Tonight Show Guitarist Dave Delhomme Gives Love
As you may recall, longtime American Idol musical director and band leader Ricky Minor gave notice to Idol after last season, moving he and his band to the Tonight Show where they proudly serve as esteemed house-band in residence. As a regular feature on the Tonight Show website, Ricky interviews one of his all-star band members. Most recently he sat with keyboard player and guitarist Dave Delhomme.
Check out this interesting interview, particularly towards the end where Ricky asks Dave to pick up a guitar and play something. The freeze frame shot of Dave's Takamine TAN16C is a deliberate plug - as is the Takamine logo pickguard decal that Dave chooses to leave on. His playing rounds things out nicely.
When that particular guitar made it's first American Idol appearance with Delhomme two years ago, the camera zoomed in for a close-up of that Takamine logo decal. When we felt obliged to tell Dave that in was in fact a decal and could easily be peeled off, he replied that he was well aware of that, but chose to leave it on in homage to the great instrument - and it's makers. Two years later Dave still chooses to honor Takamine by not removing that decal.
Interestingly enough, Dave Delhomme was not the first high profile player to retain the logo decal for the camera's sake. Elton John's longtime guitarist and musical director Davey Johnstone made the same call for Elton's record- breaking 60th sold out performance at Madison Square Garden in 2007 which was televised worldwide. We made the same phone call - and he gave the same response.
Check out this interesting interview, particularly towards the end where Ricky asks Dave to pick up a guitar and play something. The freeze frame shot of Dave's Takamine TAN16C is a deliberate plug - as is the Takamine logo pickguard decal that Dave chooses to leave on. His playing rounds things out nicely.
When that particular guitar made it's first American Idol appearance with Delhomme two years ago, the camera zoomed in for a close-up of that Takamine logo decal. When we felt obliged to tell Dave that in was in fact a decal and could easily be peeled off, he replied that he was well aware of that, but chose to leave it on in homage to the great instrument - and it's makers. Two years later Dave still chooses to honor Takamine by not removing that decal.
Interestingly enough, Dave Delhomme was not the first high profile player to retain the logo decal for the camera's sake. Elton John's longtime guitarist and musical director Davey Johnstone made the same call for Elton's record- breaking 60th sold out performance at Madison Square Garden in 2007 which was televised worldwide. We made the same phone call - and he gave the same response.
