Recently releasing a symphonious single, eclectic guitarist David Hinckley talks about his musical process. With over 20 years of experience as a musician in Boston, Hinckley is one of Boston’s authentic old-timers.
David Hinckley can tell you the difference between the sound of a 1973 California drum kit and a 1974 Philadelphia one. He could tell you exactly what year a recording was made from the guitar tone alone. I was immediately struck by his deep knowledge of musical niches as I sat down virtually with him to talk about his music, his process and Boston as a music city.
Hinckley’s music straddles genres: it has deep blues roots, a reverence for soul, and occasionally flirts with country. “I like music between 1955 and 1975,” Hinckley explained. His latest single seeks to capture a particular sound pioneered by the cinematic strings and groove of Curtis Mayfield. “That specific rhythm section that [Curtis Mayfield] had in the early 70s was just absolutely perfect,” he said. But in pursuing that sound, Hinckley ran into a problem: “I didn’t want to make [my music] seem like a parody. It was all done in complete seriousness and reverence for that stuff.”
While David Hinckley has a commitment to specific sounds of the past, his admiration and love for it means his music never sounds gimmicky. He is a disciple of the jazz, soul, and funk music of those decades and their shared finesse of bluesy, imaginative instrumentalism and smokey attitude. Hinkcley takes a magnifying glass to this music and he is a close listener if there ever was one. He told me he was 500 pages into the dense biography of the iconoclastic jazz pianist Thelonious Monk: Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original. His conclusion: “This [book] makes Charles Dickens look like CliffsNotes.”
We doted on the effortless mastery of guitarists such as Wes Montgomery and Curtis Mayfield. They have a lazy style of playing, but not apathetic—rather, a cool indifference, tossing smooth riffs into the void. A non attachment that allows the music to spill out, rather than sound anxious or contrived. Hinckley captures that sound and attitude in his recent recordings— two recently released songs, a single called “Your Man (On the Inside)”, with B-side “Western Nights.” With more music on the way, I challenged Hinckley to describe his music without using genre names. “Instrumental groove based music… with tinges of psychedelic stuff in there,” was one of the answers he gave. This is an accurate description, although I prefer the way it was described in the liner notes of the latest single: “Nighttime music.”
Hinckley knows all the spots around town and has probably played them all. He talked about Cambridge and its many venues, both past and present. “That one corner with The Middle East, Zuzu’s, TT The Bear’s, I spent countless, countless hours there,” David remarked with a tinge of nostalgia. He spoke of Boston as a music city with a hint of reminiscence, but also with excitement for the future. Neither dismal nor rosy. “[The venues] are all dropping like flies.” But he was excited about a venue like the Great Scott potentially finding a new home. “It’s so hard to have a club in a good part of the city that people will actually come to and you can charge five or ten bucks for a show on a Wednesday night. Carl at The Great Scott figured out how to make that happen, and if he can figure out how to make that happen at the new spot, then that place will be amazing.” Any self-confessed music nerd who has a deep commitment to the city of Boston and its musical happenings would do well to pick Hinkcley’s brain. Twenty years active in Boston’s music scene, Hinckley is a wellspring of knowledge.
Hinckley also has a steady roster of around twenty guitar students. “I like teaching adults down to kids,” he said. “I like having beginners and I like having advanced students.” For Hinckley, part of the fun of teaching is navigating the niches and idiosyncrasies of how different people learn, similarly to how he listens to music: “It keeps me on my toes more. It’s interesting to think about the way different people’s brains work.”
Whether Hinckley is mentoring his students, playing a local venue, or dissecting an Isaac Hayes record, he does so with thoughtfulness and ardor, making him a skilled and humble musician. He is constantly practicing, expanding his vocabulary and polishing his musicianship. While he has many more years of experience than a lot of musicians, he keeps his spirit of an eternal student uncorrupted.