) , Shake had injured his foot and couldn’t play. We did a few of my songs, and it was alright, a pretty good time. The next time they had worked up a few of my songs, but the way the whole thing went at Ichthus, I just had my own electric and my amp, and I just played and chunked along — did some solos, but didn’t do any of my own songs, and that was fun. Shake was a real powerful communicator with his music and his voice and his words. He contacted me about doing a couple of these little concerts. I don’t like dealing with the business side of anything, I just said “I can be there.”
When it comes to my own music, I like to play solo acoustic, that’s my thing right now and has been for quite a long time. I do still play electric, so I’m hoping I can sit in with his band and just improvise, which I love to do on the electric.

TY: How about the musicians you play with when you sit in with the Ascenxion band? They’re all amazing players.
PK: They’re all fantastic, including Shake. They’re all top-notch musicians. It kind of reminded me of back in the ’70s when we used to sit in with Andrae Crouch and the Disciples. They were quite the thing back in the ’70s. Real gospel R&B, great band. Once in a while I’d sit in with them. Chester Thompson’s son plays with (Ascenxion), right? That’s cool. Really fine musician, great guy. They’re all great musicians. When I played the last time with all those guys, I was one of about 15 people on stage. Dez (Dickerson) was there. As far as what happens, I don’t know. I’ve got as many questions as you do as to how it will all play out, but we should have a good time.

TY: This Ascenxion Project, where they bring in mainstream musicians who happen to be Christian, that’s something you are familiar with, isn’t it? You’ve kind of had feet in both ends of the spectrum in your career.
PK: I did more in my younger years. I used to tour extensively in the US with my band. We opened up for a lot of big name band in those days. A lot of those bands of those times — Traffic, Chicago, Yes, Iron Butterfly, Humble Pie and on and on. I was never world famous like some of these guys that we fronted. I’ve been so long identified as a Christian musician, but that’s me. That’s who and what I am. As far as stylistically, I’ve always kept my ears open for both sides of the spectrum. I really enjoy what my brothers and sisters create and what my brothers and sisters who are mainstream create. I just love music of all types. These people are something. They’ve got quite a story, every one of them. I’ve kind of always been kind of an underground musician, not super famous, but I’ve kept pretty busy over the years.

TY: Yeah, it seems like you put out an album every single year.
PK: Yeah, well I’ve learned how to engineer, and I can make my own records for really no cost. That enables me to do that. Back in the day I was really dependent on the record companies to do that. I waited until they were ready, and once they were ready they did the hiring of the studio, the producer, the musicians, and they would escalate a huge production budget that eventually I learned I had to pay back with the sales. That was the crazy thing. Now I can make an album rock bottom really cheap. I’m a pro tools engineer. I just finished a Christmas album that just turned out beautifully. A vocal Christmas album of mostly original songs, which is kind of neat. I had done a Christmas album about 10 years ago that had a lot of recognizable carols in my kind of arrangement of them. It had strings and horns and beautiful instrumentation. This one is more like a home grown thing. It does have some production value, strings in some places, but it’s just altogether more intimate.

TY: Which is your bread and butter.
PK: Yea, it’s kind of what I do. I also did an album that’s doing really well out there with Jeff Johnson. He’s a keyboard arranger/producer from the Northwest, and it’s called Frio Suite. It’s doing really well. It’s on iTunes, and it’s getting a lot of attention. Was CD of the month on Echoes on NPR. I’m really pleased with how that turned out; it’s just a really beautiful musical experience to listen to it. The Christmas album is called Welcome Inn. Those are my two most recent projects, and earlier in the year we released with Randy Stonehill. He’s an old timer like myself — we’re old rockers. We kind of put our British pop hats on and did a really fun album. I also do sessions for people. I played on some of Mickey Dolenz’s (of The Monkees) this week. It was fun to play on with a voice of the ’60s, you know.

TY: So you’re not slowing down at all.
PK: No, and I’m still doing weekend concerts. I just did a run of six weekends in a row. But I’m looking forward to this week. I think it will be a good time. It will be a real laid-back night.

Phil Keaggy plays Thursday night at 7 p.m. in the Hughes Auditorium.