Mill City Records - Al Heigl

Al Plays Guitar

Instruments:

1959 Gibson C1 classical nylon-string.

1964 Martin D12-20 12-string with Fender-Lace Bronze sensor. (Borrowed for use in concerts by Doc Watson, Peter Yarrow, and Leon Redbone, among others.)

1988 Fender Stratocaster Ultra 12-string with Fender-Lace Red/Gold/Blue sensors and TBX tone controls [Link].

2004 Fender American Deluxe Precision Bass® with dual pickups and active 3-band EQ [Link].

2004 Oscar Schmidt Autoharp OS45CE [Link].

2005 Fender Classic Series '50s Stratocaster 6-String [Link] (won from Disc Makers IMWS).

2007 Höfner 5000/1 Deluxe Electric Bass Guitar [Link].

Full set of Hohner Blues Harps.

Equipment:

1995 DigiTech RP-10 Guitar Signal Processor / Foot Controller and Preamp [Link].

2004 DigiTech GNX4™ GeNetX™ Guitar Workstation™ [Link].

2005 Aphex 1402 Bass Exciter Pedal [Link].

2006 PlusEBow hand-held electronic bow for guitar [Link].

1972 Heath TA-16 Combo Guitar Amplifier [Link].

1992 Fender Princeton Chorus Guitar Amplifier [Link].

2004 Crate BT100 Bass Amplifier [Link].

2008 Fender B-DEC 30 Bass Amplifier w/ ULT-4 Footswitch [Link].

(All of this is part of the modest home studio that I've been setting up.)

The 12-string guitars can be distinctive assets to almost any musical project. I don't flat-pick much, so I've spent a lot of years exploring various kinds of clean finger-picking styles as well as slide work in both standard and open tunings. I've never aspired to be a "lead" player — I prefer to make the rhythms and chords more interesting.

My personal favorite musical areas are folk, folk-rock, hard rock, and some R&B/funk. I've played regularly with three Northfield area bands — The Goodes, Acoustic Mischief, and the Boomerangs.

Recording background: The Martin can be heard on both

HEVY GUNZ — "Dope On Dope And Dope Doops"
— Stax/Enterprise ENS-1022.

and

Billy Hallquist — "Travelin'" — Mill City MCR-7501
(which I also produced, in QS Quad).

Other musical activities:

Voting Member, National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS), 1974-.

Board Member, Minnesota Music Academy, 1986-94.

I'm always interested in session work in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area, including commercials and soundtracks. For creative music projects where I'm sitting in with a band, in general, I don't believe I should be paid big bucks unless I can actually make an acceptable musical contribution to a project. (I do like to have the cost of fresh strings covered.)

Martha comes by her potential musical talents from more than her father. Martha's great-uncle - on her mother's side - is Johnny Western, who wrote and recorded "The Ballad of Paladin" for the "Have Gun, Will Travel" TV show, and recorded several albums for Columbia.

Martha's maternal grandmother (Johnny's sister) is BrendaLyn West, who wrote the song "Amanda's Secret" which was recorded in 1991 by Argie Lynn Darnell for Lost Gold Records. BrendaLyn won three awards from the Alabama Country Music Association for that song: "Best Song 1991", "Outstanding Songwriter 1991", and the "Hall of Fame Humanitarian Award". On January 25, 1992, she was inducted into the Alabama Country Music Hall of Fame due to the human-interest theme of "Amanda's Secret" dealing with the feelings produced from father-daughter incest.

Martha's Instruments (so far):

2000 Epiphone C-5 3/4 Classical Guitar.

2004 Daisy Rock Butterfly Short Scale Electric Guitar.