Not a Guy Who’ll String You Along

Well there’s 1,352 guitar pickers in Nashville . . .

And any one that unpacks his guitar could play twice as better as I will

--”Nashville Cats,” by John Sebastian

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Anyone who listens to much country music can testify to the truth of those lyrics from the old Lovin’ Spoonful hit.

Not only is there an astonishing number of stunningly skilled players working in the nation’s country-music capital, but if anything, that number has probably increased tenfold since Sebastian pulled it out of the air 35 years ago.

Enter Redd Volkaert, who despite this intensely crowded field, never fails to command respectful attention whenever he steps out for a solo in his role as lead guitarist with Merle Haggard’s esteemed Strangers.

Not only can he toss off dazzling country licks worthy of Chet Atkins or Jimmy Bryant; when the mood strikes, he’ll throw in a scorching Albert King blues run, fleet jazz riffs recalling Charlie Christian or Wes Montgomery or blaze away Hendrix-style, all with apparent effortlessness.

His catholic tastes are on full display in “No Stranger to a Tele,” the 43-year-old British Columbia-born musician’s just-released second solo album.

“I like everything,” Volkaert said by phone from his home outside Austin, Texas, a few days before the Strangers were getting rolling again after a winter break from touring. They’ll be back on the road just a week by the time they reach the House of Blues in Anaheim tonight.

“Luckily, when I did my deal with Hightone Records, they just said, ‘Do whatever you want, however you want and use whoever you want.’ There was nobody dictating, ‘We want you to sound like this or that,’ so I could put on one of these and one of those on the record.”

One of these and one of those adds up to an album that runs from covers of old-school country songs including Wynn Stewart’s “Big, Big Love” and Bob Wills’ “End of the Line,’ which he sings in his booming Ernest Tubb-like baritone, to a handful of Volkaert-written instrumentals spanning rock, blues, country, jazz, folk and even surf. It’s pretty much the same recipe he relied on for the equally adventuresome 1998 debut album, “Telewacker.”

“I’ve always played that way,” said Volkaert, a burly man with kielbasa-like fingers and a reddish beard--no mustache--framing his weathered but still cherubic face, giving him the look of a good-humored sea captain of old. “I figure why copy everybody else and just wind up sounding like the next guy, but not as good?

“I like to copy some things just for the sake of knowing them, but I surely don’t want to go see some guy who plays the same solo every time I see him,” he said. “That doesn’t show any creativity.

“I’d sooner see a guy who’s not quite so good fumble and stumble around all night and then come up with a few good licks,” he said. “At least you know that guy is trying to come up with something different, he’s trying to shake the boat.”

Volkaert’s been doing his share of boat-shaking musically for close to three decades. He grew up in Vancouver and learned the rudiments of guitar from his father, who played in bar bands.

Because he was learning music in the ‘60s and ‘70s, his early models were mostly blues-based rock players like Jimmy Page, Ritchie Blackmore, Alvin Lee and Johnny Winter, whom he refers to as “my big four I always listened to.”

At the same time, he said, “at the bottom of my stack there were always Strangers and Buckaroos records, and I always listened to them, too. . . . I always thought there was a whole lot more to learning [the Buck Owens & the Buckaroos’ instrumental] ‘Buckaroo’ than there was to learning [Deep Purple’s] ‘Highway Star.’ ”

After playing for close to a decade in Alberta, he moved to Southern California. The first gig he landed was at a Huntington Beach bar called the Yellow Rose, where he played as part of a trio seven nights a week for 18 months, driving down every night from his rented room in the San Fernando Valley.

The region’s country and roots-music scene gave him lots of opportunity to play, which led to the start of a side career playing on recording sessions. By 1990, he decided to give it a shot in Nashville, where he remained until his move last year to Austin.

“I just burned out on Nashville,” he said. “The older I get, the less I like most of the music that comes out of there. I’d always liked Austin--it’s a great live-music town. I can just play tourist and go out and watch music, and one night you can see a polka band, and then a jazz band, then a cowboy band, then western swing--anything you want, and it’s all great. You can hear Greek music if you want, and it’s great Greek music.”

Constant jam sessions with all variety of traveling musicians put him in contact with some of the members of Haggard’s band. In 1997, when guitarist Joe Manuel left the Strangers to join Lee Ann Womack’s touring band, the other players recommended Volkaert to step in.

“I usually listen to the guys in the band,” Haggard said when the Strangers came through Orange County last year. “I asked them who [was] the best guitarist they knew, and they all said Redd.”

In fact, Volkaert said Haggard didn’t even ask for an audition.

“I asked him, ‘Do you want to send me a tape of the songs the way you’re doing them now, because I’m sure the arrangements have changed from the way they were recorded?’ He said, ‘Hell no, just come play with us.’ ”

Haggard typically plays for two weeks at a time, then breaks for two to three weeks, which Volkaert said allows the band members plenty of time for their families and other pursuits. In his case, that includes a regular Sunday-night gig--he plays at Austin’s Continental club in a quartet including famed country pianist Earl Poole Ball--and his solo recordings.

Volkaert takes heart in the success in recent years of Junior Brown, another country-rooted guitarist-singer whose interests and abilities seem to run far beyond those of mortal musicians.

Volkaert’s not worrying much about chart positions or airplay on his album, figuring modestly that mostly guitar aficionados and some Haggard fans will constitute the bulk of his audience.

He’s happy for now being able to put out a record of his own every so often and touring with Haggard as long as the country legend continues to do so. “He’ll probably hang it up in the next few years, and by then, hopefully, I’ll be full blast [with a solo career],” Volkaert said.

And he feels a special thrill each time the Strangers stop in Orange County, the birthplace of the Fender Telecaster guitar--Volkaert’s instrument of choice--and its inventor, Leo Fender, who died 10 years ago.

“I got to meet him once,” Volkaert said. “Just to shake the hand of a guy like that--Wow! He’s why we’re all whacking Teles. If he hadn’t invented it, I don’t know what we’d all be doing now.”

SHOW TIMES

Merle Haggard & the Strangers, House of Blues, 1530 S. Disneyland Drive, Anaheim. 9 p.m. $40. (714) 778-2583.