WYBLE, JIMMY
When Steve Lukather was in high school and 16 years old, he took lessons from Wyble for two years. Jimmy Wyble, a fabulous guitarist who had played western swing with Bob Willis and His Texas Playboys in the '40s and jazz with Red Norvo and Benny Goodman in the '50s and '60s.
"He's a monster of a player," Lukather says. "He got it together for me. I didn't know how to read a note when I started;
I didn't even know what jazz music was until then. Jimmy got me into positions on the guitar, notes, scales, and relationships. I could
play pretty good rock and roll, but I didn't know anything about bebop or gut-string stuff, and that's what Jimmy's a killer at. I had
built my own way of playing -- the way I held the pick and the whole thing -- because I was playing by myself. Jimmy didn't try to change
my technique, so the lessons always felt comfortable. He did so much to open my ear to other music. He always said, 'Keep your mind open
to anything; don't be stuck in a rock and roll thing, or jazz, or any form of music. Just listen to it all.' That stuck in my mind and
now I'm pro-everything."
[...] I was studying with Jimmy Wyble, who was brilliant. He really taught me a lot. I was a terrible student. I kept on going, "Yeah, I
just want to be like Larry Carlton one day!" Jimmy would just look at me like, "Yeah, right. Buddy, your reading is a joke. Get it together
[laughs]." Jimmy was great. He was very basic with me. I did learn a lot, because when I went to him I was Mr. Pentatonic. My ears had not adjusted yet.
(Guitar Player magazine, April 1984)
I was self-taught until 16 and then I realised I needed to learn more. I wanted to read music which is very hard to do if you've been
playing for a long time, so that was difficult, but I learned a lot. I had a great teacher named Jimmy Wyble. He took me from the raw state
that I had and focused me more.
I went through the jazz phase and the influence is still there but I'm not a jazz player. I would never sit next to Joe Pass and say 'I'm a
jazz player' because he'd fucking dust me, man. But I've listened to it, like Miles and all the great guitar players. It's a subliminal influence.
Like you can figure out ways to get from point A to point B that a rock'n'roll player wouldn't tend to go, although there are some fine new rock players.
It's scary. I hate them all.
(International Musician, 1991)
And from an article in Guitar (1993):
Actually I studied but I was selftaught until about 15 and then I started taking lessons with (classical/jazz/country player) Jimmy Wyble. He taught me how to read and I took a lot of other classes, like orchestration. I wanted to learn. At that point I was really intrigued by the whole session thing. It wasn't something I wanted to do since I was a little kid. I didn't know anything about it until I was in high school. I always thought it was kind of cool to be able to play on all these great artists' records.