Stevie Wonder's Guitar Ace: Errol Cooney on Session Guitar Prep (Episode 84)

Reliability beats virtuosity.

What do Stevie Wonder, Christina Aguilera, Janet Jackson and Lalah Hathaway have in common? They all call Errol Cooney on guitar. In Episode 84 of The Career Musician, Errol sits down with Nomad to talk about how he built that career, one prepared gig at a time.

Errol grew up in a family of performers in Houston, New York and LA, spent about ten years working in the Bay Area, then moved to LA with his wife, a publicist, to go all in. If you want to know how to become a session guitarist who gets the call from legends, this conversation is full of the habits that matter.

Learn 500 songs, then learn the artist

Errol started with Stevie Wonder in 2007. He calls the audition the most nervous he has ever been. Stevie walked in and didn't even want to play his own music. He played "Giant Steps" and fusion tunes, because he is, in Errol's words, a total musician geek who just wants to explore.

Being a lifelong fan helped. His parents played Stevie records all through his childhood, and years of cover, wedding and corporate bands meant he already knew a lot of the catalog. Then he sat down with a couple hundred songs. By the time he was on the gig, it was somewhere between 400 and 500 songs he had to have a grip on.

"You just kind of learn the patterns, how he writes songs, how he moves... He'll just throw up a hand and that means something's about to happen."

Errol Cooney, 11:17

For the first seven or eight years, Errol says, you might as well tear up the set list. One night at Shoreline Amphitheatre, mid-show, the whole band was staring at Stevie waiting to see where he would go. He stopped, leaned into the mic and said he likes to keep them on their toes. Errol had six guitars and no idea which one to grab. That's the job. Learn the music, then learn to read the person.

Get it right the first time

Errol came into the world of music directors through drummer Teddy Campbell, who introduced him to Rickey Minor. Those calls are intense: anywhere from 20 to 50 tunes, sight-read and rehearsed in an hour or two.

"Get it right the first time, because you might not get a second chance."

Errol Cooney, 15:28

Early on, at an award show, he hit his first bumpers: the few bars the band plays while a presenter walks to the podium. He was used to chord charts, not complex melodies, and he struggled. Rickey pulled him aside, said he would give him a little leash this time, and told him to take the charts home and work on his reading. Errol went home and studied hard, and it made him a much better reader.

His sight reading tips are worth writing down. Read smart: use your ears and the paper at the same time, because the paper is not always right and you don't want to sound mechanical. Keep your eyes a bar or so ahead. Scan the whole chart before you play, looking for repeats, D.S. markings and tricky lines. He worked through Berklee reading books, classical material and a Charlie Parker solo book. Luck = preparation + opportunity. The prep is what lets you survive the first shot.

Learn the style from the people who grew up in it

Nomad admires how authentically Errol plays quartet gospel guitar. Errol didn't grow up in it. He discovered it through bassist Eric Smith and his brother, guitarist Jubu Smith, and then dug in when Eric hired him for a gospel group.

There was no method book. He learned the three-note voicings, the rhythm and the cadences by ear, struggled the first few times, and kept working, with Eric and Jubu giving him a look (always with a smile) when he played something wrong. He compares it to learning jazz. The same goes for country chicken picking and flat picking, which he started studying about 15 years ago. Every style has its own nuances, and you just keep plugging away at all of them. That versatility is exactly what keeps you on calls where the styles change every song.

Serve the music, and don't noodle

On studio etiquette, Errol goes back to something his dad taught him: serve the art.

"Serve the music. Listen to the music and do what the music tells you to do. Don't force your will on the music."

Errol Cooney, 38:53

Ask questions when you are unsure, but keep your ears open and don't overplay. Listen to the engineer, the producers and the artist, because everyone in the room has experience you can learn from. Nomad's version: eyes and ears wide open, mouth shut.

Errol also shared two rules he picked up working with Rickey early on. Early is on time, on time is late. And when the band is not playing a song, don't noodle. If you can turn your volume down so nobody hears it, fine. On a TV show with a lot of moving parts, somebody going hard on a guitar while people are trying to communicate is a real distraction. Low maintenance / no drama includes your volume knob.

When gear fails live, keep moving

Errol has done live and basically-live TV, from the Kennedy Center Honors to American Idol and the bigger award shows. Squeaky volume pedals and loose patch cables happen, especially when gear is moved on and off stage in a hurry. His approach: be prepared with the music and your gear, then if something goes wrong, figure it out fast, fix it and keep playing. Don't dwell on it, because while you are thinking about it, you are missing the moment.

He keeps his guitars in a steady rotation with a trusted repair tech, two at a time, and travels light for fly dates: a medium pedalboard with room for clothes on top, one guitar, and one extra set of clothes.

The community lifts you up

Some of the best stories in this episode are about generosity. Errol and Nomad both have stories about guitarist Tariqh Akoni: lending Nomad a crate of distortion pedals to try when he was new to town, and finding Errol a borrowed mandolin within five minutes when he took a mandolin session without owning one. Say yes, then figure it out, and lean on your people. Work begets work, and it travels through relationships like that.

Errol also plays in the band Legally Blind with Jubu and Eric, recorded two albums with them, and was getting ready to record new music at the time of this conversation. And Nomad told his own Stevie story: playing a Caribbean festival with Rickey's house band, he came into "Superstition" in the key of the record while the band was in another key, until Stevie called out the right key to the guitar player. Errol has seen a famous name do the same thing at Madison Square Garden. Everyone has one.

The takeaway

Errol's advice: stick with it. You will get discouraged, and you will fail. Learn from it and move on, because the rewards are far greater than the discouragement. Even at his lowest, he knows he can put on a record, pick up the guitar and learn a song, and it brings him back. If you are preparing for your own first shot, grab the free Get the Gig guide.

Get the gig. Keep the gig. Build the career.

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