dave robinson wrote:JimN wrote:Ah... it's Maurizio Mazzini.
A great friend of Roberto Pistolesi and the musical force behind the "That Sound!" series of backing track CDs.
Maurizio is a wonderful musician with an easy command of just about any popular music style. Sample his recordings on SoundCloud.
I have heard Maurizio's recordings and he's way out if he thinks he's anywhere near That Sound. I fell for all that Gretsch rubbish because there was a guy in the North East who was allegedly told by Hank that he used the Gretsch on Apache, but thinking about it and Hank's sense of humour he was definitely taking the mick.
The good thing about the Gretsch discussion over ten years ago, was my involvement got me to do some work with Roberto and we enjoyed a great friendship culmunating in my being able to get him to meet his hero, Hank, through Warren Bennett. I also bought a 1959 Gretsh Country Gentleman, sourced for me by Jim Nugent, which allowed me to explore what Roberto was claiming and it led to me finding the sound - but with a Fender Strat, via the EF86 valve on a Vox amp. I liked the Gretsch but later sold it and got my money back, later buying a more sensible priced Eddie Cochran spec 6120.
It was an interesting adventure and we had a lot of fun and a lot of discussion, I miss Roberto a great deal as he was a mine of information about guitars and gear.
In april 2006, a few weeks before his sudden death, Roberto came to France (in Rambouillet, nears Paris) to do a presentation about his theories on "that sound" during a "technical" Shadows meeting. He came with Allessandro Tonini (who was his demonstrator) and Jim Nugent.
Here is a short summary of this presentation (I was doing the translation in french, which has been cut out from this video) :
http://www.italianshadowscommunity.com/ ... Theory.wmvDidier