If
you don't know guitarist Rick Vito, you should.
That's his slide on Bob Seger's "Like a
Rock." He's also been a go-to guy for Bonnie
Raitt, Fleetwood Mac, Jackson Browne, Todd Rundgren,
John Fogerty, Hank WIlliams Jr., Roger McGuinn,
John Mayall, and many others, and his blues-drenched
guitar talent is matched only by what Buffy
might call his "keen fashion sense."
LOOKS
The Reverend Rick Vito is all about looks. Vito
says that he's been drawing guitars ever since
his highschool days of "not paying attention,
doodling in my school books," says the
guitarist. "The first one I officially
had made was the one l call the 'Strearnliner,'
the art deco-looking one that I played with
Bob Seger." That was the same work of art
he played with Fleetwood Mac and on his own
projects.
Later,
Vito started using a Reverend for slide playing.
While gigging with the LA alternaworld band
the Bonedaddys, he designed a stage jacket that
incorporated skulls, moons, mojo heads, and
planets. "Joe Naylor always liked that
jacket," Vito recalls, "and he approached
me and said, 'We ought to do a guitar with those
images."' And so the three-model Rick VIto
line came into being. The version we tested,
the Special Slingshot, comes with a standard
unpainted headstock and a Lake Superior Blue
aluminum-finish body with Vito's designs sandblasted
in. The guitar's also available in Satin Black
aluminum with a painted headstock (Signature
Slingshot) and Satin Black aluminum with no
designs (Standard Slingshot). All models feature
the distinctive Reverend body shape, Sperzel
locking tuners and a bridge that strings through
to the body or an optional Ultimate Bigsby tremolo
($165 list).
FEEL
Our test instrument had the standard slim Reverend
neck that this picker loves, but came set up
with .009s—not my usual choice. However,
the setup and fretwork was sublime, and I found
the light strings to be buzz-free even when
playing slide. The Special was equipped with
the optional Bigsby, which rocked nicely and
stayed decently in tune. The extremely light
(6-3 /4 Ibs.) body balanced well with the bolt-on
neck.
SOUND
One thing Vito insisted on was that the Reverend
P-90 pickups be wound about1O% hotter than stock.
"Joe's original P90 pickups were a little
brighter than stock, which I liked, "the
guitarist says, "but to really get into
P-90 territory I wanted him to beef them up
just a little bit." Despite the extra ohm-age,
both neck and bridge models offer plenty of
bite. Through a Reverend Kingsnake head into
a custom 1x12 Electro-Voice bottom, the bridge
pickup provided the classic P-90 hollowed out
honk. A volume and tone control are joined by
a bass rolloff knob that thins out the pickups
into a perfect, warm Startle tone in the neck
position and a cool, skank-approved funk sound
in the bridge setting. The perfectly balanced
pickups work well together in both full and
rolled-off mode. Wired reverse-wrap /reverse-polarity,
they cancel hum when used together, and seemed
low in noise in individual mode as well.
Played
clean, the Vito Special's got the archetypal
Reverend sound; the mahogany center block, phenolic
sides, aluminum top and back, and chambered
construction conspire to create the warm ring
with slight metallic instruments so coveted
for blues. Still, if you roll off the regular
tone control and engage the neck pickup, you
could easily play jazz. Kick in a distortion
pedal and off to the rock races.
IS
IT FOR YOU?
Vito's design work, through distinctive, can
easily be slotted into a variety of musical
styles, from roots to reggae to rock. If you
want the Vito's tone but aren't into the graphics,
the Standard version offers the same hot pickups
without the skulls. You can hear that tone on
this months CD-ROM video, of course, or you
can pick up Vito's latest CD, Rattlesnake Shake,
at his Web site, rickvito.com. On all but to
cuts you'll hear a versatile and masterful guitarist
put this versatile and masterfully built instrument
through its paces.